Podcast
Freakonomics Radio
The book was cited as explaining the public reaction to Handel's Messiah, noting the audience's astonishment and wonder, and it was used to illustrate how Handel's Dublin success rescued his finances.
And that is Charles King, a political scientist at Georgetown and author of the book Every Valley. We heard from him in part one of the series as well.
— Episode: 656. How Handel Got His Mojo Back
Episode: 656. How Handel Got His Mojo Back
The book was cited as explaining the public reaction to Handel's Messiah, noting the audience's astonishment and wonder, and it was used to illustrate how Handel's Dublin success rescued his finances.
And that is Charles King, a political scientist at Georgetown and author of the book Every Valley. We heard from him in part one of the series as well.
Here again is Charles King. The impulse behind it originally was the idea that we didn't have to live in a world in which people were just abandoned to their fate, that the wealthy, the wellconnected, had both the responsibility to and the means to create an institution that could help solve the problem.
Episode: 655. “The Greatest Piece of Participatory Art Ever...
The book examined Handel's Messiah, arguing it was the greatest piece of participatory art and explored the darkness and hope surrounding its creation and legacy.
Charles King, a political scientist at Georgetown, recently published a book about Messiah called Every Valley. He argues that Messiah has a good claim to being the greatest piece of participatory art ever created.
In 2024, he published a book called Every Valley, The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah.
Part of the book Every Valley is about the darkness that so many people associated with this piece of music experience and were experiencing at the time.
When I was writing Every Valley at some point in the middle of the project, I said to my wife, I can't get over the wigs. I just can't relate to these people.
I don't think there's been a day since that day when I discovered your book back in December of 2024 that I haven't listened to Messiah for at least half an hour and often three or four hours.