Jenifer Van Vleck on Empire of the Air

Take a moment and picture the average person who came North during the Great Migration. Chances are good that you conjured someone who was African-American and working-class, bound for a city in searc...

4 Aug 202531min

What do energy consumers owe energy producers? What does it mean to be a citizen in a coal-fired democracy? In this month's episode, guest Trish Kahle reckons with the costs and benefits of coal from ...

11 Jul 202545min

How do you write the history of something as abstract, as placeless, and as vast as the globalization that has remade our world over the past several decades? If you're Ian Kumekawa, you make those i...

2 Jun 202531min

This month's episode looks at the history of Chinese industrialization by focusing on Anshan Iron and Steel Works or Angang, located in Manchuria. Long portrayed as the quintessential model of Mao-era...

2 Mai 202533min

It's now been over a decade since the New York Times declared that the history of capitalism was in full swing at American universities. This podcast also just celebrated its 10 year anniversary. With...

1 Apr 202521min

In this month's episode Justene Hill Edwards leads listeners on a deep dive into the rise and fall of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, also known as the Freedman's Bank. Among the topics expl...

5 Mar 202541min

Back in high school, my social studies teacher—who was, of course, also the football coach—told my class that entrepreneurs were the heroes of American history. If we enjoyed a dynamic economy and goo...

3 Feb 202539min

Looking back from our contemporary vantage point, the United States' global capitalist empire looks both omnipresent and inevitable. Much of the world's trade is denominated in dollars. American finan...

2 Jan 202536min