On the very first stop of the Revenge of the Tipping Point book tour, Malcolm sat down with David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, at the 92Y in New…
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On the very first stop of the Revenge of the Tipping Point book tour, Malcolm sat down with David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, at the 92Y in New…
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What exactly constitutes a bribe? The Georgetown Massacre continues, and the defense calls a surprise witness.
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In the ‘Varsity Blues’ college admissions scandal, the government indicted more than 50 people. Business leaders. Celebrities. Actors. Rich people accused of paying millions of dollars to get their children…
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Today, we’re sharing an exclusive preview of the audiobook of Revenge of the Tipping Point. All about bank robbers and doctors. Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you get…
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In the season finale, we turn back the clock four years, take a side trip to Alabama, meet an extraordinary man named Billy Garland, and ask: What is the right…
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In the early 1930s, a young German law student spent a year in Arkansas, studying American “race law.” The fight over the 1936 Games provided Americans with a chance to…
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Jesse Owens spent the rest of his life retelling the story of the 1936 games and his encounter with Luz Long. We trace the evolution of a tall tale, discovering…
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The most famous athlete in Berlin was the American sprinter Jesse Owens, and one of the most famous stories from those Games was the unexpected, heartwarming encounter Owens had with…
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A German Jewish high-jumper is determined to get her shot at Olympic greatness. And an idealist faces an existential choice. In the fifth episode of Hilter’s Olympics, Avery Brundage faces…
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The cheerleader-in-chief for the American Olympic movement was a brilliant, self-made Chicago tycoon named Avery Brundage. Brundage did more to ensure the success of the Berlin Games than anyone except…
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With the fate of the Olympics on the line, Charles Sherrill travels to Germany to take up the question of Jewish athletes directly with the Führer. We dig through a…
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Charles Sherrill was everything a gentleman of his generation was supposed to be: rich, handsome, charming, Ivy-Leagued. He was impossibly well connected and extravagantly mustachioed. He was also the person…
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In the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler granted a rare interview to the American journalist Dorothy Thompson. When Hitler later came to power, and prepared to stage the 1936 Berlin Olympics,…
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Adolf Hitler swept to power in Germany in the mid-1930s and immediately set out to stage the most extravagant and spectacular summer Olympics ever, the 1936 Berlin Games. And countries…
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In 1986, Cameron Crowe, the film director, and Nancy Wilson, of the rock group Heart, got married. They honeymooned in a little cabin in the Pacific Northwest, and while they…
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Before M. Night Shyamalan became a household name for his mind bending thrillers like “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs”, he was just a young screenwriter in love. And during those…
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Between her big hits, “Monster” and “Wonder Woman”, Patty Jenkins wrote an R-rated fairy tale, starring a dog. She hoped that the dog would deliver such a great performance that…
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Before Charles Randolph won an Oscar for writing The Big Short, he adapted a memoir called The Birthday Party: the true story of a white man kidnapped by three young…
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This is the story behind a biopic about a chimpanzee named Bubbles, sidekick to the King of Pop. Malcolm talks with the writer, Isaac Adamson, about the project’s rise and…
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Gary Goldman was a writer on “Total Recall”, a Philip K. Dick adaptation directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzeneger. It was a big hit. So why do Gary…
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It’s the mid-2000s, Malcolm and writer/producer Stephen Gaghan (“Traffic”, “Syriana”) are running around Hollywood pitching their scripted adaptation of Blink. This conversation starts with a failed vampire love story, takes…
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Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. On February 29th, Revisionist History is returning with Development Hell, a series of untold stories about Hollywood projects that never left the page.…
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Malcolm Gladwell sits with interior design legend Nate Berkus in a live conversation covering everything from travel, to their moms, prestige TV, and finding the places that can cure us…
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A young family nearly lost everything in the 1970s farm crisis. Then, they invented a board game. Today on the show, producer Ben Naddaff-Hafrey shares a story about how life…
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What does a pilot sound like? Malcolm and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey take off on a long, strange investigation that takes them from Las Vegas to Family Guy to the airspace over…
