Category Archives: environment

This Is Hell!

Posted on 13 May 2020 by

So incredibly incredibly excited to be speaking to Chuck Mertz of This Is Hell! We talked a lot about capital and maritime trade — and quite a bit about the effects of COVID-19 on maritime trade. You can listen to … Continue reading →

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, environment, finance and insurance, infrastructure, logistics, Middle East, militaries, political economy, ports, transport, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sinews of War and Trade website

Posted on 15 April 2020 by

The brilliant Rafeef Ziadah and Katy Fox-Hodess were instrumental in researching and building the project website, http://sinewswartrade.com/ The project website provides a wealth of information about maritime transportation and the surrounding infrastructures in the Arabian Peninsula. It mines both historic … Continue reading →

Posted in construction, environment, free ports/zones, infrastructure, Middle East, militaries, political economy, ports, transport, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

BBC 3 Free Thinking interview with Matthew Sweet

Posted on 15 April 2020 by

Matthew Sweet of BBC Free Thinking was a brilliant reader of the book, having read closely and with an eye for fetching detail. We talked for about half an hour, and the interview can be heard here (my part of … Continue reading →

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, environment, free ports/zones, infrastructure, labour, Middle East, political economy, ports, shipping conditions, transport, Travels, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Publication: A World Built on Sand and Oil

Posted on 15 April 2020 by

This is probably one of my favourite publications, in part because I was pushed and pushed by Lapham Quarterly‘s superb editors. The essay compares the trade in oil and sand today to think through maritime transportation, the building of infrastructures, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, ports, transport, infrastructure, capital accumulation, Middle East, empire, imperialism & colonialism, construction, oil, environment | Leave a comment

Offshore

Posted on 5 January 2018 by

In one of the most significant environmental decisions the Trump administration has taken, a ban on offshore drilling was lifted on 4 January 2018.  The New York Times reported: While the plan puts the administration squarely on the side of … Continue reading →

Posted in environment, infrastructure, oil, political economy | 1 Comment

Of Ballast and Land Reclamation

Posted on 25 April 2017 by

That extraordinary image is from some time in the 1970s, and the container-ship steaming so serenely in Hudson River is a Jugolinija ship belonging to the Yugoslav national shipping line.  What is of course poignant about the image is that … Continue reading →

Posted in capital accumulation, construction, environment, imperialism & colonialism, infrastructure, political economy, transport, Uncategorized, war | 1 Comment

The Multivalence of Infrastructures II – Rail

Posted on 28 March 2017 by

I am reading a fascinating article about colonial engineering. Canay Ozden’s fabulous “Pontifex Minimus” is about the British engineer of the Low (or old) Aswan Dam, and the article just drips with all sorts of wonderful quotable sections.  For example, … Continue reading →

Posted in empire, empire, imperialism & colonialism, environment, imperialism & colonialism, infrastructure, Uncategorized, war | Leave a comment