With Labor Day behind us and the weather cooling down, summer is very nearly over - but there's still time for one more episode of our special Summer Reading List podcast series. Our last episode features Barbara Elias, an Assistant Professor of Government at Bowdoin College specializing in international relations, insurgency warfare, U.S. foreign policy, and the relationship between Islam and politics. Her new book, Why Allies Rebel: Defiant Local Partners in Counterinsurgency Wars, was released by Cambridge University Press in June. In our conversation, Professor Elias explains why local forces in war-torn countries may choose to cooperate with - or defy - a foreign intervening power; what the stories she tells in her book, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, mean for the future of U.S. foreign policy; and how to approach research in archives.  Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

The new semester might be getting started, but the weather still feels like summer here in Philadelphia, and we hope you find time to enjoy a few more books on your summer reading list before the fall truly sets in. Our latest guest on our Summer Reading List podcast is Ambassador Capricia Marshall, who served as Chief of Protocol of the United States from 2009 to 2013, overseeing the details of democracy during countless state visits and global summits. Her new book is titled Protocol: The Power of Diplomacy and How to Make It Work For You. In our conversation, Marshall explains what protocol is, and why people often best understand its importance only when it goes wrong; whether shifts in the international order are affecting protocol practices; and how COVID-19 has changed her rules for good protocol. The Summer Reading List is a special edition of our podcast, The Global Cable. Throughout the summer, we're releasing new conversations with authors, discussing their latest books and the inspiration behind them. Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

Our guest this week is Eric Cervini, an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ politics and culture. A former Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where he received his Ph.D., he is an authority on 1960s gay activism. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus, and on the Board of Advisors of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., a nonprofit dedicated to preserving gay American history. Cervini’s new book, The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, is a history of the fight for gay rights that began a generation before Stonewall. In our conversation, Cervini tells the story of World War Two veteran Frank Kameny, whose security clearance was rejected because he was gay and who became an important figure in the American gay rights movement; what the absence of some gay activists from the public narrative says about who we remember and why; and how the United States should honor its LGBTQ+ heroes. Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

Our latest guest on the Summer Reading List is Daniel Markey, a senior research professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the academic director of SAIS’s Global Policy Program. From 2003 to 2007, Markey held the South Asia portfolio on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the US Department of State. In this week's episode, Markey talks to our host John Gans about his book China's Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia. He explains China's landmark Belt and Road Initiative; why China’s rise won’t necessarily be on its own terms; why he’d like to meet China's President Xi Jinping; and what he learned on a research trip to Kazahkstan. The Summer Reading List is a special edition of our podcast, The Global Cable. Throughout the summer, we'll release new conversations with authors, discussing their latest books and the inspiration behind them. Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

This summer, we've launched a special edition of The Global Cable - our 'Summer Reading List.' Every other week, we'll release a new conversation with an author, discussing their latest book and the inspiration behind it. This week's guest is Melissa Lee, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and our next Lightning Scholar at Perry World House. She talks to our host John Gans about her new book, Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State. She explains why not all nation-states are created equal, how the Internet has become a space for foreign subversion, and how the fight against COVID-19 has impacted her thinking on state capacity in recent months.  Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

This summer, we're launching a special edition of The Global Cable - our 'Summer Reading List.' Every other week, we'll release a new conversation with a writer, discussing their latest book. We want to hear what inspired them, what they learned during the writing process, and more. Our first guest is renowned journalist and author James Mann, talking about his book The Great Rift: Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and the Broken Friendship that Defined an Era. He shares what he learned about these two famous figures in U.S. politics, and why their story matters at a moment when the United States is so divided at home and diminished on the world stage.

This week, Season 3 of The Global Cable comes to a close. Our final conversation of the 2019-20 academic year is with Michael Horowitz, Professor of Political Science and incoming Director at Perry World House. In this episode, Michael talks to us about what COVID-19 means for great power competition and global politics; whether war could be a likely outcome of the pandemic; and the complex issues surrounding the development of a vaccine, which he calls a 'global Manhattan Project.' Thank you for listening to our third season, and stay tuned for more from The Global Cable this summer! Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

This week's episode features Charlie Dent, who spent seven terms representing the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania on Capitol Hill. Alongside being a Visiting Fellow at Perry World House, he serves as a senior policy adviser at DLA Piper and as a political analyst for CNN. On The Global Cable, Dent talks to our host John Gans about his own recent bout with COVID-19; how Congress is responding to the crisis, and the prospect for further bipartisan collaboration between Democrats and Republicans as the U.S. looks at how to hold a presidential election during a pandemic. Music & Produced by Tre Hester

This week's episode of The Global Cable features Koko Warner, a Visiting Fellow at Perry World House. Warner has been Manager of the Climate Impacts, Vulnerability, and Risks Subprogram at the United Nations Framework on Convention on Climate Change since 2016. Warner talks to us about coronavirus exposing how ill-prepared the world is for a global crisis like climate change; how we get the public to take the enormous risks of climate change seriously; and what gives her hope for the future. Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

This week's episode of The Global Cable features Erik Lin-Greenberg, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Perry World House researching how the military adopts new technologies. On today's episode, Erik talks about how his own military service has shaped his life and informed his research; what it was like to set up war games with national security experts to test how they'd react to new technologies being deployed on the field of battle; and the biggest challenges for the U.S. military as it attempts to harness the power of A.I. Music & Produced by Tre Hester.