427. Titanic: The Tragedy Begins (Part 1)

Dive into a gripping retelling of maritime disaster with "Stuff You Should Know" hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant as they dissect the harrowing saga of the Costa Concordia. On a voyage reminiscent of a 1998 Las Vegas spectacle, the ill-fated luxury liner set sail with 4,229 people on board, only to succumb to calamity off the coast of Giglio. Through a blend of narrative and scrutiny, the hosts unveil how a sail-by salute, a captain's misguided pride, and deactivated navigational aids converged in tragedy.

The podcast delves beyond the immediate catastrophe, exploring the chaotic aftermath, the heroes who emerged amidst despair, and the far-reaching environmental and financial tolls. Clark and Bryant confront the infamy of Captain Francesco Schettino and the extensive salvage operation that followed. Listeners will be captivated by the storytelling that brings light to dark depths, as "Stuff You Should Know" honors its commitment to making sense of complexity and impacting lives, one episode at a time.

Extreme tourism is growing in popularity among the world’s financial elite. The dangerous, sometimes fatal adventures raise questions about the perils and possible benefits of the risk-driven activities. Some argue that unregulated deep-sea and space-travel tourism are unnecessarily dangerous for travelers and costly to taxpayers. Others contend that the risky tourism ventures spark innovation and facilitate critical research.

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia as the crossroads of human civilization, the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted. He argues that understanding the East is crucial to our understanding of the world—particularly for Westerners who have lost this global perspective.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases. In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads, while also incorporating insights and feedback from other scholars to supplement his analysis.

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia as the crossroads of human civilization, the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted. He argues that understanding the East is crucial to our understanding of the world—particularly for Westerners who have lost this global perspective.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases. In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads, while also incorporating insights and feedback from other scholars to supplement his analysis.

Published in 1969, Business Adventures is a collection of essays about the unpredictability of corporations and Wall Street—and the people behind them. Longtime New Yorker contributor John Brooks explores how businesses and economies can rise and fall based on people’s behavior, which is often driven by emotions, habits of thinking, and human tendencies. Brooks’s essays are so insightful and engaging that Microsoft’s Bill Gates has called Business Adventures the “best business book ever.”

In this guide, you’ll find out how human nature led to corporate scandals, stock market setbacks, and major events that shaped the financial world as we know it. As the book was published half a century ago, we also include updates and commentary about the lasting impact of these case studies and connect them to contemporary events and issues.

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari uses concepts from biology, history, and economics to tell the story of us, Homo sapiens. We start 2.5 million years ago, when Sapiens make their historical entrance, and end in the future, when the creation of an artificially created superhuman race may mark the end of the Sapiens species. Along the way, we learn how our ability to create imagined realities led to our dominance over other species. We watch as the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, imperialism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution change our species in lasting, and not always positive, ways.

Ultimately, we’re left with one question: As we design our future, who do we want to become? Asking the right questions may be more important than finding the right answers. Read this summary to explore our history as a species—in doing so, you’ll see today’s world in an entirely new way.

Conventional accounts of American history tend to focus on the people at the top—presidents, generals, CEOs, and other influential figures and their struggles, ambitions, hopes, and dreams. But what about average people? The ones who had to live with the consequences of elite decisions, and who often struggled in obscurity? In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn aims to tell their story, providing a bottom-up view of American history focusing on Indigenous people, Black Americans, women, laborers, and activists.

Our guide outlines Zinn’s interpretation of significant events, themes, and historical trends in American history. Through our commentary, we’ll provide alternative opinions on the motivations behind and consequences of historical events. We’ll also further explain Zinn’s approach to history and provide additional context for his arguments as well as his perspective on events that happened after the book’s publication.

In Development as Freedom, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen calls for a radical rethinking of the way we view poverty and economic development. Pulling from more than five decades of his own research, Sen argues that economic development goes beyond increasing wealth—it’s about expanding freedom.

In this guide, we examine the five types of freedom that Sen argues are integral to development. We explore how empowering women helps communities, how democracy prevents famine, and how capitalist values lead to the greater good.

This guide explains Sen’s reasoning—from what it means to be poor to his idea of justice and the role that markets play in development. Additionally, we examine different perspectives on the substance and practicality of Sen’s “development as freedom” approach.

Have you ever wondered why American culture is so focused on “hustle” and productivity, in contrast to many European nations’ laid-back attitudes? As far back as the 1600s, Anglo-American Protestants broke away from the traditional economic lifestyle—working just enough to sustain their lives, then relaxing—and began to work harder, longer, and more systematically than anyone had before.

Max Weber argued in this 1905 classic that the early Protestants in western Europe and America pioneered the way of life that became the modern capitalist’s lifestyle—the productive, rigorous, and systematic pursuit of wealth. And in doing so, they provided the cultural and financial impetus for capitalism to become a full-fledged economic system.

In our guide to The Protestant Ethic, we’ll break down Weber’s argument about the origins and effects of the Protestant way of life and its connection to capitalism. In commentary, we’ll discuss how Weber’s argument relates to Marxism, dive into the theological and historical details, and highlight related arguments about the origins of capitalism.