New Books Network
British Studies
Gender Studies October 22, 2021

Portraits of Wollstonecraft

Eileen Hunt Botting

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Eileen Hunt Botting is a Professor political science at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Botting is a widely published and cited scholar on the thought of Mary Wollstonecraft, the …

British Studies

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Interviews with scholars of the United Kingdom about their new books.

British Studies October 22, 2021

Shakespearean

On Life and Language in Times of Disruption

Robert McCrum

Hosted by Joseph Krulder
When inspiration struck Robert McCrum to write a book about the Bard, it came while watching one of the playwright’s plays in Central Park, New York. Here, McCrum realized that …
Critical Theory October 21, 2021

The Care Crisis

What Caused It and How Can We End It?

Emma Dowling

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What is the future of care? In The Care Crisis: What Caused It and How Can We End It? (Verso, 2021),  Emma Dowling, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, University …
Performing Arts October 19, 2021

Chartist Drama

Gregory Vargo

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Greg Vargo's Chartist Drama (Manchester UP, 2021) opens a window into a fascinating aspect of working-class radical drama. This book includes scripts of four dramas performed or published by members …
General History October 18, 2021

Rebirth of the English Comic Strip

A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870

David Kunzle

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870 (UP of Mississippi, 2021) enters deep into an era of comic history that has been entirely neglected. This buried cache of mid-Victorian …
Geography October 15, 2021

Extraction Ecologies and the Literature of the Long Exhaustion

Elizabeth Carolyn Miller

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
The 1830s to the 1930s saw the rise of large-scale industrial mining in the British imperial world. Elizabeth Carolyn Miller examines how literature of this era reckoned with a new …
General History October 14, 2021

Imperial Nostalgia

How the British Conquered Themselves

Peter Mitchell

Hosted by Michael Vann
With Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves (Manchester UP, 2020) Peter Mitchell offers a “history of the present”. That is to say, it is not a narrative of how we got …
Mobilities and Methods October 13, 2021

Capital Development

Mandate Era Amman and the Construction of the Hashemite State (1921-1946)

Harrison Guthorn

Hosted by Josephine Chaet
Amman, the capital of Jordan, contends with a crisis of identity rooted in how it grew to become a symbol for the Anglo-Hashemite government first, and a city second. As …
Asian Review of Books October 7, 2021

The Shogun's Silver Telescope

God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625

Timon Screech

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
An English mission to Japan arrives in 1613 with all the standard English commodities, including wool and cloth: which the English hope to trade for Japanese silver. But there’s a …
General History September 30, 2021

Plotting for Peace

American Peacemakers, British Codebreakers, and Britain at War, 1914–1917

Daniel Larsen

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
With Britain by late 1916 facing the prospect of an economic crisis and increasingly dependent on the US, rival factions in Asquith's government battled over whether or not to seek …
General History September 29, 2021

Trading with the Enemy

Britain, France, and the 18th-Century Quest for a Peaceful World Order

John Shovlin

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Britain and France waged war eight times in the century following the Glorious Revolution, a mutual antagonism long regarded as a "Second Hundred Years' War." Yet officials on both sides …
General History September 27, 2021

Yugoslavia in the British Imagination

Peace, War and Peasants Before Tito

Samuel Foster

Hosted by Vladislav Lilic
Despite Britain's entering the 20th century as the dominant world power, its public discourses were imbued with cultural pessimism and rising social anxiety. Samuel Foster is a Visiting Academic at the …
British Studies September 21, 2021

Sensitive Negotiations

Indigenous Diplomacy and British Romantic Poetry

Nikki Hessell

Hosted by Charles Prior
Diplomatic relationships between Indigenous sovereigns and colonial and settler governments were defined by language. In some cases, cultural divides were narrowed using common metaphors. In others, objects such as wampum …
Christian Studies September 20, 2021

The Clergy in Early Modern Scotland

Chris R. Langley, Catherine E. McMillan, and Russell Newton

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
The Clergy in Early Modern Scotland (Boydell Press, 2021), edited by  Chris R. Langley, Catherine E. McMillan and Russell Newton, is an outstanding and agenda-setting volume that puts the experience …
Intellectual History September 17, 2021

Aesthetic Science

Representing Nature in the Royal Society of London, 1650-1720

Alexander Wragge-Morley

Hosted by Alexandra Ortolja-Baird
The scientists affiliated with the early Royal Society of London have long been regarded as forerunners of modern empiricism, rejecting the symbolic and moral goals of Renaissance natural history in …
Intellectual History September 15, 2021

Wollstonecraft

Philosophy, Passion, and Politics

Sylvana Tomaselli

Hosted by Tejas Parasher
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, first published in 1792, is a work of enduring relevance in women’s rights advocacy. However, as Sylvana Tomaselli shows, a full …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast September 15, 2021

Capturing Genius: Editing Isaiah Berlin

A Conversation with Henry Hardy

Henry Hardy

Hosted by Howard Burton
Howard talks to Henry Hardy, Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford, and the author of In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure about the many joys—and occasional frustrations—of …
Critical Theory September 15, 2021

Trade and Nation

How Companies and Politics Reshaped Economic Thought

Emily Erikson

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How can ideas from sociology help us understand history and economics? In Trade and Nation: How Companies and Politics Reshaped Economic Thought (Columbia UP, 2021), Emily Erikson, Associate Professor of …
Asian Review of Books September 9, 2021

Alexandria

The Quest for the Lost City

Edmund Richardson

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The story of Alexander the Great has inspired conquerors and would-be conquerors throughout history. Alexander’s sweep through the Middle East and Central Asia left behind evidence of his mark on …
Environmental Studies September 7, 2021

Tea Environments and Plantation Culture

Imperial Disarray in Eastern India

Arnab Dey

Hosted by Mohamed Gamal-Eldin
In Tea Environments and Plantation Culture: Imperial Disarray in Eastern India (Cambridge UP, 2021), Arnab Dey examines the intersecting role of law, ecology, and agricultural sciences in shaping the history of tea …