Episode 232: The French Colonial Tourism Industry in Ifrane, Morocco

In this podcast, Reese Hollister discussed Morocco’s tourism industry under the French Protectorate (1912-1956) by looking at the creation of Ifrane in the Middle Atlas Mountains. Ifrane was a typical example of colonial hill station, a form of urban settlement in Europe’s colonies, high up and away from tropical environments and colonized subjects. This research project uses Ifrane’s rich and well-preserved visual culture to understand the hows of French colonial settlement and imperial promotion. Reese argues that this tourism industry was only made possible by a strong private-public partnership within the French empire.

A 2023 graduate of Manhattan College in The Bronx, Reese Hollister is a young historian who recently completed a Fulbright Student Research Grant in the Kingdom of Morocco. Reese is a lover of the Arabic language, participating in the SALAM Program in Oman to continue learning Modern Standard Arabic and the Fulbright Critical Language Enhancement Award to learn Moroccan Darija. As an historian still finding his niche, Reese is now shifting his energies towards studying Morocco and the Maghrib more broadly. He runs the YouTube channel, Historical Method Man, where he shares his undergraduate work that was “sitting in a drawer.” Reese will be commencing graduate studies at North Carolina State University’s Master of International Studies (MIS) program in Fall 2024.

This episode was recorded on May 31, 2024 Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM). 

Recorded and edited by: Abdelbaar Mounadi Idrissi, Outreach Director at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).

In this episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Suzanne Schneider and Soraya Batmanghelichi consider the current crisis in Iran, tracing its roots through the touchpoints of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Iranian history. Their conversation ranges over the origins of modern Iranian political and class structures from the eighteenth century to the present, European interventions in the Middle East, the role of the Iranian people in revolutionary change, Iran-U.S. relations and disjunctions, geopolitical fantasies about Iran and the part it plays as a regional actor, and the very human stakes of inhumane conflicts.

You can download the episode by right-clicking here and selecting "save as." Or, look us up on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini.

If you like what you've heard, consider supporting the podcast by becoming a BISR member or subscribing to Brooklyn Institute's Patreon page, where you can enjoy access to all past and future episodes of the Podcast for Social Research.

Two years ago, the French president Emmanuel Macron called snap elections for the National Assembly. The far right was widely expected to win and form a government for the first time since the fall of the Vichy regime, but things didn’t work out that way. The New Popular Front, a left-wing electoral alliance, won a surprise victory.

Sebastian Budgen, senior editor at Verso, joins Long Reads to discuss the state of the French left. Daniel and Sebastian look in particular at La France Insoumise, which has been one of the most successful parties of the radical left in any European country since the start of the decade.

This is a two-part interview. The first part is going to focus on events between the election in 2024 and the start of this year. In our next episode, we’ll be looking at this year’s election results and looking forward to the presidential contest in 2027.

Read the article from Politico that Daniel and Sebastian discuss in the interview: https://www.politico.eu/article/french-left-new-popular-front-alliance-uk-labour-party-raphael-glucksmann-jean-luc-melenchon-jeremy-corbyn/

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.

What do the Jeffrey Epstein files reveal about Slovakia? Inthis episode of Talk Eastern Europe, investigative journalist Karin Kőváry Sólymos joins us to unpack the surprising links between Epstein and former Slovak foreign minister Miroslav Lajčák. We discuss what the documents show, why the story matters, and how the revelations shook Slovak politics.

Read Karin’s investigation in VSquare: https://vsquare.org/and-most-importantly-friend-mapping-miroslav-lajcaks-encounters-with-jeffrey-epstein/

Support this channel – become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/talkeasterneurope

Bonus interview:

In the bonus section we discuss the investigation into the Ukrainian corruption scandal which broke recently, called Operation Midas. The scandal is considered to be one of the most high-profile anti-corruption investigations in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion, and there appears to be a significant Slovak connection as well. Watch and the bonus content here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-content-to-153813167

We’ve now entered the second week of the US-Israeli war on Iran. Donald Trump’s War Secretary Pete Hegseth has boasted about the US military machine bringing “death and destruction” to the country.

Afshin Matin-Asgari joined Long Reads on Monday, March 9, to discuss the war. Afshin is a professor of Middle East history at California State University in Los Angeles. His most recent book is Axis of Empire: A History of Iran–US Relations.

Read Afshin’s coverage of the protests from January: https://jacobin.com/2026/01/iran-protests-khamenei-trump-israel

And an edited transcript of this podcast interview here: https://jacobin.com/2026/03/trump-iran-regime-war-israel

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.

Ini this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Daniel Neep about a modern history of Syria. They discuss internal and external divisions in Syria, various ethnic and religious communities in Syria, Bilad al-Sham, Tanzimat reforms, Kingdom of Syria, and French rule. They discuss military rule, Ba’ath Party, Nasser and United Arab Republic, 30 years of Hafez al-Assad, 24 years of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s future, and many more topics.

Daniel Neep is Senior Editor at Arab Center Washington DC and a non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He has taught Middle East politics at George Washington University, Georgetown University, and the University of Exeter, and was previously Syria research director with the Council for British Research in the Levant. He is the author of the latest book, Syria: A Modern History.