Feb 26
Renny Thomas and Sasanka Perera, "Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes (Columbia UP, 2025) presents a set of keywords and concepts embedded in the languages of South Asia and its vast cultural landscape. It reiterates specific attitudes, ways of seeing and methods of doing, which are embedded i ... Show More
35m 30s
Feb 22
Anne Mendelson, "Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Why is cows' milk, which few nonwhite people can digest, promoted as a science-backed dietary necessity in countries where the majority of the population is lactose-intolerant? Why are gigantic new dairy farms permitted to deplete the sparse water resources of desert ecosystems? ... Show More
1h 5m
Feb 21
Jie-Hyun Lim, "Victimhood Nationalism: History and Memory in a Global Age" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Nationalism today depends on the perception of victimhood. The historical memory of past suffering endows nationalist movements with political legitimacy and a sense of moral superiority. Koreans recall Japanese colonial atrocities, while Japan commemorates the atomic bombings of ... Show More
54m 6s
May 2023
Jacqueline Mondros and Joan Minieri, "Organizing for Power and Empowerment: The Fight for Democracy" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Jacqueline Mondros and Joan Minieri's book Organizing for Power and Empowerment: The Fight for Democracy (Columbia UP, 2023) draws on extensive research to portray how social-action organizations have evolved over the past twenty-five years, building power in the struggle for soc ... Show More
32m 25s
Mar 2024
Jacqueline Kennelly, "Burnt by Democracy: Youth, Inequality, and the Erosion of Civic Life" (U Toronto Press, 2023)
Burnt by Democracy: Youth, Inequality, and the Erosion of Civic Life (University of Toronto Press, 2023) by Dr. Jacqueline Kennelly traces the political ascendance of neoliberalism and its effects on youth. The book explores democracy and citizenship as described in interviews wi ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2023
Raina Lipsitz, "The Rise of a New Left: How Young Radicals Are Shaping the Future of American Politics" (Verso, 2022)
The mushrooming rolls of the Democratic Socialists of America, Marxist explainers in Teen Vogue, and the outsized impact of the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, all herald a new, youth-inflected radical politics.
The Rise of a New Left: How Youn ... Show More
37m 7s
Jul 2021
Jacob Lederman, "Chasing World-Class Urbanism: Global Policy Versus Everyday Survival in Buenos Aires" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)
What makes some cities world class? Increasingly, that designation reflects the use of a toolkit of urban planning practices and policies that circulates around the globe. These strategies—establishing creative districts dedicated to technology and design, “greening” the streets, ... Show More
53m 25s
May 2023
If you don’t have multiracial democracy, you have no democracy at all
The history of American democracy has always been fraught when it comes to race. Yet no matter how elusive it may be, Harvard Kennedy School professors Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Archon Fung say true multiracial democracy not only remains a worthy goal, but achieving it is critic ... Show More
45m 54s
Aug 2023
Hava Rachel Gordon, "This Is Our School!: Race and Community Resistance to School Reform" (NYU Press, 2021)
Parents, educators, and activists are passionately fighting to improve public schools around the country. In This Is Our School!: Race and Community Resistance to School Reform (NYU Press, 2021), Hava Rachel Gordon takes us inside these fascinating school reform movements, explor ... Show More
44m 22s
May 2022
How to Make Democracy Work for Everyone, with Yascha Mounk
During an era of identity politics, culture wars and increasing awareness of the structural biases that contribute to global inequality, it’s easy to become pessimistic about the possibility of making diverse democracies work. Yascha Mounk is a writer and political scientist whos ... Show More
1 h
Apr 2024
Andrea Wenzel, "Antiracist Journalism: The Challenge of Creating Equitable Local News" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Journalists have a long history of covering race and racism in the United States, telling stories that shed light on protest, activism, institutional turmoil, and policy change. Especially in recent years, though, the racial politics of journalism has very often become the story ... Show More
54m 56s
Jacqueline Mondros and Joan Minieri's book Organizing for Power and Empowerment: The Fight for Democracy (Columbia UP, 2023) draws on extensive research to portray how social-action organizations have evolved over the past twenty-five years, building power in the struggle for social and economic justice. It explores how organizers increasingly target corpora ... Show More
