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Families with second pregnancies were punished. Quiet often, mothers who became pregnant again were forced to abort - even in the third trimester. But now... China's government is promoting multiple pregnancies. There are even beauty pageants... for pregnant mothers.
In this episode, a replay of its original recording in 2021, my guest scholar peels the history behind this news - the history of China's One-Child Policy.
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Feng Wang is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine - UCI.
He has research interests in contemporary Chinese society and comparative demographic processes and social inequality in state socialism. He is the recipient of many academic distinctions, honors and awards for his research and books, too many to list here.
He is the author of many books, including the following:
Erosion of China's government institutions:
Be sure to listen to my conversation with Dr. Susan Shirk (🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-S2E36s) about President Xi and his ascendence to power. As I mentioned in this episode, China's government under Xi is frighteningly transforming into personalized statecraft.
You can also watch our podcasts:
📽️YouTube.com/@HistoryBehindNews
📽️YouTube.com/@UnravellingTheMiddleEast
I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Aali Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast
►The cover image of this episode is "A propaganda painting in Guangdong Province promotes the idea of a nuclear family with a single child. The text reads "Planned child birth is everyone's responsibility."" It is provided by Clpro2 (own work) on Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Clpro2&action=edit&redlink=1File:PlannedBirthCeramicPaintings-Xinhui.Jpg. In Wikipedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PlannedBirthCeramicPaintings-Xinhui.jpg
Denmark was once Europe's greatest Protestant power. But just in a span of two or so decades, it was reduced to a has-been. How did this happen? And what lessons are there for America?
In addition, Denmark's monarchy is quite informal and highly approachable, particularly when compared with the British monarchy.
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Paul Douglas Lockhart is a professor of history at Wright State University. He teaches courses in military history, early modern Europe, and Scandinavia in its “Age of Greatness.” In 2022, he was elected to membership in the Royal Society for Danish History, in recognition of his contributions to the study of Danish history, which is a rare accolade for a foreign scholar.
He is the author of several books, two of which we discuss in this episode:
History of the Ottoman Empire and Europe's exploration of the Americas:
🎧 https://bit.ly/UME-Spotify
🎧 https://bit.ly/UME-Apple
History of Sweden: https://bit.ly/HbN-S3E33
You can also watch our podcasts:
📽️YouTube.com/@HistoryBehindNews
📽️YouTube.com/@UnravellingTheMiddleEast
I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Aali Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast
►How did the mighty Sasanian Persian Empire fall to the Muslim Arabs?
►What happened in the Persian Empire on February 9, in the year 628? ►Where is the tomb of the last Sasanian King of kings?
Were the Achaemenid and Sasanian Empires Persian or Iranian? What's the significance of these terms in the context of the past? How about now? Or in the 20th century, when Persia officially changed its name to Iran?
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Khodadad Rezakhani is a lecturer and a senior research fellow at Leiden University. He is a historian of Global Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, with a focus on Central and West Asia from 500-700 CE. His research focuses on the Sasanian and Early Islamic economy of the Near East.
History of Yemen and the Houthis:
🎧 https://bit.ly/UME-Spotify
🎧 https://bit.ly/UME-Apple
You can also watch our podcasts:
📽️YouTube.com/@HistoryBehindNews
📽️YouTube.com/@UnravellingTheMiddleEast
I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Aali Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast
World War I was a major turning point for America's conspiracy theories. Before WWI, conspiracy theories targeted minorities and marginalized groups. But after WWI, conspiracy theories became about our government, about the Deep State.
My guest for this episode is Dr. Kathryn Olmsted, a professor at the History Dept of UC Davis. She is the author of many books on America's conspiracy theories, including two books that we discuss: (1) Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI, and (2) Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11.
Was the ancient Middle East a troubled region?
