Podcasts by Whose Century Is It?: Ideas, trends & twists shaping the world in the 21st century
"Whose Century Is It?" explores ideas, trends and twists shaping the 21st century, through a global lens. Host Mary Kay Magistad, a former NPR and PRI East Asia correspondent, offers interviews, stories and perspectives from around the world.
Further podcasts by Mary Kay Magistad
Podcast on the topic Politik
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On China's New Silk Road Podcast Preview from 2020-08-19T22:42:14
If you like Whose Century Is It?, check out this preview of my new limited series podcast with the Global Reporting Centre, On China's New Silk Road. I've teamed up with great local journalists ...
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Modern slavery in your grocery cart from 2019-04-04T00:06:46
Next time you sip your tea or bite into a bar of chocolate, or load up your grocery cart with other treats, spare a thought for the underpaid or unpaid workers who made it possible. Modern slave...
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Wizards, Prophets & the Fate of the Earth from 2019-01-11T05:30:32
We're pretty clever, we humans, but we ignore unintended consequences at our peril -- like climate change, after a couple of centuries of fossil fuel-driven growth and innovation. Can we innovat...
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Sci Fi Future from 2018-12-03T01:37:52
In the imagined world of novelist Eliot Peper's near-term future in such books as Bandwidth and Borderless, San Diego's burning, polar ice caps have melted, everyone's got thei...
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Why half the world's languages may disappear in this century from 2018-04-08T00:16:12
Embedded in each language is a reflection of life as lived by its speakers, over thousands of years. And when a language disappears, that embedded knowledge is lost. As the world grows more conn...
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Ethnic cleansing, human tragedy & the future few saw coming for Burma from 2018-03-05T23:49:47
Not so long ago, Myanmar (Burma) was a good news story, with democratic reforms, a booming economy and falling poverty rates. Then came ugly military-led attacks on Rohingya Muslims, wh...
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We'd All Love to Change the World from 2018-01-22T19:37:01
What happens when you mix the efficiency and energy of the entrepreneurial world with the idealism of philanthropy? A growing number of social entrepreneurs say, you can do a world of good. But ...
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China's counterintuitive bet from 2017-12-30T05:26:08
Can China become a global leader in innovation by protecting state-run companies from competition at home, while acquiring innovative companies abroad? Can that innovation be sustained in a soci...
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Leading -- and following -- in turbulent times from 2017-11-19T21:23:02
Populist leaders and strongmen often rise at times of dizzying, unsettling change. But what if that's exactly the wrong kind of leadership to face the challenges and seize the opportunities of t...
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In the Amazon from 2017-10-17T02:13:53
Breathe in. Breathe out. The oxygen that keeps you going, that keeps life going on earth, comes in part from the vast Amazon rainforest, most of which is in Brazil. Lush, vast and rich in biodiv...
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Young China from 2017-08-27T15:56:25
Few generations in the world face a reality as dramatically different from all that have come before, as China's one-child generation. Since the one-child policy started in the early '80s, China ha...
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Rebuilding Brazil's economy requires more than BRICS and China from 2017-08-15T14:21:07
Brazil's economy was blazing along in the first decade of this century, turbo-charged by China's appetite for commodities. And there was the added boost of being named, by a Goldman Sachs exec, one...
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Bumps along South Africa's yellow BRIC road from 2017-08-02T20:02:20
South Africans' hopes and expectations that their country might become a democratic and economic leader in Africa, helped by a strong relationship with China and membership in the BRICS group — a c...
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Requiem for Liu Xiaobo from 2017-07-17T15:28:49
Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo spent much of his life advocating for basic political rights and democracy in China. For that, he spent years imprisoned by a government that feels threatened by...
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How China's past shapes dreams of future power from 2017-06-30T18:00:23
China was one of the world's great powers for most of the past couple thousand years, and back on its heels only for a couple of centuries, as the Industrial Revolution took off and European coloni...
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Can Chinese pragmatism help save the planet? from 2017-06-16T02:26:38
China's leaders may not exactly be evangelizing about the perils of climate change, but compared to Donald Trump, these days, they look downright statesmanlike on this front. And Chinese policies o...
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Seeing into the future from 2017-05-29T02:37:24
Blind seers aside, it's easier to see where you're going, on the road and in life, if you can actually see. More than half of Americans wear glasses; in poorer and more remote regions of the world,...
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Radio Free(ing) Africa from 2017-05-19T18:03:20
An unsung weapon against terrorism that has proven successful in Africa is the power of the airwaves — shortwave radio reaching people with reliable information, and programming that helps educate ...
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Soul searching in China from 2017-05-03T06:42:14
A resurgence of interest in religion in China, after more than half a century of Communism and in the midst of China's rapid economic transformation and global rise, comes as new generations search...
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Enemies of the (Corrupt) People from 2017-04-19T02:06:29
With kleptocratic autocrats on the rise, good journalism that explains what's going on matters more than ever. Fresh from sharing a 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, for coverage of th...
