New Books Network

Darts & Letters August 5, 2022

American Chernobyl, Part 2

The Most Poisonous Place in the USA

Hosted by Gordon Katic

Hanford is the most-polluted place in America. In our last episode, you heard about the nuclear plant's largely-forgotten history--how it poisoned the people living downwind. On our season finale: a …

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 …

Writ Large August 5, 2022

On Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"

A Discussion with Elisa New

Elisa New

Hosted by Zachary Davis

“These United States are themselves the greatest poem.” When Walt Whitman wrote this line, he was an unknown Brooklyn newspaper man. But his work would transform American poetry and offer …

Literary Studies August 5, 2022

Spoon River America

Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town

Jason Stacy

Hosted by Daniel Moran

A literary and cultural milestone, Spoon River Anthology captured an idea of the rural Midwest that became a bedrock myth of life in small-town America. Jason Stacy places the book …

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 …

Biography August 4, 2022

The Enigma of Clarence Thomas

Corey Robin

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Most people can tell you two things about Clarence Thomas: Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment, and he almost never speaks from the bench. Here are some things they …

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast August 4, 2022

Nimitz at War

Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay

Craig L. Symonds

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Only days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped Chester W. Nimitz to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz was not the most senior candidate …

Anthropology August 4, 2022

Academic Outsider

Stories of Exclusion and Hope

Victoria Reyes

Hosted by Reighan Gillam

In Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope (Stanford University Press, 2022), sociologist Victoria Reyes combines her personal experiences with research findings to examine how academia creates conditional citizenship for its …

Darts & Letters August 4, 2022

America's Chernobyl, Part 1

Living in a Poison Town

Hosted by Gordon Katic

In this episode of Cited: What it means to live in a place where your home can give you cancer. Richland, Washington is a company town that sprang up almost …

Latin American Studies August 3, 2022

The New Pan-Americanism and the Structuring of Inter-American Relations

Juan Pablo Scarfi and David M. K. Sheinin

Hosted by Steven Rodriguez

In The New Pan-Americanism and the Structuring of Inter-American Relations (Routledge, 2022), David Sheinin and Juan Pablo Scarfi bring together articles that reconsider many aspects of U.S.-Latin American history. Pan-Americanism …

General History August 3, 2022

Left in the Center

The Liberal Party of New York and the Rise and Fall of American Social Democracy

Daniel Soyer

Hosted by Robert Snyder

The history of small political parties and the history of the American left are closely intertwined, especially in the book Left in the Center: The Liberal Party of New York …

Education August 3, 2022

Why They Hate Us

How Racist Rhetoric Impacts Education

Lindsay Pérez Huber and Susana M. Muñoz

Hosted by Autumn Wilke

Why They Hate Us: How Racist Rhetoric Impacts Education (Teachers College Press, 2021) examines how racist political rhetoric has created damaging and dangerous conditions for Students of Color in schools …

Darts & Letters August 3, 2022

The Revolution Will Not Be Streamed

The Intellectual Culture of Twitch Streamers

Hosted by Gordon Katic

It was billed as “the biggest event in the history of the terminally online.” A debate: socialism vs. capitalism. On your left side, the esteemed Marxist economist Richard Wolff. On …

Politics & Polemics August 3, 2022

Goliath

The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy

Matt Stoller

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

In Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Matt Stoller explains how authoritarianism and populism have returned to American politics for the first time …

Popular Culture August 3, 2022

Teenage Dreams

Girlhood Sexualities in the U.S. Culture Wars

Charlie Jeffries

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan

Utilizing a breadth of archival sources from activists, artists, and policymakers, Charlie Jeffries' Teenage Dreams: Girlhood Sexualities in the U.S. Culture Wars (Rutgers UP, 2022) examines the race- and class-inflected battles over …

Literary Studies August 3, 2022

Interwar Itineraries

Authenticity in Anglophone and French Travel Writing

Emily O. Wittman

Hosted by Nathan Moore

How people traveled, and how people wrote about travel, changed in the interwar years. Novel technologies eased travel conditions, breeding new iterations of the colonizing gaze. The sense that another …

Education August 3, 2022

Other People's Colleges

The Origins of American Higher Education Reform

Ethan W. Ris

Hosted by Joao Souto-Maior

For well over one hundred years, people have been attempting to make American colleges and universities more efficient and more accountable. Indeed, Ethan Ris argues in Other People's Colleges: The …

Darts & Letters August 2, 2022

Socialise the Series of Tubes

Toward a Democratic Internet

Ben Tarnoff

Hosted by Gordon Katic

Recently a major outage took nearly a third of Canada offline. No phone, no internet… even access to 911 got shut down in some places. So why does one company …

General History August 2, 2022

The King's Peace

Law and Order in the British Empire

Lisa Ford

Hosted by Vladislav Lilic

Dr. Lisa Ford, Professor of History at the University of New South Wales, is the author of prize-winning monographs and a luminary in the field of global legal history. Her new …

Intellectual History August 1, 2022

Social Science for What? (Part 2 of 2)

Battles over Public Funding for the “Other Sciences” at the National Science Foundation

Mark Solovey

Hosted by Keith Krueger

This is part two of a two part interview. Mark Solovey’s Social Science for What? is essential reading for anyone in either the history of science policy or the history of …