New Books in World Affairs

Interviews with Scholars of Global Affairs about their New Books

Society & Culture
History
1526
Daphna Hacker, “Legalized Families in the Era o...
As debates on globalization rage in the twenty-first century, many countries and the people within them have been challenged socially, economically, and legally. At the same time, our world is now more bordered geopolitically than ever before.
51 min
1527
C. Grant and H. Schippers, “Sustainable Futures...
Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2016), a multi-authored volume co-edited by Catherine Grant and Huib Schippers, examines a range of musical traditions from cultures around the world.
50 min
1528
Mark G. Hanna, “Pirate Nests and the Rise of th...
Mark G. Hanna offers a unique perspective on the roles played by piracy in the formation of the British colonial project. In Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570 to 1740 (University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute o...
55 min
1529
Seth Markle, “A Motorcycle on Hell Run: Tanzani...
Today we talked to Seth Markle about his book, A Motorcycle on Hell Run: Tanzania, Black Power, and the Uncertain Future of Pan-Africanism 1964-1974, published by Michigan State University Press in 2017 as part of the Ruth Simms Hamilton African Diaspo...
50 min
1530
Mahon Murphy, “Colonial Captivity during the Fi...
The First World War was not limited the trenches on the Western Front. Nor was the system of internment camps it spawned. In his new book, Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire,
56 min
1531
Harrod Suarez, “The Work of Mothering: Globaliz...
Harrod Suarez‘s new book The Work of Mothering: Globalization and the Filipino Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2017) focuses on the domestic workers that make up around a third of all overseas Filipino/a workers,
60 min
1532
Brian Jenkins, “Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Ag...
Described upon his death in 1887 as the ideal diplomatist, Richard Lyons served Great Britain in a variety of roles over the course of a long and distinguished career. In Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War (McGill-Queen’s Universit...
54 min
1533
Laura Engelstein, “Russia in Flames: War, Revol...
Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914-1921 (Oxford University Press, 2017) is a masterful account of the Russian revolutionary era by Laura Engelstein, Professor Emerita at Yale University. Spanning the pre-revolutionary period immediately...
63 min
1534
Andy Bruno, “The Nature of Soviet Power: An Arc...
What can be learned about the Soviet Union by viewing it through an environmental lens? What would an environmental history teach us about power in the Soviet system? What lessons can be drawn from the environmental experience of Soviet communism?
55 min
1535
David Cannadine, “Victorious Century: The Unite...
Sir David Cannadine, Professor of History at Princeton University, president of the British Academy, and the general editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, narrates the century of Pax Britannica in the Victorious Century: The United Kin...
41 min
1536
David Stevenson, “1917: War, Peace, and Revolut...
In 1917: War, Peace, and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2018), David Stevenson examines a pivotal chapter of the First World War. Two and a half years of death and destruction had brought the belligerents to new nadirs of attrition and zeniths of...
54 min
1537
Alexandra Dellios, “Histories of Controversy: B...
In her new book, Histories of Controversy: Bonegilla Migrant Centre (Melbourne University Publishing, 2017), Alexandra Dellios, a Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the Australian National University, provides a critical reassessment of Bonegilla,
14 min
1538
Herman Salton, “Dangerous Diplomacy: Bureaucrac...
I was in graduate school during Bosnia and Rwanda. Like everyone else, I watched the video footage and journalistic accounts that came from these two zones of atrocity. Like everyone else, I wondered how humans could do such things to each other.
83 min
1539
Andrew McKevitt, “Consuming Japan: Popular Cult...
In Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America (UNC Press, 2017), Andrew McKevitt explores the intense and ultimately fleeting moment in 1980s America when the future looked Japanese.
40 min
1540
Stewart Patrick, “The Sovereignty Wars: Reconci...
The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World (Brookings Institution Press, 2017) is an important and in depth study of American interaction with the intricate concept of Sovereignty, from the Founding Fathers to Donald Trump.
64 min
1541
April Mayes, “The Mulatto Republic: Class, Race...
In a perceptive challenge to longstanding assumptions about Dominican anti-Haitianism, April J. Mayes finds fresh ways to think about the production of race in late 19th and 20th century Dominican Republic.
47 min
1542
miriam cooke, “Dancing in Damascus: Creativity,...
The Syrian Revolution, which began in March 2011, has since resulted in what can be described as a civil war, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and the forced migrations of millions of Syrians.
61 min
1543
Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, “The Emergence of Iranian Na...
Over the past century, virtually every Iranian—whether living in Iran or in the diaspora—has been exposed, to one degree or another, to certain commonly held nationalistic beliefs about what it means to be Iranian.
67 min
1544
Michel Leiris, “Phantom Africa” (Seagull Books,...
Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable,
76 min
1545
Kevan Harris, “A Social Revolution: Politics an...
Kevan Harris is the author of A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran (University of California Press, 2017). Harris is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
22 min
1546
Colleen Murphy, “The Conceptual Foundations of ...
Colleen Murphy’s new book, The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2017), argues that attaining some degree of justice is possible in nations transitioning to democratic states.
53 min
1547
Sheshalatha Reddy, “British Empire and the Lite...
Sheshalatha Reddy’s British Empire and the Literature of Rebellion: Revolting Bodies, Laboring Subjects (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) examines historical and literary texts relating to three rebellions in the second half of the nineteenth century: the Sep...
36 min
1548
Mandy Sayer, “Australian Gypsies: Their Secret ...
In her new book, Australian Gypsies: Their Secret History (NewSouth Publishing, 2017), award-winning writer Mandy Sayer explores the neglected history of Gypsies, or Romani people, in Australia, from the earliest European settlement until today.
12 min
1549
Padraic Kenney, “Dance in Chains: Political Imp...
The idea of being a “political prisoner” may seem timeless. If someone was imprisoned for his or her political beliefs, then that person is in some sense a “political prisoner.” Think of the Tower of London and its various occupants. But,
66 min
1550
Monica Ricketts, “Who Should Rule? Men of Arms,...
Monica Ricketts’ new book Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2017) presents readers with the connected histories of military cadres and intellectuals in Peru and Spain c.
55 min