Best Peter Hurst Podcasts (2025)

1
James D.J. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025), 39:49

25d ago39:49

39:49

The Russians came late to Japan, arriving after the Portuguese and other European powers. But as soon as they arrived, Russia tried to use spies and espionage to learn more about their neighbor—with various degrees of success. Sometimes, it failed miserably, like Russia’s early attempts to make contact with pre-Meiji Japan, or the debacle during th…

1
Ryan Griffiths, "The Disunited States: Threats of Secession in Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:03:52

44m ago1:03:52

1:03:52

Is the breakup of an increasingly polarized America into separate red and blue countries even possible? There is a growing interest in American secession. In February 2023, Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that "We need a national divorce...We need to separate by red states and blue states." Recent movements like Yes California have called for a nati…

1
Rita Kiki Edozie and Moses Khisa, "Africa's New Global Politics: Regionalism in International Relations" (Lynne Rienner, 2022) 1:55:57

15h ago1:55:57

1:55:57

The African Union's threat to lead African states' mass withdrawal from the International Criminal Court in 2008 marked just one of many encounters that demonstrate African leaders' growing confidence and activism in international relations. Rita Kiki Edozie and Moses Khisa explore the myriad ways in which the continent’s diplomatic engagement and …

1
Alexandra Freidus, "Unequal Lessons: School Diversity and Educational Inequality in New York City" (NYU Press, 2025) 28:58

21h ago28:58

28:58

Unequal Lessons: School Diversity and Educational Inequality in New York City (NYU Press, 2025) argues that diversity and racial integration efforts are not sufficient to address educational inequality. New York City schools are among the most segregated in the nation. Yet over seven decades after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, New Yorke…

1
Alan McPherson, "Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a Washington Assassination Brought Pinochet's Terror State to Justice" (UNC Press, 2019) 1:08:42

1d ago1:08:42

1:08:42

On September 21, 1976, a car bomb exploded in Washington DC, killing a former Chilean diplomat named Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni Moffitt. The assassination was a cruel and brazen attempt by the Chilean government to silence a critic of the Pinochet regime. And it proved to be a major strategic error––Pinochet himself used the …

1
Megan Brown, "The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community" (Harvard UP, 2022) 1:04:55

1d ago1:04:55

1:04:55

In The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community (Harvard University Press, 2022), Dr. Megan Brown details the surprising story of how Algeria joined and then left the postwar European Economic Community and what its past inclusion means for extracontinental membership in today’s European Union. On their face, the mid-1950s …

1
Grace C. Huang, "Chiang Kai-Shek's Politics of Shame: Leadership, Legacy, and National Identity in China" (Harvard UP, 2021) 47:09

1d ago47:09

47:09

Once a powerful figure who reversed the disintegration of China and steered the country to Allied victory in World War II, Chiang Kai-shek fled into exile following his 1949 defeat in the Chinese civil war. As attention pivoted to Mao Zedong’s communist experiment, Chiang was relegated to the dustbin of history. In Chiang Kai-shek’s Politics of Sha…

1
Jonathan Fisher and Nina Wilén, "African Peacekeeping" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 53:56

1d ago53:56

53:56

In African Peacekeeping (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Dr. Jonathan Fisher and Dr. Nina Wilén explore the story of Africa's contemporary history and politics through the lens of peacekeeping. This concise and accessible book, based on over a decade of research across ten countries, focuses not on peacekeeping in Africa but, rather, peacekeepin…

1
Sharing the Welsh Farm – Anna Jones 38:30

11h ago38:30

38:30

Anna Jones is a farmer based in the Welsh uplands who brings a thoughtful and practical perspective on sustainable livestock farming. Although she came into agriculture later in life, Anna grew up on her family’s sheep and beef farm and returned in her mid-20s to help keep it in the family. She now works alongside her father and is gradually introd…

