New Books Network
British Studies
In Conversation: An OUP Podcast May 3, 2021

Love Lives

From Cinderella to Frozen

Carol Dyhouse

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Cinderella stories captured the imagination of girls in the 1950s, when dreams of meeting the right man could seem like a happy ending, a solution to life's problems. But over …

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Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work April 30, 2021

Criminality at Work

Katie Cruz

Hosted by Rachel Stuart
Dr Katie Cruz contributed a chapter titled "The Work of Sex Work: Prostitution, Unfreedom and Criminality at Work" to the book Criminality at Work (Oxford UP, 2020). In this podcast, Dr Cruz talks …
Communications April 28, 2021

Race, Racism and Political Correctness in Comedy

A Psychoanalytic Exploration

Jack Black

Hosted by Lee Pierce
Jack Black, Race, Racism and Political Correctness in Comedy (Routledge 2021). In what ways is comedy subversive? This vital new book critically considers the importance of comedy in challenging and redefining …
National Security April 28, 2021

Behind the Enigma

The Authorized History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency

John Ferris

Hosted by John Sakellariadis
For more than a hundred years, Britain’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, has played a central role in the conduct of British statecraft. But the organization has traditionally operated from the …
Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work April 28, 2021

Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India

Mytheli Sreenivas

Hosted by Rachel Stuart
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, India played a pivotal role in global conversations about population and reproduction. In Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India (University of Washington …
South Asian Studies April 27, 2021

Revolutionary Pasts

Communist Internationalism in Colonial India

Ali Raza

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza reveals the lives, geographies, and anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries and how they sought to …
History April 27, 2021

Strangling the Axis

The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War

Richard Hammond

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
In his new book, Strangling the Axis: The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2020) , Dr. Richard Hammond, Lecturer in War Studies …
History April 27, 2021

The Enlightenment

The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790

Ritchie Robertson

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 (Harper, 2021) is a magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit …
German Studies April 23, 2021

Taking Nazi Technology

Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War

Douglas M. O'Reagan

Hosted by Craig Sorvillo
In his new book Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science After the Second World War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), Douglas O’Reagan describes how the Western Allies gathered teams …
History April 21, 2021

England in the Age of Austen

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
Jeremy Black's new book on England in the Age of Austen, just published by Indiana University Press (2021), will be a treat for anyone who loves Jane - and who does …
History April 14, 2021

Britain and Italy in the Era of the First World War

Defending and Forging Empires

Stefano Marcuzzi

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
This is a reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Dr. Stefano Marcuzzi, Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, tries to shed new …
History April 14, 2021

The Athenaeum

More Than Just Another London Club

Michael Wheeler

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
When it was founded in 1824, the Athenæum broke the mold. Unlike in other preeminent clubs, its members were chosen on the basis of their achievements rather than on their …
History April 14, 2021

A Brief History of Britain 1851-2021

From World Power to ?

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
Jeremy Black, one of the most prolific and punchy of historians of modern Britain, has written a new account of a period on which he has previously published. A Brief …
History April 9, 2021

Resisting Independence

Popular Loyalism in the Revolutionary British Atlantic

Brad A. Jones

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The American Revolution has traditionally been presented as one of the thirteen colonies standing up to a tyrannical empire. Not only does this gloss over the involvement of the thousands …
Indian Ocean World April 8, 2021

Empire of Convicts

Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia

Anand A. Yang

Hosted by Kelvin Ng
Empire of Convicts: Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia (University of California Press, 2021) (University of California Press, 2021) focuses on male and female Indians incarcerated in Southeast Asia …
Gender and Sexuality April 7, 2021

The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm

Intimate Citizenship Regimes in a Changing Europe

Sasha Roseneil and Isabel Crowhurst

Hosted by Jana Byars
Sasha Roseneil, Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science at the Institute of Advanced Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Social and Historical Studies at University College London joins today to …
Literary Studies April 6, 2021

The Shortest Way with Defoe

Robinson Crusoe, Deism, and the Novel

Michael B. Prince

Hosted by Akash Ondaatje
A scholarly and imaginative reconstruction of the voyage Daniel Defoe took from the pillory to literary immortality, The Shortest Way with Defoe: Robinson Crusoe, Deism, and the Novel (University of Virginia Press …
Indian Ocean World April 5, 2021

Fleeting Agencies

A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya

Arunima Datta

Hosted by Kelvin Ng
Fleeting Agencies: A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya (Cambridge UP, 2021) disrupts the male-dominated narratives by focusing on gendered patterns of migration and showing how South …
Critical Theory April 2, 2021

Imperial Encore

The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire

Caroline Ritter

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What role did culture play in the British Empire? In Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire (University of California Press, 2021), Caroline Ritter, an Assistant Professor of …
Australian and New Zealand Studies April 2, 2021

British India, White Australia

Overseas Indians, Intercolonial Relations and the Empire, 1901-1947

Kama Maclean

Hosted by Bede Haines
Commonwealth, curry and cricket: now that explains India and Australia! Not really, and not according to today's guest. Kama Maclean discusses her book British India, White Australia: Overseas Indians, Intercolonial Relations and …