Pushkin Industries
244 episodes listed below
The second look becomes the story.
Revisionist History is built around the moment when an accepted story starts to wobble. Across episodes on the Sony hack, Alabama prisons, Zootopia 2, birthdays, infrastructure, and being wrong in public, it treats curiosity as evidence-gathering rather than ornament.
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Revisionist History is an essay-driven interview show about stories that deserve to be reopened. It likes a first scene with texture. Michael Linton driving toward Sony Pictures as the studio’s systems fail. A crowded theater where a child thinks Zootopia 2 is the outing, while the adult beside her is really gathering evidence. A phone call to Joy about birthday parties, memory, and what a childhood ritual was supposed to mean. Those openings are not decorative. They are the hinge into a larger argument. The show’s recurring question is simple: what if the accepted version is incomplete, evasive, or wrong? Recent episodes test that question across a wide field. The Sony hack becomes a story about trauma, leadership, and the cost of putting an event in a drawer. A conversation with Andrew Jarecki about The Alabama Solution turns prison footage and official denial into an argument about moral failure compounding over time. The Zootopia episodes treat an animated sequel as legal mystery, literary puzzle, and possible public apology all at once. Even a birthday episode becomes a reflection on revision, taste, and the making of the show itself. The range can be startling, but the method is consistent. Scenes lead to interviews. Interviews lead to interpretation. Interpretation leads back to some concrete document, transcript, court case, song, film, or memory that has been sitting in plain sight. The show can be funny, especially when it applies grand analytical force to an apparently ridiculous subject. It can also be grave. Episodes touch prison deaths, missing-person theories, violent crime references, policing, and institutional cruelty without flattening them into spectacle. The show suits listeners who enjoy argument with personality, narrative with footnotes, and curiosity that keeps asking one more uncomfortable question.
Made for: For listeners who like narrative nonfiction with interviews, archival texture, and a strong interpretive spine. It especially suits people drawn to public mistakes, cultural oddities, moral blind spots, and arguments that change shape as evidence accumulates.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its ability to treat a Disney sequel, a prison documentary, a corporate cyberattack, and a private family memory with the same forensic curiosity. It makes revision feel less like correction than discovery.
Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell's journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past—an event, a person, an idea, even a song—and asks whether we got it right the first time. From Pushkin Industries. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance. To get early access to ad-free episodes and extra content, subscribe to Pushkin+ in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Malcolm Gladwell brings self-correction to true crime, testing influential claims about policing, punishment, and institutional responsibility.
Revisionist History treats certainty as something to test. Malcolm Gladwell brings that instinct to criminal justice by reconsidering his former support for aggressive policing and tracing how his argument entered the case for stop and frisk.
A stop-and-frisk mea culpa meets Alabama's prisons, and Malcolm Gladwell expects you to reconsider both.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Sony Pictures systems crisis becomes a thoughtful study of judgment, avoidance, and the cost of owning a mistake.
Revisionist History turns the Sony Pictures shutdown into a measured look at decision-making under pressure. Michael Linton remembers the morning as it tightened around him: the call from CFO Dave Hendler, the dead systems, the possibly ruined laptops, and the crowd forming…
A hard, exacting conversation about Alabama prisons and the moral logic behind them.
This episode uses a conversation with Andrew Jarecki to push Revisionist History's Alabama argument from the death penalty into the prison system.
A sharp close reading of Zootopia 2 turns one scene into a question about authorship and apology.
Zootopia Exposed! (Part Two) treats Disney's Zootopia 2 as a knot of intellectual property, public apology, and blockbuster self-awareness. The episode starts in comic overcommitment, with the host sending Ben-Nadaf Hafri to a Friday afternoon screening as if it were urgent…
A copyright fight becomes a carefully staged puzzle about why Zootopia 2 seems to need a theory.
Revisionist History treats Disney's Zootopia 2 as an odd Hollywood puzzle, opening on a snowy day at a Manhattan movie theater as Malcolm Gladwell takes his four-and-a-half-year-old daughter and explains that he is there on assignment.
A missing-runner case becomes a methodical, skeptical look at suspicion and silence.
Valley of Shadows frames John Ajay's disappearance as a tense, disciplined mystery. A Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy, ultramarathon runner, and survivalist heads out for a run in the Devil's Punchbowl and does not come back.
A birthday complaint becomes a wry, warm case for revising a song until it feels whole.
Malcolm Dabba's unease with birthdays turns into a neat little story about revision: what gets remembered, what gets rejected, and what might deserve another pass.
