Writ Large
Episodes
On Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged explores the question: What happens when the creators of a society refuse to create? Her answer was a work that...
On Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time"
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Heidegger did not like small thoughts. He was fascinated by the most expansive questions humans can ask themselves. Questions like: Why are we ...
On Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Paris in 1953, one of the strangest and most popular plays of the 20th century premiered, Waiting for Godot, written by the Irish writer Samuel Bec...
On William Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
William Shakespeare is the greatest writer in history, and Hamlet is his greatest work. In Hamlet, Shakespeare gave us one of the first modern charact...
On Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote"
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Don Quixote was written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. He wrote it in two parts. Part one was published in 1605, and part two ten years later,...
On Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time"
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The French writer Marcel Proust was fascinated by life. But he was even more interested in how we perceive life. In 1908, when he was in his late 30s,...
On Voltaire's "Candide"
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Many people made the European Enlightenment, but probably nobody better represents the movement’s spirit than the French writer and philosopher Volt...
On Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1967, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez published his masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Because of that book, he won the Nobel Pr...
On James Joyce's "Ulysses"
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps more than any other book, Ulysses has the reputation of being difficult—it is dense, allusive, and often hard to follow. But Joyce wasn’t ...
On Hans Blumenberg's "The Legitimacy of the Modern Age"
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Those of us living today generally think of ourselves as modern, that we live in modern times, and that we are very different from the people of the p...
On Virginia Woolf’s "Mrs Dalloway"
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 20th century, Europe and North America were undergoing a radical transformation. Scientific, technological, and political changes disrupt...
On "Genesis"
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a podcast about books that have changed the world, I bring you the book that I think changed the world the most: The Hebrew Bible. Specifically, th...
On "1001 Nights"
06 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Humans love stories. And no collection of stories is more beloved worldwide than the Middle Eastern folk tales known as One Thousand and One Nights. T...
On James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time"
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The writer and activist James Baldwin grew up in a majority white America that saw white American lives as standard and universal, and Black American ...
On Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre"
02 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Victorian era is known for its class rigidity and moral strictness. In her 1847 novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë gave us a robust, layered chara...
On John Rawl's "A Theory of Justice"
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you create a fair society? Who deserves to rule? What rights do citizens have? How are those rights protected? What does it mean to act morally...
On Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy"
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When he was in his late 30s, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri got himself into some serious political trouble and was exiled from his beloved Florence...
On Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth"
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1925, on the French occupied island of Martinique, one of the most prominent voices in post colonial theory was born, Frantz Fanon. He was born to ...
On George Orwell's "1984"
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1948, English author George Orwell wrote what would become one of the defining novels of the 20th century, 1984. He was writing in the years follow...
On George Eliot's "Middlemarch"
25 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
By the time we reach middle age, our lives have taken certain paths. Sometimes these paths are close to what we imagined in our youth. But more often,...
On "The Mahābhārata"
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to epic poetry, there’s a strong case to be made that the Ancient Indian story the Mahābhārata is the most epic. Clocking in at arou...
On Michel Foucault's "Discipline and Punish"
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We moderns often tell ourselves a story that goes something like this: The past was barbaric, especially when it came to punishing criminals or persec...
On Matteo Maria Boiardo's "Orlando Innamorato"
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Italian Renaissance was an era of rebirth in the arts, sciences, engineering, anatomy, and architecture. But also for literature. One of the most ...
On Sigmund Freud's "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality"
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sigmund Freud is probably best known as the founder of psychoanalysis. In his clinical practice, he established theories on how the human psyche devel...
On Victor and Edith Turner's "The Forest of Symbols"
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-20th century, British anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner studied the Ndembu people of present-day Zambia. They wrote about their findi...
On Boethius' "The Consolation of Philosophy"
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For much of his life, the Roman philosopher Boethius was exceptionally fortunate. But towards the end of his life, his luck ran out. He was accused of...
On H. G. Well's "The Time Machine"
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When H.G. Wells was growing up in England in the 1860s, science wasn’t part of education or everyday life the way it is now. Even though the 19th ce...
On Aimé Césaire's "Discourse on Colonialism"
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Aimé Césaire was born in 1913 on the island of Martinique, which was colonized by the French in the 1600s. He received a scholarship to complete his...
On Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's "Elements of the Philosophy of Right"
11 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The notion of freedom and how to ensure it for all has occupied the minds of many modern thinkers. In his text Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Ge...
On Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War"
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sometime around 450 BC in ancient Greece, a young Thucydides went with his father to hear the historian Herodotus speak. After the lecture, Thucydides...
On Toni Morrison's "Beloved"
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1987, Toni Morrison published her fourth novel, Beloved, based on the story of Margaret Garner, a woman who escaped slavery with her child. Garner ...
On Edward Said's "Orientalism"
08 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning in the 17th century, European countries began colonizing countries east of Europe. They imposed their own ideas over local cultures and extr...
