Listen to Owen Bennett-Jones discuss the future of opinion polls with Mark Pack

New Books Network
Politics & Polemics
Politics & Polemics May 27, 2022

The Disenchanted Earth

Reflections on Ecosocialism and Barbarism

Richard Seymour

Hosted by Nicholas Pritchard
In The Disenchanted Earth: Reflections on Ecosocialism & Barbarism (Indigo Press, 2022), Richard Seymour, one of the UK's leading left-wing writers, gives an account of his 'ecological awakening'. A search for transcendence, beyond …

Politics & Polemics

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Interviews with partisans and polemicists about their new books.

Art May 24, 2022

Takedown

Art and Power in the Digital Age

Farah Nayeri

Hosted by Allison Leigh
For centuries, art censorship has been a top-down phenomenon—kings, popes, and one-party states decided what was considered obscene, blasphemous, or politically deviant in art. Today, censorship can also happen from …
Critical Theory May 19, 2022

Universality and Identity Politics

Todd McGowan

Hosted by Reuben Niewenhuis
The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of …
Political Science May 19, 2022

The Big No

Kennan Ferguson

Hosted by Lilly Goren
The Big No (U Minnesota Press, 2022) is an edited volume, assembled and overseen by political theorist Kennan Ferguson, who also provides the Introduction. This group of essays came out …
Art May 18, 2022

The Memeing of Mark Fisher

How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What to Do about It

Mike Watson

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
Through his blog K-Punk, Mark Fisher become one of the cult figures of cultural theory after the economic crash of 2008. One of Fisher’s insights, widely taken up by the …
Critical Theory May 18, 2022

Held in Contempt

What's Wrong with the House of Commons?

Hannah White

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What is the future for the House of Commons? In Held in Contempt: What’s Wrong with the House of Commons? (Manchester UP, 2022), Hannah White, Deputy Director of the Institute for Government …
Environmental Studies May 18, 2022

In Whose Ruins

Power, Possession, and the Landscapes of American Empire

Alicia Puglionesi

Hosted by Laura Stark
The important new book by Alicia Puglionesi, In Whose Ruins: Power, Possession and the Landscapes of American Empire (Scribner, 2022), is a fat sampler of episodes that show how origin …
African Studies May 17, 2022

My Fourth Time, We Drowned

Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route

Sally Hayden

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Late one night, journalist Sally Hayden received an urgent message on Facebook: “Sally, we need your help.” It was from a group of Eritrean refugees who had been held in …
Law May 13, 2022

Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World

What China's Crackdown Reveals about Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere

Mark L. Clifford

Hosted by Jane Richards
In this account of the rapid erosion of liberties, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and civil and political rights in Hong Kong, Mark L. Clifford's latest book provides …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones May 10, 2022

The Future of Opinion Polls

A Conversation with Mark Pack

Mark Pack

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
As the culture wars intensify, it seems that all sources of neutral authority get challenged and that includes opinion polls. Accusations about bias and unreliability fly around and yet everyone …
Politics & Polemics May 10, 2022

An Inconvenient Minority

The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy

Kenny Xu

Hosted by Shu Cao Mo
Even in the midst of a nationwide surge of bias and incidents against them, Asians from coast to coast have quietly assumed mastery of the nation's technical and intellectual machinery …
Science, Technology, and Society May 9, 2022

Buy Now

How Amazon Branded Convenience and Normalized Monopoly

Emily West

Hosted by Noopur Raval
How Amazon combined branding and relationship marketing with massive distribution infrastructure to become the ultimate service brand in the digital economy. Amazon is ubiquitous in our daily lives—we stream movies …
Journalism May 9, 2022

I Never Thought of It That Way

How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times

Mónica Guzmán

Hosted by Jenna Spinelle
Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out …
African American Studies May 5, 2022

Elite Capture

How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Hosted by Brittney Edmonds
“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media, both online and off. But the compulsively referenced phrase bears little …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast May 4, 2022

Covid, 'Scientism,' and the Betrayal of the Enlightenment

Pandemic Perspectives 9

Charles Foster

Hosted by Howard Burton
In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to bestselling author and University of Oxford law professor Charles Foster on how the coronavirus pandemic reveals …
Israel Studies May 3, 2022

Can Academics Change the World?

An Israeli Anthropologist's Testimony on the Rise and Fall of a Protest Movement on Campus

Moshe Shokeid

Hosted by Akin Ajayi
AD KAN (NO MORE) was founded in 1988 by a group of academics at Tel Aviv University. The initiative, a public pressure group, was prompted by public indifference (at best) …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones May 3, 2022

The Future of Statues

A Conversation with Alex Von Tunzelmann

Alex Von Tunzelmann

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
What are the rights and wrongs of toppling statues? Sometimes everyone agrees it’s a good idea. After the second world war, for example, the defeat of fascism meant that all …
Historical Materialism April 29, 2022

Hegemony and Class Struggle

Trotsky, Gramsci and Marxism

Juan Dal Maso

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky exerted a powerful influence on the world, even if his historical and theoretical contributions have often been downplayed, and people who wish to be …
Economic and Business History April 26, 2022

In Defense of Public Debt

Barry Eichengreen et al.

Hosted by Javier Mejia
Public debts have exploded to levels unprecedented in modern history as governments responded to the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis. Their dramatic rise has prompted apocalyptic warnings about the …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones April 26, 2022

The Future of Race

A Discussion with John McWhorter

John McWhorter

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
Race is the subject of passionate and increasingly angry debate. But amidst all the talk of unconscious bias it’s an area into which many fear to tread. In this podcast …