Peoples & Things

Robert Eberhart, Associate Professor of Management and Faculty Director of International Business at the University of San Diego, talks about his work on the ideology of entrepreneurship with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Eberhart's work is partly motivated by his own work as a businessman and successful entrepreneur and finding that academic publications from business schools significantly diverged from his and others' experiences in actual businesses. Eberhart and Vinsel also talk about how Eberhart has drawn together teams of researchers, including at the Reversing the Arrow conference, to study the ideological dimensions of entrepreneurship and how it has spread around the globe.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Economist, historian, and author Marc Levinson talks about his book, Outside the Box: How Globalization Changed from Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas (Princeton UP, 2020), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Outside the Box traces the history of globalization from the early 19th century to the present and shows how its nature has shifted over time. Levinson argues that the most recent form of globalization, focused on moving stuff around the globe, has been in decline since the 2008 financial crisis and that a new form of globalization, focused on moving people, services, and ideas, may be emerging. The pair also discuss Levinson's interesting career as an economist and journalist.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Katie Wells, a Postdoctoral Fritz Fellow with Georgetown University's Tech and Society Initiative, and Kafui Attoh, Associate Professor of Urban Studies in the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, talk about their new book, Disrupting D.C.: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of a City (co-authored with Declan Cullen) (Princeton UP, 2023), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Disrupting D.C. examines how various actors took on a "let Uber deal with it" mindset about social problems, not so much because they had great faith in Uber but because they have profound distrust in city government.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Gretchen Sorin, Director and Distinguished Professor of the Cooperstown Graduate Program at the State University of New York - Oneonta, talks about her book, Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights (Liveright, 2020), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Driving While Black examines how cars fit into black lives and sheds light on how this technology fits into much larger patterns of history, including the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements. Sorin and Vinsel also talk about the field of public history and communicating to non-academic audiences.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Richard Hirsh, Professor of History at Virginia Tech, talks about his book, Powering American Farms: The Overlooked Origins of Rural Electrification (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Powering American Farms is a revisionist history of rural electrification that calls into question a long standard story that rural electrification only began through the powers of the US federal government during the New Deal. Through extensive archival research, Hirsh finds a wide variety of activities around electrification on farms, through efforts of utilities, academic researchers, agricultural extension programs, and farmers themselves.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Anna Zeide, Associate Professor of History at Virginia Tech, talks about her book, US History in 15 Foods (Bloomsbury, 2023), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. US History in 15 Foods is an approachable book that covers key moments and major themes in the history of the United States from before European colonization to the present, using food as the lens of examination. Zeide and Vinsel also talk about how Zeide became a food historian and briefly discuss her previous, award-winning book, Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Miriam Thaggert, Professor of English at the University of Buffalo, talks about her book, Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad (University of Illinois Press, 2022), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Riding Jane Crow features creative uses of a wide variety of sources to reconstruct how African American women interacted with Jim Crow railroads as both riders and workers. Thaggert and Vinsel also discuss what kinds of research were necessary to reconstruct these stories and why so many previous histories of the railroad passed over the lives of black women, even when they were noticing black men.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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This is the second Peoples & Things episode featuring a guest host. In this case, it is M. R. “Mols” Sauter, an assistant professor of information studies at the University of Maryland. Sauter and Lee Vinsel interview writer Malcolm Harris about his recent book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. Palo Alto (Little, Brown, and Company, 2023) is a BIG history of a single US city, how it developed, and how it fits into larger trend and processes of capitalist production and change. Harris, who grew up in the area, finds Palo Alto to be a place haunted by its many dark legacies, and the book’s conclusion raises large questions about the future of capitalism, justice, and the fate of the planet. This interview was recorded as a live stream as a part of Red May, “a month-long spree of red arts, red theory, and red politics based in Seattle, Washington” that “plots ways forward to a world beyond capitalism.” We are very grateful to all the Red May organizers for asking Peoples & Things to take part in the event and for allowing us to re-publish the recording as this episode.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Historian Paula de la Cruz-Fernandez talks about her book, Gendered Capitalism: Sewing Machines and Multinational Business in Spain and Mexico, 1850-1940 (Routledge, 2021), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Gendered Capitalism tells the fascinating tale of how the Singer corporation operated in Spain and Mexico. Along the way, Cruz-Fernandez finds that selling sewing machines was not a top-down process by which an American corporation forced its products on unwilling consumers, but a complex development that involved collective entrepreneurship and most importantly the dreams, ideals, and efforts of women who worked with sewing machines in the home. The book raises larger questions about how we think about processes of technology adoption in different cultures and about the relationship between corporations and consumers.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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Writer and design critic Alexandra Lange talks about her book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Shopping Mall (Bloombury, 2023), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Meet Me by the Fountain is a history of the American shopping mall from its emergence to recent attempts to reinvent and reconceptualize the shells of “dead” shopping centers. Along the way, it details the mall’s many ironies and contradictions and how it became the center and icon of community and culture, especially youth culture, in the late 20th century. Lange and Vinsel also discuss Lange’s larger career and her work as an architecture and design critic.

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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