November 20

Ep. 0150: In the Shadows of the American Century with Alfred McCoy

CJ is joined in this episode by Professor Alfred McCoy, who holds a Ph. D. from Yale University in Southeast Asian history, and currently holds the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of many books, including The Politics of Heroin, Policing America’s Empire, and A Question of Torture, among others.

His most recent book is In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.

Join CJ & Alfred as they discuss:

  • Dr. McCoy’s interesting & hazardous research into the Southeast Asian heroin trade (and US government complicity in it), beginning in the 1970s
  • The research techniques he developed to ‘get at’ that topic, which he later used in other research into darker aspects of the US government, including torture and surveillance
  • His latest book, In the Shadows of the American Century, which examines the pillars on which the US empire is built, signs that the empire might be declining, and possible ramifications of this decline

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November 13

Ep. 0149: War Machine: A DHP Movie Review with Scott Horton

Scott Horton (author of Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, host of the Scott Horton Show, and founder of the Libertarian Institute) returns for a third time to the DHP, this time to help CJ do a Dangerous History movie review of the 2017 Netflix film War Machine.

Join CJ & Scott as they discuss:

  • The film War Machine, its connections to (and deviations from) the real history, including Michael Hastings’ book The Operators (on which the film was largely based)
  • Tying some of the themes and issues raised by the movie to larger problems of modern American imperialism in the Middle East, and the partisan political realities that make it so difficult to make progress against the status quo in foreign policy
  • And the ways in which mainstream American entertainment media generally does (and does not) deal with these issues

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September 2

Ep. 0145: Fool’s Errand: Scott Horton on America’s War in Afghanistan

In this episode, I’m happy to welcome Scott Horton back to the Dangerous History Podcast. Scott is managing director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio and the Scott Horton Show, and opinion editor at Antiwar.com. He has conducted more than 4,500 interviews since 2003.

(BTW, My apologies for the audio quality of my conversation with Scott; we were having some noise issues, and I thought I got everything squared away, but apparently not; and on top of it I seem to have messed up a setting or two in the process of battling Skype noise. Mea culpa. But I still think it’s a great discussion worth listening to!)

Join CJ & Scott as they discuss:

  • Scott’s massive labors & achievement in writing the book
  • What’s wrong with the Establishment/Team America narrative of America’s involvement in Afghanistan
  • How & why the war has dragged on as long as it has
  • The economics of the Afghan War, including the ability of many interests to profit from it
  • The question of heroin

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Category: American History, Interviews, Military History, Modern World History, Podcasts | Comments Off on Ep. 0145: Fool’s Errand: Scott Horton on America’s War in Afghanistan
June 23

Ep. 0142: History, Naked & Dangerous: A conversation with Bryce Blankenagel

In this episode, CJ talks to Bryce Blankenagel of the Naked Mormonism Podcast. 

(Note: This episode contains the majority — but not all — of the conservation, but Patreon supporters of either the Dangerous History Podcast or the Naked Mormonism Podcast will have access to the entire thing via the respective Patreon supporters’ feed.)

Join CJ & Bryce as they discuss:

  • The idea of ‘dangerous history’
  • Revisionism, the bad & the good
  • Why history is so interesting
  • The importance of backstory & context (and how this increases the workload for history podcasters)
  • Why Bryce began seriously studying Mormon history & doing his podcast
  • The historical context of early-to-mid-nineteenth century America, including the Second Great Awakening, the so-called ‘Burned Over District’ of upstate NY, Andrew Jackson & Jacksonian politics

(Additional topics discussed in the full conversation.)

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Category: American History, Interviews, Podcasts | Comments Off on Ep. 0142: History, Naked & Dangerous: A conversation with Bryce Blankenagel
December 12

Ep. 0129: The Psychology of Power & Obedience with Jim Cunagin

On this episode of the Dangerous History Podcast, CJ talks with Dr. Jim Cunagin, a practicing psychiatrist, about the psychology of power and obedience and some of the experiments that can help us understand these phenomena.

Join CJ & Jim as they discuss:

  • Stanley Milgram’s experiments
  • Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment
  • The conformity experiments of Solomon Asch
  • The Bystander Effect (or ‘Kitty Genovese Effect’)
  • Jane Elliot’s Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment
  • The lessons and meaning of these experiments when it comes to understanding power,

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(image ‘Stand Out From the Crowd’ courtesy Renjith Krishnan at freedigitalphotos.net)

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July 30

Ep. 0112: Scott Horton on America’s post-Cold War Empire

Today CJ is joined by Scott Horton for a conversation about the recent history of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

Join CJ & Scott as they discuss:

