Jul 29, 2025
For half a century, the Cold War defined global politics. Contested by two superpowers with opposing ideologies and interests, it touched nearly every part of the globe. It threatened nuclear war, and brought incalculable devastation to its battlefields – from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan and beyond. Could all the...
Jul 25, 2025
Has Haiti passed the point of no return? Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in gang violence since last October, according to the U.N. Gangs control an estimated 90 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, as a Kenya-led security mission remains undermanned and outgunned. Government services are collapsing, and people...
Jul 22, 2025
Russian President Vladimir Putin has contended with five U.S. presidents, from Bill Clinton in 2000 to Donald Trump today. Each American leader had the stated aim of improving U.S.-Russian relations by the time he left office. None truly succeeded. Why? In this episode, Jeffrey Engel and David Kramer examine the past...
Jul 18, 2025
One hundred years ago, in July 1925, a high school teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was arrested for teaching evolution. John Scopes' guilt was never in doubt, but his sensational trial was the center of national attention, pitting modernists against traditionalists, the defenders of Darwin's science against Christian...
Jul 15, 2025
Is President Donald Trump augmenting or undermining the sources of American power? Trade wars against U.S. allies, an immigration crackdown, and slashing the federal workforce are but three ways the administration's approach to exercising power could ultimately erode it. In this episode, renowned political theorist...