Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchDuncan Mavin, "Meltdown: Scandal, Sleaze and the Collapse of Credit Suisse" (Pegasus Books, 2024)
Episode 118
Meltdown: Scandal, Sleaze and the Collapse of Credit Suisse (Pegasus Books, 2024) is a great business history book. It meticulously chronicles the st…
1 year, 9 months ago
Austin Dean, "China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937" (Cornell UP, 2020)
Episode 12
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using …
1 year, 9 months ago
Devin Fergus, “Land of the Fee: Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class” (Oxford UP, 2018)
Episode 116
Politicians, economists, and the media have put forth no shortage of explanations for the mounting problem of wealth inequality – a loss of working c…
1 year, 9 months ago
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, "Accidental Feminism: Gender Parity and Selective Mobility Among India’s Professional Elite" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Episode 123
In India, elite law firms offer a surprising oasis for women within a hostile, predominantly male industry. Less than 10 percent of the country's law…
1 year, 10 months ago
Enze Han, "The Ripple Effect: China's Complex Presence in Southeast Asia" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Episode 153
Many studies of China's relations with and influence on Southeast Asia tend to focus on how Beijing has used its power asymmetry to achieve regional …
1 year, 10 months ago
Leah Downey, "Our Money: Monetary Policy as If Democracy Matters" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Episode 111
How the creation of money and monetary policy can be more democratic.
The power to create money is foundational to the state. In the United States, th…
1 year, 10 months ago
Christine M. Larson, "Love in the Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed the Rules of Writing and Success" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Episode 226
As writers, musicians, online content creators, and other independent workers fight for better labor terms, romance authors offer a powerful example—…
1 year, 10 months ago
Matt Beane, "The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines" (HarperCollins, 2024)
Episode 86
As part of our informal series on artificial intelligence, Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Beane, Assistant Professor of Technolog…
1 year, 10 months ago
Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, "The Unequal Effects of Globalization" (MIT, 2023)
Episode 165
The recent retreat from globalization has been triggered by a perception that increased competition from global trade is not fair and leads to increa…
1 year, 10 months ago
Ulises Ali Mejias and Nick Couldry, "Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Episode 378
In the present day, Big Tech is extracting resources from us, transferring and centralizing resources from people to companies. These companies are g…
1 year, 10 months ago