Uncommon Knowledge

In this wide-ranging and richly entertaining conversation, novelist and political satirist Christopher Buckley joins Peter Robinson for a reflection on writing, legacy, friendship, and grace.

Transcribed - Published: 30 April 2025

Tune in to this rare appearance by one of America’s most influential thinkers.

Transcribed - Published: 15 April 2025

Frank Dikötter is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has recently returned to the United States after living in Hong Kong since 2006. In this provocative conversation, Dikötter challenges the prevailing narrative about China’s rise. Drawing from his latest book, China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower, Dikötter argues that the Chinese Communist Party has masterfully projected the image of a powerful, modern, and economically dominant nation—but says that image is largely a façade. Dikötter contends that far from being a true superpower, China remains fundamentally fragile: an empire held together by repression, propaganda, and paranoia. Despite gleaming cities and impressive-seeming economic statistics often cited by the West, he asserts that much of China’s so-called growth has been built on the backs of an impoverished population, often without its consent or benefit. He further explains how inflated numbers, hollow institutions, and internal contradictions undermine China’s long-term strength. In his view, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hasn’t lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty—it has merely stepped aside as ordinary people began reclaiming their autonomy after decades of devastation under Mao. Dikötter delves into how the CCP’s fear—of its own citizens, of capitalism, of peaceful evolution—has driven decisions for decades. Dikötter also draws parallels with the Soviet Union and suggests that, like the USSR’s, China’s power is brittle beneath the surface. Xi Jinping, he argues, is not a break from tradition but a continuation of the Party’s long-standing obsession with control. This conversation calls into question not only China’s global ambitions but also how the West has consistently misread the CCP’s intentions and capabilities. Ultimately, Dikötter leaves us with a stark question: Are we overestimating China’s strength—and underestimating its fear? Recorded on March 27, 2025.

Transcribed - Published: 1 April 2025

Niall Ferguson, preeminent historian, discuss the war and ongoing stalemate in Ukraine; the Trump administration’s foreign policy and negotiations with Russia; and the broader geopolitical landscape, including the shift in Europe’s defense posture as the US signals a reduced commitment to NATO.

Transcribed - Published: 18 March 2025

A panel discussion on the legacy of George Shultz and his contributions to U.S. foreign policy, human rights, and the end of the Cold War.

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2025

Stephen Kotkin, one of the most preeminent historians in the world, explores the reelection of Donald Trump, ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, the rising tensions in the Middle East and more.

Transcribed - Published: 28 January 2025

The interview also delves into the technological and political evolution of Silicon Valley and Andreessen’s own shifting political affiliations from left to right, along with his vision for leveraging technology to drive societal progress, the role of innovation in addressing energy challenges, border security, and national defense.

Transcribed - Published: 14 January 2025

This wide-ranging discussion delves into the pervasive impact of technology on human experience, relationships, and societal norms.

Transcribed - Published: 7 January 2025

In this, the second half of our conversation with Peter Thiel, the discussion delves into Thiel’s reflections on ancient prophecies, particularly the concept of the Antichrist as outlined in biblical and literary sources. Drawing from thinkers such as Cardinal Newman and fiction by Vladimir Solovyov and Robert Hugh Benson, Thiel explores how apocalyptic ideas remain relevant today, particularly in light of global challenges like technological risks, nuclear threats, and international governance. The conversation examines the tension between fears of Armageddon and the dangers of a one-world government, emphasizing Thiel’s call for critical thinking, balanced globalization, and the need to integrate historical and contemporary insights into a coherent framework for action. Recorded on October 8th, 2024 RELATED SOURCES Part I: Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel on Ancient Prophecies and Modern Tech Peter Thiel, Leader Of The Rebel Alliance Make Ticker Tape Parades Great Again: A Conversation With Peter Thiel The World According To Thiel Peter Thiel On “The Straussian Moment”

