K. Ian Shin, "Imperial Stewards: Chinese Art and the Making of America's Pacific Century" (Stanford UP, 2025)
This episode, which is co-hosted with Delaney Chieyen Holton, features Dr. K. Ian Shin discussing his recently published book, Imperial Stewards: Chinese Art and the Making of America’s Pacific Centur...
23 Aug 20251h 7min
Paul Thomas Chamberlin, "Scorched Earth: A Global History of World War II" (Basic Books, 2025)
In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires and the triumph of an American-led democratic order. In Scor...
19 Aug 20251h 4min
Reid B. C. Pauly, "The Art of Coercion: Credible Threats and the Assurance Dilemma" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Strong states are surprisingly bad at coercion. History shows they prevail only a third of the time. Dr. Pauly argues that coercion often fails because targets fear punishment even if they comply. In ...
19 Aug 202559min
Mary Bridges on US Bankers Abroad and the Making of a Global Superpower
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Mary Bridges, Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of...
18 Aug 20251h 8min
Georgiy Kasianov et al., "From 'the Ukraine' to Ukraine: A Contemporary History, 1991-2021" (Ibidem Press, 2021)
In 2021, Ukraine celebrates its thirty-year independence anniversary. During this relatively short period of time—when considered in historical terms—Ukraine underwent a number of drastic changes that...
17 Aug 202551min
Michael Jabara Carley, "Stalin's Great Game: War and Neutrality, 1939-1941" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
The period from September 1939 to early 1942 was crucial for Soviet foreign policy and coincided with the early stages of the Second World War, including the Great Patriotic War. In Stalin's Great Gam...
13 Aug 20251h 29min
Edward Luce, "Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key architect of the Soviet Union’s demise, which ended the Cold War. A child of Warsaw—the heart of central Europe’s bloodlands—Brzezinski turned his fierce resentment at hi...
12 Aug 202543min
Rita Kiki Edozie and Moses Khisa, "Africa's New Global Politics: Regionalism in International Relations" (Lynne Rienner, 2022)
The African Union's threat to lead African states' mass withdrawal from the International Criminal Court in 2008 marked just one of many encounters that demonstrate African leaders' growing confidence...
10 Aug 20251h 55min