1
Irvin Weathersby Jr., "In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space" (Viking, 2025) 1:08:53

3d ago1:08:53

1:08:53

Amid the ongoing reckoning over America’s history of anti-Black racism, scores of monuments to slaveowners and Confederate soldiers still proudly dot the country’s landscape, while schools and street signs continue to bear the names of segregationists. With poignant, lyrical prose, cultural commentator Irvin Weathersby confronts the inescapable spe…

1
154 Planetary Boundaries are Non-Negotiable: Kim Stanley Robinson 46:23

4d ago46:23

46:23

With influential series on California, on the terraforming of Mars, and on human civilization as reshaped by rising tides, Kim Stanley Robinson has established a conceptual space as dedicated to sustainability as his own beloved Village Homes in Davis, California. All of that, though, only prepared the ground for Ministry for the Future, his 2020 v…

1
Eiko Maruko Siniawer, "Ten Moments that Shaped Tokyo" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 49:03

1d ago49:03

49:03

How did Tokyo—Japan’s capital, global city, tourist hotspot and financial center—get to where it is today? Tokyo–or then, Edo–had a rather unglamorous start, as a backwater on Japan’s eastern coast before Tokugawa decided to make it his de facto capital. Eiko Maruko Siniawer picks ten distinct moments in Edo’s, and then Tokyo’s, history to show how…

1
Eiko Maruko Siniawer, "Ten Moments that Shaped Tokyo" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 49:03

12h ago49:03

49:03

How did Tokyo—Japan’s capital, global city, tourist hotspot and financial center—get to where it is today? Tokyo–or then, Edo–had a rather unglamorous start, as a backwater on Japan’s eastern coast before Tokugawa decided to make it his de facto capital. Eiko Maruko Siniawer picks ten distinct moments in Edo’s, and then Tokyo’s, history to show how…

1
Zack Cooper, "Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries" (Yale UP, 2025) 40:18

5d ago40:18

40:18

An ambitious look at how the twentieth century's great powers devised their military strategies and what their implications mean for military competition between the United States and China. How will the United States and China evolve militarily in the years ahead? Many experts believe the answer to this question is largely unknowable. But Zack Coo…

1
Heather Browning and Walter Veit, "What Are Zoos For?" (Policy Press, 2024) 1:30:35

6d ago1:30:35

1:30:35

Are zoos an anachronism in the 21st century when we can watch animals in their natural habitat, close-up from our couches without worrying about cruelty? Should they go the way of other bygone era ‘spectacles’ and ‘attractions’ that we now regard as barbaric? There are vocal campaigners and activists who believe so. Heather Browning and Walter Veit…

1
Giles Tremlett, "The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War" (Bloomsbury, 2021) 53:27

7d ago53:27

53:27

When civil war broke out in Spain in 1936, tens of thousands of young men and women from across the world flocked there to fight against the Nationalist uprising. Though their history has been told before, Giles Tremlett’s The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War (Bloomsbury, 2021) draws upon previously unavailable mat…

1
Daniel José Gaztambide, "Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon's Couch" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) 1:00:42

8d ago1:00:42

1:00:42

Both new and seasoned psychotherapists wrestle with the relationship between psychological distress and inequality across race, class, gender, and sexuality. How does one address this organically in psychotherapy? What role does it play in therapeutic action? Who brings it up, the therapist or the patient? Daniel José Gaztambide addresses these que…

1
Dan Reiter, "Untied Hands: How States Avoid the Wrong Wars" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 43:57

8d ago43:57

43:57

How do states advance their national security interests? Conventional wisdom holds that states must court the risk of catastrophic war by “tying their hands” to credibly protect their interests. Dan Reiter overturns this perspective with the compelling argument that states craft flexible foreign policies to avoid unwanted wars. Through a comprehens…

1
Sarah E. K. Smith, "Trading on Art: Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North America" (UBC Press, 2025) 34:00

9d ago34:00

34:00

hat is the relationship between culture and trade? In Trading on Art: Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North America Sarah E. K. Smith, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University and the Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Art, Culture and Global Relations, examines the history of cultural relatio…