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Maria Konnikova returns as Revisionist History’s ombudsman. Today, she talks with Malcolm about assault rifles, tales of the two Matt Dillons, moral hazard, localized mortgage rates, and possible solutions to…
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Malcolm Gladwell hosts a rollicking live discussion about Adam Grant’s new book, “Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things,” which is available now. They explore why we overemphasize innate…
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Why is Silicon Valley where it is? How did a narrow valley in California become the epicenter of the computer age? People usually say it’s because of Stanford, or the…
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Abdullah Pratt grew up in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America, then returned to be an ER doctor in his neighborhood hospital. At the end of Revisionist History’s…
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At the end of a forgotten study of convicted murderers, the author left a devastating footnote. We travel to an old plantation house outside Montgomery Alabama to hear his story…
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Robert Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1968, ending his presidential run. Had he been shot today, would he have lived? A what-if story about homicides and medical…
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Malcolm goes to a shooting range in the woods of North Carolina to get a tutorial on the AR-15. It’s scary. It’s ugly. It’s at the center of the gun…
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The longest running television series of the 20th century was Gunsmoke, a western set in the notorious Dodge City, Kansas. Malcolm sweeps away mountains of legal scholarship to make a…
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In the battles over gun rights, a shadowy English nobleman from the 17th century has unexpectedly taken center stage. Who was he? What did he do that has — 300…
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Coming soon – a six-part series from Revisionist History about everything Americans get wrong about guns. The series will air weekly, starting Thursday, August 31st. You can binge listen to…
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Today, another episode from the Revisionist History Live universe. It's an old fashioned lecture, recorded at the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University. Malcolm talks about a totally real…
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Malcolm talks with Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, host of The Last Archive, about the forgotten origins of a major social science, the missing chapter in Ella Fitzgerald’s life, and what it all…
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This season, Malcolm's covered a lot of the problems in higher education. Today on the show: A solution. A big idea being tested at a little school on the shores…
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Maria Konnikova, Revisionist History’s ombudsman—who's also an author, psychologist and professional poker player—is back for another round. This time she reads letters from the audience on the power of debate,…
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Consider this your invitation to the greatest award show no one’s ever heard of: the Pushkin Prizes, created to honor the giants of the American education system. This year, Malcolm…
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In a live conversation taped at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Malcolm and his Martian friend consult athletes Linda Flanagan and Lauren Fleshman on how to level…
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In a live conversation taped at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Malcolm chats with his old friend and New Yorker magazine colleague, Adam Gopnik, about Adam’s latest…
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What do you do after you've been humiliated at the Munk Debates? You call in the A-Team. The Brooklyn Debate League is a nonprofit organization that supports Speech & Debate…
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Malcolm talks with his old friend, the brilliant science writer Michael Specter, about the future of life on Earth. Michael's response to the Covid-19 pandemic was to create a new…
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Today, we dig into the fascinating life of someone Malcolm knows very well: fellow Pushkin host Justin Richmond. Malcolm and Justin talk about being the product of biracial marriages, surviving…
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Author, psychologist and professional poker player Maria Konnikova joins the show as Revisionist History’s first ombudsman. Maria advocates for the audience, reading letters from listeners and challenging Malcolm on matters…
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Every writer, podcaster and storyteller obsesses about how they begin a story. But they rarely pay enough attention to endings. Nothing matters more. Malcolm and Mike Birbiglia solve endings for…
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Lester Glick’s year in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment cost him his hoped-for career and also left him with an eating disorder for the rest of his life. But like many…
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The Minnesota Starvation Experiment could never be done today. No scientist could get permission to starve 36 healthy people for close to a year. But why? Revisionist History tries to…
