Departures with Robert Amsterdam
Departures is a literary podcast featuring half-hour interviews with nonfiction authors covering a diverse range of subjects, from geopolitics to law, to history, international affairs, and current events. Hosted by international lawyer Robert Amsterdam, founder of Amsterdam & Partners LLP, Departures brings listeners into casual but revealing conversations with our favorite authors, bringing light to new ideas, arguments, and issues deserving of consideration outside of the usual narratives of the news cycle.
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Africa's unique ideological history and its impact on unity
05/22/2025
Africa's unique ideological history and its impact on unity
In our latest episode we speak with the author and academic Frank Gerits, whose most recent work explores the history of the intense ideological battle which took place in the 1950s and 1960s for African hearts and minds. His book, The Ideological Scramble for Africa, explores how this competition wasn't just between Cold War superpowers, but among African leaders themselves who were projecting competing visions of what African modernity should look like. In this conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Dr. Gerits gives an informed portrait of key figures such as Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, whose revolutionary call for immediate continental unity challenged both colonial powers and fellow African leaders. While leaders like Senegal's Senghor favored maintaining ties with Europe and others promoted regional federations, Nkrumah demanded complete independence and a "Monroe Doctrine for Africa" that would keep the continent out of global power struggles entirely. Gerits discussess his views on the fascinating psychological dimension of decolonization, showing how Western powers promoted "modernization" programs designed to psychologically transform Africans, while leaders like Nkrumah and intellectuals like Frantz Fanon fought to reclaim African cultural identity. The louder Africans demanded independence, the more Western powers interpreted this as evidence they needed more assistance—a dynamic that continues today. Be sure to explore our library of past podcast episodes, which include more than a dozen recent books on Africa.
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How race and identity became sacred taboos
04/08/2025
How race and identity became sacred taboos
Following an early Spring hiatus, we're pleased to bring the Departures podcast back with a very special guest, the Canadian author and Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute Eric Kaufmann. Eric joins Robert Amsterdam to discuss his interesting new book "Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution." Kaufmann argues that the anti-racism taboo established in the mid-1960s became the "Big Bang of our moral universe," giving immense power to those who wield it. The conversation explores how progressive moral foundations focused solely on equality and care have created policy failures, how expanding definitions of racism have failed to protect minorities but instead serve to silence debate, and why self-censorship today exceeds that of the McCarthy era. Kaufmann's work examines the implications of these cultural shifts on institutions, free speech, and political discourse while offering thoughts on potential solutions, including recent American political developments.
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A discussion on religious freedom with Robert Destro
02/25/2025
A discussion on religious freedom with Robert Destro
Issues of religious freedom, in theory, should not be controversial or disputed - there is a general consensus among public opinion that all peoples should have the right to worship according to their beliefs. And yet, it seems that we are going backwards on this basic right, with governments and political parties all around the world seeking to weaponize divides among faith communities to their partisan advantages and dubious agendas. This week on Departures we are very privileged to have the special guest Robert Destro, law professor at the Columbus School of Law of Catholic University, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at State Department from 2019-2021. Destro discusses with host Robert Amsterdam many of the global challenges he faced in his official role in the previous administration, from China to the Middle East, as well as the Ukrainian government's campaign of persecution against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. (Disclosure: Robert Amsterdam is an international lawyer representing the UOC).
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Identities, Rivalries, and Schisms in the modern Middle East
02/04/2025
Identities, Rivalries, and Schisms in the modern Middle East
The Muslim world, despite its sprawling and complex history, is largely understood by outsiders to fall within the Shia or Sunni category, or among the conflict between. This is not just misleading, but also obscures a much more fascinating and colorful human history of the Middle East which continues to shape events today. In this episode of Departures with Robert Amsterdam, we're pleased to feature Barnaby Rogerson, the author of "The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East." Rogerson, who is a seasoned British author, television presenter and publisher explores these complex themes and history, sharing stories dating back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the accidental coup against his son, and fast forwarding right up to the Iranian revolution to draw insights on the religious cleavages which have taken root in the region in modern times.
