Best Joseph and Hector Podcasts (2025)

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Verena Halsmayer on Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact 1:22:06

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14h ago1:22:06

1:22:06

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, chats with Verena Halsmeyer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna, about her recent, award-winning book, Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact. The book explores the history of the way economists think about growth, including the role of technological change in it. It focuses on t…

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Amy Hughes, "An Actor's Tale: Theater, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States" (U Michigan Press, 2025) 1:04:14

14h ago1:04:14

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Harry Watkins was no one special. During a career that spanned four decades, this nineteenth-century actor yearned for fame but merely skirted the edges of it. He performed alongside the brightest stars, wrote scores of plays, and toured the United States and England, but he never became a household name. Inspired by this average performer’s life a…

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Emily Callaci, "Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor" (Seal Press, 2025) 46:07

5d ago46:07

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Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise. In Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise (Penguin/Seal Press 2025), historian Emily Callaci tells the story of this campaign by explor…

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Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025) 54:29

5d ago54:29

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In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced econo…

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Christina Jerne, "Opposition by Imitation: The Economics of Italian Anti-Mafia Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2025) 56:40

6d ago56:40

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For more than 150 years, Italy has been home to a resilient and evolving resistance against the pervasive influence of mafias. While these criminal organizations are renowned for their vast international business enterprises, the collective actions taken to oppose them are less known. In Opposition by Imitation: The Economics of Italian Anti-Mafia …

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Vanessa S. Williamson, "The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History" (Basic Books, 2025) 53:49

7d ago53:49

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Americans have always fought over the meaning of freedom and equality. What is not commonly recognized is that the battles most pivotal in defining our democracy, from the framing of the Constitution to the decades-long backlash to the civil rights movement, hinged on one issue—taxes. In The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation i…

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Dan Millman: The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior 1:07:16

7d ago1:07:16

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Dan Millman’s book: The Way of the Peaceful Warrior,⁠ Blends fact and fiction as he recounts his day's training as a college gymnast in his bid to become a World Champion, along with all the hardships he faced. The fiction format of the novel magnifies the impact of the lessons contained within, allowing us to envision our transformation whilst tap…

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Thomas Piketty, "A Brief History of Equality" (Harvard UP, 2022) 28:56

8d ago28:56

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It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the ce…

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Joe Allen, "The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS" (Haymarket Books, 2020) 1:01:15

9d ago1:01:15

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If the 20th Century was the American Century, it was also UPS's Century. Joe Allen's The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS (‎Haymarket Books, 2020), tears down the Brown Wall surrounding one of America's most admired companies—the United Parcel Service (UPS). The company that we see everyday but know so little about. How did a company th…

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Pierre-Yves Donzé & Maki Umemura, "Pierre-Yves Donzé & Maki Umemura, Japan and the Great Divergence in Business History" (JESB, 2025) 32:37

12d ago32:37

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For much of the late 20th century, Japanese business historians were core contributors to the global field. They published, collaborated, and shaped debates. But something shifted after 2000. Their international visibility - and participation in emerging theoretical conversations - declined. In Japan and the Great Divergence in Business History (Do…

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Discovering Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Joyful Life. Héctor García. 1:00:23

14d ago1:00:23

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Join hosts Mike and Mark on the latest episode of the Moonshots Podcast as they delve into the profound wisdom of the book "Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life" by Héctor García. In this captivating episode, the hosts explore the concept of Ikigai, a Japanese philosophy that unlocks the key to a fulfilling and purpose-driven life.B…

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How Government Made the U.S. into a Manufacturing Powerhouse 1:10:28

15d ago1:10:28

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Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Colleen Dunlavy, Emeritus Professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Madison, about her recent book, Small, Medium, Large: How Government Made the U.S. Into a Manufacturing Powerhouse. Small, Medium, Large examines the crucial role that the U.S. federal government played in rationalizing and diffus…

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Joseph Stiglitz, "The Origins of Inequality" (Oxford UP, 2025) 39:47

15d ago39:47

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Joseph E. Stiglitz has had a remarkable career. He is a brilliant academic, capped by sharing the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and the Nobel Peace Prize, and honorary degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and more than fifty other universities, and elected not only to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Lett…

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Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025) 1:49:59

19d ago1:49:59

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Monsoon Voyagers follows the voyage of a single dhow (sailing vessel), the Crooked, along with its captain and crew, from Kuwait to port cities around the Persian Gulf and Western Indian Ocean, from 1924 to 1925. Through his account of the voyage, Fahad Ahmad Bishara unpacks a much broader history of circulation and exchange across the Arabian Sea …

