On Politics: Latin America’s Right-Wing Shift

On Politics: Latin America’s Right-Wing Shift

Author: The London Review of Books November 12, 2025 Duration: 1:08:32
At the end of the 20th century and across the first decade of the 21st, a swathe of countries across Latin America elected left-wing governments in what became known internationally as the Pink Tide. In more recent years, what many have seen as a second wave of progressive governments have collapsed, giving way to right-wing leaders such as Milei, Bukele and Bolsonaro, with support from international libertarian movements. In this episode, James is joined by Tony Wood, who wrote about this shift in the latest issue of the LRB, and Camila Vergara, a critical legal theorist at the University of Essex, to discuss why the Pink Tide governments failed, where the new brand of right-wing politics comes from, and whether the revolutionary energy found across the continent could lead to further change. Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Each week, The LRB Podcast extends the long-form, inquisitive spirit of the London Review of Books into a conversational format. Hosts Thomas Jones and Malin Hay guide discussions that delve into the essays and ideas animating Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, creating a space where complex thoughts on society, art, history, and literature are explored with depth and clarity. The rhythm of the podcast includes a dedicated fortnightly episode, ‘On Politics,’ hosted by James Butler, which sharpens the focus on the political forces and theories shaping our current moment. Listening feels like joining a nuanced, ongoing conversation where arguments are carefully constructed and perspectives are challenged. It’s a natural companion for anyone who believes that understanding the world requires patience, critical thinking, and engaging dialogue. The podcast doesn’t offer quick takes but rather thoughtful excavations of the week’s most compelling cultural and intellectual questions, mirroring the publication’s commitment to serious and elegant prose. This is where written criticism finds its voice, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the debates that define our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The LRB Podcast
Podcast Episodes
The Best-Paid Woman in NYC [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:30
As J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, entrusted with building his collection, Belle da Costa Greene could ‘spend more money in an afternoon than any other young woman of 26’, as the New York Times put it in 1912. In the l…
Silicon Valley Warriors [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:46
Donald Trump recently announced a defence budget of more than one trillion dollars, much of which will be funnelled to private companies – and increasingly to tech firms such as Space X and Palantir. Laleh Khalili joins…
The Best French Novel of the 20th Century [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:06
Marguerite Yourcenar entered the Académie Française in 1981, the first woman to be admitted. Her novel Memoirs of Hadrian, published thirty years earlier, is ‘often considered the best French novel of the 20th century’,…
Is this fascism? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:01
‘How useful is it,’ Daniel Trilling asked recently in the LRB, ‘to compare the current global resurgence of right-wing nationalism to fascism?’ In this episode of the podcast Daniel joins TJ to explore the question in li…
Close Readings: Nietzsche's 'Schopenhauer as Educator' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:14
In this extended extract from their series 'Conversations in Philosophy', part of the LRB's Close Readings podcast, Jonathan Rée and James Wood look at one of Friedrich Nietzsche's early essays, 'Schopenhauer as Educator…
Old Pope, New Pope [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:45
‘The Church​ needs to change; the Church cannot afford to change,’ Colm Tóibín wrote recently in the LRB. In this episode of the podcast, he joins Tom to discuss how the new pope will have to navigate this paradox. He al…
In the Soviet Archives: a conversation with Sheila Fitzpatrick [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:26
When Sheila Fitzpatrick first went to Moscow in the 1960s as a young academic, the prevailing understanding of the Soviet Union in the West was governed by the ‘totalitarian hypothesis’, of a system ruled entirely from t…
How They Built the Pyramids [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:14
In 2013, a group of French and Egyptian archaeologists discovered of cache of papyri as old as the Great Pyramid of Giza. Some of the texts were written by people who had worked on the pyramids: a tally of their daily la…
Cold War Pen-Pals [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:36
The Soviet Women’s Anti-Fascist Committee was set up in 1941 to foster connections with Allied countries and encourage British and US women to ‘invest personally’ in the war effort. Two years later, the National Council…
Close Readings: 'Vanity Fair' by William Makepeace Thackeray [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:07
Thackeray's comic masterpiece, 'Vanity Fair', is a Victorian novel looking back to Regency England as an object both of satire and nostalgia. Thackeray’s disdain for the Regency is present throughout the book, not least…