New Books Network

Recent Interviews
Laura Waterman, “Starvation Shore” (U Wisconsin Press, 2019)
Laura Waterman
Starvation Shore

University of Wisconsin Press, 2019

New Books in Arts & LettersNew Books in Historical FictionNew Books in LiteratureNew Books Network February 28, 2020 Michael F. Robinson

Laura Waterman talks about her novel, Starvation Shore (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), which relies upon memoirs, letters, and diaries to reconstruct the life of the Greely Party as it attempted to survive impossible conditions. Waterman is a climber, conservationist, and author who has written many books with her husband Guy Waterman about... Read More
SherAli Tareen, “Defending Muhammad in Modernity” (U Notre Dame Press, 2020)
SherAli Tareen
Defending Muhammad in Modernity

University of Notre Dame Press, 2020

New Books in HistoryNew Books in Intellectual HistoryNew Books in Islamic StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books in South Asian StudiesNew Books Network February 28, 2020 Shobhana Xavier

In his new book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), SherAli Tareen, an associate professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College, takes us into the fascinating world of the ‘ulama (theologians) of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century South Asian Islam. Situated historically within... Read More
Sher Banu Khan, “Sovereign Women in a Muslim Kingdom: The Sultanahs of Aceh, 1641-1699” (Cornell UP, 2018)
Sher Banu Khan
Sovereign Women in a Muslim Kingdom
The Sultanahs of Aceh, 1641-1699
Cornell University Press, 2018

New Books in Gender StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in Southeast Asian Studies February 28, 2020 Faizah Zakaria

In her book, Sovereign Women in a Muslim Kingdom: The Sultanahs of Aceh, 1641-1699 (Cornell University Press, 2018), Sher Banu Khan provides a rare and empirically rich view of queenship in early modern maritime Southeast Asia. Four women ruled the Muslim realm of Aceh in succession during the second half... Read More
Ellen Griffith Spears, “Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town” (UNC Press, 2016)
Ellen Griffith Spears
Baptized in PCBs
Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town
University of North Carolina Press, 2016

New Books in African American StudiesNew Books in American StudiesNew Books in Environmental StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books in the American SouthNew Books Network February 28, 2020 Beth A. English

Professor Ellen Griffith Spears of the University of Alabama, author of Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town (University of North Carolina Press, 2016) discusses the decades long struggle for environmental and civil rights justice in Anniston, Alabama, and broader lessons to be learned from this... Read More
Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century” (FSG, 2019)
Sarah Abrevaya Stein
Family Papers
A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2019

New Books in Arts & LettersNew Books in BiographyNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Jewish StudiesNew Books in LiteratureNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & Faith February 28, 2020 David Gottlieb

In Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), Sarah Abrevaya Stein weaves a narrative tapestry whose threads are drawn from the archives of one Sephardic family, with roots in the city of Salonica, then in the Ottoman Empire, now Thessaloniki in Greece. The... Read More
Diana Lemberg, “Barriers Down: How American Power and Free-Flow Policies Shaped Global Media” (Columbia UP, 2019)
Diana Lemberg
Barriers Down
How American Power and Free-Flow Policies Shaped Global Media
Columbia University Press, 2019

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in CommunicationsNew Books in HistoryNew Books in JournalismNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in World Affairs February 28, 2020 Dexter Fergie

Since the 1940s, America’s relations with the rest of the world have been guided by the idea of promoting the free flow of information. It’s an idea that seems benign, perhaps even difficult to argue against—who could possibly oppose the freedom of information? But, as Diana Lemberg shows in her... Read More
David Estlund, “Utopophobia: On the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy” (Princeton UP, 2020)
David Estlund
Utopophobia
On the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy
Princeton University Press, 2019

New Books in PhilosophyNew Books in Political ScienceNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network February 28, 2020 Robert Talisse

It is tempting to hold that any proposed principle of social justice is defective if it demands too much of people, given their proclivities.  A stronger view, one that many philosophers find attractive, has it that there is something about the concept of justice that makes it the kind of... Read More

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