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  • Nick Lloyd, "The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918" (Norton, 2024)

    Nick Lloyd, "The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918" (Norton, 2024)
    2024/10/06
    Writing in the 1920s, Winston Churchill argued that the First World War on the Eastern Front was "incomparably the greatest war in history. In its scale, in its slaughter, in the exertions of the combatants, in its military kaleidoscope, it far surpasses by magnitude and intensity all similar human episodes." It was, he concluded, "the most frightful misfortune" to fall upon mankind "since the collapse of the Roman Empire before the Barbarians." Yet Churchill was an exception, and the war in the east has long been seen as a sideshow to the brutal combat on the Western Front. Finally, with The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 (Norton, 2024)--the first major history of that arena in fifty years--the acclaimed historian Nick Lloyd corrects the record. Drawing on the latest scholarship as well as eyewitness reports, diary entries, and memoirs, Lloyd moves from the great battles of 1914 to the final collapse of the Central Powers in 1918, showing how a local struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia spiraled into a massive conflagration that pulled in Germany, Russia, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Eastern Front was a vast theater of war that brought about the collapse of three empires and produced almost endless suffering. As many as sixteen million soldiers and two million civilians were killed or wounded in enormous battles that took place across as much as one hundred kilometers. Unlike in the west, where stalemate ruled the day, the war in the east was fluid, with armies embarking on penetrating advances. Lloyd narrates the repeated invasions of Serbia as well as the great battles between Russian, German, and Austrian forces at Tannenberg, Komarów, Gorlice-Tarnów, and the Masurian Lakes. All along, he takes us into the strategy of the generals who decided the war's course, from the Germans Ludendorff and Hindenburg to the Austro-Hungarian chief, Conrad von Hötzendorf, to the brilliant Russian Brusilov. Perhaps the most radical aspect of the struggle in the east was that the violence was not confined to combatants. The Eastern Front witnessed calculated attacks against civilians that ripped the ethnic and religious fabric of numerous societies, paving the way for the horrors of the Holocaust. Lloyd's magisterial, definitive account of the war in the east will fundamentally alter our understanding of the cataclysmic events that reshaped Europe and the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 分
  • Megan Bradley et al., "IOM Unbound?: Obligations and Accountability of the International Organization for Migration in an Era of Expansion" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

    Megan Bradley et al., "IOM Unbound?: Obligations and Accountability of the International Organization for Migration in an Era of Expansion" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
    2024/10/05
    It is an era of expansion for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an increasingly influential actor in the global governance of migration. Bringing together leading experts in international law and international relations, this collection examines the dynamics and implications of IOM's expansion in a new way. Analyzing IOM as an international organization (IO), IOM Unbound?: Obligations and Accountability of the International Organization for Migration in an Era of Expansion (Cambridge UP, 2023) illuminates the practices, obligations and accountability of this powerful but controversial actor, advancing understanding of IOM itself and broader struggles for IO accountability. The contributions explore key, yet often under-researched, IOM activities including its role in humanitarian emergencies, internal displacement, data collection, ethical labour recruitment, and migrant detention. Offering recommendations for reforms rooted in empirical evidence and careful normative analysis, this is a vital resource for all those interested in the obligations and accountability of international organizations, and in the field of migration. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間 43 分
  • Jeffrey Ding, "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    Jeffrey Ding, "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition" (Princeton UP, 2024)
    2024/10/05
    When scholars and policymakers consider how technological advances affect the rise and fall of great powers, they draw on theories that center the moment of innovation—the eureka moment that sparks astonishing technological feats. In Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition (Princeton UP, 2024), Jeffrey Ding offers a different explanation of how technological revolutions affect competition among great powers. Rather than focusing on which state first introduced major innovations, he investigates why some states were more successful than others at adapting and embracing new technologies at scale. Drawing on historical case studies of past industrial revolutions as well as statistical analysis, Ding develops a theory that emphasizes institutional adaptations oriented around diffusing technological advances throughout the entire economy. Examining Britain’s rise to preeminence in the First Industrial Revolution, America and Germany’s overtaking of Britain in the Second Industrial Revolution, and Japan’s challenge to America’s technological dominance in the Third Industrial Revolution (also known as the “information revolution”), Ding illuminates the pathway by which these technological revolutions influenced the global distribution of power and explores the generalizability of his theory beyond the given set of great powers. His findings bear directly on current concerns about how emerging technologies such as AI could influence the US-China power balance. Our guest today is: Jeffrey Ding, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    35 分
  • Sean McMeekin, "To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism" (Basic Books, 2024)

