The Whiteness Myth

Oil may dominate the headlines about the Middle East, but the real power often flows through water. Three narrow passages - the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and Bab el-Mandeb – shape how the world moves. In times of crisis, they've become chokepoints, disrupting global trade ...  Show more

A lot of our everyday lives are shaped by the idea that if we really believe in something, it will happen. But where does that idea come from? And what does it have to do with the American dream? Today on the show, how the prosperity gospel has blended self-improvement, religion ...  Show more

The philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah argues for a world free of racial fixations.

He tells the story of Anton Wilhelm Amo Afer. He was five years old when he was brought from the Gold Coast to Germany in 1707, educated at a royal court and became a ...

The cherished idea of United States as a unified country has been long believed. But today’s guest Colin Woodard argues that this is an invented tradition. He has argued for the existence of 11 separate stateless nations within the United States, where rival cultures explain the ...  Show more

Were ancients color-blind? They weren’t but this idea has been passed around for centuries, usually by classicists confused by the Greeks’ odd choice of descriptive language. Homer, author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the first ‘great’ poet of western civilization described the ...  Show more

In 1703 a curious character arrived in London claiming to be a native of the island of Formosa. These days Formosa is better known as Taiwan, but in early 18th century it was a place barely understood by most Europeans. The Formosan visitor, George Psalmanazar, was eager to teach ...  Show more