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In the final year of the Second World War, 36 men spent a year in a dingy set of rooms under the University of Minnesota football stadium. They were part…
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Did Malcolm Gladwell blow it in his bestselling book Outliers? What if all he did was write a primer for neurotic helicopter parents? To find out, Revisionist History descends on…
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Malcolm tells the story of how his parents and their friends sponsored three Vietnamese refugees, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. And wonders: do we underestimate the value of…
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You thought the antics of Will, Grace, Jack and Karen were just harmless fun. Oh please. Revisionist History dives deep into a television sitcom that you may not have realized…
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A legendary Hollywood mogul, a famous author, a fatal drunk driving accident, and a brilliant bit of screenwriting, left on the cutting room floor. Revisionist History engages in a pop…
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A mystery that begins with the half-baked idea of an obscure California bureaucrat in the 1930’s and ends with one of the worst public crises in American history. Chicken Little…
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A century ago, a mysterious and disfiguring disease was finally cured by an experiment in Akron, Ohio . . . with a condiment. We ask: it is time to return…
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What if you could design any experiment you wanted? Without worrying about money, ethics, logistics, or even the laws of nature? Revisionist History kicks off the season by giving some…
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Revisionist History is back! And obsessed with ... experiments. Natural experiments. Thought experiments. Failed experiments. Experiments that end up in salt factories and file drawers filled with carbon copies. Not…
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If recent times have shown us anything, it’s that many problems can not be fixed by humans alone. In the Season 6 finale, Revisionist History turns to another species for…
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Tabletop Exercise Map, Grid, Unit Markers from a wargame analyzing NATO’s defense capabilities in the Baltics (See David Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson, “Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank”)The best…
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Is there a right way to do your laundry? Of course there is. A long look at the science of cleaning your clothes.RESOURCES Elizabeth Morgan, Timothy J. Foxon, and Anne…
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Revisionist History presents: The Little Mermaid... our way. The grand finale of our three-part series. Featuring the voices of Jodie Foster, Glenn Close, Dax Shepard, Brit Marling, and many more.
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The quest to revise The Little Mermaid continues. This week, we call in the experts. Part two of three. RESOURCES Angus Fletcher, Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the…
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Vintage engraving of a scene from the Little Mermaid, a fairy tale by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in…
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Helen Levitt’s testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951 [full testimony here]Helen Slote Levitt was on her way to the good life in 1950s Hollywood. Then one day,…
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A historically Black university in New Orleans is beloved by everyone – except the US News best colleges rankings. We hack our way back into the algorithm and show how…
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For 30 years, US News & World Report has been using a secret formula to rank the best colleges and universities in the United States. As a public service to…
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The beach ball test.Revisionist History travels to Phoenix, Arizona to learn about the future of the automobile. It’s not what you think. It’s much better.Warning: Some of the actions depicted…
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The sixth season of Revisionist History is underway, and Malcolm’s finally out of the house. We play chicken with cars, war games with wonks, and travel deep under the sea.…
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Whenever Malcolm and Adam Grant cross paths on the book tour circuit, it’s always a good time. Here are pieces of two conversations from Clubhouse: one about Malcolm’s The Bomber…
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We’re back in Atlanta - this week with jaunts to Jamaica, Kenya, court-side NBA games, and a deep dive into fine art forgery. Plus, Malcolm finally gets his big break…
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Revisionist History takes a trip to Malcolm’s favorite city and gets a tour of Emory University, meets 3000 non-human primates and 8000 rodents, and dusts off an old TV pilot…
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Lessons from the world’s most perfect memorial.SOURCES AND LINKS Changing Homelessness Website Photos of the 9/11 Memorial Tree Planting
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Getty ImagesA billionaire turned recluse befriends a minor novelist. Together they seize the publicâs imagination. Kind of. The true story behind the greatest autobiography youâve never read.SOURCES AND LINKS Orson…
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The delicate science of hiring nihilism, examined in five deeply-personal case studies.SOURCES AND LINKS The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull “Kinetic Sculpture Race” in Humboldt County, CA…
