Podcasts about invisible countries

The Biden administration is under no illusions that Russia President Vladimir Putin can be a willing partner of the U.S. But what tools remain to check Putin’s ambitions? Guest: Josh Keating, senior editor at Slate and the author of Invisible Countries.  Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Biden administration is under no illusions that Russia President Vladimir Putin can be a willing partner of the U.S. But what tools remain to check Putin’s ambitions? Guest: Josh Keating, senior editor at Slate and the author of Invisible Countries.  Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like me, my guest today Joshua Keating, loves maps. His new book "Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood" is about borders we see on maps and the borders we don't see.  Josh Keating is a longtime foreign affairs journalist and now an editor at Slate. And in this book he takes readers to places that are not quite countries. This includes places like Abkhazia, Somaliland, the Akwesasne nation between New York and Ontario. He makes an argument that we are currently in a period of what he calls Cartographical stasis--that is, we are in an era in which not many new countries are being created, at least compared to other eras in recent history.  Though, he posits, this period may be coming to an end.     I first go wind of Josh's new book when I read an article he wrote about a soccer tournament for countries that are not quite countries--think of it as the World Cup for quasi countries. And the book kicks off by referencing this tournament. So that is where we begin our conversation.   Support the show! 

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On The Gist, the return of In Search Of hosted by Zachary Quinto, which used to be hosted by Leonard Nimoy, made us notice all the times actors have filled the shoes of others through multiple different reboots. The FIFA World Cup is great, but only the ConIFA World Football Cup has competitors from Székely Land, Abkhazia, and the County of Nice. Slate’s Josh Keating wrote the book on Invisible Countries, those tiny nation-states with little recognition but great stories to tell.  In the Spiel, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in the recent Democratic primary race for Congress. Many commentators have called her authentic, but does that word have any actual meaning? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On The Gist, the return of In Search Of hosted by Zachary Quinto, which used to be hosted by Leonard Nimoy, made us notice all the times actors have filled the shoes of others through multiple different reboots. The FIFA World Cup is great, but only the ConIFA World Football Cup has competitors from Székely Land, Abkhazia, and the County of Nice. Slate’s Josh Keating wrote the book on Invisible Countries, those tiny nation-states with little recognition but great stories to tell.  In the Spiel, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in the recent Democratic primary race for Congress. Many commentators have called her authentic, but does that word have any actual meaning? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guest: Joshua Keating. Topic: EWI CEO and President Cameron Munter speaks with Joshua Keating, staff writer and author of the World blog at Slate, on his upcoming book Invisible Countries. In his book, Keating explores possible reasons why the map of the world, unexpectedly, has remained relatively static in the last 25 years. Referring to cases of states with limited recognition in the international community—Abkhazia, the Mohawk Indian Reservation, Somaliland, Kurdistan and Kiribati—Keating argues for more flexibility in how we define the parameters of what makes a state a recognized country in the modern world.