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Chinese Workers of the World: Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan–Indochina Railway
by Selda AltanChinese workers helped build the modern world. They labored on New World plantations, worked in South African mines, and toiled through the construction of the Panama Canal, among many other projects. While most investigations of Chinese workers focus on migrant labor, Chinese Workers of the World explores Chinese labor under colonial regimes within China through an examination of the Yunnan-Indochina Railway, constructed between 1898–1910. The Yunnan railway—a French investment in imperial China during the age of "railroad colonialism"—connected French-colonized Indochina to Chinese markets with a promise of cross-border trade in tin, silk, tea, and opium. However, this ambitious project resulted in fiasco. Thousands of Chinese workers died during the horrid construction process, and costs exceeded original estimates by 74%. Drawing on Chinese, French, and British archival accounts of day-to-day worker struggles and labor conflicts along the railway, Selda Altan argues that long before the Chinese Communist Party defined Chinese workers as the vanguard of a revolutionary movement in the 1920s, the modern figure of the Chinese worker was born in the crosscurrents of empire and nation in the late nineteenth century. Yunnan railway workers contested the conditions of their employment with the knowledge of a globalizing capitalist market, fundamentally reshaping Chinese ideas of free labor, national sovereignty, and regional leadership in East and Southeast Asia.
Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (South Asia in Motion)
by Sandhya FuchsAgainst the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes.
Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (South Asia in Motion)
by Sandhya FuchsAgainst the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes.
Cyber Sovereignty: The Future of Governance in Cyberspace
by Lucie KadlecováGovernments across the globe find themselves in an exploratory phase as they probe the limits of their sovereignty in the cyber domain. Cyberspace is a singular environment that is forcing states to adjust their behavior to fit a new arena beyond the four traditional domains (air, sea, space, and land) to which the classic understanding of state sovereignty applies. According to Lucie Kadlecová, governments must implement a more adaptive approach to keep up with rapid developments and innovations in cyberspace in order to truly retain their sovereignty. This requires understanding the concept of sovereignty in a more creative and flexible manner. Kadlecová argues that the existence of sovereignty in cyberspace is the latest remarkable stage in the evolution of this concept. Through a close study of the most advanced transatlantic cases of state sovereignty in cyberspace—the Netherlands, the US, Estonia, and Turkey—Cyber Sovereignty reveals how states have pursued new methods and tactics to fuel the distribution of authority and control in the cyber field, imaginatively combining modern technologies with legal frameworks. In times of booming competition over cyber governance between democracies and authoritarian regimes worldwide, cyber sovereignty is a major topic of interest, and concern, for the international community.
Cyber Sovereignty: The Future of Governance in Cyberspace
by Lucie KadlecováGovernments across the globe find themselves in an exploratory phase as they probe the limits of their sovereignty in the cyber domain. Cyberspace is a singular environment that is forcing states to adjust their behavior to fit a new arena beyond the four traditional domains (air, sea, space, and land) to which the classic understanding of state sovereignty applies. According to Lucie Kadlecová, governments must implement a more adaptive approach to keep up with rapid developments and innovations in cyberspace in order to truly retain their sovereignty. This requires understanding the concept of sovereignty in a more creative and flexible manner. Kadlecová argues that the existence of sovereignty in cyberspace is the latest remarkable stage in the evolution of this concept. Through a close study of the most advanced transatlantic cases of state sovereignty in cyberspace—the Netherlands, the US, Estonia, and Turkey—Cyber Sovereignty reveals how states have pursued new methods and tactics to fuel the distribution of authority and control in the cyber field, imaginatively combining modern technologies with legal frameworks. In times of booming competition over cyber governance between democracies and authoritarian regimes worldwide, cyber sovereignty is a major topic of interest, and concern, for the international community.
