Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Click now to listen to the Revisionist History podcast on Pushkin Industries.
Revisionist History Podcast - Malcolm Gladwell Podcast - Pushkin Industries Skip to Main Content About Podcasts Partner Content Hosts Audiobooks Join Pushkin+ Search Help Login My Account Revisionist History Malcolm Gladwell View Episodes Listen On: Apple Podcasts Shape Spotify Amazon Music iHeart More RSS Stitcher Overcast Amazon Music iHeart YouTube Apple Shape Spotify Amazon iHeart More RSS Stitcher Overcast Amazon Music iHeart YouTube Join Pushkin+ Subscribe to Pushkin+ to binge Malcolm Gladwell's full 6-episode gun series early and ad-free! Your membership also gets you access to exclusive opportunities across Pushkin's full network of podcasts. Join Pushkin+ Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past — an event, a person, an idea, even a song — and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance. Questions for Malcolm? Feedback about the show? Contact us here! Most Recent Episode This Is Your Captain Speaking 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… Learn More Season 8 • 11/16/2023 Season 8 Season 7 Season 6 Season 5 Season 4 Season 3 Season 2 Season 1 This Is Your Captain Speaking 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… Learn More Season 8 • 11/16/2023 The Bear Was Poked With Maria Konnikova 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… Learn More Season 8 • 11/02/2023 Unlocking Hidden Potential with Adam Grant 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… Learn More Season 8 • 10/26/2023 Silicon Valley on the Couch 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… Learn More Season 8 • 10/19/2023 Guns Part 6: “Sin is the failure to bother to care” 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… Learn More Season 8 • 10/05/2023 Guns Part 5: The Footnote 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… Learn More Season 8 • 09/28/2023 Guns Part 4: Moral Hazard 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… Learn More Season 8 • 09/21/2023 Guns Part 3: A Shooting Lesson 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… Learn More Season 8 • 09/14/2023 Guns Part 2: Getting out of Dodge 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… Learn More Season 8 • 09/07/2023 Guns Part 1: The Sudden Celebrity of Sir John Knight 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… Learn More Season 8 • 08/31/2023 Doctors, Guns, and Money 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… Learn More Season 8 • 08/17/2023 Taxonomy of the Modern Mystery Story 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… Learn More Season 8 • 07/27/2023 Acting Out Malcolm talks with Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, host of The Last Archive, about the forgotten origins of a major social science, the missing chapter in Ella Fitzgerald’s life, and what it all… Learn More Season 8 • 07/06/2023 A Good Circle This season, Malcolm's covered a lot of the problems in higher education. Today on the show: A solution. A big idea being tested at a little school on the shores… Learn More Season 8 • 06/29/2023 Feeling A Bit Attacked with Maria Konnikova Maria Konnikova, Revisionist History’s ombudsman—who's also an author, psychologist and professional poker player—is back for another round. This time she reads letters from the audience on the power of debate,… Learn More Season 8 • 06/22/2023 The Pushkin Prize for Egregiously Deceptive Self-Promotion Consider this your invitation to the greatest award show no one’s ever heard of: the Pushkin Prizes, created to honor the giants of the American education system. This year, Malcolm… Learn More Season 8 • 06/08/2023 The Crisis in Girls’ Sports with Lauren Fleshman and Linda Flanagan In a live conversation taped at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Malcolm and his Martian friend consult athletes Linda Flanagan and Lauren Fleshman on how to level… Learn More Season 8 • 05/25/2023 The Mystery of Mastery with Adam Gopnik In a live conversation taped at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Malcolm chats with his old friend and New Yorker magazine colleague, Adam Gopnik, about Adam’s latest… Learn More Season 8 • 05/18/2023 Malcolm Goes to Debate School What do you do after you've been humiliated at the Munk Debates? You call in the A-Team. The Brooklyn Debate League is a nonprofit organization that supports Speech & Debate… Learn More Season 8 • 04/13/2023 Higher Animals with Michael Specter Malcolm talks with his old friend, the brilliant science writer