
Foreign Exchanges: the Podcast
Foreign Exchanges is a newsletter that helps you stay on top of important stories happening around the world. Our companion podcast aims to understand the contemporary world by looking to the past. Join host Derek Davison as he interviews writers and scholars whose work sheds light on world history. www.foreignexchanges.news
Latest episodes

Jan 27, 2025 • 21min
World roundup: January 25-26 2025
Stories from Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Jan 22, 2025 • 22min
World roundup: January 21 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Jan 15, 2025 • 16min
Charting a New Path Forward
The Left had little influence on Joe Biden's foreign policy and will have none over the next four years. How can leftists build the capacity to carry a foreign policy message into 2026 and beyond? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Jan 15, 2025 • 17min
World roundup: January 14 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Jan 13, 2025 • 21min
World roundup: January 11-12 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Jan 8, 2025 • 22min
World roundup: January 7 2025
Stories from Syria, Sudan, Austria, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Dec 18, 2024 • 1h 21min
The Wild World of Medieval Women, with Eleanor Janega
Hello Foreign Exchanges fans and welcome to another entry in our very irregular podcast series! This time around I’m delighted to welcome to the show Dr. Eleanor Janega. Dr. Janega is a medieval historian, specializing in sexuality, propaganda, apocalypticism, urbanity, and empire in the late medieval and early modern periods. You may have heard her on one of her popular history podcasts, Gone Medieval and We’re Not So Different (check out their fantastic two part Ibn Battuta program) and her many guest appearances on other shows (like American Prestige, not once but twice), or read her blog, Going Medieval. She is also author of The Middle Ages: A Graphic History and the book we’re talking about in this interview, The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society. We’ll talk about women in medieval literature, whether women are actually inside-out men, and how babies are really made. And we’ll talk a lot about medieval men being weird about women. So very, very weird. We’ll also discuss how life for modern women has, and has not, changed. Enjoy!Many thanks to Jake Aron of American Prestige for producing the show, and as always our music is Cambodian Odyssey by Kevin Macleod (CC by 3.0).Please pick up Dr. Janega’s book, available now in hardcover and paperback as well as audiobook. And if you haven’t checked out Foreign Exchanges please do that too: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Dec 18, 2024 • 15min
World roundup: December 17 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Myanmar, Ukraine, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Dec 16, 2024 • 18min
World roundup: December 14-15 2024
Stories from Syria, South Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Dec 11, 2024 • 20min
World roundup: December 10 2024
Stories from Syria, South Korea, Somalia, and elsewhere This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe
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