#AcademicRunPlaylist - 11/7/25

I was all over town for meetings today, and in addition to spotting this apartment building instantiation of the worst Tetris strategy imaginable I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great panel on economic power in the digital age with Fausto Gernone, Cecilia Rikap, Tommaso Valletti, and Mariana Mazzucato at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZwVjO1TBY

Next was a compelling talk by Branko Milanovic on national market liberalism in a multipolar world at the LSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USzOVGkFGp0

Next was "Labor's Story in the United States" by Philip Yale Nicholson. There are more recent books on US labor history, but with the caveat that this one stops in 2003 it provides one of the most incisive, rich analyses of this topic that I've read. Nicholson proceeds chronologically but makes sure to tie analytical themes and explore parallels across different time periods, continually hammering the point that labor action divorced from coordinated political action (and vice versa) tends to either lead to stagnation of working conditions and democratic rights on an outright reversion. As with any good labor history, this book shows how many of the working conditions we take for granted today were only gained due to fierce labor action against concerted pushback from industrialists. The concluding section is downright prophetic given our current moment. Highly recommend https://tupress.temple.edu/books/labor-s-story-in-the-united-states

Last was "Islands of History" by Marshall Sahlins. I was hoping this book would get into the history of different Pacific Islands, and while there's a bit of that here in addition to some insightful cultural anthropology work it's mostly an almost comically self-serious philosophical work of historiography. This makes most of the book insufferable, and it's all the more frustrating because buried beneath the avalanche of overly obtuse and meandering prose are real gems about the cultural practices of a variety of island nations and their unique interactions with colonial powers. The fact that names such as George Washington, Thomas Paine, and John Adams became popular on the Hawaiian islands in the early 1800s was especially fascinating. Still, those bright spots don't merit a slog through this mercifully short book https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo41988473.html