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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Society & Culture
History
8776
Natalia Roudakova, “Losing Pravda: Ethics and t...
Natalia Roudakova’s book Losing Pravda: Ethics and the Press in Post-Truth Russia (Cambridge University Press, 2017) explores changes in the world of journalism in Russia in the last fifty years. Drawing from more than a decade of research of various e...
47 min
8777
David Rapp, “Tinker to Evers to Chance: The Chi...
Today we are joined by David Rapp, author of the book Tinker to Evers to Chance: The Chicago Cubs and the Dawn of Modern America (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Rapp spent 30 years as a journalist in the Washington. D.C.,
53 min
8778
Amelia Glaser, “Stories of Khmelnytsky: Competi...
The cover of Amelia Glaser‘s new edited volume, Stories of Khmelnytsky: Competing Literary Legacies of the 1648 Ukrainian Cossack Uprising (Stanford University Press, 2015), bears a portrait of the formidable Cossack leader by that name.
29 min
8779
Daniel J. Kapust, “Flattery and the History of ...
Daniel Kapust‘s book, Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art (Cambridge University Press, 2018), is a rich and fascinating exploration of political thought through the complex lens of the question or concept of flattery.
72 min
8780
Kerry Wallach, “Passing Illusions: Jewish Visib...
What did it mean to be perceived as Jewish or non-Jewish in Weimar Germany? How, in an age of growing antisemitism, was Jewishness revealed, or made invisible? Kerry Wallach of Gettysburg College, explores these questions in her new book,
39 min
8781
Vanda Krefft, “The Man Who Made the Movies: The...
When you hear “Twentieth Century Fox,” I doubt you know where the source of “Fox” in the name. In her book, The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox (Harper, 2017), Vanda Krefft presents a detailed biography of one ...
63 min
8782
Molly Ladd-Taylor, “Fixing the Poor: Eugenic St...
Eugenic sterilization is usually associated with Nazi horrors before and during World War II. But, as Dr. Molly Ladd-Taylor reminds us, it was also practiced in the United States. In her new book Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare...
48 min
8783
Joshua Zeitz, “Building the Great Society: Insi...
How did President Lyndon Johnson engineer one of the biggest bursts of liberal legislation in American history? And did his vision of a Great Society successfully alleviate poverty and reduce inequality? In Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Joh...
43 min
8784
Thomas Weber, “Becoming Hitler: The Making of a...
Few would dispute that Hitler’s ideas led to war and genocide. Less clear however, is how and when those ideas developed. In his latest book, Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi (Basic Books, 2017), Thomas Weber highlights the years between 1918 and ...
70 min
8785
J. Michael Butler, “Beyond Integration: The Bla...
Historians have long debated when the Black Freedom Struggle began and when it ended. Most point to the King years, 1955-1968. In his excellent book Beyond Integration: The Black Freedom Struggle in Escambia County, Florida 1960-1980 (UNC Press,
53 min
8786
David Grann, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The O...
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
29 min
8787
Bonnie Anderson, “The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter:...
As a believer in free thought, a campaigner for women’s rights, and as a supporter of abolition, Ernestine Rose had no shortage of causes to advocate. In The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer (Oxford University Pr...
45 min
8788
Urmi Engineer Willoughby, “Yellow Fever, Race, ...
A disease cannot be fully understood unless considered in its environmental context. That conviction drives Yellow Fever, Race, and Ecology in Nineteeth-Century New Orleans (LSU Press, 2017) by historian Urmi Engineer Willoughby.
40 min
8789
Motti Inbari, “Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy C...
Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy, in its numerous manifestations, continues to exert profound influence on the Jewish world, even as it undergoes pressure to change from both within and without. In Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy Confronts Modernity, Zionism,
47 min
8790
Anna Muller, “If the Walls Could Speak: Inside ...
Today we talked to Dr. Anna Muller about her latest book, If the Walls Could Speak: Inside a Women’s Prison in Communist Poland (Oxford University Press, 2017). Using archival research as well as oral interviews with many of the women in her book,
55 min
8791
Erin Hochman, “Imagining a Greater Germany: Rep...
In her new book, Imagining a Greater Germany: Republican Nationalism and the Idea of Anschluss (Cornell University Press, 2016), Erin Hochman, Associate Professor of Modern German and European History at Southern Methodist University offers a new persp...
55 min
8792
Stephen Cummings, et al., “A New History of Man...
Did Abraham Maslow actually ever draw a pyramid of hierarchy of needs? Did Kurt Lewin devote substantial work on the development of a change management theory? Why do we omit or misrepresent important features of the work of Adam Smith,
39 min
8793
Tore T. Petersen, “The Military Conquest of the...
Tore T. Petersen, Professor of International and American Diplomatic History at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, studies the final wars on the prairie from the Native American perspective in The Military Conquest of the Prairie: Nati...
25 min
8794
Ada Rapoport-Albert, “Hasidic Studies: Essays i...
Hasidic Studies: Essays in History and Gender is a collection of essays that spans over 40 years and challenges many received notions about the history of Hasidism —its origins, the evolving nature of its structure,
87 min
8795
Hoda Yousef, “Composing Egypt: Reading, Writing...
Literacy is often portrayed as a social good. Composing Egypt: Reading, Writing, and the Emergence of a Modern Nation, 1870-1930 (Stanford University Press, 2016), Hoda Yousef has a different take on it, portraying it as a tool.
34 min
8796
Marcus Rediker, “The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The...
In the annals of abolitionist history, names like William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, the Grimke sisters, and Harriet Tubman are well known. Dr. Marcus Rediker‘s new book, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became The First Revolut...
59 min
8797
Antony G. Hopkins, “American Empire: A Global H...
In an expansive, engrossing, voluminously in depth analysis of the subject, Professor A. G. Hopkins, Professor Emeritus of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge, one of the foremost historians of the 19th- and 20th-century British Empire,...
70 min
8798
Laurie Marhoefer, “Sex and the Weimar Republic:...
The Weimar Republic was home to the first gay rights movement, led by well-known sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. It also inspired many literary and cinematic representations of sexual liberation in legendary 1920s Berlin. In her ambitious book,
57 min
8799
Alexander Orwin, “Redefining the Muslim Communi...
Abu Nasr Al-Farabi (c. 872 – c. 950) a philosopher who wrote on politics, metaphysics, and logic as well as mathematics, psychology, and music, was known by Jews, Christians, and Muslims as the “second teacher,” second only to Aristotle.
43 min
8800
Eric T. Jennings, “Escape from Vichy: The Refug...
In Escape from Vichy: The Refugee Exodus to the French Caribbean (Harvard University Press, 2018), Eric T. Jennings reveals the fascinating history of the Martinique Corridor, a pathway travelled by thousands of political refugees who fled mainland Fra...
53 min