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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1901
Michael Cook, “Ancient Religions, Modern Politi...
Michael Cook, a widely-respected historian and scholar of Islam begins his book with a question that everyone seems to be asking these days: is Islam uniquely violent or uniquely political? Why does Islam seem to play a larger role in contemporary poli...
42 min
1902
Angela Stent, “The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-...
In 2005, the Comedy Central Network aired an episode of “South Park” in which one of the characters asked if any “Third World” countries other than Russia had the ability to fly a whale to the moon. During a press conference that took place two years l...
75 min
1903
Mark Corner, “The European Union: An Introducti...
Some say it should be a loose collection of sovereign nation states; others say it should aspire to be a kind of super-nation state itself. Or is it, in truth, a messy but workable mixture of a number of extremes, ideals and concepts?
41 min
1904
Joel Migdal, “Shifting Sands: The United States...
Any person who turns on CNN or Fox News today will see that the United States faces a number of critical problems in the Middle East. This reality should surprise few. Stunned by the Al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001, the George W.
69 min
1905
James Martin, “Drugs on the Dark Net: How Crypt...
I am old enough to realise that we have entered a science fiction world in which the old systems of the market place are being sidestepped by new technology. We who follow the tried and true methods are missing out of the brave new world.
27 min
1906
Guy Chet, “The Ocean is a Wilderness: Atlantic ...
Guy Chet, Associate Professor of early American and military history at the University of North Texas, in his book The Ocean is a Wilderness: Atlantic Piracy and the Limits of State Authority, 1688-1856 (University of Massachusetts Press,
52 min
1907
Hideaki Fujiki, “Making Personas: Transnational...
Stardom has a history. Hideaki Fujiki‘s new book traces that history through a story of the transformations of Japanese film stars in the early twentieth century. Taking a deeply transnational approach to understanding the imbrication of film stardom a...
71 min
1908
Randall L. Schweller, “Maxwell’s Demon and the ...
Randall L. Schweller is Professor of Political Science and a Social and Behavioral Sciences Joan N. Huber Faculty Fellow at Ohio State University. He has written Maxwell’s Demon and the Golden Apple: Global Discord in the New Millennium (Johns Hopkins...
22 min
1909
Martin Shaw, “Genocide and International Relati...
Works in the field of genocide studies tend to fall into one of a few camps. Some are emotional and personal. Others are historical and narrative. Still others are intentionally activist and aimed at changing policy or decisions.
60 min
1910
Stefan Rinke and Kay Schiller (editors), “The F...
The history of globalization is found in more than international political organizations and multinational corporations, free-trade agreements and foreign direct investments, satellite communications and special export zones.
56 min
1911
Toby Green, “The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Sla...
Slavery was pervasive in the Ancient World: you can find it in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In Late Antiquity , however, slavery went into decline. It survived and even flourished in the Byzantine Empire and Muslim lands,
41 min
1912
Judith Kelley, “Monitoring Democracy: When Inte...
Judith Kelley is the author of Monitoring Democracy: When International Election Observation Works, and Why It Often Fails (Princeton University Press, 2012). Kelley is associate professor of public policy and political science at Duke University.
18 min
1913
Samuel Totten, “Genocide by Attrition: The Nuba...
Most of the authors I’ve interviewed for this show have addressed episodes in the past, campaigns of mass violence that occurred long ago, often well-before the author was born. Today’s show is different. In his book Genocide by Attrition: The Nuba Mou...
82 min
1914
Amit Prasad, “Imperial Technoscience: Transnati...
In his new book, Imperial Technoscience: Transnational Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India (MIT Press, 2014), Amit Prasad, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Missouri,
37 min
1915
Donovan Chau, “Exploiting Africa: The Influence...
Donovan Chau is the author of Exploiting Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania (Naval Institute Press, 2014). Chau is an associate professor of political science at California State University.
32 min
1916
Benjamin Lieberman, “Remaking Identities: God, ...
What do you say to someone who suggests that genocide is not just destructive, but constructive? This is the basic theme of Benjamin Lieberman‘s excellent new book Remaking Identities: God, Nation and Race in World History (Rowman and Littlefield,
51 min
1917
John L. Brooke, “Climate Change and the Course ...
Climate change is in the news a lot today. There seems to be little doubt that it’s getting warmer and that, should present trends continue, the warming trend will have “historical” consequences. Things are going to change. Ever thus. As John L.
65 min
1918
Brett Scott, “The Heretic’s Guide to Global Fin...
Brett Scott is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (Pluto Press, 2013). Scott is a journalist, urban deep ecologist, and Fellow at the Finance Innovation Lab. While much of Scott’s book focuses on explaining...
27 min
1919
Paula A. Michaels, “Lamaze: An International Hi...
The twentieth-century West witnessed a revolution in childbirth. Before that time, most women gave birth at home and were attended by family members and midwives. The process was usually terribly painful for the mother.
68 min
1920
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
1921
Stephen C. Neff’s Justice Among Nations: A Hist...
Stephen C. Neff‘s Justice Among Nations: A History of International Law (Harvard UP, 2014) is a book of breathtaking scope, telling the story of the development of international law from Ancient times to the present.
36 min
1922
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
1923
Sean D. Murphy et al., “Litigating War: Mass Ci...
Professor Sean D. Murphy is the Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law at George Washington University and co-author of the book Litigating War: Mass Civil Injury and the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (Oxford University Press,
52 min
1924
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
1925
John R. Gillis, “The Human Shore: Seacoasts in ...
Americans are moving to the ocean. Every year, more and more Americans move to–or are born in– the coasts and fewer and fewer remain in–or are born in–the interior. The United States began as a coastal nation; it’s become one again.
55 min