You can listen to this fantastic episode at Unravelling the Middle East podcast:
🎧 https://bit.ly/UME-Spotify
🎧 https://bit.ly/UME-Apple
You can also watch our podcasts:
📽️YouTube.com/@HistoryBehindNews
📽️YouTube.com/@UnravellingTheMiddleEast
I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Aali Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast
Out of the 3 major trade routes in the Middle East before the Suez Canal, 2 traversed through Yemen. No wonder the Sasanian Persians, the Ottomans, the Portuguese and the British all occupied and attempted to colonize Yemen.
In this episode our guest scholar, Dr. Charles Schmitz, will explain the rise of Houthis in the context of Yemen's religion and history, going back to the 9th century. Dr. Schmitz is a professor at Towson University and a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute.
This episode will be published in two parts on Feb. 15 and 16 at our sister podcast - Unravelling the Middle East, which you can follow via these links:
⏩ https://bit.ly/UME-Spotify
⏩ https://bit.ly/UME-Apple
You can also see me and our guest scholars engaged in conversation about the Middle East on our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@UnravellingtheMiddleEast
And on Wed., Feb. 21, a guest scholar of America's conspiracy theories will speak about the Taylor Swift/Kelce MAGA political conspiracy theories in the context of our history.
I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Aali
Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast
How Argentinians buy homes? Negotiate salaries? Going shopping?
Argentina used to be Latin America's largest economy - but no longer! Mismanagement and politics have led to several national defaults and, by some measures, Argentina has the highest inflation in the world! To better understand Argentina's economic challenges, I spoke with Dr. Gabriel Palazzo (also visit his personal homepage and X.com account) - a development economist from Latin America exploring questions crucial to improving quality of life and well-being in developing economies. He is a Research Officer at the Institute of Development Studies in England. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Palazzo was a professor of advanced macroeconomics at the University of Bueno Aires.
You may want to listen to the following episodes as well:
1. How America became militarily entangled in the Middle East:
https://bit.ly/UME-S1E3
https://bit.ly/UME-S1E4
2. History of Chile's democracy and constitutional crisis:
https://bit.ly/HbN-S2E38s
I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Aali
Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast
Host, Unravelling the Middle East: Spotify: https://bit.ly/UME-SpotifyApple: https://bit.ly/UME-Apple
While Ms. Nikki Haley was reluctant to say the "S" word (read slavery), we all know that slavery caused the Civil War. In this episode, we discuss whether slavery was the Civil War's immediate cause or its underlying cause.The in-depth analysis of this history is important for our current political moment because race is placed in front and center. For example, did you know that not all Southern states seceded? Or that most Northerners were deeply racist? Or that some slave states, such as Maryland, did not secede and that the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to them? To learn more about the history of the Civil War, I spoke with Mr. Roger Lowenstein (https://rogerlowenstein.com/), a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade. He is a historian and his writings and writings about his books appear in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fortune, the New York Times, Atlantic, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He has written several books, including New York Times bestsellers… about different important personalities and periods in the economic and financial history of the U.S. He is the author of Ways and Means, Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War, which was the Winner of the Harold Holzer Lincoln Forum Book Prize. You might also be interested in my prior conversation with Mr. Lowenstein, during which he compared the US Civil War with the current war in Ukraine. Specifically, we talked about cotton and plantation owners in the South and Russia's tycoons and oil in Russia. Listen here: https://bit.ly/HbN-S2E14sI hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Aali
Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast
Host, Unravelling the Middle East: Spotify: https://bit.ly/UME-SpotifyApple: https://bit.ly/UME-Apple
In a brief order this week, the US Supreme Court restored federal government access to and control of the border.
In response to the Supreme Court's order, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said this: “I will continue to defend Texas’ constitutional authority to secure the border”.
So here is my question: does the Constitution give Governor Abbot, or any state governor for that matter, the authority to control our country's international borders?