Dictatorship on Trial: Coups and the Future of Justice in Thailand
by Tyrell HaberkornIn 2014, after a decade of political turmoil, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) carried out Thailand's 13th coup since the country's transformation from absolute to constitutional monarchy in 1932. Though the NCPO promised to restore the rule of law, justice—long tenuous in Thailand—disappeared entirely. The legal system was used to criminalize the thoughts and actions of democratic dissidents, facilitate extrajudicial violence, and guarantee impunity for the coup and crimes by state officials. Combining legal and historical scholarship and long-term courtroom observation, Dictatorship on Trial traces the legal, social, and political impacts of authoritarianism, and foregrounds court decisions as both a history of repression and a site in which to imagine future justice. Organized chronologically across the five years of the NCPO regime, each chapter takes up a different political case and enumerates the ways in which political activists were made vulnerable rather than protected by the state's interpretations of the law, and the mechanisms through which perpetrators evaded accountability. Inspired by feminist legal scholars, the substantive analysis in each chapter is followed by new, rewritten judgments created in collaboration with Thai human rights activists. In plotting these alternative logics, interpretations of evidence, and conclusions, Tyrell Haberkorn outlines what true justice might look like, and assesses the legal and political transformations necessary to realize it.
Dictatorship on Trial: Coups and the Future of Justice in Thailand
by Tyrell HaberkornIn 2014, after a decade of political turmoil, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) carried out Thailand's 13th coup since the country's transformation from absolute to constitutional monarchy in 1932. Though the NCPO promised to restore the rule of law, justice—long tenuous in Thailand—disappeared entirely. The legal system was used to criminalize the thoughts and actions of democratic dissidents, facilitate extrajudicial violence, and guarantee impunity for the coup and crimes by state officials. Combining legal and historical scholarship and long-term courtroom observation, Dictatorship on Trial traces the legal, social, and political impacts of authoritarianism, and foregrounds court decisions as both a history of repression and a site in which to imagine future justice. Organized chronologically across the five years of the NCPO regime, each chapter takes up a different political case and enumerates the ways in which political activists were made vulnerable rather than protected by the state's interpretations of the law, and the mechanisms through which perpetrators evaded accountability. Inspired by feminist legal scholars, the substantive analysis in each chapter is followed by new, rewritten judgments created in collaboration with Thai human rights activists. In plotting these alternative logics, interpretations of evidence, and conclusions, Tyrell Haberkorn outlines what true justice might look like, and assesses the legal and political transformations necessary to realize it.
The Structure of Ideas: Mapping a New Theory of Free Expression in the AI Era
by Jared SchroederIn his historic 1919 dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes named, and thus catalyzed the creation of, the marketplace of ideas. This conceptual space has, ever since, been used to give shape to American constitutional notions of the freedom of expression. It has also eluded clear definition, as jurists and scholars have contested its meaning for more than a century. In The Structure of Ideas, Jared Schroeder takes on the task of mapping the various iterations of the marketplace, from its early foundations in Enlightenment beliefs in universal truths and rational actors, to its increasingly expansive parameters for protecting expression in the arenas of commercial, corporate, and online speech. Schroeder contends that in today's information landscape, marked by the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence, the marketplace is failing to provide a space where truths succeed and falsity fails. AI and networked technologies have thoroughly overpowered all traditional pictures of the marketplace up to now. Schroeder proposes various theoretical interventions that would revise the marketplace for the current moment, and concludes by describing a new space built around algorithms, AI, and virtual communication.
The Structure of Ideas: Mapping a New Theory of Free Expression in the AI Era
by Jared SchroederIn his historic 1919 dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes named, and thus catalyzed the creation of, the marketplace of ideas. This conceptual space has, ever since, been used to give shape to American constitutional notions of the freedom of expression. It has also eluded clear definition, as jurists and scholars have contested its meaning for more than a century. In The Structure of Ideas, Jared Schroeder takes on the task of mapping the various iterations of the marketplace, from its early foundations in Enlightenment beliefs in universal truths and rational actors, to its increasingly expansive parameters for protecting expression in the arenas of commercial, corporate, and online speech. Schroeder contends that in today's information landscape, marked by the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence, the marketplace is failing to provide a space where truths succeed and falsity fails. AI and networked technologies have thoroughly overpowered all traditional pictures of the marketplace up to now. Schroeder proposes various theoretical interventions that would revise the marketplace for the current moment, and concludes by describing a new space built around algorithms, AI, and virtual communication.
