The World Through Fiction

This episode delves into why colonization occurs, looking to the structure of the world economy for answers and applying this lens of analysis to the two classic westerns Red River and My Darling Clementine

Concepts:

Colonization

Core and periphery

Never-ending expansion

Capitalism

The safety valve

Race

The usable past

Sources:

For more on the early history of colonization:

Tan, Fidellithy. The History of Colonization. Podcast audio. https://open.spotify.com/show/2GgKjR09jep79DkU74xUH9?si=c979cb1f07db46da

For more on present-day colonization of Latin America:

Bartilow, Horace A. Drug War Pathologies: Embedded Corporatism and U.S. Drug Enforcement in the Americas. University of North Carolina Press. 2019.

For more on the safety valve:

Grandin, Greg. The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. Metropolitan Books. 2019.

For a different analysis of Red River and My Darling Clementine:

Corkin, Stanley. Cowboys, Free Markets, Wyatt Earp, and Thomas Dunson. In Cowboys as Cold Warriors: The Western and U.S. History. 19-50. Temple University Press. 2004.

The stories we grew up with form a subconscious basis for how we engage with the world. This episode examines two such stories - Pocahontas and Treasure Island - and how they may influence our understanding of the world.

Warnings: mild spoilers for Black Sails

Concepts:

Colonization

The usable past

Censorship

Sources:

Hixon, Walter. The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy. Sheridan Books, 2008.

Pocahontas. 1995. Directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, performance by Mel Gibson et al. Walt Disney Pictures.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. Simon & Schuster, 1883.

Black Sails, created by Robert Levine and Jonathan E. Steinberg, 2014-2017.