New Books Network
French Studies
General History October 1, 2021

Deconstruction

An American Institution

Gregory Jones-Katz

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
The basic story of the rise, reign, and fall of deconstruction as a literary and philosophical groundswell is well known among scholars. In this intellectual history, Gregory Jones-Katz aims to …

French Studies

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Interviews with scholars of France about their new books.

General History September 29, 2021

Trading with the Enemy

Britain, France, and the 18th-Century Quest for a Peaceful World Order

John Shovlin

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Britain and France waged war eight times in the century following the Glorious Revolution, a mutual antagonism long regarded as a "Second Hundred Years' War." Yet officials on both sides …
French Studies September 24, 2021

A History of Fascism in France

From the First World War to the National Front

Chris Millington

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
FASCISM...FRANCE. Two words/ideas that scholars have spent much time and energy debating in relationship to one another. Chris Millington's A History of Fascism in France: From the First World War to the …
South Asian Studies September 14, 2021

Unsettling Utopia

The Making and Unmaking of French India

Jessica Namakkal

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
After India achieved independence from the British in 1947, there remained five scattered territories governed by the French imperial state. It was not until 1962 that France fully relinquished control …
French Studies August 24, 2021

Signing the Body

Marks on Skin in Early Modern France

Katherine Dauge-Roth

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Contemporary historians and other scholars of the body frequently use "writing" and "inscription as metaphors. Katherine Dauge-Roth's Signing the Body: Marks on Skin in Early Modern France (Routledge, 2019) is an absorbing book that emphasizes literal, material forms …
General History August 20, 2021

Militarizing Marriage

West African Soldiers' Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire

Sarah J. Zimmerman

Hosted by Michael Vann
Following tirailleurs sénégalais’ deployments in West Africa, Congo, Madagascar, North Africa, Syria-Lebanon, Vietnam, and Algeria from the 1880s to 1962, Militarizing Marriage West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French …
Scholarly Communication August 4, 2021

The Scientific Journal

Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century

Alex Csiszar

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Alex Csiszar, professor in the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University and author of The Scientific Journal: Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge in …
General History July 30, 2021

France

A Short History

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
A short and entertaining narrative of France from prehistory to the present, recounting the great events and personalities that helped create France’s cultural and political influence today. Country and destination …
Gender Studies July 23, 2021

Beauvoir in Time

Meryl Altman

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Meryl Altman's new book Beauvoir in Time, published by Brill Rodopi Press (2020), situates Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) in its historical context and responds to criticism that …
General History July 22, 2021

Slave Revolt on Screen

The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games

Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall

Hosted by Michael Vann
Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that “the silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and …
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 …
French Studies July 13, 2021

Our Civilizing Mission

The Lessons of Colonial Education

Nicholas Harrison

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Nicholas Harrison's Our Civilizing Mission: The Lessons of Colonial Education (Liverpool UP, 2019) is a fascinating examination of colonial education not just as a facet of colonialism, but as an "example" of education …
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 …
General History July 8, 2021

French Wine

A History

Rod Phillips

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today on New Books in History, Rod Phillips, Professor of History at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, talks about his book, French Wine: A History, out in 2016 with the …
Intellectual History June 30, 2021

Why We Are Restless

On the Modern Quest for Contentment

Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
What makes us happy? What keeps us from being happy? Is restlessness the same thing as unhappiness? Is happiness something we should value or assume we can even find? These …
Psychoanalysis June 28, 2021

Disalienation

Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France

Camille Robcis

Hosted by J. J. Mull
On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews scholar and historian Camille Robcis. In her most recent book, Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France (University of Chicago Press, 2021) …
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 …
Architecture June 22, 2021

Notre-Dame of Amiens

Life of the Gothic Cathedral

Stephen Murray

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Notre-Dame of Amiens is one of the great Gothic cathedrals. Its construction began in 1220, and artistic production in the Gothic mode lasted well into the sixteenth century. In Notre-Dame …
General History June 17, 2021

Reframing Japonisme

Women and the Asian Art Market in Nineteenth-Century France, 1853–1914

Elizabeth Emery

Hosted by Jennifer Davis Cline
Erin Duncan O’Neill (Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma) speaks with Elizabeth Emery (Professor, Montclair State University) about Emery’s recent book, Reframing Japonisme: Women and the Asian Art Market in Nineteenth-Century …