Transcribed - Published: 6 December 2024

Andrew Ferguson is a journalist and author; John Podhoretz is the editor of Commentary magazine and the host of the daily Commentary Magazine Podcast; Henry Olsen is a veteran political analyst, host of the Beyond the Polls podcast, and one of the few people who correctly predicted the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. This discussion hosted by Peter Robinson centers on the shifting political landscape in America, dissecting voter behavior, demographics, cultural changes, the shifting role and influence of legacy and new media, and leadership dynamics in the context of the 2024 election. As the conversation unfolds, the panelists evaluate Donald Trump’s presidency—both past and future—and his potential legacy. They debate his character, leadership style, and policies, weighing his effectiveness in breaking establishment norms against the risks of his divisive rhetoric and unconventional governance. They also discuss the implications of his actions for America’s future, particularly the possibility of a political realignment or a new conservative coalition. The panelists conclude with reflections on national renewal, the importance of moral leadership, and whether America is poised for a period of economic and cultural resurgence similar to the Reagan era. The trio discuss whether the political and cultural shifts in the country indicate a deeper realignment or merely a reaction to current circumstances. Recorded on November 20th, 2024.

Transcribed - Published: 26 November 2024

Natan Sharansky is a renowned human rights activist, former Soviet dissident, Israeli politician, and author. In 1977, Sharansky was sentenced to 13 years of hard labor in a Soviet prison for the crime of advocating for human rights and the right for Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. After nine years of imprisonment, under harsh conditions and including long periods of solitary confinement, Sharankly was released in 1986 as part of a political prisoner exchange between the Soviet Union and western nations. Upon his release, he emigrated to Israel, where he became a prominent figure in Israeli politics and global Jewish advocacy.  In this wide-ranging interview, Sharansky discusses pressing geopolitical issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the nature of anti-Semitism on university campuses, and the role of the United States in supporting Israel and the broader free world. He also reflects on the 1977 Oslo Accords, the resilience of Israeli society amid ongoing threats, and the enduring significance of freedom and identity in Sharansky’s life and worldview. Sharansky also examines America’s responsibility as a leader in the free world, the challenges posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and the deeper cultural and spiritual threads that unite the Jewish people. Recorded on November 18, 2024.

Transcribed - Published: 21 November 2024

Peter Thiel —the prominent tech entrepreneur and thinker— returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, to discuss his views on the end times, technology, and societal progress.

Transcribed - Published: 18 November 2024

The most prestigious and popular historians in the world have appeared together in a public forum for the first time to discuss: the recent controversy regarding Winston Churchill’s role in World War II, the false premise of the 1619 Project, the Cold War, World War II, and more.

Transcribed - Published: 6 November 2024

Condoleezza Rice joins Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson at a perilous moment for the United States and the world at large, even more dangerous than the Cold War, Rice argues.

Transcribed - Published: 18 October 2024

General (ret.) H.R. McMaster, returns to discuss his latest book, At War with Ourselves, in which he candidly recounts his experiences as former national security advisor to President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018.

Transcribed - Published: 3 September 2024

“Are we alone in the universe?” That’s the central question we put to astrophysicist Dr. Luke Barnes, cosmologist Dr. Brian Keating, and philosopher Dr. Jay Richards.

Transcribed - Published: 20 August 2024

In this wide-ranging conversation, Stephen Meyer and James Tour contrast biological evolution with the more complex challenge of chemical evolution, where modern science still struggles to explain how nonliving chemicals could give rise to life.

Transcribed - Published: 5 August 2024

In his 1943 book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis wrote: “The serious magical endeavor and the serious scientific endeavor are twins: One was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins.

Transcribed - Published: 16 July 2024

Offering cost-benefit analyses of many of the top-line policies of industrial and developing nations, Dr. Lomborg discusses which policies we should prioritize and which we should pay less attention to or end. Lomborg also asserts the benefits of economic growth and says that by spending on technology, we can solve all kinds of big problems, including hunger.