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William J. Glover, "Reformatting Agrararian Life: Urban History from the Countryside in Colonial India" (Stanford UP, 2025) 56:58

20d ago56:58

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Reformatting Agrarian Life presents a stealth urban history from the countryside that foregrounds the mutual entanglements of agrarian and urban expertise. William J. Glover traces an essential genealogy for understanding how urbanism unexpectedly left the city in late colonial India and began to settle in agrarian space, exploring how two milieus …

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Charles Watkins, "Trees Ancient and Modern: Woodland Cultures and Conservation" (Reaktion, 2025) 55:02

20d ago55:02

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Charles Watkins joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Trees Ancient and Modern (Reaktion, 2025). This delightful new book explores the relationship between trees and people and reveals how people have used, valued and understood forests over time. While trees are celebrated as symbols of natural beauty, they are increasingly at risk from cli…

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Loic De Canniere, "The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare" (Anthem, 2025) 1:07:47

21d ago1:07:47

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The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labor Markets and Welfare explores the major trends that will define the face of the sub-Saharan continent in the next three decades. The near doubling of Africa’s population by 2050 will lead to more than twenty million new job seekers entering the African labor market every year until then. Right no…

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Live a Happier and Better life Mindfulness and Meditation. 10% Happier by Dan Harris 53:10

21d ago53:10

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"10% Happier" by Dan Harris explores mindfulness and meditation as tools for finding greater happiness and well-being. Buy The Book on Amazonhttps://geni.us/10HappierDanHarrisGet the summary via Blinkisthttps://blinkist.o6eiov.net/QOLAxzBecome a Moonshot Memberhttps://www.patreon.com/Moonshots Here are some key themes from the book that can help pe…

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Peter McAteer, "Leading the Sustainable Organization: The Quest for Ethical Brands and a Culture of Sustainable Innovation" (Anthem Press, 2025) 1:12:37

23d ago1:12:37

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Never before have we been presented with the prospect of redesigning business at scale to create a more sustainable future for our planet and the people who inhabit it. As we pass the midpoint of the Sustainable Development Goals (2015–2030), the world has changed. There is not only more progress and policy but also more disagreement on the way for…

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Linda Upham-Bornstein, "'Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender': Taxpayers’ Associations, Pocketbook Politics, and the Law during the Great Depression" (Temple UP, 2023) 45:45

23d ago45:45

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During the Great Depression, the proliferation of local taxpayers’ associations was dramatic and unprecedented. The justly concerned members of these organizations examined the operations of state, city, and county governments, then pressed local officials for operational and fiscal reforms. These associations aimed to reduce the cost of state and …

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Maxim Sytch, "The Influence Economy: Decoding Supplier-Induced Demand" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:06:59

24d ago1:06:59

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In The Influence Economy: Decoding Supplier-Induced Demand (Oxford UP, 2025), Maxim Sytch reveals how professional services--consulting, marketing, banking, and legal firms--create demand for unnecessary and potentially harmful products and services. Such supplier-induced demand can take many forms, including superfluous reorganizations, frivolous …

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Edmond Smith, "Ruthless: A New History of Britain’s Rise to Wealth and Power, 1660-1800" (Yale UP, 2025) 57:57

28d ago57:57

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Was Britain’s industrial revolution the result of its machines, which produced goods with miraculous efficiency? Was it the country’s natural abundance, which provided coal for its engines, ores for its furnaces and food for its labourers? Or was it Britain’s colonies, where a brutalized enslaved workforce produced cotton for its factories? In Ruth…

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Step out of Your Comfort Zone, Cultivate a Deep Sense of Self-awareness. Michael A Singer. 51:07

28d ago51:07

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"The Untethered Soul" by Michael A. Singer is a self-help book exploring personal transformation and achieving optimal performance. It delves into the importance of self-awareness and mindfulness in enhancing one's personal and professional life. Become a member https://www.patreon.com/Moonshots The book emphasizes that our thoughts, emotions, or e…

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Daniel B. Rood, "The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery: Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Greater Caribbean" (Oxford UP, 2020) 41:09

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The period of the "second slavery" was marked by geographic expansion of zones of slavery into the Upper US South, Cuba, and Brazil and chronological expansion into the industrial age. As The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery: Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Greater Caribbean (Oxford UP, 2020) shows, ambitious planters throughout the G…

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Jeff Neilson, "Fortress Farming: Agrarian Transitions, Livelihoods, and Coffee Value Chains in Indonesia" (Cornell UP, 2025) 44:31

