Best Todd Francis Podcasts (2025)

1
Rebecca Jo Kinney, "Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland: Race and Redevelopment in the Rust Belt" (Temple UP, 2025) 1:13:37

20h ago1:13:37

1:13:37

In this episode we challenge the ideas about invisibility of Asian Americans in the urban Midwest by discussing Rebecca Jo Kinney’s Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland: Race and Redevelopment in the Rust Belt (Temple University Press, 2025). Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland links the contemporary development of Cleveland’s “AsiaTown” to the multiple and fragmente…

1
Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson, "Why America Didn't Become Great Again" (Routledge, 2025) 40:04

20h ago40:04

40:04

Examining the conditions that not only blocked attempts to make America great again, but actively made the country worse, Why America Didn't Become Great Again (Routledge, 2025) identifies those organizations, institutions, politicians and prominent characters in the forefront of the economic and social policies - ultimately asking who is responsib…

1
NIAS Podcast from the University of Tartu Asia Centre: Migration Policies and Realities in Estonia and Japan 33:53

20h ago33:53

33:53

This Nordic Asia Podcast episode explores how Estonia and Japan, two countries under demographic pressure with different immigration histories, are managing the integration of foreign labour. Despite Estonia’s EU membership and Japan’s more recent policy shifts, both nations face labour shortages due to rapidly ageing populations. Estonia maintains…

1
Michael Cook, "A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:19:02

20h ago1:19:02

1:19:02

A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (Princeton UP, 2024) by Michael A. Cook This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth cen…

1
S1.E2. Wayne County at the Trucks (1974) 51:29

20h ago51:29

51:29

In the second episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with Tony Zanetta. In the late 1960s, Zanetta worked in Off-Off-Broadway theater and ultimately landed a role playing the Andy Warhol character in Pork, an absurdist play based on Warhol’s phone recordings. Zanetta followed the cast to London where he befriended David Bowie who su…

1
Craig E. Bertolet and Susan Nakley eds., "The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer" (Routledge, 2024) 1:10:04

20h ago1:10:04

1:10:04

The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer (Routledge, 2024) offers 40 chapters by leading scholars working with contemporary, theoretical, and textual approaches to the poetry and prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400) in a global context. This volume provides post-pandemic, twenty-first century readers a way to teach, learn, and write about Chau…

1
Michael Marmur, "Living The Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) 1:01:30

20h ago1:01:30

1:01:30

Today, most Jewish thinkers have turned away from theology. And if they do, they look into one narrow window into the subject, writing a treatise into topics like the problem of evil or the nature of Jewish chosenness. Not so with today's guest, Michael Marmur. In his newest work, Living The Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought (Palgrave…

1
Patrick Luiz Sullivan De Oliveira, "Ascending Republic: The Ballooning Revival in Nineteenth-Century France" (MIT Press, 2025) 1:17:42

20h ago1:17:42

1:17:42

On August 27, 1783, a large crowd gathered in Paris to watch the first ascent of a hydrogen balloon. Despite the initial feverish enthusiasm, by the mid-nineteenth century the balloon remained relatively unchanged and was no longer seen as the harbinger of a new era. Yet that all changed in the last third of the century, when following the traumati…

1
Sam Dalrymple, "Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia" (HarperCollins UK, 2025) 1:07:00

20h ago1:07:00

1:07:00

As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the ‘Indian Empire’, or more simply as the Raj. It was the British Empire’s crown jewel, a vast dominion stretching from t…

1
Timothy Stacey, "Saving Liberalism from Itself: The Spirit of Political Participation" (Bristol UP, 2022) 58:33

20h ago58:33

58:33

Saving Liberalism from Itself: The Spirit of Political Participation Bristol UP, 2022) By Timothy Stacey In the wake of populism, Timothy Stacey’s book critically reflects on what is missing from the liberal project with the aim of saving liberalism. It explains that populists have harnessed myth, ritual, magic and tradition to advance their ambiti…

1
Heather Sutherland, "Seaways and Gatekeepers: Trade and State in the Eastern Archipelagos of Southeast Asia, C.1600-c.1906" (NUS Press, 2021) 55:47

1d ago55:47

55:47

The eastern archipelagos stretch from Mindanao and Sulu in the north to Bali in the southwest and New Guinea in the southeast. Many of their inhabitants are regarded as “people without history”, while colonial borders cut across shared underlying patterns. Yet many of these societies were linked to trans-oceanic trading systems for millennia. Indee…

1
Libby Buck, "Port Anna" (Simon & Schuster, 2025) 24:22

2d ago24:22

24:22

After Gwin Gilmore loses her adjunct teaching job, mother, and boyfriend, she leaves the south and heads for the cottage she’s just inherited on the Maine coast. It’s in the town her family visited every summer, people still remember her, and she has some old friends there, but it’s also filled with terrible memories of her sister’s drowning. And t…

1
Cheryl Thompson, "Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict and Freedom, 1812-1895" (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2025) 1:18:32

2d ago1:18:32

1:18:32

Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2025) traces the origins of theatre, dance, and concert singing in Canada and their connection to British and American song and dance traditions. When theatrical acts first appeared in the late eighteenth century, chattel slave…

