Old School with Shilo Brooks

What ‘The Future Is Female’ Has Meant for Men 18.06.2026 57мин

For decades, the fight for gender equality has squarely focused on lifting women up—in the workplace, politics, and beyond. But according to Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, it’s the men who now need support. From childhood, boys are falling behind in school. Men are trailing women in college completion by an even wider margin than existed (in the opposite direction) when Title IX became law in 1972. They also die by suicide about four times more often, with especially troubling increases among younger men over the past two decades. In this episode, Reeves sits down with Shilo Brooks to discuss why the struggles facing boys and men have become politically impossible to discuss, why they need to stop hearing that “the future is female” and that their masculinity is “toxic,” and what the specific policies are that he believes will help them. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Walter Isaacson on the Sentence That Created America 11.06.2026 52мин

If America has a mission statement, it is this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In a special conversation recorded at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson discusses his new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, and the extraordinary story behind the Declaration of Independence’s most famous line. What happened behind the scenes as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and the other founders argued over, revised, and refined the words that would become America’s founding creed? Plus: the tension between individual liberty and the common good, the complicated relationship between Jefferson and Adams, and the enduring challenge of living up to ideals that were revolutionary in 1776 and remain aspirational today. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The WWII Novel That Explains America 04.06.2026 55мин

In this special episode, Shilo Brooks is joined by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jon Meacham at the Jack Miller Center’s annual summit on civic education. They took the stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the perfect setting for a discussion about one of Meacham’s favorite books: The Winds of War. Written by Herman Wouk and published in 1971, The Winds of War is an epic historical novel that follows an American family through the tumult of World War II. In their smart, often funny, and deeply moving conversation, Meacham also reflects on why World War II was such a pivotal moment in shaping the unique American identity; the other essential books, events, and moments every citizen should know about to better understand America; and the differences between patriotism and nationalism. At a moment when our politics feel so fractured, studying history reminds us of an enduring truth: Ordinary people can rise to extraordinary challenges. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org.Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agatha Christie and the Kidnapping That Inspired Her Greatest Mystery 28.05.2026 54мин

In this episode, Shilo sits down with veteran journalist Joe Nocera for a deep dive into the world’s best-selling novelist, Agatha Christie. Nocera’s new investigative podcast is all about the Charles Lindbergh, Jr., kidnapping, one of history’s most infamous crimes, and a key inspiration behind Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. They dig into why mystery fiction matters so deeply, the puzzle-like satisfaction of solving the crime, the bloodless elegance of Christie’s plots, and the rare comfort of a story that always resolves with true justice. They break down how Christie drew directly from the Lindbergh kidnapping to craft her most famous work and examine what the Lindbergh case reveals about a society so hungry for retribution that it may have sent the wrong man to the electric chair. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inside the Supreme Court with Amy Coney Barrett 21.05.2026 51мин

In this special episode, taped live at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Shilo sits down with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett for a wide-ranging interview on the law. They discuss Barrett’s lifelong love of reading, her tumultuous confirmation process, the Constitution and what it should take to amend it, how she approaches cases where her interpretation of the law differs from her personal beliefs, why the Court is not the hyper-partisan institution that people think it is, and much more. It’s a thoughtful conversation that offers a more nuanced look at the highest court in the land. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A New Series From The Free Press | The Lindbergh Conspiracies 19.05.2026 43мин

Hi Old School listeners! Veteran reporter Joe Nocera has launched a six part series about the Lindbergh kidnapping. Enjoy episode one here and then head on over to ⁠The Lindbergh Conspiracies⁠ feed for the rest of the season. Joe will be joining me next week to discuss Agatha Christie and how she was inspired by this very case. --- EP01 | The Broken Window One night in March 1932, the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh is taken from his nursery. A warped window, a ladder, and a ransom note mark the beginning of a case that will grip the world and launch a hundred conspiracy theories. Ninety-four years later, we return to the scene of the crime to ask: What really happened that night? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roald Dahl: Genius and Bigot 07.05.2026 49мин

For tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, click here and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount. Roald Dahl gave the world Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He was also a vicious antisemite. A Broadway play about Dahl’s legacy; the new Michael Jackson biopic; Kanye West’s attempted redemption arc; all of these have the culture asking again: How do we approach brilliant art produced by morally compromised artists? Throughout history, some of the world’s preeminent literary geniuses have also been deeply bigoted, even monstrous people. In this episode, Shilo is joined by Eli Lake, host of Breaking History, for a conversation about these geniuses, from Voltaire to Norman Mailer, and why we should read their work despite their odious prejudices. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Sports Became Our Civic Religion 30.04.2026 51мин

For tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, click here and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount. In this episode, Shilo sits down with sportswriter Wright Thompson to explore what the ESPN mainstay has learned from decades of covering elite athletes such as Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. Does greatness require rage, dysfunction, or “daddy issues”? And what does GOAT culture teach young men about winning—and losing? They dig into why sports matter so deeply: tribal belonging, meritocracy, tradition, and the rare intensity of collective experience that borders on the religious. Thompson also explains why the most passionate fandoms often emerge in poor, deindustrialized towns. They also examine the controversies and contradictions of modern sports, from coaches and universities running de facto professional programs to the rise of gambling and debates over salary caps. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ancient Jewish Wisdom Behind a $5 Billion Company 16.04.2026 52мин

For tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, CLICK HERE and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount. As he built Kind Snacks into a $5 billion company, ‘Shark Tank’s Daniel Lubetzky didn’t turn to startup gurus or business manuals—but to a 2,000-year-old Jewish text. After the death of his father, a Holocaust survivor with whom he was deeply close, Daniel’s rabbi encouraged him to read Pirkei Avot, a collection of ancient wisdom on ethics, humility, and leadership. In this episode, Daniel explains to Shilo how its teachings shaped both his leadership and Kind’s culture by reminding him to question his ego, resist yes-men, stay grounded, and learn from everyone. More than moral philosophy, Pirkei Avot became a practical guide—anchoring his values while building an iconic brand. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Neal Stephenson on AI, Rome, and How Civilizations Decline 09.04.2026 49мин

Neal Stephenson, the prophetic author of cyberpunk classics like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, has shaped how we imagine the future, from the metaverse to crypto to AI. His science fiction has a way of becoming reality. But Stephenson’s thinking is just as rooted in the past, returning to timeless questions of empire and decline. In this episode, he joins Shilo to discuss Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a sweeping work that has captivated readers from Winston Churchill to Iggy Pop. Was Rome undone by barbarians, Christianity, decadence, or elite failure? And what do those patterns reveal about our own age of technological upheaval—and the risks of AI? Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Two Types of People Who Never Find Happiness 26.03.2026 53мин

For tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, CLICK HERE and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount. Life is short. How do we live it well? Harvard professor Arthur Brooks has spent years studying happiness. In this episode, he joins Shilo to explore what neuroscience, faith, and philosophy reveal about how to live a happy life. Most of us are caught up in either the pursuit of empty pleasures or the pursuit of great achievement—“slacker” and “striver” extremes that keep us in a doom loop, like addicts. The real keys to happiness are deepening relationships, cultivating faith, and committing to lifelong learning, without concern for external validation or reward. Above all, we must learn to love and be loved and to accept suffering and heartbreak as features, not bugs, of a meaningful life. Arthur’s latest book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, comes out March 31, 2025, pre-order your copy today at the link! Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hunting Humans for Sport 19.03.2026 54мин

For tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, CLICK HERE and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount. Richard Connell’s 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game” tells of a hyper-sophisticated aristocrat who hunts human beings for sport on his private island. In this episode, best-selling author, screenwriter, and former Navy SEAL sniper Jack Carr joins Shilo to discuss the story’s enormous influence on the thriller genre, including on Carr’s own novels. The conversation explores the thin line between killing and murder—and when violence becomes necessary for peace. Carr also explains why he is skeptical of current U.S. operations against Iran and talk of regime change, and recounts his successful push to change the name of the U.S. Department of Defense back to the Department of War in 2025. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joan Didion Knew What Hollywood Would Become 12.03.2026 55мин

The perfect book to read around the Oscars this weekend? Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays. In this episode, Shilo sits down with Peter Savodnik to discuss Didion’s 1970 novel—a book that seemed to anticipate everything ugly about Hollywood, celebrity culture, and the spiritual emptiness that we now take for granted on the red carpet and on social media. They break down why Didion’s story of an actress drifting through 1960s Los Angeles feels like it could have been written in 2026, how she saw the darker underside of feminist “liberation” long before it was fashionable to question it, and why the real problem with today’s young stars is that we hear from them constantly, leaving little of the mystique that once defined celebrity. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The NYC Public Defender Who Sends Books to Prisoners 05.03.2026 55мин

