When global supply chains were shut down in 2020 and messily rebooted after COVID lockdowns ceased, one island nation emerged as the most important player in getting critical components to factories around the world. That was Taiwan, which produces 90...
Jan 27
How Soccer Created African and Latin American Nations
National pride often comes from shared heritage—like a common language or ethnic background. Religious Nationalism can be seen in historical Russia, where being part of the Orthodox Church was considered key to being Russian, even if you spoke a different language, whereas Ethnic ... Show More
46m 32s
Jan 22
The Sawmill – Along With Gunpowder and the Printing Press – Created the Modern World
The wind-powered sawmill was invented around 1592 in the Netherlands, immediately transforming the nature of labor and industry. This mechanical marvel replaced slow, muscle-powered sawyers, allowing timber to be cut for shipbuilding and construction up to 30 times faster than ma ... Show More
34m 13s
Feb 2024
Season 3, Episode 4: Dr. David Daokui Li, China's World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict
Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and economist David Daokui Li as they discuss Professor Li’s brilliant new book, China's World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict. Listen in as Professor Li explains the deep nature of Chinese politics and economics – ba ... Show More
38m 4s
Sep 2024
Sarah Miller-Davenport, "Gateway State: Hawai’i and the Cultural Transformation of American Empire" (Princeton UP, 2019)
One of my talking points when hanging out with my fellow diplomatic historians is the painful absence of scholarship on Hawaii. Too many political histories treat Hawaii’s statehood as a kind of historical inevitability, an event that was bound to pass the moment the kingdom was ... Show More
57m 12s
Nov 6
Xi Jinping’s World of Treachery and Sacrifice
<p>Last week’s meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping may have brought a respite in the trade war. But it hardly touched the more fundamental drivers of U.S.-Chinese rivalry, a rivalry that has come to shape more and more dimensions of geopolitics, the global economy, and be ... Show More
56m 45s