Posts by Live Talks LA
Niall Ferguson with Rana Foroohar
PURCHASE TICKETS/RSVP
— $40 includes a a copy of the book with a signed bookplate*
(* we only ship to US addresses)
— Complimentary to view
“All disasters are in some sense man-made.” Setting the annus horribilis of 2020 in historical perspective, Niall Ferguson explains why we are getting worse, not better, at handling disasters.
Niall Ferguson is a historian and the author of sixteen books, including Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, and The Ascent of Money. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the managing director of Greenmantle LLC. He is also a regular Bloomberg Opinion columnist. His many prizes include the International Emmy for Best Documentary (2009), the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service (2010), and the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award (2016).
Rana Foroohar is Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times. She is also CNN’s global economic analyst. Her first book, “Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business,” was shortlisted for the Financial Times McKinsey Book of the Year award in 2016. Her second book, “Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles – And All of Us,”(2019), and was named Porchlight Business Book of the year. She is currently at work on her third book about the post-neoliberal world. Prior to joining the FT and CNN, Foroohar spent 6 years at TIME, as an assistant managing editor and economic columnist, and previously spent 13 years at Newsweek.
“Niall Ferguson puts the Covid pandemic into the broadest of historical perspectives, and reminds us that this was not the first time that humans have had to deal with catastrophic events. Drawing on a deep knowledge of global history, he catalogs the threats that mankind has faced, and the resourceful ways in which human societies have dealt with them.” —Francis Fukuyama
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises. and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted, or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all.
Yet in 2020 the responses of many developed countries, including the United States, to a new virus from China were badly bungled. Why? Why did only a few Asian countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? While populist leaders certainly performed poorly in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work–pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.
In books going back nearly twenty years, including Colossus, The Great Degeneration, and The Square and the Tower, Ferguson has studied the foibles of modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online fragmentation.
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics, cliodynamics, and network science, Doom offers not just a history but a general theory of disasters, showing why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are getting worse at handing them.
Doom is the lesson of history that this country–indeed the West as a whole–urgently needs to learn, if we want to handle the next crisis better, and to avoid the ultimate doom of irreversible decline.
Seth Rogen with Evan Goldberg
Join us for a virtual Live Talks Los Angeles event:
Monday, May 10, 2021
6:00pm PDT/ 9pm EDT
Seth Rogen
in conversation with Evan Goldberg
discussing his collection of essays, “Yearbook”
This event premieres on May 10, 6pm PST/9pm EST
TICKETS:
$38 includes a signed copy of the book
(includes shipping to US orders only)
A collection of funny personal essays from one of the writers of Superbad and Pineapple Express and one of the producers of The Disaster Artist, Neighbors, and The Boys.
Seth Rogen is an actor, writer, producer, director, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who, alongside longtime collaborators Evan Goldberg and James Weaver, produces film and television projects through their production company, Point Grey Pictures. Rogen can next be seen in Hulu’s series Pam & Tommy, which has been spearheaded by Point Grey. Currently, Rogen stars in Brandon Trost’s film An American Pickle, in which he plays both lead characters. Rogen and Goldberg also launched Houseplant, a Canada-based cannabis company. In 2012, Rogen and his wife, Lauren Miller-Rogen, founded HFC, a national nonprofit organization which funds research and provides care for families coping with Alzheimer’s.
Evan Goldberg is a director, screenwriter and producer. In 2011, Goldberg alongside Seth Rogen, founded Point Grey Pictures, a production company dedicated to creating multi-genre film and television content anchored in dynamic, authentic and passionate storytelling. Goldberg serves as a producer on AN AMERICAN PICKLE, set to launch on HBO Max and as an executive producer on the second season of Amazon’s critically acclaimed series THE BOYS. In the television space, Goldberg produced the second season of Showtime’s Black Monday as well as the third and final season of Hulu’s Future Man. Through Point Grey, Goldberg has produced a diverse slate of films such as Good Boys, Long Shot, 50/50, Goon, Neighbors, Blockers and the Academy Award-nominated The Disaster Artist. Goldberg is known for co-writing and co-directing This Is the End and The Interview with Rogen; co-writing Superbad, Pineapple Express, The Night Before, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising and Sausage Party; as well as executive producing Knocked Up and Funny People.
