Howard French has reported for the Washington Post and New York Times from nearly every country in Africa; all over the Caribbean; Japan; and Korea. He is the author of several books, including Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life, and China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa

His latest book, The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide is an examination of the life of Ghanaian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1957 became the first leader of a post-colonial country in sub-Saharan Africa.

On this show, we discuss:

* Kwame Nkrumah’s rise from the son of a goldsmith in a small town to activist to leader of Ghana

* Nkrumah's role in Ghana's independence

* Pan-Africanism

* If there are any lessons from Ghana for Trump’s America

William de Jong Lambert is a historian of science whose research focuses on evolution, genetics and heredity. He is the author of many papers and books including The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research: An Introduction to the Lysenko Affair. Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist and promoter of kooky theories that greatly exacerbated the famines of the Stalin era.

Which makes William the perfect guest for Rhyming Chaos this week, as the destruction of the U.S. science and healthcare system accelerates under the leadership of U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump. As Rick Wilson put it:

RFK, Jr., heroin addict, sex addict, anti-vaccination lunatic and aspiring architect of millions of deaths purged the CDC last night. He gutted the world’s premiere public-health agency in his endless quest to destroy vaccine science and plunge this nation into the Middle Ages.

It is widely reported that Kennedy has ordered a clampdown on reporting of COVID and human cases of H5N1 bird flu, and that he plans to entirely ban COVID-19 vaccines in the coming months.

In this podcast, we discuss:

* Lysenko’s background and rise to prominence in Soviet agriculture

* Lysenko’s animus against genetics and his theories about plant reproduction and animal husbandry

* Stalin's Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature, which was supposed to turn Siberia into a Garden of Eden

* The stifling of scientific progress in the Soviet Union under Lysenkoism, and how long it took to recover

* Why American institutions are vulnerable to anti-science sentiments

* The challenges of communicating complex scientific ideas to the public

* Life on American campuses in 2025

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

Andrea Pitzer is the author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, among other books, host of the excellent podcast Next Comes What, and writer and publisher of the newsletter Degenerate Art.

In this podcast we discuss:

* How the ethics of journalism as taught in the U.S. system empower Trump

* The definition of “concentration camp” and if Trump’s camps meet the definition

* Forced labor in Nazi Germany and Trump’s America

* How Trump uses the perception of crisis in America for political gain.

* The economic incentives behind the ICE bonanza and how companies profit from detention systems (in history and now)

* Vladimir Nabokov and what he might think of Trump’s America

* And much more…

Other links:

Andrea Pitzer on How to Get ICE Out of Your Town: text, video.

Nazi Republican candidate for California governor Kyle Langford’s Auschwitz tweet: Screenshot by AuschwitzMuseum.

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

Christina Pagel has a PhD in space physics and is a professor of operational research in health care at University College London. Operational research is a pragmatic branch of mathematics used to help people solve real-life problems.

She has an excellent newsletter called Diving into Data and Decision Making, where she has recently turned her attention to mapping and explaining the Trump administration’s retreat from science, and its authoritarian attacks on universities. She also produces the Trump Action Tracker, which documents “the actions, statements, and plans of President Donald Trump and his administration that may pose a threat to American democracy.”

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

Derek R. Peterson is Ali Mazrui Collegiate Professor in the History Department and the Department of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of many books and articles on East Africa, including A Popular History of Idi Amin’s Uganda, just published this year, and co-author of The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin: Photographs from the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation.

In this episode we cover:

* Idi Amin's rise to power

* Amin's charismatic personality

* The new technology of radio—the Twitter of Uganda in the 1970s—that allowed Idi Amin to communicate directly with the populace

* How the Amin government relied on local officials to implement policies without providing necessary resources

* The expulsion of the Asian community, and Amin’s “Economic War”

* Zohran Mamdani’s Ugandan background

* The media environment of Amin's Uganda and contemporary America

* Lessons for America from the Rwenzururu Kingdom about living off the grid

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

Arash Azizi is a writer and historian who grew up in Iran and now lives in the U.S.

His first book, The Shadow Commander, is about Qassem Soleimani, the head of the country's elite Quds Force who was killed by a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in January 2020, in the last days of Trump’s first presidency. His second book, What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom, is an account of the uprising that began after a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died in September 2022 while detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards.

In this episode we cover:

* Daily life and activism in Iran

* Women's rights and misogyny

* Feminism and other activism in Iran

* Iran and global right-wing movements

* The role of the Supreme Leader in Iran

* The end of the Islamic Republic

* Pro- and anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism and philosemitism

* Apathy and political engagement in Iran and the U.S.

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

Richard Poplak is an author, investigative journalist, and filmmaker based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and a regular Rhyming Chaos guest.

In this episode, we catch up after half a year of Trump 2.0 and of this podcast. Topics include:

* State capture in South Africa and the U.S.

* Trump’s bullying of the tiny and crushingly poor nation of Lesotho.

* Science denialism in South Africa and America.

* How the middle class suffers and survives in South Africa and the future of the American middle class.

* The scapegoating and persecution of immigrants in South Africa and the U.S.

* Why the U.S. is looking like a developing country.

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

Misha Glenny reported on the 1989 revolutions and the wars in the former Yugoslavia for the BBC. He has written a number of bestselling books on Eastern European history, the Balkan wars, and organized crime, and is regularly consulted by governments and law enforcement agencies on the Balkans and Eastern Europe and on transnational organized crime.

In this wide-ranging episode we discuss:

* The fragmentation of Yugoslavia and the political and cultural factors behind the Balkan wars

* Slobodan Milošević's rise to power and his control of the media

* Scapegoating as a political tool

* The current political climate in the U.S. and historical patterns of authoritarianism and populism.

* Organized crime and state capture

* Cybercrime and cryptocurrencies

* The prognosis for America

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

Megan K. Stack has been a foreign correspondent in China, Russia, Egypt, and Israel, and covered the post-9/11 wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan, after which she wrote the book, Every Man in This Village is a Liar: An Education in War. Her second book is Women's Work: A Personal Reckoning with Labor, Motherhood, and Privilege.

Megan is a contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, and recently published a piece there: Can we see our future in China’s cameras?

In this podcast, we discuss:

* Living under state surveillance in Moscow and Beijing

* Being a foreign correspondent in Beijing from 2010 to 2013

* Traveling in the Chinese panopticon in 2025

* Algorithmic policing in China

* The perils of data centralization

* DOGE and U.S. government surveillance and AI policy

* How to cope

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.

In the Soviet Union in the 1970s, “nobody gave a damn” about the official ideology, although “people with higher education were expected to pledge allegiance to it,” says Maria Lipman. She began her career as a medical translator at that time, a job that allowed her to work from home and have as little to do with the state as possible.

She became a translator, researcher, and contributor to the Washington Post in the years immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, and from 2001 to 2011 a columnist for the newspaper. She has been a fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, editor of the Pro et Contra journal, contributor to Foreign Affairs and many other publications, and held a number of prestigious academic positions. Maria continued to live in Moscow until 2022, closely observing Russian society and politics under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin.

She is currently a visiting scholar at George Washington University.

In this conversation, we cover:

* Life in the Soviet Union during the Era of Stagnation—not all grim

* The post-Soviet era: Journalism under a weakened state

* The rise of Putin and the recentralization of power

* The emergence of political activism and Alexei Navalny

* A shift from hope to repression

* Can Russian journalism thrive in exile?

* Reflections on authoritarianism in the U.S.

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review, and if you like what we’re doing, please take out a paid subscription at rhymingchaos.com.