Thecuriousmanspodcast

Matt Crawford speaks with NYT Best-selling author Lynne Olson about her book, The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler's All-Female Concentration Camp .

The extraordinary true story of a small group of Frenchwomen, all Resistance members, who banded together in a notorious concentration camp to defy the Nazis—from the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade's Secret War "At once heartbreaking and beautifully told, this is a masterwork of nonfiction, a must-read for anyone who wants more of the incredible true story behind Lilac Girls."—Martha Hall Kelly, author of Lilac Girls Decades after the end of World War II, the name Ravensbrück still evokes horror for those with knowledge of this infamous all-women's concentration camp, better known since it became the setting of Martha Hall Kelly's bestselling novel, Lilac Girls. Particularly shocking were the medical experiments performed on some of the inmates. Ravensbrück was atypical in other ways as well, not just as the only all-female German concentration camp, but because 80 percent of its inmates were political prisoners, among them a tight-knit group of women who had been active in the French Resistance. Already well-practiced in sabotaging the Nazis in occupied France, these women joined forces to defy their German captors and keep one another alive. The sisterhood's members, amid unimaginable terror and brutality, subverted Germany's war effort by refusing to do assigned work. They risked death for any infraction, but that did not stop them from defying their SS tormentors at every turn—even staging a satirical musical revue about the horrors of the camp. After the war, when many in France wanted to focus only on the future, the women from Ravensbrück refused to allow their achievements, needs, and sacrifices to be erased. They banded together once more, first to support one another in healing their bodies and minds and then to continue their crusade for freedom and justice—an effort that would have repercussions for their country and the world into the twenty-first century.

Matt Crawford speaks with Data Scientist and author Justin Evans about his book, The Little Book of Data: Understanding the Powerful Analytics that Fuel AI, Make or Break Careers, and Could Just End Up Saving the World.

Data is not about number crunching. It's about ideas. And when used properly (read: ethically), it is the problem solver of our time.

Yet many savvy people seem to be in data denial: they don't think they need to understand data, or it's too complicated, or worse, using it is somehow unethical. Yet as data and AI (just an accelerated way to put data to work) move to the center of professional and civic life, every professional and citizen needs to harness this power.

In The Little Book of Data, each chapter illustrates one of the core principles of solving problems with data by featuring an expert who has solved a big problem with data—from the entrepreneur creating a "loneliness score" to the epidemiologist trying to save lives by finding disease "hotspots."

The stories are told in a fast-moving, vivid, sometimes comic style, and cover a wide frame of reference from adtech to climate tech, the bubonic plague, tiny submarines, genomics, railroads, bond ratings, and meat grading. (That's right. Meat.)

Along the way Evans injects lessons from his own career journey and offers practical thought-starters for readers to apply to their own organizations.

By reading The Little Book of Data, you will achieve the fluency to apply your data superpowers to your own mission and challenges—and you will have fun along the way.

You will be, in other words, a data person.

Matt Crawford speaks with Big Pharma Whistleblower Lisa Pratta about her book, False Claims: One Insider's Impossible Battle Against Big Pharma Corruption.

In Big Pharma, lives are secondary to profit margins. But Lisa Pratta stood her ground—risking everything to expose the lies of a billion-dollar pharmaceutical business mired in deception, greed, and the systemic abuse of both patients and employees

As a rising star in pharmaceutical sales, Lisa Pratta wanted to believe that she was helping improve the lives of people who suffered from illness. But as she climbed the corporate ladder, she uncovered a sinister world of bribery, fraud, and sexual harassment—all papered over with a thin veneer of corporate respectability.

At Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Lisa found herself at a small company with a blockbuster drug that could have been a lifeline for patients suffering from multiple sclerosis—that is, if it was prescribed properly. But instead, Questcor chose profits over patients, training its sales force to push untested treatment regimens with the sole purpose of beating its competition. Lisa recognized this as not only dangerous but highly illegal. In the midst of this controversy, Questcor arbitrarily inflated the drug's price to a jaw-dropping $28,000 per vial. Torn between her morals and the financial stability the job provided for her special-needs son, Lisa made a decision that would change her life forever: she reported the fraudulent practices of the company to the federal government.

For nearly a decade, she led a double life—feeding insider information to the Department of Justice while enduring the relentless demands of her company to sell their drug using illegal marketing tactics. She faced constant fear of exposure, knowing that the government offered her no protection if her secrets were revealed. Nonetheless, Lisa pressed on, determined to hold Questcor accountable for the laws they were breaking and the lives they were endangering.

This incredible true story offers a sobering look at the unscrupulous sales methods used by America's corrupt pharmaceutical industry, spotlights the levers they pull to extract ludicrous profits from the sick and dying, and is a page-turning portrait of one woman's heroic fight against Big Pharma and a mother's struggle to protect her family.

Matt Crawford speaks with Alia Dastagir, an award-winning journalist and author of For Those Who Have Confused You to be a Person. Part memoir, part cultural commentary, her book is a searing meditation on identity, invisibility, and the hunger for dignity in a fractured world. Alia shares how years of reporting on trauma, injustice, and inequity shaped her voice—and how this book became a personal reckoning.

