Better Known

Alex Edmans discusses with Ivan six things which should be less well known.

Alex’s new book is May Contain Lies, about misinformation, and so, in a reversal of the usual format, he discusses six ideas and beliefs which have been overexposed.

Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School. Alex has a PhD from MIT as a Fulbright Scholar, and was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley.

Alex has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, testified in the UK Parliament, and given the TED talk What to Trust in a Post-Truth World and the TEDx talks The Pie-Growing Mindset and The Social Responsibility of Business with a combined 2.8 million views. He serves as non-executive director of the Investor Forum, on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Responsible Investing, on Royal London Asset Management’s Responsible Investment Advisory Committee, and on Novo Nordisk’s Sustainability Advisory Council.

Alex’s book, Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit, was a Financial Times Book of the Year and has been translated into nine languages, and he is a co-author of Principles of Corporate Finance (with Brealey, Myers, and Allen). His latest book is May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – And What We Can Do About It, available at https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520403932/may-contain-lies.

His six things which should be less well-known are:

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Jonn Elledge is a New Statesman columnist, and a contributor to the Big Issue, the Guardian, the Evening Standard, and a number of other newspapers. He was previously an assistant editor at the New Statesman, where he created and ran its urbanism-focused CityMetric site, and spent six happy years writing about cities, maps and borders and hosting the Skylines podcast. He has written over a hundred editions of the Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. His new book is A History of the World in 47 Borders: The Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps. He previously wrote The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything: All the Facts You Didn't Know You Wanted to Know and, with Tom Phillips, Conspiracy: A History of Bollcks Theories, and How Not to Fall for Them.

Babylon 5 https://www.douxreviews.com/2015/08/babylon-5-series-review.html

Life & Fate by Vasily Grossman https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n20/john-lanchester/good-day-comrade-shtrum

The Truth about Markets by John Kay https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=economics-faculty-publications

Why there was no Danish holocaust https://www.history.com/news/wwii-danish-jews-survival-holocaust

Nehru's affair with Lady Mountbatten https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/from-the-india-today-archives-1980-mountbattens-and-nehru-friendship-in-high-places-2413716-2023-07-30

Ethiopian food https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ethiopian-food-best-dishes-africa/index.html

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Henry Oliver discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Henry Oliver is a writer, speaker, and brand consultant. He writes regularly for outlets like the New Statesman, The Critic, and UnHerd. He writes the popular Substack The Common Reader, which was recently mentioned in the Atlantic. His book Second Act is about late bloomers. In 2022, he was given an Emergent Ventures grant.

Izaac Walton https://newcriterion.com/article/the-right-angle/

Wren churches https://sixinthecity.co.uk/news/2023/03/51-wren-churches/

Lyrics of Noel Coward songs https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n13/rosemary-hill/mushroom-cameo

Lichfield https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/The-City-of-Lichfield/

Byron Janis Bach recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdL3-xwoFik

Elizabeth Jenkins https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/07/elizabeth-jenkins-obituary

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Jamaica Kincaid discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John’s, Antigua. Her books include At the Borrom of the River; Annie John; Lucy; The Autobiography of My Mother; My Brother; Mr Potter; and See Now Then. She teaches at Harvard University and lives in Vermont. Her new book is an Encylopedia of Gardening for Colored People at https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780374608255?gC=5a105e8b.

Let Love Come Between Us by James and Bobby Purify https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32CgFcOSbxw

26 of the 50 United States bear the names of Native Americans https://thoughtcatalog.com/james-b-barnes/2014/10/26-states-that-were-named-by-native-americans-was-your-state/

The Travels of William Bartram https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/americas-first-great-enviromentalist-florida-william-bartram-180983452/

The first paragraph of the 3rd Chapter of the Life of Frederick Douglas https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/narrative/full-text/chapter-iii/

Ervartung, a mono-drama opera with music by Arnold Schoenberg https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/feb/01/artsfeatures.classicalmusicandopera

The seed packet was invented by The Shakers, an English Protestant sect, who immigrated to America and made many beautiful and useful things for the home. Their beliefs were quite severe regarding sex so no children were produced to ruin the beautiful and useful things they made for the home https://digventures.com/2018/02/11-things-we-still-use-that-were-invented-by-the-shakers/

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Caroline Eden returns to discuss with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Caroline Eden is a writer and book critic contributing to the Financial Times, Guardian and

Ukrainian borsch

Uzbek melons

Russian pirozhki

Polish pierogi 

Armenian lavash

Turkish boza

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Caroline Crampton discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Caroline Crampton is the author of The Way to the Sea: The Forgotten Histories of the Thames Estuary (Granta, 2019). Her award-winning podcast, Shedunnit, is distributed by BBC Sounds. Her journalism has appeared in the New Statesman, The Times and the Guardian. An experienced broadcaster, she has appeared on BBC Two, Sky News, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4. Her new book is A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria.

