Cautionary Tales: a new podcast that tells the intriguing stories of historical "mishaps, fiascos and disasters"

Economist, author, podcaster and radio presenter Tim Harford (previously) has a fantastic new podcast: Cautionary Tales, which Tim describes as "Eight stories of mishaps, fiascos and disasters - served with a twist of nerdy social science."

I've just listened to the second episode, The Rogue Dressed As a Captain (MP3), which uses the story of the amazing con artist Wilhelm Voigt as a jumping off point for understanding the nuance of Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem," the Milgram obedience experiment, and the way that frauds and cons work.

The episodes feature full-cast dramatizations bookended by Harford's explanatory interludes -- they're really well done!

Cautionary Tales [Tim Harford]

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