Epochal Crisis: The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the most recent book from Professor William Robinson, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This title is the latest in excellent and ground-breaking titles from Professor Robinson in a distinguished career, where he began writing books ... Show More
Apr 30
Paul Blustein, "King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency" (Yale UP, 2025)
The U.S. dollar is the world’s most important currency. Trade is priced in dollars, the world’s central banks keep U.S. dollars in reserve, some places–including my home of Hong Kong, peg their currencies to the dollar. But what explains the U.S. dollar’s success? And why have so ... Show More
51m 36s
Apr 29
Stephen B. Young ed., "Adam Smith and Modern Economics: Reclaiming the Moral High Ground" (de Gruyter, 2026)
For more than two centuries, economists and researchers have struggled with the conundrum of reconciling Adam Smith’s views on economics and ethics. While some held that Smith’s capitalism and free markets institutionalized selfishness, greed, inequality and injustice, others foc ... Show More
3m 45s
Apr 28
Trevor Jackson, "The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World" (Norton, 2026)
How did an economic system that was the result of largely uncoordinated and unplanned individual decisions come to dominate our modern world? This is the core question that my guest, Berkeley economic historian Trevor Jackson, tries to answer in his new book, The Insatiable Machi ... Show More
55m 45s
Oct 2021
Robert Hellyer, "Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups" (Columbia UP, 2021)
Robert Hellyer’s Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups (Columbia UP, 2021) is a tale of American and Japanese teaways, skillfully weaving together stories of Midwesterners drinking green tea (with milk and sugar, to be sure), the recent and complex origi ... Show More
44m 25s
Feb 2024
Season 3, Episode 4: Dr. David Daokui Li, China's World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict
Send us Fan MailJoin 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 – ... Show More
38m 4s
Aug 2024
The Dragon and the Nguzunguzu
Nguzunguzu is the traditional figurehead which was formerly affixed to canoes in the Solomon Islands. In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to Rodolfo Maggio, a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki about his book project on the dragon and the nguzunguzu, namely the ... Show More
20m 8s
Dec 2023
June Hee Kwon, "Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers" (Duke UP, 2023)
Migration is a theme intertwined with hopes and dreams. In Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers (Duke UP, 2023), June Hee Kwon explores the trajectory of the “Korean dream” that has fueled the massive migration of Korean Chinese workers from the Ya ... Show More
1 h
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 2024
Much ado about matcha, with Viktoryia Toma
Our hosts Tiffany Eslick and Devina Divecha get a Japanese tea masterclass from Viktoryia Toma. Viktoryia is the founder of Ikigai-cha, where they focus on single estates and single cultivators, so they work and source from small farmers directly to bring their teas to the region ... Show More
1h 2m
Oct 2024
Xiaoming Wang, "Muslim Chinese: The Hui in Rural Ningxia" (de Gruyter, 2019)
As the predominantly Muslim Chinese who claim ancestry from Persian and Arabic-speaking regions in Central Asia and the Middle East, the Hui people in China have received relatively little attention in anthropology. According to the 2010 census, the Hui are the largest Muslim gro ... Show More
46m 25s
Sep 2013
Noodle narratives; British men dancing Capoeira
Noodle narratives - Laurie Taylor talks to US anthropologist, Deborah Gewertz, about the invention, production and consumption of instant ramen noodles. From their origins in Japan to their worldwide spread to markets as diverse as the USA and Papua New Guinea. As popular with th ... Show More
28m 11s