Thomas Barfield, Professor and Chairman of the Anthropology Department at Boston University and author of Shadow Empires: An Alternative Imperial History, joins the show to discuss empire.  

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Times 

    •      01:15 Introduction 

    •      03:20 Understanding Afghanistan 

    •      05:15 Classifying empires 

    •     09:59 Failures and features  

    •      12:24 Borders

    •      15:30 Exogenous empires

    •      21:36 Brits and Athenians  

    •      26:40 Vulture empires 

    •      32:21 Taking responsibility 

    •      37:15 Empires of nostalgia

    •      44:50 Vacuum empires  

    •      51:05 American/Athenian policy 

    •      54:53 China and empire today

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