Best Christopher Hayes Podcasts (2025)

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MAGA's War Over the War with Iran (w/ Curt Mills) [Teaser] 3:30

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8h ago3:30

3:30

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Donald Trump's rise in U.S. politics over the past decade has been inextricable from his "America First" foreign policy and withering criticisms of the Iraq War, nation building, and both the neoconservatism that led the Republican Party to disaster during Georg…

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Pria Anand "The Elephant's Child" The Common Magazine (Spring, 2025) 54:42

10h ago54:42

54:42

Pria Anand speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Elephant’s Child,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. The piece is a vivid retelling of a Hindu myth, the origin story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. Pria talks about the process of writing and revising many versions of this ancient myth, why she felt inspired by i…

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Stacy Horn, "Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York" (Algonquin Books, 2019) 34:22

10h ago34:22

34:22

Conceived as the most modern, humane incarceration facility the world had ever seen, New York's Blackwell's Island, site of a lunatic asylum, two prisons, an almshouse, and a number of hospitals, quickly became, in the words of a visiting Charles Dickens, "a lounging, listless madhouse." Digging through city records, newspaper articles, and archiva…

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Antonio J. Muñoz, "Hitler's War Against the Partisans During the Stalingrad Offensive: Spring 1942 to the Spring of 1943" (Frontline, 2025) 1:39:18

10h ago1:39:18

1:39:18

Dr. Antonio J. Muñoz's Hitler’s War Against the Partisans During The Stalingrad Offensive: Spring 1942 to the Spring of 1943 (Frontline Books, 2025) explores the brutal and widespread partisan warfare on the Eastern Front during 1942-1943, detailing the Axis forces' anti-partisan efforts and the impact on the Soviet war effort. From the start of th…

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Zachary Gorman, "The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942" (Melbourne UP, 2022) 1:05:21

10h ago1:05:21

1:05:21

Sir Robert Menzies is a towering figure in Australian history. The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942 (Melbourne UP, 2022) explores the formative period of Menzies' life, when his personal outlook and system of beliefs that would help shape modern Australia were themselves still being formed. This is the first of a four-volume hi…

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Shayna M. Silverstein, "Fraught Balance: The Embodied Politics of Dabke Dance Music in Syria" (Wesleyan UP, 2024) 58:30

10h ago58:30

58:30

A vivid and intricate study of dance music traditions that reveals the many contradictions of being Syrian in the 21st century Dabke, one of Syria's most beloved dance music traditions, is at the center of the country's war and the social tensions that preceded conflict. Drawing on almost two decades of ethnographic, archival, and digital research,…

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Bryan D. Jones, The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History" (Oxford UP, 2025) 56:44

10h ago56:44

56:44

The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History (Oxford University Press, 2025) explores the under-appreciated division in the South between the oligarchic rule of plantation owners and industrialists on the one hand, and the more democratic mindset of the mountain-dwelling small farmers on the other. These two mind…

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James M. Lang, "Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience" (University of Chicago Press, 2025) 1:05:05

11h ago1:05:05

1:05:05

Teachers are subject matter experts that can distill information into manageable chunks for their students. In Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Dr. James M. Lang insists that the skills teachers use in their classrooms can be transferred to a broader audience. This book pro…

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Zachary Gorman, "The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942" (Melbourne UP, 2022) 1:05:21

11h ago1:05:21

1:05:21

Sir Robert Menzies is a towering figure in Australian history. The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942 (Melbourne UP, 2022) explores the formative period of Menzies' life, when his personal outlook and system of beliefs that would help shape modern Australia were themselves still being formed. This is the first of a four-volume hi…

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Jennifer R. Nájera, "Learning to Lead: Undocumented Students Mobilizing Education" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:16:15

10h ago1:16:15

1:16:15

In Learning to Lead: Undocumented Students Mobilizing Education (Duke University Press, 2024), Jennifer R. Nájera explores the intersections of education and activism among undocumented students at the University of California, Riverside. Taking an expansive view of education, Nájera shows how students’ experiences in college—both in and out of the…

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Char Miller, "Burn Scars: A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning" (Oregon State UP, 2024) 1:20:58

10h ago1:20:58

1:20:58

Fire is a means of control and has been deployed or constrained to levy power over individuals, societies, and ecologies. In Burn Scars: A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning (Oregon State UP, 2024), Pomona College professor Char Miller has edited a collection of documents and essays …

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Ian Kumekawa, "Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge" (Knopf, 2025) 44:57

10h ago44:57

44:57

What do a barracks for British troops in the Falklands War, a floating jail off the Bronx, and temporary housing for VW factory workers in Germany have in common? The Balder Scapa: a single barge that served all three roles. Though the name would eventually change to Finnboda 12. And then to Safe Esperia. And later on, to the Bibby Resolution. And …

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Wolfram H. Dressler, "For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands" (Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2025) 54:30

1d ago54:30

54:30

For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands (Cornell University Press, 2025) examines the impacts of religious and environmental non-governmental actors on the lives of highlanders on Palawan Island, the Philippines. The absence of the state in Palawan's mountainous regions have meant that these non-gov…

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Elena Jackson Albarran, "Good Neighbor Empires: Children and Cultural Capital in the Americas" (Brill, 2024) 42:42

1d ago42:42

42:42

A class of child artists in Mexico, a ship full of child refugees from Spain, classrooms of child pageant actors, and a pair of boy ambassadors revealed facets of hemispheric politics in the Good Neighbor era. Good Neighbor Empires: Children and Cultural Capital in the Americas (Brill, 2024) by Dr. Elena Jackson Albarran explores how and why cultur…

