New Books Network
Intellectual History
Islamic Studies July 30, 2021

The Emperor Who Never Was

Dara Shukoh in Mughal India

Supriya Gandhi

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In her magnificent and lyrical new book, The Emperor Who Never Was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India (Harvard UP, 2020), Supriya Gandhi reorients and adds unprecedented depth to our understanding of …

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General History July 30, 2021

The Persistence of Party

Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Max Skjönsberg

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
Political parties are taken for granted today, but how was the idea of party viewed in the eighteenth century, when core components of modern, representative politics were trialled? From Bolingbroke …
Intellectual History July 30, 2021

Of Thee I Sing

The Contested History of American Patriotism

Ben Railton

Hosted by Hettie V. Williams
Ben Railton's book Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) is a cogently written history of the idea of American patriotism. Railton argues that there …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast July 28, 2021

The Two Cultures, Revisited

Stefan Collini

Hosted by Howard Burton
The ‘Two Cultures’ debate of the 1960s between C.P. Snow and F.R. Leavis is one of the most misunderstood intellectual disputes of the 20th century. Most people think that the …
African Studies July 28, 2021

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Christopher J. Lee

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
Kwame Anthony Appiah is among the most respected philosophers and thinkers of his generation. In Kwame Anthony Appiah (Routledge, 2021), Christopher Lee introduces the reader not only to the contributions …
Middle Eastern Studies July 28, 2021

Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography

The Futuh Al-Buldan of Al-Baladhuri

Ryan J. Lynch

Hosted by Christopher Rose
Of the available sources for Islamic history published before the 9th century of the Christian Era, few are of greater importance than Kitab Futuh al-Buldan (The Book of the Conquest …
Anthropology July 28, 2021

Boasians at War

Anthropology, Race, and World War II

Anthony Q. Hazard

Hosted by Alex Golub
The realities of race that continue to plague the United States have direct ties to the anthropology. Anthropologists often imagine their discipline as inherently anti-racist and historically connected to …
Archaeology July 27, 2021

Olga Tufnell’s 'Perfect Journey'

Letters and Photographs of an Archaeologist in the Levant and Mediterranean

John D.M. Green and Ros Henry

Hosted by Samuel Pfister
Olga Tufnell (1905–85) was a British archaeologist working in Egypt, Cyprus, and Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s, a period often described as a golden age of archaeological discovery. Tufnell …
Jewish Studies July 27, 2021

Nahmanides

Law and Mysticism

Moshe Halbertal

Hosted by Michael Morales
Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (1194–1270), known in English as Nahmanides and by the acronym the Ramban, was one of the most creative kabbalists, one of the deepest and most original …
General History July 27, 2021

The Culture of Dissent in Restoration England

The Wonders of the Lord

George Southcombe

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
After over a decade of king-less government, civil war, and political and religious revolution, the restoration of the Stuart monarchy created a complex situation for those religious dissenters who had enjoyed …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast July 27, 2021

Constitutional Investigations

Linda Colley

Hosted by Howard Burton
Constitutional Investigations is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Linda Colley, the Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University. Linda Colley is a …
Critical Theory July 26, 2021

Crises and Hegemonic Transitions

From Gramsci's Quaderni to the Contemporary World Economy

Lorenzo Fusaro

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is often invoked, but usually as a means of cultural critique and analysis. However, my guest Lorenzo Fusaro argues in his recent book Crises and Hegemonic …
Intellectual History July 26, 2021

Canaan, Dim and Far

Black Reformers and the Pursuit of Citizenship in Pittsburgh, 1915-1945

Adam Lee Cilli

Hosted by Hettie V. Williams
Adam Lee Cilli's book Canaan, Dim and Far: Black Reformers and the Pursuit of Citizenship in Pittsburgh, 1915-1945 (U Georgia Press, 2021) is an assiduously researched book about the activism of …
Intellectual History July 26, 2021

Speculation

A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI

Gayle Rogers

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
In a world that purports to know more about the future than any before it, why do we still need speculation? Insubstantial speculations – from utopian thinking to high-risk stock …
Language July 26, 2021

No Future in This Country

The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry Mcneal Turner

Andre E. Johnson

Hosted by Lee Pierce
No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (U Mississippi Press, 2020) is a history of the career of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834–1915), specifically focusing …
Gender Studies July 23, 2021

Beauvoir in Time

Meryl Altman

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Meryl Altman's new book Beauvoir in Time, published by Brill Rodopi Press (2020), situates Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) in its historical context and responds to criticism that …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast July 23, 2021

Embracing Complexity

David Cannadine

Hosted by Howard Burton
Embracing Complexity is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and eminent historian David Cannadine, Princeton University. This thoughtful conversation includes an examination of different aspects of the …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast July 22, 2021

Plato’s Heaven

A User’s Guide

James Robert Brown

Hosted by Howard Burton
Plato’s Heaven: A User’s Guide is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and James Robert Brown, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. This wide-ranging …
European Studies July 21, 2021

Ordoliberalism and European Economic Policy

Between Realpolitik and Economic Utopia

Malte Dold and Tim Krieger

Hosted by Tim Jones
Once described as a “German oddity”†, Ordoliberalism was one of a number of new liberalisms that emerged from the political maelstrom of the interwar period. But, unlike the other neoliberal …
Anthropology July 21, 2021

Finding Afro-Mexico

Race and Nation after the Revolution

Theodore W. Cohen

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Finding Afro-Mexico: Race and Nation after the Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Theodore Cohen examines the ways in which different protagonists sought to incorporate Blackness into Mexican national identity …