How did we come to think of spaces for the storage and circulation of body parts as “banks,” and what are the consequences of that history for the way we think about human bodies as property today? Kara W. Swanson‘s wonderful new book traces the histor...

Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and the Forces of Capital (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) is an incisive look into how oil permeates our lives and helped shape American politics during the twentieth century.

The death penalty is a subject that can easily inflame emotions. However, in his book, Exile & Embrace: Contemporary Religious Discourses on the Death Penalty (Northeastern University Press, 2013), Dr. Anthony Santoro does an amazing job of objectively...

Andrea Louise Campbell is the author of Trapped in America’s Safety Net: One Family’s Struggle (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Campbell is professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Prior to the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, the United States did not have a national system of taxation–it had a regional system, a system linked to political parties, and a system that, in many instances, preserved and protected trade.

The Canadian author and scholar, Heather Menzies, has written a book about the journey she took to the highlands of Scotland in search of her ancestral roots. In Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good: A Memoir and Manifesto (New Society Publishers...

Robert J. Pekkanen, Steven Rathgeb Smith, and Yutaka Tsujinaka are the authors of Nonprofits and Advocacy: Engaging Community and Government in an Era of Retrenchment (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). Pekkanen is professor in the Henry M.

Philip Kretsedemas is the author of Migrants and Race in the US: Territorial Racism and the Alien/Outside (Routledge, 2014). Kretsedemas is associate professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts-Boston.

“All classes are sorta boring” (p. 19). This statement is one that college students might believe, along with many of their professors, but not Dr. Mark Carnes, author of Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College (Harvard University Pre...

The new book, Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies (University of Toronto Press, 2013) shows how political elites in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada successfully introduced radically new economic ...

Shaazka Beyerle is the author of the new book, Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability and Justice (Lynne Rienner 2014). Beyerle is senior adviser at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and a visiting scholar at the Center fo...

Teachers have recently become a target in the educational reform debate. Most would agree that great teachers are crucial for education. However, there is no singular formula for a great teacher. So then, what makes a great teacher?

“We are not half a dozen provinces. We are one great Dominion,” Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald proudly declared. More than a century later, Canada has 10 provinces and three northern territories making it one of the biggest and riches...

With a new focus on vocational and work ready education, the notion of a liberal education is becoming less valued in American society. Though, there are still defenders of this well-rounded and classic form of education. One staunch defender is Dr.

Staci Zavattaro is the author of the new book Cities for Sale: Municipalities as Public Relations and Marketing Firms (SUNY Press, 2013). Zavattaro is assistant professor of public administration at Mississippi State University.

Matt Grossmann is back on the podcast with his newest book, Artists of the Possible: Governing Networks and American Policy Change Since 1945 (Oxford University Press, 2014). Grossmann is associate professor of political science at Michigan State Unive...

“Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League.”  This was the headline of a recent New Republic article that reverberated across the internet recently, going viral as it was shared over 160 thousands times on Facebook. The author of this piece, Dr.

Our Word is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts (Stanford UP, 2014), by UC Berkeley Professor of Rhetoric Marianne Constable, impels its readers to reassess the dominant methods of considering what is law. Constable’s study of law is informed by both philo...

John L. Campbell and Ove K. Pedersen are the authors of The National Origins of Policy Ideas: Knowledge Regimes in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark (Princeton University Press, 2014). Campbell is the Class of 1925 Professor of Sociology ...

Josh Lerner is the author of Making Democracy Fun: How Game Design Can Empower Citizens and Transform Politics (MIT Press, 2014). Lerner earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from The New School for Social Research,

Judith Kelley is the author of Monitoring Democracy: When International Election Observation Works, and Why It Often Fails (Princeton University  Press, 2012). Kelley is associate professor of public policy and political science at Duke University.

Thomas A. Bryer joins the podcast to discuss his book Higher Education Beyond Job Creation: Universities, Citizenship, and Community (Lexington Books 2014). Dr. Bryer is the director of the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management University of Centr...

Darren Halpin is the author of The Organization of Political Interest Groups: Designing Advocacy (Routledge 2014). Halpin is associate professor and reader in Policy Studies, and the Head of School of Sociology,

From 1945 to the mid-1970s, the rate at which Americans went to and graduate from college rose steadily. Then, however, the rate of college going and completion stagnated. In 1980, a quarter of adult Americans had college degrees; today the figure is r...

Most people say “I’m sorry” a lot. After all, we make a lot of mistakes, most of them minor, so we don’t mind apologizing and expect our apologies to be accepted or at least acknowledged. But how many of our apologies are what might be called “strategi...