Curated playlist
Jewish American non-fiction writers
- Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein once spent his days examining patents for gravel sorters.
- Woody AllenWoody Allen failed a film production course at New York University, then went on to direct Annie Hall.
- Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas insisted on giving blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo an on-screen credit for Spartacus.
- Howard Marks (investor)In 1995, Howard Marks and four partners left TCW to start Oaktree Capital Management.
- Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi sold CBS a show it already owned. CBS had acquired the Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten it.
- Carl SaganCarl Sagan once asked a librarian for a book on stars and got one about movie stars.
- Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger made a secret trip to China in July 1971. It helped end 23 years of diplomatic isolation.
- Joseph StiglitzJoseph Stiglitz explained why wages stay high in recessions even when workers are desperate for jobs.
- Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse analyzed Nazi ideology for American spies before students made him a hero.
- Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky wrote his first article at age 10, about the fall of Barcelona.
- Paul NewmanAt the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona, Paul Newman was 70 years and eight days old, and his team won its class. That made him the oldest driver to date on a winning team in a major sanctioned race. Newman was best known as a film star, and he…
- Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman argued the Federal Reserve let the money supply shrink by one-third between 1929 and 1933.
- James FrancoFor five weeks, James Franco spent twelve hours a day in a gully built as a film set, and he left it only to use the lavatory. Between takes he read books, including academic textbooks, just to keep busy. The American actor and filmmaker…
- Joseph HellerJoseph Heller's novel Catch-22 was first called Catch-18. It was renamed to avoid confusion with Mila 18.
- Paul SamuelsonPaul Samuelson said he was born as an economist at age sixteen. It happened in a 1932 Chicago lecture on Malthus.
- Ludwig von MisesNazi troops raided Ludwig von Mises's Vienna apartment and took his papers. He was already in Geneva.
- Alan GreenspanIn October 2008, Alan Greenspan told Congress his faith in free markets had a flaw.
- Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov coined the word "robotics" in a 1941 story, thinking it was just a natural term.
- Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman won the 2002 economics Nobel without ever taking an economics course.
- George SorosAt 14, George Soros posed as the Christian godson of a government official to survive the Nazi occupation of Hungary.
- Alfred EinsteinAlfred Einstein said Mozart's last three symphonies were never played in his lifetime. Later evidence showed otherwise.
- David BrinAuthor David Brin won the Hugo Award for Best Novel twice with his Uplift Universe books.
- Ernest BeckerErnest Becker won a Pulitzer Prize two months after he died. He never knew he had won for The Denial of Death.
- Wilhelm ReichIn 1956, a United States court ordered six tons of Wilhelm Reich's books and papers burned.
- Richard D. WolffRichard D. Wolff's father was a lawyer in Cologne, but his degree was worthless in America.
- Elinor OstromUCLA rejected Elinor Ostrom's economics application for lacking math. She later won a Nobel Prize in economics.
- Walter LippmannJournalist Walter Lippmann gave us the word stereotype. He also named the Cold War in a 1947 book.