Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. And yet, to Ukrainians, this attack was painfully familiar, the latest episode in a centuries-long Russian campaign to divide and oppress Ukraine.

In Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (Basic Books, 2024), political scientist Eugene Finkel uncovers these deep roots of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Ukraine is a key borderland between Russia and the West, and, following the rise of Russian nationalism in the nineteenth century, dominating Ukraine became the cornerstone of Russian policy. Russia has long used genocidal tactics—killings, deportations, starvation, and cultural destruction—to successfully crush Ukrainian efforts to chart an independent path. As Finkel shows, today’s violence is simply a more extreme version of the Kremlin’s long-standing policy. But unlike in the past, the people of Ukraine—motivated by the rise of democracy in their nation—have overcome their deep internal divisions. For the first time, they have united in favor of independence from Russia.

Whatever the outcome of the present war, Ukraine’s staunch resistance has permanently altered its relationship to Russia and the West. Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (Basic Books, 2024) offers the vital context we need to truly understand Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.

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Radical right parties are no longer political challengers on the fringes of party systems; they have become part of the political mainstream across the Western world. How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA (Oxford UP, 2024) shows how they have used their political power to reform economic and social policies in Continental Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, and the USA. In doing so, it argues that the radical right's core ideology of nativism and authoritarianism informs their socio-economic policy preferences. However, diverse welfare state contexts mediate their socio-economic policy impacts along regime-specific lines, leading to variations of trade protectionism, economic nationalism, traditional familialism, labour market dualism, and welfare chauvinism.

The radical right has used the diverse policy instruments available within their political-economic arrangements to protect threatened labour market insiders and male breadwinners from decline, while creating a racialized and gendered precariat at the same time. This socio-economic agenda of selective status protection restores horizontal inequalities in terms of gender and ethnicity, without addressing vertical inequalities between the rich and the poor.

Combining insights from comparative politics, party politics, comparative political economy, and welfare state research, the book provides novel insights into how the radical right manufactures consent for authoritarian rule by taming the socially corrosive effects of globalised capitalism for key electoral groups, while aiming to exclude the rest from democratic participation.

Philip Rathgeb is an associate professor in Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. Philip holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI) and held visiting positions at Harvard University, Lund University, University of Southern Denmark, and the EUI. His research interests are in comparative political economy and comparative politics, with a particular focus on welfare states, industrial relations, and party politics. His first book Strong Governments, Precarious Workers was published with Cornell University Press in 2018.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

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What a difference four years makes. Back in February 2021, still struggling to understand what had just happened at the Capitol, John and Elizabeth spoke with Brandeis historian Greg Childs. He is an expert in Latin American political movements and public space; his Seditious Spaces: Race, Freedom, and the 1798 Conspiracy in Bahia, Brazil is imminently forthcoming from Cambridge UP.

Greg's historical and hemispheric perspective helped bring out the differences between calling an event “sedition,” “seditious conspiracy” and “insurrection,” the new “Lost Cause” that many of those attacking the Capitol seem to hold on to and the particularities of Whiteness in the United States, as compared to elsewhere in the Americas. Greg even proposes a new word for what happened January 6th, 2021: counterinsurgency.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Legitimation Crisis (1974), Jurgen Habermas
• On Revolution (1963), Hannah Arendt
• The Machiavellian Moment (1975), J. G. A. Pocock
• Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South (2004), Stephanie Camp
• Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758-1834 (1998), Charles Tilly
• The Possessive Investment of Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (orig. 1998) 20th anniversary edition, George Lipsitz

Listen and Read.

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Who owns Scotland? How did they get it? What happened to all the common land in Scotland? Has the Scottish Parliament made any difference? Can we get our common good land back? In this updated edition of The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got it (Birlinn, 2024), Andy Wightman updates the statistics of landownership in Scotland and explores how and why landowners got their hands on the millions of acres of land that were once held in common.

He tells the untold story of how Scotland's legal establishment and politicians managed to appropriate land through legal fixes. Have attempts to redistribute this power more equitably made any difference, and what are the full implications of the recent debt-fuelled housing bubble, the Smith Commission and the new Scottish Government's proposals on land reform? For all those with an interest in urban and rural land in Scotland, this updated edition of The Poor Had No Lawyers provides a fascinating analysis of one the most important political questions in Scotland.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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How the US asylum process fails to protect against claims of gender-based violence.

Through eyewitness accounts of closed-court proceedings and powerful testimony from women who have sought asylum in the United States because of severe assaults and death threats by intimate partners and/or gang members, Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum (NYU Press, 2024) examines how immigration laws and policies shape the lives of Latin American women who seek safety in the United States. Carol Cleaveland and Michele Waslin describe the women's histories prior to crossing the border, and the legal strategies they use to convince Immigration Judges that rape and other forms of "private violence" should merit asylum - despite laws built on Cold War era assumptions that persecution occurs in the public sphere by state actors.

Private Violence provides much-needed recommendations for incorporating a gender-based lens in the asylum process. The authors demonstrate how policy changes across Presidential administrations have made it difficult for survivors of "private violence" to qualify for asylum. Private Violence paints a damning portrait of America's broken asylum system. This volume illustrates the difficulties experienced by Latin American women who rely on this broken system for protection in the United States. It also illuminates women's resilience and the determination of immigration attorneys to reshape asylum law.

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Following Overwhelmed, Brigid Schulte's groundbreaking examination of time management and stress, the prizewinning journalist now turns her attention to the greatest culprit in America's quality-of-life crisis: the way our economy and culture conceive of work. Americans across all demographics, industries, and socioeconomic levels report exhaustion, burnout, and the wish for more meaningful lives. This full-system failure in our structure of work affects everything from gender inequality to domestic stability, and it even shortens our lifespans.

