The Economic and Political History Podcast

Interview with Branko Milanovic, author of 'Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War' “How do you see income distribution in your time, and how and why do you expect it to change?” That is the question Branko Milanovic imagines posing to six of history's most influential economists: François Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Vilfredo Par...

Interview with Michael Mann, author of 'On Wars' Benjamin Franklin once said, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” But what determines whether war or peace is chosen? Award-winning sociologist Michael Mann concludes that it is a handful of political leaders—people with emotions and ideologies, and constrained by inherited culture and institutions—who undertake such decisions, usual...

Interview with Rowan Dorin, author of 'No Return : Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe' Beginning in the twelfth century, Jewish moneylenders increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs of European authorities, who denounced the evils of usury as they expelled Jews from their lands. Yet Jews were not alone in supplying coin and credit to needy b...

Interview with Guido Alfani, author of 'God Among Men. A History of the Rich in the West' The rich have always fascinated, sometimes in problematic ways. Medieval thinkers feared that the super-rich would act ‘as gods among men’; much more recently Thomas Piketty made wealth central to discussions of inequality. In this book, Guido Alfani offers a history of the rich and super-rich in the...

Interview with Felipe Valencia Caicedo, editor of 'Roots of Underdevelopment. A New Economic and Political History of Latin America and the Caribbean' This book features the foremost experts in economic history and Latin American history. Uses state-of-the-art econometric methods, such as causal identification, persistence, and historical development. Covers important topics, including col...

I'm thrilled to share with you an episode from a new show called The Civic Agora. This venture is part of the Stanford Civics Initiative, where we explore the essence of citizenship and unravel the threads of thought that construct a flourishing society. In this episode of the Civic Agora, we chat with Dongxian Jiang. He is a political theorist and intellectual historian. His research and teac...

Interview with Yasheng Huang, author of 'The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline' Chinese society has been shaped by the interplay of the EAST—exams, autocracy, stability, and technology—from ancient times through the present. Beginning with the Sui dynasty’s introduction of the civil servi...

Conversation with Stefan Eich, author of  The Currency of Politics—The Political Theory of Money from Aristotle to Keynes. ' In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, critical attention has shifted from the economy to the most fundamental feature of all market economies—money. Yet despite the centrality of political struggles over money, it remains difficult to articulate its democratic possib...

Conversation with Timur Kuran, author of 'Freedoms Delayed: Political Legacies of Islamic Law in the Middle East.' According to diverse indices of political performance, the Middle East is the world's least free region. Some believe that it is Islam that hinders liberalization. Others retort that Islam cannot be a factor because the region is no longer governed under Islamic law. This...

Welcome to The Economic and Political History Podcast