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Why Sanctions Often Backfire
12/31/2024
Why Sanctions Often Backfire
The imposition of economic sanctions has become Washington's preferred method of expressing disapproval over the conduct of other states. But how effective are sanctions in changing behavior or achieving desired outcomes? This week on Departures with Robert Amsterdam, we are pleased to feature the brilliant former diplomat Vali Nasr, the Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. Professor Nasr is a co-author, along with Narges Vajoghli, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Velez, of the book How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare. In this insightful conversation, Nasr explores why Iran serves as a pivotal case study for understanding the role of sanctions in foreign policy, their limitations, and why they often fail to deliver the intended results. He also shares his expert perspectives on several critical geopolitical developments, including Israel's Gaza offensive, the fall of the Assad regime, and the internal dynamics within the Islamic Republic.
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Our relationship with the past is in big trouble
12/13/2024
Our relationship with the past is in big trouble
There's an old Soviet joke that goes something like "the future is certain; it's the past that is unpredictable" which continues to have an eerie resonance today, as revisionism seems to be on a constant assault against past events which are challenging or complex for some people to accept based on modern social mores and values. In his new book, "The War Against the Past: Why The West Must Fight For Its History," the renowned sociologist Frank Furedi takes aim at those commiting these acts of cultural vandalism and denounces, in quite strong terms, the damage and disservice they are doing to our society by projecting these modern sensibilities upon the historical record. In this conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Furedi expands on his thesis and delves into some of the examples of victimhood and "grievance entrepreneurs" surrounding the twisting of narratives from events more than two centuries ago. When the past is rendered toxic, Furedi argues, we begin to live in an inhumane society, one where time is divided into a bad past and a rightly engineered future, and which splits people into shamefaced identities and victim identities. The author makes a call to arms to fight back, to celebrate heroes, to stop apologizing, and to embrace history, warts and all.
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The ignominious track record of Africa's foreign saviors
12/05/2024
The ignominious track record of Africa's foreign saviors
Throughtout the post-colonial period in Africa, there has been no shortage of economists, non-governmental organizations, diplomats, and aid organizations flying in from the United States and Western Europe with an astonishing array of prescriptions and reform plans to dramatically transform the economies and governance structures of these young nations. With few exceptions, these interventions failed miserably, and arguably made things much worse in a number of countries. This is the focus of Bronwen Everill's new book, "Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance and African Economics," which explores the history of how the well intentioned foreigners often "enforced specifically Western ideas about growth, wealth, debt, unemployment, inflation, women’s work and more, and used Western metrics to find African countries wanting." In this discussion with Robert Amsterdam, Dr. Everill discusses the findings of her book, explores how new players such as China and Russia are now taking over influence in the region, and what the future role should be for collaborative economic development and trade with the region.
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Reconsidering the Western Response to China's Global Rise
11/28/2024
Reconsidering the Western Response to China's Global Rise
A popular meme in Kenya goes something like this: everytime China visits, we get a hospital. When the US visits, we get a lecture. That's of course not an accurate picture of the competition between the West and China in the global South, but it does highlight a certain disconnect that can be perceived widely among many in these regions which have been included in the Belt and Road projects, or who have otherwise fallen out of favor in terms of their previous allies. This week on Departures we are pleased to feature a conversation with the author Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro, a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Dr. Mastro's new book, "Upstart: How China Became a Great Power," is a tour de force examining how China was able to climb to great power status through a careful mix of strategic emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship on the international stage - which ended up being not so different from a startup business aiming to disrupt a ringfenced status quo. Dr. Mastro's book is enormously helpful in challenging how we understand China's success and aims to offer insights on how the response from Washington and other Western allies to adjust to the geopolitical realities that lie beyond the newspaper headlines.
