Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

In Capitalism in the Colonies: African Merchants in Lagos, 1851–1931 (Princeton UP, 2024), A. G. Hopkins provides the first substantial assessment of the fortunes of African entrepreneurs under colonial rule. Examining the lives and careers of 100 merchants in Lagos, Nigeria, between 1850 and 1931, Hopkins challenges c

Dr. Yanni Kotsonis, Professor of History and Russian & Slavic Studies at New York University, is the author of The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism (Princeton University Press, 2025). This deeply researched and beautifully written history traces how something brand new – a Greek nation-state – emer

In this wide-ranging work, Michael Sonenscher traces the origins of modern political thought and ideologies to a question, raised by Immanuel Kant, about what is involved in comparing individual human lives to the whole of human history. How can we compare them, or understand the results of the comparison? Kant’s quest

G.W.F. Hegel was widely seen as the greatest philosopher of his age. Ever since, his work has shaped debates about issues as varied as religion, aesthetics and metaphysics. His most lasting contribution was his vision of history and politics. In Hegel’s World Revolutions (Princeton UP, 2023), Richard Bourke returns to

Between the 1870s and 1930s, American social reformers, working closely with the US government, transformed sexual vice into an international political and humanitarian concern. As these activists worked to eradicate prostitution and trafficking, they promoted sexual self-control for both men and women as a cornerstone

Member selection is one of the defining elements of social organization, imposing categories on who we are and what we do. Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations (Princeton UP, 2023) shows how international organizations are like social clubs, ones in which institutional rules and informal