Economics and wealth
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Christian ascetics like Antony, Macrina and Evagrius create a new ethical ideal by pushing the human capacity for self-control to its limits.
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Bonaventure and Peter Olivi respond to critics of the Franciscan vow of poverty, in a debate which produced new ideas about economics and rights.
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Changing ideas about money, just price, and usury, up to the time of Buridan, Oresme, and Gregory of Rimaini.
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The host of the History of India podcast joins us for the final episode on India.
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Legal and economic thought in Byzantium: the sources of the law’s authority, the relation of church and civil law, just price, and just war.
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An introduction to Africana philosophical thought as it emerged from the modern experience of slavery and colonization by Europeans.
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Questions of political autonomy and group identity in the emigration movement led by Paul Cuffe, Daniel Coker, John Russwurm and others.
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Peter celebrates reaching 350 episodes by explaining a single sentence in Machiavelli's "Discourses."
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Tommaso Campanella’s The City of the Sun and other utopian works of the Italian Renaissance describe perfect cities as an ideal for real life politics.
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T. Thomas Fortune uses newspaper editorials to put forth a theory of civil rights and sets out a plan of political action for protecting them.
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Leon Battista Alberti, Benedetto Cotrugli, and Poggio Bracciolini grapple with the moral and conceptual problems raised by the prospect of people getting filthy rich.
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Around the time of World War One, Hubert Harrison (pictured), A. Philip Randolph, and other black socialists argue that racial oppression is caused by capitalism.
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Du Bois moves to the left, and revisits and refines older positions during the latter half of his very long life.
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Faced with massive political upheaval and the rise of the Anabaptists, Luther argues for a socially conservative version of the Reformation.
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Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier critiques the Harlem Renaissance and the “black bourgeoisie” for failing to embrace values that will empower black Americans.
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Two Trinidadian political thinkers: sociologist Oliver Cox analyzes the nature of racial prejudice, and historian Eric Williams connects capitalism to slavery.
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After 1963, the views of Malcolm X and MLK came closer together, on topics including internationalism, political engagement, and economics.
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The Cuban activist and author Juan Rene Betancourt urges racial solidarity and reckons with the revolution under Castro and the island’s turn towards Communism.
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The first leader of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, writes against neocolonialism and in favor of socialism and Pan-Africanism.
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The first leader of independent Tanzania grounds his socialist ideas in traditional African values.
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Amílcar Cabral, leader of a revolution against colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, rethinks culture and Marxist theory as bases for his struggle.
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Two scholars of the same name join us to shed further light on freedom fighter and political theorist Amílcar Cabral.
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What is the message of the famous, but elusive, work Utopia, and how can it be squared with the life of its author?
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The evolution of ideas about kingship and the role of the “three estates” in 15th and 16th century England, with a focus on John Fortescue and Thomas Starkey.
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Cedric J. Robinson reflects on the power and limitations of Marxism while charting the past and prospects of black radical thought.
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Iberian expeditions to the Americas inspire scientists, and Matteo Ricci’s religious mission to Asia becomes an encounter between European and Chinese philosophy.
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Vitoria, Molina, Suárez and others develop the idea of natural law, exploring its relevance for topics including international law, slavery, and the ethics of economic exchange.
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Why do critics consider Don Quixote the first “modern” novel, and what does it tell us about the aesthetics of fiction?
