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
Feb 3
Lisa Min et al. eds., "Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State" (punctum books, 2024)
When it comes to the political, acts of redaction, erasure, and blacking out sit in awkward tension with the myth of transparent governance, borderless access, and frictionless communication. But should there be more than this brute juxtaposition of truth and secrecy? Redacted: W ... Show More
1h 25m
Feb 2
Allison Caine, "Restless Ecologies: Climate Change and Socioecological Futures in the Peruvian Highlands" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
In the high Andean grasslands 4,500 meters above sea level, Quechua alpaca herders live on the edges of glaciers that have retreated more rapidly in the past fifty years than at any point in the previous six millennia. Women are the primary herders, and their specialized knowledg ... Show More
49m 37s
Sep 2024
Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman, "Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite" (Harvard UP, 2024)
Who runs Britain? In Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite (Harvard UP, 2024), Aaron Reeves, and Sam Friedman, both Professors of Sociology at the London School of Economics, tell the story of the UK’s ruling class. The book blends a huge range of qualitative ... Show More
42m 16s
Sep 2024
Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman, "Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite" (Harvard UP, 2024)
Who runs Britain? In Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite (Harvard UP, 2024), Aaron Reeves, and Sam Friedman, both Professors of Sociology at the London School of Economics, tell the story of the UK’s ruling class. The book blends a huge range of qualitative ... Show More
42m 16s
Jan 2025
Peter Mandler, "The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain's Transition to Mass Education Since the Second World War" (Oxford UP, 2020)
How did public demand shape education in the 20th century? In The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain’s Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War (Oxford UP, 2020), Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge, charts the history ... Show More
39m 25s
Oct 2024
Jamie Furlong and Will Jennings, "The Changing Electoral Map of England and Wales" (Oxford UP, 2024)
What is the connection between where people live and how they vote? In The Changing Electoral Map of England and Wales (Oxford UP, 2024), Jamie Furlong a Research Fellow at the University of Westminster and Will Jennings Associate Dean Research & Enterprise and Professor at the U ... Show More
48m 22s
Mar 2024
Derron Wallace, "The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth" (Oxford UP, 2023)
How does race matter in schools? In The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth (Oxford UP, 2023), Derron Wallace, the Jacob S. Potofsky Chair in Sociology at Brandeis University, tells the contrasting stories of two schools in the UK and USA. The ... Show More
55m 19s
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
Sep 2025
Cordelia Fine, "Patriarchy Inc.: What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality – and Why Men Still Win at Work" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
Inequality in the workplace impacts all areas of our lives, from health and self-development to economic security and family life. But, despite the world's richest countries' long-avowed commitments to gender equality, there is still so much to fix - and so much we don't see.With ... Show More
1h 9m
May 2024
How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera
Sathnam Sanghera is a writer and author of bestselling books exploring British identity, the latest of which is Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe. It follows Empireland, which looked at how the British Empire has shaped modern Britain. Sanghera has written ... Show More
38m 11s
Mar 2024
Noah L. Nathan, "The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Po ... Show More
52m 9s
Who runs Britain? In Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite (Harvard UP, 2024), Aaron Reeves, and Sam Friedman, both Professors of Sociology at the London School of Economics, tell the story of the UK’s ruling class. The book blends a huge range of qualitative and quantitative data, and uses innovative sociological methods, to offer a his ... Show More
