Late Night Live — Full program podcast

Sarah Dry delves into the 150 year effort to understand the world’s climate systems in her book Waters of the World. 

The book is a collection of six mini biographies of the scientists who uncovered the global climate systems by studying water – from ice sheets and glaciers, to surging ocean currents to rainclouds.   They came to see these as all part of a global system together with the combined impact of humans.

Guest: Sarah Dry, author of Waters of the World

One of the most powerful books ever discussed on Late Night Live, Professor Howard French argues that the role of Africa has been intentionally sidelined from the story of the making of the modern world.

He believes that the true extent of the exploitation of Africa by the West – that is ‘the West’ prior to the United States of America – is worse than what we already knew.

Guest: Howard French, author of Born in Blackness; Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

One of Australia’s most successful and revered filmmakers, Gillian Armstrong is a multiple award winning director, and her most successful films include “My Brilliant Career”, “Little Women”, “Oscar and Lucinda”, and “Charlotte Grey” among many more. Gillian talks to Phillip about her extraordinary life.

Guest: Gillian Armstrong

For every speech that is delivered, there exists an undelivered opposite. Jeff Nussbaum discusses the speeches the world never got to hear, and why.  For example, the victory speech that Hilary Clinton wrote, but never got to make, or the poignant and relevant speech which President John F. Kennedy never got to deliver on that fatal day in Dallas, Texas in 1963.

Guest Jeff Nussbaum, author of  Undelivered: The Never Heard Speeches that Would Have Rewritten History Jeff was a speechwriter for Barak Obama, Al Gore and Joe Biden

World famous for his incisive reporting, unique polemic, and winning public debates, the late Christopher Hitchens is a sorely missed addition to the media in general, and Late Night Live in particular.

The author of over 30 books, Hitchens spoke to Phillip about his autobiography HITCH 22 – A Memoir, in 2010 while he was in Sydney.

Guest: Christopher Hitchens

Former ballerina, Jennifer Homans, charts the history of ballet from its beginnings, its export from France to Russia, and its transformation in New York under the work of George Balanchine.

In a second discussion, a scientific study tries to untangle just how creativity, memory, and practise, work together in the mind of ballet dancers.

Guests:

Jennifer Homans, Dance Critic for the New Yorker and author of Apollo’s Angels.

Garry Stewart, Catherine Stevens and Scott Delahunta

The story of one woman’s journey to unearth the incredible history of pianos in Siberia.  Pianos began spreading across this region 250 years ago, under the rule of Catherine the Great.  Grand instruments created during the 19th century boom years, and humble, Soviet-made uprights, reveal not only these people’s love of music, but also Siberia’s terrifying and punishing past.

Guest: Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia

How Indigenous songlines have managed to survive intact for tens of thousands of years and why they are so important – for all Australians.

Guests:

Margo Neale, Head of the Centre for Indigenous Knowledges, senior Indigenous curator, and principal adviser to the director of the National Museum of Australia.

Lynne Kelly, Science writer working as an honorary research associate at La Trobe University. Mnemonist and author of The Memory Code and Memory Craft.

Down from a peak of 60,000 nuclear weapons held by Russia and the United States at the end of the Cold War, today they number 13,000.  But nuclear nations are building up their arsenals again, speeding towards the next arms race. The only agreement still in place is the New START Treaty which is set to expire in February 2026. 

Guest: William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration, and Founder of the William J. Perry Project

Originally broadcast in 2016.

Wade Davis came to global attention in a Rolling Stone article which argued that the COVID-19 pandemic revealed to the world the true state of the US. Comparing the rise of the US during WW2 from a country which had an incredibly small army, to become a global superpower, Davis laments the extent of America’s social and political demise. 

Guest: Wade Davis, cultural anthropologist, ethnobotanist and author