Sometimes, something we read or listen to helps us better understand ourselves.
Tyler Cowen is an occasional but favorite podcast listen, an economist whose Conversations With Tyler indulges more in broad cultural curiosity than being anything about economics!
Last year, I loved stumbling on this interview with Karl Ove Knausgard, ‘one of the greater writers of our civilization’ that led me to a favorite read from the trip: So Much Longing In So Little Space investigating Edvard Munch’s approach to painting that led to his work being so enduring.
For the many on this list with an affinity for Ireland, I had to share that you’ll really enjoy On Ireland’s Many Unmade Futures, a recent interview with Irish history Professor Roy Foster.
The chat cracks open why the English were so much more brutal to the Irish than to the Scots and explores the unique cultural ‘ethnic identity’ of Ireland within the two islands side by side.
As the interview’s close, Foster cites novelist Elizabeth Bowen, who said that “she wished the English remembered much more Irish history and the Irish forgot more of it”.