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Kant, Borges, Heisenberg and the Nature of Observation and Knowledge
11/20/2024
Kant, Borges, Heisenberg and the Nature of Observation and Knowledge
What does it mean to perceive reality? How do art, science, and philosophy converge in shaping our understanding of the world? In this episode of Departures with Robert Amsterdam, we sit down with William Egginton, acclaimed author and professor, to dive into his latest book, "The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality." Egginton weaves a captivating narrative that bridges the literary genius of Jorge Luis Borges, the groundbreaking physics of Werner Heisenberg, the poetry of Robert Frost, and the profound philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Egginton explores how these thinkers confronted the boundaries of human knowledge, the mysteries of perception, and the paradoxes of existence, fate, and choice. In this conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Egginton shares his insights into the unexpected connections and overlapping themes with these towering figures, the questions they asked, and how their ideas resonate with our quest to make sense of an increasingly complex universe. The remarkable harmony between nature, science, art, philosophy and literature during these critical years resonated deeply with us, and we hope you enjoy this conversation about this special book.
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How the Ukraine war has altered the direction of globalization
11/13/2024
How the Ukraine war has altered the direction of globalization
As this coming February will mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion and occupation of Eastern Ukraine, there is already a clear and tangible impact upon the geopolitical challenges faced by the United States and her allies in Europe in terms of their roles in the international system. This week Departures with Robert Amsterdam is pleased to welcome back past guest Michael Kimmage, noted historian, former State Department official, and Associate Professor of History at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. In this conversation we review his excellent new book, "Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability," which critically examines the contributing causes to the outbreak of the war and measures the irrevocable ways in which the conflict has altered the course of US strategic engagement in the international sphere. In his book, Kimmage argues that the war has shattered three critical assumptions - that European peace was permanent, that Europe could continue to sustain this stability without heavy US involvement, and lastly, that Russia would be consigned to a peripheral role. With those assumptions now gone, Kimmage and host Robert Amsterdam discuss what we can expect next.
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A pivotal election brings uncertainty to Japan
11/05/2024
A pivotal election brings uncertainty to Japan
In a week in which most eyes are on the US election, there are other meaningful elections which also merit close examination. On October 27 Japanese voters expressed their pent-up frustration with the growing list of scandals associated with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and ended the party's near 70-year long rule. LDP and their partner Komeito failed to reach a majority in the lower house of the Diet, earning just 215 seats out of 465. With most of the other ascendent parties refusing to enter into coalitions with LDP, the new Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru faces serious vulnerabilities to his agenda, and for the first time in decades, a new level of uncertainty has been introduced to Washington's top ally in Northeast Asia. The reality, however, is altogether much more subtle in terms of what Japanese voters are saying. This week we welcome back Tobias Harris, who is the founder of political risk advisory firm Japan Foresight and the author of the Observing Japan substack. Tobias last appeared on Departures in 2020 to discuss his excellent book, "The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan."
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Fears, miscalculations, and mistakes which led to the war in Ukraine
10/30/2024
Fears, miscalculations, and mistakes which led to the war in Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine grinds into yet another brutal winter, narratives are shifting in Western capitals regarding the nature of the conflict, its goals, and the longer term meaning of the war in terms of the balance of power on the European continent. Looking back to the war's origins, it is important not only to examine the build-up of Russia's aggression against the sovereignty of its neighboring states, but also the decades of miscalculations and lost opportunities specifically by the United States during the post-Cold War period. This is the central focus of the new book published by Jonathan Haslam, Professor Emeritus of the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge and one of the UK’s most distinguished and respected experts on the former Soviet Union. In his latest book, "Hubris: The American Origins of Russia's War against Ukraine," Haslam observes that a gross and systemic lack of understanding by Western allies concerning Russia’s intentions and likely actions is ultimately to blame for the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. In this discussion with Robert Amsterdam about the history of NATO expansion and covert US activity within Ukraine, Haslam argues that even up to the Maidan crisis of 2014, the US could have backed away and avoided the negative outcome which will be dealing with for generations.
