Serve to Lead® | James Strock

Benn Steil is an award-winning writer in the fields of finance, history, and biography. He is a senior fellow and director of international economics at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Steil discusses his important new book, “The World That Wasn’t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century.' He explains the ongoing significance of Henry Wallace to our ...

Philip K Howard is a leading reformer of American law and government. He combines thought and action: A prolific, best-selling writer and frequent commentator who founded the non-partisan group, Common Good.

He is the author of an eagerly awaited new book, Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society.

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Howard discusses the urgent need and prospects for change, in tim...

Can America overcome the political polarization and dysfunction afflicting us in recent decades?

Or are our circumstances so dire and unprecedented that decline is inevitable and history holds few lessons?

If you’re a pessimist, veteran political commentator and public official Ted Van Dyk would like a word.

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Van Dyk applies his extraordinary experiences in politics, government, and academe...

Richard Norton Smith is at the top tier of American presidential historians. He is the author of the highly acclaimed new biography: An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford.

Smith is widely recognized for his regular appearances on the PBS News Hour, as well as a historical commentator on CBS and other networks. He’s a familiar and beloved guide to history on CSPAN.

In this episode of the Serve...

Sasha Stone is a pioneering blogger and founder of Awards Daily, as well as a widely-read, provocative Substack, “Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning.”

She is on the vanguard of the realignment and re-sorting underway in our politics and culture.

Sasha Stone’s lived experience is representative of those Bridget Phetasy calls “the politically homeless.” This refers to the rising plurality of Americans—nearing a majority of voters...

Derek Leebaert—historian, strategist, organizational leadership and management consultant, and bestselling author of a series of critically acclaimed books—has written an outstanding and timely new work: Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made.

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Leebaert discusses the book, its genesis and its uncanny relevance in our historic moment.

Publisher’s ...

Amid the kaleidoscopic changes testing and recasting the post-1945 liberal world order, none is more significant—and consequential—than the ascent of India.

India and the United States have long maintained a unique relationship. Each nation is a post-colonial power. Each achieved independence from Great Britain after protracted struggle. Each is a demographically diverse nation governed by a representative democracy.

The Council on ...

Brooks Newmark is co-founder of Angels for Ukraine. He is serving on the scene, organizing the safekeeping and relocation of thousands of women and children amid the devastation unleashed by the Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022.

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Newmark discusses his experiences on the scene in Ukraine. He also shares the process by which he became determined to put himself in harm’s way ...

Amid the uncertainty and sense of lack of leadership in American politics and government, and other sectors, there’s a burst of interest in one of our most consequential presidents: Franklin Roosevelt.

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, award-winning presidential historian and journalist Jonathan Darman discusses his highly readable and extensively researched new book, Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a Preside...

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, renowned theoretical physicist Steven Koonin discusses his views on the state of the climate and alternative policy responses. He also shares thoughts about his ideals as an educator; his admiration for Richard Feynman; and examples of where he’s changed his mind on significant matters in recent years.

Koonin brings a unique set of relevant, hands-on experiences to the complex and conten...

In our unsettled moment, there’s a burst of interest in one of the United States’ most consequential presidents: Franklin Roosevelt.

In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, acclaimed presidential historian David Pietrusza discusses his highly readable, extensively researched new book, Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal.

The Next Nationalism is a reader-supported publication. To ...

The India-US relationship is one of the most significant and fascinating among great nations. In this episode of the Serve to Lead Podcast, historian and journalist Meenakshi Ahamed discusses her new book, A Matter of Trust: India-US Relations From Truman to Trump.

Ahamed combines analytical rigor with a storyteller’s gift for narrative. The book has garnered critical acclaim, and is a finalist for the prestigious Arthur Ross Award...

Nationalism has become a word of opprobrium among many in polite society. It’s often associated with right-wing populists or authoritarians—with a provenance stirring unsettling memories of Hitler, Mussolini and other fascist dictators of the twenty-century, interwar period.

Even the more anodyne formulation, patriot has become fraught in today’s hyper-partisan moment.

John Halpin, co-editor of The Liberal Patriot, is working to ex...

Johnson posits that a blueprint for national solidarity can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America.

“Racism is an existential threat to America,” Theodore R. Johnson declares at the start of his profound and exhilarating book, When the Stars Begin to Fall. It is a refutation of the American Promise enshrined in our Constitution that that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet racism continu...

A riveting narrative of Wall Street buccaneering, political intrigue, and two of American history’s most colossal characters, struggling for mastery in an era of social upheaval and rampant inequality.

At the turn of a new century, the United States is in transition. Its financial and economic systems are being disrupted, amid cultural turmoil and political division. The periodic emergence of oligarchic power in the American politic...

Philip K. Howard is a longtime leader of government and legal reform in the United States. Amid the current political turmoil, Howard has set his sights on the remorseless increase in the power of public employee unions. This is a thread linking public sector pension shortfalls; local, state, and federal government bureaucratic dysfunction; outdated public infrastructure that costs far more to improve than in comparable nations; an...