The Last Archive

Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State | A Preview of Michael Lewis's New Audiobook

Here's a preview of a new audiobook we think you'll enjoy, Blockers: an inside look at the early days of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, as told by the publi

The Staten Island Problem - Part 5: Revenge of the Forgotten Borough

Election night 1993 meets election night 2016. The fate of the island and the country converge in the figure of one man: Rudy Giuliani. See omnystudio.com/listener for p

The Staten Island Problem - Part 4: Wu-Tang vs. Shaolin

At the height of the secession movement, the Wu-Tang Clan forms on Staten Island. We take a tour of early 1990s hip-hop and reveal the hidden history of the group. See o

The Staten Island Problem - Part 3: The Tuvalu Effect

A group on Staten Island tries to stop secession, squaring off against the secessionists in a heated set of debates and meetings recorded on never-before-seen archival ta

The Staten Island Problem - Part 2: A New Map

After the Supreme Court takes a close look at New York City government, Staten Island comes out the loser. A local artist begins organizing for secession. We take a deep

The Staten Island Problem | New Series from Ben

Ben Naddaff-Hafrey has a new show out! On the 250th anniversary of the United States, he investigates the story of what was, at the time, the biggest secession movement i

The Terminator from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

Elon Musk has claimed that AI is humanity’s “biggest existential threat.” Paradoxically, Musk is also working to create artificial intelligence. Why? Jill Lepore tours th

Body Snatchers from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, and renamed it X. When asked why he wanted to own the social media network, Musk talked a lot about something he called

Baby X from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

The science fiction that Silicon Valley techno-billionaires like Elon Musk adore concerns gleaming futures in which fantastically powerful, immensely rich men colonize ot

The Dogefather from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

In 2021, Elon Musk started calling himself The Dogefather to signal his support for Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on a joke meme about a dog. That dog is now wagging t

Iron Man from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

In 2008 Tesla Motors launched its first car, the completely electric Roadster. Tesla was a great story — something genuinely new, an engineering marvel. Musk became a med

Planet B from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

Elon Musk is a rocket man. He wants humans to become ‘a multi-planetary species’ and talks about establishing human settlements on Mars. As President Trump talks up the M

Dimension X from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

Elon Musk is reinventing himself as a kingmaker for the United States and the world. He wants to shape the future. But in this episode, Jill Lepore goes back to his past

The Dark Knight from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

Elon Musk’s origin story keeps changing. First, he was Tony Stark, or Iron Man. Not too long ago, he compared himself to Batman. Arguments started online over whether or

John Birch vs. the PTA

In the 1960s, a right-wing organization led by a former candy tycoon rose to fame in America for their anti-communist campaigns. They called themselves the John Birch Soc

Part 2: Long Jump, Tall Tale

Jesse Owens spent the rest of his life retelling the story of the 1936 games and his encounter with Luz Long. We trace the evolution of a tall tale, discovering the hidde

Part 1: The Jiggle & the Giddy Up

The most famous athlete in 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany was the American sprinter Jesse Owens, and one of the most famous stories from those Games was the unexpected, he

70 Years of Brown v. Board of Education

Jill Lepore returns to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education with a special episode of The Last Archive. She and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey

The Returns: A Conversation with Jill Lepore

In a special, all-new episode of ‘The Returns,’ host emerita Jill Lepore returns to talk about the post-truth moment we find ourselves in and what it means for the 2024 e

The Returns: Epiphany

Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our own archive to help put our present politics into historical context. This episode, Epiphany, first ran