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The great rebalancing of the West
10/24/2024
The great rebalancing of the West
Perhaps one of the most meaningful facts that illustrates the sweeping changes taking place in global affairs is the following: In 1950, nearly one in three people in the world lived in a Western country. By 2050, that number will dwindle to one in ten, bringing with it a wide variety of recalculations by companies, culture, influence, and politics. This demographic change is but one of many interesting pillars supporting the arguments of the Singapore-based political scientist Samir Puri, whose new book, "Westlessness: The Great Global Rebalancing" explores how the gradually diminishing power of the West is mapped onto geoeconomics, technology, popular culture, and identity. In this conversation with host Robert Amsterdam, Puri makes it clear that it is not a total replacement or dislocation of the West from global affairs we will be confronted with, but rather a realignment that has been decades in the making. Puri points to the global economic crisis of 2008 as one of several turning points, when the West's confidence in its economic supremacy began to crack, but also discusses sweeping changes to technology and popular entertainment and global commerce that indicate how the next several decades are quite unlikely to resemble the apex of Western power in postwar period.
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How the Congolese view their relationship to the global big tech supply chain
10/16/2024
How the Congolese view their relationship to the global big tech supply chain
The modern world's bottomless demand for precious metals originating in the mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo is covered daily in the news, from the supply chains underpinning the most common consumer electronics in our pockets to the most critical national security and future energy questions. But rarely are these extractive industries understood from the perspective of the people most directly involved on the ground. In his excellent new book, "The Eyes of the World: Mining the Digital Age in the Eastern DR Congo," University of California Davis Professor James H. Smith explores how policy changes in the West aimed at eliminating blood minerals ended up engineering catastrophic civil conflicts and upended social frameworks. In this conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Dr. Smith shares how his ethnographic research informs on a different aspect of the digital age than what we are ordinarily confronted with, bringing light to the understanding of their role in global capitalism from those who dig the minerals from the ground to those who sell, process, and refine them.
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Russia's burning ambition for global power
07/09/2024
Russia's burning ambition for global power
Following the end of World War II, Josef Stalin and Russia's leadership had a certain vision of the postwar order, one which ended up being quite different from reality. They had expected to maintain control over the whole of Europe, and have these gains of war legitimized and recognized by the United States - with specific emphasis on the carve up of territory concluded in the Yalta conference of 1945. But these burning ambitions for global power continued long after in the Khruschev and Brezhnev eras and came to define the cold war. On this week's episode of Departures we are very excited to feature the noted historian Sergey Radchenko, whose book, "To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power," is a tour de force detailing the history of Kremlin thinking throughout this critical period. With a strong focus on archival sources, Radchenko avoids ideological framing in his analysis of Kremlin decision-making, focusing instead on some of the surprising motivations and long-held beliefs of Russian leadership, prompting decisions which eventually turned the tide of US and global opinion against detente. Radchenko's book leaves open a number of questions about Russia's unmet desire for recognition on the global stage, many of which continue to provide relevant insight into Vladimir Putin's current appetite for war.
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The beginning of the end of the old Ottoman world order
06/21/2024
The beginning of the end of the old Ottoman world order
In the early 19th century, the Ottoman empire was facing rebellion, decline, and increasing competition for influence with Europe. The leadership in Istanbul implemented desperate plans to preserve the empire through modernizing reforms, known as Tanzimat, which among other measures declared Muslims, Christians, and Jews to be equal under the law. But things did not go as planned. In Eugene Rogan's richly colorful and kaleidoscopic account, "The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East," the reader is taken deep inside the conspiratorial series of events that led up to the eight-day-long mob violence and execution of some 5,000 Christians, and the world-changing response to restore peace and order to the city. Drawing on original never before seen historical documents and eyewitness accounts, Rogan's narrative reads like a dramatic Hollywood film, focusing on how resentment over growing Christian wealth and trade eventually prompted the violence. With detailed portraits of some of the main protagonists, the book makes a strong case for 1860 as a pivotal turning point that led to much of the structures that can continue to be observed in the modern Middle East.
