Feminist heroine, Catholic martyr, patron saint of France, LGBTQ icon. During the nearly six centuries since she was burned at the stake, Joan of Arc has been many things to many people. Today is no exception: she’s causing a furore …
America will always fear Caesar
In my own unreliable cultural memory, the age of Hamilton enthusiasm in American life belongs emphatically to Barack Obama’s presidency in its optimistic phase — to the last period of unabashed liberal patriotism and confidence.
In reality, though, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s …
The last American aristocrat
Not long after the Trump election I was invited to a dinner party of the sort I’d only recently learned existed. Here’s how it goes. The host is wealthy, as are half the guests, and the other half are intellectuals …
How Chinese is Taiwan?
The government in Beijing likes to portray its attitude towards Taiwan as the final resolution of its anti-colonial struggle; the end of its self-described “century of humiliation” at the hands of foreign powers. But the opposite is true. Today, as …
Episode 423 – Into The Metaverse (The Media Matrix — Part 3)
We stand at a precipice. On one side is “reality”: the original, authentic, lived human experience. And on the other side is the metaverse: the world of constantly mediated experience. In the middle is hyperreality, that blurry space between the …
Interview 1736 – James Corbett on Media, Truth and Power
James talks to Alison Morrow about his new documentary series, The Media Matrix. They discuss the history of the mass media, its effects on the population, how media power translates to political power, the printing press’ role in the creation …
Episode 422 – What Hath God Wrought (The Media Matrix — Part 2)
It’s difficult for us to appreciate just how incredible it was for those who first witnessed communication from a distance with a disembodied electric ghost. In fact, it was almost impossible for people to understand this type of communication in …
The Media Matrix
Media. It surrounds us. We live our lives in it and through it. We structure our lives around it. But it wasn’t always this way. So how did we get here? And where is the media technology that increasingly governs …
Episode 421 – The Gutenberg Conspiracy (The Media Matrix — Part 1)
From the Renaissance to the Reformation, from the fall of feudalism to the rise of capitalism, from the Scientific Revolution to the Industrial Revolution, from the way we order our thoughts to what we choose to think about, nothing survived …
Episode 420 – Mass Media: A History
Join James Corbett for today’s special edition of The Corbett Report podcast where he walks you through Mass Media: A History, a 3-lesson, 6+ hour online course examining the history of media, exploring media’s impact on society, and revealing where …
Episode 420 – Mass Media: A History
Join James Corbett for today’s special edition of The Corbett Report podcast where he walks you through Mass Media: A History, a 3-lesson, 6+ hour online course examining the history of media, exploring media’s impact on society, and revealing where …
The antidote to America’s race wars
The date 1619 does not appear in the introduction to African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer’s encyclopaedic, magisterial new book. But the controversial project that takes that date as its name — launched …
Dr David Bell & Prof Toby Green: The Covid Response and the Global Poor
In this discussion, David Bell (PANDA) and Toby Green (Collateral Global) will discuss the devastating impacts of the Covid response in poor countries around the world: what has happened, why it has happened, and what can be done to make …
Michael Gove won’t save the North
Recently, the Prime Minister found himself on Tyneside but thought he was on Teesside. So what’s the problem, other than straightforward stupidity? The problem is that the British road to power rarely leads north, and at a time of much …
Teaching Children About History – #SolutionsWatch
As concerned parents know all too well, the revolution of the mind that is the only thing that will really change the world for the better is an intergenerational project. It is more important than ever that we take back …