Malcolm challenges his assistant Camille to the Law School Admissions Test. He gets halfway through, panics, runs out of time, and wonders: why does the legal world want him to rush?

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In the early 1960s the Pentagon set up a top-secret research project in an old villa in downtown Saigon. The task? To interview captured North Vietnamese soldiers and guerrillas in order to measure the effect of relentless U.S. bombing on their morale. Yet despite a wealth of great data, even the leaders of the study couldn’t agree on what it meant.

To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com

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They made the world’s greatest French Fry. Then they threw it away.

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Crucial life lessons from the end of hockey games, Idris Elba, and some Wall Street guys with a lot of time on their hands.

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In the political turmoil of mid-1990s Britain, a brilliant

young comic named Harry Enfield set out to satirize the ideology and politics

of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His parodies became famous. He wrote and

performed a vicious sendup of the typical Thatcherite nouveau riche buffoon. People

loved it. And what happened? Exactly the opposite of what Enfield hoped would

happen. In an age dominated by political comedy, “The Satire Paradox”asks whether laughter and social

protest are friends or foes. 

To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com

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Revisionist History tries to make sense of the conundrum of PED use in baseball, using the 500-year-old philosophical techniques of St. Ignatius. Part one of a three-part series on the moral reasoning of the Jesuit order.

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A weird speech by Antonin Scalia, a visit with some serious legal tortoises, and a testy exchange with the experts at the Law School Admissions Council prompts Malcolm to formulate his Grand Unified Theory for fixing higher education.

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If you disagree with someone — if you find what they think appalling — is there any value in talking to them? In the early 1970s, the talk show host Dick Cavett, the governor of Georgia Lester Maddox, and the singer Randy Newman tried to answer this question.

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Throughout the 1960s, a biologist named Howard Temin became convinced that something wasn’t right in science’s understanding of viruses. His colleagues dismissed him as a heretic. He turned out to be right — and you're alive today as a result.  Season Four ends with a bedtime story about how we should be freed by our doubts, not imprisoned by them.

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Malcolm Gladwell presents the newest podcast from Pushkin Industries: The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.

To listen to all episodes of The Happiness Lab, visit https://megaphone.link/CAD5602975937 or www.happinesslab.fm/.

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On February 24, 1996, Cuban fighter jets shot down two small planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, an organization in Florida that tried to spot refugees fleeing Cuba in boats. A strange chain of events preceded the shoot-down, and people in the intelligence business turned to a rising star in the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Montes. Montes was known around Washington as the “Queen of Cuba” for her insights into the Castro regime. But what Montes’ colleagues eventually found out about her shook their sense of trust to the core. (In this excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s forthcoming audiobook Talking to Strangers, we hear why spy mysteries do not unfold in real life like they do in the movies.)

To preorder a copy of Talking to Strangers and check out Malcolm Gladwell's book tour, visit www.gladwellbooks.com.

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How does genius emerge? An exploration of different types of innovation—through the lens of Elvis Costello’s extraordinary song “Deportee,” once utterly forgettable and then, through time and iteration, a work of beauty and genius.

If you're looking to go deeper into the subjects on Revisionist History, visit Malcolm's collection on iBooks at http://www.apple.co/MalcolmGladwell -- iBooks will update the page every week with new recommendations.

To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com

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John Rock was the co-inventor of the birth control pill — and a committed Catholic. He wanted his church to approve of his invention. What happens when a layman takes on the Vatican? Part two of three.

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In the early ’90s, Hank Rowan gave $100 million to a tiny public university in Glassboro, New Jersey: not Harvard, not Yale, not even to his alma mater, MIT. What was Rowan thinking? And why has it proven so difficult for other philanthropists to follow his lead?

To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com

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Rich people and their addiction to golf: a philosophical investigation.

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Two seasons after its investigation of the decline of McDonalds french fries, Revisionist History returns to fast-food’s high-tech test kitchens. This time the subject is cultural appropriation. The case study is Taco Bell. Oh, and Pat Boone is involved.

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Bowdoin College and Vassar College are two elite private schools that compete for the same students. But one of those schools is trying hard to address the problem of rich and poor in American society—and paying a high price. The other is making that problem worse—and reaping rewards as a result.

To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com

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Wilt Chamberlain’s brilliant career was marred by one, deeply inexplicable decision: He chose a shooting technique that made him one of the worst foul shooters in basketball—even though he had tried a better alternative. Why do smart people do dumb things?

To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com

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A 98-year-old minister takes on his church over the subject of gay marriage—and teaches the rest of us what it means to stand up in protest.

To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com

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