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The Last Archive is a show about the history of truth, and the historical context for our current fake news, post-truth moment. It’s a show about how we know what...
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The Last Archive is a show about the history of truth, and the historical context for our current fake news, post-truth moment. It’s a show about how we know what we know, and why it seems, these days, as if we don’t know anything at all anymore. The show is written & hosted by Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, and was created by the historian Jill Lepore. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
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Episodes & Posts
Episodes
Posts
Explicit
Transcribed
13 AUG 2026 · Election night 1993 meets election night 2016. The fate of the island and the country converge in the figure of one man: Rudy Giuliani.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Explicit
Transcribed
6 AUG 2026 · At the height of the secession movement, the Wu-Tang Clan forms on Staten Island. We take a tour of early 1990s hip-hop and reveal the hidden history of the group.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
30 JUL 2026 · A group on Staten Island tries to stop secession, squaring off against the secessionists in a heated set of debates and meetings recorded on never-before-seen archival tapes. A set of debates best understood via a detour into the history of a remote Polynesian island.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
23 JUL 2026 · After the Supreme Court takes a close look at New York City government, Staten Island comes out the loser. A local artist begins organizing for secession. We take a deep dive into the psychology of the island, which has a lot to do with the largest garbage dump in the world.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
9 JUL 2026 · Ben Naddaff-Hafrey has a new show out! On the 250th anniversary of the United States, he investigates the story of what was, at the time, the biggest secession movement in the U.S. since the Civil War. From Revisionist History, The Staten Island Problem reconstructs the battle for New York City amidst the turbulent early 1990s — the rise of Rudy Giuliani, the peak of the homicide rate, the Wu-Tang Clan, young Donald Trump, and the first Black mayor of New York — all through the prism of the city’s Forgotten Borough. Staten Island’s secession movement is an early example of the politics of resentment that dominates America today and asks: what do you do when a democracy looks like it’s falling apart? We'll be sharing all episodes of the series right here on The Last Archive. Here’s episode 1. David Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York City, faces off with the borough president of Staten Island, and tries to hold his city together. Find more episodes of Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem wherever you get podcasts. If you want to hear the full series right now, you can binge it with a Pushkin+ subscription. Sign up on the Revisionist History show page on Apple Podcasts or at https://airtable.com/appZTFQex5QyqNtvc/pushkin.fm/plus and use the code RH25 to save 25%.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
30 MAR 2025 · Elon Musk has claimed that AI is humanity’s “biggest existential threat.” Paradoxically, Musk is also working to create artificial intelligence. Why? Jill Lepore tours through a century of imagined robot rebellions, and argues that these stories are never only about robots. So what’s Elon Musk really afraid of when he wrings his hands over AI? In this final episode, Lepore argues that while Musk may be a visionary, “every piece of Muskism has origins in a future foretold in science fiction, long, long ago, as a cautionary tale.”See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
30 MAR 2025 · In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, and renamed it X. When asked why he wanted to own the social media network, Musk talked a lot about something he called the “woke mind virus.” Where does the idea of a mind virus come from? Jill Lepore looks to Cold War science fiction and the recently uncovered writings of Elon Musk’s grandfather in South Africa.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
29 MAR 2025 · The science fiction that Silicon Valley techno-billionaires like Elon Musk adore concerns gleaming futures in which fantastically powerful, immensely rich men colonize other planets. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at some of the science fiction that’s usually left out of this vision — science fiction by and about women.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
29 MAR 2025 · In 2021, Elon Musk started calling himself The Dogefather to signal his support for Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on a joke meme about a dog. That dog is now wagging the tail of the world’s economy. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at Silicon Valley's cryptocurrency craze through the lens of some very old science fiction. Like everything else about Muskism that purports to be futuristic, this idea is a relic, whose history serves as a warning.See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribed
28 MAR 2025 · In 2008 Tesla Motors launched its first car, the completely electric Roadster. Tesla was a great story — something genuinely new, an engineering marvel. Musk became a media darling, on the cover of countless magazines under headlines like ‘Elon Musk, AKA Tony Stark, Wants to Save the World’. Within the logic of Muskism, talking about saving the world was a business strategy, a way to sell cars without ads. Why did so many people buy what Musk was selling?See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Last Archive is a show about the history of truth, and the historical context for our current fake news, post-truth moment. It’s a show about how we know what...
show more
The Last Archive is a show about the history of truth, and the historical context for our current fake news, post-truth moment. It’s a show about how we know what we know, and why it seems, these days, as if we don’t know anything at all anymore. The show is written & hosted by Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, and was created by the historian Jill Lepore. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
show less
Information
| Author | Pushkin Industries |
| Organization | iHeart Podcasts |
| Categories | History |
| Website | - |
| - |
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