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Truth & reconciliation in South Africa, revisited from 2017-04-06T05:41:42
Healing deep social wounds takes time, even with active effort. After decades of institutionalized racism under apartheid, South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commission helped a divided natio...
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Atrocity amnesia from 2017-03-15T18:09:46
What happens when neighbors kill neighbors? What happens when the perpetrators try to bury the past? The past can still both shape and haunt the present, as the villagers of the small Polish town o...
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Women's work from 2017-03-08T17:37:07
Women around the world face varying degrees of gender discrimination in the workplace — whether they're hired, how much they're paid, whether they advance as fast as men doing the same job. In Jord...
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Badass librarians of the Internet Archive from 2017-02-23T17:17:08
Librarians rock. And Internet Archive librarians, aiming to digitize and make universally available all human knowledge, including saving webpages that would otherwise disappear? They're on a whole...
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Keeping up with killer technology from 2017-02-08T14:00:29
Drones have only been around for a couple of decades, but already, they're reshaping the contours of conflict and raising ethical quandaries. President Barack Obama launched more than 500 drone str...
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Make America Kind Again from 2017-01-27T17:36:11
America became a global leader over the past century through openness, generosity, and soft power —the ability to attract, and to make others want to emulate your way of life, including inclusivity...
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How trust eroded within America's democracy from 2017-01-12T14:19:22
Trust in government and journalism has plummeted in recent decades, particularly among conservatives. This wasn't a coincidence, nor strictly a result of bad behavior on the part of elected officia...
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China, the US and the lessons of history from 2016-12-29T18:41:30
Talk about epic love/hate relationships. From the birth of the United States, China has loomed large in the American imagination, and America in China's, for better and for worse, often with surpri...
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A newsroom looks at future past from 2016-12-14T16:53:47
As Americans wonder what changes a new year and a new President will bring, here's a case study of how much things can change, in unexpected ways, in a relatively short time. Host Mary Kay Magistad...
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Black Lives Rising (in STEM) from 2016-12-02T21:49:52
Great ideas come from diverse minds, and efforts to get more African Americans into cutting edge fields — science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine — are gaining ground, but with c...
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Trust, Faith & Trump from 2016-11-18T14:39:56
Trust and faith help any relationship, including the relationship between citizens and their government. What happens when trust is at a record low, and faith seems to be in mutually incompatible b...
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How do US elections stack up? from 2016-11-03T20:10:30
What could America learn from emerging democracies around the globe? More than you might think. David Carroll, who heads the Carter Center's Democracy Program and has worked for decades helping to ...
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Borders and belonging from 2016-10-21T12:13:46
Few issues hit more of an emotional chord, or an emotional nerve than those around borders and belonging, immigration and identity. Bringing it home in this third of a three-episode series on these...
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Rule Britannia from 2016-10-06T18:07:37
Britain long ruled the waves, and many of its citizens have now voted for it to control its own borders, and make its own decisions, free of EU control. Is this about sovereignty, or identity, or s...
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Who are 'we'? from 2016-09-22T13:20:51
People have been moving around, and borders have been shifting around, for as long as there have been people. Who gets to say who belongs, and who doesn't? Chandran Kukathas, who heads the London S...
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Propaganda primer for post-War on Terror America from 2016-09-09T06:53:49
Emotional events are opportunities for people in power with an agenda, and Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, now a US citizen and New School professor...
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Fab Labs, Fab Cities, & an Indian dream of becoming an Internet of Things hub from 2016-08-25T13:33:36
Aiming to help everyone make almost anything, Fab Labs have opened around the world, and Fab Cities are taking the movement big-scale. Featuring Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Center of Bits a...
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Maker Movement meets China from 2016-08-09T22:13:13
The Maker Movement started to reconnect Americans with the creativity and joy that comes from making things with your hands, after years of outsourcing manufacturing jobs. It's now been embraced by...
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Conspiracy theories, China & the real John Birch from 2016-07-28T02:09:41
Conspiracy theories thrive amidst distrust — distrust of power, distrust of the "other," distrust of the unknown. They can limit what's possible, and create conflict when none is necessary. One sto...
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The precarious American Dream from 2016-07-11T16:44:01
Living the "American Dream" is getting harder, as prices rise faster than average wages, and work itself shifts toward a gig economy. How and why did this happen, and how might things change from h...
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Virtual beer and Brexit chat with European friends from 2016-07-01T17:56:45
When big things happen, there's nothing like sitting down with smart friends over a beer (or coffee, or whatever), and kicking around ideas about what it all means, and where it's all going. In thi...
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Blood Oil: Why what you put in your gas tank may be funding terrorism from 2016-06-16T05:07
Can a full tank of gas be linked to terrorism? It might be, if you connect the dots. Leif Wenar, author of "Blood Oil: Tyranny, Resources & the Rules that Run the World," explains how it happens, w...
