Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas

Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can’t answer that question here on Earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society’s most charged conflicts - whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead.Life's Edge: The Search For What it Means to be Alive (Dutton, 2022) is an utterly fascinating investigation that no one but one of the most celebrated science writers of our generation could craft. Zimmer journeys through the strange experiments that have attempted to recreate life. Literally hundreds of definitions of what that should look like now exist, but none has yet emerged as an obvious winner. Lists of what living things have in common do not add up to a theory of life. It's never clear why some items on the list are essential and others not. Coronaviruses have altered the course of history, and yet many scientists maintain they are not alive. Chemists are creating droplets that can swarm, sense their environment, and multiply. Have they made life in the lab?Whether he is handling pythons in Alabama or searching for hibernating bats in the Adirondacks, Zimmer revels in astounding examples of life at its most bizarre. He tries his own hand at evolving life in a test tube with unnerving results. Charting the obsession with Dr. Frankenstein's monster and how Coleridge came to believe the whole universe was alive, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers working on engineering life from the ground up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

Laying the foundation for an understanding of US-Israeli relations, this lively and accessible book provides critical background on the origins and development of the 'special' relations between Israel and the United States.Questioning the usual neo-realist approach to understanding this relationship, David Tal instead suggests that the relations between the two nations were constructed on idealism, political culture, and strategic ties.Based on a diverse range of primary sources collected in archives in both Israel and the United States, The Making of an Alliance: The Origins and Development of the US-Israel Relationship (Cambridge UP, 2022) discusses the development of relations built through constant contact between people and ideas, showing how presidents and Prime Ministers, state officials, and ordinary people from both countries, impacted one another. It was this constancy of religion, values, and history, serving the bedrock of the relations between the two countries and peoples, over which the ephemeral was negotiated.The author, David Tal, is Professor and Yossi Harel Chair in Modern Israel Studies in the Department of History at the University of Sussex. A historian of diplomatic and military history, he has published extensively on Israeli diplomatic and military history, and U.S. diplomatic history and disarmament policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

The neighborhoods we live in impact our lives in so many ways: they determine who we know, what resources and opportunities we have access to, the quality of schools our kids go to, our sense of security and belonging, and even how long we live.Yet too many of us live in neighborhoods plagued by rising crime, school violence, family disintegration, addiction, alienation, and despair. Even the wealthiest neighborhoods are not immune; while poverty exacerbates these challenges, they exist in zip codes rich and poor, rural and urban, and everything in between.In Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time (Little, Brown Spark, 2023), fragile states expert Seth D. Kaplan offers a bold new vision for addressing social decline in America, one zip code at a time. By revitalizing our local institutions—and the social ties that knit them together—we can all turn our neighborhoods into places where people and families can thrive.Readers will meet the innovative individuals and organizations pioneering new approaches to everything from youth mentoring to affordable housing: people like Dreama, a former lawyer whose organization works with local leaders and educators in rural Appalachia to equip young people with the social support they need to succeed in school; and Chris, whose Detroit-based non-profit turns vacant school buildings into community resource hubs.Along the way, Kaplan offers a set of practical lessons to inspire similar work, reminding us that when change is hyperlocal, everyone has the opportunity to contribute.Seth D. Kaplan, Ph.D. is a leading expert on fragile states. He is a Professorial Lecturer in the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Adviser for the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), and consultant to multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, U.S. State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, and OECD as well as developing country governments and NGOs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

Join philosopher and author Eric Hoffer as he dives into the psychology of mass movements in his book 'The True Believer'. Explore the allure of extremist ideologies, the need for belonging in social groups, and the personal motivations behind joining movements. Discover the relevance of Hoffer's insights in today's world and the dynamics of fanaticism.

How does an organization change in an instant, shift its focus and mission in response to a new reality? One volunteer organization did just that. In this podcast, Ronen Koehler shares the ideas, skills and commitments that enabled his organization’s dramatic, consequential change.The nonprofit, Brothers and Sisters for Israel (“Achim Baneshek” in Hebrew) was started by active and former IDF reservists and high-tech leaders who opposed their government’s plan for judicial reform, which would have altered the balance of power among the branches of government. They were joined by many thousands of Israelis who came out every week throughout most of 2023 to demonstrate peacefully against the reform.Then October 7 happened. Hamas’ unprovoked, barbaric attack on peaceful Israeli villages and a music festival – when they raped, burned beheaded, murdered – and kidnapped people, more than 130 of whom are still in captivity today. October 7 changed everything.Instantly, the organization shifted its focus and its mission from protest to rescue and assistance. Today Brothers and Sisters for Israel is the country’s largest civil aid organization.Who are these remarkable volunteers? How did the organization change direction so quickly? And how does it see its future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

Why do we sleep? How can we improve our sleep?A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness—even a primitive habit that we could learn to overcome. Then, an immigrant scientist and his assistant spent a month in the depths of a Kentucky cave, making nationwide headlines and thrusting sleep science to the forefront of our consciousness.In the 1920s, Nathaniel Kleitman founded the world’s first dedicated sleep lab at the University of Chicago, where he subjected research participants (including himself) to a dizzying array of tests and tortures. But the tipping point came in 1938, when his cave experiment awakened the general public to the unknown—and vital—world of sleep. Kleitman went on to mentor the talented but troubled Eugene Aserinsky, whose discovery of REM sleep revealed the astonishing activity of the dreaming brain, and William Dement, a jazz-bass playing revolutionary who became known as the father of sleep medicine. Dement, in turn, mentored the brilliant maverick Mary Carskadon, who uncovered an epidemic of sleep deprivation among teenagers, and launched a global movement to fight it.In Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep (Hachette Books, 2023), award-winning Kenneth Miller weaves together science and history to tell the story of four outsider scientists who took sleep science from fringe discipline to mainstream obsession through spectacular experiments, technological innovation, and single-minded commitment.Mapping the Darkness was named the Best Book of the Year 2023 by the New Yorker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