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Getty ImagesHow do we remember one of the deadliest nights in human history? We don’t. Part four.SOURCES AND LINKS Full interview with Korean War veteran Bill Sinclair Full interview with…
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The arguments, accidents, cold-blooded logic and sheer serendipity that led to the longest night of the Second World War. Part three.SOURCES AND LINKS Army Air Force filmTokyo, narrated by Ronald…
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Basement laboratories. Mad scientists. Sticky gels, and a bake-off in the desert. The strange story behind Curtis LeMay’s weapon of choice. Part two.SOURCES AND LINKS The Scientific Method: A Personal…
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Getty ImagesOn the eve of the Second World War, a band of visionaries at Maxwell Air Force Base tried to reimagine modern warfare. They failed. Part one on the extraordinary…
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In Bolivia, a political activist radically reforms the voting process for... student council elections. Who else does he convince? Revisionist History. And maybe a fancy private school in New Jersey.SOURCES…
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An escape from war-torn Germany. Lavish dinners with Hollywood royalty. A Swedish baron and a dime-store heiress: we explore the long journey of a Van Gogh still life — and…
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Dragons hoard treasure, deep in their lairs. They don’t show it off to their neighbors. Revisionist History applies dragon psychology to the strange world of art museums, with help from…
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Malcolm Gladwell debuts his first fireside chat, answering burning questions from Revisionist History listeners in this bonus episode. He lets us listen in on a conversation with Conan O’Brien and…
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Malcolm Gladwell speaks with Oprah Winfrey about his new book Talking to Strangers, the one mystery he hopes might be resolved in our lifetimes, and the ways we could all…
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On February 24, 1996, Cuban fighter jets shot down two small planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, an organization in Florida that tried to spot refugees fleeing Cuba in…
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Throughout the 1960s, a biologist named Howard Temin became convinced that something wasn’t right in science’s understanding of viruses. His colleagues dismissed him as a heretic. He turned out to…
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You thought that there was only one kind of chutzpah. Wrong. There’s two. Revisionist History tells the story of the Mafia’s showdown with a legendary Hollywood producer, in a battle…
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Two seasons after its investigation of the decline of McDonalds french fries, Revisionist History returns to fast-food’s high-tech test kitchens. This time the subject is cultural appropriation. The case study…
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An unarmed man is shot to death by police. How does the Jesuitical idea of “disordered attachments” help us make sense of what happened? Part three of three.INVESTIGATION OF THE…
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John Rock was the co-inventor of the birth control pill — and a committed Catholic. He wanted his church to approve of his invention. What happens when a layman takes…
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Revisionist History tries to make sense of the conundrum of PED use in baseball, using the 500-year-old philosophical techniques of St. Ignatius. Part one of a three-part series on the…
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If you disagree with someone — if you find what they think appalling — is there any value in talking to them? In the early 1970s, the talk show host…
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Bohea, the aroma of tire fire, Mob Wives, smugglers, “bro” tea, and what it all means to the backstory of the American Revolution. Malcolm tells the real story on what…
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A weird speech by Antonin Scalia, a visit with some serious legal tortoises, and a testy exchange with the experts at the Law School Admissions Council prompts Malcolm to formulate…
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Malcolm challenges his assistant Camille to the Law School Admissions Test. He gets halfway through, panics, runs out of time, and wonders: why does the legal world want him to…
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The one song The King couldn’t sing.Elvis Presley returned from his years in the army to record one of his biggest hits, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” But he could never…
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“She was Joan of Arc, Madame Curie, and Florence Nightingale — all wrapped up in one.”One long, hot afternoon on Capitol Hill, in the summer of 1991, the most powerful…
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Epidemics of fear repeat themselves. The first time as tragedy. The second time as farce. Margit Hamosh? Definitely farce.What was it that Margit Hamosh did? What was her alleged fraud?…
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Crucial life lessons from the end of hockey games, Idris Elba, and some Wall Street guys with a lot of time on their hands.Revisionist History wades into the crowded self-help…
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Q: Was there a period where you felt you had something to prove? A: The first 45 years of my life.Sammy Davis Junior was one of the world’s greatest entertainers…