  • The book Scott is currently working on, to be coauthored with Tom Woods, about the so-called ‘War on Terror’
  • How much the Soviet threat during the Cold War — while certainly real — was often exaggerated by US elites for their own purposes
  • How, for all its faults, the Cold War strategy of containment at least made some coherent sense, in contrast to the US government’s approach to the Greater Middle East in recent decades, and how often the USG’s lack of a coherent Mid-East strategy has led the USG to support violent anti-American factions
  • Why the end of the Cold War did not result in the US reverting to being a ‘normal country in a normal time’
  • Some thoughts on the Neocons, and how different they are (or aren’t) from the ‘Liberal Interventionists’
  • Some thoughts on whether there’s any possibility of the American Empire at home & abroad being dismantled in an orderly fashion, or if it will only come to an end under conditions of collapse & bankruptcy

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June 7

Ep. 0105: Peeking Behind the Iron Curtain with Kristaps Andrejsons

Kristaps Andrejsons is a Latvian podcaster who hosts the Eastern Border podcast, a show about the history of the Soviet Union with an emphasis on what life was like for regular people who lived in it.

Join CJ & Kristaps as they discuss a wide range of topics, including:

  • Kristaps’ background and why he started his show
  • An description of what life was like for an average, non-elite Soviet citizen, and some discussion of wide variances in experience between different groups depending on status and regional differences
  • The ways in which the Soviet system sought to keep people in a state of dependence, and parallels to this in other realms of history
  • Civic religion in the USSR and USA
  • Soviet humor
  • How totalitarian states seek to eliminate or takeover all intermediate social institutions and eliminate any real private life
  • Food (or lack thereof) in the Soviet Union
  • The impact of Communism on creativity
  • What life is like as a Latvian podcaster today
  • Why some Latvians fought on the side of the Nazis in WWII
  • Some of the human tragedies of Soviet history, such as the Chernobyl meltdown and Afghan war
  • Stalin’s Five Year Plans & starving of the Ukraine to fund them
  • Free speech vs. censorship, and making a conscious effort to read controversial material & read things outside your own comfort zone

And more!

Links

The Eastern Border podcast

The Eastern Border podcast on Patreon

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December 15

Ep. 0088: Thaddeus Russell on Undermining Jihadists with Britney Spears & more

Thaddeus Russell is a historian and cultural critic and the author of A Renegade History of the United States. He holds a Ph D from Columbia University. He teaches American history and cultural studies at Occidental College and has taught at Columbia University, Barnard College, the New School for Social Research, and Eugene Lang College.   He has published articles in a variety of scholarly and popular venues.  Russell has appeared on the History Channel, Al-Jazeera, Fox News, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Join CJ & Thad as they discuss:

  • Thad’s background, including how the material that eventually became A Renegade History of the United States prevented him from getting a tenure-track position at Barnard College
  • Thad’s thoughts on cultural history vs. Marxism, the consumer revolution, the market, and capitalism
  • The tensions between puritanism and hedonism in capitalism and in American history
  • The influence of Michel Foucault on Thad’s work
  • The puritanism and asceticism of democracy
  • How ‘ideology free’ or ‘objective’ history is nonsense
  • Thad’s rejection of objective reality and morality
  • Some thoughts on the present and future of higher education
  • Thad’s current project on the history of American pop culture’s spread & influence around the world

External Links

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November 9

Ep. 0085: Daniele Bolelli on Taoism, History, & other cool stuff

Daniele Bolelli is a writer, martial artist, university professor, and podcaster. He was born in Italy and currently lives in Los Angeles.  His podcasts are The Drunken Taoist Podcast and History on Fire.  His books include On the Warrior’s Path, 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know: ReligionCreate Your Own Religion, and a new one coming out in December of 2015 entitled Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting.

Join CJ & Daniele as they discuss a wide range of topics, including:

  • Being versatile
  • The limitations of conventional academia
  • Why history, especially in a conventional institutional setting, can be so boring
  • Taoism & Zen Buddhism
  • The joys of history podcasting
  • Daniele’s history podcast, History on Fire
  • Some thoughts on Hollywood’s “historical” films
  • The Roman slave rebellions that Daniele covered in his first two History on Fire episodes
  • Daniele’s upcoming book, Not Afraid, due out December 2015

External Links

 

October 20

Ep. 0083: History of Irregular Warfare with Bill Buppert (part 6)

Here it is — the sixth & final installment of the DHP History of Irregular Warfare series with Bill Buppert.

Join CJ & Bill as they discuss:

  • Circumstances in which insurgents do or do not have the moral high ground
  • The impact of technologies on insurgency & 4GW
  • The importance of narrative
  • Alleged “best practices” for counterinsurgency (or COIN)
  • Links between the rise of the modern state and the proliferation of resistance to it
  • Lessons to be learned from insurgencies, even for those who never plan on physically fighting the state
  • Thoughts on methods of defense against external threats for a stateless society
  • The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka & why they failed
  • Tying things back into the trifecta of narrative, legitimacy, and grievances

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