In this episode, Shilo Brooks sits down with New York City public defender Ben Schatz to discuss the novel True Grit–and the nature of justice in America. Ben founded the nonprofit Books Beyond Bars, which sends requested books (not just random donations) to individuals locked in in New York jails and prisons, giving them dignity, mental escape, and intellectual stimulation. After discussing True Grit, Ben offers his critique of the U.S. criminal justice system itself: its coercive plea bargaining, racism, overburdened defenders and judges, and prisons that function more as warehouses than places of rehabilitation, especially for mentally ill and addicted people. Throughout, the conversation links the moral center of True Grit to real‑world questions about what justice is, who deserves mercy, and how to look past someone’s criminal history. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘The Brothers Karamazov’ Helped Inspire the Catholic App Hallow 26.02.2026 54мин

Alex Jones was using apps like Headspace and Calm to quiet his mind, but he had fallen away from his Catholic faith. Then he read The Brothers Karamazov, and everything changed. Alex, who went on to recommit himself to Christ and start Hallow, the Catholic prayer app with millions of users worldwide, believes Dostoevsky’s classic is the perfect book to read for Lent. In this conversation, Alex explains to Shilo how the novel mirrors Christian scripture, explores Dostoevsky’s answer to the problem of evil, and shares why he chose the Silicon Valley start-up model as his unlikely but powerful way to bring millions of people back to daily prayer. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘Lolita,’ Jeffrey Epstein, and the Real Meaning of a Challenging Classic 19.02.2026 49мин

One particular novel is all over the Epstein files: Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Reportedly, this was the one and only book Jeffrey Epstein kept at his bedside table. He owned a first edition. It pops up in emails and in photos, released by the House Oversight Committee, that show young women with quotes from the book written on their bodies. Lolita is about a 38-year-old man who kidnaps and serially rapes a 12-year-old girl. The book is not only a literary masterpiece, but a fixture of American pop culture. The illicit relationship it depicts is often glamorized in film, music, and art. Today, Rafaela Siewert interviews Shilo Brooks about Lolita–and about how a novel narrated by a homicidal pedophile rapist came to occupy such a prominent place in American life. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Secret Lives of Ordinary People 12.02.2026 54мин

Dylan Thomas is one of the 20th century’s legendary poets. In this episode, English journalist David Aaronovitch joins Shilo to discuss Thomas’ 1954 play Under Milk Wood, a portrait of a small Welsh seaside town, originally produced for radio. With rich, musical language, Thomas reveals the secret interior lives of the villagers—their dreams, lusts, resentments, and longings—without condescension, inviting the listener to see that “these people are you” and to recognize one’s own hidden thoughts in even the most comic or disturbing characters. They discuss how the play is exceptional in a flattened, cliché-ridden culture obsessed with exterior image and dismissive of the complexity of ordinary people. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Mamet vs. the Snobs 05.02.2026 1ч 3мин

Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright David Mamet spent his childhood cutting class and reading at the local library. His first pick was Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, which he pulled off the shelves at just 11 years old. Decades later, David thinks the book is terrible, its author “a horrible writer,” and its heroine an insufferable busybody. In this episode, Shilo pushes back, defending the novel and its protagonist. From there the conversation explodes into a larger discussion about taste, canon, authority, why David distrusts teachers, critics, and arts institutions that try to tell the public what’s good for them, and how he decides what’s worth reading—or throwing across the room. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Colin Quinn on Incels, Woke Activists, and Peaking at 14 29.01.2026 52мин

In this episode, legendary comic Colin Quinn dives into a cult classic that still makes him cry with laughter: John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. The novel follows the misadventures of an overweight, pretentious misanthrope still living with his mother in 1960s New Orleans. It’s a book that turns fart jokes into high art. It’s also, somehow, a love story between a fat incel and a woke activist—a seemingly absurd pairing that just may be a prescient solution to our modern polarization problem. Plus, Colin and Shilo dig into the parallels between great comic writing and great standup: Both give language to things audiences half-know but have never quite articulated, making the familiar suddenly, painfully funny. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dante: The Most Famous, Least Read Poet 22.01.2026 48мин

Dante Alighieri is one of the most consequential poets in human history, and his The Divine Comedy is essential to understanding Western civilization itself. And yet, though most of us have heard of Inferno, Dante remains one of the least read of all the greats. His masterpiece unfolds in three parts—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—charting a journey from despair to redemption. For literature professor Joseph Luzzi, this journey was not abstract. After his wife was tragically killed in a car accident while eight months pregnant, leaving him widowed and a father on the same day, the epic poem helped him overcome his grief and build a new life. In this episode, Shilo and Joseph sit down to discuss Dante’s genius. Old School is proudly brought to you by the Jack Miller Center. If you believe in the importance of civic education and want to help prepare the next generation to carry on our democracy, join us at JackMillerCenter.org. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press today to enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices