For however long the construct of “Modern Western Civilization” has existed, its Eastern foil has been the Ottoman Empire. And for as long as we’ve been taught the glories of the West, we’ve been taught about Ottoman “decline”. We talk about the Ottoman Empire, show that the history is a little bit more complicated than … Continue reading "Civilizations 34: Islam & Imperialism pt1 – The Ottoman Empire and “decline”"

Justin reads the Afrocentrists and makes a pitch; David hangs on to the universalist perspective, as we talk about all the racist rewriting of history, the famous racist literature of imperialism, and the stunningly racist statements by public figures of the 19th century, from Kipling to Roosevelt and more.

I was a guest on the fantastic podcast, In the Context of Empire, where I spoke with co-host Matt McKenna about lots of things, but mainly about how imperialist propaganda works.

The old saying goes that Science ain’t an exact science, and nowhere is that more true than with the Scientific Racism of the 19th century. From its predecessors in the 18th century, we get into the unholy trinity of Pearson, Galton, and Fisher. We talk about craniometry, phrenology, IQ testing, “race development” (now called International … Continue reading "Civilizations 33b: Scientific Racism"

Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species was read by Lord Elgin before he burned down the palace in Beijing and by Marx, who was so excited he asked Darwin if he could dedicate a volume of Capital to him (Darwin politely declined, not wanting to offend religious sentiment). We talk Darwin and the … Continue reading "Civilizations 33a: Darwin and 19th century scientific advances"

Racism, imperialism, repression of sexuality, hypocrisy, pugilism, world fairs, parades, animals on display, worship of a royal family… we look at the Victorian era and the Queen herself. Good thing we’ve come so far since those days… right?

On March 1, I was on a panel hosted by the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, the Canadian Peace Congress, World Beyond War, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, and Just Peace Associates. The topic was “the Arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the New Cold War on China”. Other panelists were Radhika Desai, William Ging … Continue reading "AEP 80: My comments on The Arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the New Cold War on China"

By pure coincidence, we are publishing this episode on the day the world contrasted the the Alaska Summit – a US-China meeting in March 2021, in which China told the US to stop posturing, to the humiliations of the Boxer Protocol of 1901. In this episode, we talk about the terrible famines of 1876 and … Continue reading "Civilizations 31: The first anti-imperialist uprising of the 20th century: Yi Ho Tuan, or Boxer Rebellion of 1900"

By the 1860s it was Korea’s turn to face the dilemma of how to deal with the imperialists. Qing China and Meiji Japan had a lot to say about what they thought Korea should do. We talk about the attempts to reform, Donghak Uprising in Korea, and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5.

I’m joined by Nora Barrows-Friedman and Asa Winstanley, both of the Electronic Intifada podcast. We’re piecing together the story of how lifelong anti-racist Jeremy Corbyn of the UK Labour Party was taken down by a smear campaign, which began by targeting those around him. Having taken him down, the smear campaign continued and managed to … Continue reading "AEP 79: Sorry for using the word “Corbyn” (in Canada)"