Endgame with Fintan O’Toole

The second episode of Endgame with Fintan O’Toole welcomes the poet and critic Dan Chiasson, whose recent Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People’s Politician is part intellectual biography, part memoir and paean to a region of the country where progressives have often gone to test out their visions for a better society. O’Toole and Chiasson talk about Bernie Sanders’s early embrace of public media, his commitment to labor, and his lifelong emphasis on the pursuit of happiness as a political goal.
 
Dan Chiasson has been writing for the Review since 2009, focusing initially on new poetry collections and quickly expanding to include subjects as various as Keith Richards and Richard Linklater and Lydia Davis and the future of the humanities. He is the author of five books of poems and two books of poetry criticism, in addition to his recent book on Bernie Sanders. He is the Lorraine C. Wang Professor of English at Wellesley.

Endgame with Fintan O'Toole is a New York Review podcast. Our theme music is "Political World" by Bob Dylan, courtesy of Universal Music Publishing Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Our show art is designed by Jason Logan. And our producer is Erica Getto.

New episodes drop every Tuesday across podcast platforms and at YouTube.com/@nybooks. For more, head to nybooks.com.

Creators and Guests

FO
Host
Fintan O’Toole
Fintan O’Toole is Advising Editor at The New York Review. He is a columnist for The Irish Times and his latest book is For and Against a United Ireland, cowritten with Sam McBride.

What is Endgame with Fintan O’Toole?

Join Fintan O’Toole, Advising Editor at The New York Review, as he and his guests discuss the great unraveling of the American order—and imagine what comes next.

Each week they’ll explore some of the major contradictions that have shaped the United States since its founding 250 years ago, looking closely at subjects that range from Civil War history to contemporary fiction, from Thomas Jefferson to Bernie Sanders, from Gilded Age monopolies to tech oligarchs. What can Shakespeare and Nazi Germany tell us about the current presidency? Making unexpected connections and always drawing out the human drama within complicated ideas, Fintan and his guests—including Annette Gordon-Reed, Ben Lerner, Colin Grant, Jean Strouse, and Dan Chiasson—take the best of New York Review essays and turn them into a conversation.

Endgame with Fintan O’Toole is a New York Review podcast.

Show Art: Jason Logan