“At first I was worried that Seth was writing a book, because I was like, ‘Oh no! What’s he gonna say?’ I was actually scared to even read it. But I’m very happy I did. It’s not really a memoir, like I thought it might be. I guess it’s more of a bunch of funny true stories? Does that make sense? He talks about doing stand-up when he was a kid (I drove him to all his shows!), his grandparents, high school, moving to LA, meeting some famous people, things like that. If I’m being honest, I really wish there wasn’t so much drug talk. Why does he need all that! It’s like, ‘We get it!’ And some of the stories? I mean, they’re entertaining, but I was just shocked they happened and he never told me! Overall, I think it’s more sweet and funny than anything, so I like it, and I’m glad he wrote it, but I’d be even more glad if he called me more.” —Sandy Rogen, Seth’s mother
Hi! I’m Seth! I was asked to describe my book, Yearbook, for the inside flap (which is a gross phrase) and for websites and shit like that, so… here it goes!!!
Yearbook is a collection of true stories that I desperately hope are just funny at worst, and life-changingly amazing at best. (I understand that it’s likely the former, which is a fancy “book” way of saying “the first one.”)
I talk about my grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs, and Jewish summer camp, and tell way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like. I also talk about some of my adventures in Los Angeles, and surely say things about other famous people that will create a wildly awkward conversation for me at a party one day.
I hope you enjoy the book should you buy it, and if you don’t enjoy it, I’m sorry. If you ever see me on the street and explain the situation, I’ll do my best to make it up to you.
Senator Elizabeth Warren with Amber Tamblyn
$38 includes a signed copy of the book*
(includes shipping to US orders only)
The inspiring, influential senator and bestselling author mixes vivid personal stories with a passionate plea for political transformation.
In Persist, Warren writes about six perspectives that have influenced her life and advocacy. She’s a mother who learned from wrenching personal experience why child care is so essential. She’s a teacher who has known since grade school the value of a good and affordable education. She’s a planner who understands that every complex problem requires a comprehensive response. She’s a fighter who discovered the hard way that nobody gives up power willingly. She’s a learner who thinks, listens, and works to fight racism in America. And she’s a woman who has proven over and over that women are just as capable as men.
Candid and compelling, Persist is both a deeply personal book and a powerful call to action. Elizabeth Warren―one of our nation’s most visionary leaders―will inspire everyone to believe that if we’re willing to fight for it, profound change is well within our reach.
Lisa Napoli with Susan Stamberg and Linda Wertheimer
Lisa Napoli with Susan Stamberg and Linda Wertheimer
“Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR”
Julianna Margulies
$38 includes a signed copy of the book* (US orders only)
* includes signed book plate. Books ship week of May 10.
Known for her outstanding performances on the groundbreaking television series The Good Wife and ER, Julianna Margulies deftly chronicles her life and her work in this deeply powerful memoir.
Throughout, there were complicated relationships, difficult choices, and overwhelming rejections. But there were also the moments where fate, faith, and talent aligned, leading to the unforgettable roles of a lifetime, both professionally and personally—moments when chaos had finally turned to calm.
Filled with intimate stories and revelatory moments, Sunshine Girl is at once unflinchingly honest and perceptive. It is a riveting self-portrait of a woman whose resilience in the face of turmoil will leave readers intrigued and inspired.
Senator Amy Klobuchar with Preet Bharara
$39 includes a signed copy of the book* (US orders only)
An important, urgently needed book from the senior senator from Minnesota, and former candidate for president of the United States–a fascinating exploration of antitrust in America and the way forward to protect all Americans from the dangers of curtailed competition, and from vast information gathering, through monopolies.
From Standard Oil, and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, to the Progressive Era’s trust-busters, Amy Klobuchar, in this large, compelling history, writes of the fight against monopolies in America.
She begins with the Gilded Age (1870s-1900), when builders of fortunes and rapacious robber barons such as J. P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were reaping vast fortunes as industrialization swept across the American landscape, with the rich getting vastly richer and the poor, poorer. She discusses President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920), “busted” the trusts (breaking up monopolies); the Clayton Act of 1914; the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914; and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950 (it strengthened the Clayton Act). She explores today’s Big Pharma and its price-gouging; and tech, television, content, and agriculture communities and how a marketplace with few players, or one in which one company dominates distribution, can hurt consumer prices and stifle innovation.
As the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Klobuchar is at work on, among others, issues raised by giant tech companies, such as Facebook, Google (it reportedly controls 90 percent of the search engine market), and Amazon, and puts forth her plans, ideas, and legislative proposals designed to strengthen the antitrust laws and antitrust enforcement.