The World in Time / Lapham’s Quarterly

Anne Fadiman on Essays, Personal and Historical

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“An 1833 review of the only book of poetry Hartley Coleridge published in his lifetime praised the verse for embodying ‘no trivial inheritance of ...

Morgan Meis on Three Painters (Rubens, Marc, Mitchell)

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“Taking something very specific—in each case, a painting: a painting by Rubens, a painting by Franz Marc, a painting by Joan Mitchell—this physi...

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian on the Offshore World

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“The term free port can mean everything from a little warehouse to a massive port with container ships coming and going every hour,” says Atossa A...

Episode 22: James Romm on Plato and Tyranny

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“It becomes a terrible, terrible story of a war of all against all,” says James Romm on this week’s episode of The World in Time. “There are t...

Episode 22: James Romm on Plato and Tyranny

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“It becomes a terrible, terrible story of a war of all against all,” says James Romm on this week’s episode of The World in Time. “There are t...

Episode 21: The Friends of Attention

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“The Cold War laboratory research identified something real about humans: that we can focus on a stimulus on a screen. But it is hardly an adequate ...

Episode 21: The Friends of Attention

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“The Cold War laboratory research identified something real about humans: that we can focus on a stimulus on a screen. But it is hardly an adequate ...

Encore Episode: Stacy Schiff on Samuel Adams

02 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“I think that I started the book,” historian Stacy Schiff says of “The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams,” “with this thirst for somebody who—I’...

Encore Episode: Stacy Schiff on Samuel Adams

02 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“I think that I started the book,” historian Stacy Schiff says of “The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams,” “with this thirst for somebody who—I’...

Episode 20: Charles King on Handel's “Messiah”

19 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Handel gets to Dublin and he’s trying to put together musicians, he’s looking for singers and lo and behold, there is Susannah Cibber who has t...

Episode 20: Charles King on Handel's “Messiah”

19 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Handel gets to Dublin and he’s trying to put together musicians, he’s looking for singers and lo and behold, there is Susannah Cibber who has t...

Episode 19: Jeremy Eichler on “Time’s Echo”

05 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“When it comes to thinking about the era of the Second World War and the Holocaust, we’re nearing the end of the twilight of living memory,” say...

Episode 19: Jeremy Eichler on “Time’s Echo”

05 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“When it comes to thinking about the era of the Second World War and the Holocaust, we’re nearing the end of the twilight of living memory,” say...

Episode 18: Stephen Greenblatt on Christopher Marlowe

21 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Marlowe is—astonishingly—inventing this; it’s not as if he can draw upon Shakespeare,” says Stephen Greenblatt in this week’s episode of ...

Episode 18: Stephen Greenblatt on Christopher Marlowe

21 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Marlowe is—astonishingly—inventing this; it’s not as if he can draw upon Shakespeare,” says Stephen Greenblatt in this week’s episode of ...

Episode 17: Queequeg and Ishmael in Love (with Alexander Chee, Aaron Sachs, and Caleb Crain)

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“There is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends,” Ishmael tells us in “A Bosom Friend,” chapter ten of Moby Dick, ...

Episode 17: Queequeg and Ishmael in Love (with Alexander Chee, Aaron Sachs, and Caleb Crain)

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“There is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends,” Ishmael tells us in “A Bosom Friend,” chapter ten of Moby Dick, ...

Episode 16: Brenda Wineapple on the Scopes Trial

24 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Religion gives people certainty and it gives people solace,” says Brenda Wineapple in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “And accordin...

Episode 16: Brenda Wineapple on the Scopes Trial

24 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Religion gives people certainty and it gives people solace,” says Brenda Wineapple in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “And accordin...

Episode 15: Elizabeth Kolbert

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“There’s nothing more extraordinary than the world we live in,” says Elizabeth Kolbert in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “We are ...

Episode 15: Elizabeth Kolbert

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“There’s nothing more extraordinary than the world we live in,” says Elizabeth Kolbert in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “We are ...

Episode 14: Charles Baxter on “The Sermon”

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Father Mapple is in some strange, almost obscure way, a kind of negative double for Ahab,” says novelist and critic Charles Baxter in this episod...

Episode 14: Charles Baxter on “The Sermon”

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Father Mapple is in some strange, almost obscure way, a kind of negative double for Ahab,” says novelist and critic Charles Baxter in this episod...

Episode 13: Nicholas Boggs on James Baldwin

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“They were against all categories,” says Nicholas Boggs of James Baldwin and the men he loved in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “Th...

Episode 13: Nicholas Boggs on James Baldwin

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“They were against all categories,” says Nicholas Boggs of James Baldwin and the men he loved in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “Th...

Episode 12: James Marcus on Emerson and Melville

29 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“In this part of the essay, Emerson is talking about walking a lot, you know, sort of walking through nature, taking a stroll,” says James Marcus ...

Episode 11: Matthew Hollis on "The Seafarer"

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“This is a sea that will take your life,” says Matthew Hollis in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “This is the cruel sea. This is the...

