100 episodes

For more than two decades the Hoover Institution has been producing Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, a series hosted by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson as an outlet for political leaders, scholars, journalists, and today’s big thinkers to share their views with the world. Guests have included a host of famous figures, including Paul Ryan, Henry Kissinger, Antonin Scalia, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, and Christopher Hitchens, along with Hoover fellows such as Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz.

“Uncommon Knowledge takes fascinating, accomplished guests, then sits them down with me to talk about the issues of the day,” says Robinson, an author and former speechwriter for President Reagan. “Unhurried, civil, thoughtful, and informed conversation– that’s what we produce. And there isn’t all that much of it around these days.”

The show started life as a television series in 1997 and is now distributed exclusively on the web over a growing network of the largest political websites and channels. To stay tuned for the latest updates on and episodes related to Uncommon Knowledge, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. For more than two decades the Hoover Institution has been producing Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, a series hosted by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson as an outlet for political leaders, scholars, journalists, and today’s big thinkers to share their views with the world. Guests have included a host of famous figures, including Paul Ryan, Henry Kissinger, Antonin Scalia, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, and Christopher Hitchens, along with Hoover fellows such as Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz.

“Uncommon Knowledge takes fascinating, accomplished guests, then sits them down with me to talk about the issues of the day,” says Robinson, an author and former speechwriter for President Reagan. “Unhurried, civil, thoughtful, and informed conversation– that’s what we produce. And there isn’t all that much of it around these days.”

The show started life as a television series in 1997 and is now distributed exclusively on the web over a growing network of the largest political websites and channels. To stay tuned for the latest updates on and episodes related to Uncommon Knowledge, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Uncommon Knowledge Hoover Institution

    • News
    • 4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

For more than two decades the Hoover Institution has been producing Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, a series hosted by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson as an outlet for political leaders, scholars, journalists, and today’s big thinkers to share their views with the world. Guests have included a host of famous figures, including Paul Ryan, Henry Kissinger, Antonin Scalia, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, and Christopher Hitchens, along with Hoover fellows such as Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz.

“Uncommon Knowledge takes fascinating, accomplished guests, then sits them down with me to talk about the issues of the day,” says Robinson, an author and former speechwriter for President Reagan. “Unhurried, civil, thoughtful, and informed conversation– that’s what we produce. And there isn’t all that much of it around these days.”

The show started life as a television series in 1997 and is now distributed exclusively on the web over a growing network of the largest political websites and channels. To stay tuned for the latest updates on and episodes related to Uncommon Knowledge, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. For more than two decades the Hoover Institution has been producing Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, a series hosted by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson as an outlet for political leaders, scholars, journalists, and today’s big thinkers to share their views with the world. Guests have included a host of famous figures, including Paul Ryan, Henry Kissinger, Antonin Scalia, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, and Christopher Hitchens, along with Hoover fellows such as Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz.

“Uncommon Knowledge takes fascinating, accomplished guests, then sits them down with me to talk about the issues of the day,” says Robinson, an author and former speechwriter for President Reagan. “Unhurried, civil, thoughtful, and informed conversation– that’s what we produce. And there isn’t all that much of it around these days.”

The show started life as a television series in 1997 and is now distributed exclusively on the web over a growing network of the largest political websites and channels. To stay tuned for the latest updates on and episodes related to Uncommon Knowledge, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

    Why Bitcoin Will Take Over The World: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

    Why Bitcoin Will Take Over The World: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

    Despite a tumultuous and volatile marketplace; scandals, arrests, and bankruptcies at rival digital exchanges; and social issues disrupting his own company, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is a devout believer in digital currencies and the power of the blockchain.

    • 1 hr 5 min
    Growing Up Segregated: Three Witnesses To The Struggle For Civil Rights, Part 2 | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson, Condoleezza Rice, Mary Bush, and Freeman Hrabowski| Hoover Institution

    Growing Up Segregated: Three Witnesses To The Struggle For Civil Rights, Part 2 | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson, Condoleezza Rice, Mary Bush, and Freeman Hrabowski| Hoover Institution

    In this second part of our interview, the three lifelong friends further recount what life was like for Blacks in Jim Crow Alabama and the deep bonds that formed in the Black community at the time in order to support one another and to give the children a good education. They discuss how they overcame the structural racism they experienced as children to achieve incredible successes as adults.

    • 56 min
    Birmingham, 1963: Three Witnesses to the Struggle for Civil Rights | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson, Condoleezza Rice, Mary Bush, and Freeman Hrabowski| Hoover Institution

    Birmingham, 1963: Three Witnesses to the Struggle for Civil Rights | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson, Condoleezza Rice, Mary Bush, and Freeman Hrabowski| Hoover Institution

    Mary Bush, Freeman Hrabowski, and Condoleezza Rice grew up and were classmates together in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, in the late 1950s and early ’60s. We reunited them for a conversation in Birmingham’s Westminster Presbyterian Church, where Rice’s father was pastor during that period.

    • 1 hr 2 min
    Uncommon Knowledge Archive: Oppenheimer’s Edward Teller and Sid Drell on ICBM Defense Systems | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

    Uncommon Knowledge Archive: Oppenheimer’s Edward Teller and Sid Drell on ICBM Defense Systems | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

    With the recent announcement that Oppenheimer, the film directed by Christopher Nolan, had garnered 11 Academy Award nominations, it seemed timely to pull from the archives this rarely seen episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson from 1996 (the third episode ever shot), featuring nuclear physicists and Hoover senior fellows Edward Teller and Sidney Drell.

    • 28 min
    “The Treason Of The Intellectuals,” With Niall Ferguson | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

    “The Treason Of The Intellectuals,” With Niall Ferguson | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

    In this interview, Ferguson discusses his stunning essay “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” published in December 2023 in the Free Press. The essay delves deeply into the changes Ferguson has observed in his 30-year career as an academic, especially over the past 10 years.

    • 48 min
    Donald Trump and The Supreme Court | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson, Richard Epstein, and John Yoo | Hoover Institution

    Donald Trump and The Supreme Court | Uncommon Knowledge | Peter Robinson, Richard Epstein, and John Yoo | Hoover Institution

    Two questions: What should the Court’s rulings be? What will they be? To answer those questions and more, we turn to our in-house legal experts: NYU Law School’s Richard Epstein and Berkeley Law School’s John Yoo.

    • 54 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
1.8K Ratings

1.8K Ratings

Silly Leslie ,

Fantastic two-part series from a Birmingham church

What vibrant, thoughtful, discerning voices from three cultural icons who are able to both recall their pasts and speak truth to the present. . . . And now I know how a man named John Wesley Rice Jr. ended up as a Presbyterian rather than a Methodist minister. Godspeed to them all.

Elliot F. ,

Real intellectuals

Thank You Peter Robinson and the venerable Hoover institution for being from the last bastions of intelligence.

Niño the Mindboggler ,

Like a rubber band …

Peter Robinson, never fails to bring the most entertaining guests to Uncommon Knowledge.
No matter what the subject is (or how fringe it becomes ), he never fails to leave me wanting more.

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