Migration and Inequality
by Mirna SafiIn a world of increasingly heated political debates on migration, relentlessly caught up in questions of security, humanitarian crisis, and cultural “problems,” this book radically shifts the focus to address migration through the lens of inequality. Taking an innovative approach, Mirna Safi offers a fresh perspective on how migration is embedded in the elementary mechanisms that shape the landscape of inequality. She sketches out three distinct channels which lead to unequal outcomes for different migrating and non-migrating groups: the global division of labor; the production of legal and administrative categories; and the reconfiguration of symbolic ethnoracial groups. Respectively, these channels categorize migrants as “type of workers,” “type of citizens,” and “type of humans.” Examining this intersection across the U.S. and Europe, she shows how studying international migration together with inequality can challenge nationally established paradigms of social justice. This timely book will be essential reading for all students and researchers interested in the sociology and politics of migration, ethnic and racial studies, and social inequality and stratification.
Improvised Lives: Rhythms of Endurance in an Urban South (After the Postcolonial)
by AbdouMaliq SimoneThe poor and working people in cities of the South find themselves in urban spaces that are conventionally construed as places to reside or inhabit. But what if we thought of popular districts in more expansive ways that capture what really goes on within them? In such cities, popular districts are the settings of more uncertain operations that take place under the cover of darkness, generating uncanny alliances among disparate bodies, materials and things and expanding the urban sensorium and its capacities for liveliness. In this important new book AbdouMaliq Simone explores the nature of these alliances, portraying urban districts as sites of enduring transformations through rhythms that mediate between the needs of residents not to draw too much attention to themselves and their aspirations to become a small niche of exception. Here we discover an urban South that exists as dense rhythms of endurance that turn out to be vital for survival, connectivity, and becoming.
Michael Walzer (Key Contemporary Thinkers)
by J. Toby ReinerMichael Walzer is one of the world’s most important political thinkers, whose major works, such as Spheres of Justice and Just and Unjust Wars, have transformed many central debates in contemporary political philosophy. In this book, Toby J. Reiner provides the most wide-ranging and up-to-date introduction to his work available. Reiner examines his writings on topics ranging from justice in war, humanitarian intervention and migration ethics to distributive justice, multiculturalism, and the political role of religion. Situating Walzer’s thought in the intellectual environment of post-war American leftist politics, Reiner demonstrates the importance of his attempt to provide a social-democratic alternative to liberalism, Marxism, and post-modernism. He shows that Walzer has developed a novel approach to political theory based on the thesis that human communities construct the values that give meaning to their lives, giving his work a significance that goes well beyond political theory, into political and social science more broadly.Reiner not only gives a crystal clear guide to Walzer’s ideas for students of political philosophy and general readers, but also develops an original and illuminating new interpretation of his thought that no political theorist can afford to miss.
Lifestyle Gurus: Constructing Authority and Influence Online
by Chris Rojek Stephanie A. BakerThe rise of blogs and social media provide a public platform for people to share information online. This trend has facilitated an industry of self-appointed ‘lifestyle gurus’ who have become instrumental in the management of intimacy and social relations. Advice on health, wealth creation, relationships and well-being is rising to challenge the authority of experts and professionals. Pitched as ‘authentic’, ‘accessible’ and ‘outside of the system’, this information has produced an unprecedented sense of empowerment and sharing. However, new problems have arisen in its wake. In Lifestyle Gurus, Baker and Rojek explore how authority and influence are achieved online. They trace the rise of lifestyle influencers in the digital age, relating this development to the erosion of trust in the expert-professional power bloc. The moral contradictions of lifestyle websites are richly explored, demonstrating how these technologies encourage a preoccupation with the very commercial and corporate hierarchies they seek to challenge. A timely account of how lifestyle issues are being packaged and transacted in a wired-up world, this book is important reading for students and scholars of media, communication, sociology and related disciplines.
