Stories about the past form the ideological foundation of the American project. This week’s guest, Alicia Puglionesi, is a historian and writer whose work often focuses on “hauntings” – both real and imagined – in our collective history. Her latest book, In Whose Ruins: Power, Possession, and the Landscapes of American Empire, explores the fake narratives and mythologies created to justify land theft, genocide, and the endless extraction of natural resources for profit. In this conversation, she explains how fundamental elements like oil, water, and atomic power were harnessed by capital through processes of historical erasure and, above all, storytelling.

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