Show Notes
We sat down to discuss Karl Marx's scattered writings on Latin America, where he considers the Incan communitarian societies, the War of Independence, and the modern states' 'weak' geopolitical stature. Pat helps unpack the controversy touched off by Marx's attack on Simón Bolívar, putting it into context alongside writings on the American Civil War and the anthropological turn in the Late Marx. Along the way, we gloss major figures in Latin American Marxism from the last two centuries, such ...
More from After the ‘End of History’
Welcome back to After the End of History. This discussion was recorded on August 27th, 2026. The many false starts and stops of the war on Iran tell us, unhappily and perversely, that this conflict will stretch well into our future – just as we recognize its long past continuity from the 2016 strikes on Syria to the war on Iran in 1980 just after its revolution. This follows recent episodes where we talked to Brandon Wolff -Hunnicutt about the Iraq wars, and Nicholas Mulder about sanctions ...
Welcome back to our jaunt through Alejo Carpentier’s “El siglo de las luces”, a maritime escapade in the Americas at the time of the French Revolution. With some of the literary theory covered already in episode 1, where we made the case for why this is a unique example of historical realism, we finally enjoy retelling the arc of the story and reading sections of its lurid prose. A deserted island boar feast, a guillotine being rowed into Guadalupe’s bay by starlight, former revolutionaries r...
[Recorded 31 January 2025] A continuation of our discussion on Marx's "forgotten text," Herr Vogt: A Spy in the Workers' Movement. Support the show
[Recorded on 29 July 2025.] We sat down with the always insightful Christopher Mott of the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy to talk about the patterns of American culture and their effects on foreign policy. His distinctive blend of cultural criticism, global history, and strategic thinking were on full display. Listeners will enjoy our discussion of the deep history of Eurasia in his 2015 book The Formless Empire: A Short History of Warfare and Diplomacy in Central Asia. We asked him ...
Welcome back to our mini-series on realism and the Latin American novel. In this episode, we provide a thorough engagement with the late Peruvian master, Mario Vargas Llosa, an author of major works from all the way back in the 1950s to the current decade. Pat speaks with Neil Larsen, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, about his seminal essay, “Mario Vargas Llosa: The Realist as Neo-Liberal.” What makes Vargas Llosa revolutionary as a storyteller, but a reactionary ideologue? We ca...