Keen On America

EPISODE 1836: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Daniel Finkelstein, author of HITLER, STALIN, MUM AND DAD: A FAMILY MEMOIR OF MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL, about the extraordinary coincidences enabling the survival of his family in World War Two

DANIEL FINKELSTEIN is a weekly political columnist at The Times of London. Formerly an adviser to Prime Minister John Major, he was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013. He recently became a director of Chelsea Football Club. He is married with three children and lives in Pinner, a suburb of London. He is grandson of Dr. Alfred Wiener, founder of the Wiener Library, the world’s oldest Holocaust archive, where he is a patron.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1835: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks William Deresiewicz, author of THE DEATH OF THE ARTIST, about the fate of the creative artist when , in our digital economy, the price of content has been driven down to zero 

William Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic, a frequent speaker at colleges, high schools, and other venues, and the author of five books including the New York Times bestseller Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. His latest book is The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society. Bill has published over 300 essays and reviews. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and a Sydney Award; he is also a three-time National Magazine Award nominee. His work, which has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and many other publications, has been translated into 19 languages and anthologized in 39 college and scholastic readers. Bill taught English at Yale and Columbia before becoming a full-time writer. He has spoken at over 160 educational and other venues and has appeared on The Colbert Report, Here & Now, The New Yorker Radio Hour, and many other outlets. He has held visiting positions at Bard, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna Colleges as well as at the University of San Diego. In 2024, he will serve as an inaugural Public Fellow at American Jewish University. His previous books are The Death of the Artist: How Creators are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech, A Jane Austen Education, and Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets. Bill is a member of the Board of Directors of Tivnu: Building Justice, a Jewish social-justice gap year in Portland, Oregon, and of the Advisory Council of Project Wayfinder, which runs purpose-learning programs in schools across the United States and beyond. And, since you’re wondering, it’s /də-REH-zə-WITS/.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1834: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Ruy Teixeira, co-author of WHERE HAVE ALL THE DEMOCRATS GONE?, needs to tone down the volume on cultural issues if its to rediscover its political soul

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-founder and politics editor of the Substack newsletter, The Liberal Patriot. His forthcoming book, with John B. Judis, is Where Have All the Democrats Gone?

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1833: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Maciej Kisilowski, editor of LET'S AGREE ABOUT POLAND, about the promise and peril of democracy in a post authoritarian Poland after what he calls its "almost miraculous" October election 

Maciej Kisilowski is a frequent commentator on issues of political-economy of East-Central Europe, contributing (among others) to Project Syndicate, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Haaretz, EU Observer, and EURActive. He is the author/editor of three books, including Administrategy, which was translated into five languages. He’s a consultant to governmental organizations, progressive political parties, advocacy groups and businesses in Central Europe and beyond.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1832: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Antonello Provenzale, author of HISTORY OF CLIMATE CHANGE, about whether today's climate change crisis represent an existential threat to humanity

Antonello Provenzale is Director of the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources at the National Research Council of Italy. His latest book is History of Climate Change: From the Earth's Origins to the Anthropocene

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1831: In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to John Kampfner, author of IN SEARCH OF BERLIN, about the enigmatic German capital on the edge of the world

John Kampfner has had a 30-year career in international public life spanning media, global affairs, politics and arts. He is the author of seven books. He began his journalistic career as a foreign correspondent with the Daily Telegraph, first in East Berlin where he reported on the fall of the Wall and unification of Germany, and then in Moscow at the time of the collapse of Soviet Communism. He went on to work for the FT and BBC. As Editor of the New Statesman from 2005 to 2008, he took the magazine to 30-year circulation highs. He was Society of Magazine Editors Current Affairs Editor of the Year in 2006. He now writes regularly for newspapers such as the Guardian, FT and Der Spiegel. He has made many programmes over the years for BBC Radio 4 and World Service and regularly appearances on European broadcasters. His new book, In Search of Berlin, is published in October 2023. Prior to publication, it has received an array of critical acclaim. His previous book, Why the Germans Do It Better, went immediately onto the Sunday Times and Amazon best-sellers list. Another best-seller, Blair’s Wars (2003), is now a standard text in schools. His fourth book, Freedom For Sale (2009), was short-listed for the Orwell Prize. A regular speaker at international conferences, he has worked with Chatham House, including setting up its UK in the World programme. He is a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. For the past two years, he has been Chair of Young Königswinter, which brings together the next generation of German and British public figures. In the arts world, he is Chair of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. For eight years he was founder Chair of Turner Contemporary, one of the country’s most successful art galleries. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate for his services to the arts by Bath Spa University in 2019.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1830: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Michael Muthukrishna, author of A THEORY OF EVERYTHING, about how humans are a new kind of animal and why we need to transform the world into the most efficient laboratory possible

Michael Muthukrishna is Associate Professor of Economic Psychology at the London School of Economics. He is also Affiliate of the Developmental Economics Group at STICERD, Affiliate of the LSE Data Science Institute, CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar in the Boundaries, Membership and Belonging  programme at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and Technical Director of The Database of Religious History. He is also a board member of the One Pencil Project. Prof Muthukrishna's research focuses on answering three broad questions: (1) Why are humans so different to other animals? (2) What are the psychological and evolutionary processes that underlie culture and social change, and how is information transmitted, maintained, and modified? (3) How can the answers to these questions be used to tackle some of the challenges we face as a species? He uses a two-pronged methodological approach to answer these questions, combining mathematical and computational modelling (evolutionary models, social network models, etc.), and experimental and data science methods from psychology and economics. He uses the “Theory of Human Behavior” that emerges from this approach to tackle a variety of related topics, including innovation, corruption, the rise of large-scale cooperation, and the navigation of cross-cultural differences. He is the author of "A Theory of Everyone: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going"  and founder of LSE Culturalytik.He is particularly interested in the application of research in cultural evolution to public policy.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1829: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Jeff Kosseff, author of LIAR IN A CROWDED THEATER, about the protection of free speech in our digital age of misinformation

Jeff Kosseff is an associate professor of cybersecurity law in the United States Naval Academy’s Cyber Science Department. He is the author of four books and more than 20 academic journal articles. In fall 2023, Johns Hopkins University Press will publish his latest book, Liar in a Crowded Theater: Freedom of Speech in a World of Misinformation, which examines and defends legal protections for false speech. In 2019, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to support his 2022 book The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech. His 2019 book, The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet, traced the history of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He also is the author of Cybersecurity Law, a textbook and treatise whose third edition was published by Wiley in 2022. 

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1828: In this regular KEEN ON show with LA Times book critic Bethane Patrick, Bethanne talks about eight scary new books to keep you awake this Halloween

Bethanne Patrick maintains a storied place in the publishing industry as a critic and as @TheBookMaven on Twitter, where she created the popular #FridayReads and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to over 200,000 followers. Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times as well as in The Washington Post, NPR Books, and Literary Hub. She sits on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the host of the Missing Pages podcast. 

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1827: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to the filmmaker, artist and writer Hito Steyerl about what she calls the "pyramid schemes", "on-boarding" tools and the "mean" creativity of our AI age

Hito Steyerl (born 1 January 1966) is a German filmmaker, moving image artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary. Her principal topics of interest are media, technology, and the global circulation of images. Steyerl holds a PhD in philosophy from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is currently a professor of New Media Art at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she co-founded the Research Center for Proxy Politics, together with Vera Tollmann and Boaz Levin.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.