Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchKate Epstein on How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Episode 107
In this episode I sit down with Kate Epstein, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden, as she details her research on the inte…
1 year ago
Garrett Hardin’s Tragic Environmentalism
Episode 2718
An ecologist in California claimed that the iron laws of nature locked humanity into destroying our environment. This meant that we must take drastic…
1 year ago
Daniel B. Rood, "The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery: Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Greater Caribbean" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Episode 70
The period of the "second slavery" was marked by geographic expansion of zones of slavery into the Upper US South, Cuba, and Brazil and chronological…
1 year ago
Roger Moorhouse, "Wolfpack: Hitler’s U-Boat War 1939-45" (HarperCollins, 2025)
Episode 2716
Winston Churchill famously remarked that the threat of the German U-Boats was the only thing that had “really frightened” him during World War Two. T…
1 year ago
Hector Vera, "Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025)
Episode 2715
Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and it…
1 year ago
Jesse Rodenbiker, "Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Episode 2713
Based on two years of extensive fieldwork, Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China (Cornell UP, 2023) examines ecolo…
1 year ago
Harry Cliff, "Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe" (Doubleday, 2024)
Episode 2714
Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have b…
1 year ago
Scott D. Anthony, "Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)
Episode 2712
Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) arrives at the perfect moment as artificial intel…
1 year ago
Alice Lovejoy, "Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War" (U California Press, 2025)
Episode 2710
The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another t…
1 year ago
Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier, "Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship" (MIT Press, 2025)
Episode 2711
AI is changing democracy. We still get to decide how.
AI’s impact on democracy will go far beyond headline-grabbing political deepfakes and automated …
1 year ago