Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Mary Rose Kubal, associate professor of Political Science at St. Bonaventure, about efforts on the left and on the right to establish a new constitution for Chile. We talked through recent developments in Chilean politics, the failed 2022 effort to pass a progressive new constitution, and the new right wing effort to pass a much more conservative constitution. Transcript available here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety...

We had the privilege of speaking to Mark McLay, Lecturer at Lancaster University in the UK, about his recent book The Republican Party and the War on Poverty. This was a great chance to discuss the trajectory of the Republican Party since the 1960s, what drew Republicans together in the age where the party had actual liberals, Richard Nixon, the role of race in transforming the Republicans, and a whole lot of great stuff in the context of their overwhelmingly hostile response to LBJ’s War on...

By Greg2600 – Alan Ruck, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80386898 The series finale of Succession is Sunday and so Lemieux, Farley, and I got together to talk about its place in the pantheon of television history. Also, Rob was drinking something called Hard Mountain Dew, which sounds like hell in a can. Transcript is here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your...

For our latest podcast, we talked to Megan Asaka, a historian from the University of California-Riverside, about her new book Seattle from the Margins: Exclusion, Erasure, and the Making of a Pacific Coast City. The book focuses on the pre-World War II era and brings in ideas of the built environment as critical to understanding exclusion and racism. Among the interesting insights we talked about here include how housing segregation was central to cities long before anyone invented redlining,...

For our latest podcast, we had the privilege of talking to Marc Doussard at the University of Illinois and Greg Schrock of Portland State University about their new book Justice at Work: The Rise of Economic and Racial Justice Coalitions in Cities. As urban planning scholars, they bring an interesting perspective to these issues. Among the most important points we discuss is how with globalization and deindustrilaization having moved all the jobs overseas that can be moved overseas, the...

For the latest LGM podcast I had the opportunity to sit down with my colleague Greg Hall and talk about his latest book, Examining US-China-Russia Foreign Relations (topical!). Greg and I talk through Neoclassical Realism, the relationships that undergird the Russia-China-US axes, the nature of the relationships between this triangle and the Global South, how to write a book about foreign relations in the era of the Polycrisis, and finally how to use classic IR paradigms to teach contemporary...

On the latest LGM podcast, Cheryl, Dan and myself talk through some recent foreign policy developments. We go over the shifty GOP positions on China and Ukraine, talk about what precisely we mean by “deterring” China, and discuss the absurdity of the Discord Leaks. Transcript available here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your consumer choice. We would very much appreciate reviews, whether of the thoughtful...

By All-Pro Reels – https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeglo/49571481023/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116269868 In the second half of our 2023 baseball preview podcast, Scott, Erik, Dave and I talked about the delicate line between tanking and rebuilding, the ethics of overloading in a potential championship year, the place of the current Houston Astros among the most dominant teams of the last sixty years, and our thoughts on who might actual win the...

By Mogami Kariya – https://www.flickr.com/photos/kariyamogami/52251704848/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121754932 Happy Opening Day! In celebration, Scott, Erik, DJW, and myself casted a pod previewing the baseball season. We didn’t do the traditional division by division preview, but instead talked through some areas of interest. Part I, in order: * Rule changes * Shohei Otani and the WBC * Players who might retire after this...

For our latest podcast, we interview Erika Bsumek, Professor of History at the University of Texas, about her brand new book The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau. In the conversation, we discuss the ways that Glen Canyon Dam was the culmination of a century of dispossession of the tribes, largely by the Mormon population of Utah and northern Arizona, but with a heavy assist from the federal government. We also talk about the different...

Paul discussed his latest book, A Fan’s Life, with Rob and myself in the latest LGM pod. Here’s the transcript. It’s a fun discussion of the stubborn irrationality of fandom, old-school message boards, and Bill James eureka moments, and if you enjoy it you’ll enjoy Paul’s book too. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your consumer choice. We would very much appreciate reviews, whether of the...

For the latest podcast, we interview Bartow Elmore, from Ohio State University, on his 2021 book Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future. Other than just discuss the many horrible things with which Monsanto has been involved (Agent Orange! PCBs! Roundup!), we also talk about why environmentalists focus on the most ridiculous things (GMOs) when it comes to Monsanto, how a corporation would be so naive as to allow a historian to see their records, and what happens when your book on a...

In our latest podcast, we interview Daniel Hatcher from the University of Baltimore’s Civic Advocacy Clinic about his brand new book Injustice, Inc.: How America’s Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor. It is a powerful exploration of how the entire system that is supposed to look after children uses them to make money. It’s an endless cycle of exploitation, justified by the need for underfunded agencies to provide for their own resources. This is not exactly a happy go lucky...

