The Anti Empire Project with Justin Podur

The 1905 Russian Revolution was, though no one knew it at the time, the rehearsal for the 1917 Russian Revolution. Dave takes us from Bloody Sunday to the calculations and miscalculations of the Tsar; Justin uses everyone from Lars Lih to Isaac Deutscher to Simon Sebag Montefiore to draw some pictures of what Lenin, Trotsky, … Continue reading "World War Civ 8: The 1905 Russian Revolution"

The earth-shaking event where an Asian power defeated a European power in a war, leading to a revolution in Russia and a major shakeup in world affairs. We talk about the role education played in Japan’s victory; the Russian fleet that had to sail around the world; and the qualities of Tsar Nicholas that made … Continue reading "World War Civ 7: The Russo-Japanese War 1905"

Peru’s president Pedro Castillo has been overthrown in a coup and is in Peruvian jail while the former Vice President Dina Boluarte has taken over, vowing NOT to hold an election any time soon. People have taken to the streets in Lima to protest and demand new elections and a constitutional referendum. Meanwhile in Argentina, … Continue reading "AER 117: Peru’s President Pedro Castillo overthrown...

First one of a mini-series about the 1905 Russian Revolution, we talk about the economic, political, and social conditions of Russia on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War. Foreign investment, infrastructural deficits, the question of nationalities. We also talk about the disastrous summer of 1874 when the revolutionaries went down to the countryside, debates about … Continue reading "World War Civ...

Stan Cox is back with his November dispatch about the US midterm elections, in which the feared Red Wave didn’t materialize — but Stan wastes no time in warning us that 2024 is also going to be scary. We geek out on the election results, look at a shocking admission by a conservative that big … Continue reading "In Real Time with Stan Cox 8: No Red Wave, Plenty of Red Flags"

There is no better entree into pre-WWI France than the sordid Dreyfus Affair. The whole story in all its gory detail including its implications for the France-Russia alliance and the echoes of 1871 casting a cloud over 1895 France. Anti-semitism, frame ups, spies, corruption, incompetence, trials, retrials, people of conscience, and echoes a century later.

Waqas is back to talk about the Nov 3 attempt on Imran Khan’s life; the assassination in Kenya of journalist Arshad Sharif; Similarities and differences between the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the attempt on Imran Khan; the possibility that the Pakistani military might find a way out of this (by having Bajwa step down … Continue reading "Anti-Empire Radio episode 116: The Assassination Att...

On October 30, Lula was elected to the presidency after surviving a political persecution that threw him behind bars and kept him from running in 2018, paving the way for Bolsonaro’s disastrous term. Brazilian scholar-activist Diana Aguiar is back to answer questions like: is Lula’s government coup-proof? What will he be able to do in … Continue reading "AER 115: Lula’s back! Will there be another...

Reading Corelli Barnett, David Cannadine, and others, our stop today on the pre-WWI Europe tour is Britain, which has reached the very heights of world domination only to discover that they are being out-innovated and out-educated by rising imperial rivals. While social imperialists begged for consolidation of the white Anglosphere, a strategy given the old … Continue reading "WWC 4 – Causes of WW...

In this long episode we ask the question: what in the intellectualism of the early 20th century may have contributed to the climate that led to WW1? After reading Losurdo’s long book about Nietzsche, Justin does a deep dive into Nietzschean thinking about Great Men and genius and mediocrity; Dave covers militarism and nationalism; Justin … Continue reading "WWC 3 – Causes of WW1 pt 3 – Life & Idea...

Stan Cox is back for In Real Time episode 7, where we track the climate crisis and do other environmental talk. Stan reports back from some interviews he did with activists who are working locally on the climate crisis as we head towards two touchstones in November – the COP 27 conference in Egypt, from … Continue reading "In Real Time with Stan Cox 7: A Thousand Rebellious Communities"

How do you turn a local conflict into a world war? Create an intricate set of alliances that guarantees it! Dave takes us on a tour of the construction of the alliance system from the Emperors’ Leagues to the Congress of Berlin to the Triple Alliance to the Reinsurance Treaty and more. How British and … Continue reading "WWC 2 – Causes of World War 1 pt2 – The Alliance System"

CO2 pipelines are proof of the principle that “the greatest source of problems is solutions”. Stan Cox is back to shoot down the notion that CO2 pipelines are going to save us. Justin, meanwhile, has finally read Rachel Carson’s 1962 classic Silent Spring, which as an environmental prof he should have read decades ago. Find … Continue reading "In Real Time with Stan Cox 6: Challenging CO2 Pipeline...

