About Stephen Colbrook

NBN Episodes hosted by Stephen:

Lauren Jae Gutterman, "Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019)

January 4, 2021

Her Neighbor's Wife

Lauren Jae Gutterman
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

Through interviews, diaries, memoirs, and letters, Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage (University of Pennsylvania Press,…

Matthew A. Sutton, "Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War" (Basic Books, 2019)

October 17, 2019

Double Crossed

Matthew Avery Sutton
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought "Wild" Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team of religious activists for the Offi…

Anne M. Kornhauser, "Debating the American State: Liberal Anxieties and the New Leviathan, 1930-1970" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2015)

September 5, 2019

Debating the American State

Anne M. Kornhauser
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

The New Deal left a host of political, institutional, and economic legacies. Among them was the restructuring of the government into an administrative…

Patrick Andelic, "Donkey Work: Congressional Democrats in Conservative America, 1974-1994" (UP of Kansas, 2019)

September 5, 2019

Donkey Work

Patrick Andelic
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

What happened to the Democratic Party after the 1960s? In many political histories, the McGovern defeat of 1972 announced the party’s decline—and the …

Brett Krutzsch, "Dying to Be Normal: Gay Martyrs and the Transformation of American Sexual Politics" (Oxford UP, 2019)

August 27, 2019

Dying to Be Normal

Brett Krutzsch
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

On October 14, 1998, five thousand people gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to mourn the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who h…

Graham Thompson, "Herman Melville: Among the Magazines" (U Massachusetts Press, 2018)

August 26, 2019

Herman Melville

Graham Thompson
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

"What I feel most moved to write, that is banned―it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the otherway I cannot." Herman Melville wrote these words as …

Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, "Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America" (Princeton UP, 2017)

August 7, 2019

Getting Tough

Julilly Kohler-Hausmann
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

In 1970s America, politicians began "getting tough" on drugs, crime, and welfare. These campaigns helped expand the nation's penal system, discredit w…

Sarah A. Seo, "Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom" (Harvard UP, 2019)

August 1, 2019

Policing the Open Road

Sarah A. Seo
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

When Americans think of freedom, they often picture the open road. Yet nowhere are we more likely to encounter the long arm of the law than in our car…

Katie Batza, "Before AIDS: Gay Health Politics in the 1970s" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018)

July 15, 2019

Before AIDS

Katie Batza
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

The AIDS crisis of the 1980s looms large in recent histories of sexuality, medicine, and politics, and justly so—an unknown virus without a cure ravag…

Marc Stein, "Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe" (UNC Press, 2013)

July 12, 2019

Sexual Injustice

Marc Stein
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

Focusing on six major Supreme Court cases during the 1960s and 1970s, Marc Stein's book Sexual Injustice (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) ex…

Emily S. Johnson, "This Is Our Message: Women's Leadership in the New Christian Right" (Oxford UP, 2019)

July 8, 2019

This Is Our Message

Emily S. Johnson
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

Over the past 50 years, the architects of the religious right have become household names: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson. They have used …

Darren Dochuk, "Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America" (Basic Books, 2019)

July 2, 2019

Anointed with Oil

Darren Dochuk
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America (Basic Books, 2019) places religion and oil at the center of American history. As pr…

Amanda Littauer, "Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties" (UNC Press, 2015)

June 26, 2019

Bad Girls

Amanda Littauer
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

In her innovative and revealing study of midcentury American sex and culture, Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties (Universit…

Stephen R. Duncan, "The Rebel Café: Sex, Race, and Politics in Cold War America’s Nightclub Underground" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)

June 24, 2019

The Rebel Café

Stephen R. Duncan
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

The art and antics of rebellious figures in 1950s American nightlife―from the Beat Generation to eccentric jazz musicians and comedians―have long fasc…

Heather R. White, "Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights" (UNC Press, 2015)

May 14, 2019

Reforming Sodom

Heather R. White
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

With a focus on mainline Protestants and gay rights activists in the twentieth century, Heather R. White challenges the usual picture of perennial adv…

Nancy Tomes, "Remaking the American Patient" (UNC Press, 2016)

April 25, 2019

Remaking the American Patient

Nancy Tomes
Hosted by Stephen Colbrook

In a work that spans the twentieth century, Nancy Tomes questions the popular--and largely unexamined--idea that in order to get good health care, peo…