Transcribed - Published: 25 June 2024

Author and columnist Douglas Murray has spent much of the past few years reporting from battlefields in Ukraine and Gaza.

Transcribed - Published: 4 June 2024

Classicist Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history and essays on contemporary culture.

Transcribed - Published: 15 May 2024

Currently a fellow at the Hoover Institution, Paul Wolfowitz previously served as director of policy planning at the State Department, as US ambassador to Indonesia, as under secretary of defense for policy, as dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, as deputy secretary of defense, and as president of the World Bank.

Transcribed - Published: 1 May 2024

John Etchemendy and Fei-Fei Li are the codirectors of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), founded in 2019 to “advance AI research, education, policy and practice to improve the human condition.” In this interview, they delve into the origins of the technology, its promise, and its potential threats. They also discuss what AI should be used for, where it should not be deployed, and why we as a society should—cautiously—embrace it.

Transcribed - Published: 16 April 2024

Historian Andrew Roberts is the author of more than a dozen major works of history, including Napoleon: A Life, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, and The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III. His latest book, coauthored with General David Petraeus, is Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, which provides the basis for this interview. Roberts discusses the differences in the way nations and allied forces prosecute wars in the twentieth century vs. today.

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 2024

Despite a tumultuous and volatile marketplace; scandals, arrests, and bankruptcies at rival digital exchanges; and social issues disrupting his own company, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is a devout believer in digital currencies and the power of the blockchain.

Transcribed - Published: 19 March 2024

In this second part of our interview, the three lifelong friends further recount what life was like for Blacks in Jim Crow Alabama and the deep bonds that formed in the Black community at the time in order to support one another and to give the children a good education. They discuss how they overcame the structural racism they experienced as children to achieve incredible successes as adults.

Transcribed - Published: 23 February 2024

In this second part of our interview, the three lifelong friends further recount what life was like for Blacks in Jim Crow Alabama and the deep bonds that formed in the Black community at the time in order to support one another and to give the children a good education. They discuss how they overcame the structural racism they experienced as children to achieve incredible successes as adults.

Transcribed - Published: 23 February 2024

Mary Bush, Freeman Hrabowski, and Condoleezza Rice grew up and were classmates together in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, in the late 1950s and early ’60s. We reunited them for a conversation in Birmingham’s Westminster Presbyterian Church, where Rice’s father was pastor during that period.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2024

With the recent announcement that Oppenheimer, the film directed by Christopher Nolan, had garnered 11 Academy Award nominations, it seemed timely to pull from the archives this rarely seen episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson from 1996 (the third episode ever shot), featuring nuclear physicists and Hoover senior fellows Edward Teller and Sidney Drell.

Transcribed - Published: 30 January 2024

In this interview, Ferguson discusses his stunning essay “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” published in December 2013 in the Free Press. The essay delves deeply into the changes Ferguson has observed in his 30-year career as an academic, especially over the past 10 years.

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2024

Two questions: What should the Court’s rulings be? What will they be? To answer those questions and more, we turn to our in-house legal experts: NYU Law School’s Richard Epstein and Berkeley Law School’s John Yoo.

Transcribed - Published: 17 January 2024

In this wide-ranging interview, conducted in the Hugh Scott Room in the US Capitol, Senator Cotton opines on a variety of issues, including the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the looming conflict with China over Taiwan.

Transcribed - Published: 19 December 2023

In this wide-ranging conversation, Colby and Blumenthal discuss what the United States and its allies can do practically to deter China’s expansion in the South China Sea and its aggression toward Taiwan.

Transcribed - Published: 5 December 2023

Not yet 40 years old, Republican congressman Mike Gallagher has been elected four times to the House of Representatives from Wisconsin’s eighth district, which includes Green Bay and, more importantly, Lambeau Field, home of the Packers.

Transcribed - Published: 17 November 2023

The past several years have seen consequential changes for NCAA schools and their athletes: the introduction of name, image, and likeness rules; the establishment of the transfer portal; and the realignment of the conferences in which all major college teams and athletes compete—and critically, the distribution of the TV monies the conferences generate.

