Departures Podcast featuring Stuart A. Reid, author of “The Lumumba Plot”

The early period of the Cold War in Africa includes some of the most shocking episodes of foreign intervention by the US Central Intelligence Agency, to the point that many of these histories would seem a bit too farfetched for Hollywood.  Such was the chaos in 1960-1961, right around the time that Congo achieved its […]

Departures Podcast featuring Gary Gerstle, author of ‘The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order’

In an increasingly complex and fractured international system, the norms and expectations of how nations and markets interact is changing from one era into the next before our very eyes.  That is the main focus of inquiry for Gary Gerstle, whose new book, “The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World […]

Departures Podcast Featuring Ron Robin, President of the University of Haifa

In the weeks following the October 7 Hamas terror attacks against Israel, Departures with Robert Amsterdam welcomes special guest Prof. Ron Robin, the President of the University of Haifa in Israel, who provides an assessment and analysis of what the country is going threre and what paths we see coming ahead. Amsterdam and Prof. Robin […]

Departures Podcast featuring Uri Kaufman, author of ‘Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Changed the Modern Middle East’

In October of 1973, Israel’s existence as an independent state was shaken to its core when Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed into the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, triggering a conflict of sprawling geopolitical scale. This week, in October of 2023, following an unprecedented series of violent terror attacks against Israel by the Palestinian group […]

Departures Podcast featuring Jade McGlynn, author of ‘Memory Makers’

As Russia’s catastrophic war in Ukraine lurches its way toward another winter, an interesting debate is emerging regarding some of the fundamental ideas of Russian nationalism which has underpinned Vladimir Putin’s casus belli, often including specifically misleading characterizations of history being used as a mobilizing force. In considering the relative complacency if not broad support […]

Departures Podcast featuring Jacob Mikanowski, author of ‘Goodbye, Eastern Europe’

Eastern Europe, from the northernmost reaches of of the Baltics and down to the Balkan statelets strung along the Adriadic Sea, is one of the most perplexing, conflicted, and interesting regions of the world which still today remains the subject of myths and misunderstanding. Since the end of the Cold War, one could say that […]

Departures Podcast featuring Gavin Sullivan, author of ‘The Law of the List’

In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, a sweeping transition took place across the international counter-terrorism space. Instead of responding to threats with law enforcement, numerous multilateral bodies instead respond with preemptive actions based on uncertain information – lists of names for sanctions are drawn up, very often directly violating basic due process and […]

Departures Podcast featuring John Rapley and Peter Heather, authors of ‘Why Empires Fall’

For more than one thousand years, the Roman Empire ruled over a vast territory that was  unprecedented in both scope and scale. When it finally did fall under pressure from barbarian invasions and internal political divisions (among many other factors), many historians argue that the Romans sowed the seeds of their own demise.  Is the […]

Departures Podcast featuring Frank Costigliola, author of ‘Kennan: A Life between Worlds’

George F. Kennan is arguably the most important American diplomat of the modern era, whose “long telegram” and strategy of containment shaped the Cold War and postwar period. And yet, at critical moments later in his career, he was cast aside and shut out by the institutions he once led. In his new book, “Kennan: […]

Departures Podcast featuring Dawn Murphy, author of ‘China’s Rise in the Global South’

As China and the U.S. increasingly compete for power in key areas of U.S. influence across the Middle East and African continent, competition has grown in linear succession, and is increasingly adversarial. Often cynical of Chinese involvement and intentions, the U.S. points to blunders of the Belt and Road initiative, fears of neocolonialism, and the […]