New Books in History
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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8501
Simon Levis Sullam, “The Italian Executioners: ...
In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate professor of modern history at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
63 min
8502
Skip Desjardin, “September 1918: War, Plague, a...
Today we are joined by Skip Desjardin, author of the book September 1918: War, Plague, and the World Series (Regnery History, 2018). In this work, which blends sports and history together, Desjardin looks at the historic and turbulent events of Septemb...
69 min
8503
Denise Y. Ho, “Curating Revolution: Politics on...
“In Mao’s China, to curate revolution was to make it material.” Denise Y. Ho’s new book explores this premise in a masterful account of exhibitionary culture in the Mao period (1949-1976) and beyond. Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s Ch...
65 min
8504
Joanna Dyl, “Seismic City: An Environmental His...
In Seismic City: An Environmental History of San Francisco’s 1906 Earthquake (University of Washington Press, 2017), Joanna Dyl documents the course and effects of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake and subsequent fire that destroyed significant portions of ...
74 min
8505
Jim Clifford, “West Ham and the River Lea: A So...
In West Ham and the River Lea: A Social and Environmental History of London’s Industrialized Marshlands, 1839-1914 (University of British Columbia Press, 2017), Jim Clifford brings together histories of water and river systems, urban history,
75 min
8506
Olga Borovaya, “The Beginnings of Ladino Litera...
When did Ladino literature emerge? According to Dr. Olga Borovaya, author of The Beginnings of Ladino Literature: Moses Almosnino and his Readers (Indiana University Press, 2017), the history of Ladino writing may have a much earlier start date than sc...
68 min
8507
Francesca Merlan, “Dynamics of Difference in Au...
In her new book, Dynamics of Difference in Australia: Indigenous Past and Present in a Settler Country (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), Francesca Merlan, Professor of Anthropology at the Australian National University,
24 min
8508
Melani McAlister, “The Kingdom of God Has No Bo...
Melani McAlister’s The Kingdom of God Has No Borders (Oxford University Press, 2018) is a global history of evangelicals since 1945 and focuses on the complexities and contradictions that encompass the modern evangelical movement in the U.S.
58 min
8509
William D. Bryan, “The Price of Permanence: Nat...
Southern capitalists of the postbellum era have been called many things, but never conservationists. Until now. Environmental historian William D. Bryan has written a brilliantly disorienting reassessment of the South’s economic development in the peri...
54 min
8510
Devin Fergus, “Land of the Fee: Hidden Costs an...
Politicians, economists, and the media have put forth no shortage of explanations for the mounting problem of wealth inequality – a loss of working class jobs, a rise in finance-driven speculative capitalism,
39 min
8511
Richard A. Billows, “Before and After Alexander...
The achievements of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great are often presented as primarily the work of a singular genius. As Richard A. Billows demonstrates in his book Before and After Alexander: The Legend and Legacy of Alexander the Great (Th...
54 min
8512
James P. Leary, “Folksongs of Another America: ...
Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946 (University of Wisconsin Press) first appeared in 2015 when it comprised of a hardback book, five CDs, and one DVD. It went on to win the “Best Historical Research in Folk...
52 min
8513
Cyrus Ali Zargar, “The Polished Mirror: Storyte...
Cyrus Ali Zargar, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, is the author of The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism (Oneworld, 2017). Zargar explores how the study of good character ...
41 min
8514
Ben Epstein, “The Only Constant is Change: Tech...
Ben Epstein’s new book, The Only Constant is Change: Technology, Political Communication, and Innovation over Time (Oxford University Press, 2018), traces communication changes and innovations in the United States from the time of the Founding to the p...
44 min
8515
Richard S. Hopkins, “Planning the Greenspaces o...
Beginning in the mid-1800s, Paris experienced an unprecedented growth in the development of parks, squares, and gardens. This greenspace was part of Napoleon III’s plan for a new, modern Paris and a France restored to glory on the international stage.
49 min
8516
Ana Raquel Minian, “Undocumented Lives: The Unt...
In the 1970s, the Mexican government acted to alleviate rural unemployment by supporting the migration of able-bodied men. Millions crossed into the United States to find work that would help them survive as well as sustain their families in Mexico.
61 min
8517
Philip Thai, “China’s War on Smuggling: Law, Ec...
From petty runs to organized trafficking, the illicit activity of smuggling on the China coast was inherently dramatic, but now historian Philip Thai has also identified China’s history of smuggling as a significant narrative about the expansion of sta...
66 min
8518
Brian Abrams, “Obama: An Oral History, 2009-201...
Brian Abrams interviewed more than 100 people – Democrats, Republicans, cabinet officials, White House aides, campaign operatives, congresspeople and activists – to piece together a comprehensive oral history of the Barack Obama presidency,
43 min
8519
Ahmad Dallal, “Islam without Europe: Traditions...
In Middle Eastern and Islamic intellectual history, there has long been an assumption of decline in the eighteenth century, right before the nineteenth century, when the nahda or Arabic intellectual renaissance,
90 min
8520
Jenny Hale Pulispher, “Swindler Sachem: The Ame...
In Swindler Sachem: The American Indian Who Sold His Birthright, Dropped Out of Harvard, and Conned the King of England (Yale University Press, 2018), Brigham Young University Associate Professor Jenny Hale Pulispher demonstrates that Indians, too,
66 min
8521
Mary E. Stuckey, “Political Vocabularies: FDR, ...
Mary E. Stuckey’s new book, Political Vocabularies: FDR, The Clergy Letters, and the Elements of Political Argument (Michigan State University Press, 2018), is a fascinating and engaging investigation of an early period during the Roosevelt Administrat...
49 min
8522
Judith Weisenfeld, “New World A-Coming: Black R...
A wave of religious leaders in black communities in the early twentieth-century insisted that so-called Negroes were, in reality, Ethiopian Hebrews, Asiatic Muslims, or a raceless children of God. In New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identi...
65 min
8523
Gary Fields, “Enclosure: Palestinian Landscapes...
Inspired by the usage of the term ‘enclosure’ to describe the Separation Wall in Israel-Palestine on a visit he made to the West Bank, Gary Fields in Enclosure: Palestinian Landscapes in a Historical Mirror (University of California Press,
52 min
8524
Olga Velikanova, “Mass Political Culture Under ...
In her new book, Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism: Popular Discussion of the Soviet Constitution of 1936 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Olga Velikanova uses a variety of sources, from NKVD reports, reports sent to the Central Committee from various ...
54 min
8525
Kristen Epps, “Slavery on the Periphery: The Ka...
The Kansas-Missouri border holds a place of infamy in the history of American slavery as the chief battleground of the Bleeding Kansas crisis of the mid-nineteenth century. Kristen Epps, an associate professor of history at the University of Central Ar...
48 min