On "The U.S. Constitution"
07 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the Constitution of the United States began long before the American Revolutionary War. This document was influenced by centuries old Eng...
On John Milton's "Paradise Lost"
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a young student at Christ’s College Cambridge, John Milton announced to the world that he was going to write the greatest poem that the world has...
On Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract"
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that humans are born good, but society corrupts them. He was unimpressed with the fixation o...
On "Grimms' Fairytales"
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You probably already know the story of Snow White—as well as Little Red Riding Hood, Briar Rose, The Frog Prince, and so many others. These tales ha...
On Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain"
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Thomas Mann published The Magic Mountain in 1924, tuberculosis had a deadly hold on Europe and the United States, killing one in seven adults in ...
On Augustine's "Confessions"
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is freedom? If we are free, why do we feel anxiety? How do I relate to the world? Saint Augustine of Hippo asked himself these questions around 4...
On Cicero's "On Friendship"
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There’s nothing better or more important in life than a good friend. For Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, the emphasis was on “good.” Cic...
On Franz Kafka's "The Trial"
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When reading a crime novel, we usually learn the crime within the first few page turns; the trick is discovering the perpetrator. Perhaps this is what...
On Samuel Smiles' "Self-Help"
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help isn’t just an advice manual. It represents the invention of a genre, and not a moment too soon. Smiles was writing at a t...
On Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex"
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In her diary, Simone de Beauvoir once wrote “I did not think of myself as a 'woman.' I was me.” Then, in 1949, de Beauvoir published The Second Se...
On Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis' "The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas"
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas is such a complex and clever allegory of Brazilian society that many readers didn’t initially understand just ...
On Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
By the early 19th century, slavery was still a brutal reality in southern U.S. states, and a growing movement to abolish slavery nationwide was taking...
On Fyodor Dostoevsky’s "The Brothers Karamazov"
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Brothers Karmazov is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s last novel. In it, he presents his ideas about culture, the human soul, and God, and he uses his charac...
On Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, an investigation into the nature of wealth. Smith is now considered the Father of Capitalism or t...
On Carl von Clausewitz's "On War"
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Carl von Clausewitz wrote On War in 1832 after experiencing the Napoleonic wars. The eight books of this text contain Clausewitz’s theory of war. In...
On Immanuel Kant's "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals"
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Immanuel Kant’s early work wasn’t much to write home about. But as his career developed, Kant published incredible works of philosophy that contin...
On Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
14 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Conrad, who published 20 books and several best-sellers by the time of his death, was also a sailor. Heart of Darkness follows seaman Charles M...
On Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan"
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1651, the English Civil Wars were ending, and Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan. He used the book to advocate his ideal government: an absolute, mo...
On Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince"
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You may know the term “Machiavellian,” but where does the word really come from? Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat who worked firsthand...
On Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism"
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1951, following the Holocaust and Second World War, Hannah Arendt wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt’s aim was in part to document and ...
On Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House"
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Watching our favorite TV shows and movies today, it’s easy to take the relatable characters and familiar settings for granted. But when Henrik Ibsen...
On John Hersey's "Hiroshima"
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In August of 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Less than a year later, American journalis...
On Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji"
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We don’t even know the real name of the 11th century author Murasaki Shikibu. But we do know that her book, The Tale of Genji, is arguably one of th...
On Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Faust"
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Selling your soul to the devil in exchange for your deepest desire is a common theme in many western stories. The origins of this theme can be traced ...
On Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī's "Indications of Inimitability"
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Great poetry or beautiful prose if often capable of challenging and delighting readers far more than dry, bland language. But why is that? Dalā’il ...
On Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1770s, the American colonies were working up to a revolution. But while the colonists were increasingly dissatisfied with British rule, there w...
On David Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature"
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1739, Scottish philosopher David Hume set out to chart the nature and limits of human knowledge. He published his theories and findings in what wou...
On Einstein's Discoveries
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Before Albert Einstein, our understanding of space, time, and gravity hadn’t really shifted from the theories that Sir Isaac Newton developed in the...
On Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Dawin’s 1859 book The Origin of Species introduced his famous theory of evolution. Darwin developed his theories of life and evolution after...
On Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables"
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over 150 years later, Les Miserables is a story that still resonates with readers and audiences around the world. The story highlighted the unjust soc...
On F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby"
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“America” means something different to everyone. American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, his account of the roaring twen...
On Karl Marx's "The Communist Manifesto"
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
1848 was the Year of Revolutions in Europe. It was also the year that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, proposing a ne...
On "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1948, the United Nations presented a document outlining human rights for every person in the world. This document was called the Universal Declarat...
On Jorge Luis Borges' "Fictions"
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Fictions is a collection of short stories by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. In the mid-20th century, Latin American literature gained a worldwide...
On Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When it was first published in 1719, many people believed Robinson Crusoe was a true story. Crusoe provides readers with a close look at not only the ...
On Plato's "Apology"
19 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 399 BC, the Greek philosopher Socrates was on trial. He believed in free-thought and sought truth by questioning everything, including society. And...