1M ago44:31

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Over the last several decades, sources of income derived away from farms have come to play a much bigger role in rural Indonesian households. How do rural people in Indonesia engage with farming and social and economic spheres beyond their villages? What do their changing forms of engagement mean for land relations, sustainability, and the future o…

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Hector Vera, "Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025) 57:44

1M ago57:44

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Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and its preference for practicality has not adopted the most practical, scientific, and innovative system of measurement? Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America (Vanderbilt UP, 2025) by Dr. Hector Ve…

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Scott D. Anthony, "Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) 1:03:49

1M ago1:03:49

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Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) arrives at the perfect moment as artificial intelligence and other technologies promise to unleash another wave of major transformation. This book is a kaleidoscopic look at how eleven disruptive innovations—including the iPhone, transistor, disposab…

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Alice Lovejoy, "Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War" (U California Press, 2025) 45:50

1M ago45:50

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The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another tale to tell that connects film as a material to the twentieth century's history of war, destruction, and cruelty. This story comes into focus during World War II at the factories of Tennessee Eastman, …

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Robert C. Bird, "Legal Knowledge in Organizations: A Source of Strategic and Competitive Advantage" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 59:26

1M ago59:26

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Legal Knowledge in Organizations: A Source of Strategic and Competitive Advantage (Cambridge UP, 2025) offers a step-by-step guide on how to utilize the law as a source of value in organizations. Robert C. Bird demonstrates how legal knowledge can be a valuable asset for firms, providing them with a sustainable competitive advantage that is difficu…

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Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now 1:05:08

1M ago1:05:08

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The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle teaches us that every minute you spend worrying about the future or regretting the past is a minute lost, because really all you have to live in is the present, the now, and gives you actionable strategies to start living every minute as it occurs. Eckhart published The Power of Now in 1997, which eventually went o…

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Stuart Hart, "Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future" (Stanford Business Books, 2024) 1:16:17

1M ago1:16:17

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In Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future (Stanford Business Books, 2024) Hart argues that the current Milton Friedman–style "shareholder primacy capitalism," as taught in business schools and embraced around the world, has become dangerous for society, the climate, and the planet. Moreover, he maintains, it's econ…

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Deborah Gordon, "No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World" (Oxford UP, 2021) 46:28

1M ago46:28

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In No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World (Oxford University Press, 2021), Deborah Gordon shows that no two oils or gases are environmentally alike. Each has a distinct, quantifiable climate impact. While all oils and gases pollute, some are much worse for the climate than others. In clear, accessible language, Gordon expla…

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Nancy Newman, "Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York: Including Twenty-Two New Settings of Period Tunes" (SUNY Press, 2025) 53:34

1M ago53:34

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Upstate New York's Anti-Rent Movement is considered the last struggle over feudalism in the United States. Tenant farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk region engaged in organized protest throughout the 1840s to contest monopoly ownership of the land they worked. Arguing their cause in newspapers, on broadsides, and at rallies, their aspirations also took s…

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Christopher F. Jones, "The Invention of Infinite Growth: How Economists Forgot About the Natural World" (Simon and Schuster, 2025) 52:30

1M ago52:30

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Most economists believe that growth is the surest path to better lives. This has proven to be one of humanity’s most powerful and dangerous ideas. It shapes policy across the globe, but it fatally undermines the natural ecosystems necessary to sustain human life. How did we get here and what might be next? In The Invention of Infinite Growth: How E…

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Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025) 35:26

1M ago35:26

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In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton UP, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world’s largest, most advanced economies—the Unite…

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Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio, "Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern Italy: The Mechanics, Costs, Risks, and Rewards" (Brepols, 2025) 54:54

1M ago54:54

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Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern Italy: The Mechanics, Costs, Risks, and Rewards (Brepols, 2025) by Dr. Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio focuses on enormous amounts of sculptures moved from Italy to Spain from ca. 1500-1750. An analysis of an important body of unpublished archival documentation regarding the practical issues involved in making and tr…

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Maggie Gram, "The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History" (Basic Books, 2025) 1:03:03

1M ago1:03:03

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Maggie Gram is a writer, cultural historian, and designer. She leads an experience-design team at Google. She has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and Harvard University, and she has written for N+1 and the New York Times. She lives in New York. The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History (…

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Emily Gee, "Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman" (Liverpool UP, 2025) 49:06

1M ago49:06

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Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman (Liverpool University Press, 2025) by Emily Gee is the first comprehensive study of the campaigns to house a new generation of working women, the specialised design of the buildings and the women whose lives were changed by this architectural movement. After 1900, t…

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Jon Kabat-Zinn – Attitudes of Mindfulness (Part 1). 55:18

