New Books in Biography
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
1576
Hans-Lukas Kieser, “Talaat Pasha: Father of Mo...
As a graduate student, I spent quite a bit of time explaining to people how we needed to pay much more attention to the history of World War One in the East. What I didn’t realize is that we needed to see the war as it appeared from Istanbul just...
81 min
1577
Jacqueline Jones, “Goddess of Anarchy: The Life...
The award-winning author Jacqueline Jones is the Ellen C. Temple Chair in Women’s History at the University of Texas. Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical (Basic Books, 2017) is a biography of the riveting life of Lu...
52 min
1578
William E. Ellis, “Irvin S. Cobb: The Rise and ...
Today Irvin S. Cobb is remembered primarily as an author of humorous tales about life in Kentucky. Yet as William E. Ellis describes in his book Irvin S. Cobb: The Rise and Fall of an American Humorist (University Press of Kentucky, 2017),
50 min
1579
Lisa Walters, “Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Scie...
As a 17th-century noblewoman who became the first duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the writer and philosopher Margaret Cavendish has often been viewed as a royalist and a conservative within the context of the social and political issues of her time.
48 min
1580
Ronald P. Loftus, “The Turn Against the Modern:...
Taoka Reiun (1870-1912) was a literary critic and thinker who was active from the early 1890s in Meiji period Japan. Not satisfied with the meaning of bunmei kaika (“civilization and enlightenment”), the trajectory that the government had mapped out fo...
72 min
1581
Albert Gurganus, “Kurt Eisner: A Modern Life” (...
Though Germany was convulsed by violent unrest in the weeks following the end of the First World War, one of the few places where a new republican government was established peacefully was Munich. Central to this was Kurt Eisner,
60 min
1582
Halifu Osumare, “Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir...
Combining memoir with auto-ethnography, historical study and sociocultural analysis, Halifu Osumare draws on her decades of experience to explore the complexities of black dance in the United States. Starting in San Francisco during the rise of the Bla...
30 min
1583
Mark I. Lurie, “Galantière: The Lost Generation...
Though he never enjoyed the publishing success and fame of such friends as Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, Lewis Galantière made a considerable contribution to literature over the course of the twentieth century.
65 min
1584
Jonathan Boff, “Haig’s Enemy: Crown Prince Rupp...
There has been historiographical revolution in the literature of the war on the Western Front in the past thirty years. In Haig’s Enemy: Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany’s War on the Western Front (Oxford University Press, 2018), Jonathan Boff,
61 min
1585
Jenny Coleman, “Polly Plum: A Firm and Earnest ...
In her new book, Polly Plum: A Firm and Earnest Woman’s Advocate, Mary Ann Colclough, 1836–1885 (Otago University Press, 2017), Jenny Coleman, a senior lecturer and Director of Academic Programmes in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Mas...
15 min
1586
Ethan L. Menchinger, “The First of the Modern O...
Ethan L. Menchinger‘s The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasif (Cambridge University Press, 2017) traces the life and career of Ahmed Vasif (ca. 1735-1806), a prominent diplomat, historian,
32 min
1587
Gillian B. Fleming, “Juana I: Legitimacy and Co...
Labeled in history as “mad,” Juana of Castile was in fact a complex figure whose sometimes emotional nature was exploited by the men around her as a way of limiting her ability to exercise her power as queen. Gillian B.
61 min
1588
Colin G. Calloway, “The Indian World of George ...
In this sweeping new biography, Colin G. Calloway, John Kimball Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, uses the prism of George Washington’s life to bring focus to the great Native leaders of his time—Shingas,
76 min
1589
Jason Linkins, “Schoolhouse Wreck: The Betsy De...
In Schoolhouse Wreck: The Betsy DeVos Story (Strong Arm Press, 2018), Jason Linkins delivers a searing critique of controversial Trump administration Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The book tracks the DeVos family’s accumulation of wealth through ...
44 min
1590
Steven L. Ossad, “Omar Nelson Bradley: America’...
Steven L. Ossad joins New Books at Military History to talk about his award-winning biography, Omar Nelson Bradley: America’s GI General, 1893-1981 (University of Missouri Press, 2017). Following the suggestion of his mentor, Martin Blumenson,
71 min
1591
Catherine Layton, “The Life and Times of Mary, ...
As the thrice-married widow of one of the richest dukes in Victorian Britain, Mary Mitchell lived a life often at variance with the expectations of propriety for her time. In The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland (Cambridge Scholars...
57 min
1592
Alison B. Hirsch, “City Choreographer: Lawrence...
Lawrence Halprin, one of the central figures in twentieth-century American landscape architecture, is well known to city-watchers for his work on San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square, Seattle’s Freeway Park, downtown Portland’s open-space sequence,
60 min
1593
Joshua Parens, “Leo Strauss and the Recovery of...
In today’s episode, I am joined by Joshua Parens to discuss his innovative and engaging book Leo Strauss and the Recovery of Medieval Political Philosophy (University of Rochester Press, 2016). While one may easily confuse the book with something narro...
40 min
1594
Max Boot, “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale ...
Counterinsurgency doctrine, the Vietnam War, and the vagaries of politics all come together in Max Boot‘s latest work, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (Liveright, 2018).
43 min
1595
Kimberly A. Francis, “Teaching Stravinsky: Nadi...
Pedagogue, composer, and conductor Nadia Boulanger was a central figure in Igor Stravinsky’s life during the middle part of his career, providing him with support, advice, and a discerning analytical and editorial voice when he was writing some of his ...
68 min
1596
Katrin Paehler, “The Third Reich’s Intelligence...
Who was the spymaster of the Third Reich? How did Nazi ideology influence intelligence collection? Katrin Paehler answers these questions with the first analysis of Office VI of the Reich Security Main Office in her new book The Third Reich’s Intellige...
70 min
1597
June Purvis, “Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography...
Despite her prominent role in the women’s suffrage movement in Great Britain, Christabel Pankhurst has not received the same degree of attention from scholars that had been given to her mother Emmeline or her sister Sylvia.
37 min
1598
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
1599
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
1600
Sandra E. Greene, “Slave Owners of West Africa:...
In today’s podcast we talked to Dr. Sandra Greene about her book Slave Owners of West Africa. Decision Making in the Age of Abolition published in 2017 by Indiana University Press. In this book Dr. Greene presents us with the biographies of three indiv...
41 min