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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9101
Tamara Plakins Thornton, “Nathaniel Bowditch an...
To remember Nathaniel Bowditch today primarily for his famous navigational textbook is to acknowledge only one of his many achievements. As Tamara Plakins Thornton demonstrates in her book Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-C...
47 min
9102
Rahuldeep Singh Gill, “Drinking From Love’s Cup...
There is a long tradition of the study of Sikhism in Western academia. However, historiographical accounts still lack a clear vision of the early formation of the tradition. Rahuldeep Singh Gill, Associate Professor of Religion at California Lutheran U...
47 min
9103
T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, “Bricktop’s Paris: ...
When Dorothy Sterling wrote her book about nineteenth-century black women in America, she stated in the introduction that the book was not a definitive history of black women but a sourcebook to lead others to “compile a complete history.
19 min
9104
Max Bergholz, “Violence as a Generative Force: ...
People study atrocities and mass violence for a variety of reasons. When asked, many offer thoughtful intellectual or political explanations for their choice. But in truth, the field is a practical response to a cry of the heart. How, people ask,
73 min
9105
Jocelyn Olcott, “International Women’s Year: Th...
Jocelyn Olcott is an associate professor of History and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. Her book International Women’s Year: The Greatest Consciousness-raising Event in History (Oxford University Press,
59 min
9106
Mitch Kachun, “First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus...
First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory (Oxford University Press, 2017) explores how Crispus Attucks’ death in the 1770 Boston Massacre led to his achieving mythic significance in African Americans’ struggle to incorporate their exp...
58 min
9107
Ernesto Bassi, “An Aqueous Territory: Sailor Ge...
Where is the Caribbean? In An Aqueous Territory: Sailor Geographies and New Granada’s Transimperial Greater Caribbean World (Duke University Press, 2017) Ernesto Bassi makes the case for a transimperial space shaped by ships’ journeys and sailors’ imag...
44 min
9108
Anthony Kaldellis, “Streams of Gold, Rivers of ...
In the 10th century, a succession of Byzantine rulers reversed centuries of strategic policy by embarking on a series of campaigns that dramatically reshaped their empire. This effort and its consequences for the history of the region is the focus of A...
55 min
9109
Marcia Walker-McWilliams, “Reverend Addie: Fait...
Addie Wyatt stands at the intersection of unionism, feminism, and civil rights activism in post-World War II America. In Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality (University of Illinois Press, 2016),
47 min
9110
Lori Marso, “Politics with Beauvoir: Freedom in...
Lori Marso’s new book, Politics with Beauvoir: Freedom in the Encounter (Duke University Press, 2017), delves into Simone de Beauvoir’s political thought, feminism, and activism. The text is a fascinating exploration of these topics and complexities,
65 min
9111
Scott Moranda, “The People’s Own Landscape: Nat...
The new German Democratic Republic, known as East Germany, faced many challenges when it was founded in 1949. Not least of which was convincing its citizens that they should be loyal to the new state and mobilizing the population towards its ideologica...
45 min
9112
Betty S. Anderson, “A History of the Middle Eas...
As the Middle East continues to become more topical to American and European audiences, a need for textbooks to teach the history of the region has become urgent. Some such textbooks take a topical approach, others use a chronological narrative.
25 min
9113
Lauren Lessing, et.al., “A Usable Past: America...
A Usable Past: American Folk Art at the Colby College Museum of Art (Colby College Museum of Art, 2016) is a contemporary analysis of paintings, works on paper, sculptures, needlework, quilts and other forms of folk art drawn primarily from the college...
2 min
9114
Maurice Samuels, “The Right to Difference: Fren...
In The Right To Difference: French Universalism and the Jews (University of Chicago Press, 2016), Maurice Samuels, Betty Jane Anylan Professor of French and director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism at Yale University,
23 min
9115
Alice Weinreb, “Modern Hungers: Food and Power ...
Food is a hot topic these days, and not just among the folks posting pictures of their dinner on Instagram. A growing number of scholars in many fields study food’s production, distribution, consumption, connection to geopolitics,
53 min
9116
Julia Mickenberg, “American Girls in Red Russia...
In American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the American Dream (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Julia Mickenberg tells the story of women both famous and unknown, committed radicals and adventure seekers who went to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1...
75 min
9117
Hussein Fancy, “The Mercenary Mediterranean: So...
Hussein Fancy’s book The Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (University of Chicago Press, 2016) begins with the description of five Muslim jenets, or cavalrymen,
45 min
9118
Sarah Bond, “Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Prof...
Dominant social norms and expectations shape how individuals and their public activities are understood. In Roman antiquity, various shifts influenced the production and dissolution of prejudices towards certain types of occupations.
46 min
9119
Carla Pestana, “The English Conquest of Jamaica...
Carla Pestana’s new book The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire (Harvard University Press, 2017) is a rousing look at a transformative moment in Caribbean history. Pestana details the various political, economic,
61 min
9120
Daniel Dreisbach, “Reading the Bible with the F...
No book was more accessible or familiar to the American founders than the Bible, and no book was more frequently alluded to or quoted from in the political discourse of the age. How and for what purposes did the founding generation use the Bible?
38 min
9121
Richard Rubin, “Back Over There” (St. Martin’s ...
The majority of the books we profile on New Books in Military History are traditional research narratives, monographs written by historians and authors seeking to present a particular campaign, organization, battle, or individual in detail.
87 min
9122
Michael Barnett, “Eyewitness to a Genocide: The...
This podcast marks the beginning of a new occasional series of podcasts about the genocide in Rwanda. In the next few months we’ll hear from Timothy Longman, Sara Brown, Erin Jessee and others. We start with Michael Barnett.
61 min
9123
Manan Ahmed Asif, “A Book of Conquest: The Chac...
In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim,
58 min
9124
Rosalind Rosenberg, “Jane Crow: The Life of Pau...
Rosalind Rosenberg‘s book Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray (Oxford University Press, 2017) is a multi-layered and rich biography of Pauli Murray, an activist, lawyer and Episcopal priest whose life intersected with the most significant civil and hum...
60 min
9125
Joyce Salisbury, “Rome’s Christian Empress: Gal...
The daughter of the emperor Theodosius I, Galla Placidia successfully navigated the tumultuous politics of the late Roman Empire to rule as regent for her son Valentinian III. In Rome’s Christian Empress: Galla Placidia Rules at the Twilight of the Emp...
42 min