Transcribed - Published: 8 November 2023

The past several years have seen consequential changes for NCAA schools and their athletes: the introduction of name, image, and likeness rules; the establishment of the transfer portal; and the realignment of the conferences in which all major college teams and athletes compete—and critically, the distribution of the TV monies the conferences generate.

Transcribed - Published: 8 November 2023

Dr. Economy is the author of half a dozen books, including her most recent volume, The World According to China. She has just returned to Hoover after a two-year leave of absence in Washington, where she served as senior advisor for China to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

Transcribed - Published: 23 October 2023

Thomas Sowell, age 93, is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. With his usual fierceness and feistiness intact, Dr. Sowell returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson for a second round of discussion on his latest book (he’s published over 40 titles over his career), Social Justice Fallacies.

Transcribed - Published: 29 September 2023

Thomas Sowell, age 93, is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. With his usual fierceness and feistiness intact, Dr. Sowell returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss his latest book (he’s published over 40 titles over his career), Social Justice Fallacies.

Transcribed - Published: 15 September 2023

Steven Koonin is one of America’s most distinguished scientists, with decades of experience, including a stint as undersecretary of science at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration.

Transcribed - Published: 22 August 2023

In this wide-ranging conversation, Hadley and Rice reveal the insights and discussions that informed US foreign policy and national security, particularly in the months and years following 9/11, concerning the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Russia. Decisions made during the Bush years would impact America and the world for years to come, presaging many of the issues being faced today in the Middle East and in Ukraine.

Transcribed - Published: 31 July 2023

Stephen Kotkin is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and one of the foremost experts on Russia, past and present.

Transcribed - Published: 13 July 2023

In this second and final installment of our conversation with Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson, we cover his writing process for his books and columns, examine how “World War II” has earned that name, and preview his upcoming book, The End of Everything: How War Becomes Armageddon, which offers four cases studies of civilizations that collapsed.

Transcribed - Published: 27 June 2023

Over the years, Hoover senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson has graced Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson many times, often referring to his family home and farm outside of Selma, in California’s Central Valley. So for this interview, we decided to go to Selma and see where Hanson grew up and still lives and where several generations of his family—going back to the mid-19th century—have lived and worked the land.

Transcribed - Published: 12 June 2023

Prior to spring 2020, Jay Bhattacharya was a well-respected but little-known epidemiologist and Stanford Medical School professor. But when the COVID pandemic broke out that March, Dr. Bhattacharya was thrust into a leadership role as coauthor of the groundbreaking Santa Clara Study.

Transcribed - Published: 18 May 2023

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of numerous books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist. In this conversation, we cover the conflict over Taiwan: why it’s a cold war, when it started, how to avoid allowing it to become a hot war, and how to de-escalate and even win it.

Transcribed - Published: 1 May 2023

Paul Gregory is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Cullen Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston. He’s also the author of a new book, The Oswalds: An Untold Account of Marina and Lee, a fascinating account of the relationship he developed with Marina and Lee Oswald in the summer of 1963, when Gregory was 21 years old.

Transcribed - Published: 13 April 2023

In this second installment, we cover Reagan’s second term, including his quest to negotiate and sign a nuclear arms treaty with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev; the now iconic “tear down this wall” speech (a topic our host has some familiarity with); and finally, the lasting legacy of Ronald Reagan and his place in history.

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2023

Will Inboden is a man of many talents: author, academic, and national policy maker. He held positions with the State Department and the National Security Council before returning to academia to serve as executive director of the Clements Center for National Security and associate professor of public policy and history at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Transcribed - Published: 16 March 2023

John Cochrane is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and the author of a new book, The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level. In this wide-ranging conversation, Cochrane discusses the root causes of inflation, what we can (and can’t) do about it, the economists who influenced his thinking, and how his father inspired him to become an academic.

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2023