The Dig

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the ELEVENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of the destruction of the two giant revolutionary projects of 1958: the union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser’s United Arab Republic and Iraq’s July Revolution that brought Qasim alongside communist allies to power....

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the TENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of Iraq’s 1958 July Revolution: a Free Officers’ coup overthrew the imperialist-aligned Hashemite monarchy and brought nationalist Abdul-Karim Qasim to power alongside a surging Communist Party. Revolutionary currents...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the NINTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the creation of a Palestinian national liberation movement throughout the 1950s by a people dispersed by the Nakba: organizations, alliances, and theories of change assembled in the universities, cities, and refugee camps surro...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the EIGHTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. A compact introduction to the Movement of Arab Nationalists, which in the 1950s built a presence that stretched across the region, from Beirut and Jordan to Cairo and the Gulf—becoming a truly powerful force in Kuwait. Led in significant part by Palesti...

Featuring Noura Erakat, Avi Shlaim, Ussama Makdisi, Ilan Pappé, Ghada Ageel Hamdan, and Abdel Razzaq Takriti on the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Recorded at the World Academic Forum for Palestine in Houston. We’ll be back next week with episode eight of Thawra, our rolling series on 20th century Arab radicalisms. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Donate to Palestine L...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the SEVENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the the US’s Eisenhower Doctrine, which in 1957 inaugurated a new era of imperialism in the Middle East; the Ba’ath Party driving Syria and Egypt into the United Arab Republic, a superstate under Nasser’s rule, in 1958; and...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the SIXTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the intensification of the Cold War across the Middle East. Western imperialist powers attempted to recruit Arab countries to the Baghdad Pact, a Middle Eastern NATO. Nasser rallied the Arab masses in opposition, becoming an...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FIFTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the early years of a struggle for Syria that would decisively shape the Arab world: the fight for independence from France, the first (CIA-backed) coup of 1949, and the rise of the Ba’ath and Communist movements. Support The...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FOURTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out the politics surrounding the Zionist settler colonial destruction of Palestine, the Nakba of 1948, and the ground-shifting event that followed in its wake: the Nasser-led 1952 Egyptian Free Officers Movement coup that would...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the THIRD episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment is a comprehensive overview of the Middle Eastern Arab state system that crystalizes with the end of British and French colonial rule. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the second episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment lays out early 20th-century anti-colonialism: from the Iraqi, Syrian, and Palestinian Great Revolts, to the birth of Arab nationalism, Islamic resistance, Ba’athism, and communism. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check ou...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the first episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment sets the stage: European imperialism in the Arab Mashriq from the late 18th century through the early 20th. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Subscribe to a year of Jew...

Featuring Luke Messac on Your Money or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine . An estimated 100 million people in the US are in debt because they sought medical treatment. Medical debt exacerbates poor and working-class people’s physical and psychological suffering while undermining their financial well-being and freedom. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Subscribe to a year of...

Featuring Emily Dische-Becker on how Germany became attached to a wildly narcissistic anti-antisemitism and Israeli proxy nationalism that have made it one of the most anti-Palestinian governments on earth. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletters and vast archives at thedigradio.com Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digja...

Featuring Helen Lackner on the Houthis, the politics of their attacks on Red Sea shipping, and the long history of Yemen from British colonial Aden through the current civil war. Read Helen’s articles for Jacobin jacobin.com/author/helen-lackner Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements are Leading the Fight for our Planet at haymark...

Featuring Ashley Mears on her book Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit . Mears, a sociologist and former fashion model, explores the super-elite “models and bottles” party scene where beautiful young women and conspicuous consumption heighten the status of rich men. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Contact Spotify and tell them: stop hiding The Dig...

Featuring Ussama Makdisi on how Western colonialism and Zionism exploited, exacerbated, and imposed sectarianism across the Arab Middle East. This is the SECOND of a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Contact Spotify and tell them: stop hiding The Dig! Why is The Dig so hard to find on Spotify? support.spotify.com/contact-spotify-support/ Check out our newsletter and vast ar...

We are OFF this week. In the meantime, peruse our vast archives at thedigradio.com . Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig .

Featuring Ussama Makdisi on the late Ottoman Empire’s Arab culture of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish coexistence—an ecumenical frame that was interrupted by European colonialism and Zionism, which exacerbated and exploited sectarianism. This is the first of a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Shop Haymarket&...

Featuring Shaul Magid on post-1948 Jewish Zionism and Jewish anti-Zionism—including today’s new generation of young, militant, left-wing, anti-Zionist American Jews and the Jewish establishment’s quixotic efforts to deny and disavow them. PART TWO of a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Join Jewish Voice for Peace jewishvoiceforpeace.org/join-us Buy The Internet...

Featuring Shaul Magid on the long history of Jewish Zionism and its antagonist, Jewish anti-Zionism. Defenders of Israel defame anti-Zionists as antisemites. In fact, today’s growing ranks of anti-Zionist Jews draw on a powerful and diverse tradition. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Ireland, Colonialism, and the Unfinished Revolution at haymarketbooks.org/books/2111-ireland-colonia...

Featuring Mohammed el-Kurd on Palestine. A short but expansive interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletters and vast archives at thedigradio.com Shop Haymarket’s ALL 40% off Holiday sale at haymarketbooks.org Take the Bookmatch quiz nplusonemag.com

Featuring Richard Seymour on the global politics of the Palestinian struggle and Israel’s war on Gaza. The *second* of a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy Going for Broke haymarketbooks.org/books/2097-going-for-broke Take the Bookmatch quiz nplusonemag.com

Featuring Richard Seymour on the global politics of the Palestinian struggle and Israel’s war on Gaza. The first of a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Ireland, Colonialism, and the Unfinished Revolution at haymarketbooks.org/books/2111-ireland-colonialism-and-the-unfinished-revolution Buy Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism at haymarketbooks.org/books/2098-care

Featuring Beverly Gage on her masterful biography G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century . Guest hosted by Micah Uetricht. The Dig is an essential political education project. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig . Subscribe to Jacobin bit.ly/digjacobin Buy War Made Invisible thenewpress.com/books/war-made-invisible