You’re listening to What Rough Beast!
We are Virginia Heffernan and Stephen Metcalf, and today we’re talking with the great writer and reporter John Jeremiah Sullivan. We discuss:
* John’s forthcoming book "The Prime Minister of Paradise" about Christian Gottlieb Priber, a radical Enlightenment thinker who established a utopian experiment among the Cherokee in 1730s America
* How Priber's vision for "Paradise" included revolutionary principles that were ahead of their time: religious tolerance, racial equality, democratic governance, and rejection of slavery
* The forgotten history of radical Enlightenment ideas in early America and how they influenced (but weren't fully embraced by) the founding fathers
* The parallel between today's political threats to democracy and the tension between enlightenment and anti-enlightenment forces that has existed throughout American history
* The importance of identifying and defending the core enlightenment principles that make the American experiment worth fighting for
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