Best Interactive Distractions Podcasts (2025)

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Cordelia Fine, "Patriarchy Inc.: What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality – and Why Men Still Win at Work" (W.W. Norton, 2025) 1:09:31

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19h ago1:09:31

1:09:31

Inequality in the workplace impacts all areas of our lives, from health and self-development to economic security and family life. But, despite the world's richest countries' long-avowed commitments to gender equality, there is still so much to fix - and so much we don't see. With perceptive and razor-sharp insight, in Patriarchy Inc.: What We Get …

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Brendan A. Shanahan, "Disparate Regimes: Nativist Politics, Alienage Law, and Citizenship Rights in the United States, 1865-1965" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:17:16

11h ago1:17:16

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Historians have well described how US immigration policy increasingly fell under the purview of federal law and national politics in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. It is far less understood that the rights of noncitizen immigrants in the country remained primarily contested in the realms of state politics and law until the mid-to-late twentiet…

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D.J. Corchin , "A Million Yes's" (Phazelfoz, 2025) 55:16

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DJ Corchin is a celebrated author and illustrator from Oak Park, IL. In our spirited interview, we discuss his career as a polymath, his unconventional breakthrough from self publishing to traditional publishing and back.and celebrate his brand new picture book , A Million YES's (Phazelfoz Company, 2025), illustrated by Dan Dougherty. Learn more ab…

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David Edmonds, "Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, a Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need" (Princeton UP, 2025) 55:30

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Imagine this: You’re walking past a shallow pond and spot a toddler thrashing around in the water, in obvious danger of drowning. You look around for her parents, but nobody is there. You’re the only person who can save her and you must act immediately. But as you approach the pond you remember that you’re wearing your most expensive shoes. Wading …

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Rhys Kaminski-Jones, "Welsh Revivalism in Imperial Britain, 1707-1819: True Britons and Celtic Empires" (Boydell & Brewer, 2025) 58:31

13h ago58:31

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In the long eighteenth century, as Britain grappled with the aftermath of the 1707 Acts of Union and consolidated a global empire, Welsh ‘Cambro-Britons’ developed a movement of cultural awakening, reinventing their traditions for a new age. Amid profound local, national and imperial transformations, Welsh authors and activists sought to reimagine …

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Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney, "Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration" (U California Press, 2025) 1:20:39

13h ago1:20:39

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Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (open access) examines spaces, practices, and ideologies of incarceration in the ancient Mediterranean basin from 300 BCE to 600 CE. Analyzing a wide range of sources—including legal texts, archaeological findings, documentary evidence, and visual materials—Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney argue that prison…

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Ḥannā Diyāb, "The Book of Travels" (NYU Press, 2022): A Conversation with Johannes Stephan 51:22

17h ago51:22

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The Book of Travels Ḥannā Diyāb: A Conversation with Johannes Stephan The Book of Travels is Ḥannā Diyāb’s remarkable first-person account of his travels as a young man from his hometown of Aleppo to the court of Versailles and back again, which forever linked him to one of the most popular pieces of world literature, the Thousand and One Nights. D…

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Catherine Merridale, "Moscow Underground" (HarperColins, 2025) 33:41

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Moscow Underground (HarperCollins, 2025) by Dr. Catherine Merridale is a sweeping novel of life, death and politics in the quicksand world of Stalin's tyranny. Moscow's glittering new subway is under construction at last. The first line will run through the centre of the city, cutting deep through Moscow soil. But futures cannot be created without …

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Tia Sahrakorpi on a Use-Based History of Electricity in Finland 1:20:25

11h ago1:20:25

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Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Tiia Sahrakorpi, Visiting Professor at Weber State University, about her interesting book project, Our Land: An Oral History of Energy, which was funded by the Research Council of Finland. The project, which was rooted in oral histories in three locations in Finland, takes a use-based perspective and ex…

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Hyun Ho Park, "Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 29:37

