Border Lines: Refugees and the International Order
Climate change and war have flung millions of people on the move, who often seek safe harbor in the very countries responsible for their displacement. But despite the lofty ideals and supposed simplic...
2 Feb 202324min
Greg Brew, "Petroleum and Progress in Iran: Oil, Development, and the Cold War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
From the 1940s to 1960s, Iran developed into the world's first “petro-state,” where oil represented the bulk of state revenue and supported an industrializing economy, expanding middle class, and powe...
31 Jan 20231h 12min
Alexandre I. R. White, "Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital, and the Governance of Infectious Disease" (Stanford UP, 2023)
For many residents of Western nations, COVID-19 was the first time they experienced the effects of an uncontrolled epidemic. This is in part due to a series of little-known regulations that have aimed...
30 Jan 20231h 42min
David S. Painter and Gregory Brew, "The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951-1954" (UNC Press, 2023)
Beginning with the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry in spring 1951 and ending with its reversal following the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in August 1953, the Iranian oil c...
28 Jan 20231h 16min
Adam Lajeunesse, "Lock, Stock, and Icebergs: A History of Canada's Arctic Maritime Sovereignty" (UBC Press, 2016)
In April 1988, after years of failed negotiations over the status of the Northwest Passage, Brian Mulroney gave Ronald Reagan a globe, pointed to the Arctic, and said "Ron that's ours. We own it lock,...
21 Jan 202358min
Daniel F. Runde, "The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power" (Bombardier, 2023)
In The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power (Bombardier, 2023), Washington insider Daniel Runde makes the case for building a new global consensus through vigorous inte...
20 Jan 202343min
Patrick Bixby, "License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport" (U California Press, 2022)
This surprising global history of an indispensable document reveals how the passport has shaped art, thought, and human experience while helping to define the modern world. In License to Travel: A Cul...
19 Jan 20231h 8min
Aaron Berman, "America's Arab Nationalists: From the Ottoman Revolution to the Rise of Hitler" (Routledge, 2022)
Aaron Berman's book America's Arab Nationalists: From the Ottoman Revolution to the Rise of Hitler (Routledge, 2022) focuses in on the relationship between Arab nationalists and Americans in the strug...
13 Jan 20231h 10min