Drawing on years of research, Schulte traces the arc of our discontent from a time before the 1980s, when work was compatible with well-being and allowed a single earner to support a family, until today, with millions of people working multiple hourly jobs or in white-collar positions where no hours are ever off duty.

She casts a wide net in search of solutions, exploring the movement to institute a four-day workweek, introducing Japan's Housewives Brigade--which demands legal protection for family time--and embedding with CEOs who are making the business case for humane conditions. And she demonstrates the power of a collective and creative demand for change, showing that work can be organized in an infinite number of ways that are good for humans and for business.

Fiercely argued and vividly told, rich with stories and informed by deep investigation, Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life (Henry Holt, 2024) lays out a clear vision for ending our punishing grind and reclaiming leisure, joy, and meaning.

Brigid Schulte is the author of the bestselling Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time and an award-winning journalist formerly for the Washington Post, where she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize. She is also the director of the Better Life Lab, the work-family justice and gender equity program at New America.

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The last decade has seen a resurgence of interest and urgency to questions of racial oppression and emancipation. We’ve now had about a decade of activists fighting for the idea that Black Lives Matter which eventually culminated in the summer of 2020 with millions taking to the streets. The actual concrete victories have been more of a mixed bag, which leads us to the question: what sort of politics are needed to achieve real emancipation? This led Kyle Edwards and August Nimtz back to the American Civil War, and more specifically to the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass. Both wrote quite prolifically on the events that were happening and were enthusiastic about its possibilities for the advancement of human freedom, but both brought some very different political values and ideas to their analysis. In studying these two figures together, Edwards and Nimtz are able to show how both a fight for Communism rooted in class struggle and a revolutionary liberalism rose to this profound historical moment. The result is The Communist and the Revolutionary Liberal in the Second American Revolution: Comparing Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass in Real-Time (Brill, 2024), a study with a concrete answer to the question of what sort of politics will be needed going forward.

Published as part of the Historical Materialism book series by Brill and Haymarket.

Kyle Edwards is a Curriculum Administrator at the University of Minnesota, and a member of AFSCME 3800.

August Nimtz is a professor in the political science department at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of numerous books, including Marxism versus Liberalism: Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis and The Ballot, the Streets―or Both: From Marx and Engels to Lenin and the October Revolution.

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In this episode, we sit down with Professors Jordan T. Cash and Kevin J. Burns to discuss their recently published book, Congressional Deliberation: Major Debates, Speeches, and Writings, 1774–2023 (Hackett, 2024). Drawing on a wide array of primary sources, the book offers a deep dive into key historical debates and turning points in U.S. congressional history. We explored how the dynamics of deliberation in the House and Senate have shaped fundamental issues like war powers, impeachment, civil rights, and legislative leadership. With their expertise in American political thought, constitutionalism, and the history of political institutions, Professors Cash and Burns provide a rich, scholarly perspective on the role of Congress in the development of the American political system. Whether you’re a student of history or simply curious about the workings of the U.S. government, this conversation offers valuable insights into the continuing evolution of congressional deliberation.

Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.

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Housing is more than bricks and mortar. The home is where our hopes and dreams play out, and it lies at the heart of our lives. This is where we rest, eat, and relax. The home we enjoy can determine our health, life expectancy, and day-to-day well-being. In contrast, the lack of a stable residence can lead to mental and physical illness and often premature death. This is central to how we conceive of a good and dignified life.

In Feeling at Home: Transforming the Politics of Housing (Verso, 2025), Alva Gotby grapples with the practical and emotional questions of housing – domestic labour, privacy, security, ownership, and health. Is it possible to imagine success without home ownership? Gotby makes clear that solving the housing crisis is about much more than housing stock. It is about revolutionising our everyday lives and labours.

Louisa Hann has a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. Her recent book, HIV/AIDS and the Stage, is out with Liverpool University Press

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Do dogs belong with humans? Scientific accounts of dogs' 'species story,' in which contemporary dog-human relations are naturalised with reference to dogs' evolutionary becoming, suggest that they do. Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Mariam Motamedi Fraser dissects this story.

This book offers a rich empirical analysis and critique of the development and consolidation of dogs' species story in science, asking what evidence exists to support it, and what practical consequences, for dogs, follow from it. It explores how this story is woven into broader scientific shifts in understandings of species, animals, and animal behaviours, and how such shifts were informed by and informed transformative political events, including slavery and colonialism, the Second World War and its aftermath, and the emergence of anti-racist movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book pays particular attention to how species-thinking bears on 'race,' racism, and individuals.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Born into the Civil Rights Movement, author Anthony Walton observed firsthand the opening of opportunity for racial reconciliation. He also saw systemic racism and the vicious backlash against Black progress embodied in the Southern Strategy, Tea Party, and MAGA. Over time, Walton came to believe that moving forward requires a "Third Reconstruction" to accomplish what remains: better health outcomes, secure voting rights, and sustained economic and educational opportunity. Only this approach, he believes, will accomplish what remains unfinished for true African American equality.

Blending social history, bracing analysis, and autobiography, this dazzling collection includes essays published in The New York Times and The Atlantic--including "Willie Horton and Me" and the much-anthologized "Technology vs. African Americans"--as well as new work that probes Walton's earlier thinking. Throughout, the author delivers insights that wrestle with the hydra-headed, ever-changing realities of an American society in which the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The End of Respectability: Notes of a Black American Reckoning with His Life and His Nation (David R. Godine, 2024) illuminates recent American history as experienced by a writer who has remained open to hope, unfazed by failures, and unflinchingly dedicated to the truth. This book will leave you changed. And just may incite you to be a part of the change we need.

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