Welcome back to the second part of my conversation with Nick Mulder and Lars Schönander. Picking the narrative up in 1935, get real in this episode: Why the Great Depression, counterintuitively, made importing commodities cheaper, and how that affected Germany’s and Japan’s protectionism; The difference between autarky and autarchy; Whether Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could survive a full-on fuel embargo today by using Nazi-era technology; Nick’s definition of “temporal claustrophobia,” and what it has to do with Japan ultimately siding with the Axis; Parallels between the “ABCD circle” (America, Britain, China, Dutch East Indies) and the semiconductor export controls today; Why having an empire was a liability for Britain; What sanctions had to do with the Czechoslovaks — even with a larger army — falling to the Nazis; How the blockades of WWI differed from WWII; And what lessons pro-decouplers should learn from this history of sanctions. Nick’s book recommendations: https://www.amazon.com/Athene-Palace-Rosie-G-Waldeck/dp/1592110088 https://www.amazon.com/World-Late-Antiquity-150-750-Civilization/dp/0393958035 https://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Years-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171462 https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Maisky-Diaries-Volumes-Communism/dp/0300117825 Nick’s excellent book: https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Weapon-Rise-Sanctions-Modern/dp/0300259360 Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5mdvyIqrs4 Check out the newsletter and other ChinaTalk content at https://www.chinatalk.media/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices