New Books in Science, Technology, and...
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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2501
Eric Ash, “The Draining of the Fens: Projectors...
Today “The Fens” is largely a misnomer, as the area of eastern England is now largely flat, dry farmland. Until the early modern era, however, it was a region of wetland marshes. Eric Ash‘s book The Draining of the Fens: Projectors, Popular Politics,
52 min
2502
David Beer, “Metric Power” (Palgrave Macmillan,...
How do metrics rule the social world? In Metric Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) David Beer, Reader in Sociology at the University of York, outlines the rise of the metric and the role of metrics in shaping everyday life.
32 min
2503
Claire D. Clark, “The Recovery Revolution” (Col...
Before the 1960s, doctors were generally in control of the treatment of drug addicts. And that made a certain sense, because drug addicts had something that looked a lot like a disease or mental illness. The trouble was that doctors had no effective wa...
64 min
2504
Simone Muller, “Wiring the World: The Social an...
Simone Muller’s Wiring the World: The Social and Cultural Creation of Global Telegraph Networks (Columbia University Press, 2016) is a superb account of the laying of submarine telegraph cables in the nineteenth century and the battles over them in the...
53 min
2505
Melvin R. Adams, “Atomic Geography: A Personal ...
In May, a tunnel filled with radioactive waste collapsed at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, making international news. This incident highlighted the costs and challenges of cleaning up this deactivated nuclear facility,
58 min
2506
Thomas Hazlett, “The Political Spectrum: The Tu...
What better way to explore the history of media regulation than to go on a journey with the former chief economist of the FCC? Prior to introduction of the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, the radio spectrum was in chaos.
44 min
2507
Brian Clegg, “The Reality Frame: Relativity and...
Brian Clegg is one of England’s most prolific and popular writers on science. His latest work, The Reality Frame: Relativity and Our Place in the Universe (Icon Books, 2017), covers Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and a whole lot more.
50 min
2508
Neil M. Maher, “Apollo in the Age of Aquarius” ...
In the summer of 1969, two seminal events of the sixties happened within a few weeks of each other: the first man walked on the moon and the Woodstock music festival was held in upstate New York. At first glance,
51 min
2509
Beau Lotto, “Deviate: The Science of Seeing Dif...
We may think we see the world as it is, but neuroscience proves otherwise. Which is a good thing, according to neuroscientist and author Beau Lotto. In his new book Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently (Hatchette Books, 2017),
45 min
2510
Britt Rusert, “Fugitive Science: Empiricism and...
Traversing the archives of early African American literature, performance, and visual culture, Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture (New York University Press, 2017), uncovers the dynamic experiments of a group of ...
43 min
2511
Sharrona Pearl, “Face/On: Face Transplants and ...
Sharrona Pearl‘s new book is an absolute pleasure to read. Face/On: Face Transplants and the Ethics of the Other (The University of Chicago Press, 2017) looks closely at facial allotransplantations (FAT), commonly known as face transplants,
66 min
2512
Different Medias with Eric Alterman
An interview with Eric Alterman
28 min
2513
Willliam Rankin, “After the Map: Cartography, N...
Policymakers and the public clamored for maps throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, maps were a necessity for war, navigation, and countless other activities. Yet by the 1960s and 1970s,
40 min
2514
Kate Daloz, “We Are As Gods: Back to the Land i...
Growing up in a geodesic dome is not a claim everyone can make, but author Kate Daloz can. Her book We Are As Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on a Quest for a New America (PublicAffairs, 2016) traces the path taken by many children of suburbia in...
52 min
2515
Sophia Roosth, “Synthetic: How Life Got Made” (...
Sophia Roosth‘s wonderful new book follows researchers clustered around MIT beginning in 2003 who named themselves synthetic biologists. A historically informed anthropological analysis based on many years of ethnographic work,
70 min
2516
Tara H. Abraham, “Rebel Genius: Warren S. McCul...
Fueling his bohemian lifestyle and anti-authoritarian attitude with a steady diet of ice cream and whiskey, along with a healthy dose of insomnia, Warren Sturgis McCulloch is best known for his foundational contributions to cybernetics but led a career...
33 min
2517
Helen Anne Curry, “Evolution Made to Order: Pla...
Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee,
33 min
2518
Lisa Messeri, “Placing Outer Space: An Earthly ...
What kind of object is a planet? Lisa Messeri‘s new book asks and addressed this question in a fascinating ethnography that explores how scientific practices transform planets into places and helps us understand why that matters not just for how we und...
62 min
2519
J. C. McKeown, “A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Cu...
The back cover of J. C. McKeown‘s new book, A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities (Oxford University Press, 2017), is adorned not with review quotes from contemporary scholars, but rather the discordant voices of the medical writers he excerpts.
47 min
2520
Tania Munz, “The Dancing Bees: Karl von Frisch ...
Tania Munz‘s new book is a dual biography: both of Austrian-born experimental physiologist Karl von Frisch, and of the honeybees he worked with as experimental, communicating creatures. The Dancing Bees: Karl von Frisch and the Discovery of the Honeybe...
61 min
2521
Democracy and Dialogue Online with Joshua Cohen
An interview with Joshua Cohen
35 min
2522
Grace Davie, “Poverty Knowledge in South Africa...
Apartheid in South Africa formally ended in 1994, but the issue of poverty and what to do about it remained as contentious as it had been a century earlier. In the new book, Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: A Social History of Human Science,
59 min
2523
Donna Freitas, “The Happiness Effect: How Socia...
In The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost (Oxford University Press, 2017), Donna Freitas investigates the darker side of social media use and explains how pressure to appear happy and successful onl...
22 min
2524
Amit Prasad, “Imperial Technoscience: Transnati...
Amit Prasad is widely admired for using Postcolonial Studies to explore questions about science, technology and medicine. In Imperial Technoscience: Transnational Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India (MIT, 2014),
56 min
2525
Rebecca Scales, “Radio and the Politics of Soun...
What did sound mean to French people as radio and other listening technologies began to proliferate in the early twentieth century? What was the nature and significance of French auditory culture in the years between the two world wars?
59 min