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General History
Genocide Studies October 3, 2023

Under the Swastika in Nazi Germany

Kristin Semmens

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Under the Swastika in Nazi Germany (Bloomsbury, 2023) begins in flames in 1933 with Adolf Hitler taking power and ends in the ashes of total defeat in 1945. Kristin Semmens …

General History

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Interviews with historians about their new books.

Chinese Studies October 3, 2023

The Future of China's Past

Reflections on the Meaning of China's Rise

Albert Welter

Hosted by Shu Wan
Albert Welter's book The Future of China's Past: Reflections on the Meaning of China's Rise (SUNY Press, 2023) examines how China's traditional culture is being reinvented and manipulated for political purposes …
General History October 3, 2023

A Man of Two Faces

A Memoir, a History, a Memorial

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Hosted by Michael Vann
With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023), Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his …
Women's History October 3, 2023

Yours, for Probably Always

Martha Gellhorn's Letters of Love and War 1930-1949

Janet Somerville

Hosted by Jane Scimeca
Before email, when long distance telephone calls were difficult and expensive, people wrote letters, often several each day. Today, those letters provide an intimate and revealing look at the lives …
General History October 3, 2023

Extremely Online

The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet

Taylor Lorenz

Hosted by Michael Vann
Acclaimed Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz presents a groundbreaking social history of the internet—revealing how online influence and the creators who amass it have reshaped our world, online and off …
General History October 2, 2023

A Brief History of the Pacific

The Great Ocean

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
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Jeremy Black's A Brief History of the Pacific: The Great Ocean (Robinson, 2023) succeeds in examining both the indigenous presence on ocean's islands and Western control or influence over the …
African Studies October 2, 2023

History of South Africa

From 1902 to the Present

Thula Simpson

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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South Africa was born in war, has been cursed by crises and ruptures, and today stands on a precipice once again. Thula Simpson's History of South Africa: From 1902 to …
General History October 2, 2023

The Edwin Fox

How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914

Boyd Cothran and Adrian Shubert

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
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It began as a small, slow, and unadorned sailing vessel—in a word, ordinary. Later, it was a weary workhorse in the age of steam. But the story of the Edwin …
Literary Studies October 1, 2023

Workshops of Empire

Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War

Eric Bennett

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
During and just after World War II, an influential group of American writers and intellectuals projected a vision for literature that would save the free world. Novels, stories, plays, and …
Russian and Eurasian Studies October 1, 2023

Moscow's Heavy Shadow

The Violent Collapse of the USSR

Isaac McKean Scarborough

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Moscow's Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. Isaac Mckean Scarborough tells the story of the collapse of the USSR from the perspective …
Genocide Studies October 1, 2023

Supreme Courts Under Nazi Occupation

Derk Venema

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Derk Venema's edited volume Supreme Courts Under Nazi Occupation (Amsterdam UP, 2022) is the first extensive treatment of leading judicial institutions under Nazi rule in WWII. It focusses on all democratic …
African American Studies October 1, 2023

Black Female Intellectuals in 19th Century America

Born to Bloom Unseen?

Rebecca J. Fraser

Hosted by Katrina Anderson
Drawing on letters, personal testimony, works of art, novels, and historic Black newspapers, this book is an interdisciplinary exploration of Black women’s contributions to the intellectual life of nineteenth-century America …
Literary Studies September 30, 2023

Possible Knowledge

The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science

Debapriya Sarkar

Hosted by John Yargo
Debapriya Sarkar’s new book, titled Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) is a study of how poets and philosophers took up the “the possible” as …
Medieval History September 30, 2023

Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World

Michelle Karnes

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also in the period’s philosophical writing. Rather …
General History September 30, 2023

Political Disappointment

A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis

Sara Marcus

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Moving from the aftermath of Reconstruction through the AIDS crisis, a new cultural history of the United States shows how artists, intellectuals, and activists turned political disappointment--the unfulfilled desire for …
Jewish Studies September 29, 2023

The Unknown History of Jewish Women Through the Ages

On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty

Rachel Elior

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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Rachel Elior's book The Unknown History of Jewish Women: On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty (de Gruyter, 2023) is a comprehensive study on the history of Jewish women, which discusses their …
African American Studies September 28, 2023

Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America

Revolution, Race and Popular Performance

Peter Reed

Hosted by Katrina Anderson
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American culture maintained a complicated relationship with Haiti from its revolutionary beginnings onward. In Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America: Revolution, Race and Popular Performance (Cambridge UP, 2022), Peter P. Reed …
Canadian Studies September 28, 2023

Gifts from Amin

Ugandan Asian Refugees in Canada

Shezan Muhammedi

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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In August 1972, military leader and despot Idi Amin expelled Asian Ugandans from the country, professing to return control of the economy to "Ugandan citizens." Within ninety days, 50,000 Ugandans …
Australian and New Zealand Studies September 28, 2023

Blood and Dirt

Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand

Jared Davidson

Hosted by Ed Amon
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Picture, for a minute, every artwork of colonial New Zealand you can think of. Now add a chain gang. Hard-labour men guarded by other men with guns. Men moving heavy …
Asian Review of Books September 28, 2023

Sovereigns of the Sea

Omani Ambition in the Age of Empire

Seema Alavi

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
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It’s one of the strange artifacts of history that Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, was once controlled by the Sultanate of Oman. In 1832, then Sultan Sayyid Saïd bin …