Episodes

In this episode of "Keen On", Andrew talks with Jessica Bruder about her book "Nomadland", which is the basis for the 2021 film starring Frances McDormand. Jessica Bruder is a journalist and New America fellow who writes about subcultures and social issues. For her book Nomadland, she spent months living in a camper van, documenting itinerant Americans who gave up traditional housing and hit the road full time, enabling them to travel from job to job and carve out a place for themselves in a p...

In this episode of Keen On, Andrew talks with Dr. Carl L. Hart about his new book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear. Carl discusses the restrictions, benefits and dangers of recreational drug use in the United States of America. Between drug policy, the criminal justice system and racially-ordained liberties in America, Dr. Hart also condemns the country's treatment of drug users dependent upon their race. Dr. Carl L. Hart is the Chair of the Department of Psychology ...

In this episode of Keen On, Andrew is joined by Michael Lind, the author of The New Class War, to discuss the recent riots in the nation's capital and to examine how it is that America arrived at such a violent and confrontational crossroads in its history.

On today's episode, Andrew Keen talks with Johan Norberg, author of the new book Open: The Story of Human Progress Johan Norberg is an author, lecturer and filmmaker. He is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington DC and his books have been translated into twenty-five languages. His book Progress was an international bestseller and an Economist book of the year. Norberg regularly writes for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Reason and HuffPost. He spreads his time between...

On today's episode, Andrew Keen talks with Frederick M. Lawrence about his new book, Punishing Hate, and how shocking -- and unsurprising -- this week was with the Capitol riots. Frederick M. Lawrence is a Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School.

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Alexander Lee, author of Machiavelli: His Life and Times, about the raid at the Capitol and why Machiavelli should be read and reread right now. Alexander Lee is a research fellow at the University of Warwick. He is the author of four acclaimed books, most recently Humanism and Empire: The Imperial Ideal in Fourteenth-Century Italy. He writes a regular column for History Today,and has contributed articles on a wide variety of historical and cultural subject...

On today's episode, Andrew Keen talks with Tom Bergin about his new book, Free Lunch Thinking, and what the United States -- and the world -- needs to do to set a path for a more considered future. Tom Bergin has reported on the energy industry for over twelve years, having previously worked as an oil broker. He is in charge of Reuters's coverage of the oil industry in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and his work has been published in The New York Times, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, ...

On today's episode, Andrew Keen talks with Elliott Young about his upcoming book, Forever Prisoners, and the immigration issue in the United States that still persists today.

The Economist’s 2020 award for most-improved country went to Malawi, with New Zealand, Taiwan and Bolivia as runners-up. The United States of America, not surprisingly, didn’t rank - although the country was credited last year with developing a COVID vaccine in record time as well with voting out Donald Trump. So can America become the world’s most-improved country in 2021? How might it reinvent itself to become this year’s Malawi? Today, Andrew invites Kerri Arsenault, Carl Hoffman, Dale Maha...

In October 1995, the American writer Dale Maharidge - the co-author with the photo-journalist Michael Williamson of the 1985 book A Journey To Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass - got a call out of the blue from one of Bruce Springsteen’s people. It turned out that Springsteen had been so moved by A Journey to Nowhere that he had written two songs for his new album, The Ghost of Tom Joad about it: “Youngstown” and “New Timer”. 35 years and several award-winning (including a Pulitzer) books...

On today's episode, Andrew talks to author Devon Price about their new book, Laziness Does Not Exist. Dr. Devon Price is a social psychologist, writer, activist, and professor at Loyola University of Chicago's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Price's work has appeared in numerous publications such as Slate, The Rumpus, NPR, and HuffPost and has been featured on the front page of Medium numerous times. They live in Chicago, Illinois.

