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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9651
James Davis, “Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harle...
This terrific book follows the itinerary of Eric Walrond’s peripatetic life. Born in Guyana in 1898, Walrond lived in Barbados, Panama, New York, Paris, London. As a writer and sharp observer of those around him,
46 min
9652
Jason Mokhtarian, “Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, an...
In Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran (University of California Press, 2015), Jason Mokhtarian, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at the Indiana University,
30 min
9653
Mark R. Stoll, “Inherit the Holy Mountain: Reli...
Mark R. Stoll is associate professor of history and Director of Environmental Studies at Texas Tech University. His book Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism (Oxford University Press,
64 min
9654
Eric Rauchway, “The Money Makers: How Roosevelt...
We’ve been hearing a lot about economist John Maynard Keynes’ midcentury economic plans for the U.S. since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. Are the measures that Keynes and FDR took to combat the Depression in 2008 relevant to the present...
44 min
9655
Jessica Parr, “Inventing George Whitefield: Rac...
George Whitefield was a complex man driven by a simple idea, the new birth that brought salvation. Because of such passion, Whitefield received both enthusiastic support, preaching to audiences numbering in the thousands,
55 min
9656
Jeroen Duindam, “Dynasties: A Global History of...
For most of recorded history, single rulers such a kings, queens, chiefs, and emperors exercised authority over human populations. Jeroen Duindam (Professor of Early Modern History, Leiden University) examines an important part of this story in his new...
91 min
9657
David Sartorius, “Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty,...
David Sartorius‘s recent book Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba (Duke University Press, 2014), examines Cuban society in the nineteenth century, and the islanders’ proclamations of loyalty to the colony and to Spain.
43 min
9658
Finn Brunton, “Spam: A Shadow History of the In...
Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our attention for the purposes of exploiting it. From pranks on early computer networks in the 1970s to commercia...
58 min
9659
Caroline Shaw, “Britannia’s Embrace: Modern Hum...
Published in October 2015, Caroline Shaw‘s timely new book, Britannia’s Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial Origins of Refugee Relief (Oxford University Press, 2015), traces the intertwined development of the category of refugee and of the...
80 min
9660
Carin Berkowitz, “Charles Bell and the Anatomy ...
Carin Berkowitz‘s new book takes readers into the world of nineteenth century London to explore the landscape of medicine and surgery along with Charles Bell, artist-anatomist-teacher-natural philosopher. Charles Bell and the Anatomy of Reform (Univers...
63 min
9661
Renata Keller, “Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the Un...
When former Mexican president Lazaro Cardenas traveled to Havana in 1959 to celebrate the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro in front of a crowd of thousands, providing the early sketches of an image of unq...
54 min
9662
Julie Des Jardins, “Walter Camp: Football and t...
In anticipation of Super Bowl 50, Sports Illustrated and WIRED magazines teamed up to speculate about the state of football fifty years from now, at the time of Super Bowl 100. Of course, the big question that arises when considering the future of the ...
54 min
9663
Samuel Moyn, “Christian Human Rights” (U of Pen...
Samuel Moyn is Professor of Law and History at Harvard University. In Christian Human Rights University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Moyn provides a historical intervention in our understanding of how the idea of human rights in the mid-twentieth cent...
59 min
9664
Cindy R. Lobel, “Urban Appetites: Food and Cult...
New York City’s growth, from colonial outpost to the center of the gastronomic world is artfully crafted by Cindy R. Lobel, Assistant Professor of History at Lehman College and the CUNY Graduate Center, in her tome Urban Appetites: Food & Culture in Ni...
53 min
9665
Erica Fox Brindley, “Ancient China and the Yue:...
Erica Fox Brindley‘s new book is a powerful study of the history of conceptions of ethnicity in early China that focuses on the Hua-xia and the peoples associated with its southern frontier (Yue/Viet). Informed by a careful accounting of extant textual...
62 min
9666
Jessica Martucci, “Back to the Breast: Natural ...
Jessica Martucci‘s fascinating new book traces the emergence, rise, and continued practice of breastfeeding in America in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Back to the Breast: Natural Motherhood and Breastfeeding in America (University of Chica...
62 min
9667
Michelle Chase, “Revolution within the Revoluti...
This episode features Michelle Chase, who joins us to discuss her fascinating new book, Revolution Within the Revolution: Women and Gender Politics in Cuba, 1952-1962 (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
60 min
9668
Tam Ngo and Justine B. Quijada, eds., “Atheist ...
Secularism has emerged as a central category of twenty-first century political thought and critical theory. Following the lead of anthropologist Talal Asad, there is a growing literature that traces the complicated relationship between state policies o...
74 min
9669
Paul R. Josephson, “Fish Sticks, Sports Bras, a...
Paul R. Josephson‘s new book explores everyday technologies – fish sticks, sports bras, sugar, bananas, aluminum cans, potatoes, fructose, and more – as technological systems that embody vast social, political,
59 min
9670
Timothy Snyder, “Black Earth: The Holocaust as...
It’s rare when an academic historian breaks through and becomes a central part of the contemporary cultural conversation. Timothy Snyder does just this with his book Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (Tim Duggan Books, 2015).
77 min
9671
Domna Stanton, “The Dynamics of Gender in Early...
Domna Stanton‘s latest book The Dynamics of Gender in Early Modern France: Women Writ, Women Writing (Ashgate, 2014) is a series of six case studies with important literary, historical, and theoretical implications for how we think about gender in the ...
54 min
9672
Patrick Hagopian, “American Immunity: War Crime...
After World War II, the newly formed United Nations and what might be called a global community of nations that included the United States, worked to create a more extensive code of international law. The urge stemmed from the events of World War II,
63 min
9673
George Makari, “Soul Machine: The Invention of ...
In his new book Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind (Norton, 2014), the psychoanalyst and innovative historian, George Makari speaks to us about the dramatic history of the invention of the concept of the mind.
53 min
9674
Nicholas Walton, “Genoa, ‘La Superba’: The Rise...
Italians have a reputation for being rather, well, ineffectual. Everyone ‘knows’ that Italian trains don’t run on time unless Italy is ruled by a bald, bombastic, bully. And of course historians will tell youthat they didn’t even run on time then.
56 min
9675
Ron Grigor Suny, “They Can Live in the Desert b...
Anniversaries are funny things. Sometimes, as with the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, they are accompanied by a flood of discussion and debate. Other times they are allowed to pass in silence.
64 min