Sheilagh Ogilvie has spent decades examining the institutional structures that shaped European economic history, challenging conventional wisdom about everything from guilds to marriage patterns. In her conversation with Tyler, she reveals how studying pandemic responses from the Black Death to COVID-19 provides a unique lens for understanding deeper truths about institutional effectiveness and social constraints.

Tyler and Sheilagh discuss the economic impacts of historical pandemics, the "happy story" of the Black Death and why it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, the history of variolation and how entrepreneurs created vaccination franchises in 18th-century England, why local communities typically managed epidemics better than central authorities, the dastardly nature of medieval guilds, the European marriage pattern and its disputed contribution to economic growth, when sustained economic growth truly began in England, why the Dutch Republic stagnated despite its early success, whether she agrees with Greg Clark's social mobility hypothesis, her experience and conducting "anthropological fieldwork" on English social customs, the communitarian norms she encountered while living in Germany, her upcoming research project on European serfdom, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded February 27th, 2025.

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What happens when a liberal thinker shifts his attention from polarization to economic abundance? Ezra Klein’s new book with Derek Thompson, Abundance, argues for an agenda of increased housing, infrastructure, clean energy, and innovation. But does abundance clash with polarization—or offer a way through it?

In this conversation, Ezra and Tyler discuss how the abundance agenda interacts with political polarization, whether it's is an elite-driven movement, where Ezra favors NIMBYism, the geographic distribution of US cities, an abundance-driven approach to health care, what to do about fertility decline, how the U.S. federal government might prepare for AGI, whether mass layoffs in government are justified, Ezra's recommended travel destinations, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded March 7th, 2025.

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Photo Credit: (c) Lucas Foglia

Carl Zimmer is one of the finest science communicators of our time, having spent decades writing about biology, evolution, and heredity. His latest (and 16th) book, Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe, explores something even more fundamental—how the very air around us is teeming with life, from pollen to pathogens to microbes floating miles above the Earth.

He joins Tyler to discuss why it took scientists so long to accept airborne disease transmission and more, including why 19th-century doctors thought hay fever was a neurosis, why it took so long for the WHO and CDC to acknowledge COVID-19 was airborne, whether ultraviolet lamps can save us from the next pandemic, how effective masking is, the best theory on the anthrax mailings, how the U.S. military stunted aerobiology, the chance of extraterrestrial life in our solar system, what Lee Cronin’s “assembly theory” could mean for defining life itself, the use of genetic information to inform decision-making, the strangeness of the Flynn effect, what Carl learned about politics from growing up as the son of a New Jersey congressman, and much more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded January 15th, 2025.

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Photo Credit: Mistina Hanscom