Transnational Legal History / Law and Empire
Joined July 2019
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Christopher Roberts retweeted
Hello @elonmusk and @tylercowen ,
You have just decided to publicly attack our research, six days before the vote on the California billionaire wealth tax.
Your attempt to discredit our work and that of our numerous academic colleagues is pathetic.
Let’s take a look. 🧵
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Delighted to share the publication of All the Seas Were Ink: Islamic Constitutionalism in Motion by Iza Hussin (@CambridgeUP)! A brilliant exploration of how law, Islam, and sovereignty move across global histories. 📚✨
📖 Read more: cambridge.org/core/books/all…
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Oh look, the global capital of social housing has the highest quality of life for the lowest cost
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Maynooth's Research Centre for Legal History Launch dlvr.it/TVQMDM
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Terence Tao made a very powerful point:
“In most cases in pure mathematics, the problems are posed not because we desperately want the solution to these problems in and of themselves, but because we have seen from past experience that human-directed efforts to solve these problems tend to spur further development of the field through the efforts to solve such problems, and then to digest any partial or complete solutions that emerge for further insights.
Prematurely solving the problem by purely AI-powered methods—particularly without full transparency into the solution process—can contaminate this process to the point where it actually becomes a net negative for the progress of mathematics as a whole.”
I’ve been following Terence Tao for like 20 years, and I have always been impressed by the clarity of his thinking.
This clarity stands out even more in this difficult moment, as AI labs turn mathematics into a battleground in their race for supremacy.
In this race, they risk damaging one of humanity’s highest intellectual endeavours.
Christopher Roberts retweeted
This essay talks about the left's vision for technology, the "alliance" between left and right-wing anti-data center movements, politics of refusal, democratic control over the AI infrastructure buildout, China, industrial policy, and more.
thetechbubble.info/p/the-fut…
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Private equity: taming the beast - a joint podcast episode with the brilliant @BylineTimesPod @BylineTimes @GoldbergRadio discussing what's gone under the radar for too long - @hettieobrien.bsky.social discusses her brilliant book on the subject podcasts.taxjustice.net/epis… #Taxcast
Christopher Roberts retweeted
One critic advised Acemoglu and Robinson to “stop by the history department, grab a book, and read the whole thing.” africanhistoryextra.com/p/af…
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Cover reveal! And table of contents now up: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books…
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Zohran on CBS: " I think what we can see is that a democratic socialist politics is one that should be judged on its delivery, like any ideology ... I think that this is a politics that can flourish anywhere because, frankly, there is only one majority in this country — that's the working class and it's time we have a politics that puts them at the heart of what it is that we're pursuing and not as part of the appendix."
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Indonesia built a free public library from engineered timber raised on stilts, a direct translation of the traditional rumah panggung. Burundi built Africa’s specialist arts library from soil dug on the same site it stands on.
Two different continents. Two different materials. The same idea, that a community deserves beautiful public infrastructure built from what the land already offers.
The Microlibrary Warak Kayu in Semarang doesn’t charge entry. It has a hammock net where children read suspended above the ground floor. The architecture is the programme.
Africa is not short of land, timber, or earth. It is short of the decision to use them.
📍 Semarang, Indonesia 🇮🇩
🏛 SHAU Indonesia
📷 KIE
A library for deaf children in Burundi, built entirely from compressed earth blocks and baked clay tiles.
The hammock ceiling is hand-woven sisal rope. The floor is local clay tile. The community built it with them.
Utility doesn’t have to be ugly. Local materials prove it every time.
📍 Library of Muyinga, Burundi
Design: BC Architects
Christopher Roberts retweeted
The Girl Move Academy by ROOTSTUDIO.
A local university campus dedicated for female students.
85% of the building was constructed using on-site bricks made with traditional techniques, with the participation of students and neighbors.
📍Mozambique
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Tohoku University invites you to a lecture by Kiri Paramore on the problem of periodization in global history, focusing on the emergence of “early modernity” in twentieth-century Japan. This event is in English and open to all. No registration required.
bit.ly/3QuYTLv?222
Christopher Roberts retweeted
🇲🇽🏥 SHEINBAUM TO DECREE UNIVERSAL HEALTH SYSTEM
By presidential decree, any Mexican will be able to receive healthcare at any public institution, regardless of enrollment.
120M to be credentialized starting April 13, with a unified digital platform connecting medical records, labs, AI tools and resources across systems.
"When we leave office, any Mexican will be able to go get care for any illness at any health institution."
Christopher Roberts retweeted
In the first of two essays for the JHI Blog, Peter Bloom examines four early-modern European political theories, arguing that productive contradictions emerge from such ideas' attempts to stabilize material crises of social organization. @pbloombk
jhiblog.org/2026/04/06/polit…
Christopher Roberts retweeted
Tesla received billions in government loans, tax credits and subsidies, making Elon Musk the world's richest person. The public? No equity stake, no profit-sharing, no guarantee of affordable access.
My working paper with @rodrikdani has now been published in Industrial and Corporate Change. It explores the conditionalities—profit-sharing, reinvestment requirements, knowledge transfer—that can ensure industrial policy delivers public value, not just private wealth. [LINK IN NEXT POST]
Christopher Roberts retweeted
I am delighted to share that my book Asianism and the Fall of Empire: India's Road to Freedom is published today. @IndianHistory_C @historycong @AAPIData.
It explores the transnational history of Asianism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and its role in shaping Indian anticolonialism against British rule. #AsianHistory #NewBook #PanAsianism #IndianHistory #GlobalSouth #postcolonial #GlobalHistory
