ISM | Ideas Meet Power
Narrative history of ideologies & movements
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Recent Episodes
S2E2 Chicago 1877: The Great Railroad Strike (S2E2)
The moment when the belief that the United States was immune to class conflict was shattered. In July 1877, railroad workers across the United States stopped work. What began as a wage dispute in a…
S2E1 What is Anarchism? Liberty's Great Refusal (S2E1)
Anarchism emerged not simply as a theory, but as a response to hunger, repression, industrial capitalism, and the growing power of the modern state.In this opening episode of Season 2, we trace…
Thoreau’s Plea for John Brown: Conscience Against the State
In the wake of John Brown’s raid, Henry David Thoreau delivered one of the most forceful defenses of moral action in American history. While much of the North recoiled after Harpers Ferry, Thoreau…
Harpers Ferry 1859: John Brown, An American Radical
In October of 1859, a small band of abolitionists led by John Brown seized the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Their goal was simple but audacious: to ignite a mass slave uprising and…
S1E9 Marxism vs. Anarchism: The Question of the State (S1E9)
What began as a family quarrel within socialism would become a permanent schism that would shape every revolution that followed.When sailors at Kronstadt rose to demand “All power to the soviets, not…
S1E8 Paris 1871: The Death of the Commune (S1E8)
For 72 days, the Paris Commune turned the capital into a living experiment in working-class democracy.Parks opened, palaces became public space, newspapers and clubs exploded with debate, and a wave…
S1E7 Paris 1871: The Birth of the Commune (S1E7)
In the spring of 1871, socialism briefly ruled Paris.After months of siege, starvation, and humiliation, the French capital turned inward—away from Versailles, away from empire, away from the…
S1E6 What is Internationalism? The Dream of a Global Working Class (S1E6)
Socialism didn’t begin as a national project—it began as a wager that workers could unite across borders. In this episode, we trace the birth of internationalism: the idea that the working class,…
S1E5 Paris 1848: The Red Flag in Spring pt. II—The Fire (S1E5)
In the spring of 1848, Paris became the center of the socialist imagination.After the fall of the July Monarchy, a new republic promised liberty, equality, and fraternity, but what would those words…
S1E4 Paris 1848: The Red Flag in Spring pt. I—The Volcano (S1E4)
Europe in the 1840s was sleeping on a volcano.In this episode, we trace the long buildup to the Revolutions of 1848 through hunger, repression, and the slow accumulation of social pressure beneath…
S1E3 What is Jacobinism? The Birth of the Radical Left (S1E3)
Jacobinism promised equality, enforced virtue, and left a legacy the left has wrestled with ever since.Emerging from the French Revolution, Jacobinism was the first modern attempt to make politics…
S1E2 Paris 1793: The Radical City (S1E2)
The first furnace of modern socialism.A woman enters a sick man’s room, and a knife turns a revolutionary into a secular saint.In 1793 Paris — the furnace of modern politics — the French Revolution…
S1E1 What is Socialism? The Great Critique of Capitalism (S1E1)
Socialism is one of the most argued-over ideas in modern history — praised as a path to equality, condemned as a road to tyranny, and declared dead more than once.So what is socialism — really?In…
S1 Introducing ISM: Ideas Meet Power
ISM is a narrative history podcast about political ideologies and social movements—socialism, anarchism, fascism, liberalism, and beyond.Each season explores a major ideology through immersive…
Frequently Asked Questions
ISM | Ideas Meet Power has published 14 episodes since December 2025, covering topics in History, Philosophy.
ISM | Ideas Meet Power is currently active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 51m.
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