New Books in World Affairs
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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1776
Jules Boykoff, “Power Games: A Political Histor...
Since the birth of the modern Olympics movement in the late nineteenth century, its leaders have attempted to maintain a strict separation of athletics and politics. Former International Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage once stated,
59 min
1777
Dov Waxman, “Trouble in the Tribe: The American...
In Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel (Princeton University Press, 2016), Dov Waxman, professor of political science, international affairs, and Israel studies at Northeastern University,
29 min
1778
Rachel Price, “Planet/Cuba: Art, Culture and th...
Cuban artists have been very productive this past decade, producing stunning and surprising works against a backdrop of political and economic transformation as well as continuing scarcity on the island. Planet/Cuba: Art,
45 min
1779
Scott Straus, “Fundamentals of Genocide and Mas...
This podcast is the first of a new occasional series of interviews addressing the question of responding to mass atrocities and genocide. Later in the summer I’ll interview Bridget Conley-Zilkic, James Waller and Carrie Booth Walling. First up,
72 min
1780
Vanessa Ogle, “The Global Transformation of Tim...
From the 1880s onward, Beirut-based calendars and almanacs were in high demand as they packaged at least four different calendars into one, including: “the reformed Gregorian calendar; the unreformed, Julian calendar used by various churches of the Eas...
73 min
1781
William Blum, “America’s Deadliest Export: Demo...
Since World War II, the United States has repeatedly posited itself as a defender of democracy, using its military might to promote freedom abroad even as it ascended to the status of the world’s only superpower.
31 min
1782
Susan Turner Haynes, “Chinese Nuclear Prolifera...
While the world’s attention is focused on the nuclearization of North Korea and Iran and the nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, China is believed to have doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal, making it the forgotten nuclear power,
54 min
1783
Elizabeth Hurd, “Beyond Religious Freedom: The ...
Among the most frequent demands made of Islam and Muslims today is to become more moderate. But what counts as moderate and who will decide so are questions with less than obvious answers. In her timely and politically urgent new book Beyond Religious ...
46 min
1784
Ayten Gundogdu, “Rightlessness in an Age of Rig...
How does one “rethink and revise the key concepts of Hannah Arendt’s political theory in light of the struggles of asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants” (207)? In her new book Rightlessness in An Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Co...
69 min
1785
Gregory F. Domber, “Empowering Revolution: Amer...
As the most populous country in Eastern Europe as well as the birthplace of the largest anticommunist dissident movement, Poland is crucial in understanding the end of the Cold War. During the 1980s, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied for...
85 min
1786
Marc Lynch, “The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and A...
Marc Lynch is the author of The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2016). Lynch is a professor of political science at George Washington University and blogs at the Monkey Cage. From Tunisia to Egypt to Syria,
20 min
1787
Charles Keith, “Catholic Vietnam: A Church from...
The relationship between religion, imperialism, and national identity can be quite complex. At the same time, nationalist readings of history, particularly when they are combined with other ideological perspectives,
67 min
1788
Cass Sunstein, “The World According to Star War...
Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Sunstein recently told the Boston Globe,
32 min
1789
Rajika Bhandari and Mirka Martel, “Social Justi...
Rajika Bhandari, Deputy Vice President, Research and Evaluation Institute of International Education (IIE), and Mirka Martel, Assistant Director of Research and Evaluation at IIE, join New Books in Education to discuss a new report from the organizatio...
26 min
1790
Ho-fung Hung, “The China Boom: Why China Will N...
Ho-fung Hung‘s new book has two main goals: to to outline the historical origins of Chinas capitalist boom and the social and political formations in the 1980s that gave rise to this boom, and to explore the global effects of Chinas capitalist boom and...
67 min
1791
Amy Randall, “Genocide and Gender in the Twenti...
Any time I prepare to do an interview, I make sure I read the blurb on the back of the book. One of the blurbs on the back cover of Amy Randall’s superb new collection Genocide and Gender in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Survey (Bloomsbury Acade...
61 min
1792
Malcolm James, “Urban Multiculture: Youth, Poli...
How is youth culture changing in a globalised city? In Urban Multiculture: Youth, Politics and Transformations in a Global City Malcolm James, a lecturer at the University of Sussex, introduces the concept of Urban Multiculture as a framework for under...
39 min
1793
Brooke Schedneck, “Thailand’s International Med...
In her recent monograph, Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices (Routledge, 2015), Brooke Schedneck examines Buddhist meditation centers in Thailand and draws our attention to the way ...
62 min
1794
Lincoln A. Mitchell, “The Democracy Promotion P...
In book his new book The Democracy Promotion Paradox (Brookings Institution Press, 2015), Lincoln A. Mitchell (Political Correspondent for the New York Observer) raises difficult but critically important issues by probing the numerous inconsistencies a...
62 min
1795
Ayesha Ramachandran, “Worldmakers: Global Imagi...
At what point does the world end? More importantly, how did this idea of a whole, unified world emerge to begin with? In Worldmakers: Global Imagining in Early Modern Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2015) Ayesha Ramachandran illustrates the antici...
54 min
1796
Asma Afsaruddin, “Contemporary Issues in Islam”...
As the title of the monograph suggests, Contemporary Issues in Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) by Asma Afsaruddin, guides the reader through an organized and compelling narrative of reflections on hot-button topics in the modern world.
61 min
1797
Linsey McGoey, “No Such Thing as a Free Gift: T...
In No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy (Verso Books, 2015), Linsey McGoey proposes a new way of discussing philanthropy and, in doing so, revives associated historical debates often overlooked at present: fr...
55 min
1798
John Bew, “Realpolitik: A History” (Oxford UP, ...
Since its coinage in mid-19th century Germany, Realpolitik has proven both elusive and protean. To some, it represents the best approach to meaningful change and political stability in a world buffeted by uncertainty and rapid transformation.
59 min
1799
Michael Goebel, “Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Inte...
Michael Goebel‘s Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2015) thinks globally while focusing on the local, everyday histories of non-Europeans in Paris in the 1920s and 30s.
55 min
1800
Thomas G. Weiss, “Humanitarian Intervention: Id...
How are humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect changing in the current international political scene? In Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action (3rd ed., Polity Press, 2016), Thomas G. Weiss (The Graduate Center,
54 min