New Books Network
British Studies
South Asian Studies July 28, 2021

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750

David Veevers

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. In The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600-1750 (Cambridge University …

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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 …
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 …
Irish Studies July 23, 2021

Derry City

Memory and Political Struggle in Northern Ireland

Margo Shea

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
The city that sits on the River Foyle on the North side of the Irish isle in many ways has stood as a microcosm of the conflicts in Northern Ireland …
General History July 21, 2021

Sheer Misery

Soldiers in Battle in WWII

Mary Louise Roberts

Hosted by Douglas Bell
Marching across occupied France in 1944, American GI Leroy Stewart had neither death nor glory on his mind: he was worried about his underwear. "I ran into a new problem …
Literary Studies July 15, 2021

Dweller in Shadows

A Life of Ivor Gurney

Kate Kennedy

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
The First World War poet and composer Ivor Gurney (1890–1937) spent the last fifteen years of his life confined in a Kent mental hospital before dying prematurely of tuberculosis. How good was Gurney's war poetry …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast July 15, 2021

Émigrés

French Words That Turned English

Richard Scholar

Hosted by Marshall Poe
English has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. French words and phrases—such as à la mode, ennui, naïveté and caprice—lend English a certain je-ne-sais-quoi …
Asian Review of Books July 15, 2021

Midnight's Borders

A People's History of Modern India

Suchitra Vijayan

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Borders are “important”: they define, in legal terms, who we are, our identity, and our rights. Except borders are rarely imposed with any thought to the people actually living there …
Art July 9, 2021

Painting by Numbers

Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art

Diana Seave Greenwald

Hosted by Allison Leigh
Painting by Numbers: Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art (Princeton UP, 2021) presents a groundbreaking blend of art historical and social scientific methods to chart, for the first time, the sheer …
General History July 9, 2021

The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918

Nick Lloyd

Hosted by Douglas Bell
The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most …
Indian Religions July 8, 2021

Print and the Urdu Public

Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life in Colonial India

Megan Eaton Robb

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
In early twentieth century British India, prior to the arrival of digital medias and after the rise of nationalist political movements, a small-town paper from the margins of society became …
Gender Studies July 6, 2021

Out of Time

The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality

Rahul Rao

Hosted by Isabel Machado
Between 2009 and 2014, an anti-homosexuality law circulating in the Ugandan parliament came to be the focus of a global conversation about queer rights. The law attracted attention for the …
General History July 6, 2021

Empire Ascendant

The British World, Race, and the Rise of Japan, 1894-1914

Cees Heere

Hosted by Mark Klobas
In signing an alliance with Japan in 1902 Great Britain sought to strengthen its position in eastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Yet this relationship was not a bilateral one …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 5, 2021

Papermaking Traditions, East and West

A Discussion with Timo Särkkä

Timo Särkkä

Hosted by Satoko Naito
Our relationship to paper and paper products is changing every day. Fewer newspapers and magazines are in print, but growing dependence on online retail has increased demand for cardboard packaging …
Gender Studies June 30, 2021

Debating Women

Gender, Education, and Spaces for Argument, 1835-1945

Carly S. Woods

Hosted by Lee Pierce
Spanning a historical period that begins with women’s exclusion from university debates and continues through their participation in coeducational intercollegiate competitions, Debating Women: Gender, Education, and Spaces for Argument, 1835-1945 (Michigan …
Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work June 30, 2021

Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens

Commercial Sex in London, 1885-1960

J. Laite

Hosted by Rachel Stuart
Between 1885 and 1960, laws and policies designed to repress prostitution dramatically shaped London's commercial sex industry. J. Laite's book Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London, 1885-1960 (Palgrave …
European Studies June 30, 2021

Brexit Unfolded

How No One Got What They Wanted (and Why They Were Never Going To)

Christopher Grey

Hosted by Tim Jones
In 2020-21, the UK left first the EU and then the 30-nation European Economic Area. Much of the impact has been masked by the coronavirus pandemic but, as that lifts …
Critical Theory June 29, 2021

The Business of Birth Control

Contraception and Commerce in Britain before the Sexual Revolution

Claire L. Jones

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How does understanding business help us understand sex? In The Business of Birth Control: Contraception and Commerce in Britain before the Sexual Revolution (Manchester UP, 2020), Claire Jones, a Senior …
Secularism June 28, 2021

Godless Fictions in the Eighteenth Century

A Literary History of Atheism

James Reeves

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
Although there were no self-avowed British atheists before the 1780s, authors including Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Sarah Fielding, Phebe Gibbes, and William Cowper worried extensively about atheism's dystopian possibilities and …
General History June 24, 2021

The Road Less Traveled

The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917

Philip Zelikow

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
During a pivotal few months in the middle of the First World War all sides-Germany, Britain, and America-believed the war could be concluded. Peace at the end of 1916 would …