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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2126
Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson, “Natural E...
I remember telling my wife, the mathematician, that historians typically work on one time and place their entire careers. If you begin, say, as a historian of Russia in the 1600s (as I did), you are likely to end as a historian of Russia in the 1600s (...
60 min
2127
Julian E. Zelizer, “Arsenal of Democracy: The P...
Historians are by their nature public intellectuals because they are intellectuals who write about, well, the public. Alas, many historians seem to forget the “public” part and concentrate on the “intellectual” part.
65 min
2128
Toby Lester, “The Fourth Part of the World: The...
Why the heck is “America” called “America” and not, say, “Columbia?” You’ll find the answer to that question and many more in Toby Lester‘s fascinating and terrifically readable new book The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth,
76 min
2129
Jack Greene and Philip Morgan, “Atlantic Histor...
This is the first in a series of podcasts that New Books in History is offering in conjunction with the National History Center. The NHC and Oxford University Press have initiated a book series called “Reinterpreting History.
66 min
2130
Lawrence Wittner, “Confronting the Bomb: A Shor...
In 1983, when I was in college, I participated in something called a “Die-In.” A group of us set up crosses on the commons and threw ourselves on the ground as if we were dead. The idea, such as it was, was to suggest that nuclear weapons were bad and...
56 min
2131
Adrian Goldsworthy, “How Rome Fell: Death of a ...
It’s the classic historical question: Why did the Roman Empire fall? There are doubtless lots of reasons. One historian has noted 210 of them. No wonder Gibbon said that we should stop “inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed,
66 min
2132
Godfrey Hodgson, “The Myth of American Exceptio...
How different is the United States from other nations? American leaders and common folk have often said it’s very different. The Founding Fathers said it, Abraham Lincoln said it, Woodrow Wilson said it, Franklin Roosevelt said it,
67 min
2133
Gregory Cochran, “The 10,000 Year Explosion: Ho...
First, the conventional wisdom. Because Homo sapiens are a young species and haven’t had time to genetically differentiate, we modern humans are all basically genetically identical. Because Homo sapiens figured out ways to use culture to overcome natur...
68 min
2134
Carl Bon Tempo, “Americans at the Gates: The Un...
My Midwestern high school was pretty typical. There were freaks, geeks, jocks, drama-types. Some were white. And some were black. All were recognizably “American.” The only unusual thing about Wichita Southeast was the presence of a reasonably large nu...
62 min
2135
Ian McNeely, “Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexa...
We don’t think much about institutions. They just seem to “be there.” But they have a history, as Ian McNeely and Lisa Wolverton show in their important new book Reinventing Knowledge. From Alexandria to the Internet (W.W. Norton, 2008).
61 min
2136
Walter Moss, “An Age of Progress? Clashing Twen...
Today I’m very pleased to have Professor Walter Moss of Eastern Michigan University on the program. Walt and I have known each others for years, and I’ve long admired him. Walt is best known for his many works on Russian history,
72 min
2137
Robert Gellately, “Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: T...
Today we’re pleased to feature an interview with Robert Gellately of Florida State University. Professor Gellately is a distinguished and widely read historian of Germany, with a particular focus on the Nazi period.
70 min