Then & Now

For this special episode, we are sharing a recording of a Zoom event hosted on November 21 by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. Featuring two UCLA history professors, Dr. James L. Gelvin…

This episode of then & now  features a conversation with the Reverend James Lawson, the legendary social justice activist who introduced the practice of non-violent action to the civil rights movemen…

On September 15, 2023, workers from the United Auto Workers union went on strike at Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Stellantis simultaneously, quickly expanding to include tens of thousands o…

More than half the world’s population currently lives in cities, and current estimates suggest that by 2050 nearly 7 out of every 10 people will live in urban spaces. In an increasingly crowded and u…

Reports have emerged in recent weeks that a grave humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh, a contested region in present-day Azerbaijan that contains a large majority of Armenian residen…

As we transition to our fourth season of "Then & Now", this episode features renowned Israeli human rights lawyer, Michael Sfard.  He offers an analysis of Israel's current crisis of democracy, inclu…

Following the recent destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the south of the country, the government of Ukraine accused Russia of the crime of “ecocide.”  This term first surfaced in the 1970s in the con…

In this episode, historian Peter Baldwin makes the case for open access.  He surveys the history of knowledge production and transmission from the Gutenberg Bible, which opened up access in unprecede…

Women's reproductive rights have been a contentious issue over the past few years in the United States. Both federal and state measures have been introduced that restrict women’s ability to make deci…

 As the director of the FBI for nearly half a century, John Edgar Hoover was the chief architect of the American security apparatus during a large chunk of the 20th century. A recognizable figure in …

The United States and Israel have both been roiled by major democratic crises in recent years. Many observers attribute these crises to the Trump presidency and the recent plan by the Netanyahu gover…

In the decade since the global financial crisis of 2007-8, a number of countries have faced and succumbed to sovereign-debt crises and declared bankruptcy. After Greece, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina…

In the wake of the pandemic and persistent underfunding, cultural and educational institutions in the United States today are increasingly confronted with an uncertain fate. How can they sustain grow…

Hip-hop culture and rap music are often assumed to be quintessentially American art forms. But by the late 1970s, hip-hop had transcended its roots in the US coasts. In France, artists from the Afric…

The legitimacy of a US-led global order has been taken for granted by many in political, diplomatic and intellectual circles in the United States and even beyond. Yet this narrative of a postwar libe…

Recent years have witnessed a stark rise across the globe in populist leaders whose policies are implicitly, or even explicitly, authoritarian. The policies of these leaders are sometimes at odds wit…

China-US relations have again drawn global attention after a Chinese high-altitude balloon, suspected of carrying surveillance equipment, was shot down off the Carolina coast by the United States mil…