Michael Specter, about the future of life on Earth. Michael's response to the Covid-19 pandemic was to create a new… Learn More Season 8 • 04/06/2023 Started From The Bottom with Justin Richmond Today, we dig into the fascinating life of someone Malcolm knows very well: fellow Pushkin host Justin Richmond. Malcolm and Justin talk about being the product of biracial marriages, surviving… Learn More Season 8 • 03/16/2023 Rodents and Red Wine with Maria Konnikova Author, psychologist and professional poker player Maria Konnikova joins the show as Revisionist History’s first ombudsman. Maria advocates for the audience, reading letters from listeners and challenging Malcolm on matters… Learn More Season 8 • 03/09/2023 A Treat for the Die-Hards Every writer, podcaster and storyteller obsesses about how they begin a story. But they rarely pay enough attention to endings. Nothing matters more. Malcolm and Mike Birbiglia solve endings for… Learn More Season 8 • 02/16/2023 The Mennonite National Anthem Lester Glick’s year in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment cost him his hoped-for career and also left him with an eating disorder for the rest of his life. But like many… Learn More Season 7 • 10/06/2022 The Rise of the Guinea Pigs The Minnesota Starvation Experiment could never be done today. No scientist could get permission to starve 36 healthy people for close to a year. But why? Revisionist History tries to… Learn More Season 7 • 09/29/2022 The Department of Physiological Hygiene In the final year of the Second World War, 36 men spent a year in a dingy set of rooms under the University of Minnesota football stadium. They were part… Learn More Season 7 • 09/22/2022 Outliers, Revisited Did Malcolm Gladwell blow it in his bestselling book Outliers? What if all he did was write a primer for neurotic helicopter parents? To find out, Revisionist History descends on… Learn More Season 7 • 09/15/2022 “I Was A Stranger and You Welcomed Me” Malcolm tells the story of how his parents and their friends sponsored three Vietnamese refugees, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. And wonders: do we underestimate the value of… Learn More Season 7 • 07/28/2022 When Will Met Grace You thought the antics of Will, Grace, Jack and Karen were just harmless fun. Oh please. Revisionist History dives deep into a television sitcom that you may not have realized… Learn More Season 7 • 07/21/2022 Star Struck A legendary Hollywood mogul, a famous author, a fatal drunk driving accident, and a brilliant bit of screenwriting, left on the cutting room floor. Revisionist History engages in a pop… Learn More Season 7 • 07/14/2022 In Triplicate A mystery that begins with the half-baked idea of an obscure California bureaucrat in the 1930’s and ends with one of the worst public crises in American history. Chicken Little… Learn More Season 7 • 07/07/2022 Way to Go, Ohio A century ago, a mysterious and disfiguring disease was finally cured by an experiment in Akron, Ohio . . . with a condiment. We ask: it is time to return… Learn More Season 7 • 06/30/2022 The Magic Wand Experiment What if you could design any experiment you wanted? Without worrying about money, ethics, logistics, or even the laws of nature? Revisionist History kicks off the season by giving some… Learn More Season 7 • 06/30/2022 Revisionist History Season 7: The Experiment Experience Revisionist History is back! And obsessed with ... experiments. Natural experiments. Thought experiments. Failed experiments. Experiments that end up in salt factories and file drawers filled with carbon copies. Not… Learn More Season 7 • 06/16/2022 The Dog Will See You Now If recent times have shown us anything, it’s that many problems can not be fixed by humans alone. In the Season 6 finale, Revisionist History turns to another species for… Learn More Season 6 • 08/26/2021 A Serious Game Tabletop Exercise Map, Grid, Unit Markers from a wargame analyzing NATO’s defense capabilities in the Baltics (See David Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson, “Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank”)The best… Learn More Season 6 • 08/19/2021 Laundry Done Right Is there a right way to do your laundry? Of course there is. A long look at the science of cleaning your clothes.RESOURCES Elizabeth Morgan, Timothy J. Foxon, and Anne… Learn More Season 6 • 08/12/2021 Little Mermaid Part 3: Honestly Ever After Revisionist History presents: The Little Mermaid... our way. The grand finale of our three-part series. Featuring the voices of Jodie Foster, Glenn Close, Dax Shepard, Brit Marling, and many more. Learn