Europe

Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Steven Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg, to discuss his recent book Good Jew Bad Jew: Racism, anti-Semitism and the assault on meaning. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Biden’s strikes on Iraq and Syria, environmental disaster in […]
Sam is back! He and Emma are joined by Jamie Martin, Assistant Professor of History at Harvard University, to discuss his recent book The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Economic Global Governance. First, Sam and Emma dive into developments in Ukraine as the UN sends in Nuclear Inspectors, a massive flood in Pakistan displacing millions, and the […]
Sam and Emma host Kimberly St. Julian Varnon, Ph.D student in history at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss her work on Soviet-Ukrainian history and the role race has played in the wake of the fall of the USSR. They begin by walking through the history of the unification of Ukraine, which was split between the Austro-Hungarian […]
Emma hosts Alex Sammon, staff writer at The American Prospect, to discuss his recent piece in the New Republic “IKEA’s Race for the Last of Europe’s Old-Growth Forest.” Alex dives right into his surprisingly high-risk coverage of the rampant illegal deforestation going on in Europe’s last old-growth forest in Romania, first situating his research within stories relayed to him […]
Sam and Emma host Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), to discuss the recent developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as the U.S. airstrike in Somalia from a few days ago, the first in the area since last August. Matt, Sam, and Emma begin with a clip of a journalist in Poland […]
Sam and Emma break down all the big news from the past few days, from the rapidly developing situation in Ukraine, to COVID, labor, the courts, and more! Sam and Emma begin by diving into the “mother of all sanctions” bill being drafted by Sen. Menendez, from the semi-useful elements of to the GOP using them […]
Sam and Emma Anna Della Subin, senior editor at Bidoun Projects, to discuss her recent book Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine, on the pervasive and frequently overlooked figure that began popping up at the dawn of “New World” imperialism, and has since emerged, both through oppression and resistance, countless times in the face of a singular […]
Sam and Emma host David Wengrow, Professor of Comparative Archaeology at University College London, to discuss his recent book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity that he co-authored with David Graeber. They begin by clarifying what the old history was, which Professor Wengrow describes the “broad sweep of human history” that we see starting all the […]
Sam and Emma host Adam Tooze, Professor of History at Columbia University and author of the Chartbook newsletter on Substack, to discuss his recent book Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy, tracing the development of the pandemic and its shockwaves from January 2020 to January 2021. Professor Tooze first reflects on the collective difficulty in processing those twelve […]
Sam and Emma host Milton Allimadi, publisher of The Black Star News and the author of Manufacturing Hate: How Africa Was Demonized In Western Media, to discuss the exploitative and racist depiction of African people and governments in US media coverage, before moving on to exploring the current conflict in Ethiopia in the Tigray region. They begin […]