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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8576
William D. Godsey, “The Sinews of Habsburg Powe...
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria established itself as one of the dominant powers of Europe, despite possessing much more limited fiscal resources when compared to its counterparts. In The Sinews of Habsburg Power: Lower Austria in a Fiscal-...
51 min
8577
David Edgerton, “The Rise and Fall of the Briti...
David Edgerton’s The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History (Allen Lane, 2018) argues the United Kingdom had a distinctive national moment characterized by a strong state, powerful military armed with advanced weapons,
59 min
8578
Adrienne Rose Bitar, “Diet and the Disease of C...
Diet books are a multi-billion dollar industry and in Diet and the Disease of Civilization (Rutgers University Press, 2018), Adrienne Rose Bitar explores the narratives of those books. Bitar looks at the ways in which diet books not only present Americ...
53 min
8579
William Kuby, “Conjugal Misconduct: Defying Mar...
William Kuby is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. His book, Conjugal Misconduct: Defying Marriage Law in the Twentieth-Century United States (Cambridge University Press, 2018),
53 min
8580
Lynne Viola, “Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: ...
What happened inside NKVD interrogation rooms during the Great Terror? How did the perpetrators feel when the Soviet state turned on them in 1938 during “the purge of the purgers?” In her newest book, Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Gr...
49 min
8581
Guy Laron, “The Six-Day War: The Breaking of th...
The title of Guy Laron’s The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East (Yale University Press, 2017) says it all. As Laron notes in this interview, the fact that the war led to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East is an accepted interpretation of th...
53 min
8582
Alexander Bevilacqua, “The Republic of Arabic L...
In The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 2018), Alexander Bevilacqua uncovers a different side of the European Enlightenment, at least with regards to its engagement with Arabic and Islam.
52 min
8583
Chris Brickell, “Teenagers: The Rise of Youth C...
In his new book, Teenagers: The Rise of Youth Culture in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2017), Chris Brickell, Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Head of the Department of Sociology, Gender & Social Work at the University of Otago,
17 min
8584
Darren Speece, “Defending Giants: The Redwood W...
Northern California’s giant redwoods are among the state’s most recognizable natural wonders. These massive trees were also under threat of clear-cut logging for much of the twentieth century, writes Darren Frederick Speece in Defending Giants: The Red...
73 min
8585
Laura Robson, “States of Separation: Transfer, ...
The First World War ended over four centuries of Middle East rule by the expansive, multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual Ottoman Empire. In its wake, Britain, France, and some groups within the region and its diaspora aspired to create ethnica...
51 min
8586
Robert Dallek, “Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Politi...
Although commonly regarded as one of the three or four greatest Presidents and certainly the greatest of the 20th century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt has not had as much attention devoted to his life, as many of the Presidents who came after him.
52 min
8587
Sebastian Conrad, “What is Global History?” (Pr...
The last two decades have seen a surge in global histories, be they global histories of food, of ideas, or social movements. But why this move away from strictly national and regional histories? Is it because we think of ourselves as an increasingly g...
1 min
8588
Stacey Pierson, “Private Collecting, Exhibition...
In her latest book, Private Collecting, Exhibitions, and the Shaping of Art History in London: The Burlington Fine Arts Club (Routledge, 2017), Stacey J. Pierson reveals the fascinating history of one of the most refined and influential fine art clubs ...
42 min
8589
Marc Ambinder, “The Brink: President Reagan and...
The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983 (Simon & Schuster, 2018), by Marc Ambinder, is a history of US-Soviet Relations under Ronald Reagan and an exploration of nuclear command and control operations.
55 min
8590
Matthew Casey, “Empire’s Guestworkers: Haitian ...
In the early 20th century, thousands of Haitian men, women and children traveled to Cuba in search of work and wages. In Matthew Casey’s, Empire’s Guestworkers: Haitian Migrants in Cuba During the Age of US Occupation (Cambridge University Press,
43 min
8591
Frank L. Holt, “The Treasures of Alexander the ...
Most studies of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander III focus on the military aspects of his life and reign. Yet Alexander’s campaigns would not have been possible had it not been for the enormous plunder his armies seized in their conquests.
46 min
8592
Cary Cordova, “The Heart of the Mission: Latino...
In The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), Cary Cordova combines urban, political, and art history to examine how the Mission District, a longtime bohemian enclave in San Francisco,
59 min
8593
Anna-Lisa Cox, “The Bone and Sinew of the Land:...
Most people’s image of the American frontier does not conjure anything relating to people of African descent. But, as Anna-Lisa Cox’s points out in her new book The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America’s Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Eq...
68 min
8594
Steve R. Dunn, “Bayly’s War: The Battle for the...
Though Great Britain’s warships ruled the waves throughout the First World War, their greatest challenge came from just underneath them. Nowhere was this better demonstrated in the Western Approaches, where, as Steve R.
37 min
8595
Hilary Green, “Educational Reconstruction: Afri...
In cities ravaged by years of bloodshed and warfare, how did black populations, many formerly enslaved, help shape the new world that the Civil War left open for them to mold? In Dr. Hilary Green’s book Educational Reconstruction: African American Scho...
57 min
8596
Gary Bruce, “Through the Lion Gate: A History o...
In his new book, Through the Lion Gate: A History of the Berlin Zoo (Oxford University Press, 2017), Gary Bruce, professor of history at the University of Waterloo, provides the first English-language history of the Berlin Zoo from its inception in 184...
58 min
8597
Keith M. Woodhouse, “The Ecocentrists: A Histor...
Environmentalists often talk like revolutionaries but agitate like reformers. But however moderate its tactics, environmentalism has led Americans to questions rarely asked: Is economic growth necessary? Must individual freedom and democracy be paramou...
65 min
8598
Craig Symonds, “World War II at Sea: A Global H...
Though there are numerous books about the naval history of the Second World War, very few of them attempt to cover the span of the conflict within the confines of a single volume. Craig Symonds undertakes this challenge in his book World War II at Sea:...
53 min
8599
Michelle C. Wang, “Mandalas in the Making: The ...
Michelle C. Wang’s new book Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang (Brill, 2018) joins a growing body of scholarship on esoteric Buddhism in China. Her work is an important contribution for the way in which she draw...
65 min
8600
Cynthia A. Ruder, “Building Stalinism: The Mosc...
In Building Stalinism: The Moscow Canal and the Creation of Soviet Space (I. B. Tauris, 2018), Cynthia Ruder explores how the building of the Moscow canal reflected the values of Stalinism and how it was used to create distinctly Soviet space,
57 min