Frank Lavin talks with Eli Merritt, Professor at Vanderbilt and the author of "Disunion Among Ourselves," to discuss the critical issues the Continental Congress faced at the dawn of the American republic, with the most important failure being the failure to eliminate slavery. Eli discusses how the sectional differences and the need to forge some type of political consensus drove the Founders to leave this issue unresolved. In addition to his book, Eli also suggests reading Jeffrey Rosen's book, "The Pursuit of Happiness," which explores how the Founders were inspired by classical discussions of virtue.

Frank Lavin talks with Chris Kirchhoff, defense innovation guru and the author of "Unit X" to discuss the importance of tech in U.S. national security. The adaptation of tech in the U.S. military is as urgent as it is complicated, and Chris observes that we are burdened by our success. Chris also suggests reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk, "Elon Musk."

Frank Lavin talks with Olaf Groth, the author of "The Great Remobilization" and discusses the six major trends that will drive decisions in our personal lives, government policies, and business decision-making: 1. Covid and CRISPR; 2. Cognitive Technologies; 3. Crypto and distributed power; 4. Cyber security; 5. Climate Change; 6. China. Olaf moves on to discuss how corporations and governments should respond to meet – and perhaps even benefit from – these challenges. Olaf also suggests reading Ezra Klein's "Abundance" and the work of our previous guest, "Apple in China" by Patrick McGee.