How Cargo Ships Explain the World
On this episode of The Nation Podcast, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian talks about what one industry can teach us.
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How Cargo Ships Explain the World | The Nation Podcast
A hotel for Thatcher’s fallen soldiers in the Falkland Islands. A hospital for Rikers inmates. A home for workers in the offshore fossil fuel industry.
These are just a few of the past lives of “Jascon 27” – a Scandinavian ship that is the subject of writer Ian Kumekawa’s new book, Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge.
The Vessel is, of course, a ship that transports people and goods. But, as journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian notes, and Kumekawa’s book reveals, it is also a bellwether of political movements and economic shifts, and a symbol of “the whims and desires” of corporations, nations, and individuals alike.
Abrahamian wrote about Empty Vessel in the latest issue of The Nation. She’s an independent journalist who writes about the cracks within nation-states worldwide. She is also a former editor at The Nation and Al Jazeera America, and author of The Cosmoplites: The Coming of the Global Citizen and The Hidden Globe.
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A cargo ship is loading and unloading foreign trade containers at Qingdao Port in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China on June 16, 2025.
(CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty Images)A hotel for Thatcher’s fallen soldiers in the Falkland Islands. A hospital for Rikers inmates. A home for workers in the offshore fossil fuel industry.
These are just a few of the past lives of “Jascon 27” – a Scandinavian ship that is the subject of writer Ian Kumekawa’s new book, Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge.
The Vessel is, of course, a ship that transports people and goods. But, as journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian notes, and Kumekawa’s book reveals, it is also a bellwether of political movements and economic shifts, and a symbol of “the whims and desires” of corporations, nations, and individuals alike.
Abrahamian wrote about Empty Vessel in the latest issue of The Nation. She’s an independent journalist who writes about the cracks within nation-states worldwide. She is also a former editor at The Nation and Al Jazeera America, and author of The Cosmoplites: The Coming of the Global Citizen and The Hidden Globe.
Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Liberal Philanthropy and the Fight for Democracy w/ David Callahan | The Nation Podcast
It’s no surprise that liberal philanthropy — a longtime pillar of the Democratic establishment — has become one of the Trump administration’s latest targets. As David Callahan writes in our December issue, liberal foundations “have often been depicted as the great puppet masters of the left, bankrolling and directing a who’s who of progressive groups intent on destroying the American way of life.” In other words, catnip for MAGA madness.
But as Callahan points out, the reality of how these institutions operate is far from radical. As powerbrokers of the elite, liberal philanthropists are averse to challenging “the systems that spawned them.”
How have liberal foundations failed to mobilize working-class Americans? And how can they ramp up the fight to defend the democracy they claim to care so much about saving?
Joining us to discuss this is David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, and author of The Givers: Wealth, Power and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age.
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