The Triploi Podcast

Is Iran a colonial predator or colonial prey?

In this episode, we dive into Iran’s history from 1500 to 2026. Looking at its long struggle over sovereignty, economic and political instability, and survival in a modern world shaped by colonial empires.

Join Triploi as we trace Iran’s path from the Safavid Empire through to its 18th-century collapse and warlord fragmentation, and into the 19th-century, when industrial empires turned trade, debt, and diplomacy into weapons of global domination, and all the clever ways Iran avoids their traps.

Then into the 20th century when the discovery of oil draws the eye of US imperialism, and all the horrors that would soon follow…

And finally in the 21st century, where Iran’s story continues to ask the question, what is the price of sovereignty?

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References and reading list:

Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (2008)

Hamid Dabashi, Iran: A People Interrupted (2007)

Cosroe Chaqueri, The Left in Iran, 1905–1940 (2001)

Afshin Matin‑Asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah (2002)

Kamran Matin, Recasting Iranian Modernity: International Relations and Social Change (2013)

Homa Katouzian, Khalil Maleki: The Human Face of Iranian Socialism (2018)

David S. Painter & Gregory Brew, The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951–1954 (2022)

Hamid Dabashi, Iran in Revolt: Revolutionary Aspirations in a Post‑Democratic World (2025)

Why was Muammar Gaddafi so hated by the west?

In this episode we dive into the life of Libya’s most polarising leader, from his childhood to his death, looking at the material conditions that shaped the life of the man who would decide Libya’s future.

Join Triploi as we follow the young idealistic officer who would lead the 1969 coup that promised to free his people, end foreign occupation, and turn the new found oil wealth into schools, housing, health care, and national development.

From the Green Book and the experiment of the Jamahiriya system, to his dream of pan-Africanism that would see decades of U.S. confrontation, sanctions, and bombardment.

And ultimately to uprising, civil war, and the NATO destruction of the Libyan state — that left the world arguing over what Gaddafi truly represented: liberation, authoritarianism, or the price of defying empire.

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References and reading list:

Alison Pargeter, Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi (2012)

Lisa Anderson, The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830–1980 (1986)

Ethan Chorin, Translating Libya: The Modern Libyan Experience (2007)

Vijay Prashad, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (2012)

Muammar Gaddafi, The Green Book (1975)

Why is the United States so possessively obsessed with Cuba?

In this episode we dive into the history of Cuba. From the native Taíno, Ciboney, and Guanahatabey societies that organised the island around community and cooperation, to their world being shattered by the Spanish invasion, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the brutal extraction of Cuba’s resources that would lay the foundation for modern capitalism.

Join Triploi as we look at the rise of Havana as an imperial hub, the sugar revolution, and the independence war that saw a dying empire replaced by an emerging one.

From the US backed Batista dictatorship, to the 1959 Communist revolution, the brutal US embargo, and the resolver spirit that saw Cubans endure the unendurable.

All the way to modern Cuba, where a declining US empire, looks onward at one final attempt to seize the island it could never let go.

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References and reading list:

Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (2021)

Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (1971)

Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1985)

Fernando Martínez Heredia, In the Shadow of Marx: The Cuban Revolution and Socialist Thought (ed 2018)

Ernesto Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960) and Episodes of the Revolutionary War (1963)

Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Cuba in Revolution (1966).

Samuel Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered (2006)

Steve Cushion, A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution (2016)

If the Soviet Union achieved so much, why did it collapse in 1991?

In this episode we dive into the history of the USSR. From the shockwave of the 1917 revolution, to its the hard won post WWII peak, and then the sudden, violent unspooling of the whole socialist project.

Join Triploi as we follow the chain reaction of the Soviet meltdown, from de‑Stalinization to the threat of thermonuclear war, to the stagnation of the Soviet economy, the war in Afghanistan, the Chernobyl disaster, to the catastrophic misfire of glasnost and perestroika, and how all of it built up to break the Union for good.

And looking back at the faded brutalist concrete of the Soviet Union’s memorials, we reflect on what lessons we may yet learn.

 

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References and reading list:

Isaac Deutscher - Russia After Stalin: With a Postscript on the Beria Affair (1953)

Moshe Lewin - The Gorbachev Phenomenon: A Historical Interpretation (1991)

David Kotz and Fred Weir - Revolution From Above: The Demise of the Soviet System (1997)

Stephen F. Cohen - Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (2001)

Samir Amin - The Future of Maoism (1983)

Michael Parenti - Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997)

John Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004)

Max Hastings - Inferno: The World at War, 1939–1945 (2011)

When the colonialism earthquake rocked the world, what was it like living next to the epicentre?

In this episode we dive into Ireland’s long fight against the British Empire at the height of its power. From the Tudor conquest, to the birth of capitalist plantations, famine, rebellion, revolution, partition, and the Troubles, all the way to today’s fight against corporate neo-colonialism.

Join Triploi as we dive into this 500 year history of Ireland, and learn what it is like being the neighbour of history’s most insatiable colonial empire… and the price that must be paid for freedom.

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References and reading list:

James Connolly - Labour in Irish History (1910)

R.F. Foster - Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988)

Christine Kinealy - This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-52 (1994)

Charles Townshend - Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (2005)

Diarmaid Ferriter - The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 (2004)

J.J. Lee - Ireland 1912-1985: Politics and Society (1989)

Fintan O'Toole - Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger (2009)

Kieran Allen - The Corporate Takeover of Ireland (2007)

Kevin Whelan - The Tree of Liberty: Radicalism, Catholicism and the Construction of Irish Identity 1760-1830 (1996)

Mary P. Murphy - Ireland and the Politics of Change (2020)