A focused look at the logistics and connectivity that keep complex operations moving.
Revisionist History uses a T-Mobile for Business segment to get into the mechanics of keeping critical operations connected. The most interesting part is not the branding but the coordination underneath it, with Malcolm Gladwell talking to Guy Griggs, Steve Douglas, and Mo…
A playful start gives way to a harder question about being wrong and living with it.
Malcolm Gladwell moves from blurb talk and praise to his public take on New York crime and how that thinking fed into the stop-and-frisk debate.
Measured true crime with uneasy questions.
This episode explores a murder in Alabama as a moral failure cascade, drawing parallels to the 2003 Great Northeastern Blackout to illustrate how one crime can trigger a chain of escalating consequences.
Malcolm Gladwell previews the upcoming season of Revisionist History, promising episodes on topics ranging from Paw Patrol and George Floyd to Thomas's English muffins and Robert F.
Rebecca Nagel's First America examines the Declaration of Independence's final grievance, which accuses Native Americans of being “merciless Indian savages” whose warfare destroyed people across ages, sexes, and conditions.
November 24th, 2014 started out normal.
This episode previews a podcast that re-examines Richard Pryor's life and legacy through BBC archives, challenging simplified narratives about the iconic comedian.
Malcolm Gladwell interviews filmmaker Andrew Jarecki at On Air Fest in Brooklyn about Jarecki's HBO documentary 'The Alabama Solution,' which investigates the Alabama prison system through contraband cell-phone footage recorded by inmates.
A notebook comes out at a Friday-afternoon screening with seven children nearby.
A snowy movie trip starts sweet, then gets suspicious.
June 11th, 1998 goes wrong fast.
A birthday opens the case.
A generator goes down.
"I was wrong" is the center of it.
Arnold wanted proof.
The poem is everywhere.
Cruelty is the center of this one.
Giving, here, starts small.
In a live conversation at IBM's New York City offices, Malcolm Gladwell interviews IBM CEO and Chairman Arvind Krishna about how he anticipated technology shifts from 1990 onward, his contrarian $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat in 2018 — which fell 15% on announcement day and is now considered IBM's most successful acquisition — and his view that only 5% of enterprises are deploying AI correctly today.
A uniform is gone before purpose is.
No IV this time.
Kenny Smith starts as a full name: Kenneth Eugene Smith.
Witnesses wait away from the chamber.
First, a protocol shows up almost casually.
A knife does not fit.
Two Yankees with a microphone.
A little conference room in Manhattan opens the door.
Lipstick is not as simple as it looks.
A tour bus leaves Nashville.
Randy Newman is the hook.
A footnote sends the narrator after Elvis.
Malcolm Gladwell examines why country music makes people cry while rock music doesn't, focusing on songwriter Bobby Braddock who wrote "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "D-I-V-O-R-C-E." The key difference is specificity: country music uses concrete details and authentic life experiences while rock relies on generic clichés and repetition.
Malcolm Gladwell explores how creativity often emerges through iteration and time, using Elvis Costello's song 'Deportees Club' and Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' as case studies.
This episode revisits four favorite music episodes from the Revisionist History archives, exploring how specific songs have deeply impacted the host over decades.
This episode explores responsive teaching, a method where teachers guide students to discover answers themselves, using the famous Sean video as an example.
Revisionist History producer Ben Nadav-Hafri attempts to reverse-engineer the famously secret recipe for Thomas' English muffins — the one that Bimbo Bakeries claims only seven employees know — by enlisting Rachel Wyman, a CIA-trained baker and recipe developer.
This episode investigates the legal case Bimbo Bakeries vs.
This episode explores how raccoons were overlooked in psychological research in favor of lab rats, examining historical biases in science.
This episode explores face blindness (prosopagnosia) through personal stories like Missy and J.J.'s coffee shop misunderstanding, scientific insights from neuroscientist Joe Degutis, and anecdotes about super recognizers like Bill Clinton.
Malcolm Gladwell interviews linguist John McWhorter about his new book 'Pronoun Trouble', exploring historical language changes, black English, and cultural nuances in speech.
Malcolm Gladwell analyzes Joe Rogan's interview with RFK Jr., critiquing Rogan's passive style and highlighting RFK Jr.'s misinformation about the 1918 Spanish flu being vaccine-induced.
Malcolm Gladwell investigates why Robert F.
Ben-Nadav Hafri investigates the overuse and excessive noise of emergency sirens, exploring personal experiences, expert interviews, and studies that challenge their necessity.