1
Philip Cunliffe, "The National Interest: Politics After Globalization" (Polity Press, 2025) 58:28

9d ago58:28

58:28

Globalization is over. With US president Donald Trump pursuing an 'America First' agenda in trade and foreign policy, everyone now recognises the urgency of defending their own country's national interest. But what is the national interest and why did it disappear from the political agenda? Will Trump restore American national interests, or will he…

1
Camilla Fitzsimons, "Rethinking Feminism in Ireland" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 33:42

9d ago33:42

33:42

Camilla Fitzsimons teaches at Maynooth University and is the author of Community Education and Neoliberalism in 2017 as well as Repealed: Ireland's Unfinished Fight for Reproductive Rights in 2021 which won the American Conference for Irish Studies James S Donnelly Sr book award for History and Social Science – she talked to us in January 2022 abou…

1
Linda Gordon, "Seven Social Movements That Changed America" (LIveright, 2025) 58:33

9d ago58:33

58:33

How do social movements arise, wield power, and bring about meaningful change? Renowned scholar Linda Gordon investigates these and other salient questions in this “visionary, cautionary, timely, and utterly necessary book” (Nicole Eustace), narrating how some of America’s most influential twentieth-century social movements transformed the nation. …

1
Sasha D. Pack, "The Deepest Border: The Strait of Gibraltar and the Making of the Hispano-African Border" (Stanford UP, 2019) 1:00:54

10d ago1:00:54

1:00:54

In his new book, The Deepest Border: The Strait of Gibraltar and the Making of the Hispano-African Border(Stanford, 2019), Sasha D. Pack considers the Strait of Gibraltar as an untamed in-between space—from “shatter zone” to borderland. Far from the centers of authority of contending empires, the North African and Southern Iberian coast was a place…

1
Wolves, Water and Wildfires – Grace Woodmansee 38:47

7d ago38:47

38:47

Natural resources, rural communities and agriculture come together in Siskiyou County where California borders Oregon. Wolves have been reintroduced, wildfires are a continuous concern, dams have been removed and efficient water sharing requires community engagement. Assisting with these needs is Grace Woodmansee University of California Cooperativ…

1
How Late-Stage Neoliberal Capitalism is Breaking Democracy 33:14

11d ago33:14

33:14

For a long time many (although by no means all) scholars saw the relationship between capitalism and democracy as mutually reinforcing: economic competition and growth were expected to sustain democratic competition and improve governance and public good delivery for citizens, in turn creating a better environment for capitalist competition to flou…

1
On Bullshit in AI 20:40

11d ago20:40

20:40

Today we’re continuing our series on Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit. I have the privilege to speak with Arvind Narayanan co-author of the book AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What it Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference (Princeton University Press, 2024). Arvind is the perfect guest to explore the subject of bullshi…

1
Aatish Taseer, "A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile" (Catapult, 2025) 46:06

11d ago46:06

46:06

In 2019, famed journalist and writer Aatish Taseer was thrown out of India. Soon after he wrote a cover article for Time calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi the country’s “divider in chief,” New Delhi decided to revoke his residency. That sent Aatish on a journey across the world–to places like Turkey, Spain, Mexico and Sri Lanka–to explore identi…

1
Michael Vorenberg, "Lincoln's Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War" (Random House, 2023) 1:34:56

13d ago1:34:56

1:34:56

More than a century and a half after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, historians are still searching for exactly when the U.S. Civil War ended. Was it ten weeks afterward, in Galveston, where a federal commander proclaimed Juneteenth the end of slavery? Or perhaps in August of 1866, when President Andrew Johnson simply declared “the i…

1
Foluke Taylor, "Unruly Therapeutic: Black Feminist Writings and Practices in Living Room" (Norton, 2023) 1:04:33

13d ago1:04:33

1:04:33

In 1977, The Combahee River Collective, a group of Black American feminists issued a statement communicating the harrowing following: “The psychological toll of being a Black woman…can never be underestimated. There is a low value placed on Black women’s psyches in this society, which is both racist and sexist. We are dispossessed psychologically a…

