American Prestige

Danny welcomes back to the program Van Jackson, senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, to explore grand strategy and a progressive foreign policy to make a more just and stable world. They discuss where grand strategy falls in the fields of political science and international relations, dominant grand strategies like offshore balancing, neoliberal institutionalism, and anti-hegemonism, how these strategies relate to what's happening in DC, and more.

Grab a copy of Van's book Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking.

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Danny and Derek welcome back to the podcast historian Michael Franczak to talk about the political career of Jimmy Carter. Topics include his aspirations upon becoming president, the Trilateral Commission, human rights, Iran, and more.

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Danny and Derek welcome back to the program Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, associate professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, to continue the series on his book The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq. This episode picks up in WWII, exploring how that conflict changed the West's relationship with oil, building anti-British sentiment in Iraq, how that country became a higher priority after Iran began asserting itself in the 1950s, the 1958 officers' coup and how it compares with that of Nasser's in Egypt, and more into the early 1960s.

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Danny once again chats with television writer and producer Justin Boyd, this time to examine Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. Besides its holiday setting, the two discuss the film's place in Kubrick's oeuvre, its standing as an "end of history" piece of art, Kubrick as a true "20th century man", the Austro-Hungarian setting of the source novella vs. the dreamlike New York of the adaptation, and more.

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Danny and Derek welcome back to the podcast Eleanor Janega, medieval historian, author, and broadcaster, to get down to brass tacks: What is Christmas? They discuss its practice in early and medieval Christian societies, mummers’ plays and gambling, Saint Nicholas providing dowries and resurrecting boys killed for their meat, the post-Reformation treatment of Christmas, and more.

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Grab a copy of Eleanor’s book The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society.

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Danny and Derek speak with Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, associate professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, for the first episode in our series on his book The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq. In this episode, they lay the groundwork of 20th century Iraq, covering the Hashemite monarchy, sectarianism and the country and the role of Western actors, the Iraqi Petroleum Company, the origins of the communist movement in Iraq, Rashid Ali and anti-British movements, and more until World War II.

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Jake Werner, acting director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute, is back on the program, this time to talk about the current state of US-China relations and where they might be heading under Trump 2.0. They talk about the Biden administration's bimodal approach of collaborating with China while trying to threaten it, the regional alliance structure, how Trump appears to be positioning himself toward China in his new administration, how the US might navigate trade upheaval given the lack of domestic manufacturing, consumption and climate change, and more.

Don't forget to listen to our episode on Jake's brief "A Program for Progressive China Policy".

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Our last roundup before the holidays, but stay tuned for other fun AP programming! This week: in Palestine-Israel, yet more Gaza ceasefire talks (1:16) and two new reports on Israeli conduct in the Strip (6:37); in Syria, reports of reprisal attacks (12:02), the US fails to broker a Turkey-SDF ceasefire (16:07), and Israel occupies the country's south (20:24); Russia appears to have moved military assets from Ukraine to Libya (23:16); the RSF carries out more attacks in Sudan's Al-Fashir (26:57); South Korea's Yoon is impeached again (28:05); in Russia-Ukraine, a prominent Russian general is assassinated (30:30), Russian forces close in on Pokrovsk (32:31), and Zelenskyy is in Brussels to talk peacekeepers (34:36); and a New Cold War update featuring the US and China extending a research agreement (37:03), a US naval vessel docking in Cambodia (38:10), and the Trump FP team targeting China (40:43).

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Danny speaks with Andrew deWaard, assistant professor of media and popular culture at UC San Diego, about his book Derivative Media: How Wall Street Devours Culture. The two discuss how the falling rate of profit shapes the modern media landscape, the increased drive toward consolidation in entertainment companies, the big movers like private equity firms, hedge funds, asset managers, and venture capitalists, artists' limited ability to defend themselves, the rise of IP, and more.

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Danny and Derek speak with Rachel Kleinfeld, senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about her recent article co-authored with Nicole Bibbins Sedaca, "How to Prevent Political Violence". They explore different types of political violence, the connection between online threats and real life action, the rise of political violence in the US since 2015, "violence entrepreneurs", polarization, the role of ideology, and more.

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Note: This interview was recorded December 3, 2024, i.e. one day before UHC CEO Brian Thompson was shot.

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