Brendan A. Shanahan, "Disparate Regimes: Nativist Politics, Alienage Law, and Citizenship Rights in the United States, 1865-1965" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Historians have well described how US immigration policy increasingly fell under the purview of federal law and national politics in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. It is far less understood that ...
1 Sep 20251h 17min
Margaret E. Roberts, "Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall" (Princeton UP, 2020)
We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’ new book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside...
31 Aug 202550min
Syria After Assad
What are the prospects for democracy in Syria? Is this the right question to ask? What do we need to better understand about Syria’s new leader, its civil society, and the challenges it faces in a new...
29 Aug 202540min
Thane Gustafson, "Perfect Storm: Russia's Failed Economic Opening, the Hurricane of War and Sanctions, and the Uncertain Future" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought a tragic close to a thirty-year period of history that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reopening of Russia to the West after six decade...
29 Aug 20251h 2min
Lindsey N. Kingston, "Fully Human: Personhood, Citizenship, and Rights" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Lindsey N. Kingston’s new book, Fully Human: Personhood, Citizenship, and Rights (Oxford UP, 2019) interrogates the idea of citizenship itself, what it means, how it works, how it is applied and under...
28 Aug 202554min
Mark L. Haas, "The Geriatric Peace: Population Aging and the Decline of War" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The vast majority of the world's countries are experiencing a demographic revolution: dramatic, sustained, and likely irreversible population aging. States' median ages are steadily increasing as the ...
27 Aug 202552min
Victoria Basualdo et al., "Big Business and Dictatorships in Latin America: A Transnational History of Profits and Repression" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
On this episode of the Economic and Business History channel, I spoke with Dr. Victoria Basualdo and Dr. Marcelo Bucheli about their new edited book. Big Business and Dictatorships in Latin America: A...
27 Aug 202550min
Donald G. Nieman, "The Path to Paralysis: How American Politics Became Nasty, Dysfunctional, and a Threat to the Republic" (Anthem Press, 2024)
Much has been written about political polarisation in the United States, but no one has examined it through the lens of recent U.S. history. There is nothing deterministic about how we became polarise...
25 Aug 202553min
