Accessibility links
Lawrence Wu
Stories By

Lawrence Wu

Thursday

The New Gilded Age
Library of Congress

Throughline

The New Gilded Age

Philanthropic foundations are a fundamental part of our society: they support media, the arts, education, medical research, and more. NPR, and even this show, is supported by many personal and family foundations. But it wasn't always that way. In this episode, we go back to the beginning — the Gilded Age. We trace the birth and evolution of what many today call "big philanthropy," and ask what all this private wealth means for the public good.

The New Gilded Age

Listen · 49:54
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1094794267/1200556500" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Tuesday

Animals

'Throughline': How rats became one of Earth's most successful mammalian colonizers

Love 'em or hate 'em, rats are part of our world. NPR's history podcast Throughline dove into the history of rats and found a story that spans thousands of years and touches nearly every continent.

'Throughline': How rats became one of Earth's most successful mammalian colonizers

Listen · 6:49
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1094766076/1094766077" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

The Everlasting Problem (2020)

Health care reform supporters participate in a sit-in inside the lobby of a building where Aetna insurance offices are located September 29, 2009 in New York City. The protesters were eventually arrested by NYPD. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Throughline

The Everlasting Problem (2020)

Health insurance for millions of Americans is dependent on their jobs. But it's not like that everywhere. So how did the U.S. end up with such a fragile system that leaves so many vulnerable—or with no health insurance at all? On this episode, how a temporary solution created an everlasting problem.

The Everlasting Problem (2020)

Listen · 54:32
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1075894757/1200556508" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Capitalism: What Makes Us Free? (2021)

President elect Ronald Reagan (fifth from left) meets with his top economic advisers, including Milton Friedman (second from left) to discuss his economic agenda. Bettmann/Bettmann Archive hide caption

toggle caption
Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

Analysis

Throughline

Capitalism: What Makes Us Free? (2021)

What's the role of government in society? What do we mean when we talk about individual responsibility? What makes us free? 'Neoliberalism' might feel like a squishy term that's hard to define and understand. But this ideology, founded by a group of men in the Swiss Alps, is a political project that has dominated our economic system for decades. In the name of free-market fundamentals, the forces behind neoliberalism act like an invisible hand, shaping almost every aspect of our lives.

Capitalism: What Makes Us Free? (2021)

Listen · 50:16
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1091050251/1200556512" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

The Land of the Fee (2021)

Beautifully Illustrated Antique Engraved Victorian Illustration of Luxurious Early American Railway Pullman Dining Car, 1877. Source: Original edition from my own archives. Copyright has expired on this artwork. Digitally restored. bauhaus1000/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
bauhaus1000/Getty Images

Throughline

The Land of the Fee (2021)

Tipping is a norm in the United States—and it's always been controversial. The practice took off after the Civil War, as employers sought cheap labor from formerly enslaved people: if tips were expected, companies could get away with paying laughably low wages. But the practice was always controversial, and has been vehemently challenged since it first came to the U.S. from Europe. We speak with Nina Martyris, a journalist who's written about the history of tipping in the United States, to find out how tipping—once deemed a "cancer in the breast of democracy"— went from being considered wholly un-American to becoming a deeply American custom.

The Land of the Fee (2021)

Listen · 44:54
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1089587173/1200556516" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

All Wars Are Fought Twice

Nik Wheeler/Corbis Nik Wheeler/Corbis hide caption

toggle caption
Nik Wheeler/Corbis

Throughline

All Wars Are Fought Twice

"All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory," writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen. This week on Throughline, we want to pause the news cycle to think about not just how war is experienced or consumed, but how it's remembered. A refugee from the Vietnam War, Nguyen calls himself a scholar of memory — someone who studies how we remember events of the past, both as people and as nations. As the world watches the war in Ukraine — and with the U.S. departure from Afghanistan still fresh — we speak with Nguyen about national memory, selective forgetting, and the refugee stories that might ultimately help us move forward.

All Wars Are Fought Twice

Listen · 48:11
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1088074488/1200556520" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Our Own People (2021)

Yuri Kochiyama speaks at an anti-war demonstration in New York City's Central Park around 1968. Courtesy of the Kochiyama family/UCLA Asian American Studies Center hide caption

toggle caption
Courtesy of the Kochiyama family/UCLA Asian American Studies Center

Throughline

Our Own People (2021)

A Japanese American activist whose early political awakenings came while incarcerated in the concentration camps of World War II America, Kochiyama dedicated her life to social justice and liberation movements. One year after the spa shootings that killed eight people in Atlanta, Georgia — including six women of Asian descent — Throughline reflects on Kochiyama's ideas around the Asian American struggle, and what solidarity and intersectionality can mean for all struggles.

Our Own People (2021)

Listen · 51:10
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1086715278/1200556524" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

Ukraine's Dangerous Independence

KYIV, UKRAINE - MARCH 05: A member of a Territorial Defence unit guards a barricade next to writing saying " Glory To Ukraine" close to the eastern frontline on March 05, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Russia continues assault on Ukraine's major cities, including the capital Kyiv, more than a week after launching a large-scale invasion of the country. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images) Chris McGrath/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Analysis

Throughline

Ukraine's Dangerous Independence

Months before Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, he published an essay on the Kremlin website called "On The Historical Unity of Russia and Ukraine." In it, he suggested that Ukrainians don't really have their own identity — and that they never have. Historian Serhii Plokhii says that couldn't be further from the truth. The histories of the two countries are deeply intertwined, but Ukrainian identity is unique. Today, we explore that identity: how it formed, its relationship to Russia, and how it helps us understand what's happening now.

