Martina Baradel, "21st Century Yakuza: Death of Japanese Organised Crime" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Once dominant and institutionalised, the Yakuza, one of Japan's best known criminal organisations, is now shrinking under the combined pressure of legal exclusion, social stigmatisation, and market...
5 Jul 1h 5min
Carrie LeVan, "Neighborhoods Matter: How Place and People Affect Political Participation" (NYU Press, 2026)
Participation in official governmental institutions and activities has declined dramatically. Americans are less inclined to express trust in, or cooperate with, political leaders and each other t...
4 Jul 1h 1min
Anna Terwiel offers A Moment of No to the Prison-Industrial Complex (JP)
Punishment makes nobody safer, imprisonment only impoverishes us as a society. And yet, we lock up our own, more and more for worse and worse reasons. What might finally inspire us to run the equation...
2 Jul 50min
Thomas Paine at the Semiquincentennial: A Conversation with Gregory Claeys
Thomas Paine: Collected Writings (Princeton University Press, 2026) is the first major new edition of Paine’s works, bringing together all his writings in six breathtaking volumes that dramatically re...
1 Jul 0s
Jonathan Schneer, "Nine Days in May: The General Strike Of 1926" (Oxford UP, 2026)
In May, 1926, nearly three million British workers downed tools to support nearly one million of their countrymen, miners whose employers meant to lengthen their working day and cut their pay. This Ge...
1 Jul 1h 15min
The Once and Future Republic: On Cicero, Locke, and the Making of America with Michael C. Hawley
In preparation for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, it would be wise to look back at the ancient thinkers and writers who helped inspire its early leaders. Perhaps the preeminent role mode...
1 Jul 1h 19min
Daniel Krcmaric, "Above the Law" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
The United States has traditionally been a great promoter of international justice – forging the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals after World War II and leading the way in creating tribunals to address g...
30 Jun 28min
Infrastructure, Nickel, and the Politics of Polyalignment in Indonesia
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japan...
24 Jun 42min
