New Books in American Studies

Interviews with Scholars of America about their New Books

Society & Culture
History
4201
Mitchell Nathanson, "Bouton: The Life of a Base...
Nathanson examines the life of Jim Bouton, a journeyman pitcher whose 1970 book, “Ball Four,” was a lightning rod for controversy and became one of the best sports books of all time....
74 min
4202
James M. Jasper, "Public Characters: The Politi...
Did Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency in 2016 because he was a master of character work – able to sum up opponents in pithy epithets that encourage the public to see them as weak or immoral?
41 min
4203
Stanley D. M. Carpenter, "Southern Gambit: Corn...
Charles Lord Cornwallis’s campaign through the southern American colonies came to an ignominious close on October 19, 1781, on an open field outside Yorktown, Virginia...
56 min
4204
Adam M. Sowards, "An Open Pit Visible from the ...
With the Wilderness Act (1964) unable to protect this area of outstanding beauty, conservationists set out to apply moral rather than legal strategies of resistance...
30 min
4205
T. Skocpol and C. Tervo, "Upending American Pol...
How can we make sense of the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump?
65 min
4206
Sarah M. A. Gualtieri, "Arab Routes: Pathways t...
Gualtieri uncovers the dynamic and complex stories of Arabic-speaking migrant communities who came to call Southern California home...
57 min
4207
Paul Matzko, "The Radio Right" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Matzko details its emergence in the 1950s and the response to its rise by some of the leading political and religious institutions of the era...
51 min
4208
Yuval Levin, "A Time to Build" (Basic Books, 2020)
Americans are living through a social crisis, contends Yuval Levin...
61 min
4209
Brandon K. Winford, "John Hervey Wheeler, Black...
John Hervey Wheeler (1908–1978) was one of the civil rights movement's most influential leaders...
76 min
4210
Louis A. Pérez, "Rice in the Time of Sugar: The...
Pérez explores how Cuba’s dependency on the sugar economy also made the island’s population dependent on food imports like rice.
54 min
4211
Betsy Gaines Quammen, "American Zion: Cliven Bu...
Quammen situates the Bundy standoff within the long and convoluted history of Mormon migration into the American West—and provides an exciting new take on religion in modern American politics...
47 min
4212
Stacy Wolf, "Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and ...
From backstage moms to tiny divas to dinner theatres, Wolf demonstrates that this charming pastime of American culture that is anything but past...
64 min
4213
Jia Lynn Yang, "One Mighty and Irresistible Tid...
Yang recounts the personalities and debates that brought about the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which forms the foundation for modern U.S. immigration policy...
64 min
4214
Nancy Mattina, "Uncommon Anthropologist: Gladys...
Mattina offers the first full biography of Reichard, and examines her pathbreaking work in the ethnography of ritual and mythology; Wiyot, Coeur d’Alene, and Navajo linguistics; folk art, gender, and language; and her exceptional career of teaching, editing, publishing, and mentoring...
62 min
4215
Forrest Stuart, "Ballad of the Bullet: Gangs, D...
How do young men use drill music and social media to gain power?
61 min
4216
Ana Stevenson, "The Woman as Slave in Nineteent...
Stevenson explores the ubiquity of what she terms the “woman-slave analogy” in nineteenth-century US feminist discourse...
48 min
4217
Melissa R. Klapper, "Ballet Class: An American ...
For much of the last century, ballet class has been a rite of passage for millions of little girls in the United States.
36 min
4218
Randy E. Barnett, "An Introduction to Constitut...
Want to know under what pretexts a local government can seize your house?
75 min
4219
Kenesha N. Grant, "The Great Migration and the ...
Grant analyses the impact of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to northern cities, and how this changed the political dynamics in many of the places where African Americans settled and built new lives...
49 min
4220
Sonali Chakravarti, "Radical Enfranchisement in...
Chakravarti a thoughtful analysis of the role of the jury in American democracy, with specific attention to the way that the jury experience can provide the structure for more substantive civic engagement....
47 min
4221
Matthew McManus, "The Rise of Post-Modern Conse...
Manus argues that Trump and other similar figures and movements represent a new form of conservatism, one with a long history of development, and formed as a response to various social dynamics...
46 min
4222
Rebecca J. Kissane and Sarah Winslow, "Whose Ga...
63 min
4223
Abram Van Engen, "City on a Hill: A History of ...
Van Engen examines early American literature, the history of emotions, Puritanism, collective memory, and American Exceptionalism...
32 min
4224
Christian Wright, "Carbon County, USA: Miners f...
During the early 1970s, a movement of rank-and-file coal miners rose up in Appalachia to challenge mine bosses and stodgy union officials...
55 min
4225
Danny Haiphong, "American Exceptionalism and Am...
According to Robert Sirvent and Danny Haiphong, Americans have been exposed to fake news throughout our history...
76 min