Glenn Loury

Subscribe now and get full and early access to weekly podcast episodes, exclusive writing and commentary, reader Q&As, and video features from distinguished economist Glenn Loury (Brown University, Manhattan Institute), author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, Race, Incarceration, and American Values, and other groundbreaking works of economics and social criticism. 

Why Subscribe?

In my long career as a theoretical economist at institutions like Harvard, Boston University, and Brown, I’ve engaged with America’s most pressing concerns about race and inequality in ways that reach out beyond the confines of the academy. In the 1980s and 1990s, that meant giving public lectures and writing for premiere print publications like The New Republic, The Public Interest, Commentary, and The Atlantic. In the 2000s, I began podcasting and videocasting with The Glenn Show on the Bloggingheads.tv platform, where I struck up a popular ongoing dialogue with the linguist and social critic John McWhorter. 

Substack provides a platform that can support the two mediums—writing and conversation—in which I’ve worked most productively over the last two decades. It can be difficult to find a traditional home for my commentary when so much mainstream media is in lockstep with prevailing progressive orthodoxies, which is why I’ve made the move to Substack. It is also why I’ve chosen to affiliate with the Manhattan Institute, which sponsors TGS (though I retain full editorial control). If you’re looking for broader coverage of politics, culture, America’s racial dilemma, and many other subjects, you’ve found it. 

What You’ll Get

While I’m an economist by training, my interests extend beyond my academic discipline. Here you’ll find The Glenn Show, which consists of weekly conversations with a range of thinkers, journalists, scientists, and activists, many of whom have a hard time getting their voices heard on mainstream outlets. Every two weeks, I post the latest installment of my ongoing conversation with John McWhorter where we discuss race and politics. Once a month, John and I also record an exclusive podcast where we respond to questions posted by subscribers.

I regularly post original writing that expands on themes introduced in the podcast, along with transcripts of recent speeches and gems from the archive. Much of this is political in nature, but I’ve expanded my portfolio to include exchanges with and among subscribers and personal writing, some of which is related to my forthcoming memoir. 

Substack’s versatility has allowed me to expand my horizons and experiment with technologies that weren’t available when I first became active as a public intellectual. The Manhattan Institute’s sponsorship has helped secure the services of an outstanding supporting cast. Thus, transcripts of segments taken from the podcast conversations are prepared by my editor, Mark Sussman, and published weekly at our newsletter. Also, in a series called “Beautiful Ideas,” my creative director Nikita Petrov makes videos to illustrate puzzles and concepts that I find fascinating. With these videos, I can share my love of mathematics and economics and make them a little more accessible to those who may find them intimidating. I’ve created a series called “Old Glenn / New Glenn,” where I revisit some of my past positions and engage in a kind of “debate” with myself. Other innovative ideas for development of this platform are in the works.

As a subscriber, you’ll have access to all of this material, along with whatever new ideas I come up with. 

The Manhattan Institute 

All of the content on this Substack, including The Glenn Show, is produced with the enthusiastic support of the Manhattan Institute. I have a long, ongoing affiliation with the Manhattan Institute, and I’m proud to have them as partners. Occasionally, you’ll see Manhattan Institute fellows come on the show to discuss their work, and at the newsletter I’ll sometimes repost content from the Institute’s publication, City Journal. While I am happy to partner with the Manhattan Institute, I maintain full editorial control over all of the content you’ll see here.