Send us Fan Mail

Join Professor Jeffrey Sachs and historian Professor Rana Mitter, for a compelling discussion of his book Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945. Drawing on extensive archival research and long-overlooked sources, Mitter brings to light China’s central, and often underappreciated, role in the global fight against Imperial Japan during World War II.

Together, they explore how China’s prolonged resistance tied down vast numbers of Japanese troops, shaping the broader trajectory of the war in Asia and beyond. They examine the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, the fragile alliances between Nationalists and Communists, and the immense human cost borne by Chinese civilians. The conversation also addresses how China’s wartime experience influenced its postwar political order and its place in the emerging international system.

This episode offers listeners a powerful reframing of World War II, challenging Eurocentric narratives and highlighting the global dimensions of the conflict. It is a story of resilience, sacrifice, and strategic complexity, one that continues to shape how we understand China’s role in the world today and the enduring legacy of a “forgotten ally.”

The Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs is brought to you by the SDG Academy, the flagship education initiative of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Learn more and get involved at bookclubwithjeffreysachs.org.

Footnotes:

• Books by Rana Mitter
• China’s Role in World War II
• Second Sino-Japanese War
• Invasion of Manchuria
• Chiang Kai-shek
• Mao Zedong
• Opium Wars in China
• Ezra F. Vogel
• Marco Polo Bridge Incident
• Chongqhing Bombing
• Wang Jingwei
• Joseph Stilwell
• P5 UN Security Council

⭐️ Thanks for listening to Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs!

📚 Join the conversation and go deeper into the ideas shaping our world.

➡️ Watch the conversation on YouTube

➡️ Subscribe to the newsletter for episode updates, readings, and behind-the-scenes insights: https://bit.ly/subscribeBCJS

➡️ Explore past episodes, show notes, and featured books: https://bookclubwithjeffreysachs.org

🎧 Download and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

📣 Love the show? Leave a rating and review - it helps more listeners find the podcast.

🔁 Share this episode with a friend, colleague, or book club who’d enjoy the discussion!

Send us Fan Mail

Join Professor Jeffrey Sachs for a compelling conversation on Martyrs to the Unspeakable: The Assassinations of JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK by James W. Douglass. In this sweeping work, Douglass reexamines the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, arguing that these four leaders were killed not by isolated actors, but within a deeper context of national security power and Cold War politics.

Drawing on extensive documentary evidence, witness testimony, and declassified records, Douglass challenges the official lone-gunman narratives and situates each assassination within a broader struggle between movements for peace and justice and entrenched systems of violence. At the heart of the book is the concept of the “Unspeakable,” a term Douglass uses to describe the hidden structures of power capable of silencing transformative leadership.

Together, they explore how each of these figures, in different ways, broke with prevailing orthodoxies, opposing nuclear brinkmanship, militarism, racism, and war, and how their evolving commitments to peace may have placed them in direct conflict with powerful institutions.

This episode invites listeners into a profound reconsideration of one of the most turbulent eras in American history. It is a story of conscience and consequence and of how the unresolved traumas of the 1960s continue to echo in political life today.

Footnotes:

• Books by James W. Douglass
• JFK Assassination
• Malcolm X Assassination
• MLK Assassination
• RFK Assassination
• US Central Intelligence Agency
• The Warren Commission Report
• James Jesus Angelton
• Eisenhower Farewell Address
• Khrushchev and JFK Communications

⭐️ Thanks for listening to Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs!

📚 Join the conversation and go deeper into the ideas shaping our world.

➡️ Watch the conversation on YouTube

➡️ Subscribe to the newsletter for episode updates, readings, and behind-the-scenes insights: https://bit.ly/subscribeBCJS

➡️ Explore past episodes, show notes, and featured books: https://bookclubwithjeffreysachs.org

🎧 Download and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

📣 Love the show? Leave a rating and review - it helps more listeners find the podcast.

🔁 Share this episode with a friend, colleague, or book club who’d enjoy the discussion!

Send us Fan Mail

Join Professor Jeffrey Sachs and historian Michael J. Carley, retired Professeur at the Université de Montréal, for a discussion of his groundbreaking trilogy on the international crises of the 1930s: Stalin’s Gamble, Stalin’s Failed Alliance, and Stalin’s Great Game. Drawing on decades of archival research, Carley challenges the familiar Cold War narrative that paints Stalin and Hitler as “dual dictators” and instead uncovers a forgotten history of the Soviet Union’s sustained efforts to build a collective security alliance against Nazi Germany.

Sachs and Carley explore how Britain, France, and the United States repeatedly rejected these overtures, shaped by anti-communism, imperial interests, and deep-seated prejudices that cast the USSR - not Hitler - as the greater threat. This strategic blindness, Carley argues, helped pave the way to World War II and has since been obscured by Western historiography and popular culture.

This episode offers listeners a powerful narrative of missed opportunities, ideological blinders, and the consequences of mistrust among great powers. It is a story from the 1930s with striking resonance today, revealing how historical misunderstanding can shape international politics, and how the failures of statecraft then echo in our world now.

The Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs is brought to you by the SDG Academy, the flagship education initiative of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Learn more and get involved at bookc

⭐️ Thanks for listening to Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs!

📚 Join the conversation and go deeper into the ideas shaping our world.

➡️ Watch the conversation on YouTube

➡️ Subscribe to the newsletter for episode updates, readings, and behind-the-scenes insights: https://bit.ly/subscribeBCJS

➡️ Explore past episodes, show notes, and featured books: https://bookclubwithjeffreysachs.org

🎧 Download and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.

📣 Love the show? Leave a rating and review - it helps more listeners find the podcast.

🔁 Share this episode with a friend, colleague, or book club who’d enjoy the discussion!