Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

Colette is where free thought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

Our podcast is a team effort and is jointly hosted by myself, associate editor Toby Young,

and Canadian editor Jonathan Kay.

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Welcome to the Colette Podcast.

I'm Jonathan Kay.

Many of us have taken the opportunity of COVID-19 lockdowns to tackle big projects, like cleaning out an attic or filing

away old photos or maybe even learning a new skill or hobby through YouTube.

But then along comes Yale physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis to put all of us to shame.

In October, just seven months after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, he published his acclaimed new book,

Apollo's Arrow, The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronovirus on the way we live. A highly authoritative and readable 350 page treatise on the lessons of past

pandemics, the origins of this one, and the after effects that we'll likely have to live through

for decades to come.

Nicholas Christacas has written a number of other influential books in the past, including

Blueprint, the Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, which I talked to him about on this podcast in 2019, and

connected the amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives.

Professor Christakis spoke to me last week from a media

studio at Yale University. Here are excerpts from that conversation.

One of the great things about your book is the sense of historical perspective you deliver.

...