16h ago29:37

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In Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence (Bloomsbury, 2023) Hyun Ho Park employs social identity to create the first thorough analysis via such methodology of Acts 21:17-23:35, which contains one of the fiercest intergroup conflicts in Acts. Park's assessment a…

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Brian A. Stauffer, "Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion" (U New Mexico Press, 2019) 1:02:15

1d ago1:02:15

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In Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion (University of New Mexico Press, 2019), Brian A. Stauffer reconstructs the history of Mexico's forgotten "Religionero" rebellion of 1873-1877, an armed Catholic challenge to the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. An essentially grassroots movement--organized by indigenous, Afro-…

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Anne Lawrence-Mathers, "Medieval Meteorology: Forecasting the Weather from Aristotle to the Almanac" (Cambridge UP, 2019) 31:23

1d ago31:23

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In this episode we speak to Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Professor of History at the University of Reading about her new book Medieval Meteorology: Forecasting the Weather from Aristotle to the Almanac, out this year, 2020, with Cambridge University Press. The practice of weather forecasting underwent a crucial transformation in the Middle Ages. Explorin…

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Aliyah Khan, "Far From Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean" (Rutgers UP, 2020) 45:03

1d ago45:03

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Muslims have lived in the Caribbean for centuries. Far From Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean (Rutgers University Press, 2020) examines the archive of autobiography, literature, music and public celebrations in Guyana and Trinidad, offering an analysis of the ways Islam became integral to the Caribbean, and the ways the Caribbean shaped Islam…

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Chris Millington, "A History of Fascism in France: From the First World War to the National Front" (Bloomsbury, 2019) 1:03:09

1d ago1:03:09

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FASCISM...FRANCE. Two words/ideas that scholars have spent much time and energy debating in relationship to one another. Chris Millington's A History of Fascism in France: From the First World War to the National Front (Bloomsbury, 2019) is a work of synthesis that also draws on the author's own research for key examples and evidence to support its…

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Lucy Delap, "Feminisms: A Global History" (U Chicago Press, 2020) 52:29

1d ago52:29

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Today Jana Byars talks to Lucy Delap, Reader in Modern British and Gender History at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, about her new book Feminisms: A Global History (University of Chicago Press, 2020). This outstanding work, available later this year, takes a thematic approach to the topic of global feminist history to provide a unifie…

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Wade Davies, "Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970" (UP of Kansas, 2020) 55:41

1d ago55:41

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The game of basketball is perceived by most today as an “urban” game with a locale such as Rucker Park in Harlem as the game’s epicenter (as well as a pipeline to the NBA). While that is certainly a true statement, basketball is not limited to places such as New York City. In recent years scholars have written about the meaning of the game (and tri…

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Joshua Specht, "Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America" (Princeton UP, 2019) 30:37

1d ago30:37

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Why do Americans eat so much beef? In Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America (Princeton University Press, 2019), the historian Joshua Specht provides a history that shows how our diets and consumer choices remain rooted in nineteenth century enterprises. A century and half ago, he writes, the colonialism and appropri…

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Margaret E. Roberts, "Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall" (Princeton UP, 2020) 50:55

1d ago50:55

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We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’ new book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall (Princeton University Press, 2020) reveals the nuances of censorship in the age of the internet. She identifies 3 types of cen…

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Maren A. Ehlers, "Give and Take: Poverty and the Status Order in Early Modern Japan" (Harvard U Asia Center, 2018) 1:08:51

1d ago1:08:51

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Maren A. Ehlers’s Give and Take: Poverty and the Status Order in Early Modern Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) examines the ways in which ordinary subjects—including many so-called outcastes and other marginalized groups—participated in the administration and regulation of society in Tokugawa Japan. Within this context, the book focuses…

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Diana Souhami, "No Modernism Without Lesbians" (Head of Zeus Book, 2020) 38:35

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Diana Souhami talks about her new book No Modernism Without Lesbians, out 2020 with Head of Zeus books. A Sunday Times Book of the Year 2020. This is the extraordinary story of how a singular group of women in a pivotal time and place – Paris, between the wars – fostered the birth of the Modernist movement. Sylvia Beach, Bryher, Natalie Barney, and…