An award-winning defense expert tells the story of today’s great power rivalry―the struggle to control artificial intelligence.A new industrial revolution has begun. Like mechanization or electricity before it, artificial intelligence will touch every aspect of our lives―and cause profound disruptions in the balance of global power, especially among the AI superpowers: China, the United States, and Europe. Autonomous weapons expert Paul Scharre takes readers inside the fierce competition to develop and implement this game-changing technology and dominate the future.Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Norton, 2023) argues that four key elements define this struggle: data, computing power, talent, and institutions. Data is a vital resource like coal or oil, but it must be collected and refined. Advanced computer chips are the essence of computing power―control over chip supply chains grants leverage over rivals. Talent is about people: which country attracts the best researchers and most advanced technology companies? The fourth “battlefield” is maybe the most critical: the ultimate global leader in AI will have institutions that effectively incorporate AI into their economy, society, and especially their military.Scharre’s account surges with futuristic technology. He explores the ways AI systems are already discovering new strategies via millions of war-game simulations, developing combat tactics better than any human, tracking billions of people using biometrics, and subtly controlling information with secret algorithms. He visits China’s “National Team” of leading AI companies to show the chilling synergy between China’s government, private sector, and surveillance state. He interviews Pentagon leadership and tours U.S. Defense Department offices in Silicon Valley, revealing deep tensions between the military and tech giants who control data, chips, and talent. Yet he concludes that those tensions, inherent to our democratic system, create resilience and resistance to autocracy in the face of overwhelmingly powerful technology.Engaging and direct, Four Battlegrounds offers a vivid picture of how AI is transforming warfare, global security, and the future of human freedom―and what it will take for democracies to remain at the forefront of the world order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

An indispensable guide for telling fact from fiction on the internet—often in less than 30 seconds.The internet brings information to our fingertips almost instantly. The result is that we often jump to thinking too fast, without taking a few moments to verify the source before engaging with a claim or viral piece of media. Information literacy expert Mike Caulfield and educational researcher Sam Wineburg are here to enable us to take a moment for due diligence with this informative, approachable guide to the internet. In Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online (U Chicago Press, 2023), you will learn to identify red flags, get quick context, and make better use of common websites like Google and Wikipedia that can help and hinder in equal measure.This how-to guide will teach you how to use the web to verify the web, quickly and efficiently, including how to• Verify news stories and other events in as little as thirty seconds (seriously)• Determine if the article you’re citing is by a reputable scholar or a quack• Detect the slippery tactics scammers use to make their sites look credible• Decide in a minute if that shocking video is truly shocking• Deduce who’s behind a site—even when its ownership is cleverly disguised• Uncover if that feature story is actually a piece planted by a foreign government• Use Wikipedia wisely to gain a foothold on new topics and leads for digging deeperAnd so much more. Building on techniques like SIFT and lateral reading, Verified will help students and anyone else looking to get a handle on the internet’s endless flood of information through quick, practical, and accessible steps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

What makes a person want to become a terrorist? Who becomes involved in terrorism, and why? In what ways does participating in violent extremism change someone? And how can people become deradicalized?John Horgan―one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of terrorism―takes readers on a globe-spanning journey into the terrorist mindset. Drawing on groundbreaking personal interviews as well as decades of research from psychologists and others, he traces the pathways that lead people into violent extremism and explores what happens to them as their involvement deepens. Horgan provides an up-to-date, evidence-based understanding of the patterns, motives, and mentalities of violent extremists from the Islamic State and al-Shabaab to white supremacists and incels. He argues that there is not a straightforward psychological profile of a terrorist, in part because of the great variety of today’s extremists, who are able to attract a more diverse pool of recruits than ever before. But even though there is no one-size-fits-all profile, psychological study can provide crucial insight into why and how people become terrorists.Accessible and nuanced, Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right (Columbia UP, 2023) is an essential book for readers interested in what psychology can explain about extremist behavior. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

Some people are good at what they do, some are enthusiastic about their work. This guest brings both to bear in his exploration of the ancient past.Today we are privileged to talk with a distinguished figure in the world of archeology whose enthusiasm doesn’t quit. Professor. Aren Maeir is not only an accomplished archaeologist, but he is also a captivating storyteller who brings the past to life through his discoveries.Professor Aren M. Maeir is Director of the Tel es Safi/Gath Archeological Project in Israel. He is an expert in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology, with a particular focus on the Bronze and iron Ages of the Ancient Near East.Professor Maeir is based at (and formerly served as the chairmen of) the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, where he teaches Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology, and serves as the head of the Institute of Archaeology.Maeir is also the co-director of the “Minerva Center for the Relations between Israel and Aram in Biblical Times” (RIAB), and the director of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies. He is also the co-editor of the Israel Exploration Journal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute