Welcome listeners to the editor's desk podcast for first things magazine. I'm Rusty Reno, the editor at his desk.

And I have with me, Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal, to talk about his marvelous review of a new

book about Yvonne Ilich, Yvon Illich, an intellectual journey.

Welcome to the podcast, Brian.

Rusty, very glad to be on. Thank you.

It's a beautiful book by David Cayley.

I mean, a wonderful homage.

I don't know how long he spent working on that book,

but it's extraordinarily detailed and covers his

entire career and body of work. Yeah, he's really been single-handedly responsible for

reviving Hillich's public reputation, not just in this very, very detailed and extensive intellectual

biography, but in two previous books of interviews that he had conducted with Illich, one of which

rivers north to the future is just a superb introduction to Illich's thought as well.

He's written for us, David Kaley.

I discovered him early on during the pandemic.

He had just sober, thoughtful things to say about, drawing upon Illich, things to say about drawing upon knowledge, things to say about about the kind of technological,

the technocratic confidence with which we entered into the pandemic. And so we've had them

write on a number of different topics for the first things website. So I'm just so delighted

to be able to run such an extensive review that you have provided.

But let's, let's, Illich, he was a Wunderkind, wasn't he?

Right. He was born in Vienna in 1926.

Um, early on exhibited a remarkable facility for languages. He wound up speaking multiple

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