Our podcast is here for those who missed it. Since I was actually in Vegas when the line opened I made an actual bet, and it was Chiefs +110 on the basis that in what is essentially a coin flip matchup I would take the vig. I think Aaron Schatz’s bottom line is correct: This game is as close as you think it is, but if I have to make a pick, I have a slight lean towards taking the Chiefs. Here’s how I explained it for ESPN Chalk earlier this week. First of all, if all else is equal...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with my friend John Winn Miller about his new book The Hunt for the Peggy C. The book falls into a few different genres, but I was most interested in asking John about how he approached submarine fiction, which is certainly one of my favorite categories of historical fiction. We talked a bit about the genre and about the process before moving on to a discussion of how the book might be adapted in different media. If you’re interested in World War II...

For our latest podcast, we talked to Joshua Rothman, historian at the University of Alabama, about his recent book The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America. This is a tremendously powerful book about the horrors of the domestic slave trade and the people who operated the largest slave trading company in America. In this podcast, we explore the myths around the slave trade, the incredible cruelty of the practice and what this says about America then and now, the...

There used to be a time when you had to give Belichick the benefit of the doubt with pretty much anything. But hiring Matt Patricia to be the de facto OC and Joe Judge to be the QB coach — despite being spectacular failures as head coaches and having no experience coaching offense — was exactly as dumb as it appeared: As Patricia came under outside fire as the face of the offense, Judge drew increasing criticism from within. Belichick would blast him in practice, and it wasn’t...

By TV BrasilGov, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=127727476 Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Colin Snider (long term friend of the blog) about the recent attacks on Brazilian government institutions and the current state of Brazilian politics. We also talked issues of the transnational “populist” right and Brazilian foreign policy. Here’s the transcript, which is extremely limited in utility. The software seems to do a little bit better...

Above: Doug Pederson I’ll leave discussion of it from the Chargers angle until Monday to see what happens with Staley, but can I say that Doug Pederson is a beauty? Doug said “are you sure you’re going to leave 26 on the field? Are you SUUUUUUURE?” https://t.co/1l9N02IHu9— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) January 15, 2023 LONG LIVE THE T FORMATION! Also worth noting that going for 2 after MAGA s******d Joey Bosa took another dumb penalty (LOL) is the analytically...

On Wednesday Cheryl, Dan, and myself sat down to talk through some of the major foreign policy events of 2022, following up with what those events might portend in 2023. Unsurprisingly we focused overwhelmingly on the Russia-Ukraine War, although we also saved some space for discussions of Iran and China. Sadly, we did not have time to delve into the fratricidal conflicts which continue to undermine the grip of House Windsor over the British Empire. Note also that we have generated an...

For our latest podcast, we are happy to have spoken to Christina Heatherton of Trinity College about her brand new book Arise!: Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution. We had a wide-ranging conversation that demonstrates the centrality of the Mexican Revolution to early and even mid-twentieth century global radicalism with characters ranging from Ricardo Flores-Magón to Alexandra Kollontai to American radicals you probably haven’t heard of before. It was great and you will...

It’s been a weird NFL season and we talk about it and many other random things! Why are the Packers so abjectly awful? How did the Raiders decide to hire Josh McDaniels? How are the Seahawks good????? How many fingers of bourbon did Farley consume? Only by listening to this finest of NFL podcasts can you find out! The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your consumer choice. We would very much appreciate reviews,...

By Tom Arthur from Orange, CA, United States – vote for better tape, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5131677 On the latest LGM podcast, Erik, Scott and I discuss our grim expectations for this evening and for the future of American democracy. Give it a listen as you walk, bike, or drive to your polling place. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your consumer choice. We would...

For our latest podcast, we interviewed Ahmed White of the University of Colorado Law School on his brand new book (literally out today) Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers. It’s really great. You want to read it. It’s a highly accessible labor history that does a bunch of important things. First, it gets at just why workers chose the IWW over other forms of socialism at the time. Second, it goes very deep on the real physical suffering these people had...

Cheryl and I recorded a podcast on Tuesday about the war, and for the most part it’s not yet outdated. We discussed: * The current situation on the ground* Efforts on both sides to move up the escalatory ladder, including the attack on the Kerch Bridge and the fusillade of missiles* The potential for the conflict to go nuclear* Elon Musk and the problems with amateur theories of negotiations* Some wildly irresponsible predictions about what’s going to happen next The LGM...