Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt, "Franz Boas: The Emergence of the Anthropologist" (U Nebraska Press, 2019)
Franz Boas is remembered today as one of the most important figures in the history of anthropology. In the United States, he is widely created with creating the modern field of anthropology or at leas...
27 Sep 202254min
Doug Greene, "Failure of Vision: Michael Harrington and the Limits of Democratic Socialism" (Zero Books, 2022)
The Democratic Socialists of America have exploded in the last few years, going from just a couple thousand members to close to a hundred thousand. This was from a combination of factors; two insurgen...
23 Sep 20221h 12min
Olúfemi Táíwò, "Against Decolonization: Taking African Agency Seriously" (Hurst, 2022)
Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West’s direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing ‘morality’ or ‘authenticity’. In...
22 Sep 20221h 4min
Karen O'Brein-Kop, "Phiroz Mehta: A Zoroastrian Teacher of Indian Philosophy of Religion in 1970s-80s Britain"
Phiroz Mehta, was a self-taught philosopher of religion who became the revered core figure of a universal religion and philosophy centred on concepts of existential freedom. Less well known than his c...
22 Sep 202244min
Keri Blakinger, "Corrections in Ink: A Memoir" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
Corrections in Ink (St. Martin's Press, 2022) is an electric and unforgettable memoir about a young woman's journey-from the ice rink, to addiction and a prison sentence, to the newsroom-emerging with...
22 Sep 20221h
Michael S. Green, "Lincoln and Native Americans" (Southern Illinois UP, 2021)
President Abraham Lincoln ordered the largest mass execution of Indigenous people in American history, following the 1862 uprising of hungry Dakota in Minnesota and suspiciously speedy trials. He also...
22 Sep 20221h
Olivier Zunz, "The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville" (Princeton UP, 2022)
In 1831, at the age of twenty-five, Alexis de Tocqueville made his fateful journey to America, where he observed the thrilling reality of a functioning democracy. From that moment onward, the French a...
21 Sep 20221h 7min
John Peter DiIulio, "Completely Free: The Moral and Political Vision of John Stuart Mill" (Princeton UP, 2022)
As we emerge from a period of government-mandated lockdowns and as threats to free speech multiply, we would be wise to re-engage with the work of a seminal thinker on the subjects of liberty, freedom...
21 Sep 20221h 33min