The Lime Street Cutting https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/stunning-pictures-reveal-rarely-glimpsed-22659098

The adult novels of Eva Ibbotson https://shereadsnovels.com/2012/11/25/madensky-square-by-eva-ibbotson/

Beremeal flour https://baronymill.com/

The inverted story or "howdunnit" https://www.novelsuspects.com/articles/inverted-detective-stories-when-you-already-know-whodunnit/

The 1944 Powell and Pressburger film A Canterbury Tale https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/powell-pressburger-kent-locations-canterbury-tale

Clumber spaniels https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/clumber-spaniel/

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Kathryn Hughes discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Kathryn Hughes is the critically acclaimed author of The Victorian Governess, The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton, which was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and the hugely acclaimed George Eliot: The Last Victorian, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography. Her new book is Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World. Educated at Oxford University, she holds a PhD in Victorian studies. She is a visiting lecturer at several British universities and reviews regularly for The Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Literary Review.

Mrs Cotman, portrait by John Sell Cotman (hanging in Norwich Castle Museum) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Mrs_John_Sell_Cotman.jpg

Frances Simpson https://cat-o-pedia.org/frances-simpson.html

The Heart of Wales railway line https://news.tfw.wales/news/heart-of-wales-railway-line-best-in-europe

The proper use of the word “disinterested” https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/disinterested-vs-uninterested

Linley Sambourne House https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/museums/sambourne-house

The Gas Man Cometh (1963) by Flanders and Swann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1dvAxA9ib0

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Elaine Lin Hering discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Elaine Lin Hering has been a lecturer at Harvard Law School and a Managing Partner at Triad Consulting Group. She has worked with a wide range of clients in Fortune 500 companies, including American Express, Capital One, Google, Merck, Nike, Shell and Pixar, as well as with government and non-profit organisations.

Elaine "has all the ingredients to become the next Brené Brown” - Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, co-authors of NYT Bestseller, Difficult Conversations.

Elaine’s new book is Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent and Lead with Courage, available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/unlearning-silence/elaine-lin-hering/9781529900170.

The real costs of AI https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ais-climate-impact-goes-beyond-its-emissions/

Babble hypothesis of leadership https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/leaders-talk-more-babble-hypothesis/

No-knead pizza dough https://www.seriouseats.com/jim-laheys-no-knead-pizza-dough-recipe

Social change ecosystems https://buildingmovement.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Ecosystem-Guide-April-2022.pdf

Use of low power language is strategic https://www.yourpowerunleashed.org/blog/2023/5/21/womens-use-of-low-power-language-at-work-is-not-diminishing-but-very-strategic

Forest-bathing is healthy https://time.com/5259602/japanese-forest-bathing/

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Journalist Andrew Finkel discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Andrew Finkel has spent years reporting for media organisations including The Times, The Economist, New York Times and CNN. He has covered wars and earthquakes, market booms and busts, and in his capacity as a food critic and contributing editor for Istanbul’s Cornucopia magazine, the postmodernity of the kebab. His experiences working in the Turkish-language press prompted him to co-found P24, an association to promote freedom of expression, and the Istanbul literature house, Kiraathane. He has written a number of non-fiction titles, including Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know which was “called a succinct, readable and expert briefing on the modern country” by the Daily Telegraph and “no better introduction to today’s Turkey” by Andrew Mango. The Adventure of the Second Wife is his debut novel.

The obsession of the Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II for Sherlock Holmes https://www.thebulwark.com/p/plagues-of-the-body-and-plagues-of-the-mind-orhan-pamuk

The art of the dramatically satisfying ending https://www.vulture.com/article/the-101-best-movie-endings-of-all-time-ranked.html

Cornucopia https://www.cornucopia.net/

The Big Green Egg https://www.biggreenegg.co.uk/

The plight of Turkish journalism https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/turkey-after-an-attempted-coup-the-journalists-nightmare

The periphery of Istanbul https://www.istanbulmeetandgreetservice.com/the-5-most-charming-small-villages-near-to-istanbul/

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Bill Weir discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Bill Weir is a veteran anchor, writer, producer, and host who came to CNN in 2013 after a decade of award-winning journalism at ABC News.

In 2019, he was named the network’s first Chief Climate Correspondent, drawing on his experience creating and hosting the primetime CNN Original Series “The Wonder List with Bill Weir,” now streaming on Discovery+.

His first book, Life As We Know It (Can Be) was published by Chronicle Prism in April 2024.

The Goldilocks Earth https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-host-bill-weir-plans-to-hold-bidens-feet-to-the-fire-on-climate-change

Humanity’s role models will be beavers, camels and gentoo penguins https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/16/climate/life-as-we-know-it-book-bill-weir/index.html

We need thoughtful YIMBYs https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/23/us/climate-crisis-earth-day-weir-letter/index.html

The home of the future will come with much thicker walls https://www.builderonline.com/products/building-construction-materials/cnn-report-examines-alternative-way-to-build-homes

The new industrial revolution https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2024/02/05/clean-revolution-weir-pkg.cnn

Veggie burgers can do more environmental harm than a steak https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/03/us/climate-crisis-cattle-amp-grazing/index.html

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