New Books Network

New Books in European Studies
Carolyn J. Dean, “The Moral Witness: Trials and Testimony after Genocide” (Cornell UP, 2019)
Carolyn J. Dean
The Moral Witness
Trials and Testimony after Genocide
Carolyn J. Dean, 2019

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in European StudiesNew Books in Genocide StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Intellectual HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network June 19, 2019 Natasha Margulis

Carolyn J. Dean’s The Moral Witness: Trials and Testimony after Genocide (Cornell University Press, 2019) examines the cultural history of the idea of the “witness to genocide” in Western Europe and the United States.  She portrays the witness in non-traditional genocide court trials as the moral compass.  In fact, many... Read More
David Green, “The Hundred Years War: A People’s History” (Yale UP, 2014)
David Green
The Hundred Years War
A People’s History
Yale University Press, 2014

New Books in British StudiesNew Books in European StudiesNew Books in French StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Military HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network June 19, 2019 Al Zambone

The year 1453 marked the end of an intermittent yet seemingly endless series of wars between the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of England that, some four hundred years later, was dubbed the Hundred Years War. Depending on how you count even the most conservative estimate of its beginnings... Read More
Jane Hooper, “Feeding Globalization: Madagascar and the Provisioning Trade, 1600-1800” (Ohio UP, 2017)
Jane Hooper
Feeding Globalization
Madagascar and the Provisioning Trade, 1600-1800
Ohio University Press, 2017

New Books in African StudiesNew Books in European StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in South Asian StudiesNew Books in World AffairsNew Books Network June 10, 2019 Michael F. Robinson

Madagascar lies so close to the African coast–and so near the predictable wind system of the Indian Ocean–that it’s easy to overlook the island, the fourth largest in the world, when talking about oceanic trade and exploration. But there is a lot to tell. Jane Hooper talks about Madagascar and... Read More
Anthony Kaldellis, “Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium” (Harvard UP, 2019)
Anthony Kaldellis
Romanland
Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium
Harvard University Press, 2019

New Books in Christian StudiesNew Books in European StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Intellectual HistoryNew Books in Italian StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books Network June 10, 2019 Mark Klobas

Though commonly used today to identify a polity that lasted for over a millennium, the label “Byzantine empire” is an anachronism imposed by more recent generations. As Anthony Kaldellis explains in Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Harvard University Press, 2019), this has contributed to the denial of the ethnic... Read More
Cathal J. Nolan, “The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost” (Oxford UP, 2019)
Cathal J. Nolan
The Allure of Battle
A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost
Oxford University Press, 2019

New Books in East Asian StudiesNew Books in European StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Military HistoryNew Books in National SecurityNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network June 6, 2019 Marshall Poe

History has tended to measure war’s winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered “decisive.” Marathon, Cannae, Tours, Agincourt, Austerlitz, Sedan, Stalingrad–all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But were... Read More
Daniel Hershenzon, “The Captive Sea: Slavery, Communication, and Commerce in Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean” (U Penn Press, 2018)
Daniel Hershenzon
The Captive Sea
Slavery, Communication, and Commerce in Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018

New Books in African StudiesNew Books in European StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Middle Eastern StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network June 5, 2019 Al Zambone

For hundreds of years, people living on the coasts of  the Mediterranean Sea enslaved one another. Moslems from North Africa captured Italians, French, and Spaniards; and North African Moslems were in turn enslaved by those nations. As prisoners, their ransom and redemption became a form of commerce, which in a... Read More
Demetra Kasimis, “The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
Demetra Kasimis
The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy

Cambridge University Press, 2018

New Books in European StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Intellectual HistoryNew Books in LawNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Political ScienceNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network June 3, 2019 Lilly Goren

Demetra Kasimis’s new book, The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2018) interrogates the role and unstable place of the metics (metoikoi) in Athenian society.  The book focuses on three different presentations and discussions of the metics, in Euripides’ Ion, in Plato’s Republic, and in Demosthenes’... Read More