Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian, "The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back" (New Press, 2021)
As people reach for social justice and better lives, they create public goods--free education, public health, open parks, clean water, and many others--that must be kept out of the market. When privat...
6 Dec 202131min
Fabio Parasecoli, "Food" (MIT, 2019)
Everybody eats. We may even consider ourselves experts on the topic, or at least Instagram experts. But are we aware that the shrimp in our freezer may be farmed and frozen in Vietnam, the grapes in o...
6 Dec 202134min
Margherita Zanasi, "Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic notions of a free market economy emerged in China a cen...
3 Dec 20211h 27min
Thane Gustafson, "Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change" (Harvard UP, 2021)
With COP26 and high fossil fuel prices, energy is back in the headlines. And Russia, as one of the world’s largest producers of hydrocarbons, is part of the conversation--most recently, in Putin’s ref...
3 Dec 202146min
69 Recall this Buck 4: Daniel Souleles on Private Equity (JP, EF)
In this installment of our Recall this Buck series (check out our earlier conversations with Thomas Piketty, Peter Brown and Christine Desan), John and Elizabeth talk with Daniel Souleles, anthropolog...
2 Dec 202136min
David Avrin, "Why Customers Leave (And How to Win Them Back)" (Career Press, 2019)
Today I talked to David Avrin about his new book Why Customers Leave (And How to Win Them Back) (Career Press, 2019). There are three central themes to this book: immediacy (customers want instant gra...
2 Dec 202130min
Paul Collier, "The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties" (Harper, 2019)
Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of Britain and other Western societies: thriving cities versus the provinces; the high-skilled elite versus the less educated. As these divides deepen, we h...
30 Nov 202155min
Joshua Sbicca, "Food Justice Now!: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle" (U Minnesota Press, 2018)
Food Justice Now: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) charts a path from food activism to social justice activism that integrates the two. In an engrossing, hi...
23 Nov 202142min