Manufacturing Happy Citizens: How the Science and Industry of Happiness Control our Lives
by Eva Illouz Edgar CabanasThe imperative of happiness dictates the conduct and direction of our lives. There is no escape from the tyranny of positivity. But is happiness the supreme good that all of us should pursue? So says a new breed of so-called happiness experts, with positive psychologists, happiness economists and self-development gurus at the forefront. With the support of influential institutions and multinational corporations, these self-proclaimed experts now tell us what governmental policies to apply, what educational interventions to make and what changes we must undertake in order to lead more successful, more meaningful and healthier lives. With a healthy scepticism, this book documents the powerful social impact of the science and industry of happiness, arguing that the neoliberal alliance between psychologists, economists and self-development gurus has given rise to a new and oppressive form of government and control in which happiness has been woven into the very fabric of power.
Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today
by Paul Raekstad Sofa Saio GradinMany of us wonder what we could possibly do to end oppression, exploitation, and injustice. People have studied revolutions and protest movements for centuries, but few have focused on prefigurative politics, the idea of 'building the new society within the shell of the old'. Fed up with capitalism? Get organised and build the institutions of the future in radical unions and local communities. Tired of politicians stalling on climate change? Set up an alternative energy collective. Ready to smash racism and the patriarchy? Root them out in all areas of our lives, not just in 'high politics'. This is the first book dedicated to prefigurative politics, explaining its history and examining the various debates surrounding it. How can collective decision-making be inclusive? In what ways are movements intersectional? Can prefigurative organisations scale up? It is a must-read for students of radical politics, anarchism, and social movements, as well as activists and concerned citizens everywhere.
Music: Why It Matters
by Nicholas CookAs countries went into lockdown in 2020, people turned to music for comfort and solidarity. Neighbours sang to each other from their balconies; people participated in online music sessions that created an experience of socially distanced togetherness. Nicholas Cook argues that the value of music goes far beyond simple enjoyment. Music can enhance well-being, interpersonal relationships, cultural tolerance, and civil cohesion. At the same time, music can be a tool of persuasion or ideology. Thinking about music helps bring into focus the values that are mobilised in today’s culture wars. Making music together builds relationships of interdependence and trust: rather than escapism, it offers a blueprint for a community of mutual obligation and interdependence. Music: Why It Matters is for anyone who loves playing, listening to, or thinking about music, as well as those pursuing it as a career.
Visual Methods for Digital Research: An Introduction
by Sabine Niederer Gabriele ColomboOver the last decade, images have become a key feature of digital culture; at the same time, they have made a mark on a wide range of research practices.Visual Methods for Digital Research is the first textbook to bring the fields of visual methods and digital research together. Presenting visual methods for digital and participatory research, the book covers both the application of existing digital methods for image research and new visual methodologies developed specifically for digital research. It encompasses various approaches to studying digital images, including the distant reading of image collections, the close reading of visual vernaculars of social media platforms, and participatory research with visual materials. Offering a theoretical framework illustrated with hands-on techniques, Sabine Niederer and Gabriele Colombo provide compelling examples for studying online images through visual and digital means, and discuss critical data practices such as data feminism and digital methods for social and cultural research.This textbook is an accessible and invaluable guide for students and researchers of digital humanities, social sciences, information and communication design, critical data visualization and digital visual culture.