More Season 6 • 08/02/2021 Little Mermaid Part 2: The Fairytale Twist The quest to revise The Little Mermaid continues. This week, we call in the experts. Part two of three. RESOURCES Angus Fletcher, Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the… Learn More Season 6 • 07/29/2021 Little Mermaid Part 1: The Golden Contract Vintage engraving of a scene from the Little Mermaid, a fairy tale by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in… Learn More Season 6 • 07/22/2021 The Judgment of Helen Levitt Helen Levitt’s testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951 [full testimony here]Helen Slote Levitt was on her way to the good life in 1950s Hollywood. Then one day,… Learn More Season 6 • 07/15/2021 Project Dillard A historically Black university in New Orleans is beloved by everyone – except the US News best colleges rankings. We hack our way back into the algorithm and show how… Learn More Season 6 • 07/08/2021 Lord of the Rankings For 30 years, US News & World Report has been using a secret formula to rank the best colleges and universities in the United States. As a public service to… Learn More Season 6 • 07/01/2021 I Love You Waymo The beach ball test.Revisionist History travels to Phoenix, Arizona to learn about the future of the automobile. It’s not what you think. It’s much better.Warning: Some of the actions depicted… Learn More Season 6 • 06/24/2021 Introducing Revisionist History Season Six The sixth season of Revisionist History is underway, and Malcolm’s finally out of the house. We play chicken with cars, war games with wonks, and travel deep under the sea.… Learn More Season 6 • 06/03/2021 Bonus: Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant Whenever Malcolm and Adam Grant cross paths on the book tour circuit, it’s always a good time. Here are pieces of two conversations from Clubhouse: one about Malcolm’s The Bomber… Learn More Season 5 • 05/28/2021 Bonus: Return to the 404 We’re back in Atlanta - this week with jaunts to Jamaica, Kenya, court-side NBA games, and a deep dive into fine art forgery. Plus, Malcolm finally gets his big break… Learn More Season 5 • 12/17/2020 Bonus: Druid Hills Revisionist History takes a trip to Malcolm’s favorite city and gets a tour of Emory University, meets 3000 non-human primates and 8000 rodents, and dusts off an old TV pilot… Learn More Season 5 • 12/10/2020 A Memorial for the Living Lessons from the world’s most perfect memorial.SOURCES AND LINKS Changing Homelessness Website Photos of the 9/11 Memorial Tree Planting Learn More Season 5 • 08/20/2020 ‘Oh Howard, You Idiot!’ Getty ImagesA billionaire turned recluse befriends a minor novelist. Together they seize the publicâs imagination. Kind of. The true story behind the greatest autobiography youâve never read.SOURCES AND LINKS Orson… Learn More Season 5 • 08/13/2020 Hamlet Was Wrong The delicate science of hiring nihilism, examined in five deeply-personal case studies.SOURCES AND LINKS The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull “Kinetic Sculpture Race” in Humboldt County, CA… Learn More Season 5 • 08/06/2020 Goodbye, Farewell and Amen Getty ImagesHow do we remember one of the deadliest nights in human history? We don’t. Part four.SOURCES AND LINKS Full interview with Korean War veteran Bill Sinclair Full interview with… Learn More Season 5 • 07/30/2020 Bombs-Away LeMay The arguments, accidents, cold-blooded logic and sheer serendipity that led to the longest night of the Second World War. Part three.SOURCES AND LINKS Army Air Force filmTokyo, narrated by Ronald… Learn More Season 5 • 07/23/2020 May the Best Firebomb Win Basement laboratories. Mad scientists. Sticky gels, and a bake-off in the desert. The strange story behind Curtis LeMay’s weapon of choice. Part two.SOURCES AND LINKS The Scientific Method: A Personal… Learn More Season 5 • 07/16/2020 The Bomber Mafia Getty ImagesOn the eve of the Second World War, a band of visionaries at Maxwell Air Force Base tried to reimagine modern warfare. They failed. Part one on the extraordinary… Learn More Season 5 • 07/09/2020 The Powerball Revolution In Bolivia, a political activist radically reforms the voting process for... student council elections. Who else does he convince? Revisionist History. And maybe a fancy private school in New Jersey.SOURCES… Learn More Season 5 • 07/02/2020 Hedwig’s Lost Van Gogh An escape from war-torn Germany. Lavish dinners with Hollywood royalty. A Swedish baron and a dime-store heiress: we explore the long journey of a Van Gogh still life — and… Learn More Season 5 • 06/25/2020 Dragon Psychology 101 Dragons hoard