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.
Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com
Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork
10626
Jason Clower, “The Unlikely Buddhologist: Tiant...
The 20th-century Chinese philosopher Mou Zongsan is relatively little known in the West, but has been greatly influential in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, as well as influencing Confucian studies in North America.
60 min
10627
Kwasi Konadu, “The Akan Diaspora in the America...
How can those in African, Africana, and African American Studies strengthen their disciplinary ties? What do these connections have to do with Kwasi Konadu‘s recent study The Akan Diaspora in the Americas (Oxford 2010)?
60 min
10628
Elizabeth Abel, “Signs of the Times: The Visual...
I think this is really interesting. Among the thousands of iconic and easily recognizable photographs of segregated water fountains in the American South, you will almost never find one that features a black woman,
55 min
10629
Matthias Strohn, “The German Army and the Defen...
Matthias Strohn‘s The German Army and the Defense of the Reich: Military Doctrine and the Conduct of the Defensive Battle, 1918-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) is an important challenge to the existing literature on interwar German military doc...
53 min
10630
Bradley Shreve, “Red Power Rising: The National...
For most non-native Americans, the Red Power Movement of the 1960s and 70s appeared out of nowhere. Convinced of triumphalist myths of the disappearing (or disappeared) Indian, white America relegated native communities to the margins of society.
50 min
10631
Dagmar Schaefer, “The Crafting of the 10,000 Th...
In her elegant work of historical puppet theater The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth-Century China (University of Chicago Press, 2011), Dagmar Schaefer introduces us to the world of scholars and craftsmen in seven...
57 min
10632
Gavin Mortimer, “The Great Swim” (Walker Books,...
I have the habit of reacting audibly when reading good works of non-fiction. Members of my household and strangers on airplanes have been startled by my hmms and huhs of surprise, my ews and ughs of disgust, and my wows of disbelief.
58 min
10633
Adam Hochschild, “To End All Wars: A Story of L...
Today is Memorial Day here in the United States, the day on which we remember those who have fought and died in the service of our country. It’s fitting, then, that we are talking to Adam Hochschild about his To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Reb...
62 min
10634
Chuck Korr, “More Than Just a Game–Soccer vs. A...
Chances are, if you were one of the 700 million people who watched the 2010 World Cup, you likely heard mention of the soccer games that prisoners on Robben Island played during the decades of apartheid rule.
65 min
10635
Jonathan Steinberg, “Bismarck: A Life” (Oxford ...
What is the role of personality in shaping history? Shortly before the beginning of the First World War, the German sociologist Max Weber puzzled over this question. He was sure that there was a kind of authority that drew strength from character itsel...
67 min
10636
Kurt Kemper, “College Football and American Cul...
When we think of sports and the Cold War, what typically comes to mind are steroid-fueled East German swimmers, or the Soviets’ controversial basketball win at the Munich games, or Mike Eruzione’s game-winning goal in 1980 (or Paul Henderson’s goal in ...
63 min
10637
Blair Ruble, “Washington’s U Street: A Biograph...
I used to live in Washington DC, not far from a place I learned to call the “U Street Corridor.” I really had no idea why it was a “corridor” (most places in DC are just “streets”) or why a lot of folks seemed to make a big deal out...
50 min
10638
Douglas Rogers, “The Old Faith and the Russian ...
What are ethics? What are morals? How are they constituted, practiced, and regulated? How do they change over time? My own research is informed by these question; so is Douglas Rogers‘. So it was only natural that I would be drawn to Rogers’ new book T...
63 min
10639
Chad L. Williams, “Torchbearers of Democracy: A...
One of the great “grey” areas of World War I historiography concerns the African-American experience. Even as the war was ending, white historians, participants, and politicians strove to limit the record of the African-American soldiers’ participation...
47 min
10640
Ricardo Duchesne, “The Uniqueness of Western Ci...
One of the standard assumptions of modern Western social science (history included) is that material conditions drive historical development. All of the “Great Transitions” in world history–the origins of agriculture, the birth of cities,
64 min
10641
Michael Auslin, “Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultu...
How have the United States and Japan managed to remain such strong allies, despite having fought one another in a savage war less than 70 years ago? In Michael Auslin’s Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of U.S.
52 min
10642
Michael Auslin, "Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultu...
An interview with Michael Auslin
52 min
10643
Francis Fukuyama, “The Origins of Political Ord...
When I was an undergraduate, I fell in love with Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. In the book Montesquieu reduces a set of disparate, seemingly unconnected facts arrayed over centuries and continents into a single,
52 min
10644
David Shneer, “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Phot...
We should be skeptical of what is sometimes called “Jew counting” and all it implies. Yet it cannot be denied that Jews played a pivotal and (dare we say) disproportionate role in moving the West from a pre-modern to a modern condition.
68 min
10645
Laurie Manchester, “Holy Fathers, Secular Sons:...
The lives, let alone the fates, of Imperial Russia’s priesthood have garnered little attention among historians. I think the reason is partially because the research of most Russian historians has been focused on explaining the country’s torturous mode...
53 min
10646
Robert Citino, “Death of the Wehrmacht: The Ger...
Robert Citino is one of a handful of scholars working in German military history whose books I would describe as reliably rewarding. Even when one quibbles with some of the details of his argument, one is sure to profit from reading his work.
62 min
10647
Michael A. Reynolds, “Shattering Empires: The C...
Most of us live in a world of nations. If you were born and live in the Republic of X, then you probably speak X-ian, are a citizen of X, and would gladly fight and die for your X-ian brothers and sisters. If, however, you were born and live in...
66 min
10648
Megan Marshall, “The Peabody Sisters: Three Wom...
This interview is re-posted with permission from Jenny Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast.] Author Megan Marshall has recently written a well-received biography of Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody: The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticis...
28 min
10649
Carol Bundy, “The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biogra...
[This interview is re-posted with permission from Jenny Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast] At a time when the country’s attention is focused on the ever-expanding list of American war dead, Carol Bundy‘s biography of a Union officer who sacrifices his life in the ...
28 min
10650
David J. Silbey, “A War of Frontier and Empire:...
The Spanish-American War was not only the beginning of a new imperial period for the United States, David Silbey observes in his book A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902 (Hill and Wang, 2008),
57 min