Episode 10: "Loomings," with Francine Prose

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Well, I mean for starters it still is the greatest first sentence ever,” says Francine Prose in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “I ...

Episode 9: Roger Berkowitz

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“In tyranny, you may not have a whole lot of political freedom, but you can still live a pretty free life under tyranny,” says Roger Berkowitz in ...

Episode 8: Herman Melville, Extracted (with Wyatt Mason)

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“There’s something I find strangely moving about the ‘Extracts’ section of Moby Dick—before we even get into the text—by virtue of the att...

Episode 7: Daniel Mendelsohn and Lewis H. Lapham

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“In a famous episode, he says his name is Nobody, which in a way is obviously a lie,” says writer, scholar, and translator Daniel Mendelsohn in th...

Episode 6: Justin Smith-Ruiu and Rachel Richardson

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“So what is a drug?” asks scholar-essayist Justin Smith-Ruiu in this week’s episode of The World in Time. “It’s a dry good that is transport...

Episode 5: Ben Tarnoff and John Jeremiah Sullivan

04 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“I think the conflict for Twain is that he does want to be taken seriously as a writer,” says Ben Tarnoff on this week’s episode of The World in...

Episode 4: Kira Brunner Don and Nathan Brown

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“They would take you around, introduce you to all of their contacts, translate for you, and help you put together the story,” says scholar-journal...

Episode 3: Francine Prose

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“I really loved it,” Francine Prose says of Nixon-era San Francisco in this episode of The World in Time, “but I also knew I wasn’t going to l...

Episode 2: Lewis H. Lapham, Part Two

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Lewis was always engaging with some important piece of literature from the past,” says historian and classicist Emily Allen-Hornblower in this ep...

Episode 1: Lewis H. Lapham, Part One

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“I’m an essayist, not a podcaster,” says Lapham’s Quarterly acting editor Donovan Hohn, “but then the same could be said of Lewis, who took ...

Episode 102: Robert D. Kaplan

18 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“The Greeks knew that many problems have no solution,” journalist Robert D. Kaplan says on this episode of The World in Time, about his inspiratio...

Episode 101: Elizabeth Winkler

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“Among Shakespeare scholars,” journalist Elizabeth Winkler writes at the beginning of “Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies,” “the Sha...

Episode 100: Jared Yates Sexton

24 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“When you start looking at deeper, more accurate history,” writer Jared Yates Sexton says in this episode of The World in Time, “you start to re...

Episode 99: Ben Jealous

10 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on the podcast, Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Ben Jealous, author of Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing, ...

Episode 98: Edward Achorn

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“I think the mood in 1860 would have a haunting familiarity to people today,” Edward Achorn says at the start of this episode of The World in Time...

Episode 97: Stacy Schiff

28 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“I think that I started the book,” historian Stacy Schiff says of “The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams,” “with this thirst for somebody who—I’...

Episode 96: Adam Hochschild

14 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“If there was one thing that I would want people to take away from American Midnight,” Adam Hochschild says on this episode of The World in Time, ...

Episode 95: Andrea Wulf

23 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“For most of my adult life, I have been trying to understand why we are who we are,” Andrea Wulf writes at the start of “Magnificent Rebels: The...

Episode 94: Kermit Roosevelt III

09 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“We’re at a moment now,” Kermit Roosevelt III says of our national mythology on this episode of The World in Time, “where the standard story i...

Episode 93: Aaron Sachs

26 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“These are indeed dark times,” Aaron Sachs, author of Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times, says at t...

Episode 92: Olivier Zunz

24 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“Tocqueville’s deepest belief,” historian Olivier Zunz writes at the beginning of “The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Toc...

Episode 91: Leo Damrosch

10 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“There have been a number of biographies of Casanova, but the time is overdue for a biography of a different kind,” writes Leo Damrosch at the sta...

Episode 90: Eric Jay Dolin

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During the American Revolution—and in all the years since—many believed that “privateering was a sideshow in the war,” writes Eric Jay Dolin i...

Episode 89: Richard Cohen

13 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“When Herodotus composed his great work,” Richard Cohen writes at the start of Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past, “people nam...

Episode 88: Andrew S. Curran

29 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“In 1739 the members of Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences met to determine the subject of the 1741 prize competition,” historians Henry Louis...

Episode 87: Peter S. Goodman

01 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“Davos Man’s domination of the gains of globalization,” journalist Peter S. Goodman writes in “Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the Wo...

Episode 86: Oliver Milman

18 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“A world without insects would be a particularly horrifying, grim place,” environmental journalist Oliver Milman tells us on the latest episode of...

Episode 85: Roosevelt Montás

04 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“In my sophomore year of high school, I came upon a remarkable book in a garbage pile next to the house where we rented an apartment in Queens,” s...

Episode 84: Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“Existing biographies of Thomas Jefferson,” the historian Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy writes in The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Je...

Episode 83: Joseph J. Ellis

04 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In order to understand the American Revolution, historian Joseph J. Ellis writes in The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773–178...

Episode 82: David Wengrow

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers,” David Wengrow, an archaeologist, and the late D...

