Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

A series of interviews with authors of new books from Princeton University Press

Books
Education
History
776
Tamara Metz, “Untying the Knot: Marriage, the S...
Marriage is at the center of some of our fiercest political debates. Here are some recent developments regarding marriage in the United States. Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced that it would no longer defend the federal Defense of Ma...
63 min
777
Konrad H. Jarausch, “Reluctant Accomplice: A We...
Konrad H. Jarausch, whose varied and important works on German history have been required reading for scholars for several decades, has published Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front (Princeton University Press,
55 min
778
Michael Kevaak, “Becoming Yellow: A Short Histo...
In the course of his concise and clearly written new book Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking (Princeton University Press, 2011), Michael Keevak investigates the emergence of a “yellow” and “Mongolian” East Asian identity in eighteenth-...
66 min
779
Francesco Duina, “Winning: Reflections on an Am...
“Winning is everything” is such a common phrase that we rarely question where it comes from and why we apply it to everyday experiences.  One can win a little league game, an election, the lottery, a friendly competition at work or an unfriendly one.
54 min
780
Dan Drezner, “Theories of International Politic...
International theorists like to game out every possible scenario. What would happen if you applied their methodology to dealing with the fictional public policy challenge of a zombie infestation? In Dan Drezner’s Theories of International Politics and ...
42 min
781
Louis Hyman, “Debtor Nation: The History of Ame...
I remember clearly the day I was offered my first credit card. It was in Berkeley, CA in 1985. I was walking on Sproul Plaza and I saw a booth manned by two students. They were giving out all kinds of swag, so I walked over to see what was...
50 min
782
David Farber, “The Rise and Fall of Modern Amer...
I think that many smart people, particularly on the Left, make a really ill-considered assumption, to wit, that “Republican” means “Conservative.” I don’t mean lower case “c” conservative, as in wanting to maintain the status quo.
65 min
783
Norman Naimark, “Stalin’s Genocides” (Princeton...
Absolutely no one doubts that Stalin murdered millions of people in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. His ruthless campaign of “dekulakization,” his pitiless deportation of “unreliable” ethnic groups, his senseless starvation of Ukrainian peasants,
71 min
784
Jerry Muller, “Capitalism and the Jews” (Prince...
I confess I was attracted to this book by the title: Capitalism and the Jews (Princeton, 2010). Capitalism is a touchy subject; Jews are a touchy subject. But capitalism and the Jews, that’s a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t suggest you try this,
68 min
785
Audrey Kurth Cronin, “How Terrorism Ends: Under...
It’s one thing to say that the study of history is “relevant” to contemporary problems; it’s another to demonstrate it. In How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns(Princeton UP, 2009),
58 min
786
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