# Podcast In our *Epicenter* podcast, we bring together scholars and experienced practitioners from different disciplines to guide us through pressing global topics, to boil down the issues, to explain the research and give valuable context. The goal is to give listeners a deeper understanding of a topic to expand their everyday thinking about the world inside and outside their own borders. Listen and subscribe on [Simplecast](https://wcfia-epicenter.simplecast.com/)! *Epicenter* is also available on a variety of listening platforms. Sort & Filters close ## Filters Post Type expand\_more - Articles (126) - Multimedia (6) - Podcast (19) Region expand\_more - Global (55) - North America (40) - Central America (3) - South America (10) - Middle East & North Africa (MENA) (27) - Sub-Saharan Africa (12) - Europe (31) - Central Asia (1) - East & Southeast Asia (25) - South Asia (9) - Australia & Oceania (2) - Antarctic (1) Search Within Results Search Within Results search ## 19 results Show filters filter\_alt Sort by NewestOldestAlphabetical A-ZAlphabetical Z-APublish Date (DESC)Publish Date (ASC) sort list grid\_view ## 19 results [### One Thousand Years of Capitalism ](/podcast/ep19-one-thousand-years-of-capitalism) April 30, 2026 **Sven Beckert, a history professor at Harvard, has written an epic book about the history of capitalism over roughly a millenium: it’s called** ***Capitalism: A Global History*****. Beckert believes the only way to understand one’s place in the world is through**... ![Graphic shows headshots for Sven Beckert and Senthil Nathan plus podcast title and logo.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-04/ep19-SBeckert-16x9%20Still.png?itok=SSoIo94Y) [### Life After War ](/podcast/ep18-life-after-war) August 13, 2025 **When a war ends, the work of mending a society begins. Groups who were sworn enemies for decades, even generations, must find ways to live together in peace. The process of reconciliation takes a long time, and involves all levels of society: civilians**... ![Graphic shows episode details and includes the three speaker headshots all set against a duotone beige background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-08/Ep18-LifeAfterWar-16-9.png?itok=QIlTXJNA) [### Exploring Commodity Frontiers ](/podcast/ep17-exploring-commodity-frontiers) January 14, 2025 **We don’t think about commodities very much. They’re all around us: cotton, sugar, oil, gas, chickens, cattle, and so many other things we take for granted. But a closer look at the history of commodities tells a revealing story about the expansion of**... ![Collage of headshots of diverse people in circular frames over a two-toned warm grey background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Post-Verticle-Card-Ep17.png?itok=gjYEAfqa) [### Rare Films from Socialist Yugoslavia ](/podcast/ep16-rare-films-from-socialist-yugoslavia) October 22, 2024 **One room. One locked-down camera. One roll of film. A group of famous directors from the 1960s took the challenge: they would make a short film with these parameters plus one more—their dialogue must include the sentence “*****I Miss Sonia Henie*****.” The result**... ![Collage of headshots of diverse people in circular frames over a two-toned warm grey background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Epicenter-podcast16.png?itok=SyLxYKa4) [### Migrants Bring Opportunity to Boston and Beyond ](/podcast/ep15-migrants-bring-opportunity-to-boston-and-beyond) May 29, 2024 **Massachusetts has long been a welcoming state to immigrants and migrant families. In the summer of 2023, its one-of-a-kind “right to shelter” law was put to the test when emergency shelters reached capacity. It was called a humanitarian crisis, and images**... ![Collage of headshots of diverse people in circular frames over a two-toned grey background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Podcast15.png?itok=sCRztZFT) [### Social Technology for Aging Societies ](/episodes/ep14-social-technology-for-aging-societies) December 14, 2023 **People aged sixty-five and older make up the fastest growing population around the world, posing unique challenges to societies. A Harvard initiative called Social Technology for Global Aging Research is founded on the belief that there’s a great**... ![Collage of headshots of diverse people in circular frames over a two-toned grey background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Podcast14.png?itok=EeQMrV9u) [### Who Can Stop a Dictator? Resistance to the War in Ukraine ](/podcast/ep13-who-can-stop-a-dictator) August 25, 2023 **When the Wagner mercenary group staged a near coup in Moscow in June, it was seen as the greatest challenge to Vladimir Putin’s regime in decades. Though it didn’t come to fruition, it nevertheless exposed some of the fissures in Putin’s ironclad control**... ![Collage of headshots of diverse people in circular frames over a two-toned grey background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Podcast16.png?itok=cMK_bCKy) [### Can Erdogan be Unseated? ](/podcast/ep12-can-erdogan-be-unseated) May 10, 2023 **The presidential election in Turkey this spring is shaping up to be the most consequential in decades. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led the country for twenty years, is facing the staunchest opposition in his career in the form of an unprecedented**... ![Graphic with Epicenter logo and episode guest headshots](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/epicenter/files/mainimage-epicenterpodcast-turkishelections-700px.jpg?h=1c76fd1b&itok=ITovqLwI) [### What Is Holding Up the Transition to Green Energy? ](/podcast/ep11-green-energy-transition) February 06, 2023 **Green technology has come a long way, to the extent that it can, in theory, be scaled up to solve the world’s energy problems. If this is true, then why does the US lag so far behind in transitioning away from fossil fuels? This episode addresses the**... ![Headshots of Dustin Tingley, Jeff Colgan, and Aleksandra Conevska](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/epicenter/files/podcast-portraits-ep11_dtingley-700px.jpg?h=8e11d3a8&itok=9EVFE7qn) [### The Politics of Sports ](/podcast/ep10-politics-of-sports) November 30, 2022 **There’s a shadow over World Cup Soccer this year, and it’s become impossible to separate the sports from the politics. Host country Qatar gained notoriety for bribes, exploitation of workers, and antigay laws. In this episode, a group of athletes and**... ![Headshots of all three panelists on this podcast episode](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/epicenter/files/podcast-portraits-sports-fullcolor-700px.jpg?h=d4a48387&itok=txzA71dO) [### Lebanon in Free Fall ](/podcast/ep9-lebanon-in-free-fall) March 16, 2022 **Lebanon has been called many different things: a gem of the Middle East, a failed state, a geopolitical Gordian knot (or nightmare). Its financial system has recently collapsed, people cannot find basic services, and residents are still recovering from**... ![Collage of headshots in tone of blue in a square. ](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Epicenter-Podcast9-v2.png?itok=SONz07L8) [### Negotiating with Terrorists (Part 2) ](/podcast/ep8-negotiating-with-terrorists-pt2) January 20, 2022 **Pulling out of Afghanistan was the top foreign policy event of 2021. Perhaps overlooked in the collective relief to be done with this twenty-year war is the fact that the US had to negotiate with terrorists to get there. In fact, it ceded an entire**... ![Collage of the three guest speakers: Annette Idler, Fredrik Logevall, and Jytte Klausen](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/epicenter/files/podcast-negotiation-violence-700px.jpg?h=ddb9eaed&itok=LSrmw6wA) - Previous page chevron\_left - [1](?page=0 "Current page") - [2](?page=1 "Go to page 2") - [ Next page chevron\_right ](?page=1 "Go to next page")