To better understand the history of the tension between US states and our federal government when it comes to immigration, which is a highly polarizing issue now, I spoke with Mr. Gulasekaram, who at the time of this recording, was a Professor of Law at the Santa Clara University School of Law, where he taught Constitutional Law and Immigration Law. He now teaches at the University of Colorado, Boulder law school: https://lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profile.jsp?id=1126
Prof. Gulasekaram is co-author of the leading immigration law casebook used in law schools, Immigration & Citizenship: Process and Policy. And he is also co-author of The New Immigration Federalism - a book that provides an in-depth empirical and theoretical analysis of the resurgence of state and local immigration lawmaking, which is the subject of our conversation in this episode.
Prof. Gulasekaram is also the co-founder of the World Children’s Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving health and educational infrastructure for children in developing areas around the world.
You may also be interested in an earlier episode, in which, my guest, Prof. Jennifer Chacon, answers this question: do immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans? Listen here: https://bit.ly/HbN-S3E18
I hope you enjoy these episodes.
Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast & on YouTubehttps://historybehindnews.com/ Unravelling the Middle East: This new special series - an in-depth history and analysis of the Middle East - will launch in late January. Get Unravelling the Middle East on Spotify: https://bit.ly/UME-SpotifyApple: https://bit.ly/UME-AppleGoogle: https://bit.ly/UME-Google
Did you know, that Napoleon was born only a year after his homeland Corsica, was conquered by France? And that at the time of his birth, his father was fighting with the Corsican army against the French? And get this: when Napoleon moved to France around the age of 10, this future Emperor of the French could not yet speak French.To better understand Napoleon, his world, his rise to power and his transformation of France in many ways, I spoke with Dr. Rafe Blaufarb of Florida State University. He is a professor of history, a Ben Weider Eminent Scholar of Napoleonic Studies and the director of the Institute On Napoleon and the French Revolution - one of a kind institute in the United States, which we also talk about in this episode. Dr. Blaufarb is the author of many books, including the following: "Napoleon: A Symbol for an Age"; "The Revolutionary Atlantic: Republican Visions, 1760-1830"; "The Great Demarcation: The French Revolution and the Invention of Modern Property"; and "The French Army, 1750-1820: Careers, Talent, Merit".To learn more about him, please visit the following: https://history.fsu.edu/person/rafe-blaufarb
https://infr.history.fsu.edu/Also, listen to Prof. Gildea of Oxford University explain the long history of French rebellions, revolts and revolutions: https://bit.ly/HbN-S3E13I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel, host & producerHistory Behind News podcast & on YouTubehttps://historybehindnews.com/ Unravelling the Middle East: This new special series - an in-depth history and analysis of the Middle East - will launch in late January. Get Unravelling the Middle East on Spotify: https://bit.ly/UME-SpotifyApple: https://bit.ly/UME-AppleGoogle: https://bit.ly/UME-Google
Not the damsel in distress. Not the desirable woman who will raise your kids and take care of the home. These are the stories of the nymphomaniacs, the nasty and creepy women, the Femme Fatales.
A string of recent films are casting prominent actresses, in dark, creepy, nasty characters. One example is the movie May December, which received four nominations for this pastweekend's Golden Globe Awards.
You can read more about cinema actresses in this recent WSJ article: "In Hollywood, It’s the Golden Age of the Creepy Woman".
So to better understand the history of women in Cinema - not just in Hollywood, from their stereotypical roles to more creative and perhaps more liberating roles, I spoke with Prof. Thomas Doherty and Prof. Maggie Hennefeld, who essentially ran the program by asking each other wonderful question that, frankly, I hadn't even thought about.
Prof. Doherty is a cultural historian with a special interest in Hollywood cinema. He is a professor of American Studies at Brandeis University. He guest-participated in our program last year and talked about the Magic of Hollywood, and also compared TV's disruption of Hollywood in the 1950s with AI's disruption now.
Prof. Hennefeld is a McKnight Presidential Fellow and Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
I hope you enjoy these episodes.
Adel, host & producer
History Behind News podcast & on YouTube
Unravelling the Middle East:
This new special series - an in-depth history and analysis of the Middle East - will launch in late January. Get Unravelling the Middle East Spotify, Apple, Castbox, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music or Radio Public.
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