New Books Network Podcast

Economics December 10, 2023

Invested

How Three Centuries of Stock Market Advice Reshaped Our Money, Markets, and Minds

Paul Crosthwaite, Peter Knight, Nicky Marsh, James Taylor, and Helen Paul

Hosted by Nathan Moore

Who hasn’t wished for a surefire formula for riches and a ticket to the good life? For three centuries, investment advisers of all kinds, legit and otherwise, have guaranteed that …

British Studies December 7, 2023

In the Service of Empire

Domestic Service and Mastery in Metropole and Colony

Fae Dussart

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Despite recent research, the 19th-century history of domestic service in empire and its wider implications is underexplored. In the Service of Empire: Domestic Service and Mastery in Metropole and Colony …

British Studies December 5, 2023

Salt

Scotland's Newest Oldest Industry

Christopher A. Whatley and Joanna Hambly

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Salt is a vital commodity. For many centuries it sustained life for Scots as seasoning for a diet dominated by grains (mainly oats), and for preservation of fish and cheese …

Science, Technology, and Society December 4, 2023

The Unintended

Photography, Property, and the Aesthetics of Racial Capitalism

Monica Huerta

Hosted by Nathan Moore

The end of the nineteenth century saw massive developments and innovations in photography at a time when the forces of Western modernity—industrialization, racialization, and capitalism—were quickly reshaping the world. The …

East Asian Studies December 4, 2023

Power for a Price

The Purchase of Official Appointments in Qing China

Lawrence Zhang

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos

The Qing dynasty's office purchase system (juanna) allowed men to legally and openly pay for appointments in the civil service — enabling them to skip the much-lauded civil service examination …

Political Science December 4, 2023

Gun Country

Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America

Andrew C. McKevitt

Hosted by Susan Liebell

The United States has more guns than people – a condition that is “unprecedented in world history.” Scholars often focus on gun culture, the Second Amendment, or the history of …

African Studies December 3, 2023

Bottled

How Coca-Cola Became African

Sara Byala

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Travel to virtually any African country and you are likely to find a Coca-Cola, often a cold one at that. Bottled asks how this carbonated drink became ubiquitous across the …

Film December 2, 2023

Maverick Movies

New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film

Daniel Herbert

Hosted by Pete Kunze

Daniel Herbert's book Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film (U California Press, 2023) tells the improbable story of New Line Cinema, a company that cut a …

World Affairs November 29, 2023

The Project-State and Its Rivals

A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Charles S. Maier

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

We thought we knew the story of the twentieth century. For many in the West, after the two world conflicts and the long cold war, the verdict was clear: democratic …

Technology November 26, 2023

Lifelines of Our Society

A Global History of Infrastructure

Dirk Van Laak

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Infrastructure is essential to defining how the public functions, yet there is little public knowledge regarding why and how it became today's strongest global force over government and individual lives …

Early Modern History November 24, 2023

Love Spells and Lost Treasure

Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era

Tabitha Stanmore

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Magic is ubiquitous across the world and throughout history. Yet if witchcraft is acknowledged as a persistent presence in the medieval and early modern eras, practical magic by contrast – …

British Studies November 24, 2023

Inventing the Working Parent

Work, Gender, and Feminism in Neoliberal Britain

Sarah E. Stoller

Hosted by Deidre Tyler

Sarah E. Stoller, Inventing the Working Parent: Work, Gender, and Feminism in Neoliberal Britain (MIT Press, 2023) is the first historical examination of working parenthood in the late twentieth century--and …

High Theory November 22, 2023

Economic Enchantments

A Discussion with Anat Rosenberg, Kristof Smeyers, and Astrid Van den Bossche

Anat Rosenberg

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu

Anat Rosenberg, Kristof Smeyers, and Astrid Van den Bossche discuss the fresh historiographies of capitalism offered by studies of enchantment and magical thinking. They talk about their research network for …

British Studies November 22, 2023

Living in Houses

A Personal History English Domestic Architecture

Ruth Dalton

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In Living in Houses: A Personal History of English Domestic Architecture (Lund Humphries, 2022), Dr. Ruth Dalton presents a rich and rewarding history of houses in England through the stories …

Middle Eastern Studies November 22, 2023

Sustainable Prosperity in the Arab Gulf

From Miracle to Method

Jarmo T. Kotilaine

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Tracing the development journey of the Arabian Gulf region with a forward-looking perspective, Sustainable Prosperity in the Arab Gulf: From Miracle to Method (Routledge, 2023) describes how a combination of good fortune, creative …

British Studies November 21, 2023

Being Single in Georgian England

Families, Households, and the Unmarried

Amy Harris

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Being Single in Georgian England: Families, Households, and the Unmarried (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Amy Harris is the first book-length exploration of what family life looked like, and …

Economic and Business History November 20, 2023

Networks, Innovation, and Knowledge: the North Staffordshire Potteries, 1750-1851

Joe Lane

Hosted by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the industrial district of the North Staffordshire Potteries dominated the British earthenware industry, producing local goods that sold in global markets. Over this time …

American Studies November 19, 2023

The Liberty to Take Fish

Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America

Thomas Blake Earle

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In The Liberty to Take Fish: Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. Thomas Blake Earle offers an incisive and nuanced history of the …

Science, Technology, and Society November 18, 2023

The Switch

An Off and On History of Digital Humans

Jason Puskar

Hosted by Nathan Moore

From the telegraph to the touchscreen, how the development of binary switching transformed everyday life and changed the shape of human agency. The Switch: An Off and On History of …

High Theory November 17, 2023

Plantationocene

A Discussion with Neil Safier

Neil Safier

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu

In this episode of High Theory, Neil Safier talks with us about the Plantationocene, a geological epoch that traces the effects of climate change to the historical systems of human …