For 50 years, the Academy of Achievement has invited the world's pre-eminent authors to address its annual Summit. Novelists and playwrights, journalists and historians, critics and humorists, poets and songwriters, essayists and philosophers, all have shared their wisdom with the Academy's honorees and student delegates. Now you can see and hear these presentations, recorded live at the International Achievement Summit. In poetry and prose, these men and women explore the world of nature and the drama of the human condition. Some are creators of fantasy, others are chroniclers of fact; some evoke the nuances of personal experience, others explain the mysteries...
Latest episodes
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29 sec ↗
What It Takes
What It Takes is a podcast series featuring intimate, revealing conversations with towering figures in almost every field: music, science, sports, politics, film, technology, liter…
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12 min ↗
Athol Fugard
Hailed as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world, South Africa's Athol Fugard has won international praise for creating theater of "power, glory, and majestic…
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16 min ↗
Esperanza Spalding
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12 min ↗
Carole King
The most successful and admired female songwriter in the history of pop music, Carole King proves that one woman alone at the piano can be more powerful than a four-piece rock band…
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9 min ↗
Natasha Trethewey
This autumn, Natasha Trethewey took up her duties as United States Poet Laureate, the 19th poet to serve since Congress created the position in 1985. Also known as the Poet Laureat…
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11 min ↗
Louise Glück (SD)
Louise Glück is “a strong and haunting presence” among America’s greatest living poets. Her work is distinguished by a rare ability to deploy ostensibly simple language to evoke po…
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8 min ↗
Jackson Browne Live Performance (SD)
With the release of his debut album in 1972, Jackson Browne joined the elite rank of American singer-songwriters who shaped the musical ethos of an era. He captured the mood of the…
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11 min ↗
Hal David Interview
For over 60 years, Hal David (1921-2012) wrote the words America loves to sing. His career spanned the decades from the swing era to the age of hip-hop and took him from Hollywood…
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16 min ↗
Rick Atkinson 2010 - Part 1
America's greatest living chronicler of men at war, Rick Atkinson draws on an intimate knowledge of the soldier's life. The son of a career army officer, he was born in Germany and…
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14 min ↗
Rick Atkinson 2010 - Part 2
America's greatest living chronicler of men at war, Rick Atkinson draws on an intimate knowledge of the soldier's life. The son of a career army officer, he was born in Germany and…
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18 min ↗
Alexander McCall Smith - Part 1
In Part 1 of this podcast, recorded in the Boulders Lodge of the Singita Sabi Sands Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit, Alexander McCall Smith recounts t…
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10 min ↗
Nadine Gordimer
Born and raised in South Africa, Nadine Gordimer published her first short story in a children's magazine in 1937 at the age of 16. She left college without a degree and continued…
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14 min ↗
Wole Soyinka
The poet and playwright Wole Soyinka is a towering figure in world literature. He has won international acclaim for his verse, as well as for novels such as The Interpreters. His w…
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11 min ↗
Alexander McCall Smith - Part 2
In Part 2 of this podcast, recorded in the Boulders Lodge of the Singita Sabi Sands Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit, Alexander McCall Smith takes ques…
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9 min ↗
Taylor Swift (SD) - Part 1
Taylor Swift attended the International Achievement Summit as a student delegate in 2008. In Part 1 of this video excerpt from her performance at the Summit, she sings her hits "Ou…
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8 min ↗
Taylor Swift (SD) - Part 2
Taylor Swift attended the International Achievement Summit as a student delegate in 2008. In Part 2 of this video excerpt from her performance at the Summit, she sings "Teardrops o…
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6 min ↗
Brian Wilson
The songs Brian Wilson created as leader of the Beach Boys combined the rhythms of rock and roll with Baroque counterpoint and jazz harmony to create an exhilarating sound that has…
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8 min ↗
Michael Ondaatje
The brilliant novelist, poet and literary innovator Michael Ondaatje was born on the island nation of Ceylon (now the independent republic of Sri Lanka) to parents of Indian and Du…
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16 min ↗
Rick Atkinson 2008
America's greatest living chronicler of men at war, Rick Atkinson draws on an intimate knowledge of the soldierŴs life. The son of a career army officer, he was born in Germany a…
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17 min ↗
Frank McCourt (2008 Symposium)
"F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. I think I've proved him wrong. And all because I refused to settle for a one-act existence, the 30 years I tau…