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General History
General History August 9, 2022

The Literacy Myth

Cultural Integration and Social Structure in the Nineteenth Century

Harvey J. Graff

Hosted by Nathan Moore
Harvey Graff's pioneering study presents a new and original interpretation of the place of literacy in nineteenth-century society and culture. Based upon an intensive comparative historical analysis, employing both qualitative …

General History

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Interviews with historians about their new books.

Environmental Studies August 9, 2022

Encountering Water in Early Modern Europe and Beyond

Redefining the Universe Through Natural Philosophy, Religious Reformations, and Sea Voyaging

Lindsay Starkey

Hosted by Aspen Brown
What is holding the oceans back from entirely flooding the earth? While a twenty-first century thinker may approach the answer to this question within a framework of gravity and geologic deep-time, Lindsay Starkey …
Medicine August 9, 2022

Building Schools, Making Doctors

Architecture and the Modern American Physician

Katherine L. Carroll

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
In the late nineteenth century, medical educators intent on transforming American physicians into scientifically trained, elite professionals recognized the value of medical school design for their reform efforts. Between 189 …
East Asian Studies August 9, 2022

Opportunity in Crisis

Cantonese Migrants and the State in Late Qing China

Steven B. Miles

Hosted by Huiying Chen
Opportunity in Crisis: Cantonese Migrants and the State in Late Qing China (Harvard UP, 2021) explores the history of late Qing Cantonese migration along the West River basin during war and …
Interpretive Political and Social Science August 9, 2022

Mobilizing in Uncertainty

Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia

Anastasia Shesterinina

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Anastasia Shesterinina begins Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia (Cornell University Press, 2021) with an account of Georgian troops crossing into eastern Abkhazia, in the Southern Caucasus …
Film August 8, 2022

Hollywood Sports Movies and the American Dream

Grant Wiedenfeld

Hosted by Annie Berke
Through the heart of Hollywood cinema runs a surprising current of progressive politics. Sports movies, a genre that has flourished since the mid-seventies, evoke the American dream and represent the …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast August 8, 2022

Sonorous Desert

What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks—and What It Can Teach Us

Kim Haines-Eitzen

Hosted by Mark Klobas
For the hermits and communal monks of antiquity, the desert was a place to flee the cacophony of ordinary life in order to hear and contemplate the voice of God …
African American Studies August 8, 2022

Riding Jane Crow

African American Women on the American Railroad

Miriam Thaggert

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Miriam Thaggert illuminates the stories of African American women as passengers and as workers on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century railroad. As Jim Crow laws became more prevalent and forced Black …
Jewish Studies August 8, 2022

The Idea of 'Israel' in Second Temple Judaism

A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity

Jason A. Staples

Hosted by Michael Morales
How did the concept of Israel impact early Jewish apocalyptic hopes of restoration? How diverse was Israelite identity in antiquity? Tune in as we talk with Jason A. Staples about …
Diplomatic History August 8, 2022

China's European Headquarters

Switzerland and China During the Cold War

Ariane Knüsel

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
During the Cold War, the People's Republic of China used Switzerland as headquarters for its economic, political, intelligence, and cultural networks in Europe. Based on extensive research in Western and …
French Studies August 8, 2022

Toxique

Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie

Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
What happens when you bring together an important collection of previously secret archival documents dealing with France's nuclear detonations in the Pacific from 1966 to 1996, a nuclear scientist, and …
Popular Culture August 8, 2022

A Woman's Place Is in the Brewhouse

A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and Ceos

Tara Nurin

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
Tara Nurin explores women in all aspects of the brewing industry in A Women's Place is in the Brewhouse (Chicago Review Press, 2021). Women have brewed beer throughout most of human history. Their …
General History August 5, 2022

The Last Witches of England

A Tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition

John Callow

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and …
American Studies August 5, 2022

Living the Dream

The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Daniel T. Fleming

Hosted by James West
Living the Dream: The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day (UNC Press, 2022) tells the history behind the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the battle …
General History August 5, 2022

Australia in the Age of International Development, 1945–1975

Colonial and Foreign Aid Policy in Papua New Guinea and Southeast Asia

Nicholas Ferns

Hosted by Bernard Keo
In the voluminous literature on the history of modernisation theory and its associated concept of development since the end of World War II, much of the focus lies on the …
General History August 5, 2022

The Memory of Colonialism in Britain and France

The Sins of Silence

Itay Lotem

Hosted by Michael Vann
In The Memory of Colonialism in Britain and France: The Sins of Silence (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021), Itay Lotem explores the remembering of empire in Britain and France. By comparing these two former …
Military History August 5, 2022

The Castle

A History

John Goodall

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In The Castle: A History (Yale University Press, 2022) Dr. John Goodall presents a vibrant history of the castle in Britain, from the early Middle Ages to the present day …
Japanese Studies August 5, 2022

Middlemen of Modernity

Local Elites and Agricultural Development in Meiji Japan

Christopher Craig

Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg
Christopher Craig’s Middlemen of Modernity: Local Elites and Agricultural Development in Meiji Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2021) is a thoroughly research and engaging study of the role of local elites …
Recall This Book August 4, 2022

Dana Stevens on Buster Keaton (JP EF)

Dana Stevens

Hosted by Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
Dana Stevens joins Elizabeth and John to discuss Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema and the Invention of the Twentieth Century. Her fantastic new book serves as occasion …
Asian Review of Books August 4, 2022

Shrimp to Whale

South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop

Ramon Pacheco Pardo

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
If there’s a country that “punches above its weight”, it’s South Korea. It’s home to some of the world’s largest and most important companies, and the source of pop culture …