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Behind the Panama Papers from 2016-06-02T03:04:54
The largest document leak in recent history, the Panama Papers, was facilitated by 400 journalists at 107 news organizations in some 80 countries, working for a year, in secret, without word gettin...
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History, memory & Hiroshima: Why President Obama's visit matters from 2016-05-20T03:35:11
President Barack Obama's visit to Hiroshima in Japan will be the first ever by a sitting US president, remembering the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and scarred when the United States became ...
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Prepare to be Bangalore-d: India's rising challenger to Silicon Valley from 2016-05-06T05:56:07
Heads up, Silicon Valley, Bangalore's not just for outsourcing anymore. It's rising fast as a world-class hub of tech and biotech innovation, pulling successful Indian entrepreneurs back from Silic...
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Can Southeast Asia become an economic hub to rival (or at least balance) China? from 2016-04-22T12:06:09
China's rise has thrown new challenges at Southeast Asia — how to find strength in numbers to counter China's economic clout, and political and military muscle. One solution? The Association of Sou...
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Alive and (pretty) well after lost decades, Japan has lessons for China from 2016-04-08T16:43:25
Japan's economic growth is anemic, its population is aging and shrinking, and some Japanese wonder if Japan will still matter, as the century moves ahead. One way it does is as an example to China ...
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From segregation to social change, how the Rosie the Riveter era fit into a century's arc from 2016-03-24T16:02:52
If the arc of history bends toward justice, the needs of the nation during World War II sped the process — not by design, but by necessity. With men off at war, US shipyards and factories started r...
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Are authoritarians gaining ground globally? (Hint: It's complicated.) from 2016-03-11T13:26:53
Is the world facing an ebb in democracy and a rise of authoritarianism? Seems so when you look at some countries, but it all depends on your frame and expectations. Listen in and challenge your ass...
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American authoritarians for Trump from 2016-02-25T09:24:42
What polling data best indicates whether someone will support Donald Trump? It's whether they skew authoritarian on a set of questions pollsters ask about child-rearing. (Hint: If you'd rather have...
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Identity, adoption and China's one-child policy from 2016-02-11T12:49:50
Identity can be a tricky thing, especially if you're adopted from a country and culture that sees ethnic identity as immutable, to one where people reinvent themselves and their identities all the ...
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Protecting internet rights in an age of anxiety from 2016-01-27T19:08:36
How are we, and the rest of the world, doing in striking the right balance between protecting Internet rights and serving national security concerns? How much should citizens in democracies get a s...
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Connecting Myanmar from 2016-01-14T15:56:27
In a few short years, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has gone from being one of the world's most isolated countries, to one most rapidly embracing change and connection with the outside world. S...
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Bonus: Teaching China's next generation of journalists to question everything from 2016-01-06T17:34:09
Journalists love to ask why, and authoritarian governments don't much like to be questioned. So how to teach China's future journalists to do good work despite the censors and other pressures? Form...
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And That's the Way It Was: A CBS veteran talks journalism, past & future from 2015-12-29T09:35:55
The past century brought a revolution in journalism — radio, television, Internet. How did it feel to riding that wave, as a writer for Walter Cronkite, a producer for 60 Minutes, and an executive ...
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Know yourself (genes and all) from 2015-12-16T15:05:13
How much privacy would you give up for a shot at better health and a longer life? How about pooling data from your genome? And if your genome could tell you what might be coming — cancer, Alzheimer...
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Episode 7: Ending global poverty through new tech (high and low) from 2015-12-02T21:18:29
Will the poor always be with us? The global poverty rate is dropping fast, and the UN and other groups are working, together and apart, to come up with creative ways to help the world's poorest pul...
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Kicking China's Coal Habit from 2015-11-19T20:13:59
After decades of dirty development, is China now on a path that could help save the planet? In important ways, it has started to move in the right direction.
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Episode 5: Magna Carta in China from 2015-11-05T19:00:33
The Magna Carta celebrates its 800th anniversary with a swing through China. But is the Magna Carta's core principle, that rulers aren't above the law, relevant to today's China? China's leaders sa...
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Seeing into the Future: A Practitioner's View from 2015-10-22T15:39:40
The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed, science fiction writer William Gibson has famously said. But how do you separate the signal from the noise? It helps to ask someone who...
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Is the American Century Over? from 2015-10-08T02:19:17
Americans have been worrying that their country's best days are behind it since before the American century began. And now? China's economic rise has persuaded many that China will supplant the US,...
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China's Online Future from 2015-09-22T19:39:27
There's much we don't know about what the 21st Century will bring. But we’re not just flying blind. We know that certain things matter more now than they used, and others matter less. One thing tha...
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Empires of Time from 2015-09-22T16:44
Whose century is it? Depends on whose calendar you're using. Anthony Aveni, author of "Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks & Cultures," and a professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate Unive...
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