Category Archives: finance and insurance

More LRB posts

In the last year I also wrote 3 pieces for the LRB: “We Blitzed It: Inhabiting the Oil World” on the everyday entanglements of oil “In Sharm-El-Sheikh” on COP27 and one of my favourites, “In Clover: What Does McKinsey Do” … Continue reading

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, finance and insurance, infrastructure, logistics, media, Middle East, oil, political economy | Leave a comment

LRB Piece on Commodity Traders

I reviewed Javier Blas and Jack Farchy’s fabulous book on Commodity Traders: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n18/laleh-khalili/how-to-get-rich Extract: When​ ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, published Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism in 1965, it was already clear that the newly independent states were going to have to fight … Continue reading

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, environment, finance and insurance, oil, political economy | Leave a comment

Big Ship Capitalism with the Dig Podcast

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, finance and insurance, infrastructure, labour, logistics, media, Middle East, oil | Leave a comment

This Machine Kills Podcast

7 April 2021 Okay, so the big boat is no longer blocking the Suez Canal. But that doesn’t mean we can go back to ignoring the global networks of capitalism and colonialism that make our world run. Laleh Khalili – … Continue reading

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, finance and insurance, infrastructure, labour, logistics, Middle East, political economy, shipping conditions | Leave a comment

Brilliantly fun interview with Tank Magazine

Last month the brilliant Thomas Roueché interviewed me on Sinews for Tank magazine. The interview can be found here: https://tankmagazine.com/issue-84/features/the-sinews-of-war-and-trade/ I am not reposting the content, because the piece has such cool graphics on their website!

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

A review of Sinews of War and Trade in The Baffler

I was thrilled to see such a brilliant erudite review of the book by Harris Feinsod. All at Sea Surveying the watery expanses of the world economy By Harris Feinsod, 24 August 2020 Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and … Continue reading

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, environment, finance and insurance, free ports/zones, infrastructure, logistics, Middle East, militaries, oil, shipping conditions, transport, war | Leave a comment

An interview with Katy Fox-Hodess on Logistics, Labour and State Power

20 August 2020 I was honoured to be interviewed by my amazing colleague and comrade, Dr Katy Fox-Hodess (whose own work is also cited in my book and with whom I worked when we put together sinewswartrade.org. Below is the … Continue reading

Posted in bureacuracy, capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, environment, finance and insurance, free ports/zones, infrastructure, labour, logistics, Middle East, militaries, seafaring, shipping conditions, transport, war | Leave a comment

This Is Hell!

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

Interview with Philip Wohlstetter

For a couple of years now I have really wanted to attend the Red May socialist festival in Seattle, but sadly the timing (and the physical distance) have gotten in the way. This year, because of COVID-19, I ended up … Continue reading

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, finance and insurance, infrastructure, labour, logistics, Melville, Middle East, militaries, oil, political economy, ports, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Domination, Dispossession and Struggle in the Making of Infrastructure and Logistics

Last night (20 February), Deb Cowen (Toronto), Charmaine Chua (Oberlin), Rafeef Ziadah (SOAS) and I had a conversation about the politics of infrastructure and logistics.  Here is the recording for the event:

Posted in capital accumulation, empire, imperialism & colonialism, finance and insurance, infrastructure, logistics, Middle East, Uncategorized | Leave a comment