The podcast taking a retrospective journey through the Louis Theroux back catalogue — to see if they still ❤️ him Hosted by Matthew Dunne-Miles and Alex Watson
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On pretentious movie talk we discuss films in a way that makes us sound smarter than we actually are.
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John Adams, the first American ambassador to the Netherlands, once said “Let us tenderly and kindly cherish...the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” The John Adams Institute has brought the best and the brightest of American thinking to Amsterdam for three decades. We have amassed a unique archive of great thinkers, speakers and writers, from Spike Lee to Francis Fukuyama to Al Gore. Now we’re sharing this treasure trove of thought and word with you. We believ ...
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This fourth episode of the Future 400 podcast is all about theater and dance. Battery Dance, New York City's longest running public dance festival, is hosting the Dutch-Turkish choreographer Rutkay Özpinar from Korzo Theater as part of the Future 400 exchange. And the Dutch theater director Ira Kip is working on her new play, Kings… Come Home, a re…
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In this special mini-episode, Matt and Alex discuss the When Louis Met series as a whole and answer questions from listeners.By Alex Watson & Matthew Dunne-Miles
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Design your look, design your life. Rambler Studios is a creative platform for raw talent. It offers young people a safe space where they can discover what they’re good at and find a sense of belonging – and maybe a career in street fashion. Started by Carmen van der Vecht in Amsterdam in 2010, it has branched out to New York’s Lower East Side. It …
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FUTURE 400: From the Streets to the Heart
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This second episode of the Future 400 podcast looks at work by Dutch and American photographers who are part of the annual international photo festival Photoville in Lower Manhattan. Dutch photographer Ernst Coppejans delves deep into the lives of LGBTQIA+ people living on the streets in New York. Kennedi Carter, a young Black photographer from the…
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Matt and Alex discuss When Louis Met Max Clifford, in which Louis spends time with the celebrity publicist who, further down the line, was convicted for sex offences after being arrested as part of Operation Yewtree. Featuring an interview with Scottish journalist Catherine Deveney, who interviewed Clifford multiple times.Episode artwork by Tara Du…
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Future 400 is a bi-weekly four-part podcast series from the Dutch Consulate in New York. It is part of the two-year cultural program of the same name, marking the 400th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam, the city that became New York. Each episode highlights a selection of the creative collaborations between artists, communities and inst…
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Andrea Elliott: Family Homelessness in the US
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Andrea Elliot’s 2022 Pulitzer winning book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City, follows eight dramatic years in the life of a young woman named Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled wat…
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George Packer: America in Crisis and Renewal
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2024 is an election year. And in his book Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal', George Packer makes the case for why this may be the most important election since the civil war. Packer accepts that America may be “a failed state”. A state that is in a “cold civil war” between four incompatible versions of the US: the Free America of liber…
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Nikole Hannah-Jones: A New American Origin Story
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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 project has inspired both throngs of like-minded people as well as a severe backlash. This hasn’t stopped her from devoting her career to exposing systemic and institutional racism in the United States. The 1619 Project WAS published in New York Times Magazine—and is now a successful podc…
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Mark Leibovich: Thank You for Your Servitude
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2024 is an election year and Donald Trump is running again. This makes journalist and political commentator Mark Leibovich’s second nonfiction blockbuster Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission, particularly timely. Mr. Leibovich sketches the political landscape of Washington during the Trump presidency.…
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From Hollywood to Hanoi, Jane Fonda has endeared and enraged Americans for decades with her sparkling performances and outspoken views. Following an eclectic career as an actress, activist and fitness guru plus a string of high-profile husbands, the acclaimed Fonda tells all in her autobiography My Life So Far. In this episode of Bright Minds, Jane…
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Paul Theroux: On Missionaries, China and Dickens
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From Hemingway to Dickens, from Nabokov to Twain, from Isak Dinesen to Graham Greene, many of the world’s great writers were also great travel writers. Paul Theroux, arguably the most renowned living travel writer, has capped a fifty-year writing career with The Tao of Travel, a collection of travel stories – by himself and others. Join us for a tr…
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President Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor argues in his important book that in the last thirty years capitalism has flourished at the expense of democracy. Robert Reich – one of America’s most renowned economists – says people now see themselves as buyers and sellers first and citizens only later, if at all. The rise of supercapitalism has…
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Teju Cole is rapidly becoming a new literary sensation in America. His novel Open City – which won the 2012 Pen/Hemingway Award and the New York City Book Award – is unlike anything you’ve ever read. The narrator, Julius, is a Nigerian psychiatry student who lives in Manhattan and likes to walk in the city. As he does, he has encounters. Most are s…
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4.7 When Louis Met Keith Harris and Orville in Panto
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Matt and Alex chat about When Louis Met Keith Harris and Orville in Panto, where Theroux goes behind the scenes with the veteran ventriloquist and his fluffy, green duck sidekick as they prepare for a pantomime in Crewe. Featuring an interview with former Brookside actress Ann Marie Davies, who starred as Cinderella in the production.Episode artwor…
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Mark Godsey and Rickey Jackson: Surviving Injustice