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Ukraine and its challenges to the international system
06/12/2024
Ukraine and its challenges to the international system
There is a certain trend of narratives regarding the Russia's invasion of Ukraine that are understood as gospel in the West. And when analysts or academics stray outside those narrative lines, they are targeted with intolerance and all sorts of unfounded accusations. The fact is that we don't seem to be able capable of a wide range of debate of events in Ukraine during wartime given the extraordinary stakes of the conflict and the immoral, expansionist violence propagated by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin. But this extreme position robs of further understanding. This week's Departures podcast features Glenn Diesen, a Norwegian professor of political science and the author of "The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order." In this conversation with host Robert Amsterdam, Prof. Diesen discusses Russia's war in Ukraine from different perspectives, seeking to understand how the conflict has placed new pressures on the international order. Diesen argues that we have entered into a period of absolutism, with social divisions being ignored within Ukraine, and both Russia and the United States increasingly acting within a zero-sum game of total victory or total defeat which disincentivizes peace, which is very unfortnate and very dangerous for the wider world.
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When nothing is important, everything is at risk
05/22/2024
When nothing is important, everything is at risk
The tremendous velocity with which modernity and technology has encroached on our social lives is underappreciated, shaping our understanding not only of critical events but also ourselves, as the world is flattened. A teenager in France or Brazil may see violent footage of the Ukraine war fed to them on TikTok, only to be replaced a moment later with dancing, music, and comedy, whatever they want - to the point that nothing matters, there is a lack of reaction, and there are no clear system of signals of do's and don'ts, and our society becomes untethered from collective community and public live. These are some of the questions that the renowned French intellectual Olivier Roy wrestles with in his fascinating new book, "The Crisis of Culture: Identity Politics and the Empire of Norms." In this interview with Robert Amsterdam, Dr. Roy discusses how in modern culture people no longer seek meaning, no longer seek explanation, and how there is no longer any desire to think in terms of values. The perceived correlation of two disparate events or traits is simply accepted with interrogation, the very concept of meaning is missing, and this presents a psychological crisis, Roy argues. In the absence of a shared culture, identity gets whittled down to a handful of traits, and everything becomes an explicit code of how to speak and how to act. And this becomes the driving engine of the politics of culture, polarization, and, in some cases, political extremism.
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A Bold New Era for Japan
05/11/2024
A Bold New Era for Japan
On this week's episode of Departures with Robert Amsterdam we're pleased to invite our friend and colleague of many years Jakob Edberg, the co-founder of The GR Company, a government relations consultancy headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and with offices in Osaka, Seoul, London, and Washington DC. Jakob's unique perspective on the rapidly evolving leadership role of Japan in the region and, increasingly, in global affairs are shaped by more than 20 years of experience advising some of the world's largest companies on politically sensitive matters in the region. According to Edberg, Japan's new role as a primary actor and top ally of the United States has been an intentional and gradual process dating back to before Shinzo Abe's ascedency and the current diplomacy-forward administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
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The devastating human toll of Russia's war in Ukraine
05/02/2024
The devastating human toll of Russia's war in Ukraine
Among the slew of books that have come out recently on the war in Ukraine, there are few which take as broad a scope of the human experience of the soldiers, victims, and communities living on the front than the latest entry written by the war correspondent Christopher Miller. In his book, "The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine," Miller bears witness to the brutality of this remarkable, unprecedented conflict, bringing the stories of those involved with profound empathy and vivid detail - not only from pivotal scenes on the front, but also going back more than a decade to the seeds of the war, the meaning of Ukraine's struggle for nationhood, and the propulsive resilience that binds the survivors from Bucha to Bakhmut and Mariupol and beyond. In this conversation about his book with Departures host Robert Amsterdam, the FT correspondent comments: "I think this is a war that is more black and white than any war we have experienced since the Second World War. I do think this is a war that is more 'good vs. evil' than anything we have seen in the last 80 years." In explaining his approach to war reporting and the complexity of objectivity in the midst of violent conflict, Miller comments: "I think it is powerful enough in some cases to explain what you are witnessing. In the book, I was able to do some things that I am not able to do in my daily reporting, which is to provide some context, some personal context and analysis based on my personal experiences and knowledge. (...) I do try to separate myself from the events, but there are moments where you just can't. Sometimes you do have to help, sometimes that means carrying someone. (...) At that point you can't say, 'sorry, I am a reporter.'" A truly outstanding book from one of the greatest young war correspondents of our current era, we hope that listeners of Departures will pick up a copy.
