New Books Network
British Studies
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 …

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Intellectual History January 19, 2021

Forms, Formats and the Circulation of Knowledge

British Printscape’s Innovations, 1688-1832

Louisiane Ferlier and Benedicte Miyamoto

Hosted by Alexandra Ortolja-Baird
Forms, Formats and the Circulation of Knowledge: British Printscape’s Innovations, 1688-1832 (Brill, 2020) explores the printscape – the mental mapping of knowledge in all its printed shapes – to chart the …
Military History January 18, 2021

Britain's War

A New World, 1942-1947

Daniel Todman

Hosted by Bob Wintermute
The second of Daniel Todman's two sweeping volumes on Great Britain and World War II, Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947 (Oxford UP, 2020), begins with the event Winston Churchill called …
LGBTQ+ Studies January 4, 2021

Female Husbands

A Trans History

Jen Manion

Hosted by Leo Valdes
Long before people identified as transgender or lesbian, there were female husbands and the women who loved them. Female husbands - people assigned female who transed gender, lived as men …
British Studies December 28, 2020

Occupied America

British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution

Donald F. Johnson

Hosted by Charles Prior
When we read the Declaration of Independence, what tends to jump off the page are the lofty propositions concerning natural rights. Yet over a third of the brief document is …
History December 23, 2020

The Triumph of the Moon

A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft

Ronald Hutton

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today we speak to Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom about the twentieth anniversary, and concomitant reissue, of the extremely important The …
Popular Culture December 23, 2020

Modern Music Masters - Oasis

Almost Everything You Wanted to Know about Oasis, and Some Stuff You Didn't...

Tom Boniface-Webb

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In the first book in the Modern Music Masters series, Tom Boniface-Webb examines the Manchester band Modern Music Masters-Oasis (MMM, 2020). Founded in 1994 and playing together until their spectacular and abrupt …
Military History December 22, 2020

The Gallipoli Evacuation

Peter Hart

Hosted by Bob Wintermute
One of the most well-told episodes of the First World War, the 1915 Gallipoli expedition, also has its own long-ignored aspects - specifically, the story of how the Allied force …
Critical Theory December 18, 2020

Shakespearean Territories

Stuart Elden

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What can Shakespeare tell us about territory, and what can territory tell us about Shakespeare? In Shakespearean Territories (University of Chicago Press, 2018), Stuart Elden, Professor of Political Theory and Geography at …
History December 17, 2020

Time's Monster

How History Makes History

Priya Satia

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
How we see the past helps shape our understanding of the present. In the realm of statecraft and empire, understandings of the meaning of history, the progression of time, and …
European Studies December 15, 2020

Project Europe

A History

Kiran Klaus Patel

Hosted by Tim Jones
Project Europe made waves when it was published in German in 2018 (CH Beck) and was soon translated into English as Project Europe: A History (Cambridge UP, 2020). A clue to …
Music December 14, 2020

How Belfast Got the Blues

A Cultural History of Popular Music in The 1960s

Noel Mclaughlin and Joanna Braniff

Hosted by Kristen Turner
There is no shortage of books about the British Invasion or the history of R&B and the Blues in the United Kingdom. Belfast might seem like something of a peripheral …
History December 8, 2020

John Poyer, the Civil Wars in Pembrokeshire and the British Revolutions

Lloyd Bowen

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
Lloyd Bowen, who teaches history at Cardiff University, is a leading authority on Wales in the seventeenth century. His latest book, John Poyer, the Civil Wars in Pembrokeshire and the British …
British Studies December 7, 2020

Imperial Culture and the Sudan

Authorship, Identity and the British Empire

Lia Paradis

Hosted by Charles Prior
In The Empty House, Sherlock Holmes makes a dramatic reappearance in the surgery of his friend Dr Watson. Presumed dead at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls, Holmes recounts his …
History December 4, 2020

Debauched, Desperate, Deranged

Women Who Killed, London 1674-1913

Carolyn A. Conley

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today we speak to Carolyn Conley, Professor Emerita from the University of Alabama – Birmingham, about her new book Debauched, Desperate, Deranged: Women Who Killed, London 1674-1913 (Oxford UP, 2020) …
British Studies December 3, 2020

American States of Nature

The Origins of Independence, 1761-1775

Mark Somos

Hosted by Charles Prior
In Federalist no. 2, John Jay considered the ‘wide spreading country’ of the American republic. It was, he argued, as if the land itself was fashioned by the hand of …
Third World Nationalism December 1, 2020

Naoroji

Pioneer of Indian Nationalism

Dinyar Patel

Hosted by Kirk Meighoo
In the wake of a rise in nationalism around the world, and its general condemnation by liberals and the left, we have put together this series on Third World Nationalism …
History November 27, 2020

The English Republican Exiles in Europe during the Restoration

Gaby Mahlberg

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 changed the lives of English republicans for good. Despite the Declaration of Breda, where Charles II promised to forgive those who had …
History November 23, 2020

George III

Madness and Majesty

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
King of Britain for sixty years and the last king of what would become the United States, George III inspired both hatred and loyalty and is now best known for …
Critical Theory November 20, 2020

The Crisis of the Meritocracy

Britain's Transition to Mass Education Since the Second World War

Peter Mandler

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How did public demand shape education in the 20th century? In The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain’s Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War (Oxford UP, 2020), Peter …