Author Talk: Gal Beckerman — How to Be a Dissident - with Adam Harris
April 25, 2026
591
13
2.20%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Politics and Prose Episodes Around April 25, 2026
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
59:24Now PlayingAuthor Talk: Gal Beckerman — How to Be a Dissident - with Adam Harris
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelWatch author Gal Beckerman discuss "How to Be a Dissident" at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.
This event will be in partnership with The Atlantic.
An invigorating guide to fighting back—part philosophy, part history, and part manual for living with integrity in an age of conformity and authoritarian drift
How do we push back in a world where political leaders wield fear and intimidation? Where digital technology dehumanizes and flattens us? We need role models, and in this engaging book, acclaimed writer Gal Beckerman goes looking for them. Drawing on the stories of dissidents from around the globe and across time, from Socrates to Ai Weiwei, and thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Iris Murdoch, Beckerman reveals the defining characteristics these extraordinary figures share, a set of attributes and practices for anyone navigating the pressures of modern tyranny.
Gal Beckerman is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, a New York Times notable book, and When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry, which won the Sami Rohr Prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications. He has a PhD from Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Beckerman is in conversation with Adam Harris, podcast host at The Atlantic. He is the author of The State Must Provide: Why America's Colleges Have Always Been Unequal—and How to Set Them Right. Before joining The Atlantic in 2018, Adam was a reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education covering federal higher-education policy and HBCUs. At The Atlantic, he writes about politics and education.
PURCHASE BOOK HERE:
@politicsprose
Visit us online at
Listen on Spotify
Politics and Prose is a beloved and award-winning staple for book lovers around the nation's capital and the world. In addition to our incredible selection of titles, Politics and Prose offers public book talks with today's leading authors and journalists.
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.
#books #booktube
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.