Best Reasonable Anarchy Podcasts (2025)

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Conversations with Birds 56:43

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8h ago56:43

56:43

Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in L…

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Philip Rocco, "Counting Like a State: How Intergovernmental Partnerships Shaped the 2020 US Census" (UP Kansas, 2025) 53:40

13h ago53:40

53:40

Marquette University Political Scientist Phil Rocco has a new book focusing on the 2020 U.S. Census and how the states, localities, and federal government all worked – at times well, at times not quite as well – to conduct the census. This is a fascinating exploration of federalism at work in the American system, with some states putting in place e…

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Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025) 45:10

13h ago45:10

45:10

In 1924, the Al-A‘waj, also known as the Crooked, set sail from Kuwait on a trading journey around the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, to Western India and, eventually, back to the Gulf. Dhows had sailed this route for centuries—and would continue to sail it for a few more decades still. Fahad Ahmad Bishara talks about this specific 192…

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Marion Turner, "The Wife of Bath: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2023) 44:57

13h ago44:57

44:57

Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognisably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers--from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colourful lives or matched her influence or capacity…

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Allison Christine Meier, "Grave" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 50:17

13h ago50:17

50:17

Grave (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Allison C. Meier takes a ground-level view of how burial sites have transformed over time and how they continue to change. As a cemetery tour guide, Meier has spent more time walking among tombstones than most. Even for her, the grave has largely been invisible, an out of the way and unobtrusive marker of death. However,…

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Natalie Porter, "Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: A History of Badass Women Skateboarders" (ECW Press, 2025) 45:24

13h ago45:24

45:24

A vibrant, meticulously researched celebration of the women and non-binary skateboarders who defied a hostile industry and redefined skateboarding around the world With enthusiasm and empathy, Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: A History of Badass Women Skateboarders (ECW Press, 2025) celebrates the relentless participation of women in skateboardi…

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Ithamar Theodor, "The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 53:41

13h ago53:41

53:41

The Bhagavad Gita is a world classic often considered to be not just the 'Hindu Bible' but sometimes the 'Indian Bible' as well. Over the last two centuries, it has attracted much scholarly attention from Indologists. Ithamar Theodor's bold and revisionist monograph The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita (Cambridge UP, 2025) aspires to further develop…

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Jonathan Eig, "King: A Life" (FSG, 2023) 39:22

13h ago39:22

39:22

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life (FSG, 2023) is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us …

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Karen Weingarten, "Pregnancy Test" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 40:02

13h ago40:02

40:02

In the 1970s, the invention of the home pregnancy test changed what it means to be pregnant. For the first time, women could use a technology in the privacy of their own homes that gave them a yes or no answer. That answer had the power to change the course of their reproductive lives, and it chipped away at a paternalistic culture that gave gyneco…

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Yvonne Blomer, "Death of Persephone: A Murder" (Caitlin Press, 2024) 37:56

13h ago37:56

37:56

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Yvonne Blomer about her stunning narrative poetry, Death of Persephone: A Murder (Caitlin Press, 2024). In Death of Persephone, the patriarchal myth of the maiden taken, raped, and made the potent and sexualized queen of the underworld is questioned, altered, flipped. Instead, we have Stephanie, …

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Erika Pani, "Torn Asunder: Republican Crises and Civil Wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867" (UNC Press, 2025) 57:37

1d ago57:37

57:37

Between the late 1840s and the late 1860s, the United States and Mexico had quite a bit in common. Both suffered from reactionary succession movements, both faced brutal civil wars, and both had to figure out a method of reconstructing broken nations in their aftermath. In Torn Asunder: Republican Crises and Civil Wars in the United States and Mexi…

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What is Happening in the Mediterranean Right Now – And Why You Should Care 31:47

1d ago31:47

31:47

Since 2014 more than 32,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. As the EU and its member states have been increasingly prioritising migration deterrence over human life, civic organisations have stepped in and are carrying out search and rescue operations. SOS Humanity is one of these organisations. Janna Sauerteig j…

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Joe Greenwood-Hau," Capital, Privilege and Political Participation" (Liverpool UP, 2025) 45:23

1d ago45:23

45:23

Who gets involved in politics? In Capital, Privilege and Political Participation (Liverpool UP, 2025) Joe Greenwood-Hau a Lecturer in the John Smith Centre at the University of Glasgow, examines the dynamics of who participates, who is excluded and the reasons why. Drawing on a broad approach to political participation, the analysis connects levels…

