Episode #23: Calvin Coolidge and the Self-Made Scholar

Peter Wood

In this episode, Amity Shlaes and I walk through the 1920s and ’30s. Were the ’20s a champagne bubble bound to pop? Did the New Deal make the Great Depression worse?

Amity is the author of four New York Times bestselling books—including a biography of Calvin Coolidge—and the chair of the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. Her book The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression won the Hayek Prize and was also turned into a graphic novel. She is a former member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board.

Amity and I discuss whether young scholars and writers need to go to graduate school, and how President Coolidge became a lawyer without attending law school. Amity advises aspiring journalists to learn a trade (and explains why journalism is not a trade). And she describes a dissertation topic some entrepreneurial scholar should take up, on bank architecture and economic policy.

Listen through to the end to hear us discuss The Coolidge Scholarship, a full-tuition merit-based scholarship to any university in the United States.

  • Share

Most Commented

March 31, 2025

1.

Keeping Watch

Columbia's descent into chaos is by its own hand. Actions to right the university must be swift and tough....

March 24, 2025

2.

A Reckoning for Higher Education?

Are American colleges and universities finally getting their comeuppance?...

April 15, 2025

3.

Fighting Harvard and the Other Cultural Warlords

The academic bureaucracies and professoriate are so deeply committed to their radical program of replacing American society with their own vision of a new order that we have no real choice b......

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

April 15, 2025

2.

Fighting Harvard and the Other Cultural Warlords

The academic bureaucracies and professoriate are so deeply committed to their radical program of replacing American society with their own vision of a new order that we have no real choice b......

October 12, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...