On March 1, I was on a panel hosted by the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, the Canadian Peace Congress, World Beyond War, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, and Just Peace Associates. The topic was “the Arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the New Cold War on China”. Other panelists were Radhika Desai, William Ging … Continue reading "AEP 80: My comments on The Arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the New Cold War on China"...
Mar 24, 2021•18 min
By pure coincidence, we are publishing this episode on the day the world contrasted the the Alaska Summit – a US-China meeting in March 2021, in which China told the US to stop posturing, to the humiliations of the Boxer Protocol of 1901. In this episode, we talk about the terrible famines of 1876 and … Continue reading "Civilizations 31: The first anti-imperialist uprising of the 20th century: Yi Ho Tuan, or Boxer Rebellion of 1900"...
Mar 20, 2021•1 hr 30 min
By the 1860s it was Korea’s turn to face the dilemma of how to deal with the imperialists. Qing China and Meiji Japan had a lot to say about what they thought Korea should do. We talk about the attempts to reform, Donghak Uprising in Korea, and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5.
Mar 13, 2021•55 min
I’m joined by Nora Barrows-Friedman and Asa Winstanley, both of the Electronic Intifada podcast. We’re piecing together the story of how lifelong anti-racist Jeremy Corbyn of the UK Labour Party was taken down by a smear campaign, which began by targeting those around him. Having taken him down, the smear campaign continued and managed to … Continue reading "AEP 79: Sorry for using the word “Corbyn” (in Canada)"...
Mar 09, 2021•1 hr 4 min
India had Plassey in 1757, China had Opium War 1 in 1839, and Japan had Commodore Perry’s visit in 1853. After centuries of keeping the imperialists at bay, Japan found them knocking down the gates. And in a series of events studied by everyone in Asia but never imitated, Japan went from having a brief … Continue reading "Civilizations 29: Japan joins the imperialists, 1853"
Mar 06, 2021•1 hr 30 min
I bring Carl Zha on for another Kung Fu Yoga episode, this time about Canada. We discuss the unanimous declaration by the Canadian parliament (followed by the Netherlands parliament days later) in February 2021 that a genocide is taking place in Xinjiang. What’s really behind this declaration, and how can Canadian history, and Chinese history, … Continue reading "AEP 78: A look at Canada, as it declares genocide in Xinjiang"...
Feb 28, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Having burned the palace of the ruling Qing dynasty, the imperialists decided to take their side and help them defeat the Taiping. As Zeng Guofan’s encirclement strategy takes hold, the imperialists are running the Ever Victorious Army with figures like Garnet Wolesley (who fought Louis Riel in Canada) and Charles Gordon (who we’ll meet again … Continue reading "Civilizations 28c: Taiping Rebellion pt3 – the fall of the rebels"...
Feb 27, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Anjuli Raza Kolb is the author of Epidemic Empire: Colonialism, Contagion, and Terror 1817-2020, new from University of Chicago Press. It’s a huge book with many threads, so in this discussion we pick up one: the idea of “colonial science”, how imperialism manages to co-opt and use every type of knowledge; and the question of … Continue reading "AEP 77: Talking Epidemic Empire, with Anjuli Raza Kolb"
Feb 25, 2021•59 min
In the midst of the most destructive war in China’s history, the imperialists decided it was time to sack and burn China a second time. In this episode, on the Second Opium War, we talk about the deepening imperialism, get you into the bizarre imperialist mind of Lord Elgin as he rationalizes the burning of … Continue reading "Civilizations 28b: Opium War 2, 1856-1860"
Feb 20, 2021•1 hr 6 min
The end of the first Opium War was just the beginning of the horrors China faced under imperialism. Beginning in 1850, China was rocked by a 10-year long civil war that took an estimated 20-30 million lives. You read that correctly. In the middle of that war, the imperialists attacked China again and fought a … Continue reading "Civilizations 28a: The worst civil war in history – Taiping Rebellion pt1 1850-1856"...
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 5 min
We reach back in time a little bit to start the Civilizations Series on 19th century China – now known as the century of humiliation. The Opium War was one of the moments that turbo-charged imperialism. We tell the story the way Civilizations does – going back and forth between the imperialists and the local … Continue reading "Civilizations 27: Opium War 1, 1839-40"
Feb 06, 2021•2 hr 41 min
By 1885, the Indian Act was in place, most Indigenous people were forced onto reserves, and the nadir of Canadian colonialism (so far) was set. Part 3 of 3 our series on Canada takes us through the residential school system and the racialist ideologies openly expressed throughout this phase of Canadian history.
Jan 21, 2021•1 hr 27 min
Along with colonialism, smallpox and the driving to extinction of the beaver and then the buffalo played an immense role in the creation of what is now Canada. We tell the story of these factors in the development of Canadian colonialism from the days of New France and the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Riel … Continue reading "Civilizations 26b – Canada pt2: disease, extinctions, and colonialism up to the Riel Resistance"...
Jan 16, 2021•1 hr 36 min
Part 1 of at least 3 on Canada, this one sets up the story of Canadian colonialism with some required historical touchpoints about Canada’s devolution into independence from Britain, the story of Confederation as a series of business deals, and the role of racism in Canadian immigration policy.
Jan 13, 2021•1 hr 41 min
The Paris Commune was so much more than a short bloody two-month interlude in European politics. In this episode, the story of the Paris Commune as related by Karl Marx in his address to the International Workingmen’s Association. From passing debt relief programs to tearing down militarist statues, the Paris Commune was a real revolution, … Continue reading "Civilizations 25: The 1870 Paris Commune, as told by Karl Marx"...
