Keen On America

EPISODE 1672: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Umut Ozkirimli the author of CANCELLED, about  his personal history of social media from the 2013 Gezi Park uprising to his own cancellation in 2020Umut Özkırımlı is a Senior Research Fellow at IBEI. He is also a Professor at Blanquerna (Universitat Ramon Llull) and a Senior Research Associate at CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs). Before relocating to Barcelona, he was a Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), Lund University. He is the author of Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000; second revised and extended edition 2010. Translated into Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Albanian); Contemporary Debates on Nationalism: A Critical Engagement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Translated into Turkish and Chinese); Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (with Spyros A. Sofos, Hurst & Co. and Oxford University Press, 2008. Translated into Turkish and Greek). His latest books are The Making of a Protest Movement in Turkey: #occupygezi (edited collection, Palgrave Pivot, 2014) and Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (third revised and extended edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).  He also held shorter research fellowships at IWM - Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Vienna and LSEE - Research on South East Europe, LSE. He is currently working on three monographs: Dumb Swedes, Smart Turks? Nationalism, Democracy and the Global Crisis of Trust (with Lars Trägårdh and Henrik Berggren, Bristol University Press, 2020), #MeToo: Who? The Human Rights and Wrongs of Sex (with Julie Wark, 2021) and The Politics of Polarization: Nationalism, Populism and the Future of Democracy(Polity, 2021). Other, more distant, projects include a new book series on "New Perspectives in Nationalism Studies" (with Daphne Halikiopoulou, Palgrave Macmillan); and one edited collection and one monograph to be published as part of the series (with Daphne Halikiopoulou).Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1671: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to the award winning Turkish writer and political commentator Ece Temelkuran about social media's failure to change the worldEce Temelkuran is a Turkish journalist and political commentator, and author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship 

EPISODE 1670: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Siddharth Kara, author of COBALT RED, about the appalling human cost of mining cobalt in the CongoSiddharth Kara is an author, researcher, screenwriter, and activist on modern slavery. He an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Kara has authored three books on modern slavery: Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery (2009); Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia (2012); and Modern Slavery: A Global Perspective (2017), each with Columbia University Press. Kara adapted Sex Trafficking into a Hollywood film, Trafficked, which held its world premiere at the United Nations in New York. Sex Trafficking also won the prestigious Frederick Douglass book prize at Yale University for the best non-fiction book on slavery. Kara has also authored the reports: Tainted Carpets: Slavery and Child Labor in India's Hand-Made Carpet Sector (Harvard, 2014), and Tainted Garments: The Exploitation of Women and Girls in India's Home-Based Garment Sector (UC Berkeley, 2019). He is working on a fourth book about the horrors of cobalt mining in the Congo. Across twenty years of almost entirely self-funded research, Kara has traveled to more than fifty countries to document the cases of several thousand slaves of all kinds. He has mapped global human trafficking networks, explored the perilous underground of trafficked sex slaves, and traced global supply chains of numerous commodities tainted by slavery and child labor. Kara advises several UN agencies and numerous governments on anti-slavery policy and law. He has also appeared extensively in the media as an expert on modern slavery, including on CNN, the BBC, the Guardian, CNBC, National Geographic, and numerous documentary films. Previously, Kara was an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, then ran his own finance and M&A consulting firm. He holds a Law degree from England, MBA from Columbia University, and BA from Duke University.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1669: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Rafael Yuste, author of LECTURES IN NEUROSCIENCE,  about how today's advances in neuroscience will eventually lead to a new Renaissance in understanding who we are as a speciesRafael Yuste is Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. He studies the function and pathology of the cerebral cortex. Yuste obtained his M.D. in Madrid. After working in Brenner’s laboratory in Cambridge, he was a Ph.D. student with Katz in Wiesel’s laboratory at Rockefeller University, and postdoctoral student of Tank at Bell Laboratories. He joined Columbia in 1996 and is director of its Neurotechnology Center and co-director of its Kavli Institute for Brain CircuitsIn 2011 Yuste led a group of researchers who proposed the US BRAIN Initiative, and in 2016 he helped coordinate the International BRAIN Initiative. He is involved in ethical guidelines for Neurotechnology (“NeuroRights”).Yuste is a member of Spain’s Royal Academies of Medicine and of Science and has obtained awards from the Mayor of New York City, the Society for Neuroscience and the Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He recently shared the Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1668: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Bruce Dorsey, author of MURDER IN A MILL TOWN, about the first true crime that captivated AmericaBruce Dorsey is a Professor of History at Swarthmore College. He is the author of the award-winning Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City. He lives in New York City and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. His latest book is MURDER IN A MILL TOWN: Sex, Faith, and the Crime that Captivated a Nation (2023)Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1667: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Anya Kamenetz, author of THE STOLEN YEAR, about the environmental, psychological, epidemiological, economic and political crises of our ageAnya Kamenetz is a journalist focused on generational justice. Her current projects include a kids’ climate podcast for Noggin (Nickelodeon's educational brand) and work with K12 Climate Action to include climate in children’s storytelling. Anya has previously worked as an education correspondent for NPR and a staff writer for Fast Company magazine. She's contributed to the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Magazine, and Slate, and has won multiple awards for her reporting on education, technology, and innovation. She is the author of four books: Generation Debt, DIY U, The Test, and The Art of Screen Time. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1666: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to  Tom Kemp, the author of CONTAINING BIG TECH, about the existential political and economic dangers of Google, Facebook, Amazon and AppleNamed as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Tom Kemp is a Silicon Valley–based CEO, entrepreneur, and investor. Tom was the founder and CEO of Centrify (renamed Delinea in 2022), a leading cybersecurity cloud provider that amassed over two thousand enterprise customers, including over 60 percent of the Fortune 50. For his leadership, Tom was named by Ernst & Young as a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California. Tom is also an active Silicon Valley angel investor, with seed investments in over a dozen tech start-ups. In addition, Tom has served as a technology policy advisor for political campaigns and advocacy groups, including leading the campaign marketing efforts in 2020 to pass California Proposition 24―the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)―and co-drafting bills such as the California Delete Act of 2023. Tom writes extensively on technology policy on his blog (tomkemp.ai) and has been interviewed by the Guardian, Politico, the Washington Post, CNBC, Fox News, and others. Tom holds a bachelor of science degree in computer science and in history from the University of Michigan. You can follow Tom on Twitter at @TomKemp00.

