New Books in World Affairs

Interviews with Scholars of Global Affairs about their New Books

Society & Culture
History
1801
Thom van Dooren, “Flight Ways: Life and Loss at...
Thom van Dooren‘s new book is an absolute must-read. (I was going to qualify that with a “…for anyone who…” and realized that it really needs no qualification.) Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia University Press,
61 min
1802
Aristotle Tziampiris, “The Emergence of Israeli...
Aristotle Tziampiris is The Emergence of Israeli-Greek Cooperation (Springer, 2015). Tziampiris is Associate Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International and European Affairs at the Department of International and E...
25 min
1803
Abdelwahab El-Affendi, “Genocidal Nightmares” (...
Genocide studies is one of the few academic fields with which I’m acquainted which is truly interdisciplinary in approach and composition. Today’s guest Abdelwahab El-Affendi, and the book he has edited, Genocidal Nightmares: Narratives of Insecurity a...
57 min
1804
Amanda Rogers, “Performing Asian Transnationali...
Identity, performance and globalisation are at the heart of the cultural practices interrogated by Amanda Rogers in Performing Asian Transnationalisms: Theatre, Identity and the Geography of Performance (Routledge, 2015).
50 min
1805
Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, “New World Drama: The...
Riots, audiences on stage, fabulous costumes, gripping stories. That’s what theater was like in the Atlantic world in the age of slavery and colonialism. Elizabeth Maddock Dillon wonderful book New World Drama: The Performative Commons in the Atlantic ...
6 min
1806
Kaeten Mistry, “The United States, Italy, and t...
In the annals of cold war history Italy is rarely seen as a crucial locale.  In his stimulating new book, The United States, Italy, and the Origins of Cold War: Waging Political Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2014),
95 min
1807
Hasia Diner, “Roads Taken: The Great Jewish Mig...
The period from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries witnessed a mass migration which carried millions of Jews from central and eastern Europe, north Africa, and the Ottoman Empire to new lands. Hasia Diner’s new book,
49 min
1808
Thomas Weiss and Dan Plesch, eds., “We are Stro...
Thomas Weiss and Dan Plesch are the co-editors of We Are Strong: Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations (Routledge, 2015). Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science and Director Emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International...
27 min
1809
Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, “Th...
Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn‘s An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970-2010 (Oxford University Press, reprint edition 2014) offers what is in many ways is an untold,
61 min
1810
Thomas Weiss and Dan Plesch, eds., "We are Stro...
An interview with Thomas Weiss and Dan Plesch
27 min
1811
Bedross Der Matossian, “Shattered Dreams of Rev...
The Young Turk revolution of 1908 restored the Ottoman constitution, suspended earlier by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and initiated a new period of parliamentary politics in the Empire. Likewise, the revolution was a watershed moment for the Empire’s ethnic...
54 min
1812
Don H. Doyle, “The Cause of All Nations: An Int...
Many Americans know about the military side of the Civil War, and the private, official diplomacy of the Civil War is also well documented. The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War (Basic Books, 2015), though,
65 min
1813
Robin Shields, “Globalization and International...
Studying the forces behind and the implications for education’s ascension as a predominant global phenomenon is becoming a more important, yet convoluted, endeavor. Envisioned as a way to succinctly encapsulate this narrative, Robin Shields,
46 min
1814
Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, “The Making of Glob...
Two Canadian socialist thinkers have published a new book on the successes and failures, the crises, contradictions and conflicts in present-day capitalism. In The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire (Verso, 2013),
65 min
1815
Emilie Cloatre, “Pills for the Poorest: An Expl...
Emilie Cloatre‘s award-winning book, Pills for the Poorest:An Exploration of TRIPS and Access to Medication in Sub-Saharan Africa (Palgrave, 2013), locates the effects–and ineffectualness–of a landmark international agreement for healthcare: the World ...
45 min
1816
Bilyana Lily, “Russian Foreign Policy toward Mi...
The current conflict in Ukraine has reopened old wounds and brought the complexity of Russia’s relationship with the United States and Europe to the forefront. One of the most important factors in relations between the Kremlin and the West has been the...
34 min
1817
Carol Gould, “Interactive Democracy: The Social...
Contemporary advances in technology have in many ways made the world smaller.  It is now possible for vast numbers of geographically disparate people to interact, communicate, coordinate, and plan.  These advances potentially bring considerable benefit...
64 min
1818
David Baker, “The Schooled Society: The Educati...
There has been a dramatic leap in education across the world over the past 150 years–from the importance and longevity to Western-style universities to truth and knowledge production created through schooling,
58 min
1819
Jan Lemnitzer, “Power, Law and the End of Priva...
Jan Lemnitzer‘s new book Power, Law and the End of Privateering (Palgrave, 2014) offers an exciting new take on the relationship between law and power, exposing the delicate balance between great powers and small states that is necessary to create and ...
37 min
1820
Elizabeth Schmidt, “Foreign Intervention in Afr...
Elizabeth Schmidt‘sForeign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror (Cambridge University Press, 2013)depicts the foreign political and military interventions in Africa during the periods of decolonization (1956-75) and the Cold W...
41 min
1821
Michael Kwass, “Contraband: Louis Mandrin and t...
Michael Kwass‘s new book, Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground is much more than an exciting biography of the notorious eighteenth-century smuggler whose name remains legendary in contemporary France.
60 min
1822
Carl H. Nightingale, “Segregation: A Global His...
We often think of South Africa or America when we hear the word ‘segregation.’ Or — a popular view — that social groups have always chosen to live apart.But as Carl H. Nightingale shows in his new book, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (...
52 min
1823
Jules Boykoff, “Activism and the Olympics: Diss...
A new chapter in the history of the Olympic Games appears to be opening. As one city after another has dropped out of the bidding for the 2022 Winter Games, the International Olympic Committee has been faced with the prospect that no one might be willi...
44 min
1824
Lyman Johnson, “Workshop of Revolution: Plebian...
Lyman Johnson‘s book Workshop of Revolution: Plebian Buenos Aires and the Atlantic World, 1776-1810 (Duke University Press, 2011) analyzes the economic, political, and social lives of working people in Argentina’s colonial capital.
57 min
1825
General Daniel Bolger, “Why We Lost” (Houghton ...
During the past several years, numerous books and articles have appeared that grapple with the legacy and lessons of the recent U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This development should surprise few. The emergence of the jihadist group ISIS in Iraq an...
80 min