Little Atoms

In this episode of Little Atoms from 2009, Noam Chomsky examines the Obama administration and asks what has really changed.Chomsky describes the first term of the Bush administration as “off the spectrum” in both aggression and arrogance. US international prestige sank to the lowest point since measured. It is hardly surprising therefore that the next candidate should have moved towards the centre.Violent interventionism has gone hand in hand with American exceptionalism for centuries, says Chomsky. Obama’s ideology, according to Chomsky has been “less extreme but basically hasn’t changed.”Chomsky explores the history and dangers of humanitarian intervention.“You can’t say it can never be benevolent but there is a heavy burden of proof. It makes sense to talk about the responsibility to protect, but it should not be left in the hands of violent, aggressive powers”.The internet played a prominent role in changing popular activism and proliferating conspiracy theories under the Bush regime. Through the internet, the 9/11 movement diverted people away from activism on serious issues.“It stopped questions on things the administration would rather keep secret.”But Obama has found the internet useful. Chomsky argues has it been “a very effective cult generator” and crucial in the construction of Brand Obama.Obama, like Bush, used the internet to distract activists from protesting state crimes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

458: George Saunders & Kathryn HughesGeorge Saunders is the author of nine books, including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the inaugural Folio Prize (for the best work of fiction in English) and the Story Prize (best short-story collection). He has received MacArthur and Guggen­heim fellowships and the PEN/Malamud Prize for excellence in the short story, and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, he was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University. His debut novel is Lincoln in the Bardo.Kathryn Hughes is the author of award-winning biographies of Mrs Beeton and George Eliot, both of which were filmed for the BBC. For the past fifteen years she has been a literary critic and columnist for the Guardian. Educated at Oxford University, and with a PhD in Victorian Studies, she is currently Professor of Life Writing at the University of East Anglia and Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society. Her latest book is Victorians Undone: Tales of Flesh in the Age of Decorum. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A journalist, aviation blogger, documentary producer and crash investigator, Christine Negroni has more than fifteen years' experience observing and participating in the international effort to create safer skies. She currently reports for the New York Times, ABC News and Air & Space. Christine is the author of The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World’s Most Mysterious Air Disasters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brenna Hassett is an archaeologist who specializes in using clues from the human skeleton to understand how people lived and died in the past. She has worked on excavation sites all over the world including Roman-period burials near the Giza pyramids, remote Greek islands, a Buddhist monastery in northern Thailand, and the famous central Anatolian site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. Brenna is one-quarter of the TrowelBlazers project, an outreach, advocacy and academic effort to celebrate women’s contributions to archaeology. Brenna is the author of Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Stevenson is a writer, broadcaster, futurologist and founder of The League of PragmaticOptimists. He has written for Radio 4, The Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian and New Statesman,and is the author of the critically acclaimed An Optimist’s Tour of the Future. He lives in London and is an adviser to (among others) The Virgin Earth Challenge, Civilised Bank and The Atlas of the Future.Mark’s latest book is We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World.Rory Clements won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award in 2010 for his second novel, Revenger.He is the author of the John Shakespeare series of novels which are currently in development for TVby the team behind Poldark and Endeavour. Since 2007, Rory has been writing full-time in a quietcorner of Norfolk, England, where he lives with his family. Rory’s latest novel is Corpus. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sheena Kamal has been a stunt double (for children), a stand-in (most notably Archie Panjabi) and a film/TV extra. She has been a producer’s assistant and most recently, a researcher for a gritty TV crime drama series set in Toronto. Sheena’s debut novel Eyes Like Mine is inspired by one issue that kept cropping up during her research- the plight of the missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. Sheena holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, which she attended on Canada's most prestigious scholarship and was awarded a TD Canada Trust Scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness.Kate Hamer grew up in Pembrokeshire and has recently been awarded a Literature Wales bursary. Her bestselling novel The Girl in the Red Coat was a no 3. Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award, the Bookseller Industry Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, the John Creasey New Blood Dagger and Wales Book of the Year. Her second novel is The Doll Funeral. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cordelia Fine is a Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of much-acclaimed A Mind of Its Own (Icon, 2006) and Delusions of Gender (Icon, 2010), described as ‘a truly startling book’ by the Independent, ‘fun, droll yet deeply serious’ by New Scientist and an ‘important book … as enjoyable as it is timely and interesting’ by the West Australian. Her latest book is Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds. This show also features a short interview with Nichi Hodgson on her book The Curious History of Dating. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The third and final Little Atoms Two Cultures in Conversation events took place in London on 17 January 2017, when Little Atoms’ Neil Denny was joined by novelist Naomi Alderman and science writer Adam Rutherford. Neil began by asking Naomi about her latest book, The Power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. Her work appears in numerous publications, including the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Frieze and New York Times. She's a Yaddo and MacDowell Fellow and was 2014 Eccles Writer in Residence at the British Library. Her first book, To the River, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. The Trip to Echo Spring was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Biography Award and the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize. Her latest book The Lonely City has been shortlisted for the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize.Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer and writer whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, New York, Harper's, the Believer, Artforum, and the Nation, among many other publications. Educated at Yale and Berkeley, he is the co-editor, with Rebecca Solnit, of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, and a visiting scholar at New York University's Institute for Public Knowledge. He is the author of Island People: The Caribbean and the World. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Swanson's debut novel, The Girl With a Clock for a Heart (2014), was described by Dennis Lehane as 'a twisty, sexy, electric thrill ride' and was nominated for the LA Times book award. His follow up The Kind Worth Killing (2015), a Richard and Judy pick, was shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and named the iBook stores Thriller of the Year. His latest novel is Her Every Fear. He lives with his wife and cat in Somerville, Massachusetts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.