Listen to Owen Bennett-Jones discuss the future of opinion polls with Mark Pack

New Books Network
Economic and Business History
General History May 23, 2022

Oceans of Grain

How American Wheat Remade the World

Scott Reynolds Nelson

Hosted by Albert Zambone
Grain traders wandering across the steppe; the Russian conquest of Ukraine (in the 18th century, that is); boulevard barons and wheat futures; railroads; the first fast food breakfast; and war …

Economic and Business History

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Interviews with scholars of economic and business history about their new books.

Economics May 18, 2022

Streets of Gold

America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success

Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood, topics in American social discourse—yet, in most cases, the things we believe about immigration are based largely on myth …
General History May 17, 2022

Globalizing Automobilism

Exuberance and the Emergence of Layered Mobility, 1900–1980

Gijs Mom

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Why has "car society" proven so durable, even in the face of mounting environmental and economic crises? In Globalizing Automobilism: Exuberance and the Emergence of Layered Mobility, 1900–1980 (Berghahn Books …
Science, Technology, and Society May 16, 2022

Four Shades of Gray

The Amazon Kindle Platform

Simon Peter Rowberry

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle Platform (MIT Press, 2022) is the first book-length analysis of Amazon's Kindle explores the platform's technological, bibliographical, and social impact on publishing. Dr …
Economic and Business History May 16, 2022

A Brief History of Equality

Thomas Piketty

Hosted by Javier Mejia
It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to …
Art May 10, 2022

The Problem with Museums

A Conversation with Georgina Adam and Nizan Shaked

Georgina Adam and Nizan Shaked

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
In the past few years, museums of contemporary art have come under a fair deal of scrutiny. Pressures from groups such as Decoloinise This Space or the oxycontin scandal have …
Anthropology May 9, 2022

Collaborative Damage

An Experimental Ethnography of Chinese Globalization

Mikkel Bunkenborg, Morten Nielsen, and Morten Axel Pedersen

Hosted by Adam Bobeck
Collaborative Damage: An Experimental Ethnography of Chinese Globalization (Cornell UP, 2022) is an experimental ethnography of Chinese globalization that compares data from two frontlines of China's global intervention—sub-Saharan Africa and …
Science, Technology, and Society May 9, 2022

Buy Now

How Amazon Branded Convenience and Normalized Monopoly

Emily West

Hosted by Noopur Raval
How Amazon combined branding and relationship marketing with massive distribution infrastructure to become the ultimate service brand in the digital economy. Amazon is ubiquitous in our daily lives—we stream movies …
General History May 6, 2022

The Seventh Member State

Algeria, France, and the European Community

Megan Brown

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community (Harvard University Press, 2022), Dr. Megan Brown details the surprising story of how Algeria joined and then left the …
Asian Review of Books May 5, 2022

Straits

Beyond the Myth of Magellan

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
2019 marked the five-hundred year anniversary of the launch of Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage around the world–a milestone marked by commemorative sailings, museum exhibitions, and a joint submission from Spain and …
Japanese Studies May 4, 2022

A Bowl for a Coin

A Commodity History of Japanese Tea

William Wayne Farris

Hosted by Jingyi Li
A Bowl for a Coin: A Commodity History of Japanese Tea (U Hawaii Press, 2019) is the first book in any language to describe and analyze the history of all Japanese …
Environmental Studies May 3, 2022

The Long Land War

The Global Struggle for Occupancy Rights

Jo Guldi

Hosted by Brian Hamilton
Jo Guldi tells the story of a global struggle to bring food, water, and shelter to all. Land is shown to be a central motor of politics in the twentieth …
African Studies April 29, 2022

An Uneasy Embrace

Africa, India and the Spectre of Race

Shobana Shankar

Hosted by Sara Katz
The entwined histories of Blacks and Indians defy easy explanation. From Ghanaian protests over Gandhi statues to American Vice President Kamala Harris’s story, this relationship—notwithstanding moments of common struggle—seethes with …
Literary Studies April 29, 2022

Underdevelopment and African Literature

Emerging Forms of Reading

Sarah Brouillette

Hosted by Gargi Binju
In Underdevelopment and African Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Sarah Brouillette tackles the print culture and literature in English in South and East Africa. Starting from the period of the …
Women's History April 28, 2022

Building the Population Bomb

Emily Klancher Merchant

Hosted by Nicole Bourbonnais
Across the twentieth century, Earth's human population increased undeniably quickly, rising from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to 6.1 billion in 2000. As population grew, it also began to take …
Human Rights April 27, 2022

Fight Like Hell

The Untold History of American Labor

Kim Kelly

Hosted by Rine Vieth
American fieldworkers rejecting government-sanctioned indentured servitude across the Pacific. Incarcerated workers advocating for basic human rights and fair wages. The queer Black labor leader who helped orchestrate America’s civil rights …
Economic and Business History April 27, 2022

Red Silk

Class, Gender, and Revolution in China's Yangzi Delta Silk Industry

Robert Cliver

Hosted by Ghassan Moazzin
Red Silk: Class, Gender, and Revolution in China's Yangzi Delta Silk Industry (Harvard UP, 2020) is a history of China's Yangzi Delta silk industry during the wars, crises, and revolutions …
Media April 27, 2022

Media Disrupted

Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars

Amanda D. Lotz

Hosted by Gummo Clare
Has the internet really been the main culprit behind the upheaval of the contemporary media industries? In Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars (MIT Press, 2021), Professor Amanda Lotz …
Economic and Business History April 26, 2022

In Defense of Public Debt

Barry Eichengreen et al.

Hosted by Javier Mejia
Public debts have exploded to levels unprecedented in modern history as governments responded to the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis. Their dramatic rise has prompted apocalyptic warnings about the …
French Studies April 25, 2022

The Spirit of French Capitalism

Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment

Charly Coleman

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Charly Coleman's latest book, The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 2021) is at once a history of ideas, the economy, religion, and material …