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J. P. Mallory, "The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution Is Rewriting Their Story" (Thames & Hudson, 2025) 48:04

1d ago48:04

48:04

Today the number of native speakers of Indo-European languages across the world is approximated to be over 2.6 billion—about 45 percent of the Earth’s population. Yet the idea that an ancient, prehistoric population in one time and place gave rise to a wide variety of peoples and languages is one with a long and troubled past. In this expansive inv…

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How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America 46:17

1d ago46:17

46:17

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students’ concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex in…

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Louis P. Masur, "A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison, and the Forging of a Friendship" (Oxford UP, 2025) 38:02

1d ago38:02

38:02

Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "northern journey" came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and Presi…

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How do Small States Navigate and Shape the Liberal World Order? A conversation with Dylan Loh 35:09

1d ago35:09

35:09

Globally, the liberal international order has been under pressure for quite some time, but we often tend to discuss this in relation to big international players such as the United States and China. But how do small states like Singapore navigate and shape this increasingly contested space? Join Petra Alderman as she talks to Dylan Loh about Singap…

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Louis P. Masur, "A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison, and the Forging of a Friendship" (Oxford UP, 2025) 36:17

1d ago36:17

36:17

Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "northern journey" came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and Presi…

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Nubar Hovsepian, "Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual" (AUC Press, 2025) 34:47

1d ago34:47

34:47

Edward Said was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. A literary scholar with an aesthete’s temperament, he did not experience his political awakening until the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, which transformed his thinking and led him to forge ties with political groups and like-minded scholars. Said’s subsequent writings, whi…

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Naomi Xu Elegant, "Gingko Season: A Novel" (W. W. Norton, 2025) 37:13

1d ago37:13

37:13

Naomi Xu Elegant’s debut novel, Gingko Season (W. W. Norton: 2025), stars Penelope Lin, a young Chinese woman living in New York in the faraway year of 2018. With difficult parents and a bad break-up, she works for a museum’s exhibition on bound feet, with a gaggle of other, somewhat clueless friends. But a meeting with Hoang, a researcher at a can…

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Wilson T. Bell, "Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War" (University of Toronto Press, 2018) 1:35:06

1d ago1:35:06

1:35:06

Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War (University of Toronto Press, 2018) places the Gulag within the story of the regional wartime mobilization of Western Siberia during the Second World War. The author explores a diverse array of issues, including mass death, informal practices, and the respo…

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Nubar Hovsepian, "Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual" (AUC Press, 2025) 34:47

1d ago34:47

34:47

Edward Said was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. A literary scholar with an aesthete’s temperament, he did not experience his political awakening until the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, which transformed his thinking and led him to forge ties with political groups and like-minded scholars. Said’s subsequent writings, whi…

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Ryan G. Van Cleave, "The Witness Trees: Historic Moments and the Trees Who Watched Them Happen" (Bushel & Peck, 2023) 49:05

2d ago49:05

49:05

Dr. Ryan van Cleave is the author of over 100 books for children and adults, editorial director of Bushel & Peck Publishers, college professor and head program (Ringling), writing coach, ghostwriter, poet and more. In our wonderful conversation we celebrate his picture book The Witness Trees: Historic Moments and the Trees Who Watched Them Happen (…

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Maya J. Berry, "Defending Rumba in Havana: The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons" (Duke UP, 2025) 1:31:12

2d ago1:31:12

1:31:12

In Defending Rumba in Havana: The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons (Duke University Press, 2025), anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a…

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Vali Nasr, "Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History" (Princeton UP, 2025) 53:41

2d ago53:41

53:41

Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country’s goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran’s political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today’s I…

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Yaroslav Hrytsak, "Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation" (PublicAffairs, 2024) 1:24:37

2d ago1:24:37

1:24:37

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the world witnessed the “creative, freewheeling, darkly humorous, and deeply resilient society” that is contemporary Ukraine. In this timely and original history, a bestseller in Ukraine, the historian Yaroslav Hrytsak tells the sweeping story of his nation through a meticulous examination of the major events, c…

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Danielle Leavitt, "By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025) 57:09

2d ago57:09

57:09

An intimate, affecting account of life during wartime, told through the lives that have been shattered. Even as scores of Americans rally to the Ukrainian cause and adopt Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero, the lives of Ukrainians remain opaque and mostly anonymous. In By the Second Spring, the historian Danielle Leavitt goes beyond familiar portraits of…

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Is Sinners a New Classic of Political Utopianism? 50:35

1d ago50:35

50:35

It’s the UConn Popcast, and we analyze the movie Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan, just released on streaming. We address the political themes of the movie, focusing on its generic identity as a Southern Gothic, the historical context in which the movie takes place, its engagement with ideas of utopia, community, freedom, and the siren songs tha…

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Tie Ning, Annelise Finegan trans., "My Sister's Red Shirt" (Sinoist Books, 2025) 36:30

2d ago36:30

36:30

Growing up in a glittering new decade of possibility, Anran is radically different to her sister. Outspoken and idealistic, she relishes in challenging hypocrisy, unlike the older Anjing, whose memories of a turbulent past remind her of the perils of going against the grain. When Anran is gifted a stylish red shirt that becomes the talk of their sl…

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The May 2025 Mid-Term Elections in the Philippines 47:08

1d ago47:08

47:08

Today’s episode focuses on the mid-term elections in the Philippines which were held in May of this year, including all local elected positions, all seats in the House of Representatives, and twelve of the twenty-four seats in the Senate. The elections have been viewed as a reflection on the administration of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, …