What People Get Wrong About Walden

Back in 2019, David Epstein joined me to talk about his book Range and why generalists often thrive in a specialized world. Now he’s back with a new book that explores a seemingly opposite idea: the power of constraints. In Inside the Box, David argues that limits — deadlines, bo ...  Show more

You hear a lot today about how our ample screentime is affecting our mental health. But how is it affecting our bodies, and how is that impact on our bodies affecting, well, our mental health?My guest today will unpack the ways that digital technology is sapping our vitality, and ...  Show more

Rajan Datar and guests explore the life and legacy of the American thinker Henry David Thoreau and his famous work 'Walden', which describes the young writer's experiment in living simply at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, for two years, two months and two days in the 1840s. A land ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 19th century American writer and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau. Anti-slavery activist and passionate environmentalist, Thoreau was above all a champion of self-reliance and individualism. He was also a champion of the simple life, a lover of ...  Show more

The evidence is clear: Henry David Thoreau was an industrious person who worked hard throughout his life. And yet, he's often viewed as a kind of dreamy layabout who dropped out of society so he could sit by his pond and think his thoughts. Can we reconcile these two figures? Wha ...  Show more

Arthur Schopenhauer is best known for the deep pessimism of his book The World as Will and Representation. Here we focus on a slightly less pessimistic aspect of his philosophy: his views on compassion. Very unusually for an early nineteenth century thinker, he was influenced her ...  Show more