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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6301
Mason B. Williams, “City of Ambition: FDR, La G...
“Today, many New Yorkers take the FDR to get to La Guardia,” Mason B. Williams jokes in the opening line of his new book City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York (W.W. Norton, 2013) . And, depending on where they start,
55 min
6302
Carlotta Gall, “The Wrong Enemy: America in Afg...
Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan for almost the entire duration of the American invasion and occupation, beginning shortly after 9/11. In her new book The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghan...
79 min
6303
Bryn Upton, “Hollywood and the End of the Cold ...
While the Cold War ended in 1991 with a whimper, not a bang, it still affects popular culture in many ways. In his book. Hollywood and the End of the Cold War: Signs of Cinematic Change (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014),
56 min
6304
Claudio Saunt, “West of the Revolution: An Unco...
Few years in U.S. history call to mind such immediate stock images as 1776. Powdered wigs. Founding fathers. Red coats. And if asked to place this assembly of objects and people, a few cities stand out: Boston. Philadelphia. Williamsburg, perhaps.
53 min
6305
Melvin Ely, “Israel on the Appomattox: A Southe...
In Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War (Vintage Books, 2004), Melvin Ely uses a trove of documents primarily found in the county court records of Prince Edward County,
46 min
6306
Darrell M. West, “Billionaires: Reflection on t...
So how many billionaires are there in the world? And what do they have to do with politics? Darrell M. West has answered those questions in Billionaires: Reflection on the Upper Crust (Brookings 2014). West is vice president of Governance Studies and ...
17 min
6307
Kara W. Swanson, “Banking on the Body: The Mark...
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...
65 min
6308
Matthew Huber, “Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and th...
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.
41 min
6309
Janet Sims-Wood, “Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howa...
There was once a notion that black people had no meaningful history. It’s a notion Dorothy Porter Wesley spent her entire career debunking. Through her 43 years at Howard University, where she helped create the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center,
41 min
6310
Anthony Santaro, “Exile & Embrace: Contemporary...
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...
66 min
6311
Andrea Louise Campbell, “Trapped in America’s S...
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.
22 min
6312
Joel Migdal, “Shifting Sands: The United States...
Any person who turns on CNN or Fox News today will see that the United States faces a number of critical problems in the Middle East. This reality should surprise few. Stunned by the Al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001, the George W.
69 min
6313
Adam Ewing, “The Age Of Garvey: How A Jamaican ...
Adam Ewing acknowledges the enduring, if reductive, image of Garveyism – “the parades and shipping lines and colonization schemes” – in its early, Harlem-based incarnation, but focuses The Age Of Garvey: How A Jamaican Activist Created A Mass Movement ...
65 min
6314
Ajay K. Mehrotra, “Making the Modern American F...
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.
37 min
6315
Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, “Sing Us a Song, Piano ...
What are female fans of popular music seeking and hearing when they listen to music and attend concerts? In an innovative and fascinating study entitled Sing Us a Song, Piano Woman: Female Fans and the Music of Tori Amos (The Scarecrow Press,
41 min
6316
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
6317
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
6318
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
6319
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
6320
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
6321
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
6322
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
6323
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
6324
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
6325
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