Ben Waterhouse on the Dream and Reality of Self Employment

This month's episode centers Samoa, including the Pacific islands comprising the present-day independent country of Samoa and American Samoa, examining capitalism, globalization, and coconut coloniali...

27 Mai 202246min

In 2020, George Floyd was killed by police outside a store in Minneapolis known as "the best place to buy menthols." Of Black Americans who smoke, eighty-percent smoke menthol cigarettes. In this epis...

5 Apr 202247min

This month's episode takes a deep dive into the history of work and automation in the post-World War II era. It traces the discourse around automation from its origins in the factory to its wide-rangi...

7 Mar 202245min

This month's episode focuses on a popular commodity, namely rubber. Despite consuming a large share of the world's rubber supply, the United States has long relied on the global market to meet America...

4 Feb 202248min

Indebtedness, like inequality, has become a ubiquitous condition in and beyond the United States. Yet few have probed American cities' dependence on municipal debt. Focusing on San Francisco, this mon...

4 Jan 202257min

It is no secret that the United States is facing a crisis with regards to higher education. In this month's episode, historian Elizabeth Tandy Shermer explains the long history that gave rise to the c...

4 Okt 202147min

Building on and complicating recent scholarship on slavery and capitalism, Justene Hill Edwards takes listeners on a journey through the slaves' economy. From bustling urban marketplaces to back-count...

4 Aug 202134min

For many Americans, the question--What is a dollar worth?--may sound bizarre, if not redundant. Fluctuating international exchange rates, highly volatile crypto-currencies, counterfeit money, these ar...

6 Jul 202151min