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Vienna and the birth of the knowledge economy
05/01/2024
Vienna and the birth of the knowledge economy
From the late-nineteenth century until the mid-1930s, Vienna was Europe's undisputed powerhouse of ideas. But along with the exhilirating achievements of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt, there were also darker forces emerging in parallel which have had their own negative impact on modernity, from organized anti-Semitism to ethnonationalism ideologies. These complex tensions are explored in detail in Richard Cockett's excellent new book, "Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World." In this discussion with Robert Amsterdam, Cockett explains how the Habsburg emperor, Franz Joseph, permitted such intellectual flourishing to occur, as the rapid influx of Jews and other groups and their assimilation into the Austrian middle class via commercial and educational success augmented intellectual curiosity, discovery, and experimentation throughout the city. Viennese café and salon culture also helped to foster schools of thought, as students and professors would furiously debate disputed major questions of the day into the wee hours. The conditions for this fervent intellectual incubation of course was not to last, and we're all aware of what followed. Cockett's thoughtful history of the city in this period highlights what we can learn about encouraging greater intellectual vitality, pluralism, and civilizational development.
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How the Ukrainian Left Views the War
04/19/2024
How the Ukrainian Left Views the War
The tremendous velocity of history that Ukraine has experienced since independence to the Maidan revolution to the catastrophic war brought on by Russia's aggression often tends to be sold and told in neatly packaged narratives to the West - a heroic tale of a plucky democracy breaking from from the yoke of an authoritarian past. But the reality, as always, is much more nuanced, complex, and messy. This week we are pleased to feature an interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko, the author of the fascinating collection of essays, "Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War." Ishchenko, a sociologist based at Berlin’s Freie Universität, offers a critical examination of Ukraine's trajectory post-Maidan revolution and asks probing, intimate questions about moral leadership and the future political model that the people of this nation at war are still seeking and negotiating. While making no excuses for Russia's brutality in the war, in this conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Ishchenko brings criticism to bear on the leadership from the left-leaning school of thought, examining the costs of ignoring history, misrepresenting identities, and other factors which have fed the growth of nationalism in Ukraine at the cost of other sectors of the society.
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The Future of Taiwan's Silicon Shield
04/08/2024
The Future of Taiwan's Silicon Shield
It was just three years ago when the Economist magazine ran a cover story on Taiwan, describing it as "the most dangerous place in the world." With intensifying competition with China and deteriorating global security following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there are many arguments that continue to support that negative outlook. But that's not the vision for CY Huang, a veteran investment banker with FCC Partners and an expert in the semiconductor industry. According to Huang, Taiwan benefits from its "Silicon Shield," the principle being that as long as the world needs Taiwan's dominant semiconductor production, Taiwan should be safe from foreign threats - though that level of security is tenuous and dependent on many other factors. In this fascinating coversation with Robert Amsterdam, CY shares his perspective on the geopolitics of semiconductor production, how the new era of AI is driving demand for more high-end chips which can only be manufactured in certain locations, and the recent history of the island's relations with the mainland.
