Uncommon Knowledge

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. In this interview, Ferguson discusses his stunning essay “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” published in December 2023 in the Free Press. The essay delves deeply into the changes Ferguson has observed in his 30-year career as an academic, especially over the past 10 years. He describes in the opening of his essay: “I have . . . witnessed the willingness of trustees, donors, and alumni to tolerate the politicization of American universities by an illiberal coalition of ‘woke’ progressives, adherents of ‘critical race theory,’ and apologists for Islamist extremism.”

Ferguson also discusses the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay and what it means for all institutions of higher learning, as well as putting forth some solutions for addressing these issues.

Between now and the spring, the Supreme Court will rule on at least three cases involving Donald Trump. Two questions: What should the Court’s rulings be? What will they be? To answer those questions and more, we turn to our in-house legal experts: NYU Law School’s Richard Epstein and Berkeley Law School’s John Yoo.

Tom Cotton has been a US Senator since 2015. Before that he served for two years in the US House of Representatives from the Arkansas Fourth District, after defeating a two-term Democratic incumbent. Cotton served in the US Army, where he was stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. In this wide-ranging interview, conducted in the Hugh Scott Room in the US Capitol, Senator Cotton opines on a variety of issues, including the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the looming conflict with China over Taiwan; his “war” with the New York Times; what can be done about the lack of trust in US institutions; and why he’s not running for president in 2024.

Dan Blumenthal is the director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute. During the administration of President George W. Bush, he served in the Department of Defense. Blumenthal’s most recent book is The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State.

Elbridge Colby is a founder of the new think tank the Marathon Initiative. During the administration of President Donald Trump, he served in the Department of Defense. Colby’s most recent publication is The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Colby and Blumenthal discuss what the United States and its allies can do practically to deter China’s expansion in the South China Sea and its aggression toward Taiwan.

Not yet 40 years old, Republican congressman Mike Gallagher has been elected four times to the House of Representatives from Wisconsin’s eighth district, which includes Green Bay and, more importantly, Lambeau Field, home of the Packers. He’s currently serving as the chair of the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He joins in a wide-ranging conversation to discuss the Chinese threat to Taiwan, TikTok’s dangers to American youth, who actually is the fastest man in Congress, his advice for Pope Francis, and how to be a Packers fan in troubled times.

The past several years have seen consequential changes for NCAA schools and their athletes: the introduction of name, image, and likeness rules; the establishment of the transfer portal; and the realignment of the conferences in which all major college teams and athletes compete—and critically, the distribution of the TV monies the conferences generate. To guide us through this sea change, we drafted two of the most knowledgeable people in sports: former US secretary of state, current director of the Hoover Institution, co-owner of the Denver Broncos, and most recently, special advisor on athletics to the president of Stanford University (more on what that means in the show) Condoleezza Rice; and former Stanford and Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck (also the number-one pick in the 2012 NFL draft). Together, Rice and Luck explain the new terrain of college athletics, how it affects every sport played in the academic realm, what it means for both the Olympics and pro sports, and most importantly, how it will change the lives of college athletes.

Elizabeth Economy did her undergraduate work at Swarthmore, earned a master’s at Stanford, and holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan. She served at the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Economic Forum before coming to the Hoover Institution in 2020. Dr. Economy is the author of half a dozen books, including her most recent volume, The World According to China. She has just returned to Hoover after a two-year leave of absence in Washington, where she served as senior advisor for China to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. In this wide-ranging interview, Dr. Economy discusses China’s ambition for controlling international internet traffic and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambition to reclaim “Chinese centrality on the global stage.” Dr. Economy also compares the China policies of the Trump and Biden administrations and notes that both administrations—while agreeing on very little else—agree that China is a danger and must be dealt with, especially with regard to Taiwan.

Thomas Sowell, age 93, is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. With his usual fierceness and feistiness intact, Dr. Sowell returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson for a second round of discussion on his latest book (he’s published over 40 titles over his career), Social Justice Fallacies. In this installment, Dr. Sowell discusses in great detail the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and his decades-long friendship with Justice Clarence Thomas. Dr. Sowell also reacts to some YouTube videos of young people reacting to him.

Thomas Sowell, age 93, is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. With his usual fierceness and feistiness intact, Dr. Sowell returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss his latest book (he’s published over 40 titles over his career), Social Justice Fallacies. In this wide-ranging interview, Dr. Sowell discusses the consequences of our society’s embarking on a quest for equality at the expense of merit. Even if every group in society is given an equal chance, he explains, these groups will end up with disparate levels of income or education. Dr. Sowell also criticizes the concept of systemic racism; his research reveals it doesn’t appear to apply to blacks (watch the interview to see why that word isn’t capitalized here) who are married. The interview concludes with Dr. Sowell reading a moving passage from his book.

Steven Koonin is one of America's most distinguished scientists, with decades of experience, including a stint as undersecretary of science at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration. In this wide-ranging discussion, based in part on his 2021 book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Koonin gives a more refined look at the science behind the climate issue than the media typically offers, guiding us through the evidence and its implications. As Koonin explains in this interview, he was “shaken by the realization that climate science was far less mature than I had supposed” and that the “overwhelming evidence” of catastrophic implications of anthropogenic global warming wasn’t so overwhelming after all.