In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Sven Beckert about a global history of capitalism. They discuss how capitalism has always been global, positive and negative aspects of capitalism, origins and trading from a distance, capitalism within the state and in the countryside, slavery, working class, wealth and income inequality, capitalism in the 21st century, and many more topics.

Sven Beckert is Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University. His research and teaching center on the history of the United States in the nineteenth century, with a particular emphasis on the history of capitalism, including its economic, social, political and global dimensions. He is co-chair of the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard University , co-chair of the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History (WIGH) and co-editor of a series of books at Princeton University Press on “America in the World.” His work has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Humboldt Foundation, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, and the New York Public Library’s Center for Scholars and Writers, among others. He is the author of the latest book, Capitalism: A Global History.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Quico Toro about the current trends with modern charlatans. They talk about how charlatans have become more mainstream in present society, who is their audience, infamous charlatans, astrology, belief, social media, Trump, and many more topics.

Quico Toro is a writer and editor who serves as the global opinion columnist for the Washington Post. He is based in Tokyo, Japan. He is the co-author (with Moises Naim) of the book, Charlatans: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Hucksters Bamboozle the Media, the Markets, and the Masses.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Robin Waterfield and Polly Low about the new translation of Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War. They talk about the various plot points of the history, historical writing, inspiration from Herodotus, Polis city-states, and ethnicities and people groups. They also talk about authorship, oral vs. written history, translating from Attic Greek to English, translation choices, and many more topics.

Robin Waterfield is a British classical scholar, translator, and editor, specializing in Ancient Greek philosophy. He has written and/or translated many works, including the recent English translation of Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War.

Polly Low is a historian of ancient Greece, with particular interests in the political history of the Classical Greek World, and in the history (and ideology) of Greek interstate relations.