Ho-fung Hung, "The China Question: Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
"The contempt and naive idealization of China are two sides of the same coin. The latter cannot be an antidote to the former." So argues Ho-Fung Hung in the conclusion of The China Question: Eight Ce...
6 Apr 1h 12min
Stephen Onyango Ouma, "Africa Unbound: Decolonial Pathways to Sovereignty and Liberation" (Brill, 2026)
I had a substantive conversation with Dr. Stephen Onyango Ouma, author of Africa Unbound: Decolonial Pathways to Sovereignty and Liberation (Brill, 2026). He explained that, despite achieving politic...
5 Apr 1h 7min
Marta Lorimer, "Europe As Ideological Resource: European Integration and Far Right Legitimation in France and Italy" (Oxford UP, 2024)
How did the far right go from illegitimate fringe to contender for public office, and did Europe have anything to do with it? Europe As Ideological Resource: European Integration and Far Right Legitim...
5 Apr 37min
Hilary Matfess, "After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions" (Stanford UP, 2026)
War offers opportunities for women to liberate their communities and build a better life for themselves. When women join rebel groups, they often take on new roles, cultivate new social networks, and ...
5 Apr 52min
The Gen Z Revolution in Bangladesh and Its Fallout
What role did Gen Z play in the popular uprising that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime in the summer of 2024? And what marks have the uprising left on democratic politics in Bangladesh? We ...
2 Apr 34min
Mark Pennington, "Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom by Mark Pennington This highly original and innovative book is the first to comprehensively engage the ideas of the French social...
30 Mar 58min
Mark Hlavacik, "Willing Warriors: A New History of the Education Culture Wars" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
How the rise of the culture wars afflicts the politics of education. On August 9, 2022, the Denton Independent School District held a meeting to address complaints about its libraries. Like so many ...
28 Mar 29min
Thomas Hegghammer and Diego Gambetta eds., "Fight, Flight, Mimic: Identity Mimicry in Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Time spent and words spent—what does each signal? Deceptive mimicry—the manipulation of individual or group identity—includes passing off as a different individual, as a member of a group to which on...
28 Mar 1h 5min
