American Prestige Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

Danny and Derek welcome to the podcast actor Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man, Call Me By Your Name, “Boardwalk Empire”) to discuss his role in the new play Patriots, which portrays billionaire Boris Berezovsky’s (Stuhlbarg) relationship with Vladimir Putin (Will Keen) in 1991. The group discusses the challenges in nuanced portrayals of Berezovsky and Putin, how preparing for the character pushed Michael to reframe his perspective on the end of the USSR, the resonance between the events of the play and the current situation in the United States, notions of homeland and patriotism for Berezovsky, and more.
Patriots is playing now on Broadway through June 23 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre at 243 West 47 Street. Buy your tickets here.
*Producer’s Note: The “Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone” documentary series that Michael referenced was created by Adam Curtis.


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Danny and Derek are back with updates on the situation after last night’s bombardment on Israel, including international reactions, the potential Israeli response, and more.
Recorded early afternoon ET, April 14, 2024

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Danny and Derek speak with Tianyu Fang, MacArthur tech and democracy fellow at New America and contributing editor at Reboot, about the current discourse and legislation around “banning” the social media app TikTok. They explore the previous actions against the company taken by the Trump administration, the TikTok-focused Protecting Americans from Forei…

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Danny and Derek give an update on what we know about Iran’s attack against Israel in response to Israel’s April 1 strike on an Iranian embassy in Syria.
Recorded early evening ET, April 13, 2024

Danny and Derek bring you stories from around the globe. This week: Iran warns of an imminent response to Israel bombing the IR’s embassy in Syria (0:31); Gaza ceasefire talks remain tenuous (6:15) while the IDF’s “withdrawal” has not yet enabled sufficient aid to enter the Strip (10:47); in Myanmar, rebels seize a key border town (15:27); battlefield dynamic shifts in Sudan with a supply of Iranian drones (19:00); in Ukraine, Russia strikes destroy a major power plant (21:17) and the Ukrainian parliament passes a new conscription law (23:17); international fallout ensues after the Ecuadorian goernment raids the Mexican embassy in Quito (25:36); a New Cold War update featuring Biden hosting Japanese PM Kishida and Philippine president Marcos Jr. (29:28); and in climate news, March continues a 10-month streak of the hottest respective month ever recorded (32:43).



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Danny and Derek again chat with Penny Von Eschen, William R. Kennan Jr. professor of American studies and professor of history at UVA, about her book Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder since 1989. This second part of the conversation picks up with Cold War nostalgia in American pop culture, the 90s search for a new “bad guy” in places like the DPRK/North Korea and the Balkans, the “kitschification” of the Cold War, ways this nostalgia manifested throughout the War on Terror, how U.S.-Russia relations were reshaped in the 1990s and 2000s, and the influences of this refracted view of the Cold War on the “New Cold War” dynamic we’re seeing today.


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