New Books in American Studies

Interviews with Scholars of America about their New Books

Society & Culture
History
6051
Philip Kretsedemas, “Migrants and Race in the U...
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.
23 min
6052
Lauren Araiza, ‘To March for Others: The United...
Co-founded in 1962 by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, the National Farm Workers Association would eventually become the United Farm Workers (UFW), the landmark labor union dedicated to achieving better wages and working conditions for rural Californ...
50 min
6053
Beth Linker, “War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in Wo...
Beth Linker is the author of War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America (University of Chicago Press, 2011).  As she reveals, the story of individual rehabilitation from war-related injury was intertwined with other political concerns at multip...
63 min
6054
Guy Chet, “The Ocean is a Wilderness: Atlantic ...
Guy Chet, Associate Professor of early American and military history at the University of North Texas, in his book The Ocean is a Wilderness: Atlantic Piracy and the Limits of State Authority, 1688-1856 (University of Massachusetts Press,
52 min
6055
Vernadette V. Gonzalez, “Securing Paradise: Tou...
Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez‘s Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai’i and the Philippines (Duke University Press, 2013), examines the intertwined relationship between tourism and militarism in Hawai’i and the Philippines. Dr.
76 min
6056
Jonathan Swarts, “Constructing Neoliberalism: E...
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 ...
60 min
6057
Shaazka Beyerle, “Curtailing Corruption: People...
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...
24 min
6058
Leslie Grant, “West Meets East: Best Practices ...
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?
47 min
6059
Rebecca Rossen, “Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identit...
How does an author craft a work that speaks across the boundaries of dance studies, Jewish studies and gender studies? What does it mean for dance to function as a site for probing complex questions of racial, ethnic and cultural identity?
45 min
6060
Karl Spracklen, “Whiteness and Leisure” (Palgra...
Our taken for granted assumptions are questioned in a new book by Karl Spracklen, a professor of leisure studies at Leeds Metropolitan University in England. Whiteness and Leisure (Palgrave, 2013) combines two bodies of theoretical literature to interr...
44 min
6061
Richard Starr, “Equal As Citizens: The Tumultuo...
“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...
55 min
6062
Albert Park and David Yoo, eds., “Encountering ...
Modernity and religion have often been seen as fundamentally at odds. However, the articles in Encountering Modernity: Christianity in East Asia and Asian America (University of Hawaii Press, 2014 ), edited by Albert L. Park and David K. Yoo,
78 min
6063
James Nisbet, “Ecologies, Environments, and Ene...
It is a rare event when a dissertation focused on a single work yields a rich and fruitful account of an entire period. James Nisbet‘s new book, which began as a study of Walter De Maria’s 1977 Land Art work TheLightning Field,
57 min
6064
Karen Abbott, “Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: F...
If group biography is one of the exciting new trends in life-writing (and some say it is), Karen Abbott– the historian, not to be confused with the novelist-proves one of its deftest practitioners- first, in her debut Sin in the Second City,
26 min
6065
Edward E. Baptist, “The Half Has Never Been Tol...
An unflinching examination of the trauma, violence, opportunism, and vision that combined to create the empire for slavery that was the Old South, Ed Baptist‘s new book The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (Basic ...
65 min
6066
Robert Lombardo, “Organized Crime in Chicago: B...
Chicago would be one of the first places that people think of when the topic of organized crime is raised. Al Capone made the city famous during prohibition. I have done the Gangster bus tour in Chicago which focuses entirely on that period in history....
37 min
6067
Julia Azari, “People’s Message: The Changing Po...
Julia Azari has written Delivering the People’s Message: The Changing Politics of the Presidential Mandate (Cornell University Press, 2014). Azari is assistant professor of political science at Marquette University.
31 min
6068
Gabriel Solis, “Thelonious Monk Quartet with Jo...
On November 29, 1957, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holliday, Zoot Sims, Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, and a multi-talented young R&B player who played jazz that night, Ray Charles, and others played a benefit concert for the Morningside Recreation Center at Ca...
51 min
6069
Michael S. Roth, “Beyond the University: Why Li...
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.
50 min
6070
Matthew Algeo, “Pedestrianism: When Watching Pe...
Once upon a time, before baseball drew crowds to America’s ballparks and English workers spent their Saturdays at the football grounds, one of the most popular spectator events in both countries was watching people walk.
48 min
6071
Staci Zavattaro, “Cities for Sale: Municipaliti...
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.
31 min
6072
Matt Grossmann, “Artists of the Possible: Gover...
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...
20 min
6073
Mark Rifkin, “Settler Common Sense: Queerness a...
In Settler Common Sense: Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance  (University of Minnesota Press, 2014), Mark Rifkin, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and incoming president of the Native American and In...
62 min
6074
Elizabeth Lunbeck, “The Americanization of Narc...
Elizabeth Lunbeck has made a major contribution to the historical study of psychoanalysis with the publication of The Americanization of Narcissism (Harvard University Press, 2014). Exploring the concept of narcissism and how it is deployed at the leve...
51 min
6075
William Deresiewicz, “Excellent Sheep: The Mise...
“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.
38 min