Episodes

  • How Resource Wealth Shapes Societies: Congo and the Gulf States

    How Resource Wealth Shapes Societies: Congo and the Gulf States
    Aug 23 2025
    This analysis explores how the Kingdom of Congo and modern Gulf states amassed vast wealth through the slave trade and hydrocarbons, respectively. Both used monopolies on lucrative resources to build absolute, authoritarian regimes, neglecting innovation and societal development. The result: centralized power, arbitrary governance, stagnation, and long-term instability. The Gulf states risk repeating Congo's cycle if they continue relying solely on oil.

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    12 mins
  • Nature vs. Nurture: Debunking Racial Myths

    Nature vs. Nurture: Debunking Racial Myths
    Aug 15 2025
    This episode examines the division of the Korean Peninsula as the largest real-world nature vs. nurture experiment, showing how social, political, and economic systems—not race—shape societies. It also debunks historic and modern racist theories using examples from Italy, Argentina, and the Caribbean, highlighting that prosperity and failure are determined by institutions and governance, not genetics or ethnicity.

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    13 mins
  • Geography vs. Society: What Shapes History?

    Geography vs. Society: What Shapes History?
    Aug 8 2025
    This episode explores the debate between geographic determinism and societal influence in shaping history and civilizations. Using examples from Russia, South America, Angkor Wat, and others, the creator examines whether geography or societal choices play a more decisive role in development. The discussion includes critiques of popular theories, such as those by Jared Diamond, and highlights cases where geography alone fails to explain societal outcomes.

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    9 mins
  • Putin's Russia: Ideological Roots and Influences

    Putin's Russia: Ideological Roots and Influences
    Aug 1 2025
    This analysis explores the ideological foundations of Putin's regime, focusing on the influence of three key thinkers: Ivan Ilyin, Lev Gumilev, and Carl Schmitt. Ilyin's Christian fascism shapes Russia's self-image and political structure; Gumilev's Eurasianism underpins foreign policy; Schmitt justifies lawlessness and authoritarian rule. The episode critiques Western misunderstandings and highlights the persistence of fascist and anti-democratic ideas in modern Russia.

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    13 mins
  • The Danube's Role in European Politics

    The Danube's Role in European Politics
    Jul 25 2025

    The Danube is of great economic importance to the 10 countries that border it—Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Austria, and Germany—all of which variously use the river for freight transport, the generation of hydroelectricity, industrial and residential water supplies.

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    11 mins
  • The European Union’s Fight to Hold Nations Together

    The European Union’s Fight to Hold Nations Together
    Jul 12 2025

    In this episode, we talk about how the European Union fits into Europe’s long history of empire, collapse, and cooperation. We dig into the Union’s roots in post-World War history, the failed promises of nationalism in the nineteen twenties, the enduring influence of countries like France and Britain, the role of Russia’s gas strategy, and how old imperial habits still shape European energy and agriculture today. From Pilsudski’s vision of the Intermarium to modern debates over uranium, African resources, and Brexit, this story shows why the European Union is more than a trade bloc—it is Europe’s bet on a post-imperial future.

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    13 mins
  • From the Tomb of Alexander

    From the Tomb of Alexander
    Jul 6 2025

    In this episode we travel from the bones of Alexander the Great to the shadows of Charlemagne, the echoes of Rome, the tombs of Suleiman and Cyrus, the myths of the Mughals, and the stories that refuse to die. We trace how empire never really ends but folds itself into new shapes, riding on the backs of conquerors, stories, pilgrimages, and half-true legends. This is the haunting truth about power — that the grave is never really the end when myth can raise the bones to walk again.

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    17 mins