The Scramble for Africa is over. Greedy European powers can now only expand at one another’s expense. Du Bois and Lenin both thought this made a big European war inevitable. But others at the time thought it impossible. After two years we are ready to begin the 20th century with something your history classes never … Continue reading "World War Civ 1: The Intro"

Democracy means “the people rule”. But do the people rule in the “democratic” systems that form governments all over the world? Are these democratic governments less repressive or authoritarian than those without the democratic certification? And does the democratic system of frequent multiparty elections deliver the developmental goods? Talking to Vik Sohonie, former journalist who … Continue rea...

An update on the unfolding post-coup in Pakistan. Talking to Waqas Ahmad again about the threat to arrest Imran Khan, the remarkable result of the election in Punjab where PTI won 15/20 seats, the arrest and torture of Shehbaz Gill and many others, the articles in the NYT and Time Magazine about how the coup … Continue reading "AER 113: Pakistan government threatens to arrest Imran Khan"

At the peak of global colonialism no island however small was exempted from European greed. We conclude our Scramble for Oceania series with the scrambles for the many islands in the Pacific. Many of these are still colonies today, given names like “special overseas territory” to hide the fact. ALSO: I’m trying to do loudness … Continue reading "Scramble for Oceania 3: Polynesia, Melanesia, Micron...

Our August 2022 dispatch with Stan Cox. Stan presents us this month with a discussion of the “Inflation Reduction Bill” – is climate change solved? Can Stan finally relax? We also get into a discussion of optimism and pessimism and which one is called for at this moment.

We take advantage of some new scholarship of New Zealand history (Keenan, Wars Without End; Belch, New Zealand Wars; Simons, Soldiers, Scouts and Spies) to give you a hopefully fresh look at the 19th century scramble for colonies in New Zealand, which took the form of British wars against the Maori. Also featured – comparisons … Continue reading "Scramble for Oceania 2: The Land Wars of New Zealan...

The fourth discussion with Stan Cox about his latest dispatch, “They’ll Show Up Armed – Countering Policy Murder and the Rising Violence of the Right”. We talk about a nonviolent march Stan participated in and a few of the historic movement debates about violence and nonviolence that we’ve seen over the decades. And we conclude … Continue reading "In Real Time with Stan Cox 4: A discussion of viol...

At the same time that the European empires were scrambling for Africa, they held a scramble in the Pacific. For the British Empire the base was Australia, and we begin with the scramble for Australia, the story of the theft of (another) continent beginning in 1788. Always was, always will be, aboriginal land.

The biggest player in the Scramble for Africa was England. Second place to France, third to Germany. But there were many other European powers at the Berlin Conference in 1884 and the plunder of Africa was shared among even the smallest of European countries. Who and how, in this episode of the Scramble for Africa.

In June 2022 a small activist group in Boston created mapliberation.org, a project mapping primarily policing institutions in Massechussetts and their connections to corporations, organizations, and politicians who are implicated in the prison-industry complex, in throwing people out of their homes to create investment opportunities, in grabbing Indigenous land, in colonizing Palestinian land, and...

In September 1904 several Nama scouts slipped away from the Germans after the battle of Waterberg and the genocide of the Herero, to warn their leader, Hendrik Witbooi, of what the Germans were capable of. Hendrik Witbooi then called all the Nama leaders to war, a war where they used guerrilla tactics to confound the … Continue reading "Scramble for Africa 20: Germany (pt3) genocides the Nama, 190...

Colombia, in a run-off vote, elected Leftist ex-rebel Gustavo Petro to the presidency in a narrow, historic election. We are joined by Colombian doctor and political activist, MANUEL ROZENTAL. Justin Podur joins us for this roundtable on the impact of the elections in Colombia. This is a joint operation with The Anti-Empire Project and The … Continue reading "Gustavo Petro wins Colombia’s presiden...