Together, we explore what it means to write truthfully when the world demands silence, how journalism and literature diverge when dealing with human suffering, and why empathy alone is never enough. This is a conversation for anyone who has ever felt unseen—and anyone who wants to see more clearly.

Matt Crawford speaks with author Sylvia Lerch about her book, Grasp the Nettle. Set in a remote district of Western Australia in the 1920s, an era which outlawed suicide, an unidentified body has been found and police are treating the death as suspicious. The story presents a chance for strangers (the reader) to peruse the very private diaries of the protagonists. Intriguingly, this is like peeping through the coin slot of a piggy bank to count the wealth inside. Elsie has married Tom in an arrangement brokered by her brother. Tom's job is delivering the Royal Mail, and it takes him away from home for weeks at a time. Vivacious, imaginative young Elsie must entertain herself in their isolated, unsophisticated bush hut. Married women were not allowed to be financially independent. Grasp the Nettle is not a fairytale 'lived happily ever after' romance, but a lode of accurate historical data balanced by details of underlined moral standards of life before the advent of reliable contraceptives, and acknowledgement of gender diversity. In those harsh times, things that are commonplace for us today were yet to be invented: like mobile phones, internet communications, and GPS. There were not even engineered roads through country districts in this vast nation, Australia. Grasp the Nettle poses the question: how did people cope with life's challenges?

Matt Crawford speaks with author David Singer about his book, From Cab Driver to Carnegie Hall. David and I talk about his eclectic careers and how he managed to end up playing Clarinet for two U.S Presidents; one the same day as he was driving a cab. Resilience and gratitude is the overarching message of this book and everyone can take something from this story.

In this gripping episode, we sit down with Stephen Willeford, the man who courageously intervened during the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.

Willeford, a former NRA instructor and lifelong resident of Sutherland Springs, recounts the harrowing events of that day—how he heard gunfire from his home, grabbed his rifle, and confronted the gunman, barefoot. But this conversation goes deeper than headlines. We explore the aftermath: the emotional toll, his reflections on faith, the responsibilities of gun ownership, and how one act of courage changed the course of many lives.

This episode is a powerful meditation on trauma, heroism, community, and personal responsibility in the face of unimaginable violence.

Matt Crawford speaks with author Stephen R. Platt about his book, The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S Special Forces in World War II.

In this compelling episode, historian Stephen R. Platt joins us to discuss his latest book, The Raider, a powerful chronicle of Evans Carlson—the controversial, visionary Marine officer who broke ranks with military convention during World War II to lead one of the first elite units in U.S. history. We explore Carlson's radical leadership philosophy, his time with Mao Zedong in China, and how his story shaped the birth of what would become modern American Special Forces.

Platt shares how this little-known chapter of WWII history challenges our assumptions about heroism, leadership, and the cost of innovation in the military.

Matt Crawford speaks with Columbia Law Professor Susan Sturm about her book, What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions. Even as anti-racism practices seemed to be gaining momentum, the nation shows signs of falling back into long-standing patterns of racial injustice and inequality. Leaders who introduce anti-racist approaches to their organizations often face backlash from white colleagues and skepticism from colleagues of color, leading to paralysis. In What Might Be, Susan Sturm explores how to navigate the contradictions built into our racialized history, relationships, and institutions. She offers strategies and stories for confronting racism within predominantly white institutions, describing how change agents can move beyond talk to build the architecture of full participation. Sturm argues that although we cannot avoid the contradictions built into efforts to confront racism, we can make them into engines of cross-racial reflection, bridge building, and institutional reimagination, rather than falling into a Groundhog Day–like trap of repeated failures. Drawing on her decades of experience researching and working with institutions to help them become more equitable and inclusive, Sturm identifies three persistent paradoxes inherent in anti-racism work. These are the paradox of racialized power, whereby anti-racism requires white people to lean into and yet step back from exercising power; the paradox of racial salience, which means that effective efforts must explicitly name and address race while also framing their goals in universal terms other than race; and the paradox of racialized institutions, which must drive anti-racism work while simultaneously being the target of it. Sturm shows how people and institutions can cultivate the capacity to straddle these contradictions, enabling those in different racial positions to discover their linked fate and become the catalysts for long-term change.

Matt Crawford speaks with Academy award winning documentary filmmaker of My Octopus Teacher and author Craig Foster about his book, My Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World. Craig and I discuss his worldwide phenomenon documentary My Octopus Teacher and how that led to his follow up book My Amphibious Soul. How do we connect with nature in an increasingly disconnected world? Foster takes us through is journey and struggle of maintaining that connection and balancing his own well-being and mental health. We discuss what led him to start a daily routine of immersing himself in the ocean and to maintain that practice for over a decade and how that led to his film My Octopus Teacher. His new book takes us deeper into his methods and emotions and the impact his work has had on him.