The late, great Christopher Hitchens came to Amsterdam in 2008 touring his book: God is Not Great.  Hitchens excelled at polemics. He considered himself to be politically liberal and yet expressed his full-throated support for the war in Iraq and called Hillary Clinton “an aging and resentful female”.  And then there were the blistering attacks on religion and religious belief. He also details: how religion is a worse than any totalitarian regime, why science and religion are fundamentally incompatible, and why it’s a bad time for secularism in politics. 

Somehow, despite this talk being 13 years old now, his remarks about religion in politics, seem as relevant as ever.

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A gem from our archive! Way back on March 14, 1993, the then fresh new Southern author, Donna Tartt, visited the John Adams hot on the heels of her massive bestseller 'The Secret History', currently translated into 24 languages and counting.  

'The Secret History' takes place at a fictional college where a close-knit group of six students embark upon a secretive plan to stage a bacchanal, a plan that ultimately leads to a death. Tartt has subsequently written 'The Little Friend' and 'The Goldfinch, the latter of which became a bestseller, a film and a Book of the Year by numerous publications including, New York Times Book Review, the Economist and NPR. 'The Goldfinch' even won the Pulitzer Prize.

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How do democracies die? Not at the hands of generals, but of elected leaders – presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. That is the unsettling conclusion of Harvard professor Daniel Ziblatt’s highly praised book How Democracies Die.

Ziblatt and his co-author Steven Levitsky have analyzed the collapse of various democracies in recent history, and compare them to the state of the US government today. Is our democracy in danger? Yes, says Ziblatt. He warns us against politicians who reject the democratic rules of the game; who deny the legitimacy of opponents; who tolerate or encourage violence; and who indicate a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.

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In 2009, one of the most important American writers of her generation took the John Adams Institute stage for the first time. Toni Morrison—as renowned for her magical realism as for her portrayal of the African American struggle—is that rare writer who is acclaimed by critics and adored by the reading public. In her novel, A Mercy, a mother gives away her daughter as she struggles for a better life, and the reader unravels the meaning behind seemingly cruel acts. Join us for an evening with this distinguished writer of whom the Nobel Prize committee wrote: “…in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, she gives life to an essential aspect of American reality. 

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The John Adams Institute, in co-operation with Prometheus Publishing House, proudly presented an evening with Jonathan Franzen, winner of the National Book Award 2001. Franzen discussed his novel The Corrections, which has been translated into Dutch under the title De Correcties. Michaël Zeeman, renowned literary critic for the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, introduced Franzen and moderated questions from the audience.

The Corrections is a novel about the American Family. You could interpret it as a family soap opera of sorts, but Franzen has much more to say, giving a view on modern western society that is both humorous and poignant. The Lambert family takes you to everyday America and brings you into the world of ‘consumerism, pharmacology, biotechnology, the ‘optimistic egalitarianism’ of the American Middle West, the superstitious magic of the stock exchange, and the unbearable lightness of virtual being on the home pages of the Infobahn, not to mention asparagus steamers, refrigerator magnets, a vacuum pump to keep leftover wine from oxidizing, cell phones, and class hatred’ (New York Review of Books). It creates the illusion of giving a complete account of a world, and while we’re under its enchantment it temporarily eclipses whatever else we may have read’ (The New York Times).

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The great American author and investigative journalist, Patrick Radden Keefe, knows irony when he hears it. Such as when the patriarch of what would become an infamous family, imparted these words to his sons: “I leave you my good name”.

And that name is...Sackler: frequent visitors to some of the world’s great museums and educational institutions know that name. 

The Sackler family name adorns the walls of Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. The Sacklers are one of the richest families in the world, and they donate lavishly to the arts and sciences. 

Just where all that money came from was vague, until it emerged that the Sacklers were the owners of Purdue Pharma, responsible for making and aggressively marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for today’s opioid crisis. Opioids were responsible for the overdose deaths of nearly 500,000 Americans over the past two decades. 

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Forbes magazine called Christiane Amanpour of the “100 Most Powerful Women.” On January 25th 2019, CNN’s chief international anchor and host of ‘Amanpour’, joined the Dutch journalist Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal, for what turned out to be a witty, revealing and slightly flirty conversation.

Amanpour’s career began in 1990 as a correspondent for CNN, where she reported on international crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Palestinian territories, Iran and many more countries. She has interviewed many world leaders and has received every major broadcast award. In 2014, she was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. Amanpour is also an active human rights campaigner has interviewed educational rights activist Malala Yousafzai for CNN on several occasions and brought attention to the plight of the 200 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram.

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From Amsterdam...this is the John Adams Podcast, a treasure trove of the best and the brightest of American thinking. 

This week’s guest is indeed one of the brightest:  Francis Fukuyama, the writer, thinker and teacher.  You may remember him from his book: "The End of History", where he proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy as something of a societal finish line.

Well, he does NOT think that anymore. What changed his mind?  The election of Donald Trump, among others. 

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This week’s guest is Megan Twohey, whose book about Harvey Weinstein’s  sexual abuse of women in Hollywood was also, as she put it, “an X-ray into the abuse of power”.  The #metoo movement really got going after New York Times journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor published their investigative articles about Harvey Weinstein. 

They followed with  their  book, “She Said”, which dives deep, not just into Harvey Weinstein’s decades long alleged sexual predation, but also the failures of the system that let it happen. Some have called “She Said” the feminist “All the President’s Men”.

Back in 2019, Megan Twohey gave the John Adams an interview that was almost like a crime procedural.  She detailed how you piece together an investigation into someone powerful who was determined to undermine you every step of the way. 

It’s a tale of harassment, spies, failures of the legal system and, ultimately, the triumphant power of the truth to actually make change.  The Dutch journalist Joyce Roodnat interviewed Megan Twohey in front of a packed audience at the University of Amsterdam. 

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Seven years ago, Garry Kasparov came to Amsterdam and predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also described Vladimir Putin’s psychology and motivations in a way that you hear in every current affairs program nowadays. 

Back in 2015, Obama was president, Russia was actively bombing targets in Syria, Syrian refugees were literally washing up on the shores of the Mediterannean and Garry Kasparov, living in exile in New York, was touring his book: ‘Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped’. 

And the predictions came with Cassandra-like precision. He saw Putin ruthlessly cowing all domestic opposition and the coming of a resurgent Russian nationalism that would spread beyond its borders. 

After the Maidan Revolution  and the overthrow of Putin crony Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, Kasparov knew Putin simply could not allow a  free and democratic Ukraine, moving ever closer to Europe, to exist. After all, a successful Ukraine could give Russians... ideas. 

Mr. Kasparov’s talk was moderated by the Dutch journalist and Slavic world specialist, Michel Krielaars. 

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