1
Frank Jacob, "Japanese War Crimes during World War II: Atrocity and the Psychology of Collective Violence" (Praeger, 2018) 1:06:07

14d ago1:06:07

1:06:07

When you mention Japanese War crimes in World War Two, you’ll often get different responses from different generations. The oldest among us will talk about the Bataan Death March. Younger people, coming of age in the 1990s, will mention the Rape of Nanking or the comfort women forced into service by the Japanese army. Occasionally, someone will men…

1
Sarah Teasley, "Designing Modern Japan" (Reaktion Books, 2022) 1:43:12

14d ago1:43:12

1:43:12

Sarah Teasley's Designing Modern Japan (Reaktion, 2022) unpicks the history of Japanese design from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, focusing on continuities and disruptions within communities and practices of design. Designing Modern Japan explores design in the unfolding contexts of modernization, empire and war, defeat and…

1
Mark R. Rank, "Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong about Poverty" (Oxford UP, 2021) 40:03

16d ago40:03

40:03

Few topics have as many myths, stereotypes, and misperceptions surrounding them as that of poverty in America. The poor have been badly misunderstood since the beginnings of the country, with the rhetoric only ratcheting up in recent times. Our current era of fake news, alternative facts, and media partisanship has led to a breeding ground for all …

1
Julian Jackson, "De Gaulle" (Harvard UP, 2018) 1:11:02

16d ago1:11:02

1:11:02

Charles de Gaulle is one of the greatest figures of twentieth century history. If Sir Winston Churchill was (in the words of Harold Macmillan) the "greatest Englishman In history", then Charles de Gaulle was without a doubt, the greatest Frenchman since Napoleon Bonaparte. Why so? In the early summer of 1940, when France was overrun by German troop…

1
The Tug of War: Why Racial Progress Often Meets Resistance and Backlash 31:52

17d ago31:52

31:52

Dr. Karyne Messina and Dr. Felicia Powell-Williams, the host and co-host of “Psychoanalytic Perspectives of Racism in America” sponsored by The American Psychoanalytic Association explored how employing mechanisms of defense perpetuates racial injustice’s movement forward and the resistance it faces as a tug of war, i.e., progress followed by backl…

1
Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022) 1:06:28

17d ago1:06:28

1:06:28

Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and export controls affect large numbers of companies and states across the globe. Some of these penalties target nonstate actors, such as Colombian drug cartels and Islamist terror groups; others apply t…

1
Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022) 1:06:28

17d ago1:06:28

1:06:28

Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and export controls affect large numbers of companies and states across the globe. Some of these penalties target nonstate actors, such as Colombian drug cartels and Islamist terror groups; others apply t…

1
Regenerating Earth – Kelsey Timmerman 58:33

17d ago58:33

58:33

Farmers around the world are resisting industrial monoculture in favor of biodiversity and soil-first practices with practical land stewardship rooted in indigenous knowledge, community building and long-term economic resilience. Regenerating Earth: Farmers Working with Nature to Feed Our Future by Kelsey Timmerman (Patagonia Books) provides a glob…

1
Sanjena Sathian, "Goddess Complex" (Penguin Press, 2025) 40:50

18d ago40:50

40:50

Sanjana Satyananda, the main character of Sanjena Sathian’s novel, Goddess Complex (Penguin Press, 2025), is a bit of a mess. She’s back in the States after a spell in India, ending her marriage with her actor husband when he wanted kids…and she didn’t. Her friends are starting to settle down–and wondering when Sanjana will do the same. And, distre…

1
James Cairns, "In Crisis, on Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times" (Wolsak and Wynn, 2025) 47:50

18d ago47:50

47:50

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery interviews author and academic James Cairns about his collection of essays, In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025). In 2022, the Collins Dictionary announced that its word of the year was “permacrisis,” which it defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, espec…

