The Back of the Book

Let’s keep celebrating the semiquincentennial by tackling the remarkable history of our most inspirational founding document. Historian and Hoover Institution fellow Michael Auslin joins the podcast to discuss National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America. He and Chris cover the document’s chaotic creation, its less-than-ideal preservation, and its enduring impact on almost ten generations of Americans. 

Show Notes:

• Michael Auslin’s book, National Treasure
• Michael’s book event at AEI

Time Stamps: 
1:45 Myths and misconceptions about the Declaration
12:40 The forgotten Declaration takes center stage
23:34 The Civil War and consent of the governed
28:33 More reasons to loathe Woodrow Wilson
33:45 MLK and the “promissory note” of equality
42:30 The Declaration’s core claim of unity
46:16 The DSA’s challenge to the greatness of the Declaration
49:03 The Declaration preserved and displayed

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Keira Stenson.

The first topic for our new season is an important one, and that’s no lie. Chris talks to Christian B. Miller, the A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, about the virtue of honesty. What does it mean to be honest? Is it more rewarding—and less risky—to be dishonest today than it was in the past? How are Americans dishonest today online, on campus, and in politics? Christian’s new book is The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World (Oxford, 2026).

Time Stamps:
2:49 What is honesty?
15:14 Deepfakes and online infidelity
31:07 Academic dishonesty and the tragedy of Jason Arday
42:39 Honesty and politics
52:39 The exception of the arts

Show Notes:

• Christian B. Miller’s book, The Honesty Crisis
• Billy Joel, “Honesty”

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Keira Stenson.

In this special double feature, Chris welcomes the authors of two new books about the American way of life—one about the many things that make it great, and the other about something we’ve lost. First, Matthew Mehan of Hillsdale College’s Washington, DC, campus discusses his latest children's book, The American Book of Fables, a collection to help the young and old celebrate America’s 250th birthday. And in the back half, Andy Smarick of the Manhattan Institute talks about his first novel, Community Day, a mystery about the distressing decline of civil society.

Show notes: 

• Matt's book, The American Book of Fables
• Andy's novel, Community Day, on Substack and Amazon
• Matt's other work
• Andy's other work

Time stamps: 
0:49 – Matthew Mehan on The American Book of Fables
29:01 – Andy Smarick on Community Day 

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist. 

Produced by Sean Doolan & Keira Stenson.

Chris talks to Melanie McDonagh about her new book, Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century. Dr. McDonagh discusses some of the prominent (and less familiar) British artists, writers, and intellectuals who entered the Roman Catholic from the 1890s through the 1950s. What were the social and cultural origins of the century’s remarkable increase in Catholic conversions? What people and ideas brought figures like Wilde, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh to Catholicism? And why did the stream of conversions drop off so dramatically in the 1960s?

Show notes: 

• Melanie’s book, Converts
• Melanie’s column at The Standard
• David Jones, “Vexilla Regis”
• Chris on Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark

Time stamps:
 
3:00 – Why chronicle conversions?
7:32 – The influence of St. John Henry Newman
13:07 – Origins of the conversion trend
31:43 – Clerics courting converts
36:55 – Sacramentality and art
52:00 – Vatican II and the Church today

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.

Sean Keilen, professor of literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, talks with Chris about his new book, Shakespeare's Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts. They discuss how Shakespeare depicts the role of scholars in Hamlet and The Tempest, what Shakespeare can teach us about the scholar’s proper relationship to the public, and the current state of literary studies in academia.

Show notes: 

• Sean’s book, Shakespeare’s Scholars
• UC Santa Cruz’s Shakespeare Workshop
• Santa Cruz Shakespeare

 Time stamps:
 3:03 – Shakespeare's academy
18:12 – Hamlet
38:38 – The Tempest
52:50 – Scholarship inside (and outside) the academy

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.

In this special episode, recorded as part of AEI’s American Dream Lecture Series, Dr. Zena Hitz addresses the role of liberal education in sustaining the democratic project. She also identifies the most significant threats to liberal learning and offers practical remedies that might address them. After her lecture, Zena sat down with Chris for a conversation and fielded questions from the audience at AEI.

Show notes: 

• Zena’s books, A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life and Lost in Thought
• Learn more about St. John's College and the Catherine Project
• Watch previous editions of AEI’s American Dream Lecture Series

Time stamps:
 5:04 – Zena’s lecture
36:53 – Zena’s conversation with Chris
56:38 – Audience Q&A

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.

Novelist Karan Mahajan joins the show to talk with Chris about his new work, The Complex. They discuss the novel’s memorable characters, settings, and themes, as well as Karan’s literary influences and the challenges of writing about Indian culture and politics for a non-Indian audience.

Show notes: 

• Karan’s novel, The Complex
• “The True Margaret,” a short story excerpted from The Complex in The New Yorker
• Chris’s review of The Complex in the Washington Examiner
• Karan’s previous novels, The Association of Small Bombs and Family Planning

Time stamps:
 
5:08 – The Complex’s cast: The Chopra clan
17:58 – Laxman Chopra & literary villainy
32:27 – Karan’s literary influences, Tolstoy and Naipaul
42:55 – Experimenting with narrative perspective
48:54 – Modern readers & writers

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.

Chris talks to Tess Chakkalakal about her new literary biography, A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt. Tess explains why Chesnutt is such an important figure in American literary history, how his short stories and novels made the case for a color-blind society, and why he should be more widely read today.

Show notes:

• Tess’s book, A Matter of Complexion
• Chesnutt’s short stories: The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales and “The Wife of His Youth”
• Chesnutt’s novels: The House Behind the Cedars and The Marrow of Tradition
• Chesnutt’s speech, “Race Prejudice; Its Causes and Its Cure”

Time stamps:
2:22 – Chesnutt’s early life and education
15:16 – The Conjure Woman
25:09 – The House Behind the Cedars
44:28 – The Marrow of Tradition
52:44 – Chesnutt’s views on race and their legacy

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.

In this re-pea—er, very special encore presentation, Chris’s brother, Father Paul Scalia, joins the show to discuss the significance of Holy Week and how Catholics in particular celebrate this most important (and for priests, most exhausting) week in the liturgical calendar. Father Scalia also recounts his road to the priesthood, shares his favorite Christian apologists and novelists, and discusses the state of the Catholic Church in America. Show notes: 

• Father Scalia’s books: That Nothing May be Lost; Sermons in Times of Crisis (editor)
• Father Scalia at The Catholic Thing
• Father Scalia’s homilies (audio)
• The New York Times: “Roman Catholic Churches See a Surge of New Converts”

Time stamps:
 
2:53 – Holy Week & Easter
24:20 – Fr. Scalia's vocation and the meaning of the priesthood
41:08 – The Catholic literary tradition
48:42 – The state of the Church and hope for its future

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Writer Lionel Shriver joins Chris to discuss her provocative new novel, A Better Life. They touch on the novel’s relation to Lionel’s broader thematic interests, the challenges of navigating political controversy in literature, and the worrying decline of literacy and readership.

 Show notes: 

• Lionel's new novel, A Better Life
• Lionel on cultural appropriation
• Lionel on American Dirt

Time stamps:
 
3:15 – A Better Life
17:29 – Gen Z and the population apocalypse
26:08 – Political controversy, literary representation, and the “vibe shift”
40:41 – The decline of reading & the case for literature

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.