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Rickey Jackson was sentenced to 39 years in prison for crimes he didn’t commit. Innocent, and unjustly convicted of murder and robbery, his is the longest wrongful imprisonment in US history. The John Adams Institute was honored to host Rickey, who shared the lessons he learned about freedom and forgiveness. The sole evidence against Rickey was the…
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Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore came to the John Adams in April of 2023 to talk about her keenly crafted and sourced historical book “New York Burning”. It’s New York City, 1741: fires break out throughout the city. Fueled by the paranoia that accompanies hearsay, the authorities find a convenient scapegoat on which to pin…
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Matt and Alex revisit When Louis Met Chris Eubank, in which Louis spends time with the former boxer at home and out and about after his retirement from the sport. Featuring an interview with veteran boxing commentator and journalist, Mike Costello.Episode artwork by Tara Dunne (www.taradunne.co.uk)By Alex Watson & Matthew Dunne-Miles
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The latest massacres in Bucha and Mariupol have shown that Vladimir Putin has no regard for human life – he only cares about power and money. In Putin’s eyes, money is power, and vice versa. That’s why freezing the assets of Russians tied to Putin’s regime is so important. Between 1996 and 2005, American investor Bill Browder ran the largest foreig…
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For years, fringe ideologues were able to use Facebook undisturbed to promote their extreme ideologies and conspiracies. In An Ugly Truth, New York Times tech reporters Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel reveal how Facebook’s algorithms sacrificed everything for user engagement and profit, while creating a misinformation epicenter and violating the pr…
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Carol Anderson: A Fatally Unequal America
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On paper, every American has the right to vote and – thanks to the Second Amendment – to bear arms. But in reality, says Carol Anderson, both these rights are undermined by the racism which is so deeply rooted in American society. And that, in turn, undermines democracy. Anderson is a professor of African-American studies at Emory University in Atl…
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Matt and Alex discuss When Louis Met Ann Widdecombe, following the daily life of the politician during a Conservative Party leadership race. Featuring an interview with the episode's director, longtime Louis Theroux collaborator and Netflix documentary features commissioner, Kate Townsend.Episode artwork by Tara Dunne (www.taradunne.co.uk)…
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In December of 2010, The John Adams Institute hosted an evening with the great film director, Spike Lee. Among many things, Spike talked about how New York City’s historically hot and dangerous summer of ‘77 got him started in filmmaking. Mr. Lee’s talk also encapsulates America at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The US and Europe …
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On September 23, 2008, The John Adams Institute hosted an evening with David Sedaris. The humorist and author of 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' and 'Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim' brought his entourage to Amsterdam for the Dutch publication of his latest collection of wisdom, 'When You Are Engulfed in Flames'. Sedaris instructed the John Adams …
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For 20 years, the John Adams Institute has organized a lecture program called The Quincy Club at schools all through the Netherlands to help young audiences better understand American culture. In 2020, the Quincy Club took a closer look at California and Silicon Valley. You know the names: Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix, Tesla, Ebay, Intel and mo…
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4.4 When Louis Met the Hamiltons (Part II)
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The second part of Matt and Alex's revisit to When Louis Met the Hamiltons, following former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine as they become embroiled in an unexpected scandal. Featuring an interview with the Hamiltons, 20 years on from filming with Louis.Episode artwork by Tara Dunne (www.taradunne.co.uk)…
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On February 04, 1999, in celebration of 150 years of Dutch constitutional law, the John Adams Institute welcomed Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. RBG sat down for an interview and waxed legal about things like how unimportant the Supreme Court used to be, why it’s good justices serve for life and wha…
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If you don’t know Ruby Wax’s name, that’s because, even though she’s American, her career has been largely in the UK. But you may be aware of a little show called Absolutely Fabulous in which she both acted and served as the script editor. Despite her success, she’s been open about her struggles with depression. She even dropped comedy for a while …
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People are passionate about Anthony Doerr. And why not, he’s one of America’s great novelists and storytellers. He was in Amsterdam 2015 on the back of his book, All the Light We Cannot See, a masterful and moving novel about two young people during World War II, which rapidly became a New York Times #1 bestseller. Support the Show.…
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David Frum is a Canadian-American political commentator who is currently a senior editor at The Atlantic as well as an MSNBC contributor' and author, of Trumpocalypse. In Trumpocalypse, Frum digs deep into the causes of America’s tragic national fragmentation. And he urges the GOP to rethink its future, saying that “no two-party system can remain a…
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Elizabeth Kolbert: Engineering the Anthropocene
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If we can just get through the 21st century, humanity might have a chance, says Elizabeth Kolbert. We have already intervened in the earth’s system to the extent that we are now living in the ‘Anthropocene’. Maybe we can buy time by intervening even more, with so-called geo-engineering: turning carbon emissions to stone, for example, genetically mo…
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4.3 When Louis Met the Hamiltons (Part I)
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The first of a two-parter, Matt and Alex revisit When Louis Met the Hamiltons, following former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine as they become embroiled in an unexpected scandal. Featuring an interview with the Hamiltons, 20 years on from filming with Louis.Episode artwork by Tara Dunne (www.taradunne.co.uk)…
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Gore Vidal was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. A lifelong Democrat, Gore ran for political office twice and was a seasoned political commentator. As well known for his essays as his novels, Vidal wrote for The Nation, New Statesman, The New York Review of Books and Esquire. Vidal’s major subject was…
