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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7051
Nick Reding, “Methland: The Death and Life of a...
In 1980 I left Kansas to go to college in Iowa. A lot of things caught my attention about Iowa, for example, that the people really are very nice. I also noticed that there were a lot of drugs. One of them was “crystal methamphetamine,
66 min
7052
Leslie Schwalm, “Emancipation’s Diaspora: Race ...
You’ve heard of “Reconstruction,” that is, the reform of the South after the Civil War. But have you heard of “Northern Reconstruction?” Probably not. I hadn’t either until I read Leslie Schwalm’s superb new book Emancipation’s Diaspora: Race and Recon...
2 min
7053
Charles Postel, “The Populist Vision” (Oxford U...
Ever wonder where the term “populist” came from? It came from “Populism,” a nineteenth/early twentieth-century American political movement. Of course the Populists weren’t really the “Populists,” they were the “People’s Party.
57 min
7054
Susan Brewer, “Why America Fights: Patriotism a...
Like it or not, governments need to mobilize their populations in times of crisis and one of the ways they do it is to disseminate propaganda. Now this is uncomplicated if you are, say, Stalin and claim to know what’s best for everyone and control the ...
74 min
7055
Benjamin Carp, “Rebels Rising: Cities in the Am...
When I was in college about a million years ago, we used to sit in bars and talk about the Revolution. Actually, it was this bar and something like this “Revolution.” Clearly nothing ever came of our planning (or drinking). But it wasn’t always so,
66 min
7056
Matthew Algeo, “Harry Truman’s Excellent Advent...
Memorial day is coming up, and maybe you are going to take a little car trip. It might even be a “road trip,” one of the great American enterprises (which isn’t to say other folks don’t take them, but Americans can rightly say they invented this genre ...
64 min
7057
Godfrey Hodgson, “The Myth of American Exceptio...
How different is the United States from other nations? American leaders and common folk have often said it’s very different. The Founding Fathers said it, Abraham Lincoln said it, Woodrow Wilson said it, Franklin Roosevelt said it,
67 min
7058
Joel Lewis, “Youth Against Fascism: Young Commu...
Most people know what “appeasement” is. You know, the Spanish Civil War, the Nazi Anschluss with Austria, the Sudeten Crisis, Neville Chamberlain, “Peace in Our Time.” The Western democracies went (as Margaret Thatcher might have said) all “wobbly” on ...
64 min
7059
Tony Michels, “Fire in their Hearts: Yiddish So...
I always assumed that the Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe to New York and created the massive Jewish American labor movement brought their leftist politics with them from the Old Country. But now I know different thanks to Tony Michels’ terrific...
63 min
7060
Kristin Celello, “Making Marriage Work: A Histo...
When did Americans begin to think of marriage as “work,” as in, “If you want your marriage to succeed, you have to work at it.” Kristin Celello answers this question (and a lot of others) in her timely and relevant new book Making Marriage Work.
61 min
7061
James Mann, “The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A ...
Ronald Reagan was a odd fellow. Nobody seems to know what to make of him. He started as a Democrat and then became a Republican. Then he broke ranks with his party by running for president against a sitting Republican. As a leader,
56 min
7062
Robert Hendershot, “Family Spats: Perception, I...
Gordon Brown, the British PM, came calling to Washington recently. He jumped the pond, of course, to have a chat with his new counterpart, President Barack Obama. They had a lot to talk about, what with the world economy melting down,
63 min
7063
Carl Bon Tempo, “Americans at the Gates: The Un...
My Midwestern high school was pretty typical. There were freaks, geeks, jocks, drama-types. Some were white. And some were black. All were recognizably “American.” The only unusual thing about Wichita Southeast was the presence of a reasonably large nu...
62 min
7064
Matthew Goodman, “The Sun and the Moon: The Rem...
The modern newspaper is not as old as you think. Until the early nineteenth century, they were thin and expensive. It was only with the advent of the penny press circa 1830 that the truly mass broadsheet was born.
48 min
7065
Matt Wasniewski, et al., “Black Americans in Co...
In just a few days, the United States will inaugurate its first black president, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. And though it’s a momentous day for the cause of equality, Mr. Obama is hardly the first African American to come to DC to serve the peop...
68 min
7066
John H. Summers, “Every Fury on Earth” (Davies ...
The vast majority of historians write history. Perhaps that’s good, as one should stick to what one knows. But there are historians who braves the waters of social and political criticism. One thinks of Arthur Schelsinger Jr., Richard Hofstadter,
69 min
7067
Vicki Ruiz, “From Out of the Shadows: Mexican W...
There was a time when “history” was the history of powerful people. Shakespeare captures this notion of history in the prologue to Henry V: O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage,
44 min
7068
Donald Worster, “A Passion for Nature: The Life...
If you study pre-modern history in any depth, one of the most startling things you will discover is that “traditional” societies usually had an adversarial relationship with “nature.” They fought the wild tooth and nail in a never-ending effort to brin...
62 min
7069
Katherine Jellison, “It’s Our Day: America’s Lo...
If you ask me, the “white wedding” is the oddest thing. I’m a modern guy and my wife is a modern woman. We’re feminists. We have an equal partnership. But when it came to getting married we both agreed that I would play the role of Prince Charming and ...
68 min
7070
Edwin Burrows, “Forgotten Patriots: The Untold ...
While researching his Pulitzer-Prize-winning Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (with Mike Wallace; Oxford UP 1999), Edwin Burrows uncovered the story of thousands of American soldiers who had been held prisoner by the British during the Revolu...
56 min
7071
Laura Wittern-Keller, “The Miracle Case: Film C...
Did you ever wonder how we got from a moment in which almost everything on film could be censored (the Progressive Era) to the moment in which nothing on film could be censored (today)? From the Nickelodeon to Deep Throat?
63 min
7072
Ray Boomhower, “Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 ...
As some of you may be aware, there’s a big election coming up. Yes, it’s time to pick a new auditor for Iowa City, Iowa, my hometown. It’s a hotly contested race between a jerk with a drinking problem and a twenty-four-year-old who ran a cake business ...
55 min
7073
David E. Kaiser, “The Road to Dallas: The Assas...
There are some topics that historians know not to touch. They are just too hot (or too cold). The assassination of JFK is one of them. Most scholars would say either: (a) the topic has been done to death so nothing new can be said or (b) it’s been so...
75 min
7074
James Willbanks, “Abandoning Vietnam: How Ameri...
U.S. forces invade a distant country in order to disarm an international threat to American security. They fight well, and win every major battle decisively. They become occupiers, and find themselves engaged in a low-level guerrilla war against a dete...
65 min
7075
Howard Jones, “The Bay of Pigs” (Oxford UP, 2008)
There is just something about Fidel Castro that American presidents don’t like very much. Maybe it’s the long-winded anti-American diatribes. Maybe it’s the strident communism (to which he came rather late, truth be told ). Maybe it’s the beard.
63 min