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Good fences make good neighbors. Or maybe not.General Leonard Chapman guided the Marines Corp through some of the most difficult years in its history. He was brilliant, organized, decisive and…
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"Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft."NBC news anchor Brian Williams told a war story on national television. It wasn’t true. But does that make him a…
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An early morning raid, a house-full of Nazis, the world’s greatest harmonica player, and a dashingly handsome undercover spy. What could possibly go wrong? One early morning in July of…
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“He called to wish me ‘Happy Birthday.’ Then he said, ‘I’m failing everything.’” In 2013, Malcolm gave a talk at the University of Pennsylvania on the subject of proof. How…
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The complete, unabridged history of the world’s most controversial semicolon. US CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE IV, SECTION 3 New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new…
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In a special live taping at the 92nd Street Y in New York, Malcolm talks with WorkLife’s Adam Grant about how to avoid doing highly undesirable tasks, what makes an…
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What is a son’s obligation to his father? A cardiologist in Minnesota searches through the basement of his childhood home for a missing box of data from a long-ago experiment.…
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They made the world’s greatest French Fry. Then they threw it away.McDonald’s used to make the best fast food french fries in the world — until they changed their recipe…
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Arrested, arraigned, indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to die in the electric chair in 24 hours. A man named Willie Nash is arrested for the murder of a white man…
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“Nobody was interested in justice.” The first of a two-part story about the lawyers who helped crack the colorlines of the Jim Crow South. A man rapes a woman. Vernon…
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Why country music makes you cry, and rock and roll doesn’t: A musical interpretation of divided America. Revisionist History goes to Nashville to talk with Bobby Braddock, who has written…
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The friendship that changed the course of World War II. How does friendship influence political power? The story of Winston Churchill’s close friend and confidant — an eccentric scientist named…
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“Oh, Mac. What did you do?” Birmingham, 1963. The image of a police dog viciously attacking a young black protester shocks the nation. The picture, taken in the midst of…
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A landmark Supreme Court case. A civil rights revolution. Why has everyone forgotten what happened next? Brown v Board of Education might be the most well-known Supreme Court decision, a…
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What happens when a terrorist has a change of heart? An Islamic militant, who left a trail of destruction in Europe, crosses over to work for the CIA. And then,…
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Rich people and their addiction to golf: a philosophical investigation. In the middle of Los Angeles — a city with some of the most expensive real estate in the world…
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In the political turmoil of mid-1990s Britain, a brilliant young comic named Harry Enfield set out to satirize the ideology and politics of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His parodies became…
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A 98-year-old minister takes on his church over the subject of gay marriage—and teaches the rest of us what it means to stand up in protest. A pastor officiates at…
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In the summer and fall of 2009, hundreds of Toyota owners came forward with an alarming allegation: Their cars were suddenly and uncontrollably accelerating. Toyota was forced to recall 10…
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In 1984, Elvis Costello released what he would say later was his worst record: Goodbye Cruel World. Among the most discordant songs on the album was the forgettable “The Deportees…
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In the early ’90s, Hank Rowan gave $100 million to a university in New Jersey, an act of extraordinary generosity that helped launch the greatest explosion in educational philanthropy since…
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Bowdoin College and Vassar College are two elite private schools that compete for the same students. But one of those schools is trying hard to address the problem of rich…
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Of the tens of thousands of talented, low-income students who graduate from high school every year in the United States, most never make it to universities appropriate to their gifts.…
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Wilt Chamberlain’s brilliant career was marred by one, deeply inexplicable decision: He chose a shooting technique that made him one of the worst foul shooters in basketball—even though he had…
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In the early 1960s the Pentagon set up a top-secret research project in an old villa in downtown Saigon. The task? To interview captured North Vietnamese soldiers and guerrillas in…
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In the late 19th century, a painting titled The Roll Call, by a virtually unknown artist, took England by storm. But after that brilliant first effort, the artist all but…