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On March 11, 2022, Hanya Yanagihara returned to the John Adams for a conversation about 'To Paradise', her three-part story across three centuries, centered around New York City. To Paradise is a revisionist American history – not identical to the America as we know it but a ‘what if’ narrative, invested in raising concerns about America as a natio…
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The late, great Christopher Hitchens came to Amsterdam in 2008 touring his book: God is Not Great. Hitchens excelled at polemics. He considered himself to be politically liberal and yet expressed his full-throated support for the war in Iraq and called Hillary Clinton “an aging and resentful female”. And then there were the blistering attacks on re…
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A gem from our archive! Way back on March 14, 1993, the then fresh new Southern author, Donna Tartt, visited the John Adams hot on the heels of her massive bestseller 'The Secret History', currently translated into 24 languages and counting. 'The Secret History' takes place at a fictional college where a close-knit group of six students embark upon…
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Matt and Alex discuss When Louis Met Paul and Debbie, where Theroux gets to know celebrity magician Paul Daniels and his wife and stage assistant, Debbie McGee. Featuring an interview with Nima Kiann, founder and artistic director of Les Ballets Persans.Episode artwork by Tara Dunne (www.taradunne.co.uk)…
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How do democracies die? Not at the hands of generals, but of elected leaders – presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. That is the unsettling conclusion of Harvard professor Daniel Ziblatt’s highly praised book How Democracies Die. Ziblatt and his co-author Steven Levitsky have analyzed the collapse of…
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In 2009, one of the most important American writers of her generation took the John Adams Institute stage for the first time. Toni Morrison—as renowned for her magical realism as for her portrayal of the African American struggle—is that rare writer who is acclaimed by critics and adored by the reading public. In her novel, A Mercy, a mother gives …
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The John Adams Institute, in co-operation with Prometheus Publishing House, proudly presented an evening with Jonathan Franzen, winner of the National Book Award 2001. Franzen discussed his novel The Corrections, which has been translated into Dutch under the title De Correcties. Michaël Zeeman, renowned literary critic for the Dutch newspaper de V…
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Patrick Radden Keefe: Drugs, Death and Money
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The great American author and investigative journalist, Patrick Radden Keefe, knows irony when he hears it. Such as when the patriarch of what would become an infamous family, imparted these words to his sons: “I leave you my good name”. And that name is...Sackler: frequent visitors to some of the world’s great museums and educational institutions …
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In the first instalment of the When Louis Met series, Matt and Alex discuss the pilot episode, where Theroux spends time with former British TV personality Jimmy Savile, filmed before his crimes were known. Featuring an interview with director of Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, Rowan Deacon.Episode artwork by Tara Dunne (www.taradunne.co.uk)…
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Christiane Amanpour: Reporting while Female
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Forbes magazine called Christiane Amanpour of the “100 Most Powerful Women.” On January 25th 2019, CNN’s chief international anchor and host of ‘Amanpour’, joined the Dutch journalist Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal, for what turned out to be a witty, revealing and slightly flirty conversation. Amanpour’s career began in 1990 as a correspondent for CNN, …
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From Amsterdam...this is the John Adams Podcast, a treasure trove of the best and the brightest of American thinking. This week’s guest is indeed one of the brightest: Francis Fukuyama, the writer, thinker and teacher. You may remember him from his book: "The End of History", where he proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy as something of a so…
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This week’s guest is Megan Twohey, whose book about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse of women in Hollywood was also, as she put it, “an X-ray into the abuse of power”. The #metoo movement really got going after New York Times journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor published their investigative articles about Harvey Weinstein. They followed with th…
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Seven years ago, Garry Kasparov came to Amsterdam and predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also described Vladimir Putin’s psychology and motivations in a way that you hear in every current affairs program nowadays. Back in 2015, Obama was president, Russia was actively bombing targets in Syria, Syrian refugees were literally washing up on…
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Every week we point out that we get the likes of Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz to grace an Amsterdam stage and impart his wisdom to our audiences. Well, it’s time. In this episode, Joseph Stiglitz came to the DeLaMar Theater in the Dutch capital in November of 2019, to talk about his book, People, Power, and Profits. In People, Power, and Prof…
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Russell Shorto: From New Amsterdam to New York
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Russell Shorto is an American historian, journalist and author. In 2004, he published The Island at the Center of the World: the Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America, for which he spent many hours in the New Netherland archives. It's an eye-opening book, and a marvelous historical retelling of the Dutch colony …
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As John Adams was one of the great men of his era, we thought our next episode should be with one of the great people of our time: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Brooklyn born and raised, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to President Biden. This was an online interview conducted by Dam…
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Michael Pollan’s book, How To Change Your Mind, has moved on from his research on food to delve into the world of psychedelics and their medical use. In the past decade, there has been renewed interest in psychedelic research as a form of psychiatric therapy, and to Pollan’s mind this renaissance is long overdue. In this episode, Pollan makes a str…
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