David J. Meltzer, “The Great Paleolithic War: H...
David J. Meltzer‘s new book is a meticulous study of the controversy over human antiquity in America, a dispute that transformed North American archaeology as a practice and discipline, tracing it from 1862-1941.
62 min
5852
Roger Horowitz, “Kosher USA: How Coke Became Ko...
In Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food (Columbia University Press, 2016), Roger Horowitz, director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library,
30 min
5853
David Grazian, “American Zoo: A Sociological Sa...
Urban zoos are both popular and imperiled. They are sites of contestation, but what are those contests about? In his new book, American Zoo: A Sociological Safari(Princeton, 2015), ethnographer David Grazian tracks the competing missions of zoos as sit...
Few social justice struggles have captivated recent political history like the broad Black Lives Matter movement. From the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore to campaign rally interruptions of leading politicians,
46 min
5855
Harlan Lebo, “Citizen Kane: A Filmmakers Journe...
Considered by many to be the greatest American film ever made, Citizen Kane was the product of Orson Welles, who made a movie that is still groundbreaking today. In his new book Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey (Thomas Dunne Books, 2016),
69 min
5856
Kate Bolick, “Spinster: Making a Life of One’s ...
“There still exists little organized sense of what a woman’s biography or autobiography should look like,” Carolyn G. Heilbrun wrote in her 1988 classic, Writing A Woman’s Life, noting, “Even less has been told of the life of the unmarried woman.
38 min
5857
Jefferson Cowie, “The Great Exception: The New ...
Jefferson Cowie is the James G. Stahlman professor of history at Vanderbilt University. His book The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (Princeton University Press, 2016) interprets the New Deal as a massive but unstable ...
57 min
5858
Jason Mittell, “Complex TV: The Poetics of Cont...
We are said to be in a golden age of TV. The best stories today are told on television screens in serialized forms. The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos are a few of the shows that have elevated the cache of television,
65 min
5859
Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman, “Nation on th...
Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman are the authors of Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2016). Potter is a former health insurance executive, is the author of Deadly Spin, and is a regular contributor for the Huffingto...
17 min
5860
Sangay Mishra, “Desis Divided: The Political Li...
Sangay Mishra is the author of Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). Mishra is an assistant professor of political science at Drew University. While the number of South Asian Americans living...
22 min
5861
Douglas Clark, “Gunboat Justice: British and Am...
Douglas Clark’s new Gunboat Justice: British and American Law Courts in China and Japan (1842-1943) (Earnshaw Books Limited, 2016) is a three-volume study of extraterritoriality and its transnational histories as it shaped modern China and Japan.
63 min
5862
Howard P. Chudacoff, “Changing the Playbook: Ho...
March Madness is big business. Each year the NCAA collects $700 million for television rights to the men’s college basketball tournament, under the terms of a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS and Turner Broadcasting. The two networks, in turn,
52 min
5863
Heather Boushey, “Finding Time: The Economies o...
Heather Boushey has written Finding Time: The Economies of Work-Life Conflict (Harvard University Press, 2016). Boushey is Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
19 min
5864
Kimberly Fain, “Black Hollywood: From Butlers t...
While black men have been portrayed in film for over a hundred years, they have often been stereotyped or portrayed very badly. In her book Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changing Role of African American Men in the Movies (Praeger,
64 min
5865
Daniel K. Williams, “Defenders of the Unborn: T...
Daniel K. Williams is an associate professor of history at the University of West Georgia. His book, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers the origins of the pro-life movement not as re...
62 min
5866
Heather Vacek, “Madness: American Protestant Re...
Should the member of a Christian congregation be injured in a car accident, that person will likely be the subject of public prayers and hospitality. But if that same person suffers a mental breakdown, reactions will likely be much more complex and awk...
60 min
5867
Mario Jimenez Sifuentez, “Of Forests and Fields...
In Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest (Rutgers University Press, 2016), Dr. Mario Jimenez Sifuentez combines U.S. labor, environmental, and Chicana/o history to tell the story of Mexican laborers in the states of Oregon and W...
71 min
5868
Alexander Wolff, “The Audacity of Hoop: Basketb...
Alexander Wolff is the author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama (Temple University Press, 2015). Wolff is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. On the eve of the college basketball championship,
17 min
5869
Caroline E. Light, “That Pride of Race and Char...
In That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South (NYU Press, 2014), Caroline E. Light, Lecturer on Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University, examines the American Jewish tradition of benevo...
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal‘s Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2015), explores the fascinating history of identification and citizenship in the Atlantic world during the late eighteenth and early nineteen...
2 min
5871
Tahneer Oksman, “How Come Boys Get to Keep Thei...
In “How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?”: Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs (Columbia University Press, 2016), Tahneer Oksman explores the graphic memoirs of seven female cartoonists,
27 min
5872
Mariah Adin, “The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and...
Stereotypes should always be viewed with skepticism. That said, when we consider Jewish kids from Brooklyn we ordinarily think of well-behaved, studious types on their way to “good schools” and professions of one sort or another.
66 min
5873
Steve Phillips, “Brown is the New White: How th...
Steve Phillips is the author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (The New Press, 2016). Phillips is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Several weeks ago,
17 min
5874
John D. Wilsey, “American Exceptionalism and Ci...
John D. Wilsey, assistant professor of history and Christian apologetics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His book American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea (IVP Academic,
59 min
5875
Fowler, Franz, and Ridout, “Political Advertisi...
Erika Franklin Fowler, Michael M. Franz, and Travis N. Ridout are the co-authors of Political Advertising in the United States (Westview Press 2016). Fowler is assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University,