New Books Network
NBN Book of the Day
Environmental Studies January 25, 2021

Scorched Earth

Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature

Emmanuel Kreike

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
In Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature (Princeton UP, 2021), Emmanuel Kreike offers a global history of environmental warfare and makes the case for why it should be a crime. The environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies has been a target and instrument of war for centuries, resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people’s livelihoods and ways of life. Scorched Earth traces …
Biography January 22, 2021

Poet of Revolution

The Making of John Milton

Nicholas McDowell

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Decades before he wrote his epic work Paradise Lost, John Milton was an active republican and polemicist. How Milton came to espouse such radical views is just one of the …
Political Science January 21, 2021

Amateur Hour

Presidential Character and the Question of Leadership

Lara M. Brown

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Political scientist Lara Brown’s new book, Amateur Hour, is a complex and important multi-method study of the presidency, starting from the original conception of the office at the constitutional convention …
Performing Arts January 20, 2021

This Is Not My Memoir

André Gregory and Todd London

Hosted by Andy Boyd
André Gregory's not-memoir This Is Not My Memoir (FSG, 2020) is a fascinating trip through theatre history as seen through the eyes of one of its greatest directors. The André we …
Medicine January 19, 2021

Science Under Fire

Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America

Andrew Jewett

Hosted by Claire Clark
Americans today are often skeptical of scientific authority. Many conservatives dismiss climate change and Darwinism as liberal fictions, arguing that "tenured radicals" have coopted the sciences and other disciplines. Some …
Systems and Cybernetics January 18, 2021

Network Origins of the Global Economy

East vs. West in a Complex Systems Perspective

Hilton L. Root

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Twenty-eight years after Francis Fukuyama declared the “end of history” and pronounced Western-style liberalism as the culmination of a Hegelian narrative of progress, pundits and academics of all stripes find …
Critical Theory January 15, 2021

A Critical Legal Examination of Liberalism and Liberal Rights

Matthew McManus

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The tradition of political liberalism has a long and complicated history, filled with twists, turns, critiques and responses that have filled books, essays and lectures for several centuries now. Questions …
Political Science January 14, 2021

Transforming Prejudice

Identity, Fear, and Transgender Rights

Melissa R. Michelson and Brian F. Harrison

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Melissa Michelson and Brian Harrison, co-authors of the book Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes about LGBT Rights (Oxford University Press, 2017), which focused on how people …
Science January 13, 2021

A Natural History of Color

The Science Behind What We See and How We See it

Rob DeSalle

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Is color a phenomenon of science or a thing of art? Over the years, color has dazzled, enhanced, and clarified the world we see, embraced through the experimental palettes of …
Performing Arts January 12, 2021

Sailor Song

The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas

Gerry Smyth

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Sailor Song: The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas (University of Washington Press, 2020) by performer and scholar Gerry Smyth includes lyrics and commentary for dozens of sea shanties, as well …
Philosophy January 11, 2021

Wild Animal Ethics

The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering

Kyle Johannsen

Hosted by Carrie Figdor
Many sentient (or possibly sentient) wild animals follow a reproductive strategy whereby they have large numbers of offspring, the vast majority of which suffer and die quickly or suffer and …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel January 8, 2021

The Tyranny of Merit

What's Become of the Common Good?

Michael J. Sandel

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and …
Middle Eastern Studies January 7, 2021

The Sword is Not Enough

Arabs, Israelis, and the Limits of Military Force

Jeremy Pressman

Hosted by Aaron Hagler
Jeremy Pressman is Associate Professor of Political Science and the Director of Middle East Studies at the University of Connecticut. Jeremy is the author of The Sword is Not Enough …
National Security January 6, 2021

American Zealots

Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism

Arie Perliger

Hosted by Beth Windisch
In an unsettling time in American history, the outbreak of right-wing violence is among the most disturbing developments. In recent years, attacks originating from the far right of American politics …
Science, Technology, and Society January 5, 2021

The Empire of Depression

A New History

Jonathan Sadowsky

Hosted by Chad Valasek
When is sorrow sickness? That is the question that this book asks, exploring how our understandings of sadness, melancholy, depression, mania and anxiety have changed over time, and how societies …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast January 4, 2021

Can we Bring Extinct Species Back?

A Conversation with Beth Shapiro

Beth Shapiro

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? The science says yes. In How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction (Princeton UP, 2020), Beth Shapiro …
Political Science December 31, 2020

Queer Alliances

How Power Shapes Political Movement Formation

Erin Mayo-Adam

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Queer Alliances: How Power Shapes Political Movement Formation (Stanford UP, 2020) examines not only the policies that political movements advocate for, and those that are achieved, but the research pays …
Politics & Polemics December 30, 2020

Levers of Power

How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It

Kevin A. Young, Tarun Banerjee, and Michael Schwartz

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
It is often assumed that American politics is dominated by financial elites and the 1%, who use their massive wealth to gain power and influence, pushing for legislation that benefits …
German Studies December 29, 2020

A Demon-Haunted Land

Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post–WWII Germany

Monica Black

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In the aftermath of World War II, a succession of mass supernatural events swept through a war-torn Germany. As millions were afflicted by a host of seemingly incurable maladies (including …
Politics & Polemics December 28, 2020

War for Eternity

Inside Bannon's Far-right Circle of Global Power Brokers

Benjamin R. Teitelbaum

Hosted by Kirk Meighoo
An explosive and unprecedented inside look at Steve Bannon's entourage of global powerbrokers and the hidden alliances shaping today's geopolitical upheaval. In 2015, Bloomberg News named Steve Bannon “the most …