Marginal Revolution Highlights 'Everyday Abundance' Podcast as It Reaches Eight Episodes
Key Takeaways
- •The Everyday Abundance podcast has now released eight episodes, as noted by Marginal Revolution, the economics blog co-founded by George Mason University economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok.
- •The show is hosted by Virginia Postrel and Charles C. Mann and investigates the surprising stories behind routine activities and unrecognized technologies such as brushing teeth and driving.
- •Virginia Postrel authored The Fabric of Civilization (2020) and served as editor in chief of Reason magazine from 1989 to 2000, while Charles C. Mann is known for 1491, 1493, and The Wizard and the Prophet.
- •The podcast extends both hosts' decades-long print projects on material progress and layered histories into the audio format.
- •The program is accessible on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, YouTube, and other podcast platforms.
Marginal Revolution noted that the Everyday Abundance podcast has now released eight episodes. Marginal Revolution is the economics blog co-founded by George Mason University economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, and it has long functioned as a hub for recommendations of books and media about innovation, technology, and the history of material progress — territory the show itself occupies. The program, hosted by Virginia Postrel and Charles C. Mann, explores the hidden histories behind everyday activities and the technologies we don't even recognize as technologies, diving into the surprising stories behind ordinary routines such as brushing your teeth and driving your car.
Both hosts are established writers on these themes, and the podcast extends a project each has pursued in print for decades. Virginia Postrel is the author of several books, including The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World (2020), which traces how cloth-making shaped trade, science, and technology — down to the punched-card Jacquard loom that anticipated programmable computing — and previously served as editor in chief of Reason magazine from 1989 to 2000. Charles C. Mann is a science journalist known for 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2005), which synthesized research showing the pre-Columbian Americas supported large, sophisticated societies that actively shaped their environments, and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (2011), his account of the Columbian Exchange that bound the hemispheres together through crops, goods, and organisms after 1492, as well as The Wizard and the Prophet (2018), which sets the techno-optimism of agronomist Norman Borlaug against the ecological caution of William Vogt. Treating the familiar present as the visible tip of long, layered histories is the through-line of both writers' work, and the show carries that approach into audio.
The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, and YouTube, as well as wherever else podcasts are heard.
Source: Marginal Revolution
