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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6376
Cornelia H. Dayton and Sharon V. Salinger, “Rob...
In early America, the practice of “warning out” was unique to New England, a way for the community to regulate those who might fall into poverty and need assistance from the town or province. Robert Love’s Warnings: Searching for Strangers in Colonia...
43 min
6377
Tina Santi Flaherty, “What Jackie Taught Us” (P...
Originally, particularly in American writings, one of the explicit purpose of biography was to teach readers how to live. As Scott E. Caspar writes in Constructing American Lives (1999), in nineteenth-century America “biography remained the essential g...
26 min
6378
Christine Knauer, “Let Us Fight as Free Men: Bl...
Recent controversies over integrating the military have focused on issues of gender and sexuality. In the 1940s and 50s, however, the issue was racial integration. As Christine Knauer shows in her new book Let Us Fight as Free Men: Black Soldiers and C...
61 min
6379
Denise Brennan, “Life Interrupted: Trafficking ...
Denise Brennan‘s second book, Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United States (Duke University Press, 2014), examines how individuals who were trafficked into forced labor go about rebuilding their lives afterward.
64 min
6380
Lawrence Goldstone, “Birdmen: The Wright Brothe...
In Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies (Ballentine Books, 2014), Lawrence Goldstone recounts the discovery and mastery of aviation at the turn of the twentieth century–and all the litigation that ensued.
47 min
6381
Travis Vogan, “Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films ...
Last weekend was the NFL Draft, the annual event when teams select college players who have shown the talent to advance to the professional ranks. Staged at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, broadcast live on two cable networks,
49 min
6382
Dede Feldman, “Inside the New Mexico Senate: Bo...
Dede Feldman is the author of Inside the New Mexico Senate: Boots, Suits, and Citizens (University of New Mexico Press, 2014). Feldman retired from the New Mexico Senate in 2012 and is a former journalist and now is a political commentator in Albuquerq...
20 min
6383
Matthew Muehlbauer and David Ulbrich, “Ways of ...
In their new survey for Routledge, military historians Matthew Muehlbauer and David Ulbrich move beyond a simplified critique of Russell F. Weigley’s critical “American Way of War” thesis to offer a reassessment of how the construct evolved from a numb...
66 min
6384
Patricia Ventura, “Neoliberal Culture: Living W...
Culture is inescapably linked to questions of political economy. In Neoliberal Culture: Living With American Neoliberalism (Ashgate, 2012), Patricia Ventura explores the relationship between contemporary American culture and the ideology that seems to ...
40 min
6385
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, “Presidential Campaign...
The Oxford University Press series on digital politics has produced several new books that we have featured on the podcast. Interviews with Dave Karpf, Dan Kreiss, and Muzammil Hussain are available in previous podcasts.
25 min
6386
Donald T. Critchlow, “When Hollywood Was Right”...
It seems that everyone in Hollywood is on the political Left. “Seems” is the operative word here, because there are actually Republicans in pictures, at least according to this website. (NB: I have no idea whether the folks who created this list know w...
55 min
6387
Jamie Cohen-Cole, “The Open Mind” (University o...
Jamie Cohen-Cole‘s new book explores the emergence of a discourse of creativity, interdisciplinarity, and the “open mind” in the context of Cold War American politics, education, and society. The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and the Sciences of Human N...
66 min
6388
Lucia Trimbur, “Come Out Swinging: The Changing...
Imagine a boxing gym. What probably comes to mind is a large, run-down room on the upper floor of an old brick building, somewhere in a trash-strewn, depressed neighborhood. The room echoes with the thud of the heavy bag,
49 min
6389
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, “Presidential Campaign...
Digital Communications Technologies, or DCTs, like the Internet offer the infrastructure and means of forming a networked society. These technologies, now, are a mainstay of political campaigns on every level, from city, to state, to congressional,
31 min
6390
Vershawn Young et al., “Other People’s English”...
In linguistics, we all happily and glibly affirm that there is no “better” or “worse” among languages (or dialects, or varieties), although we freely admit that people have irrational prejudices about them. But what do we do about those prejudices?
51 min
6391
Zareena Grewal, “Islam is a Foreign Country: Am...
Zareena Grewal‘s monograph Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority (NYU Press, 2013), seamlessly interweaves ethnographic research with an in-depth historical perspective in order to yield an unparalleled account...
67 min
6392
Jason Ruiz, “Americans in the Treasure House: T...
In Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire (University of Texas Press, 2014), Jason Ruiz explores the role of a distinct group of actors in the relationship between the United States and Mexico: A...
57 min
6393
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, “HRC: State Sec...
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes are the co-authors of authors of HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton (Crown Publishers 2014). Allen is White House bureau chief at Bloomberg; Parnes is White House correspondent for The Hill.
19 min
6394
Marc Myers “Why Jazz Happened” (University of C...
How did jazz take shape? Why does jazz have so many styles? Why do jazz songs get longer as the twentieth century proceeds? Marc Myers, in his fascinating book Why Jazz Happened (University of California Press,
49 min
6395
Derrick Bang, “Vince Guaraldi at the Piano” (Mc...
In Vince Guaraldi at the Piano (McFarland Press, 2012),Derrick Bang chronicles San Francisco jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi’s sojourns into the world of jazz from the late 1940s to his untimely death in 1976. Guaraldi,
73 min
6396
David Kaiser, “How the Hippies Saved Physics” (...
David Kaiser‘s recent book is one of the most enjoyable and informative books on the history of science that you’ll read, full-stop. The deservedly award-winning How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (W.W.
71 min
6397
Nicholas Carnes, “White-Collar Government: The ...
Nicholas Carnes is the author of White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Carnes is an assistant professor of public policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke Universit...
18 min
6398
Sarah Anzia, “Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle...
Sarah Anzia is the author of Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Anzia is assistant professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC-Berkeley.
31 min
6399
Steven Noll and David Tegeder, “Ditch of Dreams...
The environmental movement is such an integral part of our culture — and especially the culture of the Democratic Party — that we take its presence for granted. But as Dave Tegeder and Steve Noll explain in their book Ditch of Dreams,
62 min
6400
Joshua Dubler, “Down in the Chapel: Religious L...
In almost every prison movie you see, there is a group of fanatically religious inmates. They are almost always led by a charismatic leader, an outsized father-figure who is loved by his acolytes and feared by nearly everyone else.
66 min