Earlier this year I read a book called The End of Reality  by the writer Jonathan Taplin. The book is... more

A few years ago I put together a story about the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory with the writer and historian... more

Joel Whitney’s book Finks is a seminal book about American intellectuals and American security agencies,  mainly because it illuminates the... more

Forty years ago in 1984 your host was twelve years old and like George Orwell’s protagonist Winston Smith, he kept... more

We now have many ways to tell the story of America's tilt towards authoritarianism, but for your host one image ... more

Intelligence scholar Hugh Wilford's excellent new book grapples with the paradox at the heart of America’s covert intelligence agency. Many... more

ToE's Cultural Cold War miniseries concludes with three stories about containment and death. Richard Wright delivers his final lecture on... more

]Richard Wright died from a mysterious illness on November 28th, 1960. Or was he murdered? Tune in for a new... more

In 1959, Anti-Americanism surged in the UK. England seethed over America’s treatment of its Prime Minister who was smacked down... more

In the summer of 1959, Nixon and Khrushchev argued over a washing machine in a backstage kitchen in Moscow, while... more

In the fall of 1958, Kenneth Tynan moved from London to New York and upon arrival, clashed with Hollywood mogul... more

In 1956, Richard Wright spoke of islands of free men at the first Congress of Black Writers and Artists in... more

In 1956 London Theater critic Kenneth Tynan helped launch a youth movement committed to exposing social and political issues on stage,... more

In 1956, New Yorker writer Dwight Macdonald joined Encounter, a magazine secretly backed by American and British security agencies. He... more

In the 1950s the CIA weaponized culture to capture hearts and minds in Europe and Africa. We meet three writers... more

The new ToE series Propaganda is Art has a companion podcast called Propaganda Notes & Sources, think audio footnotes! Each episode... more

One of my favorite technology critics has just published a novel about Self Driving Cars (or fake Self Driving Cars).... more

Today we live inside data systems that contain, surveil, and judge us. In his new book, the Hank Show, author... more

Two very different tales about making stuff up about the CIA. Your host shares the story of Sylvia Press, who in... more

Citizens armed only with Molotov cocktails battle with Russian tanks on the streets of… Budapest.  In November of 1956 Russian... more