The Dig

A timely interview from the archives: legal scholars Aziz Rana and Amna Akbar, and Movement for Black Lives lawyer Marbre Stahly-Butts, on SCOTUS, liberal court veneration, and other big questions on the law and politics facing the left. Find Eslanda at haymarketbooks.org/books/1769-eslanda Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Ayşe Zarakol on her book Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders. How centuries of Asian empires from Genghis Khan to Timur and the early Ming Dynasty through the Ottomans and Mughals built dominant world orders and, ultimately, shaped the rise of Europe—and how that all might shape how we think about the crisis in the world order today. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Che...

Destin Jenkins on his book The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City, which makes a powerful argument about how the ubiquitous and in many ways invisible dependence of American cities on municipal debt to fund basic infrastructure has devastating consequences for democracy and entrenches spatial, racial, and wealth disparities. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Tickets...

Mariame Kaba and Geo Maher discuss police, the politics of policing, abolition, reform—and more. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Rupert Russell and Isabella Weber discuss Russell’s book Price Wars: How the Commodities Markets Made Our Chaotic World and also the current politics of inflation. Listen to Weber discuss her book How China Escaped Shock Therapy: thedigradio.com/podcast/how-china-escaped-shock-therapy-w-isabella-weber/ Look at Rupert’s precious puppy: twitter.com/rupert_russell/status/15114286964098375...

Astra interviews Achal Prabhala on the lethal persistence of global vaccine apartheid. Moderna is selfishly refusing to share or even sell (license) its mRNA technology, leaving much of the world unprotected from the pandemic and incubating new variants. Moderna’s annual shareholder meeting is April 28th. Join Justice is Global, Boston DSA, and others to challenge vaccine profiteering at the...

The second of our two-part interview with sociologist Ho-fung Hung on Chinese political and economic history. This episode covers the 2008 financial crisis, how China’s response deepened global and domestic economic imbalances and (alongside the US) heightened geopolitical conflict, the current situation—including Russia’s invasion—and a lot more. Listen to part one first if you haven’t alre...

Part one of a two-part interview with sociologist Ho-fung Hung on Chinese political economic history from the 18th century to 2008: why capitalism took off in England and then elsewhere but not in China; and then, how Maoist policy laid the groundwork for China’s ultimate capitalist takeoff and boom. Episode two will focus on the 2008 financial crisis, the deepening imbalances and heightened geopo...

Sophie Pinkham and Nick Mulder on the war, its origins, how it’s being experienced by Ukrainians, Russians, Europeans, and Americans—and also its geopolitical and global economic ramifications, particularly sanctions. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Angela Davis: An Autobiography haymarketbooks.org/books/1741-angela-davis

Tony Wood returns to The Dig to discuss Russia’s invasion, what it reflects about Russian politics and geopolitics today and historically, and how the Left should be thinking about it all. Tony’s LRB essay: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n04/tony-wood2/why-didn-t-they-stop-it Listen to past Dig eps for context on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Tony Wood on Russia and Putin: thedigradio.com/podcast/r...

Dan interviews historian Kim Phillips-Fein on Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan. Listen to Kim’s Dig interview on Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics thedigradio.com/podcast/fear-city-with-kim-phillips-fein/ Listen to past Dig eps for context on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Tony Wood on Russia and Pu...

Feminist political theorist and organizer Verónica Gago on Argentina’s massive feminist movement and strike, the ties that bind domestic labor and financial exploitation, neoliberalism from below, and more. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out Coup: A Story of Violence and Resistance in Bolivia haymarketbooks.org/books/1745-coup

Industrial capitalism and colonialism are literally making us sick. Raj Patel and Rupa Marya on Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Olúfẹmi Táíwò guest hosts an interview with Daniela Gabor and Ndongo Samba Sylla on how financial power has shaped the global economic order from colonialism through Bretton Woods, the Washington Consensus, and today’s Wall Street Consensus. Read Daniela’s work: people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/DanielaGabor Read Ndongo’s work: rosalux.de/en/profile/es_detail/N8SVHTS8SA/ndongo-samba-sylla?...

An in-depth interview on the historical and political-economic context of the Ukraine crisis with Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko. Read Volodymyr’s work: truthout.org/articles/ukrainians-are-far-from-unified-on-nato-let-them-decide-for-themselves/ ponarseurasia.org/how-maidan-revolutions-reproduce-and-intensify-the-post-soviet-crisis-of-political-representation/ lefteast.org/ukrain...

Epidemiologist Justin Feldman makes a comprehensive and devastating critique of Biden’s pandemic response. Read Justin’s essay: jmfeldman.medium.com/?p=88452c696f2 Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Angela Davis: An Autobiography haymarketbooks.org/books/1741-angela-davis

Historian Gabriel Winant discusses The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. It’s a fascinating study of the emergence of the service sector and a new working class out of the wreckage of deindustrialization through the story of the rise and fall of unionized steel in Pittsburgh and its replacement by a massive hospital industry. Listen to my past...

Everyone feels bad right now because conditions are awful and the outlook is bleak. What is going on, and where might things be headed? How might we become unstuck from this interregnum? Dan interviews returning guests Aziz Rana, Nikhil Pal Singh, and Wendy Brown. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Episode two of our two-part series on cryptocurrency: political theorist Stefan Eich on how crypto fits into Hayek’s old neoliberal dream of private money and why that vision emerged in a new form in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Read Stefan’s article: static1.squarespace.com/static/5ae8a7b625bf02c0b85aec02/t/5c923c13eef1a1ce843836ff/1553087508427/Stefan+Eich%2C+Old+Utopias%2C...

Edward Ongweso Jr. and Jacob Silverman on cryptocurrency, NFTs, Elon Musk, the metaverse, meme stocks, and techno-utopianism amid the crushing reality of our neoliberal hellscape. The first in a two-episode series on crypto. Read Dan’s new essay on border control politics: nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/border-crises/ Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

How neoliberal conditions create popular constituencies, ideologies, and subjectivities among poor and working-class people for a violent, mean, and repressive neoliberalism—and how those reactionary politics from below converge with those generated from above. Political theorist Rodrigo Nunes analyzes Bolsonarismo (the ideology and politics surrounding far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro...

Bolsonaro is presiding over mass COVID deaths and the destruction of the Amazon. Lula is free and polling way ahead for next year’s presidential election. But the conditions that brought the far-right to power remain in place. Sociologist Sabrina Fernandes and historian Andre Pagliarini on Brazil. Check out Sabrina’s Tese Onze YouTube channel youtube.com/channel/UC0fGGprihDIlQ3ykWvcb9h...

The second of Dan’s two-part interview with Piero Gleijeses on his book Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991. This is the story of Cuba’s military defense of the Angolan government against a US and South Africa-backed effort to overthrow the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The future of the entire region was on the...

Part one of Dan’s two-part interview with Piero Gleijeses on his book Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991. This is the story of Cuba’s military defense of the Angolan government against a US and South Africa-backed effort to overthrow the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The future of the entire r...

Astra Taylor interviews archaeologist David Wengrow on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, his new book co-authored with the late David Graeber. Support us at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out Hannah Arendt by Samantha Rose Hill reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp? ISB=9781789143799