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Lauren E. M. Everett, "Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing" (Temple UP, 2025) 49:42

1d ago49:42

49:42

Rent control and other tenant protections have profound and positive impacts on individuals’ and communities’ lives. Dr. Lauren Everett’s Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica’s Rent-Controlled Housing (Temple UP, 2025) shows how rent control impacts the lives of the renters themselves. Dr. Everett interviews residents about…

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Radio ReOrient 13.6: “Islamophobia and the ‘Great Replacement’ Conspiracy,” with Sarah Bracke and Luis Manuel Hernandez Aguilaran, hosted by Marchella Ward and Hizer Mir 1:11:06

1d ago1:11:06

1:11:06

In this episode, Chella Ward and Hizer Mir sat down with Sarah Bracke and Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar to talk about their recent book on a racist and Islamophobic conspiracy theory known as ‘the Great Replacement’. We talked about the long history of this idea, and how it might be resisted in the present. Sarah Bracke is Professor of the Sociolog…

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Christina Cecelia Davidson, "Dominican Crossroads: H.C.C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation" (Duke UP, 2024) 40:44

1d ago40:44

40:44

H. C. C. Astwood: minister and missionary, diplomat and politician, enigma in the annals of US history. In Dominican Crossroads: H.C.C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation (Duke UP, 2024), Christina Cecelia Davidson explores Astwood’s extraordinary and complicated life and career. Born in 1844 in the British Car…

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Jenny Linford, "Repast: The Story of Food" (Thames & Hudson, 2025) 49:19

1d ago49:19

49:19

Our insatiable appetite for creativity in the kitchen – or around the open fire – is reflected in the fascinating array of objects explored in this book. Authored by food writer Jenny Linford in consultation with curators from the British Museum, Repast: The Story of Food (Thames & Hudson in partnership with the British Museum, 2025) focuses on art…

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Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, "Barbarian Architecture: Thorstein Veblen’s Chicago" (MIT Press, 2024) 39:36

1d ago39:36

39:36

An important critic of modern culture, American economist Thorstein Veblen is best known for the concept of “conspicuous consumption,” the ostentatious display of goods in the service of social status. In the field of architectural history, scholars have employed Veblen in support of a wide range of arguments about modern architecture, but never ha…

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Treena Orchard, "Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps" (Aevo, U Toronto Press, 2024) 40:57

1d ago40:57

40:57

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Treena Orchard about her memoir, Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps (Aevo, U Toronto Press, 2024). Jane Goodall meets Carrie Bradshaw in Sticky, Sexy, Sad – an insightful, empowering memoir by an anthropologist who lays her own life bare as she explores the cultur…

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In the Footsteps of St. Thomas (with Bishop Daniel Timotheos): Spreading the Gospel in the Indian Ocean World 42:40

1d ago42:40

42:40

Bishop Daniel talks like a Texas Protestant in terms of Church Planting and giving your heart to Christ, but actually he is a bishop in the Orthodox Church in India where his father was born. His native village close to where the Apostle Thomas landed almost two thousand years ago. But Bishop Daniel is not part of the old Malankar Syriac Church in …

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Sharon White Rewires Disco 1:08:00

1d ago1:08:00

1:08:00

At the center of 1970s New York's most iconic clubs—from the celebrity-studded Studio 54 to the premiere lesbian discotheque Sahara—stood a queer Black woman on the turntables: Sharon White. With a sound she describes as "edgy, deep, aggressive, tech, synthy, percussive and lush," White became the first woman resident DJ at the Saint and the only w…

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Jochen Hellbeck, "World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews" (Penguin Group, 2025) 1:27:51

2d ago1:27:51

1:27:51

In the West, World War II is commonly understood as the Allies’ struggle against Nazism. Often elided, if not simply forgotten, is the Soviet Union’s crucial role in that fight. With this book, acclaimed historian Jochen Hellbeck rectifies this omission by relocating the ideological core of the conflict. It was not the Western powers but Communist …

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Eric King, "A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon" (PM Press, 2025) 1:00:55

3d ago1:00:55

1:00:55

A Clean Hell opens the doors of America’s most secretive prison and lets the reader step into the cell to experience all the horrors the Federal Bureau of Prisons tries to keep hidden underground. The federal supermax ADX Florence is the most secure facility in the United States, a dungeon of isolation, sensory deprivation, and psychological disint…

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Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025) 1:29:21

