On this episode of the Economic and Business History channel, I spoke with Dr. Victoria Basualdo and Dr. Marcelo Bucheli about their new edited book. Big Business and Dictatorships in Latin America: A Transnational History of Profits and Repression (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) is an edited volume that studies the relationship between big business and the Latin ... Show More
Today
Mark L. Haas, "The Geriatric Peace: Population Aging and the Decline of War" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The vast majority of the world's countries are experiencing a demographic revolution: dramatic, sustained, and likely irreversible population aging. States' median ages are steadily increasing as the number of people ages 65 and older skyrockets. Analysts and policymakers frequen ... Show More
52m 20s
Aug 25
Donald G. Nieman, "The Path to Paralysis: How American Politics Became Nasty, Dysfunctional, and a Threat to the Republic" (Anthem Press, 2024)
Much has been written about political polarisation in the United States, but no one has examined it through the lens of recent U.S. history. There is nothing deterministic about how we became polarised, and it happened more recently than many think. To fully understand the proble ... Show More
53m 45s
Aug 25
Gregory A. Daddis, "Faith and Fear: America's Relationship with War Since 1945" (Oxford UP, 2025)
In a groundbreaking reassessment of the long Cold War era, historian Gregory A. Daddis argues that ever since the Second World War's fateful conclusion, faith in and fear of war became central to Americans' thinking about the world around them. With war pervading nearly all aspec ... Show More
59m 43s
Jun 2024
M. Girard Dorsey, "Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II" (Cornell UP, 2023)
In Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II (Cornell UP, 2023), M. Girard Dorsey uncovers just how close Britain, the United States, and Canada came to crossing the red line that restrained poison gas during World War II.Unlik ... Show More
57m 27s
Aug 2023
Olivier Burtin, "A Nation of Veterans: War, Citizenship, and the Welfare State in Modern America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
In examining how the veterans' movement inscribed martial citizenship onto American law, politics, and culture, A Nation of Veterans: War, Citizenship, and the Welfare State in Modern America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022) offers a new history of the U.S. welfare state ... Show More
43 m
Oct 2024
The War in the Pacific: How WWII Changed the World Forever - Dr Robert Lyman
Robert Lyman MBE is a British military historian. A former Major in the British Army, he has published over 16 books on the Second World War in Europe, North Africa and Asia. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, regularly appearing on TV and radio, lectures at organisa ... Show More
1h 13m
Aug 2023
Michael Roper, "Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Michael Roper documents the lives and historical pursuits of the generations who grew up in Australia, Britain and Germany after the First World War. Although they were not direct witnesses to th ... Show More
55m 40s
Mar 2024
Season 3, Episode 5: Norman Solomon, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine
Join Professor Jeffrey Sachs and political and media analyst Norman Solomon as they discuss Solomon’s important new book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine. Listen in as Solomon and Sachs explore the intricate interplay between the main ... Show More
51m 56s
Dec 2024
Alex Mayhew, "Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness, and Morale on the Western Front" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
The First World War was an unprecedented crisis, with communities and societies enduring the unimaginable hardships of a prolonged conflict on an industrial scale. In Belgium and France, the terrible capacity of modern weaponry destroyed the natural world and exposed previously he ... Show More
59m 32s
Mar 2025
Season 4, Episode 7: Richard Overy, Why War?
Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and historian, Professor Richard Overy for an insightful conversation on one of humanity’s most unsettling questions: Why do we wage war? In his book, Why War? Overy takes us on a journey across time, from the ancient battlefields of the ... Show More
51m 34s