Interventions 2020
by Michel HouellebecqThe death of God in the West was the prelude to a formidable metaphysical soap opera that continues to this day. Christianity’s masterstroke was to combine a fierce belief in the individual with the promise of eternal participation in the Absolute. When that dream evaporated, various attempts were made to offer the individual a minimum of being. The latest of these attempts is advertising, which seeks to arouse desire and transform the subject into a docile phantom doomed to follow advertising’s every whim. But, like all previous attempts, this skin-deep, superficial participation in the world fails, and unhappiness and depression continue to spread.However, we can all produce a cold revolution in ourselves by stepping outside the flow of information and advertising. We need to take some time out, unplug the television, turn off our iPhones, stop buying stuff, stop wanting to buy stuff, temporarily detach ourselves and adopt an aesthetic attitude to the world. We just need to stay still for a few seconds.This is one of the key themes developed by Michel Houellebecq in this collection of his texts and interviews from the last three decades. Here he explains and elaborates his point of view, discusses his novels and addresses a wide range of topics from politics, religion and literature to suicide, euthanasia and paedophilia. An indispensable book for anyone interested in the work of one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time.
Theory and Society: Selected Writings, Volume 3
by Zygmunt BaumanThe breadth and depth of Zygmunt Bauman’s engagement with social theory and the history of social thought has perhaps been underestimated, in part because many of his early writings were in Polish and never translated into English, and in part because many important pieces appeared in edited volumes and journals that are not readily available. This volume brings together hitherto unknown or rare pieces by Bauman on the theme of theory and society and also makes available previously unpublished material from the Bauman Archive at the University of Leeds. A consistent theme of Bauman’s work was his sustained engagement with humanism, and this provides a unifying thread in the pieces brought together in this volume. Here Bauman reflects on some of the core concepts of sociology, examines the work of a wide range of social theorists, from Durkheim and Gramsci to Agnes Heller and C. Wright Mills, and addresses an array of key ideas and issues including inequality, identity and social change. A substantial introduction by the editors provides readers with a lucid guide through this material and develops connections to Bauman’s other works. This is the third and final volume in a series of books that make available the lesser-known writings of one of the most influential social thinkers of our time. It will be of interest to students and scholars across the arts, humanities and social sciences, and to a wider readership.
Exposed: The Hidden History of the Pelvic Exam (History of Health and Illness)
by Wendy KlineThe pelvic exam. If you’ve ever had one, you’re probably already wincing. It might be considered a routine medical procedure, but for most of us, it is anything from unpleasant to traumatic. In Exposed, noted historian Wendy Kline uncovers the procedure’s fascinating—and often disturbing—history. From gynecological research on enslaved women’s bodies to nonconsensual practice on anesthetized patients, the pelvic exam as we know it today carries the burden of its sordid past. Its story is one of pain and pleasure, life-saving discoveries and heartbreaking encounters, questionable procedures and triumphant breakthroughs. Drawing on previously unpublished archival sources, along with interviews with patients, providers, and activists, Kline traces key moments and movements in gynecological history, from the surgeons of the nineteenth century to the OB/GYNs of today. This powerful book reminds us that the pelvic exam is has never been “just” a medical procedure, and that we can no longer afford to let the pelvic exam remain unexamined.
Real Gender: A Cis Defence of Trans Realities
by Constantine Sandis Danièle Moyal-SharrockSocieties around the world are struggling to think clearly about trans realities and understand trans identities. Real Gender is the first book to present a cis defence of what it means to be transgender. Moyal-Sharrock and Sandis delve into the various factors which make many trans people’s experience of their gender (or lack thereof) as natural and unquestionable as that of cis people. While recognising the undeniably social aspects of gender, they find that gender cannot be completely divorced from our biological underpinnings. Contrary to popular opinion, gender self-identification does not require the denial of either biology or sex. What is needed is a more liberal understanding of our gender concepts, which would prevent us from confusing diversity with pathology. Steeped in published and personal trans testimonials, Real Gender does not seek to provoke or attack, but to unequivocally defend trans realities. A powerful exploration of a divisive topic, this book will be of interest to a wide audience of readers.