1
Gender Crisis N.Y.C. 49:45

1d ago49:45

49:45

In the premiere episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with celebrated writer Lucy Sante about the landscape of gender logics within the New York rock scene. It was a nebulous soundscape of counterculture formed around gender explorations and social upheaval set to the soundtrack of an aggressive style of rock ’n’ roll that critics …

1
Sven Saaler, Kudō Akira, and Tajima Nobuo eds., "Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860-2010" (Brill, 2017) 1:12:05

2d ago1:12:05

1:12:05

Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860-2010 (Brill, 2017) examines the mutual images formed between Japan and Germany from the mid-nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, and the influence of these images on the development of bilateral relations. Unlike earlier research on Japanese-German relations, which focused on the sim…

1
Elisabeth Åsbrink, "1947: Where Now Begins" (Other Press, 2019) 1:04:37

2d ago1:04:37

1:04:37

An award-winning writer captures a year that defined the modern world, intertwining historical events around the globe with key moments from her personal history. The year 1947 marks a turning point in the twentieth century. Peace with Germany becomes a tool to fortify the West against the threats of the Cold War. The CIA is created, Israel is abou…

1
An Interview with Colby Sharp 46:47

1d ago46:47

46:47

Colby Sharp is widely considered one of the leading mavens on children's literature. He is co-author of several books, including Game Changer! Book Access for All Kids (Scholastic, 2018). He started the Nerdy Book Club blog, co-hosts The Yarn podcast with Teacher Librarian Travis Jonker, serves on the Nerd Camp Michigan team and has taught schoolch…

1
Hans Joas and Matthias Bormuth eds., "The Anthem Companion to Karl Jaspers" (Anthem Press, 2025) 1:39:40

2d ago1:39:40

1:39:40

The Anthem Companion to Karl Jaspers (Anthem Press, 2025) edited by Hans Joas and Matthias Bormuth is a collection of articles by an international group of leading experts has its special focus on the relevance of Karl Jaspers’s philosophy for the social sciences. It also includes classical evaluations of Jaspers’s thinking by renowned authors Talc…

1
Minxin Pei, "The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China" (Harvard UP, 2024) 39:45

2d ago39:45

39:45

Rising prosperity was supposed to bring democracy to China, yet the Communist Party’s political monopoly endures. How? Minxin Pei looks to the surveillance state. Though renowned for high-tech repression, China’s surveillance system is above all a labor-intensive project. Pei delves into the human sources of coercion at the foundation of CCP power,…

1
Jennifer Kabat, "Nightshining" (Milkweed, 2025) 1:11:59

2d ago1:11:59

1:11:59

Nightshining (Milkweed, 2025) Jennifer Kabat is the author of The Eighth Moon, her writing has also appeared in Frieze, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and The Believer. She teaches at the school of Visual Arts and the New School. An Apprentice herbalist, she lives in rural Upstate New York and serves on her volunteer fire department. Recommended Books: Hél…

1
Malaysian-Nordic Relations 19:55

2d ago19:55

19:55

In the latest episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, Professor Julie Yu-Wen Chen of the University of Helsinki speaks with Mr. Mohamed Ariff Bin Mohamed Ali, Chargé d’Affaires of the Malaysian Embassy in Helsinki, Finland. Their discussion centered on Malaysia's Foreign Policy, Malaysia’s current ASEAN 2025 Chairmanship, and the country’s engagement w…

1
Paul R. Beckett, "An Anatomy of Tax Havens: Europe, the Caribbean and the United States of America" (de Gruyter, 2023) 1:04:21

3d ago1:04:21

1:04:21

Tax havens in offshore lands like Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas were once considered a rarity, the preserve of the super-rich. Today, they are big business available to the masses. Their goal? To avoid any form of accountability. Own nothing. Possess everything. Be answerable to no one. Where are these tax havens? What forms can t…

1
Jack Snyder, "Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times" (Princeton UP, 2024) 48:03

3d ago48:03

48:03

Human rights are among our most pressing issues today. But rights promoters have reached an impasse in their effort to achieve rights for all. Human Rights for Pragmatists (Princeton University Press, 2022) explains why: activists prioritize universal legal and moral norms, backed by the public shaming of violators, but in fact, rights prevail only…

1
Jonathon Stuart Wright, "Joseph and Aseneth After Antiquity: A Study in Manuscript Transmission" (de Gruyter, 2025) 1:03:34

3d ago1:03:34

1:03:34

Joseph and Aseneth: A Study in Manuscript Transmission (de Gruyter, 2025) expands a few verses from the book of Genesis into a novella-length work. It is increasingly used as a source for Judaism and Christianity at the turn of the Common Era. Scholarly attention has largely focused the work's provenance, the priority of a longer or shorter text ve…

1
Matthew Wisnioski on the History of the Idea and Culture of “Innovation” in the United States 1:39:16

3d ago1:39:16

1:39:16

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Wisnioski, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, about his new book, Every American an Innovator: How Innovation Became a Way of Life. The pair talk about how the new book connects to Matt’s earlier book, Engineers for Change; how what Matt calls “innovation expertise” fir…

1
Felix Cowan, "The Kopeck Press: Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908-1918" (U Toronto Press, 2025) 51:56

3d ago51:56

51:56

In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Felix Cowan about his new book, The Kopeck Press Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908–1918 (University of Toronto Press, 2025). The Imperial Russian penny press was a vast network of newspapers sold for a single kopeck per issue. Emerging in cities and towns across the empire between the 1905 Revolu…

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