Arun Kumar on Philanthrocapitalism

Arun Kumar is a Lecturer in International Management at the University of York.

Previously trained in architecture and development management, he worked for a number of years as an independent researcher and consultant/advisor with leading aid agencies, NGOs, independent research centres, policy think-tanks, and human rights activists in South Asia. Tired of travelling and writing reports, he returned to academia in 2012. After completing his PhD at the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology at Lancaster University and working, briefly, in France, he joined the University of York in 2016 as a Lecturer. He is also involved with the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre at York.

Photo by Peggy Anke on Unsplash

Photo by Peggy Anke on Unsplash

Professor Donald A. Grinde Jr. on the Native American Foundation of US Democracy and Ecology

Professor Grinde is a member of the Yamassee Nation, whose research and teaching have focused on Haudenosaunee/Iroquois history, U.S. Indian policy since 1871, Native American thought, and environmental history. He has written extensively on these topics, including authoring or co-authoring books such as “the Encyclopedia of Native American Biography,” “Apocalypse of Chiokoyhikoy, Chief of the Iroquois”, “The Iroquois and the Founding of the American Nation,” “Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy,” (available as an ebook at ratical.org) and “Ecocide of Native America: Environmental Destruction of Indian Lands and Peoples.” His work on environmental issues has also included studying the 16th and 17th century ecological history of a portion of the Susquehanna River, and serving as co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded graduate student training program focused on solving environmental problems in Western New York. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Africana and American Studies at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.

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Amir Lebdioui on the Myth of the "Free-Market Miracle" in Chile

Amir Lebdioui is the Canning House Research Fellow based at LACC at the London School of Economics. His research lies at the crossroads between industrial policy, natural resource management and the sustainable development agenda. As a result, his research has focused on the political economy of resource-based development, export diversification strategies, and green industrial policy in the context of renewable energy development and climate change. In addition to preparing a number of journal articles, Amir is also working on developing a new indicator of extractive-based development. He also regularly provides analysis for multilateral development organizations.

He was previously an LSE Fellow in Development Management at the LSE Department of International Development and a teaching fellow in Political Economy of Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (UK). He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Fred Turner on Seeing Silicon Valley

Fred Turner is the Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University. He is the author or co-author of five books: Seeing Silicon Valley: Life inside a Fraying America (with Mary Beth Meehan); L’Usage de L’Art dans la Silicon Valley; The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties; From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism; and Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory. Before coming to Stanford, he taught Communication at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He also worked for ten years as a journalist. He has written for newspapers and magazines ranging from the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine to Harper’s.

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Gerald Horne on the American Revolution

Dr. Horne holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. His research has addressed issues of racism in a variety of relations involving labor, politics, civil rights, international relations and war. He has also written extensively about the film industry. Dr. Horne received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and his B.A. from Princeton University.

Juan Cole on Israel and Palestine (and why a one-state solution might lead to lasting peace)

Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three and a half decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His most recent book is Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires. He is also the author of The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (2014); Engaging the Muslim World (2009); Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (2007); and many other books. He has translated works of Lebanese-American author Kahlil Gibran and has appeared on PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper 360, The Rachel Maddow Show, All In With Chris Hayes, The Colbert Report, Democracy Now!, and many others. He has given many radio and press interviews. He has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. He has written about the upheavals in the Arab World since 2011, including about Sunni extremist groups and Shiite politics. Cole commands Arabic, Persian, and Urdu and reads Turkish, and knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for more than a decade, and continues to travel widely there.

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

Our next book club meeting will take place on June 15th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading Wide Sargasso Sea. All are welcome!

Sign up here!

Andre Pagliarini on Anti-Corruption and Brazilian Right-Wing Politics (and Glenn Greenwald)

Andre Pagliarini was a visiting assistant professor of modern Latin American history at Brown University in 2018–19 and just finished a lectureship at Dartmouth College. He is currently preparing a book manuscript on twentieth-century Brazilian nationalism.

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Our next book club meeting will take place on June 15th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading Wide Sargasso Sea. All are welcome!

Sign up here!

Best of: Aviva Chomsky on Biden's Central American Plan

Aviva Chomsky is professor of history and coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. She is the author of Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration (April 2021).

Photo by Phil Botha on Unsplash

Photo by Phil Botha on Unsplash

Our next book club meeting will take place on June 15th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading Wide Sargasso Sea. All are welcome!

Sign up here!

Seyhun Orcan Sakalli on how asylum policies deterred Jewish migration out of Nazi Germany

Seyhun Orcan Sakalli is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Economics at King’s Business School, King’s College London. His research focuses on the implications of cross-cultural interactions between different ethnic and religious groups. Dr. Sakalli received a Ph.D. in Economics from Paris School of Economics in 2015. Previously, he worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Lausanne.

Jewish refugees work in the fields in Sosúa, Dominican Republic

Jewish refugees work in the fields in Sosúa, Dominican Republic

Our next book club meeting will take place on June 15th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading Wide Sargasso Sea. All are welcome!

Sign up here!

Bruno Caprettini on the electoral impact of redistributive public policies (and the The Italian 1951 land reform)

Bruno Caprettini is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Economics of the University of Zurich. He earned his Ph.D. in economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) in 2015. In August 2017 he won a 4-years grant offered by the Swiss National Foundation: the Ambizione grant. His research interests include development economics and economic history. His work appeared on the American Economic Review.

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Our next book club meeting will take place on June 15th. It will once again be hosted by Fiori Sara Berhane. We will (Zoom) meet at 7pm EST and will be reading Wide Sargasso Sea. All are welcome!

Sign up here!