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Andrew Fialka, "Hope Never to See It: A Graphic History of Guerrilla Violence during the American Civil War" (U Georgia Press, 2025) 56:18

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Hope Never to See It: A Graphic History of Guerrilla Violence during the American Civil War (U Georgia Press, 2025) by Dr. Andrew Fialka illustrates two exceptional incidents of occupational and guerrilla violence in Missouri during the American Civil War. The first is a Union spy's two-week-long murder spree targeting civilians, and the second is …

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Laura Murphy, "Freedomville: The Story of a 21st-Century Slave Revolt" (Columbia Global Reports, 2021) 44:03

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A celebrated revolution brought freedom to a group of enslaved people in northern India. Or did it? Millions of people around the world today are enslaved; nearly eight million of them live in India, more than anywhere else. Freedomville: The Story of a 21st-Century Slave Revolt (Columbia Global Reports, 2021) by Dr. Laura Murphy is the story of a …

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Pauwke Berkers and Yosha Wijngaarden, "A Sociology of Awkwardness: On Social Interactions Going Wrong" (Taylor & Francis, 2025) 33:43

2d ago33:43

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How does sociology help to explain modern life? In A Sociology of Awkwardness: On Social Interactions Going Wrong (Routledge, 2025)Pauwke Berkers, a full professor Sociology of Popular Music at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Yosha Wijngaarden, an assistant professor of Media and Creative Industries at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, examin…

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Daniel Wortel-London, "The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865–1981" (U of Chicago Press, 2025) 30:20

3d ago30:20

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Many local policymakers make decisions based on a deep-seated belief: what’s good for the rich is good for cities. Convinced that local finances depend on attracting wealthy firms and residents, municipal governments lavish public subsidies on their behalf. Whatever form this strategy takes—tax-exempt apartments, corporate incentives, debt-financed…

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Olga Touloumi, "Assembly by Design: The United Nations and Its Global Interior" (U Minnesota Press, 2024) 58:05

3d ago58:05

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For almost seven years after World War II, a small group of architects took on an exciting task: to imagine the spaces of global governance for a new political organization called the United Nations (UN). To create the iconic headquarters of the UN in New York City, these architects experimented with room layouts, media technologies, and design in …

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Yong-Shik Lee, "Law and Development: Theory and Practice, 2nd edition" (Routledge, 2021) 1:15:53

2d ago1:15:53

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Law and Development: Theory and Practice, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2021) examines the theory and practice of law and development. It introduces the General Theory of Law and Development, an innovative approach which explains the mechanisms by which law impacts development. This book analyzes the process of economic development in South Korea, South …

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David Bosco, "The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World's Oceans" (Oxford UP, 2021) 58:43

3d ago58:43

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Oceanic Studies. An interdisciplinary podcast that examines the past, present, and future of ocean governance In 1609, the Dutch lawyer Hugo Grotius rejected the idea that even powerful rulers could own the oceans. "A ship sailing through the sea," he wrote, "leaves behind it no more legal right than it does a track." A philosophical and legal batt…

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Daisy Livingston, "Managing Paperwork in Mamluk Cairo: Archives, Waqf and Society" (Edinburgh UP, 2025) 57:49

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Archives are not only sources for history but have their own histories too, which shape how historians can tell stories of the past. In Managing Paperwork in Mamluk Cairo: Archives, Waqf and Society (Edinburgh UP, 2025), Daisy Livingston explores the archival history of one of the most powerful polities of the late-medieval Middle East: the ‘Mamluk…

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Patricia Aufderheide, "Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy" (U California Press, 2024) 1:24:21

3d ago1:24:21

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Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy (U California Press, 2024) traces how filmmaker-philosophers brought the dream of making documentaries and strengthening democracy to award-winning reality—with help from nuns, gang members, skateboarders, artists, disability activists, and more. The evolution of Kartemquin Films—Peabod…