    Sean McMeekin, "To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism" (Basic Books, 2024)
    2024/10/04
    When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia may no longer be Communist, Communism and sympathy for Communist ideas have proliferated across the globe. In To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism (Basic Books, 2024), Sean McMeekin investigates the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes. Tracing Communism's ascent from theory to practice, McMeekin ranges from Karl Marx's writings to the rise and fall of the USSR under Stalin to Mao's rise to power in China to the acceleration of Communist or Communist-inspired policies around the world in the twenty-first century. McMeekin argues, however, that despite the endurance of Communism, it remains deeply unpopular as a political form. Where it has arisen, it has always arisen by force. Blending historical narrative with cutting-edge scholarship, To Overthrow the World revolutionizes our understanding of the evolution of Communism--an idea that seemingly cannot die. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 分
  • Mary Bridges, "Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    Mary Bridges, "Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower" (Princeton UP, 2024)
    2024/10/01
    There was nothing inevitable or natural about the rise of US finance capitalism in the early twentieth century. In Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower, Mary Bridges shows how US foreign banking began as a side hustle of Gilded Age tycoons and evolved into a more staid, bureaucratized network for bolstering US influence overseas. The early waves of US bankers built a network of international branch banks that relied on the power of the US government, copied the example of British foreign bankers, and built new alliances with local elites. Overseas bank branches provided sites for experimentation in how to fuse US political will with local innovations and on-the-ground improvisation. In the process, branch bankers constructed a flexible and durable new infrastructure that supported the growth of US power abroad. Using details from ledger entries and other sources, Bridges shows how these branch bankers divided their local communities into groups of “us” and "them," either as potential clients or local populations. In doing so, they constructed a new architecture of US trade finance that relied on long-standing inequalities and hierarchies of privilege. Thus, ideas developed by wealthy white men became part of the enduring fabric of financial infrastructure. She also shows how bank branches could accommodate these hierarchies to make room for new ideas about serving local markets, in response to financial pressures of the 1920s and after the Great Depression cut off other avenues of growth. Bridges also tells the story of how US bankers created a market based on a new financial asset enabled by the Federal Reserve System called bankers' acceptance and began to collect vast amounts of foreign credit information. Related resources: Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean by Peter James Hudson Infrastructure Is Remaking Geopolitics: How Power Flows from the Systems That Connect the World by Mary Bridges Author recommended reading: Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control by Sean H. Vanatta The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives by Ernest Scheyder Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間
  • Amos C. Fox, "Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of Modern War and Warfare" (Howgate, 2024)

    Amos C. Fox, "Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of Modern War and Warfare" (Howgate, 2024)
    2024/09/30
    If you seek a compelling exploration of contemporary armed conflict, then Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of Modern War and Warfare (Howgate Publishing, 2024) by Amos C. Fox is for you. It delves into the intricate web of causation to unveil five pivotal trends shaping the landscape of war and warfare - urban warfare, sieges, attrition, precision strike strategy, and proxy wars - revealing a stark reality: wars remain far more attritional than anticipated by policymakers, military practitioners, and analysts alike. What’s more, just as attritional wars are becoming quite common, conflict elongation – wars of extended duration – are also becoming the norm. Through insightful analysis and a keen understanding of geopolitical intricacies, Amos Fox navigates the reader through the intricate interplay of these trends, shedding light on their profound implications for global security. This riveting work challenges conventional wisdom, offering readers a thought-provoking perspective on the contemporary nature of armed conflicts, ultimately urging a reconsideration of strategies and policies in the face of an ever-evolving battlefield. Amos C. Fox, PhD, is a Fellow with Arizona State University’s Future Security Initiative. Amos is also a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. He hosts the Revolution in Military Affairs, Soldier Pulse and WarCast podcasts, serves as an editorial board member with the Journal of Military Studies and is a senior editor with Small Wars Journal. Amos is also a retired US Army officer, where he served more than 24 years, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間 31 分
  • Samuel J. Hirst, "Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Samuel J. Hirst, "Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    2024/09/28
    In the aftermath of the First World War the Western great powers sought to redefine international norms according to their liberal vision. They introduced Western-led multilateral organizations to regulate cross-border flows which became pivotal in the making of an interconnected global order. In contrast to this well-studied transformation, in Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939 (Oxford University Press, 2024), Samuel Hirst considers in detail for the first time the responses of the defeated interwar Soviet Union and early Republican Turkey who challenged this new order with a reactive and distinctly state-led international politics. As Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took up arms in 1920 to overturn the terms of the Paris settlement, Vladimir Lenin provided military and economic aid as part of a partnership that both sides described as anti-imperialist. Over the course of the next two decades, the Soviet and Turkish states coordinated joint measures to accelerate development in spheres ranging from aviation to linguistics. Most importantly, Soviet engineers and architects helped colleagues in Ankara launch a five-year plan and build massive state-owned factories to produce textiles and replace Western imports. Whilst the Kemalists' cooperation with the Bolsheviks has often been described as pragmatic, this book demonstrates that Moscow and Ankara actually came together in an ideological convergence rooted in anxiety about underdevelopment relative to the West, gradually arriving at statist internationalism as an alternative to Western liberal internationalism. Drawing on extensive archival research and offering an often-ignored and non-Western perspective on the history of international relations and diplomacy, Against the Liberal Order presents a novel interpretation of the international order of the interwar period that crosses the borders of historical disciplines and contributes to questions of current concern in world politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間 5 分
  • Jeff Schuhrke, "Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade" (Verso, 2024)

    Jeff Schuhrke, "Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade" (Verso, 2024)
    2024/09/27
    How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad. Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade (Verso, 2024) tells the shocking story of the AFL-CIO's global anticommunist crusade--and its devastating consequences for workers around the world. Unions have the power not only to secure pay raises and employee benefits but to bring economies to a screeching halt and overthrow governments. Recognizing this, in the late twentieth century, the US government sought to control labor movements abroad as part of the Cold War contest for worldwide supremacy. In this work, Washington found an enthusiastic partner in the AFL-CIO's anticommunist officials, who, in a shocking betrayal, for decades expended their energies to block revolutionary ideologies and militant class consciousness from taking hold in the workers' movements of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Jacobin, and his scholarship has been published in Diplomatic History and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間 9 分