Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchJeffrey Ding, "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Episode 107
When scholars and policymakers consider how technological advances affect the rise and fall of great powers, they draw on theories that center the mo…
1 year, 8 months ago
Gerald Sim, "Screening Big Data: Films That Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy" (Routledge, 2024)
Episode 370
Screening Big Data: Films that Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy (Routledge, 2024) examines the influence of key films on public understanding of big da…
1 year, 8 months ago
Christian Wolmar, "The Liberation Line: The Untold Story of How American Engineering and Ingenuity Won World War II" (Hachette, 2024)
Episode 247
They certainly were not soldiers, yet they suddenly found themselves in uniform, in a foreign land. But, as locomotive drivers, track-workers, conduc…
1 year, 8 months ago
Paola Bertucci, "In the Land of Marvels: Science, Fabricated Realities, and Industrial Espionage in the Age of the Grand Tour" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
Episode 80
How a journey through Italy casts light on secrets, stereotypes, and the manipulation of information in eighteenth-century science.
In 1749, the celeb…
1 year, 8 months ago
Amos C. Fox, "Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of Modern War and Warfare" (Howgate, 2024)
Episode 246
If you seek a compelling exploration of contemporary armed conflict, then Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of Modern War and Warfare …
1 year, 9 months ago
Annette Kehnel, "The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability" (Brandeis UP, 2024)
Episode 76
Annette Kehnel joins Jana Byars to talk about The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability (Brandeis University Press, 2024). A fascinating…
1 year, 9 months ago
Jason Weiss, "Listenings" (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023)
Episode 9
Listenings (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023) is a collection of meditations on the art of experiencing sound. The writings reflect Jason Weiss's passion for ill…
1 year, 9 months ago
Jonathan Maskit, "Bicycle" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Episode 371
These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle pro…
1 year, 9 months ago
Jordan Minor, "Video Game of the Year: A Year-By-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977" (Abrams, 2023)
Episode 19
Pong. The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy VII. Rock Band. Fortnite. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For each of the 40 years of video game history, the…
1 year, 9 months ago
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World
Episode 233
Why do we assume that computers always get it right?
Today’s book is: Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (MIT Press, 201…
1 year, 9 months ago