Moshik Temkin is the author of The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, and Warriors, Rebels, and Saints: The Art of Leadership from Machiavelli to Malcolm X, based on a course which he taught at Harvard University for over a decade. He is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership and History at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University.
In the podcast, we discuss:
Defining leadership beyond the Great Men
Senators Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening—whose names few remember, the lone dissenters against the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Trump as a product of historical and socio-economic forces, a symptom of the disease
The rise of authoritarianism in America
Why historical analogies can be weak toolst o understand contemporary politics; the constructive use of comparisons
The Democratic Party’s problems and inability to unite behind Mamdani
Local resistance against authoritarianism
Surveillance and control around the world
