Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present a ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Yesterday
Sarah Hoiland, "Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club" (Temple UP, 2025)
A righteous sister identifies herself as a biker. She might wrench, or maintain, her own bike, and she prefers to ride with other righteous sisters. Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club (Temple UP, 2025) is Dr. Sarah Hoiland’s insightful ... Show More
44m 53s
Nov 19
Christina Jerne, "Opposition by Imitation: The Economics of Italian Anti-Mafia Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
For more than 150 years, Italy has been home to a resilient and evolving resistance against the pervasive influence of mafias. While these criminal organizations are renowned for their vast international business enterprises, the collective actions taken to oppose them are less k ... Show More
56m 40s
Mar 2024
Ali Bhagat, "Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism" (Cornell UP, 2024)
Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism (Cornell UP, 2024) answers a straightforward question: how are refugees governed under capitalism in this moment of heightened global displacement? To answer this question, Ali Bhagat takes a dual case study appro ... Show More
50 m
Nov 2024
Kristina Kolbe, "The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music" (Manchester UP, 2024)
What happens when the elitist space of 'Western' classical music seeks to diversify itself? And what are the social effects worked through diversity discourses in classical music institutions? The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music ... Show More
50m 52s
Nov 2023
Charles S. Maier, "The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries" (Harvard UP, 2023)
We thought we knew the story of the twentieth century. For many in the West, after the two world conflicts and the long cold war, the verdict was clear: democratic values had prevailed over dictatorship. But if the twentieth century meant the triumph of liberalism, as many intell ... Show More
50m 49s
Apr 2024
Boubacar N’Diaye, "Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization" (Routledge, 2017)
Boubacar N’Diaye's book Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization (Routledge, 2017), the result of more than a decade of research, focuses on the socio-political dynamics and civil-military relations in a little studied country: Mau ... Show More
1h 35m
Aug 2024
Miguel Montalva Barba, "White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America: Race, Place, and Space" (Policy Press, 2024)
White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America: Race, Place, and Space (Policy Press, 2024) examines the connections between race, place, and space, and sheds light on how they contribute and maintain racial hierarchies.
Dr. Miguel Montalva Barba focuses on the White residents ... Show More
51m 27s
Feb 2025
Shaping perceptions: the global impact of soft power
In this episode of Our World, Connected, we explore the concept of soft power—what it is, how it differs from hard power, and why it’s crucial in today’s interconnected yet fractured world. From the staggering reach of K-pop to the global legacy of the Olympics, soft power shapes ... Show More
38m 56s
Sep 2019
Charlie Laderman, "Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order" (Oxford UP, 2019)
In Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2019), Charlie Laderman exposes the way that imperial ambitions suffused the ideas and practices of turn-of-century humanitarian intervent ... Show More
1h 12m
Nov 2023
Episode 19: Rising Powers, Status, and Hypocrisy
Ilen Madhavji sits down with the 2023 winner of the HJD Book Award, Dr. Rohan Mukherjee, to discuss how rising powers seek status from the established international order, to reserve their seat at the table of power. Inspired by Dr. Mukherjee's award-winning book 'Ascending Order ... Show More
28m 39s
Dec 2024
George Steinmetz, "The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire" (Princeton UP, 2024)
It is only in recent years that sociologists and historians of the social sciences have given empire the attention it deserves in histories of the discipline. In this context, George Steinmetz’s The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empi ... Show More
1h 54m
Jan 2025
Philip Rathgeb, "How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Radical right parties are no longer political challengers on the fringes of party systems; they have become part of the political mainstream across the Western world. How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA (Oxford UP, 2024) shows how they h ... Show More
54m 44s