treasure, deep in their lairs. They don’t show it off to their neighbors. Revisionist History applies dragon psychology to the strange world of art museums, with help from… Learn More Season 5 • 06/18/2020 Introducing Revisionist History Season 5 Andy Warhol. War. Smaug the Dragon. And, as always, digressions of great importance. Learn More Season 5 • 06/04/2020 Revisionist History Presents: The Pushkin Industries Holiday Variety Show Malcolm Gladwell debuts his first fireside chat, answering burning questions from Revisionist History listeners in this bonus episode. He lets us listen in on a conversation with Conan O’Brien and… Learn More Season 4 • 12/02/2019 Bonus: Malcolm Gladwell on Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations Malcolm Gladwell speaks with Oprah Winfrey about his new book Talking to Strangers, the one mystery he hopes might be resolved in our lifetimes, and the ways we could all… Learn More Season 4 • 09/19/2019 The Queen of Cuba On February 24, 1996, Cuban fighter jets shot down two small planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, an organization in Florida that tried to spot refugees fleeing Cuba in… Learn More Season 4 • 08/29/2019 The Obscure Virus Club Throughout the 1960s, a biologist named Howard Temin became convinced that something wasn’t right in science’s understanding of viruses. His colleagues dismissed him as a heretic. He turned out to… Learn More Season 4 • 08/22/2019 Chutzpah vs. Chutzpah You thought that there was only one kind of chutzpah. Wrong. There’s two. Revisionist History tells the story of the Mafia’s showdown with a legendary Hollywood producer, in a battle… Learn More Season 4 • 08/15/2019 In a Metal Mood Two seasons after its investigation of the decline of McDonalds french fries, Revisionist History returns to fast-food’s high-tech test kitchens. This time the subject is cultural appropriation. The case study… Learn More Season 4 • 08/08/2019 Descend into the Particular An unarmed man is shot to death by police. How does the Jesuitical idea of “disordered attachments” help us make sense of what happened? Part three of three.INVESTIGATION OF THE… Learn More Season 4 • 08/01/2019 Dr. Rock’s Taxonomy John Rock was the co-inventor of the birth control pill — and a committed Catholic. He wanted his church to approve of his invention. What happens when a layman takes… Learn More Season 4 • 07/25/2019 The Standard Case Revisionist History tries to make sense of the conundrum of PED use in baseball, using the 500-year-old philosophical techniques of St. Ignatius. Part one of a three-part series on the… Learn More Season 4 • 07/18/2019 Good Old Boys If you disagree with someone — if you find what they think appalling — is there any value in talking to them? In the early 1970s, the talk show host… Learn More Season 4 • 07/11/2019 Tempest in a Teacup Bohea, the aroma of tire fire, Mob Wives, smugglers, “bro” tea, and what it all means to the backstory of the American Revolution. Malcolm tells the real story on what… Learn More Season 4 • 07/04/2019 The Tortoise and the Hare A weird speech by Antonin Scalia, a visit with some serious legal tortoises, and a testy exchange with the experts at the Law School Admissions Council prompts Malcolm to formulate… Learn More Season 4 • 06/27/2019 Puzzle Rush Malcolm challenges his assistant Camille to the Law School Admissions Test. He gets halfway through, panics, runs out of time, and wonders: why does the legal world want him to… Learn More Season 4 • 06/20/2019 Analysis, Parapraxis, Elvis The one song The King couldn’t sing.Elvis Presley returned from his years in the army to record one of his biggest hits, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” But he could never… Learn More Season 3 • 07/19/2018 Strong Verbs, Short Sentences “She was Joan of Arc, Madame Curie, and Florence Nightingale — all wrapped up in one.”One long, hot afternoon on Capitol Hill, in the summer of 1991, the most powerful… Learn More Season 3 • 07/12/2018 The Imaginary Crimes of Margit Hamosh Epidemics of fear repeat themselves. The first time as tragedy. The second time as farce. Margit Hamosh? Definitely farce.What was it that Margit Hamosh did? What was her alleged fraud?… Learn More Season 3 • 07/05/2018 Malcolm Gladwell’s 12 Rules for Life Crucial life lessons from the end of hockey games, Idris Elba, and some Wall Street guys with a lot of time on their hands.Revisionist History wades into the crowded self-help… Learn More Season 3 • 06/28/2018 The Hug Heard Round the World Q: Was there a period where you felt you had… truncated (6,947 more characters in archive)