Ukraine's Dangerous Independence

Listen · 43:40
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1085233552/1200556528" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Of Rats and Men

New York Public Library Digital Collection New York Public Library Digital Collection hide caption

toggle caption
New York Public Library Digital Collection

Throughline

Of Rats and Men

Rats. Love 'em or hate 'em, (though you probably hate 'em), they're part of our world. And during the pandemic, they've been out in full force: fewer humans outdoors means more space for rats. And it turns out, they're a lot like us: They've colonized the whole planet; they're incredibly adaptable; they go wherever the resources are. And, they share one-fourth of our genome—so when you're looking in the mirror, you're kinda seeing a rat staring back at you. So for this episode, we dove into the history of our rodent doppelgängers. What we found was a story that spans thousands of years and nearly every continent on Earth, from the fields of ancient Mongolia to the palaces of Victorian England to the laboratories of 20th century Maryland... and probably to a burrow near you.

Of Rats and Men

Listen · 51:00
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1083527825/1200556532" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

There Are No Utopias

Robin D. G. Kelley Simon & Schuster hide caption

toggle caption
Simon & Schuster

Perspective

Throughline

There Are No Utopias

It may seem bleak, but Robin D.G Kelley's view of the world says there is no promise of liberation, only struggle. Kelley has spent his career bringing to life the stories of the Black labor organizers and anti-capitalists who are often left out of history books, from radical farmers in the South to Black unions during the Gilded Age. And he's come to a provocative conclusion: that the secret to capitalism's survival is racism. His scholarship uses historical connections between race and labor to directly challenge the premise that there can be any justice within America's current economic system — and to ask what that means for the people who seek it. This week on Throughline, a view of Black history you don't often hear in February.

There Are No Utopias

Listen · 49:14
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1082030426/1200556536" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Marcus Garvey: Pan-Africanist (2021)

Joelle Avelino Joelle Avelino hide caption

toggle caption
Joelle Avelino

Throughline

Marcus Garvey: Pan-Africanist (2021)

Black people deserve nothing less than everything: This was Marcus Garvey's simple, uncompromising message. His speeches on Pan-Africanism — the vision of a world where all people of African origin, on every continent, were united, self-sufficient, and proud — made him a powerful Black voice in the 20th century. His steamship company, the Black Star Line, was supposed to take his followers to Africa, where he said they would find true liberation. His message resonated with leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X. But the civil rights establishment viewed Garvey with deep suspicion. And the Black Star Line never sailed. In today's episode, we examine Marcus Garvey's life and legacy, and how he became the towering, often-misunderstood figure that he is.

Marcus Garvey: Pan-Africanist (2021)

Listen · 59:33
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1080665553/1200556540" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Wednesday

Pirates of the Senate

Susan Walsh Susan Walsh/AP hide caption

toggle caption
Susan Walsh/AP

Throughline

Pirates of the Senate

The fight over the filibuster brings up some deeper questions that we as a country are facing. How do we make space for disagreement without ending up at a stalemate? Can we use the tools given to us by previous generations without turning them into weapons? And how do we decide which parts of our system should be changed – and when it's time to change? The filibuster can hold legislation hostage, stop bills from ever reaching the Senate floor, and lead to hours-long speeches in Congress, but it can be hard to understand what a filibuster actually is, why we have it, and how it impacts the country. In this episode, we look at how the ongoing battle over the filibuster's future is in some ways a battle over its past.

Pirates of the Senate

Listen · 52:32
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1078984159/1200556544" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

A Story Of Us?

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images Uriel Sinai/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Analysis

Throughline

A Story Of Us?

We've been seeing a lot of debate recently about how history should be taught. For example, some believe that the Civil War was about state rights while some argue that slavery played a large role in it. But what if we could all agree on one shared history? The past, as we know it, is a collection of billions of smaller stories that coalesce into the stories of families, communities, nations, and entire cultures. According to Tamim Ansary, narrative is the way we invent the past and the key to understanding history is understanding the stories we tell ourselves about three key areas: technology, environment, and language. With a world seemingly more connected than ever and still volatile with a constant sense of fracturing identities, Tamim contends that our shared history is a story we must invent. And the future of our species depends on our ability to develop a story we can all see ourselves in.

A Story Of Us?

Listen · 46:20
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1077733601/1200556548" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

From KGB Officer to Russia's Longest Leader: Vladimir Putin

AP Photo/Misha Japaridze Misha Japaridze/AP hide caption

toggle caption
Misha Japaridze/AP

Throughline

From KGB Officer to Russia's Longest Leader: Vladimir Putin

As tensions between Ukraine and Russia escalate, we decided to take a look at the man who has been running Russia for two decades: Vladimir Putin. How did a former KGB officer make his way up to the top seat — was it political prowess or was he just the recipient of a lot of good fortune? In this episode, we dive into the life of Vladimir Putin and try to understand how he became Russia's new "tsar."

From KGB Officer to Russia's Longest Leader: Vladimir Putin

Listen · 33:22
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1075904050/1200556552" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The Way We Dream
AP

Perspective

Throughline

The Way We Dream

Our dreams can haunt us: literally. Recurring dreams about failing tests or running late are a common occurrence, but what are we to make of them? And are there hidden meanings in our dreams? Paleolithic hunter-gatherers may have painted their dreams onto caves, Julius Caesar's wife envisioned his assassination in a dream, and major works of art and music have been inspired by dreams. But with the scientific revolution came a different view of dreams, one in which they were dismissed as merely a meaningless biological reaction. Today, researchers are challenging that age-old assumption and finding new evidence that dreams are a vital way human beings process the world. In this episode, Sidarta Ribeiro takes us on a journey through the history of our understanding of dreams.

The Way We Dream

Listen · 51:20
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1074118733/1200556560" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript