Interview with Stefanos Geroulanos, author of 'The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins'

Books about humanity's origins captivate readers, while news outlets eagerly cover archaeological discoveries, reflecting a long-standing fascination with prehistory. In "The Invention of Prehistory," historian Stefanos Geroulanos explores how Enlightenment-era thinkers began to consider a human past beyond recorded history, moving away from religious explanations to empirical ones. Geroulanos details how various ideas—from the “state of nature” to theories about Neanderthals—shaped Western intellectual thought and justified imperialist and repressive regimes. These notions, ranging from seeing other cultures as "savages" to justifying war through evolutionary theories, underpinned colonial violence and modern imperialism. Geroulanos contends that prehistory narratives reveal more about the times they were conceived than about ancient realities, suggesting that to improve our future, we should move beyond the quest for origins. His work reexamines the impact of our historical interpretations on contemporary society.

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Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine. Twitter (X): ⁠https://twitter.com/JavierMejiaC⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/javier_mejia_c/⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-mejia-cubillos/⁠ Youtube: ⁠https://youtube.com/@javiermejia5309?si=LEy5CuqD83qVB8jd⁠

I'm thrilled to share with you an episode from a new show called The Civic Agora. This venture is part of the Stanford Civics Initiative, where we explore the essence of citizenship and unravel the threads of thought that construct a flourishing society. In this episode of the Civic Agora, we chat with Brandice Canes-Wrone. She is a professor in the political science department and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. She is also the director of the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions. Her current research focuses on representation and accountability, including projects on elections, campaign finance, and representation. Follow The Civic Agora on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCK4HRxXhgWCeELg8XV6keFQ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4DFAAkrAb9ySguVq7X4IQS Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9lOGUzOGU0MC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d0476371-ace7-4616-a111-cfd3c2241a82/the-civic-agora Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-civic-agora/id1708437088 ----

Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Interview with Christopher M. Meissner, author of 'One From the Many: The Global Economy Since 1850' This book provides a brief introduction to the economic history of globalization since 1850. Key indicators, such as trade-to-production ratios, global foreign assets relative to world production, and the share of foreign-born in the population, are tracked over time. All globalization indicators rose between 1850 and 1914, during the first wave of globalization. From 1918 to 1939, the global economy stagnated, experiencing a significant collapse during the Great Depression. Post-World War II, the global economy re-emerged, and integration deepened, generating economic benefits and raising welfare over the long run. While globalization has its costs, and certain groups may lose economically, historical data show a preference for more globalization. Looking ahead, the global economy is likely to persist, with integration continuing to expand. However, sustained globalization depends on recognizing common interests and mitigating adverse effects. ----

Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/JavierMejiaC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/javier_mejia_c/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-mejia-cubillos/ Youtube: https://youtube.com/@javiermejia5309?si=LEy5CuqD83qVB8jd

Interview with Faisal Ahmed, author of 'Conquests and Rents: A Political Economy of Dictatorship and Violence in Muslim Societies'

Tragically, dictatorship and civil strife are prevalent in many contemporary Muslim-majority (hereon, Muslim) societies; characteristics that are detrimental to socio-economic development. In Conquest and Rents: A Political Economy of Dictatorship and Violence in Muslim Societies, I offer an original explanation for why. The book is grounded in a positive political economy approach that advances a formal theory that is “tested” in a historical and contemporary setting.

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Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/JavierMejiaC

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/javier_mejia_c/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-mejia-cubillos-64504562/

Interview with Eric H. Cline, author of '1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed' and 'After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations' At the end of the acclaimed history 1177 B.C., many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost and the so-called First Dark Age had begun. Now, in After 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the compelling story of what happened next, over four centuries, across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration.
After 1177 B.C. tells how the collapse of powerful Late Bronze Age civilizations created new circumstances to which people and societies had to adapt. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, and Neo-Babylonians. Taking the story up to the resurgence of Greece marked by the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C., the book also describes how world-changing innovations such as the use of iron and the alphabet emerged amid the chaos.

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Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Interview with Branko Milanovic, author of 'Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War' “How do you see income distribution in your time, and how and why do you expect it to change?” That is the question Branko Milanovic imagines posing to six of history's most influential economists: François Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Vilfredo Pareto, and Simon Kuznets. Probing their works in the context of their lives, he charts the evolution of thinking about inequality, showing just how much views have varied among ages and societies. Indeed, Milanovic argues, we cannot speak of “inequality” as a general concept: any analysis of it is inextricably linked to a particular time and place. ---- Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Interview with Michael Mann, author of 'On Wars' Benjamin Franklin once said, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” But what determines whether war or peace is chosen? Award-winning sociologist Michael Mann concludes that it is a handful of political leaders—people with emotions and ideologies, and constrained by inherited culture and institutions—who undertake such decisions, usually irrationally choosing war and seldom achieving their desired results.

Mann examines the history of war through the ages and across the globe—from ancient Rome to Ukraine, imperial China to the Middle East, Japan and Europe to Latin and North America. He explores the reasons groups go to war, the different forms of wars, how warfare has changed and how it has stayed the same, and the surprising ways in which seemingly powerful countries lose wars. In masterfully combining ideological, economic, political, and military analysis, Mann offers new insight into the many consequences of choosing war. --- Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Interview with Rowan Dorin, author of 'No Return : Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe' Beginning in the twelfth century, Jewish moneylenders increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs of European authorities, who denounced the evils of usury as they expelled Jews from their lands. Yet Jews were not alone in supplying coin and credit to needy borrowers. Across much of Western Europe, foreign Christians likewise engaged in professional moneylending, and they too faced repeated threats of expulsion from the communities in which they settled. No Return examines how mass expulsion became a pervasive feature of European law and politics—with tragic consequences that have reverberated down to the present.
Drawing on unpublished archival evidence ranging from fiscal ledgers and legal opinions to sermons and student notebooks, Rowan Dorin traces how an association between usury and expulsion entrenched itself in Latin Christendom from the twelfth century onward. Showing how ideas and practices of expulsion were imitated and repurposed in different contexts, he offers a provocative reconsideration of the dynamics of persecution in late medieval society.
Uncovering the protean and contagious nature of expulsion, No Return is a panoramic work of history that offers new perspectives on Jewish-Christian relations, the circulation of norms and ideas in the age before print, and the intersection of law, religion, and economic life in premodern Europe.

----- Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.