Jan 04, 2021•1 hr 22 min
In 1865, Paul Bogle led an uprising in Jamaica that was repressed with extreme violence by the British, led by Jamaica’s Governor Eyre. The reaction was disproportionate and the story was big news in Britain, leading to a committee questioning Eyre’s brutality and a counter-committee forming to defend him. Both committees have some big names … Continue reading "Civilizations 24: Jamaica 1865 – Morant Bay Uprising shakes the British Empire"...
Dec 27, 2020•1 hr 24 min
We conclude our 4 part series on the American Civil War following WEB Du Bois’s book Black Reconstruction in America, talking about the brief, glorious moment of potential for genuine racial equality in the United States. In some ways, despite the gains made a century later, we still live with the consequences of the fall … Continue reading "Civilizations 23d: American Civil War pt4 – the Rise and Fall of Reconstruction"...
Dec 12, 2020•1 hr 28 min
Opposing a series of Farm bills that will render them destitute and further enrich India’s billionaires, a farmer’s movement has converged on Delhi demanding that the legislation (passed in September) be repealed. I talk to historian Navyug Gill about the laws, the history, and the politics of the Farmer’s movement in India, a sustained opposition … Continue reading "AEP 76: Punjab Farmer’s Movement Confronts the Modi Juggernaut"...
Dec 09, 2020•1 hr 9 min
Maria Victor and I talk about the December 6 legislative elections in Venezuela. Turnout was low at 31%, but that’s normal for legislative elections* in a pandemic (Romania had around the same turnout on the same day, as others have pointed out). We talk about the electoral system in Venezuela, why it’s more fair than … Continue reading "AEP 75: The Dec 6 Venezuelan Legislative Elections"
Dec 08, 2020•32 min
The American Civil War from Lincoln’s election in 1860 to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomatox Court House. The major events, the commanders, and the decisive role of what Du Bois called the General Strike of the Black Worker. Part 3 of 4 on the US Civil War.
Nov 29, 2020•2 hr 19 min
Sayf Carman runs the Ummah Fight Camp martial arts youtube channel and has recently started Mindscrub, an intellectual channel. Carman teaches martial arts in New Jersey. He has been in the Nation of Islam, the Communist Party, has studied Buddhism and Western Philosophy. We talk about different approaches to thinking, teaching, and techniques and approaches … Continue reading "AEP 74: The Fighting Intellectual, with Sayf Carman"...
Nov 20, 2020•1 hr 24 min
John Brown routed 75 men with 14, defended Lawrence from raiders, wrote a manual for the Underground Railroad, and began the war that ended slavery. Frederick Douglass, talking about Brown’s actions in Kansas, wrote that one could not read the history “without feeling that the man who in all this bewildering broil was least the … Continue reading "Civilizations 23b: “This question is still to be settled”: John Brown and the Civil War pt2"...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 26 min
I’m joined by the Anti-Empire Project’s special correspondent for Pakistan, Saadia Toor, professor at CSI CUNY and author of the State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan. Saadia gives us a quick sweep of Pakistan’s history including the key role of the left in the many twists and turns. We get caught … Continue reading "AEP 73: Pakistan’s Hybrid Civil-Military Regime, with Saadia Toor"...
Nov 14, 2020•1 hr 48 min
Civilizations begins our study (at least four parts) of the American Civil War. We start with the abolitionist movement in the decades before the war, and the conflict between the British Empire and the United States over abolition. This episode relies on (among other sources) Kellie Carter Jackson’s book Force and Freedom, and Gerald Horne’s … Continue reading "Civilizations 23a – American Civil War Part 1: Abolition and distant causes"...
Nov 10, 2020•1 hr 20 min
Step off of the Artificial Intelligence hype train with me and my guest Yarden Katz. Yarden is the author of Artificial Whiteness: Politics and Ideology in Artificial Intelligence. AI is a squishy concept, and under scrutiny it is full of imperialist and racial assumptions. We go over some of the many ideas in this idea-packed … Continue reading "AEP 72: Artificial Whiteness with Yarden Katz"
Nov 04, 2020•1 hr 14 min
The name most associated with the unification of Germany is that of Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was the great puppet master of Europe in the 1860s, but he may just have set things up for future conflagrations.
Nov 01, 2020•1 hr 28 min
I’m joined by scholar and campaigner Sameer Dossani. A PhD student at the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation (IERI) in South Africa and an activist at PeaceVigil.net, Sameer wrote the paper “Ecological Catastrophe, Capitalist Excess or Ongoing Colonialism – How should we understand the crisis?” – which outlines what I call “colonial determinism“, a … Continue reading "AEP 71: The Colonial Determinist World View, with Sameer Dossani"...
Oct 27, 2020•1 hr 26 min
Two very different characters – Cavour and Garibaldi – were instrumental in orchestrating the unification of Italy in the 1860s. We talk unification and consequences, and give a mention to Garibaldi’s famous letters to Abraham Lincoln of 1861 and 1863.
Oct 24, 2020•57 min
The Delhi Liberated Zone under Bahadur Shah Zafar falls; Tatia Tope and others fight on for another two years; the British kill perhaps 10 million Indian people (7% of the population); the 1857 has some victories even in defeat. But what does it all mean? We conclude our discussion with the concept of a point-of-view … Continue reading "Civilizations 20b: India 1857 pt 2 – the Revolution Defeated"...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 2 min
Are we really doing this? One podcaster with Indian roots and another with British roots, trying to do the history of 1857 India? This is the Civilizations podcast, so yes we are! I’m arguing that 1857 is up there with the other great revolutions of this time – 1848 or 1870 in Europe, or Bolivar’s … Continue reading "Civilizations 20a: 1857 – India’s War of Independence, pt1"
Oct 10, 2020•1 hr 11 min