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Understanding the Ukraine War through the Lens of Greek Tragedy
03/11/2024
Understanding the Ukraine War through the Lens of Greek Tragedy
As the war in Ukraine rages on into its second year, there remains little consensus or understanding of how the conflict could be resolved outside of military outcomes, and a persisting misunderstanding on behalf of the West regarding Ukraine's own internal preexisting social divisions. This week we're pleased to have a special guest, Dr. Nicolai Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, whose new book, "The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution," tackles these questions with unique literary framing. The conflict can not be understood merely on an institutional or rational level, but also must be considered in light of the emotional dimensions, Petro argues. Diving into the texts of Greek tragedies, Petro finds numerous illuminating parables from ancient Athenian society which can serve as frameworks to heal deep social trauma and create more just institutions. In this fascinating conversation with host Robert Amsterdam, Petro explores how he got the idea to approach the war from this perspective, how he responds to recent changes in Ukraine since the outbreak of war, and how the country may endeavor to secure its future.
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You can't understand the Soviet system without understanding the daily lives of its people
02/02/2024
You can't understand the Soviet system without understanding the daily lives of its people
From the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the chaotic disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, there is a dazzling and disorienting array of histories. While many books detail the lives and politics of Soviet leaders, Karl Schlögel invites us to better understand the experience of the country through the lives lived by more common Russians, from the depredations of communal apartments, repression, and violence, to the more prosaic aspects of Soviet life - the relics and rituals of museums, the grandeur and intensity of gigantic public works projects. In his new book, "The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World," Schlögel, who is one of Germany's most authoritative historians on Russia, presents a history that is not comprehensive or categorical, but instead personal. In this conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Schlögel discusses his approach to such a vast period with selection of coloful vingettes, taking the reader inside the Soviety experience with extraordinary depth and detail.
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The enduring legacy of the Great Arab Revolt
01/25/2024
The enduring legacy of the Great Arab Revolt
There is a strong argument to be made that the root of Palestinian identity can be traced back to the 1936-1939 Great Revolt, which united rival families and communities, melded urban with rural, and joined rich and poor together in a struggle against Zionism and the British Empire. This is the starting point in Oren Kessler's exquisitely detailed new book, "Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict," which takes the reader inside the earliest days of Jewish migration from Europe during the interwar period, and raises numerous questions about the key events which continue to shape the modern Middle East conflict today. In this conversation with Robert Amsterdam, Kessler approaches the protagonists in this history with great care and empathy, and sheds light on the numerous complexities behind critical "what if" moments, from the Balfour Declaration and the White Paper of 1939. In light of the horrific October 7 attacks and the continuing conflict in Gaza, an interrogation of the historical roots of statehood in the region such as Kessler's book are a revelation and education.
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When China gave up on its peaceful rise
01/16/2024
When China gave up on its peaceful rise
Formulated by PRC think tanks in the mid-1990s, China's official slogan of the "peaceful rise" sought to calm Western fears regarding its blossoming economic, military, and political power as the nation resumed an outsized role in global affairs. However the mood did not last long, as in the later years of President Hu Jintao's administration, policies hardened into a more aggressive, militaristic stance, and then was continued by the personalistic regime of President Xi Jinping, as China sought to project power abroad to boost popularity of the regime at home. There are few people more qualified to examine this period than Susan Shirk, a professor at the University of California San Diego and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs. In her latest book, "Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise," Shirk takes apart some of the most common myths and narratives held by observers of China - namely that the "peaceful rise" was a deception instead of an intention, but this was not the case. Shirk explores the numerous and complex domestic factors guiding of Chinese foreign policy, while rejecting the premise that all decisions stem from the personal whims of Xi Jinping and his agenda for Chinese primacy. Xi does not enjoy any sort of full control over China, Shirk argues, but sits atop a complex, competing system of institutional imperatives, such as weiquan (sovereignty rights defence) and weiwen (stability maintenance). These imperatives often produce policies at odds with Xi's preferences, and leave China with a government that shouldn't be considered a rational unitary actor. In crafting policy responses to China's growing power and influence, Shirk warns against overreacting in ways that weaken the ability of the US to compete. In other words, stay true to the principles of a free and open market democracy. The state behaves in ways that are not directed by and are sometime at odds with the preferences of the leader, particularly in the areas of , or, broadly, international and domestic security. She takes a contrary view to those who would locate the source of Beijing’s behaviour purely in terms of Xi Jinping’s mission to centre China on the world stage. Instead, she notes that friction over the same issues analysts now frequently associate with Xi began much earlier than his term. These tensions have worsened under Xi, but they are not merely a product of his leadership. Nor, she argues, is Xi totally in control.
