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One book selected daily from those published on the New Books Network.
There’s a familiar story about us humans: we went from hunting and gathering to farming, wandering bands to villages and cities, clans and chieftains …
This episode features a conversation with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder Equality Labs and author of The Trauma of Caste. We discussed her own comin…
Jeremy Yellen’s The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War (Cornell University Press, 2019) is a challenging transnat…
Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood. Timo…
Jeffrey Whyte's book The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War (Oxford UP, 2023) explo…
Explores the profound power of music to influence brain function and well-being. IPA 2026 Distinguished Favorite in the Music Category Why does musi…
Mary Freeman, associate professor of history at the University of Maine, joins Michael Stauch to discuss her new book Abolitionists and the Politics o…
For over a century, Alfred Hitchcock has remained one of cinema's most influential directors. Known as the Master of Suspense, this visionary filmmake…
From Ghostbusters to Will & Grace, One Day at a Time to Jurassic Park, the past decade has seen Hollywood reach a new peak in its obsession with reboo…
Kate Brown, Distinguished Professor in the History of Science at MIT joins Michael Stauch to discuss her new book Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, P…
While most English-language histories of Taiwan focus on its geopolitical role, Taiwan: A People’s History (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Evan N. Dawley cent…
Most of us today would assume that morality and ethics, being value propositions, are questions for inspired leaders, religious creeds, poets—in other…
In the well-trod history of the Roman Empire, a pivotal moment has long gone unnoticed: It was in ancient Rome that medical men first set their sights…
Roads, bridges, a renewable power plant, and an electricity grid: UN peacekeepers might be unusual infrastructure builders, but they’re certainly not …
My guest is Caroline Bicks, whose new book Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King (Hogarth, 2026) became a bestseller shortly aft…
Kira Ganga Kieffer is a scholar of American religions, history, culture, and politics with a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University. She is…
Markets of Pain offers a sweeping history of the business of licit opium--following cultivators, merchants, scientists, and policymakers--and shows ho…
What explains the growing tension between young people and democracy in Africa? Why are some increasingly frustrated, disengaged, or even open to auth…
The Future in Their Hands: Making Mexico's Foreign-Educated Elite (U California Press, 2026), by Dr. Rachel Grace Newman is a deep history of the poli…
Recovering the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control-And How We Can Take It Back (Columbia Global Reports, 2026)is an indictment of how Big Tech cloaks …