This week, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Adam Tooze, professor of history at Columbia University and author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the U.S. and China, and how it has affected their position in the emerging geopolitical contest.
6:45: American power and political authority
14:01: China’s power during the pandemic
20:27: Trump’s deliberate strategy of “stress testing”
33:24: The Trump administration’s full-court press against the CCP
Recommendations:
Jeremy: Wu Fei’s Music Daily: an email newsletter with an original piece of music every day of the week by a composer and guzheng virtuoso. (Disclosure: She is his wife.)
Adam: The Feast of the Goat: A Novel, written by Mario Vargas Llosa and translated by Edith Grossman.
Kaiser: The Hunt for Vulcan: …And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe, by Thomas Levenson.
This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.
