New Books in Public Policy
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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1951
David C. Berliner, Gene V. Glass et al., “50 My...
David C. Berliner, Gene V. Glass, and associates are the authors of 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools: The Real Crisis in Education (Teachers College Press, 2014). Dr. Berliner is Regents’ Professor of Education Emeritus at Arizo...
50 min
1952
Austin Sarat, “Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Exe...
When we discuss the death penalty we usually ask two questions: 1) should the state be in the business of killing criminals?; and 2) if so, how should the state put their lives to an end? As Austin Sarat shows in his fascinating book Gruesome Spectacle...
54 min
1953
Douglas M. Thompson, “The Quest for the Golden ...
Earlier this spring, I drove to a small beaver pond near my home in Colorado, snapped together my fishing rod, and cast a silver lure into the pond’s crystalline waters. Within twenty minutes, I’d caught dinner: a pair of glittering rainbow trout,
41 min
1954
Olivier Zunz, “Philanthropy in America: A Histo...
Olivier Zunz is the author of Philanthropy in America: A History (Princeton University Press 2014). The paperback addition of the book has recently been published with a new preface from the author. Zunz is Commonwealth Professor of History at the Univ...
31 min
1955
Jane Maienschein, “Embryos Under the Microscope...
Why do we study the history of science? Historians of science don’t just teach us about the past: along with philosophers of science, they also help us to understand the foundations and assumptions of scientific research,
72 min
1956
Morris B. Hoffman, “The Punisher’s Brain: The E...
Why do we feel guilty–and sometimes hurt ourselves–when we harm someone? Why do we become angry–and sometimes violent–when we see other people being harmed? Why do we forgive ourselves and others after a transgression even though “the rules” say we rea...
59 min
1957
Emery Roe, “Making the Most of Mess” (Duke UP 2...
Emery Roe is the author of Making the Most of Mess: Reliability and Policy in Today’s Management Challenges (Duke UP 2014). Roe is senior associate with the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at the University of California, Berkeley.
23 min
1958
Marci A. Hamilton, “God vs. the Gavel: Religion...
The constitution guarantees Americans freedom of religious practice and freedom from government interference in the same same. But what does religious liberty mean in practice? Does it mean that the government must permit any religious practice,
57 min
1959
Amy Stambach, “Confucius and Crisis in American...
Dr. Amy Stambach is the author of Confucius and Crisis in American Universities: Culture, Capital, and Diplomacy in U.S. Public Higher Education (Routledge, 2014). Dr. Stambach is a lecturer in Comparative and International Education at University of O...
53 min
1960
Kevin J. Dougherty and Vikash Reddy, “Performan...
Kevin Dougherty and Vikash Reddy are the authors of Performance Funding for Higher Education: What Are the Mechanisms What Are the Impacts (Jossey-Bass, 2013). Dr. Dougherty is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Education Policy at Teachers Co...
48 min
1961
Cornelia H. Dayton and Sharon V. Salinger, “Rob...
In early America, the practice of “warning out” was unique to New England, a way for the community to regulate those who might fall into poverty and need assistance from the town or province. Robert Love’s Warnings: Searching for Strangers in Colonia...
43 min
1962
James W. Russell, “Social Insecurity: 401(k)s a...
Jim Russell is a sociologist and it was his encounter with the hidden realities of his own 401(k) retirement plan that touched off his crusade to demystify for himself, and then others, just what was at stake in the options presented by private and pub...
50 min
1963
Sharon K. Farber, “Hunger for Ecstasy: Trauma, ...
It may seem silly to ask why we seek ecstasy. We seek it, of course, because it’s ECSTASY. We are evolved to want it. It’s our brain’s way of saying “Do this again and as often as possible.” But there’s more to it than that. For one thing, there are...
58 min
1964
Denise Brennan, “Life Interrupted: Trafficking ...
Denise Brennan‘s second book, Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United States (Duke University Press, 2014), examines how individuals who were trafficked into forced labor go about rebuilding their lives afterward.
64 min
1965
Benjamin Radcliff, “The Political Economy of Ha...
Americans are very politically divided. Democrats say we need a more powerful welfare state while Republicans say we need to maintain the free market. The struggle, we are constantly informed, is one of ideas.
62 min
1966
Elizabeth Kolbert, “The Sixth Extinction: An Un...
The paleontologist Michael Benton describes a mass extinction event as a time when “vast swaths of the tree of life are cut short, as if by crazed, axe wielding madmen.” Elizabeth Kolbert‘s new book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Henry Ho...
54 min
1967
Miriam Kingsberg, “Moral Nation: Modern Japan a...
Miriam Kingsberg‘s fascinating new book offers both a political and social history of modern Japan and a global history of narcotics in the modern world. Moral Nation: Modern Japan and Narcotics in Global History (University of California Press,
65 min
1968
Adam Thierer, “Permissionless Innovation: The C...
Much of the progress in technology today has come about as a result of innovators who did not seek prior approval from regulatory bodies and such. Yet, even with the beneficial results from innovations like the commercial Internet,
47 min
1969
Nicholas Carnes, “White-Collar Government: The ...
Nicholas Carnes is the author of White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Carnes is an assistant professor of public policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke Universit...
18 min
1970
Arica L. Coleman, “That the Blood Stay Pure” (I...
Arica Coleman did not start out to write a legal history of “the one-drop rule,” but as she began exploring the relationship between African American and Native peoples of Virginia, she unraveled the story of how the law created a racial divide that th...
62 min
1971
Odette Lienau, “Rethinking Sovereign Debt” (Har...
In 1927 Russian-American legal theorist Alexander Sack introduced the doctrine of “odious debt.” Sack argued that a state’s debt is “odious” and should not be transferable to successor governments after a revolution,
55 min
1972
Carlo C. DiClemente, “Substance Abuse Treatment...
In this episode, I talk with Carlo C. DiClemente, a Presidential Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland- Baltimore County, about his co-authored book, Substance Abuse Treatment and the Stages of Change: Selecti...
59 min
1973
Constance DeVereaux and Martin Griffin, “Narrat...
Narrative, Identity, and the Map of Cultural Policy: Once Upon a Time in a Globalized World (Ashgate, 2013), a new book by Constance DeVereaux (Colorado State University) and Martin Griffin (University of Tennessee) sets out to challenge assumptions ab...
51 min
1974
Sara Bannerman, “The Struggle for Canadian Copy...
In The Struggle for Canadian Copyright: Imperialism to Internationalism, 1842-1971, Sara Bannerman narrates the complex story of Canada’s copyright policy since the mid-19th century. The book details the country’s halting attempts to craft a copyright ...
55 min
1975
Karen G. Weiss, “Party School: Crime, Campus, a...
In this episode, I sit down with Karen G. Weiss, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University, to talk about her book, Party School: Crime, Campus, and Community (Northeastern University Press, 2013).
54 min