#AcademicRunPlaylist - 5/11/25

I had a good weekend with the family, and while trying to catch up with my youngest on his bike I was able to listen to a talk and book for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a thought-provoking talk by Jayaseelan Raj on Ambedkar's views on epistemology, categories, and autonomy at the Boston Study Group https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Sq3yhGUgk

Last was "The Wages of Destruction" by Adam Tooze. For all of the ink that has been spilled about Nazi Germany, there's been comparatively little written about the development and changes in its economy. Tooze rectifies that with a highly readable and deeply researched tome on the topic, starting in the pre-war years and continuing to the end of the war. Through it all he reveals the inherent precarity of Germany's economy, how its fortunes changed with the ebb and flow of the war, and its relationship with its genocidal policies. The state control and crony capitalism aspects of the economy were morbidly fascinating, and the explicit parallels Hitler drew to the economic advantages of continental expansion and dispossession and genocide of Native Americans were chilling. Highly recommend https://adamtooze.com/the-wages-of-destruction/