Episode 81: Geoffrey Wheatcroft

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“About twenty years ago,” the historian Geoffrey Wheatcroft says on the latest episode of The World in Time, “Umberto Eco said he was amused by ...

Episode 80: Nicholas Crane

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The journey at the heart of this week’s episode of The World in Time is “the most important story of our age” for writer and explorer Nicholas C...

Episode 79: Charles Foster

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For 150,000 years “humans didn’t behave much like us,” the veterinarian, philosopher, and legal scholar Charles Foster writes in Being a Human: ...

Episode 78: Michael Knox Beran

01 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“They were, by and large, descended from the well-to-do classes of colonial and early republican America, from New England merchants and divines, fr...

Episode 77: Philip Hoare

17 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of The World in Time, Lewis H. Lapham and Philip Hoare discuss Albrecht Dürer’s brilliance, what his art meant to people throughout...

Episode 76: Eric Berkowitz

03 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“The compulsion to silence others is as old as the urge to speak,” historian Eric Berkowitz writes in Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorsh...

Episode 75: Simon Winchester

20 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Simon Winchester, author of “Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World.” Thanks to our generous don...

Episode 74: Alan Taylor

25 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“I think we do ourselves a disservice,” Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Alan Taylor says on the latest episode of The World in Time, speaking a...

Episode 73: Sonia Shah

21 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“Life is on the move, today as in the past,” journalist Sonia Shah writes in her book The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on t...

Episode 72: Louis Menand

30 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Louis Menand, author of “The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lead suppo...

Episode 71: Nathaniel Rich

16 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Nathaniel Rich, author of “Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support fo...

Episode 70: Dennis C. Rasmussen

02 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Dennis C. Rasmussen author of “Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders.” Thanks to our g...

Episode 69: Richard Thompson Ford

19 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Richard Thompson Ford, author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History.” Thanks to our generous donors....

Episode 68: Lance Morrow

05 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Lance Morrow, author of “God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support f...

Episode 67: David S. Brown

12 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with David S. Brown, author of “The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams.” ...

Episode 66: Michael J. Sandel

28 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Michael J. Sandel, author of “The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good.” Thanks to our generous dono...

Episode 65: George Dyson

15 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with George Dyson, author of Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control. Thanks to our generous donors. ...

Episode 64: Harold Holzer

01 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“No American president has ever counted himself fully satisfied with his press coverage,” the historian Harold Holzer writes in the introduction o...

Episode 63: Jacob Goldstein

11 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Jacob Goldstein, author of “Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support f...

Episode 62: Edward D. Melillo

27 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“In November 1944,” Edward D. Melillo writes in his book The Butterfly Effect​, “Decca Records released a single featuring Ella Fitzgerald and...

Episode 61: Derek W. Black

13 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Derek W. Black, author of “Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy.” Thanks to o...

Episode 60: Richard Kreitner

04 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“Disunion—the possibility that it all might go to pieces—is a hidden thread through our entire history,” the journalist and historian Richard ...

Episode 59: Thomas Frank

14 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Thomas Frank, author of “The People, No.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for this podcast has been provi...

Episode 58: Tracy Campbell

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Tracy Campbell, author of “The Year of Peril: America in 1942.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for this...

Episode 57: Edward Achorn

19 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Edward Achorn, author of “Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln.” Thanks to our ...

Episode 56: Peter Fritzsche

20 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Peter Fritzsche, author of Hitler’s First Hundred Days When Germans Embraced the Third Reich.” Thanks to our generou...

Episode 55: Richard J. King

14 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Richard J. King, author of Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of “Moby Dick.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lea...

Episode 54: Gaia Vince

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Gaia Vince, author of “Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time.” Thanks to our gen...

Episode 53: Eugene McCarraher

06 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“The history of capitalism in America has been a tale of predation,” historian Eugene McCarraher writes at the beginning of The Enchantments of Ma...

Episode 52: Matt Stoller

22 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Matt Stoller, author of “Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.” Thanks to our generous dono...

Episode 51: Andrew Delbanco

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Andrew Delbanco, author of “The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revol...

Episode 50: Harlow Giles Unger

11 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Harlow Giles Unger, author of “Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence.” Thanks to our generous d...

Episode 49: William Dalrymple

27 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company.

Episode 48: Isabella Tree

13 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with the author of Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm.

Episode 47: Ziya Tong

16 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Ziya Tong, author of The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions That Shape Our World. Tha...

Episode 46: Rick Atkinson

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with the author of “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777.” Thanks to our generous...

Episode 45: David Wallace-Wells

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week on The World in Time, Lewis H. Lapham talks with David Wallace-Wells, author of “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming.” Thanks t...

Episode 44: Brenda Wineapple

31 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with the author of “The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation.” Thanks to our generous don...

Episode 43: Nigel Hamilton

17 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Nigel Hamilton, author of War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey: D-Day to Yalta, 1943–1945.

Episode 42: Greg Grandin

03 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Greg Grandin, author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America.

Episode 41: Andrew S. Curran

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Andrew S. Curran, author of “Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely.” Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for ...

Episode 40: Philipp Blom

05 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Philipp Blom, author of “Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West a...