Western European Studies

Western European Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Western Europe about their new books.

"Market pressure was growing by the day" with Charles Dallara

March 19, 2024

"Market pressure was growing by the day" with Charles Dallara

Charles Dallara
Hosted by Tim Jones

Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance from 1993–2013, talks about his crisis memoir: Euroshock: How the Largest…

Dan Stone, "The Holocaust: An Unfinished History" (Mariner Books, 2023)

March 18, 2024

The Holocaust

Dan Stone
Hosted by Kelly McFall

The Holocaust is much-discussed, much-memorialized and much-portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning …

Caitlin Davies, "Private Inquiries: The Secret History of Female Sleuths" (The History Press, 2023)

March 17, 2024

Private Inquiries

Caitlin Davies
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Dismissed as ‘Mrs Sherlock Holmes’ or amateurish Miss Marples, mocked as private dicks or honey trappers, they have been investigating crime since the…

Ada Maria Kuskowski, "Vernacular Law; Writing and the Reinvention of Customary Law in Medieval France" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

March 16, 2024

Vernacular Law

Ada Maria Kuskowski
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Custom was fundamental to mediaeval legal practice. Whether in a property dispute or a trial for murder, the aggrieved and accused would go to lay cou…

Ali Bhagat, "Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism" (Cornell UP, 2024)

March 14, 2024

Governing the Displaced

Ali Bhagat
Hosted by Lamis Abdelaaty

Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism (Cornell UP, 2024) answers a straightforward question: how are refugees governed un…

Jad Adams, "Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

March 10, 2024

Decadent Women

Jad Adams
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives (Reaktion, 2023) by Jad Adams chronicles the vibrant and passionate women who wrote for the 1890s journal The Yellow…

Raanan Rein and Susanne Zepp-Zwirner, "Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War" (Routledge, 2024)

March 10, 2024

Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War

Raanan Rein and Susanne Zepp-Zwirner
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War (Routledge, 2024) is the first scholarly volume to offer an insight into the less-known stories of women, chil…

Brian Merchant, "Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech" (LIttle, Brown, 2023)

March 10, 2024

Blood in the Machine

Brian Merchant
Hosted by Michael Vann

"Luddite" has become an insult and Brian Merchant wants to change that. Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech (Little, B…

Myrto Garani et al., "The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy" (Oxford UP, 2023)

March 9, 2024

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy

Myrto Garani, David Konstan, and Gretchen Reydams-Schils

Several decades of scholarship have demonstrated that Roman thinkers developed in new and stimulating directions the systems of thought they inherited…

Jeremy Black, "The Age of Nightmare: The Gothic and British Culture, 1750-1900" (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)

March 9, 2024

The Age of Nightmare

Jeremy Black
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Historian Jeremy Black is comprehensive, as ever, but in his treatment of the British Gothic novel his greatest service is the preservation of the det…

Dariusz Tołczyk, "Blissful Blindness: Soviet Crimes under Western Eyes" (Indiana UP, 2023)

March 8, 2024

Blissful Blindness

Dariusz Tołczyk
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

The most heinous Soviet crimes - the Red Terror, brutal collectivization, the Great Famine, the Gulag, Stalin's Great Terror, mass deportations, and o…

Roseen Giles, "Monteverdi and the Marvellous: Poetry, Sound, and Representation" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 4, 2024

Monteverdi and the Marvellous

Roseen Giles
Hosted by Kate Driscoll

The marvellous, a key concept in literary debates at the turn of the seventeenth century, involved sensory and perspectival transformation, a rhetoric…

Yaniv Feller, "The Jewish Imperial Imagination: Leo Baeck and German-Jewish Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 3, 2024

The Jewish Imperial Imagination

Yaniv Feller
Hosted by Amir Engel

The Jewish Imperial Imagination: Leo Baeck and German-Jewish Thought (Cambridge UP, 2024) discusses the life and work of Leo Baeck (1873–1956) the rab…

Jennifer Evans, "Men's Sexual Health in Early Modern England" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

March 2, 2024

Men's Sexual Health in Early Modern England

Jennifer Evans
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

How did men cope with sexual health issues in early modern England? In Men's Sexual Health in Early Modern England (Amsterdam University Press, 2023),…

Stanley Wells, "What Was Shakespeare Really Like?" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

February 26, 2024

What Was Shakespeare Really Like?

Stanley Wells

Sir Stanley Wells is one of the world's greatest authorities on William Shakespeare. Here he brings a lifetime of learning and reflection to bear on s…

Ariel Mae Lambe, "No Barrier Can Contain It: Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War" (UNC Press, 2019)

February 25, 2024

No Barrier Can Contain It

Ariel Mae Lambe
Hosted by Rachel Newman

Ariel Mae Lambe’s new book No Barrier Can Contain It: Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) is a hist…

Michael Johnston, "The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500" (Oxford UP, 2023)

February 24, 2024

The Middle English Book

Michael Johnston

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and cir…

Jacob Ward, "Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications" (MIT Press, 2024)

February 23, 2024

Visions of a Digital Nation

Jacob Ward

In Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024), Jacob Ward explains why the privatization of Brit…

Harriet Lyon, "Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

February 22, 2024

Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England

Harriet Lyon
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The dissolution of the monasteries was recalled by individuals and communities alike as a seismic rupture in the religious, cultural, and socio-econom…

Isabella Alexander, "Copyright and Cartography: History, Law, and the Circulation of Geographical Knowledge" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

February 22, 2024

Copyright and Cartography

Isabella Alexander

Isabella Alexander's book Copyright and Cartography: History, Law, and the Circulation of Geographical Knowledge (Bloomsbury, 2023) explores the inter…