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
9251
Susanna L. Blumenthal, “Law and the Modern Mind...
Susanna L. Blumenthal is a professor of law and associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota. Her book, Law and the Modern Mind: Consciousness and Responsibility in American Legal Culture (Harvard University Press,
62 min
9252
James A. Cosby, “Devil’s Music, Holy Rollers an...
Do you love Rock and Roll or is Rock and Roll music dead? Are you old enough to have put any money in a jukebox to hear your favorite song, watched American Bandstand, or spent any hours viewing music videos on MTV?
24 min
9253
Lynn Dumenil, “The Second Line of Defense: Amer...
When America went to war against Germany in 1917, the scale of the conflict required the mobilization of women as well as men in order to achieve victory. In The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I (University of North Carolina Press...
46 min
9254
Mark P. Bradley, “The World Reimagined: America...
In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political speech as “foreign entanglements.” Whether Washington’s successors heeded this advice is an open question;...
59 min
9255
John Hudak, “Marijuana: A Short History” (Brook...
John Hudak‘s book Marijuana: A Short History (Brookings Institutions Press, 2016) is an accessible and informative dive into marijuana on a number of levels and from a variety of perspectives. Hudak unpacks and explains the historical place of marijuan...
36 min
9256
Rebecca Scales, “Radio and the Politics of Soun...
What did sound mean to French people as radio and other listening technologies began to proliferate in the early twentieth century? What was the nature and significance of French auditory culture in the years between the two world wars?
59 min
9257
James Q. Whitman, “Hitler’s American Model: The...
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press,
48 min
9258
Lizabeth Cohen, “Making A New Deal: Industrial ...
Lizabeth Cohen‘s Making A New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 was originally published in 1990, and recently re-published in 2014. In this book, Cohen explores how it was that Chicago workers,
69 min
9259
Anne Eller, “We Dream Together: Dominican Indep...
In contrast to official narratives that reiterate claims about hostility between Haiti and Santo Domingo since the 19th century, Anne Eller‘s, We Dream Together: Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the Fight for Caribbean Freedom (Duke University Press,...
38 min
9260
Lewis Glinert, “The Story of Hebrew” (Princeton...
For this episode, New Books in Jewish Studies interviews Lewis Glinert, Professor of Hebrew Studies at Dartmouth College, where he is also affiliated with the Program in Linguistics. His book, The Story of Hebrew (Princeton University Press, 2017),
33 min
9261
Anna Harwell Celenza, “Jazz Italian Style: From...
In her new book, Jazz Italian Style: From its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Anna Harwell Celenza examines the arrival of jazz in Italy after World War I and the role of Mussolini in promoting ja...
54 min
9262
Thomas M. Grace, “Kent State: Death and Dissent...
Kent State University is associated indelibly with the events of May 4, 1970, when soldiers of the Ohio National Guard shot over a dozen students, killing four of them. In Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties (University of Massachusetts P...
84 min
9263
Michael A. McCarthy, “Dismantling Solidarity: C...
Over half of Americans approaching retirement age report having no money saved for retirement, but how did we get here as a nation? In his book, Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal (ILR/Cornell Universit...
51 min
9264
Alec Ryrie, “Protestants: The Faith that Made t...
500 years ago, a German monk and professor named Martin Luther started a well-intentioned movement to reform “the Church” (Jesus founded only one, after all). Luther’s object was not to split the Church, but to bring it into conformity with what he tho...
64 min
9265
Daina Ramey Berry, “The Price for Their Pound o...
A profoundly humane look at an inhumane institution, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation (Beacon Press, 2017) will have a major impact how we think about slavery, reparations,
47 min
9266
Steven M. Avella, “Charles K. McClatchy and the...
Charles K. (CK) McClatchy was a towering figure in the making of Sacramento and the inland empire he liked to call Superior California. As editor of the Sacramento Bee from 1883 to 1936, McClatchy was both ardent booster and strident critic,
52 min
9267
Seth Barrett Tillman, “Ex Parte Merryman: Myth,...
Seth Barrett Tillman has written “Ex Parte Merryman: Myth, History and Scholarship,” an article about the famous case that is popularly thought to demonstrate a conflict between the President and the federal courts during the American Civil War.
75 min
9268
Audrey Truschke, “Culture of Encounters: Sanskr...
Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016),
49 min
9269
Scott A. Mitchell, “Buddhism in America: Global...
Scott A. Mitchell‘s recent monograph, Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts (Bloomsbury, 2016), provides a much-needed up-to-date overview of Buddhism in the United States. To tackle such a large topic,
58 min
9270
Dean Kotlowski, “Paul V. McNutt and the Age of ...
One of the rising stars in American politics during the 1930s was Paul Vories McNutt. As governor of Indiana, McNutt refashioned the state government to address its citizens needs during the Great Depression,
50 min
9271
Holly Hurlburt, “Daughter of Venice: Caterina C...
Caterina Corner lived a life that was composed of a mixture of adventure, power, and tragedy. The daughter of a Venetian patrician and merchant, she was married to the king of Cyprus while barely a teenager.
44 min
9272
Raz Chen-Morris, “Measuring Shadows: Kepler’s O...
Raz Chen-Morris‘s new book traces a significant and surprising notion through the work of Johannes Kepler: in order to account for real physical motions, one has to investigate artificially produced shadows and reflections.
60 min
9273
Carrie J. Preston, “Learning to Kneel: Noh, Mod...
Carrie J. Preston‘s new book tells the story of the global circulation of noh-inspired performances, paying careful attention to the ways these performances inspired twentieth-century drama, poetry, modern dance, film, and popular entertainment.
69 min
9274
Marie Hicks, “Programmed Inequality: How Britai...
How did gender relations change in the computing industry? And how did the UK go from leading the world to having an all but extinct computer industry by the 1970s? In Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge i...
28 min
9275
Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers, “Realizing th...
One of the most interesting, but largely overlooked silent films, is Haxan, written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Using documentary methods as well as reenactments, he presented a study of witchcraft hysteria,
69 min