EPISODE 1665: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Robert D. Kaplan, author of THE LOOM OF TIME, about why Singapore offers a palatable political model for countries in the "Greater Middle East"ROBERT D. KAPLAN is the bestselling author of twenty-two books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including The Loom of Time, The Tragic Mind, Adriatic, The Good American, The Coming Anarchy, Balkan Ghosts, Asia’s Cauldron, and The Revenge of Geography. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. A senior adviser at Eurasia Group, he was chief geopolitical analyst at Stratfor, a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a member of both the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and the U. S. Navy's Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has called Kaplan among the four “most widely read” authors defining the post-Cold War (along with Stanford Professor Francis Fukuyama, Yale Professor Paul Kennedy, and the late Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington). Kaplan's article, “The Coming Anarchy,” published in the February, 1994 Atlantic Monthly, about how population rise, ethnic and sectarian strife, disease, urbanization, and resource depletion is undermining the political fabric of the planet, was hotly debated in foreign-language translations around the world. So was his December, 1997 Atlantic cover story, “Was Democracy Just A Moment?” That piece argued that the democracy now spreading around the world would not necessarily lead to more stability. According to U. S. News & World Report, “President Clinton was so impressed with Kaplan, he ordered an interagency study of these issues, and it agreed with Kaplan’s conclusions.” In the 1980s, Kaplan was the first American writer to warn in print about a future war in the Balkans. Balkan Ghosts was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the “best books” of 1993. The Arabists, The Ends of the Earth, An Empire Wilderness, Eastward to Tartary, and Warrior Politics were all chosen by The New York Times as “notable” books of the year. An Empire Wilderness was chosen by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times as one of the best books of 1998. The Wall Street Journal named The Arabists one of the five best books ever written about America’s historical involvement in the Middle East. The Financial Times named Asia’s Cauldron one of the ten best political books of 2014. Besides The Atlantic, Kaplan’s essays have appeared on the editorial pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times, as well as in all the major foreign affairs journals, including cover stories in Foreign Affairs. He has been a consultant to the U. S. Army’s Special Forces Regiment, the U. S. Air Force, and the U. S. Marines.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenti

EPISODE 1664: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Ethan Zuckerman, author of MISTRUST, about he history of blogging, the Arab Spring and why there will never be another TwitterEthan Zuckerman is an associate professor of public policy, communication, and information, as well as director of the UMass Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, focused on reimagining the internet as a tool for civic engagement. Prior to coming to UMass, Zuckerman was at MIT, where he served as director of the Center for Civic Media and associate professor of practice in media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on the use of media as a tool for social change, the role of technology in international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists. The author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, he will publish a new book, Mistrust: Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them (W.W. Norton), in early 2021. In 2005, Zuckerman co-founded Global Voices, which showcases news and opinions from citizen media in more than 150 nations and 30 languages. Through Global Voices, and as a researcher and fellow for eight years at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, Zuckerman has led efforts to promote freedom of expression and fight censorship in online spaces. In 1999, Zuckerman founded Geekcorps, an international, nonprofit, volunteer organization that sent IT specialists to work on projects in developing nations, with a focus on West Africa. Previously, he helped found Tripod.com, one of the web's first "personal publishing" sites. In addition to authoring numerous academic articles, Zuckerman is a frequent contributor to media outlets such as The Atlantic, Wired, and CNN. He received his bachelor's degree from Williams College and, as a Fulbright scholar, studied at the University of Ghana at Legon.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1663: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Behnam Tabrizi, author of GOING ON OFFENSE, on why some companies succeed and others fail in the struggle to survive in today's perpetually innovative economyBehnam Tabrizi is a world-renowned expert in organizational transformation, best-selling author, and an award-winning teacher, scholar, and global advisor. He has taught at Stanford University and its executive programs for 25 years. He is the author of ten books on leading innovation and transformation, and served as an advisor to many large global companies, the U.S. President, and governmental agencies.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.