1M ago55:18

55:18

In this three-part series, the Moonshots Podcast takes a deep dive into the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). This foundational framework—The 7 Attitudes of Mindfulness—offers practical, timeless guidance for living with greater awareness, clarity, and emotional intelligence. Whether you're seeking mo…

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Ethan A. Everett, "The Investment Philosophers: Financial Lessons from the Great Thinkers" (Columbia Business School, 2025) 1:17:46

1M ago1:17:46

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What do Warren Buffett and Friedrich Nietzsche have in common? Why does Baruch Spinoza’s understanding of irrational emotions help explain financial markets? How did Voltaire’s success in a bond lottery arbitrage shape his writing? Can David Hume teach an investor when to buck the consensus and when to heed it? Exploring these questions and many ot…

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David Singerman, "Unrefined: How Capitalism Reinvented Sugar" (U Chicago Press, 2025) 1:08:28

1M ago1:08:28

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Sugar is everywhere in the western diet, blamed for epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and other modern maladies. Our addiction to sweetness has a long and unsavory history. Over the past five hundred years, sugar has shaped empires, made fortunes for a few, and brought misery for millions of workers both enslaved and free. How did sugar become a defi…

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Anthony J. Knowles, "Driving Productivity: Automation, Labor, and Industrial Development in the United States and Germany" (Brill, 2025) 46:21

2M ago46:21

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Driving Productivity: Automation, Labor, and Industrial Development in the United States and Germany (Brill, 2025) reconstructs the industrial histories of the American and German automotive industries in a new light. From the Fordist assembly line to Japanese lean production and Industry 4.0, Anthony J. Knowles critically examines major technical …

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Maria Fedorova, "Seeds of Exchange: Soviets, Americans, and Cooperation in Agriculture, 1921–1935" (Northern Illinois UP, 2025) 49:06

2M ago49:06

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Seeds of Exchange: Soviets, Americans, and Cooperation in Agriculture, 1921–1935 (Northern Illinois UP, 2025) examines the US and Soviet exchange of agricultural knowledge and technology during the interwar period. Maria Fedorova challenges the perception of the Soviet Union as a passive recipient of American technology and expertise. She reveals t…

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Aram G. Sarkisian, "Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era" (NYU Press, 2025) 55:33

2M ago55:33

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Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era (NYU Press, 2025) is an Immigration and labor history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the US At the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of immigrants from the borderlands of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires built a transnational church in No…

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Michael Glass, "Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) 1:02:29

2M ago1:02:29

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By New Books Network

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Richard Duncan, "The Money Revolution: How to Finance the Next American Century" (John Wiley & Sons, 2022) 55:06

2M ago55:06

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In The Money Revolution: How to Finance the Next American Century, economist and bestselling author Richard Duncan lays out a farsighted strategy to maximize the United States' unmatched financial and technological potential. In compelling fashion, the author shows that the United States can and should invest in the industries and technologies of t…

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Katherine J. Parkin, "The Abortion Market: Buying and Selling Access in the Era Before Roe" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) 42:15

2M ago42:15

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The abortion market was a powerful economic force in American life. Before legalization lowered the cost, one million women each year collectively paid upward of $750 million for abortions. In The Abortion Market: Buying and Selling Access in the Era Before Roe (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025), Dr. Katherine Parkin reveals the strength of a…

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Marcia C. Schenck, "Remembering African Labor Migration to the Second World: Socialist Mobilities between Angola, Mozambique, and East Germany" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) 45:23

2M ago45:23

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This open access book is about Mozambicans and Angolans who migrated in state-sponsored schemes to East Germany in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. They went to work and to be trained as a vanguard labor force for the intended African industrial revolutions. While they were there, they contributed their labor power to the East German econom…

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Carlotta Daro, "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication" (MIT Press, 2025) 37:23

2M ago37:23

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The Architecture of the Wire explores the development of telecommunications infrastructure and its impact on the architectural and urban culture of the modern age—from poles, wires, and cables, to “micro-architectures,” such as the théâtrophone and the telephone booth. Starting with the intrepid worldwide infrastructures of the late nineteenth cent…

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Emília Barna, "Working in Music on the Semi-Periphery: Local Cultural Production and Global Capitalism" (CEU Press, 2025) 45:27

2M ago45:27

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In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) sat down with Emília Barna to discuss her new book, Working in Music on the Semiperiphery: Local Cultural Production and Global Capitalism (CEU Press, 2025). We talked about the changes and continuities that the Hungarian music industry underwent from the communist to the post-communist era, the impa…

Joseph And Hector Podcasts