American Prestige
A podcast from Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison that provides listeners with everything they need to know about what’s going on in the world. americanprestige.supportingcast.fm
Episodes
December 25, 2025 • 63 mins
Danny and Derek welcome back to the podcast Eleanor Janega, medieval historian, author, and broadcaster, to get down to brass tacks: What is Christmas? They discuss its practice in early and medieval Christian societies, mummers’ plays and gambling, Saint Nicholas providing dowries and resurrecting boys killed for their meat, the post-Reformation treatment of Christmas, and more.
Grab a copy of Eleanor’s book The Once and Future ...
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December 24, 2025 • 10 mins
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Danny welcomes writer Justin Boyd and writer/producer VJ Boyd to the show to talk about The Muppet Christmas Carol. They discuss Charles Dickens as a transitional figure in 19th-century literature, Victorian ghost stories and Christmas, Jim Henson’s pre-Disney career and the regional TV ecosystem that produced the Muppets, the fi...
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December 23, 2025 • 67 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome back historian Andre Pagliarini to discuss Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his political project, and its significance for Brazil’s democracy and labor movement. They explore the emergence of “new unionism” in the late 20th century and the founding of the Workers’ Party (PT); how a leader...
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December 21, 2025 • 10 mins
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Danny and Derek are joined once again by Vincent Bevins, this time to talk about the recent wave of so-called “Gen Z protests.” They explore why that framing explains almost nothing; how contemporary mass protests actually form, why they tend to resemble each other, and why their political outcomes rarely meet their ori...
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December 19, 2025 • 50 mins
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Jolly Saint Nick is giving the U.S. government lots of coal this year, a boon to fossil fuel companies. In this week’s news: Thailand–Cambodia fighting resumes despite Trump’s ceasefire claim (1:52); an Israeli airstrike in Gaza threatens what remains of the ceasefire (6:00...
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December 17, 2025 • 66 mins
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Derek is joined by Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute to discuss the Southern Transitional Council’s recent territorial advances in Yemen, what they mean for the country’s already-fractured political order, and why the “internationally recognized government” remains mostly theoretical. They also delve into the history of southern secessionism, the dysfunction of the P...
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December 16, 2025 • 73 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome to the show Julia Gledhill and Van Jackson, co-hosts of the Un-Diplomatic podcast, to talk about the Trump administration’s newly released National Security Strategy. They discuss how the document leans on civilizational framing, portrays competition as existential conflict, omits diplomacy and institutions in favor of coercion and deal-making, and ...
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December 15, 2025 • 86 mins
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Chag Sameach! Danny and Derek are joined by independent scholar Joseph Scales to talk about the history of Hanukkah. They discuss the rivalry between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires that preceded the conflict; the Maccabean/Hasmonean revolt and the family's ascension to power within Judea; the Judean expansion; and much more.
Originally published November 27, 2021
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December 14, 2025 • 10 mins
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Danny and Derek are joined once again by historian Rashid Khalidi to discuss Gaza two months after the announcement of a ceasefire. They begin with Dr. Khalidi's class on Palestine at the People’s Forum after his decision to leave Columbia University, and what that experience says about the state of American highe...
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December 12, 2025 • 40 mins
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The greatest recurring crossover in the biz, between AP and NonZero Newsletter, returns. Get your discounted membership to NonZero now!
Part One Video
0:00 The incoherence of Trump's foreign policy7:16 The paucity of debate around Chinese chip restrictions19:13 Danny: Is this the stupidest foreign policy establishment ever? 25:27 Should AGI worry us? 34:40 Bob’s Overtime bait
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December 12, 2025 • 45 mins
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Listen to our Chinese Prestige miniseries!
Danny and Derek will sadly not be doing a CBS News town hall event. This week in the news: the Thailand–Cambodia conflict resumes (1:47); the DRC–M23 conflict also resumes as M23 makes new advances (7:05); in Gaza, questions remain over the “second phase” of the ceasefire as a winter storm hits (10:38); separatists in Yemen gain ...
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December 9, 2025 • 83 mins
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Derek and journalist Mat Nashed assess the state of Sudan’s ongoing civil war, particularly the fall of Al-Fasher and the Rapid Support Forces’ consolidation of control across much of Darfur. They discuss the throughline from the 2003 genocide to today; the wider humanitarian catastrophe; the shifting battlefield in Kordofan; the growing role of drones; the international d...
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December 7, 2025 • 9 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome back to the show media scholar Andrew deWaard to discuss Netflix’s reported acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery and what it says about the economic forces driving contemporary media. They talk about how conglomeration and financialization have reshaped Hollywood; zero interest rates, asset inflation, and Wall Street driving mergers; how intellectual property, streaming ...
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December 6, 2025 • 69 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome back Brendan James and Noah Kulwin, of the Blowback podcast, for a tour through their latest season, which takes the show to Angola. They discuss how Angola became one of the largest and least-remembered battlefields of the Cold War, Reagan’s return to proxy wars, Cuba’s decision to send troops without Soviet approval, South Africa’s “total on...
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Don’t forget to download our Chinese Prestige miniseries, currently on sale for $5. Annual subscribers get the series free!
Despite sitting on a large surplus of Labubus, Danny and Derek work hard to bring you the news. This week: in Russia-Ukraine, new US diplomacy goes nowhere (1:08), Ukraine is now attacking Russian commercial ships (5:55), and the EU moves to phase out Russ...
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December 2, 2025 • 58 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome to the show Molly Lambert, creator of the JENNAWORLD podcast, to talk about the rise of the modern porn industry and its roots in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. They discuss the medium’s origins in underground stag films and the porno chic era; the shift to home video and the corporate studio model; breakout stars like Ginger Lynn Allen and Jenna James...
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November 30, 2025 • 9 mins
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Danny and Derek speak to Ilias Alami, assistant professor of political economy at Cambridge, about the global shift from neoliberalism to new forms of state capitalism. They discuss the rebalancing of economic power toward East Asia; sovereign wealth funds, policy banks, and state-owned enterprises; and the role of states in industrial strateg...
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November 28, 2025 • 51 mins
Instead of a news roundup, we are releasing the second episode of our new miniseries Chinese Prestige. Annual subscribers already have access, while everyone else can get the 8 episodes for $5 for two weeks only.
This conversation examines China’s early post-Korean War period and the political and social campaigns that defined the new PRC. The group discusses land reform, the Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns, Soviet-style econ...
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November 27, 2025 • 41 mins
Danny speaks with Alex Goldman about his new podcast Hyperfixed, in which he works to get to the bottom of listeners’ complex problems, or at least enough of an explanation that they’re ok with the annoyance. We have then provided the full episode of “Third Eye Blind,” where one Mitchell finds out he's missing something almost everyone else has, and he wants to know -- who would I be if I had it?
If you like what you hear, why ...
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November 25, 2025 • 55 mins
In lieu of a typical Tuesday episode this week, we are releasing the first episode of our new miniseries Chinese Prestige. Annual subscribers already have access, while everyone else can get the 8 episodes for a whopping $5 for two weeks only. Enjoy!
In this first episode of Chinese Prestige, Yidi, Danny, and Derek trace the origins of the Chinese Communist Party from the May Fourth Movement to the civil war with the Nationalists....
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