Why do the same patterns keep showing up in completely different centuries? In this episode, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Stephen Greenblatt joins Ryan to discuss how power, fear, ego, and insecurity keep producing the same patterns. They talk about why dangerous leaders do not look dangerous at first, how great thinkers learned to survive unstable rulers, and why some of the most important ideas in history had to be hidden inside art, literature, and fiction just to stay alive.

Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He has written extensively on English Renaissance literature and acts as general editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Norton Shakespeare. He is the author of fourteen books, including The Swerve, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and Will in the World, a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

📚 Check out Stephen Greenblatt’s books:

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics

Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival

Will in the World

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Stephen Greenblatt: Why “This Time Is Different” Is Always Wrong

The Daily Stoic

Stephen Greenblatt: Why “This Time Is Different” Is Always Wrong