Malcolm Gladwell defends the children's show Paw Patrol against widespread criticism, first presenting intellectual arguments against it from narrative theorist Angus Fletcher, then offering his own theory that the show represents Canadian values of municipal competence and community cooperation.
This episode examines the death of George Floyd through the perspective of rookie officer Thomas Lane, analyzing how mitigated speech and hierarchical dynamics prevented intervention.
Malcolm Gladwell begins a close reading of the George Floyd video, starting with 911 dispatcher Jenna Scurry who watched the scene unfold in real time on a fixed city camera and stopped mid-shift to call her sergeant—an action she had never taken in seven years on the job.
Heavyweight host Jonathan Goldstein travels with his 80-year-old father Buzz from Montreal to Fort Lauderdale to reconnect with Buzz's 85-year-old brother Sheldon after more than 40 years of estrangement.
The hosts debate which music genre best captures love songs, with Justin championing R&B for its gospel roots, Ben favoring folk for breakup songs, and Malcolm arguing country excels at depressive heartbreak due to its Southern, Church of Christ influences.
Malcolm Gladwell interviews Diogo Rao, a former Apple executive now at Eli Lilly, about transforming healthcare with technology.
Malcolm Gladwell interviews trust expert Rachel Botsman, who discusses common mistakes in trust decisions, the pitfalls of transparency, and shares personal anecdotes like her family's experience with an untrustworthy nanny.
This episode of The Interface explores how technology intersects with holiday traditions and family dynamics through personal anecdotes about Christmas rituals and cultural references.
Malcolm Gladwell interviews Michael Lewis about his new season on sports betting, discussing the fracking of the fan and the Supreme Court's role.
Malcolm Gladwell uses a 1962 PTA newsletter as a lens to understand the current U.S.
Malcolm Gladwell hosts a conversation with T-Mobile and experts about how AI and 5G are solving real-world problems.
Malcolm Gladwell and friends reminisce about navigating New York City's dangerous streets in the 1990s, discussing safety rituals like carrying keys and traveling in groups.
Malcolm Gladwell hosts a discussion with IBM and Palo Alto Networks executives about their cybersecurity partnership leveraging AI and automation.
Malcolm Gladwell discusses his new book and career with David Remnick at a live event.
Malcolm Gladwell re-examines overlooked and misunderstood events, people, and ideas from the past.
Malcolm Gladwell re-examines the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, focusing on the final case that was overlooked.
Malcolm Gladwell announces his new book 'Revenge of the Tipping Point' and previews its first chapter, exploring overlooked and misunderstood historical events.
Malcolm Gladwell explores the story of Cameron Crowe's unmade Elvis Presley movie 'Blue Sea'.
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Malcolm Gladwell re-examines overlooked and misunderstood events, people, and ideas from the past.
Malcolm Gladwell re-examines the 2016 Oscars and the concept of 'maladapted screenplays' as a lens for exploring overlooked historical narratives.
Malcolm Gladwell re-examines overlooked and misunderstood events, people, and ideas from the past.
Malcolm Gladwell introduces a cross-promotional interview from Talk Easy where Sam Fragoso discusses Oscar contenders and film industry with critic Wesley Morris.
The host recounts the thrilling experience of receiving a call from acclaimed screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, who wanted to meet about adapting the book 'Blink' into a movie after his success with 'Traffic' and 'Siriana'.
Malcolm Gladwell explores the story of an unmade Hollywood film, examining why it failed and what it reveals about the present.
This is a live interview episode with Nate Berkus discussing design, creativity, and personal anecdotes in a rooftop bar setting in New York City.
This episode of The Interface discusses how technology impacts daily life and work, while referencing a light-hearted episode about Gunsmoke from Revisionist History.
This episode features a conversation with Adam Grant exploring how technology impacts work, politics, and daily life, recorded live in New York.
Malcolm Gladwell discusses five burning travel questions in an interview-style episode exploring technology's impact on travel and personal experiences.
Malcolm Gladwell explores the overlooked and misunderstood aspects of America's obsession with guns, starting from 17th century England to modern-day Chicago.
Malcolm Gladwell introduces a mini-series on guns, re-examining overlooked aspects of history.
Malcolm Gladwell introduces the upcoming season of Revisionist History, including a six-part series on guns and violence and a promotion for Pushkin Plus and the Lost Hills true crime podcast.
Matt Scogin describes his existential crisis after his parents' deaths and his journey to becoming president of Hope College, driven by faith and a sense of calling.