1
Alison J. Miller, "Envisioning the Empress: The Lives and Images of Japanese Imperial Women, 1868-1952" (Routledge, 2024) 36:14

17d ago36:14

36:14

Envisioning the Empress illuminates dynamic and powerful empresses who impacted not only women in their own time but whose influence extended to later generations of royalty, creating a greater role for imperial women and elevating the status of women’s roles at a crucial juncture in Japanese history. The central focus of this book is visual monarc…

1
Linda Quiquivix, "Palestine 1492: A Report Back" (Wild Ox Books, 2024) 1:11:57

19d ago1:11:57

1:11:57

Hello, I'm Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today I speak with Linda Quiquivix, author of the new book Palestine 1492: A Report Back (Wild Ox Books, 2024). This is a book that so many of us need right now, and by "right now," I mean that I am recording this in July of 2025, when Palestinians in Gaza are on the verge of mass starvation a…

1
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, "The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want" (Harper, 2025) 1:01:13

19d ago1:01:13

1:01:13

Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear…

1
Luke A. Nichter, "The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election Of 1968" (Yale UP, 2024) 1:02:55

20d ago1:02:55

1:02:55

A sitting Democratic president who chooses not to run for re-election, a vice president running out of the president’s shadow, and a Republican nominee trying to make a political comeback amidst accusations of collusion – welcome to the 2024 1968 presidential election. What we think we know about the election has been challenged, however, by a new …

1
Ketian Zhang, "China's Gambit: The Calculus of Coercion" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:11:57

21d ago1:11:57

1:11:57

Emerging from an award-winning article in International Security, China's Gambit examines when, why, and how China attempts to coerce states over perceived threats to its national security. Since 1990, China has used coercion for territorial disputes and issues related to Taiwan and Tibet, yet China is curiously selective in the timing, target, and…

1
Frank L. Jones, "Sam Nunn: Statesman of the Nuclear Age" (UP Kansas, 2020) 1:03:46

22d ago1:03:46

1:03:46

In a 2012 opinion piece bemoaning the state of the US Senate, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank cited a “leading theory: There are no giants in the chamber today.” Among the respected members who once walked the Senate floor, admired for their expertise and with a stature that went beyond party, Milbank counted Sam Nunn (D-GA). Nunn served in …

1
Sean McMeekin, "Stalin's War: A New History of World War II" (Basic Books, 2021) 1:15:10

22d ago1:15:10

1:15:10

World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not …

1
How ClioVis is Transforming Education and Historical Research 22:14

23d ago22:14

22:14

Today I’m speaking with Marcus Golding, historian and Director of Educational Operations at ClioVis. ClioVis is an incredible software and learning tool that allows educators and studies to create digital timelines, network visualizations, and interactive presentations. Founded by UT Austin history professor Erika Bsumek, ClioVis is made for profes…

1
Stress Less Farming – Michael Kilpatrick 58:39

23d ago58:39

58:39

It is 100% true that small farms can be profitable however small farms increasingly need to do further processing. Just selling vegetables to a Farmers Market may no longer be a sufficient business model. Just a single farmer by themselves faces a very hard farm life. To be the best that it can be a single farmer will be better with a group or a co…

1
Thriving Farms – Michael Kilpatrick 58:39

23d ago58:39

58:39

Small farms can be profitable farms, especially if they adapt and grow to include adding value to their production. Michael Kilpatrick is a farmer and educator who is passionate about equipping farmers with the tools and systems they need to thrive! He offers educational resources as host of the Thriving Farmer podcast and through his virtual summi…

1
James D.J. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025), 39:49

25d ago39:49

39:49

The Russians came late to Japan, arriving after the Portuguese and other European powers. But as soon as they arrived, Russia tried to use spies and espionage to learn more about their neighbor—with various degrees of success. Sometimes, it failed miserably, like Russia’s early attempts to make contact with pre-Meiji Japan, or the debacle during th…

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