This episode of The Dig is brought to you by our listeners who support us at patreon.com

and by University of California Press, which has loads of great titles,

perfect for dig listeners like you. One that you might like is Rebel Speak,

A Justice Movement Mixed Tape by Breon Bain. Rebel Speak sounds the alarm for a global movement

to end systemic injustice led by people doing the day-to-day rebel work in the prison capital of the

prison activist artist and scholar Breon Bain brings us transformative oral history ciphers

rooted in the tradition of call and response to lay bare the struggle and sacrifice on the

front lines of the fight to abolish the prison industrial complex. Breon invites us to

join conversations with change makers whose diverse critical perspectives and firsthand accounts

expose the crisis of prisons and policing. Sampling his provocative sessions with influential

artists and culture workers, Breon guides discussions about the power of art and activism

to build solidarity and demand justice. Rebel Speak by Breon Bain, out now from University of

California Press. Welcome to the Dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine. My name is Daniel Denver

and I'm broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island. We on the left think a lot about the

rise of the West. As Marx put it, it was, quote, the discovery of gold in silver in America,

the extra-patient enslavement and entomment in minds of the Aboriginal population,

the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a

warren for the commercial hunting of black skins that signalized the rosy dawn of the era of

capitalist production. But what if to understand the rise of the West? We must first understand

the empires and world orders based in the East that dominated from the 13th century onward,

empires that only decisively fell behind the West in material terms with the Industrial Revolution.

My guest today is Isha Zarakul and we're discussing her phenomenal new book before the West,

...