3d ago1:29:21

1:29:21

An award-winning astrophysicist looks at how the understanding of uncertainty and randomness has led to breakthroughs in our knowledge of the cosmos All of us understand the world around us by constructing models, comparing them to observations, and drawing conclusions. Scientists create, test, and replace these models by applying the twinned conce…

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Judith M. Lieu "Explorations in the Second Century: Texts, Groups, Ideas, Voices" (Brill, 2025) 43:39

3d ago43:39

43:39

As allegiance to Jesus Christ spread across the Roman Empire in the second century, writings, practices, and ideas erupted in a creative maelstrom. Many of the patterns of practice and belief that later become normative emerged, in the midst of debate and argument with neighbours who shared or who rejected that allegiance. Authoritative texts, prin…

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Nina Wilén, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025) 52:01

3d ago52:01

52:01

The Sahel has become a focal point of international security interventions, with external actors providing extensive security force assistance (SFA) to local military, police, and paramilitary forces. Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences (Oxford UP, 2025) by Dr. Nina Wilen critically examines the rationale…

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Renata Keller, "The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Hemispheric Cold War" (UNC Press, 2025) 37:12

3d ago37:12

37:12

Despite twenty-first-century fears of nuclear conflagrations with North Korea, Russia, and Iran, the Cuban Missile Crisis is the closest the United States has come to nuclear war. That history has largely been a bilateral narrative of the US-USSR struggle for postwar domination, with Cuba as the central staging ground--a standard account that obscu…

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Aviva Rubin, "White: A Novel" (RE: Books, 2024) 29:17

1d ago29:17

29:17

Sarah Cartell, who grew up in a White Supremacist family controlled by a violent grandfather who preaches hate and violence, learns from books and a kind librarian that there’s another way to see the world. In White: A Novel (RE: Books 2024), Aviva Rubin’s protagonist starts researching her family’s history of intolerance and learns about a grandmo…

Reasonable Anarchy Podcasts

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1
Conversations with Birds 56:43

1
Philip Rocco, "Counting Like a State: How Intergovernmental Partnerships Shaped the 2020 US Census" (UP Kansas, 2025) 53:40

1
Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025) 45:10

1
Marion Turner, "The Wife of Bath: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2023) 44:57

1
Allison Christine Meier, "Grave" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 50:17

1
Natalie Porter, "Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: A History of Badass Women Skateboarders" (ECW Press, 2025) 45:24

1
Ithamar Theodor, "The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 53:41

1
Jonathan Eig, "King: A Life" (FSG, 2023) 39:22

1
Karen Weingarten, "Pregnancy Test" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 40:02

1
Yvonne Blomer, "Death of Persephone: A Murder" (Caitlin Press, 2024) 37:56

1
Erika Pani, "Torn Asunder: Republican Crises and Civil Wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867" (UNC Press, 2025) 57:37

1
What is Happening in the Mediterranean Right Now – And Why You Should Care 31:47

1
Joe Greenwood-Hau," Capital, Privilege and Political Participation" (Liverpool UP, 2025) 45:23

1
Lauren E. M. Everett, "Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing" (Temple UP, 2025) 49:42

1
Radio ReOrient 13.6: “Islamophobia and the ‘Great Replacement’ Conspiracy,” with Sarah Bracke and Luis Manuel Hernandez Aguilaran, hosted by Marchella Ward and Hizer Mir 1:11:06

1
Christina Cecelia Davidson, "Dominican Crossroads: H.C.C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation" (Duke UP, 2024) 40:44

1
Jenny Linford, "Repast: The Story of Food" (Thames & Hudson, 2025) 49:19

1
Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, "Barbarian Architecture: Thorstein Veblen’s Chicago" (MIT Press, 2024) 39:36

1
Treena Orchard, "Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps" (Aevo, U Toronto Press, 2024) 40:57

1
In the Footsteps of St. Thomas (with Bishop Daniel Timotheos): Spreading the Gospel in the Indian Ocean World 42:40

1
Sharon White Rewires Disco 1:08:00

1
Jochen Hellbeck, "World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews" (Penguin Group, 2025) 1:27:51

1
Eric King, "A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon" (PM Press, 2025) 1:00:55

1
Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025) 1:29:21

1
Judith M. Lieu "Explorations in the Second Century: Texts, Groups, Ideas, Voices" (Brill, 2025) 43:39

1
Nina Wilén, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025) 52:01

1
Renata Keller, "The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Hemispheric Cold War" (UNC Press, 2025) 37:12

1
Aviva Rubin, "White: A Novel" (RE: Books, 2024) 29:17