Episodes
Development Hell will return on Thursday with an all-new episode about a chimpanzee. In the meantime, here's a Hollywood-related episode from our friends at Talk Easy. Host Sam Fragoso talks with the New York Times critic Wesley Morris about all things Oscars, his career, and the state of the film industry. Find more Talk Easy at talkeasypod.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 03/05/24
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 and his writing partner, Angus Fletcher, have so much trouble selling another Philip K. Dick adaptation? They tell Malcolm that it all came down to a roller coaster ride of plot twists that even A-List action actors couldn’t stomach, and an early attempt at AI that was too dumb to pick a smart script. See...
Published 02/29/24
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 a ride in Leonardo DiCaprio’s Prius, before making an unexpectedly heartbreaking turn that leads Stephen to walk away from the project forever. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 02/29/24
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. There's a Philip K. Dick adaptation with a twist too shocking for the studios, a biopic about an exotic pet, and Malcolm’s own misadventure trying to adapt his bestselling book, Blink. Coming soon! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 02/23/24
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 of melancholy. This episode was recorded at the AC Hotel New York Times Square, and is brought to you by AC Hotels. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 02/15/24
The digital revolution has been happening for a while now, but with 5G, it’s about to reach a whole new level. IT departments are about to rule the world. So in this paid partnership with T-Mobile for Business, Malcolm sits with leaders in the world of retail and healthcare to discuss how their industries are changing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 02/01/24
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 shows up in games and what games teach us about risk, life, love, and in this case ... farming. For more episodes like this, check out Pushkin’s The Last Archive podcast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 12/21/23
Revisionist History heads to Las Vegas for the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix, courtesy of T-Mobile for Business. Malcolm talks with T-Mobile and Las Vegas Grand Prix executives about how 5G technology is changing professional sports — from how athletes compete, to how fans watch and even find their seats. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 12/04/23
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 the Mojave desert and the cold waters of the Hudson river. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 11/16/23
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 America’s gun problem. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 11/02/23
Today, we’re bringing you an episode from another Pushkin show, Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. This episode is based on Killers of the Flower Moon, with permission from its author, David Grann. Minnie Smith grew sick quite suddenly. She had been young, fit and healthy; the doctors were baffled when she died. "A peculiar wasting illness," they called it. Then, her sister Anna went missing. She was found a week later, dead, with a gunshot wound to her head. When a third sister, Rita, died...
Published 10/31/23
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 talent, how Adam grappled with impostor syndrome as a writer and perfectionism as an athlete, and how to chart a path toward achieving greater things. They also discuss the evidence on affirmative action — and riff on topics ranging from humility to psychoanalysis to whether Lions or Bills...
Published 10/26/23
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 weather. But the answer may be something much more … Freudian. In this episode, Malcolm puts William Shockley—inventor of the transistor, winner of the Nobel Prize, father of Silicon Valley—on the couch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 10/19/23
What's it like to hand your life over to someone who claims they’ll make it better? That’s what The Dream, a podcast from Pushkin Industries and Little Everywhere, is exploring this season. Enjoy this episode from the show. Jessie Lee Ward, the self-proclaimed “#1 network marketer in the world,” charges her coaching clients thousands of dollars for a trip to Colombia that's described like a work retreat. The reality is more like a brutal 15 hour hike, with late night hypothermia. Is this...
Published 10/10/23
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 series on everything Americans get wrong about guns, we offer a final lesson on the obligations and costs of compassion. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 10/05/23
Revisionist History hits the road, courtesy of Airbnb. Malcolm shares some travel tips, including music for poolside relaxation, how to find your way around the Carolinas, and what to do about inclement weather. Then, Di Zock and Michael Specter talk about the pros and cons of traveling with your dog. The finale of our series on guns in America airs this Thursday. Please write in with your comments at revisionisthistory.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 10/03/23
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 — and what it tells us about American gun violence. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 09/28/23
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 care and the moral consequences of a world where trauma surgeons have gotten really, really good at what they do.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 09/21/23
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 control debate. But what exactly makes it worse than other guns?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 09/14/23
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 bold claim: The simplest explanation for the Supreme’s Court’s puzzling run of gun rights decisions may be that the justices watched too much Gunsmoke when they were growing up.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 09/07/23
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 years later — endeared him to a generation of legal scholars? Revisionist History explores the cult of personality around the mysterious Sir John Knight.  Sign up for Pushkin+ on the Revisionist History Apple Show page or at Pushkin.fm to binge the entire series now! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 08/31/23
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 years later — endeared him to a generation of legal scholars? Revisionist History explores the cult of personality around the mysterious Sir John Knight.  Sign up for Pushkin+ on the Revisionist History Apple Show page or at Pushkin.fm to binge the entire series now! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 08/31/23
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 all six episodes early and ad-free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts, or by visiting: pushkin.fm/plus.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 08/17/23
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 thing he made up—a taxonomy of the modern mystery story—with a focus on murder mysteries and police procedurals. From Dragnet, to John Grisham, to Sherlock Holmes, it's all in there...and all connected to how we view real policing.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Published 07/27/23