On Giovanni Boccaccio’s "The Decameron"
16 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From roughly 1346 to 1353, Europe was paralyzed by the most fatal pandemic in recorded human history; the bubonic plague. The plague killed more than ...
On Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Confessions"
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jean-Jacques Rousseau led an interesting life. He was a philosopher, writer, and music composer in the 18th century. Rousseau believed that society ha...
On Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning"
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Victor Frankl was a leader in 20th century psychiatry. In 1942, Frankl was sent to a concentration camp in the Czech Republic. Frankl was already infl...
On "The Book of Mormon"
13 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1827 a young farmer named Joseph Smith was visited by an angel. The angel led him to a hillside where he uncovered a set of ancient gold plates wri...
On Plato's "The Republic"
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine you could start from scratch and create the ideal city. How would you design it? Who would be in charge? This thought experiment was explored ...
On Maciej Miechowita's "Treatise on the Two Sarmatias"
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Treatise on the Two Sarmatias, Polish scholar Maciej Miechowita argued that two mountain ranges that were described on maps dating back to antiquit...
On Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1962, American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn was struck by Aristotle’s beliefs about...
On Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Scottish philosopher David Hume thought that rationalism didn’t work at all. German philosopher Immanuel Kant thought rationalism didn’t work by i...
On Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents"
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1930, Sigmund Freud wrote Civilization and its Discontents and laid out his theory of civilization: civilization’s a problem, and it makes us unh...
On John Maynard Keynes’ "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money"
05 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John Keynes’ book, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, was published in England at the tail end of the Great Depression. This text is ...
On "Encyclopédie"
02 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of the earliest modern encyclopedias was printed in France in the 18th century. Unlike many encyclopedias that came before it, this text was writt...
On Filippo Tomasso Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Manifesto of Futurism was published in 1909, on the front page of Le Figaro, the oldest daily newspaper in France. Its author was Filippo Tomasso ...
On Johann Friedrich von Schiller’s "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man"
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Play is an essential part of childhood. But according to German philosopher Johann Friedrich von Schiller’s treatise “On the Aesthetic Education o...
On Homer's "The Iliad"
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Iliad is among the oldest surviving works of literature, but for a long time The Iliad wasn’t written down. It’s a story that has influenced t...
On Herman Melville's "Moby Dick"
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It makes sense that historian Nathanial Philbrick calls Moby-Dick the “American Bible.” Along with being a story of adventure and danger, it’s a...
On Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Edmund Burke was a British government official who saw the French Revolution as a mob action. He wrote a book called Reflections on the Revolution in ...
On Inazō Nitobe's "Bushido: The Soul of Japan"
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nitobe Inazō wanted to explain Japan to Westerners, particularly morality as it is taught in Japanese society. He was born a Samurai in 1862. In his ...
On Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Frankenstein is a name we all know, even for those who haven’t read Mary Shelley’s novel. But the monster you might imagine is quite different fro...
On Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace"
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Born into an aristocratic family, Russian author Leo Tolstoy’s life was forever changed when he served as an officer in the Crimean War. The brutali...
On Edwin Hubble’s "The Realm of the Nebulae"
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Until the publication of Edwin Hubble’s 1936 book, The Realm of the Nebulae, astronomers believed that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the univ...
On Soren Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling"
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a college student, Harvard professor Michelle Sanchez was torn between following her faith or following her heart. She found guidance in the 19th-c...
On Bengt Sundkler's "Bantu Prophets in South Africa"
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bengt Sundkler wrote his 1940 book Bantu Prophets in South Africa for a white, European audience. He had no idea that his ethnographic study would pla...
On T. E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lawrence of Arabia has become one of the most well known films in the world. It inspired Steven Spielberg to become a filmmaker and President Barack O...
On W. E. B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk"
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly 40 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, American writer, sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. DuBois shed light on B...
On Frederick Douglass
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818, it was illegal for him to learn the alphabet. Slave masters feared the power of a literate slav...
On Sholem Aleichem’s "The Tevye Stories"
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The original production of Fiddler on the Roof won nine Tony awards, held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical, and was adapted into a ...
On "The Great Learning"
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes the oldest texts are the most influential. The Great Learning likely first appeared in the Confucian Book of Rites around 2,000 years ago, a...
On Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion"
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is the role of the press in a democracy? For nearly a century, scholars, media critics, and politicians have debated this question—in a large p...
On Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
09 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Zora Neale Hurston was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, but her novels didn’t conform to the style of her contemporaries. As a result,...
On "Black Elk Speaks"
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In many ways, Black Elk and John Neihardt lived very different lives. Black Elk was an Oglala Lakota holy man. Neihartd was a European-American litera...
On Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“These United States are themselves the greatest poem.” When Walt Whitman wrote this line, he was an unknown Brooklyn newspaper man. But his work ...
On "The Story of the Stone"
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The 1750s are remembered as a high point of China's Qing Dynasty: a time of power, prestige, and social harmony. But The Story of the Stone paints a d...