On today's episode, Andrew talks to Daniel E. Lieberman about his new book, Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding. Daniel E. Lieberman is Edwin M. Lerner Professor of Biological Sciences and professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. He is the author of the national best seller The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

On today's episode, Andrew talks to Brian David Johnson about his new book, The Future You, and how to create a future post-pandemic. The future is Brian David Johnson's business. He is a professor of practice at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and a Futurist and Fellow at Frost & Sullivan. From 2009 to 2016, he was Intel Corporation’s first-ever futurist. Johnson has more than 40 patents, and he has been published in many consumer and trade publicatio...

The COVID news remains disturbingly bleak. Deaths in the US are over 300,000 with Tennessee as “ground zero” and California running out of ICU beds. The suffering behind these numbers is obviously heartbreaking. So how should journalists be telling the world about this human misery? On today's episode, Andrew spoke today with Lesley Blume, the author of the excellent FALL OUT: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World. The U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6...

“The Last Days of Donald Trump” show is careening toward its final, farcical episode. Part Jacques Clouseau and Chauncey Gardiner, Trump continues to channel his inner Peter Sellers into a preposterous mash-up of Being There and The Return of the Pink Panther. Today, even Pat Robertson - yes, that Pat Robertson who once argued COVID would go away if we stopped going to gay weddings - acknowledged that Trump “lives in alternate reality” and is “very erratic.” But for all the absurdity of this un...

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Evan Osnos about his new book, Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now, and who really is Joe Biden. This episode is brought to you by MagicSpoon. Go to magicspoon.com/keenon and use the code KEENON for free shipping.

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Nicholas Christakis about his new book, Apollo's Arrow, and his own study on the spread of Covid-19 around the world -- and why we need to look at it broadly. Nicholas A. Christakis is a physician and sociologist who explores the ancient origins and modern implications of human nature. He directs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University, where he is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, in the Departments of Sociology, Medicine, Ecology and E...

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Chris Goodall about his new book, What We Need to Do Now, and what a zero carbon future looks like. Chris Goodall is the author of several successful books and writer for Guardian Environment Network and other energy websites, such as Abundance and The Ecologist. His latest book, The Switch, covers the unstoppable rise of solar power.

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Elliott Currie about his new book, A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America, and looking at the alarming numbers in the context of Covid-19. Elliott Currie is the author of Crime and Punishment in America, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and of numerous other acclaimed works on crime, juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, and social policy. He is a professor of criminology, law, and society at the University of Califo...

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Candacy Taylor about her new book, Overground Railroad: The Green Book & Roots of Black Travel in America, the history of the Green Book, and how far we still have to go when it comes to race relations in America. Candacy Taylor is an award-winning author, photographer and cultural documentarian. Her work has been featured in over 50 media outlets including the New Yorker and The Atlantic. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants including The...

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Jason Hickel about his latest book, Less Is More, and what a post-capitalist economy could look like. Dr. Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist, author, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He serves on the Statistical Advisory Panel for the UN Human Development Report 2020, the adv...

On today's episode, Andrew talks with David Paul Kuhn about his new book, The Hardhat Riot, and the connections between 1970 and our present moment. David Paul Kuhn is an author, reporter, and political analyst. He has served as a senior and chief political writer across the political-media landscape, from Politico to RealClearPolitics to CBS News, as well as written for the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, National Review, New Republic, and t...

On today's episode, Andrew talks with columnist Peter Beinart about America's loss of world leadership in a post-Trump world. Peter Beinart is professor of journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and professor of political science at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is also a contributor to The Atlantic, a columnist for Jewish Currents, and a CNN political commentator. His first book, “The Good Fight,” was published by HarperCollins in 2006. His second book, “The Icarus Syndro...

On today's episode, Andrew talks with Timothy Egan about his latest book, The Pilgrimage to Eternity, and how the act of walking ties us to the earth. Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of eight books, most recently The Immortal Irishman, a New York Times bestseller. His book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time, won a National Book Award for nonfiction and was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a New York Times Notable Book, a Washington State Book Award win...