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Danny welcomes back to the show historian Daniel Immerwahr to talk about the political and ideological themes of Star Wars, particularly The Phantom Menace. They discuss George Lucas’s Vietnam War influences and anti-imperial framework; myth and generational conflict in the original trilogy; the rise of intellectual property and Silicon Valley ideology; the shift from rebellion to bureaucracy in The Phantom Menace; its depiction of trade, governance, and liberal institutional decay; the racialized and cultural representations in the prequels; the transformation of the Jedi into enforcers; technology and scientism; and how The Phantom Menace reflects the politics of the late 1990s “end of history” moment.

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