New Books in American Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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5351
Andre Magnan, “When Wheat Was King: The Rise an...
In When Wheat Was King: The Rise and Fall of the Canada-UK Grain Trade (University of British Columbia Press, 2016), André Magnan connects the cultivation of wheat on the Canadian prairies to the consumption of bread in Britain.
59 min
5352
Lilliana Mason, “Uncivil Agreement: How Politic...
Recent debates about partisan polarization have focused primarily on ideology and policy views. In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press, 2018), social identity moves to the center of how to think about the di...
22 min
5353
David Neiwert, “Alt-America: The Rise of the Ra...
Investigative journalist and Northwest correspondent for the Southern Poverty Law Center, David Neiwert has been covering the radical right-wing for decades. In Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump (Verso, 2017),
37 min
5354
Barry Eidlin, “Labor and the Class Idea in the ...
How do unions and ideas around labor compare between the U.S. and Canada? And how did they come to be as they are today? In his new book, Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada (Cambridge University Press, 2018),
86 min
5355
Halifu Osumare, “Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir...
Combining memoir with auto-ethnography, historical study and sociocultural analysis, Halifu Osumare draws on her decades of experience to explore the complexities of black dance in the United States. Starting in San Francisco during the rise of the Bla...
30 min
5356
Steven Hackel, “Junípero Serra: California’s Fo...
When Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015, he canonized the eighteenth-century Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra, rekindling the smoldering controversy that surrounds this historical figure—both a holy man with zeal for the Gospel and an i...
41 min
5357
Kyla Schuller, “The Biopolitics of Feeling: Rac...
Beginning with a discussion about Black Lives Matter may seem like an unlikely place to start a book about nineteenth century science and culture. However, by contrasting Black lives with White feelings, Kyla Schuller sets up the central conflict of he...
56 min
5358
Amy Sueyoshi, “Discriminating Sex: White Leisur...
In Discriminating Sex: White Leisure and the Making of the American ‘Oriental’ (University of Illinois Press, 2018), Amy Sueyoshi argues that Americans did not always regard Chinese and Japanese in the U.S.
66 min
5359
Patrick Lopez-Aguado, “Stick Together and Come ...
How do systems of incarceration influence racial sorting inside and outside of prisons? And how do the social structures within prisons spill out into neighborhoods? In his new book, Stick Together and Come Back Home: Racial Sorting and the Spillover o...
66 min
5360
Rebecca Erbelding, “Rescue Board: The Untold St...
In her new book, Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (Doubleday, 2018), Rebecca Erbelding examines the War Refugee Board created by FDR in 1944 near the conclusion of World War II.
58 min
5361
Janet E. Croon, “The War Outside My Window: The...
Sit alongside a disabled teenage Southerner as he records his experience in The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2018). This unique document—rare for its teenager’s perspective,
59 min
5362
Mark I. Lurie, “Galantière: The Lost Generation...
Though he never enjoyed the publishing success and fame of such friends as Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, Lewis Galantière made a considerable contribution to literature over the course of the twentieth century.
65 min
5363
David Faris, “It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Dem...
Roosevelt University political science professor David Faris counsels Democrats to disregard procedural precedents and niceties, and pugnaciously wield power in his book, It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American ...
37 min
5364
Ann K. Ferrell, “Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a ...
Ann K. Ferrell is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Folk Studies program at Western Kentucky University, and also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American Folklore. Her first book, Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a New Century (University of...
65 min
5365
Avidit Acharya et al., “Deep Roots: How Slavery...
Several weeks ago, we had Professor Lilliana Mason on the podcast talking about her book about the process of social sorting that has deepened divides between citizens by aligning race, religion, and region.
27 min
5366
Douglas L. Winiarski, “Darkness Falls on the La...
Douglas L. Winiarski is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Richmond and winner of the 2018 Bancroft Prize in American history for his book Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth Century N...
61 min
5367
Rosina Lozano, “An American Language: The Histo...
In An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States (University of California Press, 2018), Rosina Lozano details the entangled relationship between language and notions of individual, community, and national belonging in the U.S.
47 min
5368
Dawn Peterson, “Indians in the Family: Adoption...
During his invasion of Creek Indian territory in 1813, future U.S. president Andrew Jackson discovered a Creek infant orphaned by his troops. Moved by an “unusual sympathy,” Jackson sent the child to be adopted into his Tennessee plantation household.
37 min
5369
Beth Lew-Williams, “The Chinese Must Go: Violen...
The American West erupted in anti-Chinese violence in 1885. Following the massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming Territory, communities throughout California and the Pacific Northwest harassed, assaulted, and expelled thousands of Chinese immigrants.
53 min
5370
Simeon Man, “Soldiering through Empire: Race an...
Simeon Man‘s book Soldiering through Empire: Race and the Making of the Decolonizing Pacific (University of California Press, 2018) focuses on the role of Asians who worked within the making of U.S. global power after 1945.
44 min
5371
Matthew R. Pembleton, “Containing Addiction: Th...
It’s common to place the start of the War on Drugs with the Nixon or Reagan Administrations, but as Matthew Pembleton tells us, those are only phases II and III of a much longer drug war that began in the 1930s with the long-forgotten Federal Bureau of...
32 min
5372
Roderick P. Hart, “Civic Hope: How Ordinary Ame...
To find out what Americans really think about their government, University of Texas-Austin Professor Roderick P. Hart read and analyzed approximately 10,000 letters to the editor, from 12 “ordinary” cities, written between 1948 and the present.
39 min
5373
Jessica Calarco, “Negotiating Opportunities: Ho...
In what ways do middle class students obtain advantages in schools? In her new book, Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School (Oxford University Press, 2018), Jessica McCrory Calarco uses ethnographic data to elabora...
35 min
5374
Jeffrey Tulis and Nicole Mellow, “Legacies of L...
Donald Trump famously said “We’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning.” Tell that to the losers of politics; those who have lost major elections or key political debates. We rarely focus on those who have lost,
24 min
5375
Joseph O. Baker and Buster G. Smith, “American ...
A rapidly growing number of Americans are embracing life outside the bounds of organized religion. Although the United States has long been viewed as a fervently religious Christian nation, survey data shows that more and more Americans are identifying...
55 min