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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1951
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
1952
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
1953
Emma Teng, “Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the U...
Emma Teng‘s new book explores the discourses about Eurasian identity, and the lived experiences of Eurasian people, in China, Hong Kong, and the US between the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 and the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943...
63 min
1954
Aswin Punthamabekar, “From Bombay to Bollywood:...
Aswin Punthamabekar‘s From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry (New York University Press, 2013) offers a deeply researched and richly theorized look at the evolution of the world’s largest film industry over the past few decades...
47 min
1955
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
1956
Jules Boykoff, “Celebration Capitalism and the ...
The 22nd Winter Olympics are underway. It’s safe to say that the lead-up has not gone smoothly. Of course, there have been the obligatory cost overruns, crony contracts, displacement of locals, and environmental despoliation–all the problems we’ve seen...
51 min
1957
Samuel Moyn, “The Last Utopia: Human Rights in ...
The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard University Press 2010) takes the reader on a sweeping journey through the history of international law from the ancient world to the present in search for an answer to the question: where did human righ...
61 min
1958
Philip Dwyer and Lyndall Ryan, “Theaters of Vio...
We spend a lot of time arguing about the meaning and implications of words in the field of genocide studies. Buckets of ink have been spilled defining and debating words like genocide, intent, ‘in part,’ and crimes against humanity.
60 min
1959
Michael J. Hathaway, “Environmental Winds: Maki...
Globalization is locally specific: global connectivity looks different from place to place. Given that, how are global connections made? And why do they happen so differently in different places? In Environmental Winds: Making the Global in Southwest C...
74 min
1960
Nathaniel Millett, “The Maroons of Prospect Blu...
This is a very timely book, coming as it does in the midst of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 — the war that gave birth to the maroon community of Prospect Bluff, Florida. In his book The Maroons of Prospect Bluff and their Quest for Freedom i...
49 min
1961
Melissa Aronczyk, “Branding the Nation: The Glo...
In Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity, Melissa Aronczyk locates the rise of nation branding as a response to the perceived need to sculpt national identity in the face of a fiercely competitive global economy.
54 min
1962
Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul, “The World in...
The Atlantic magazine recently asked its readers to name the greatest athlete of all time. The usual suspects were present among the nominees: Jesse Owens, Pele, Wayne Gretzky, Don Bradman. Given that these were readers of The Atlantic,
49 min
1963
Gabrielle Hecht, “Being Nuclear: Africans and t...
We tend to understand the nuclear age as a historical break, a geopolitical and technological rupture. In Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade (MIT Press, 2012), Gabrielle Hecht transforms this understanding by arguing instead that nucl...
59 min
1964
Robyn Rodriguez, “Migrants for Export: How the ...
While it has become typical to see Filipina/o migrants working in nursing or domestic work in the United States, many are surprised to see Filipina/os doing the same work in Hong Kong, Israel, and Dubai. Indeed,
59 min
1965
Eric Jennings, “Imperial Heights: Dalat and the...
There is a city in the Southern hills of Vietnam where honeymooners travel each year to affirm their love at high altitude, breathing in the alpine air and soaking in the legacies of French colonialism. Developed by the French in the nineteenth century...
59 min
1966
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, “The Devil That Never D...
There are 13 million Jews in the world today. There are also 13 million Senegalese, 13 million Zambians, 13 million Zimbabweans, and 13 million Chadians. These are tiny–a realist might say “insignificant”–nations.
61 min
1967
Robert Gellately, “Stalin’s Curse: Battling for...
It takes two to tango, right? Indeed it does. But it’s also true that someone has got to ask someone else to dance before any tangoing is done. Beginning in the 1960s, the American intellectual elite argued–and seemed to really believe–that the United ...
74 min
1968
Christopher Powell, “Barbaric Civilization: A C...
What exactly is genocide? Is there a fundamental difference between episodes of genocide and how we go about our daily life? Or can it be said that the roots of the modern world, or civilization itself, has the potential to produce genocide?
66 min
1969
John K. Thornton, “A Cultural History of the At...
Thanks in no small part to John K. Thornton, professor of history at Boston University, the field of Atlantic history has emerged as one of the most exciting fields of historical research over the past quarter century.
64 min
1970
Christine Yano, “Pink Globalization: Hello Kitt...
This cat has a complicated history. In addition to filling stationery stores across the globe with cute objects festooned with little whiskers and bowties, Hello Kitty has inspired tributes from Lisa Loeb and Lady Gaga,
66 min
1971
Joseph Nye, “Presidential Leadership and the Cr...
Joseph Nye‘s latest book is Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era (Princeton University Press, 2013). Professor Nye is University Distinguished Professor and former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
16 min
1972
Tony Collins, “Sport in Capitalist Society: A S...
Throughout the centuries, in cultures around the world, people have played games. But it has only been in the modern age, in the last 250 years or so, that people have competed in and watched sports. Modern sports are distinct in practice and purpose f...
44 min
1973
Chris Anderson and David Sally, “The Numbers Ga...
Two guys are watching Premier League highlights, when onto the TV screen comes Rory Delap, then with Stoke City, doing one of his renowned throw-ins from the touchline directly into the box. One guy, a native of the American Midwest who’d been raised o...
48 min
1974
Luuk van Middelaar, “The Passage to Europe: How...
At the end of the 20th century, it looked like history was being made. After a century that had seen Europe dissolve into an orgy of bloody conflict not once but twice, the continent seemed to have changed its ways.
44 min
1975
Clive Hamilton, “Earthmasters: The Dawn of the ...
It’s getting warmer, there ain’t no doubt about it. What are we going to do? Most folks say we should cut back on bad things like carbon emissions. That would probably be a good idea. The trouble is we would have to cut back on all the good things that...
32 min