What is Health?
by Ruth CrossWhat is health? What does health mean to people? How do we make sense of health and experience it? There are no simple answers to these questions. Health is complex, subjective and varied. Drawing on theory, research and contemporary debates, Ruth Cross explores the nature of health in depth and challenges our thinking about it. Moving beyond taken-for-granted assumptions, she gives the meaning of ‘health’ its due attention, exploring everyday perspectives as well as ‘expert’ medical, academic and policy understandings and approaches. In doing so, the book brings together different knowledge and expertise on health, also considering the inextricable links between human and planetary health. This book is important for all those working in the health field, or training to do so, seeking a broad understanding about health and all its complexity.
Digital Touch
by Carey Jewitt Sara PriceTouch matters. It is fundamental to how we know ourselves and each other, and it is central to how we communicate. Digital touch is embedded in many technologies, from wearable devices and gaming hardware to tactile robots and future technologies. What would it be like if we could hug or touch digitally across distance? How might this shape our sense of connection? How might we establish trust or protect our privacy and safety? Digital Touch is a timely and original book that addresses such questions. Offering a rich account of digital touch, the book introduces the key issues and debates, as well as the design and ethical challenges raised by digital touch. Using clear, accessible examples and creative scenarios, the book shows how touch – how we touch, as well as what, whom and when we touch – is being profoundly reshaped by our use of technologies. Above all, it highlights the importance of digital touch in our daily lives and how it will impact our relationships and way of life in the future. The first work of its kind, Digital Touch is the go-to book for anyone wanting to get to grips with this crucial emerging topic, especially students and scholars of Digital Media and Communication Studies, Digital Humanities, Sensory Studies, and Science and Technology Studies.
Carbon Societies: The Social Logic of Fossil Fuels
by Peter WagnerThe climate crisis is humanmade. Its main cause is the burning of fossil fuels. To combat climate change, we have to understand how we arrived at where we are. This book explores the reasons why human societies have embarked on the trajectory of ever-increasing use of fossil fuels.Population growth, desire for freedom from want and profit-seeking all played major roles in shaping human history, but there has been no inevitable drive towards heating up the atmosphere in the pursuit of social objectives. To sustain a growing population, more natural resources are required, but their use does not need to generate climate change. No logic of modernity links freedom with a kind of material abundance that requires the burning of fossil fuels. No logic of capital necessarily ties the search for profit to the extraction of fossil resources.Examining the critical junctures in human history when resource regimes changed, this book identifies the social problems that were meant to be solved by burning fossil fuels and the power hierarchies that shaped the decisions to use them. Wagner argues that the key choices that led to the climate emergency were made relatively recently, during the second half of the 20th century: they are close enough in time for us to undo the prevailing social logic of fossil fuels. By redefining the key problems that humankind is facing and reshaping the existing mechanisms of power, we can take the decisive action needed to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and avert the worst consequences of climate change.
Podcasting (Digital Media and Society)
by Jeremy Wade MorrisPodcasting burst onto the media landscape in the early 2000s. At the time, there were hopes it might usher in a new wave of amateur and professional cultural production and represent an alternate model for how to produce, share, circulate and experience new voices and perspectives. Twenty years later, podcasting is at a critical juncture in its young history: a moment where the early ideals of open standards and platform-neutral distribution are giving way to services that prioritize lean-back listening and monetizable media experiences. This book provides an accessible and comprehensive account of one of digital media’s most vibrant formats. Focusing on the historical changes shaping podcasts as a media format, the book explores the industrial, technological and cultural components of podcasting alongside case studies of various podcasts, industry publications, and streaming audio platforms (e.g. Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts). Jeremy Morris argues that as streaming platforms push to make podcasting more industrialized, accessible, user-friendly and similar to other audio media like music or audiobooks, they threaten podcasting’s early, though always unrealized, promises. This is the go-to introduction for students and researchers of media, communication and cultural studies, as well as readers who enjoy making and listening to podcasts.