New Books in Politics and Polemics

Apr 15 2025 1543 ep. 54 mins 879

New Books in Politics and Polemics Podcast artwork

Interviews with Authors of Politics and Polemics about their New Books

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Neil Kraus, "The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement" (Temple UP, 2023)

Apr 15 2025 75 mins

Wage stagnation, growing inequality, and even poverty itself have resulted from decades of neoliberal decision making, not the education system, writes Neil Kraus in his urgent call to action, The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement (Temple UP, 2023). Kraus claims the idea that both the education system and labor force are chronically defi

Aaron Kupchik, "Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice" (NYU Press, 2025)

Apr 14 2025 27 mins

Every year, millions of public school students are suspended. This overused punishment removes students from the classroom, but it does not improve their behavior. Instead, suspension disrupts their education, harming the students, their families, and their schools. Black students suffer most within this broken system, experiencing a far greater risk of school punishment and the si

Is Liberal Democracy Dying?

Apr 13 2025 66 mins

Live from the Frontline Club in London, Ctrl Alt Deceit is back for its second season. Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones host a fascinating discussion on the myriad threats to democracy, particularly in light of Trump's re-election. Joined by Gabriel Gatehouse is an award-winning BBC journalist and broadcaster, formerly International Editor of Newsnight and host of t

Pandemic Power: The Covid Response and the Erosion of Democracy - A Liberal Critique

Apr 12 2025 65 mins

In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) sat down with Muriel Blaive to talk about her new book with CEU Press, Pandemic Power: The Covid Response and the Erosion of Democracy - A Liberal Critique. In the podcast we talked about the (failure of the) pandemic response, the necessity of critique, being shadowbanned on Facebook, censorship, and about liberal intellectuals aba

What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions

Apr 11 2025 53 mins

Leaders who introduce anti-racist approaches to their organizations often face backlash. In What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions (Princeton UP, 2025), Susan Sturm explores how to navigate the contradictions built into our racialized history, relationships, and institutions. She offers strategies and stories for confronting racism within predominantly whit

Ståle Holgersen, "Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World" (Verso, 2024)

Apr 10 2025 54 mins

In Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World (Verso, 2024), Ståle Holgersen develops a conceptualization of 'crisis' that moves beyond simplistic understandings of societal turbulence or even disaster, arguing that crises have come to mean something very specific. Where previous analyses have treated economic and ecological crises as separate phenomena, Holgersen

Sam Wetherell, "Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Apr 09 2025 53 mins

What does the history of Liverpool tell us about the future of Britain? In Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain (Bloomsbury, 2025), Sam Wetherall, a Senior Lecturer in the History of Britain and the World at the University of York, tells the story of the city through the lens of ‘obsolesce’. This powerful framework structures a narrative that sees the story of Liverpool as bot

Paddy Walker, "War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield" (Howgate, 2025)

Apr 08 2025 96 mins

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their oper

Benjamin M. Studebaker, "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

Apr 07 2025 64 mins

Liberal democracies don’t age gracefully. Established systems of governance like those of the UK and the US which once served as blueprints are today experiencing a profound crisis of legitimacy. In Britain, a landslide general election result was quickly followed by a catastrophic tumble in approval ratings. In the US presidential campaign, meanwhile, voters were told that democ

Will Potter, "Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable" (City Lights Books, 2025)

Apr 06 2025 38 mins

Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable (City Lights Books, 2025) is a groundbreaking investigation of factory farms and the unprecedented measures being taken to hide their impact -- on animals, public health, and the environment -- from the public. Hiding behind the little red barns that dot the landscape of rural America and decorate so many of the animal-based pr