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The more a Canadian academic learned about China, the less the West wanted to hear
12/28/2023
The more a Canadian academic learned about China, the less the West wanted to hear
As 2023 draws to a close, it has become increasingly clear that there are profound misunderstandings and misapprehensions running amok in Western media narratives regarding the pecularities of the current state in China. That's precisely why there should be a high level of interest in a book of personal experience, nuanced narrative, and thoughtful observation from a Canadian academic who for a time played a unique role within China's state bureaucracy. In 2017, Daniel A. Bell was appointed dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University—the first foreign dean of a political science faculty in China’s history. The story of his time in this position is enormously illuminating, highlighting both the immense challenges and also the occasional positives, and told with a certain level of humor and empathy often missing from accounts of politically sensitive jobs in the era of Xi Jinping. His book, "The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University," is a riotously fun, informative, and eye-opening tour through modern Chinese academia. In his interview with Robert Amsterdam, Bell recounts how if some of his more "constructive" takes on events in China were found to be inconsistent with the predominant narrative, he encountered isolation from Westerners who preferred their current understanding.
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How a decade of street protests changed the world
12/20/2023
How a decade of street protests changed the world
In June 2013, the journalist Vincent Bevins found himself covering a mass street protest in São Paulo, originally sparked by a rise in bus fares. As the tear canisters rained town and violent clashes with police began, the protesters began chanting "Love is over. Turkey is here," making a intentional connection to another uprising taking place across the world in Gezi Park in Istanbul. These parallel events, along with other major upheavals such as the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine, mark the highlights of a critical decade in modern history in which more people took place in mass protest events across the world than at any other time. And what we are left with after these disruptive, destabilizing events take place, how it reshapes the state and reconfigures political representation in the aftermath, is quite far from predictable and much less clear in terms of the public understanding of their meaning. This is the focus of Bevins' excellent new book, "If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution," which ambitiously presents a history of the 2010s, globally, through the lens of popular uprisings and their discontents. Bevins, who also joined the Departures podcast in 2020 to discuss his other book, "The Jakarta Method" (more relevant now than ever, read it!), explains how he wrote If We Burn with distinct openness and neutrality, which allows readers to approach the work from many angles, and draw their own understandings of how these popular uprisings so often failed to produce the outcomes that they aspired to, and what can be learned for the future.
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The US is trying to get the Cold War band back together
12/14/2023
The US is trying to get the Cold War band back together
Following the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists, President Joe Biden began to refer to America's support for the Israeli offensive into Gaza as one that was equally aligned with US support for the war in Ukraine. This was a narrative that proposed that in both cases evil forces had attacked the innocent, and that it was America's role to help them both defend themselves. But the analogy is only partly legitimate, and also opens up room for quite a lot of criticism of the direction of American foreign policy generally in the post Cold War period. This brings up difficult questions about what Washington is trying to accomplish in these conflicts, and also points to the weakening level of public and moral support for those goals. Today we are featuring a very special and distinguished guest, Samuel Moyn, who is the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. Moyn is the author of the recent book, "Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War." During this podcast interview, we discuss his most recent article for Prospect Magazine, titled, "America’s undoing." That article can be viewed here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/united-states/64135/americas-undoing
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