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The Syllabus
@the-syllabus.bsky.social
Knowledge Curation Done Well. Non-Profit. Podcasts, videos, books, academic articles, and more. Subscribe: https://www.the-syllabus.com/
Google has quietly constructed an empire spanning more than 6,000 firms via acquisitions, investments, and partnerships, dwarfing its big tech peers. Our hidden gem of the week exposes Google’s unchecked digital dominance.

By Aline Blankertz et al. at @harvardkennedy.bsky.social

buff.ly/7ae479h
November 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Drawing on the Boggs’ cybercultural analysis, our book of the week reveals how Black radical thinkers traced automation’s roots to colonialism and slavery, seeing cyberculture as a site where labor, ecology, and race collide.

By Brian Bartell on @uminnpress.bsky.social

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November 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM
This document is featured in this week's edition of the Best of World: buff.ly/SZQ3cF1
November 9, 2025 at 12:00 PM
This document can be found in this week's edition of the Best of World: buff.ly/SZQ3cF1
November 8, 2025 at 2:01 PM
As voters went to the polls in Argentina last month, the legislative elections made the US dollar a referendum on authority versus social rights. Our open-access article of the week traces the long history behind Milei's dollarization.

By Ariel Wilkis & Mariana Luzzi

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November 8, 2025 at 12:00 PM
This podcast is part of this week's edition of the Best of World: buff.ly/SZQ3cF1
November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Though often dismissed as rigid, mathematics acts as a bridge, sharing creativity with the arts while underpinning scientific understanding. Drawing on music, our video of the week highlights the aesthetic potential of mathematical structures.

Feat. @marcusdusautoy.bsky.social

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November 7, 2025 at 12:01 PM
This essay is featured in this week's edition of the Best of World: buff.ly/SZQ3cF1
November 6, 2025 at 2:01 PM
The reduction of collective life by both capitalist and state-socialist economies to a single criterion excludes the possibility of addressing human needs. Our podcast of the week instead theorizes a "multicriterial economy."

W/ @abenanav.bsky.social on @futurehistories.bsky.social

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November 6, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Marking 50 years since the killing of Pier Paolo Pasolini, our Italian pick of the week revisits Pasolini's Rome, its subproletarian circuits and literary milieu, then sketches his Marxist, anti-consumerist work across his novels, poetry, and films.

By Francesca Torrani

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November 5, 2025 at 2:02 PM
The 1990s “Californian Ideology” has soured, producing the very inequality its barons now flee. Our essay of the week charts the rise of a "Texan Ideology" that connects digital plunder with oil, Christian nationalism, and racial hierarchy.

By Fred Turner in @thebaffler.com

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November 5, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Rejecting the argument that reducing inequality constrains growth, our hidden gem of the week finds that equality rose because of "social-democratic" institutions like universal public services, labor rights, and democracy.

By @marie-andreescu.bsky.social et al. at @wid.world

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November 4, 2025 at 3:00 PM
In rejecting liberalism’s core values and the Reagan-Buckley legacy, the New Right provides the ideological fuel to Trumpism. Our book of the week maps the internal contradictions of the figures reshaping US politics.

By @lkatfield.bsky.social on @princetonupress.bsky.social

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November 4, 2025 at 1:00 PM
This essay is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Technology: buff.ly/tLuI9r7
November 2, 2025 at 12:00 PM
This document can be found in this week's edition of the Best of Technology: buff.ly/tLuI9r7
November 1, 2025 at 2:01 PM
While the failures of Soviet-style planning have led left critics to aim for “market socialism” via cooperative ownership, our article of the week argues that the formal structure of cooperatives offers fewer truly transformative incentives than often believed.

By Joseph Heath

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November 1, 2025 at 12:01 PM
This video is part of this week's edition of the Best of Technology: buff.ly/tLuI9r7
October 31, 2025 at 2:02 PM
How and why did police in liberal democracies become militarized? Drawing on colonial history, our video of the week shows how methods honed during empire were imported into domestic policing through an “imperial boomerang.”

Feat. @juliango.bsky.social at @aissr.bsky.social

buff.ly/pFAv0pr
October 31, 2025 at 12:01 PM
This essay is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Technology: buff.ly/tLuI9r7
October 30, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Capitalism’s promise of prosperity has always been shadowed by ecological destruction and persistent exploitation. Our podcast of the week excavates capitalism's critics, many of whom anticipated crises now intensifying.

With @johncassidysays.bsky.social on @climatepod.bsky.social

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October 30, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Driven by a new cohort of think-tank voices, the second Trump administration is shifting toward hemispheric prioritization and managed disengagement. Our French pick of the week maps the intellectual genealogy of the "restrainers."

By @rmomtaz.bsky.social et al.

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October 29, 2025 at 2:00 PM
From working-class unionist to three-term president, Lula da Silva’s journey reflects Brazil’s uneasy balance between procedural democracy and deep inequality. Our essay of the week traces the rise of Lula's pragmatic leftism.

By @apagliar.bsky.social in @dissentmag.bsky.social

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October 29, 2025 at 12:02 PM
The AI boom's demand for water and energy is a race to the bottom for short-term revenue that externalizes harms, cloaked in the language of progress. Our hidden gem of the week examines the political economy of AI data centers.

By @jongorey.bsky.social at @landpolicy.bsky.social

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October 28, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Whether biological, optical, or digital, the power to “see the invisible” has profoundly shaped medicine, knowledge, and social relations. Our book of the week explores the past and future of imaging technologies.

By Daniel K. Sodickson on @columbiaup.bsky.social

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October 28, 2025 at 2:30 PM
This document is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Political Economy: buff.ly/F07uetl
October 26, 2025 at 12:01 PM