From Butcher to Historian: A Personal Journey

Tara Zahra is a writer and academic. She’s currently the Hanna Holborn Gray Professor of East European History at the University of Chicago. This week we discuss her latest book, Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars.

For two clips of our convo — on the starving of Germany during and after WWI, and what Henry Ford and Trump have in common — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: growing up in the Poconos; her parents’ butcher shop; ballet her first career goal; her undergrad course on fascism that inspired grad school; how the Habsburg Dynasty was the EU before the EU; the golden age of internationalism; cutting off trade and migration during WWI; the Spanish flu; the Russian Revolution; pogroms across Europe; scapegoating Jews over globalization and finance; the humiliation at Versailles; Austria-Hungary chopped up and balkanized; Ellis Island as a detention center; massive inflation after the war; the Klan in the 1920s; Keynes; the Great Depression and rise of fascism; mass deportations in the US; autarky; Hitler linking that self-reliance to political freedom; Lebensraum; anti-Semitism; the Red Scare; the WTO and China; the 2008 crash; Trump’s tariff threats; rare earths; reshoring; fracking and energy independence; MAHA; Elon Musk and Henry Ford; Mars as Musk’s Lebensraum; and the longing for national identity.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: trans activist Shannon Minter debating trans issues, Scott Anderson on the Iranian Revolution, and Johann Hari turning the tables to interview me. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.