In March 1942, Japanese troops landed on Java's north coast and were welcomed by many of the Indonesians they had come to conquer. It’s an indication of just how much the Second World War undermined the foundations of European empire, setting up a postwar order that still governs Asia today.
Hans van de Ven’s new book Blood Dawn: World War II and the Making ... Show More
Nov 2018
Max Hastings, “Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975” (Harper, 2018)
People of various political stripes in many countries (particularly those countries where various political stripes are allowed) have been arguing about the Vietnam War for a long time. The participants in these debates were (and are) always quick to assign blame in what seems to ... Show More
51m 36s
Oct 23
Theologies of Remembering: Modernity, Ambiguity, and Transcendence in Islamic Indonesia with Verena Hanna Meyer (U California Press, 2026)
The claim to moderate or modernist Islam in Indonesia is particularly contentious today, as these labels participate in the global politics of identity for Muslims past and present. Who gets to claim to be representative of an Islam that is modernist, progressive, or tolerant? Wh ... Show More
47m 45s
Oct 21
Reimagining Foreign Aid in a Changing Global Order with Mary-Collier Wilks (Stanford UP, 2026)
What happens to foreign aid (and to women’s status) when the global development landscape shifts away from U.S. dominance? In this episode of International Horizons, John Torpey speaks with sociologist Mary-Collier Wilks about her book Reimagining Aid: Foreign Donors, Women’s Hea ... Show More
34m 3s
Oct 2024
Bananapocalypse: Plantation Southeast Asia and Its Many Afterlives
This episode focuses on a cluster of issues of longstanding significance in Southeast Asia and in Southeast Asian Studies – plantation agriculture, global commodity chains or supply chains, exploitation of labour and environmental degradation, and resistance. To discuss these iss ... Show More
40m 37s
Oct 2024
Bananapocalypse: Plantation Southeast Asia and Its Many Afterlives
This episode focuses on a cluster of issues of longstanding significance in Southeast Asia and in Southeast Asian Studies – plantation agriculture, global commodity chains or supply chains, exploitation of labour and environmental degradation, and resistance. To discuss these iss ... Show More
40m 37s
Sep 2023
Allan Punzalan Isaac, "Filipino Time: Affective Worlds and Contracted Labor" (Fordham UP, 2021)
From spectacular deaths in a drag musical to competing futures in a call center, Filipino Time: Affective Worlds and Contracted Labor (Fordham UP, 2021) examines how contracted service labor performed by Filipinos in the Philippines, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States ... Show More
52m 57s
Jun 2020
To Live and Die in Kerala
<p>Rudy, Ahmed, and Remi join Sam Agarwal, a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University in sociology, whose research on and fieldwork in Kerala provide insight into the Indian state's handling of societal crisis like the 2018-9 floods and COVID-19. We discuss the left politics of th ... Show More
1h 14m
Aug 2024
Building a People's Art: Vietnam, Socialist Realism and Cultural Revolution
Ruehl Muller joins Breht to discuss his upcoming book, put out by Iskra Books, titled "Building a People's Art: Selected Works of Trường Chinh and Tố Hữu". Together, they discuss Vietnamese Socialist Realism, Maoist China, Cultural Revolution, dialectics, the death drive, fascism ... Show More
1h 44m
Oct 2021
Hans Martin Krämer and Julian Strube, "Theosophy across Boundaries: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement" (SUNY Press, 2020)
Theosophy across Boundaries: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement (SUNY Press, 2020) brings a global history approach to the study of esotericism, highlighting the important role of Theosophy in the general histories of religion, science, ... Show More
1h 1m