The Gray Area with Sean Illing

  • What I’ve learned, and what comes next.

    As strange as it is to write, this is my last podcast here at Vox. In January, I’ll be starting at the New York Times as a columnist on the opinion page, doing a reported column…

  • Best of: An inspiring conversation about democracy with Danielle Allen

    This conversation with Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen in fall 2019 is one of my all-time favorites.    Allen directs Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. She’s a political theorist, a philosopher, the principal…

  • Michael Pollan on the psychedelic society

    On November 3, as the country fixated on the incoming presidential election results, voters in Oregon approved a seemingly innocuous ballot measure with revolutionary potential. Proposition 109, which passed with 56 percent of the vote…

  • Best of: Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress

    Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford neuroscientist and primatologist. He’s the author of a slew of important books on human biology and behavior, including most recently Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.…

  • Joe Biden and “the new progressivism”

    It’s often said that Joe Biden has an instinct for finding the political center — that of his party, and that of the country. To understand how Biden has changed, and how he might govern,…

  • Best of: Frances Lee on why bipartisanship is irrational

    There are few conversations I’ve had on this show that are quite as relevant to our current political moment as this one with Princeton political scientist Frances Lee. Joe Biden will occupy the White House…

  • The most important book I’ve read this year

    If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future.  Best known for the Mars trilogy, Robinson is one…

  • Best of: Alison Gopnik changed how I think about love

    Happy Thanksgiving! We will be back next week with brand new episodes, but on a day when so many of us are thinking about love and relationships I wanted to share an episode that has…

  • Best of: Vivek Murthy on America’s loneliness epidemic

    At the holidays, I wanted to share some of my favorite episodes of the show with you (we’ll be back next week with brand new episodes). My conversation with Vivek Murthy tops that list, and…

  • What Democrats got wrong about Hispanic voters

    Donald Trump has built his presidency on top of racial dog whistles, xenophobic rhetoric, and anti-immigrant policies. A core belief among liberals was that this strategy would help Trump with whites but almost certainly hurt…

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