New Books Network Podcast

Russian and Eurasian Studies October 1, 2023

Moscow's Heavy Shadow

The Violent Collapse of the USSR

Isaac McKean Scarborough

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Moscow's Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. Isaac Mckean Scarborough tells the story of the collapse of the USSR from the perspective …

European Politics September 29, 2023

Russia's War Against Ukraine

Gwendolyn Sasse

Hosted by Tim Jones

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Nineteen months since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the books are coming thick and fast. Fortunately, each tells a different and compelling story. Like other recent books, Gwendolyn Sasse’s …

European Politics September 28, 2023

Warmonger

Vladimir Putin's Imperial Wars

Alex J. Bellamy

Hosted by Tim Jones

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"War was always central to Putin's project," writes Alex J. Bellamy in Warmonger: Vladimir Putin's Imperial Wars (Agenda, 2023). Not just the second Chechen war that made him but the …

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 26, 2023

Wonder Confronts Certainty

Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter

Gary Saul Morson

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

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A noted literary scholar traverses the Russian canon, exploring how realists, idealists, and revolutionaries debated good and evil, moral responsibility, and freedom. Since the age of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov …

The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones September 24, 2023

The Future of Ukraine

A Discussion with Christopher Miller

Christopher Miller

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has already changed the world. Why did it happen? Who is winning? How will it end? Christopher Miller is the author of The War Came to …

World Affairs September 24, 2023

Defectors

How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World

Erik R. Scott

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world's attention during the Cold War. Their stories were told in sensational news coverage and dramatized in spy novels and films. In contrast …

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 23, 2023

Monuments for Posterity

Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time

Antony Kalashnikov

Hosted by Aaron Weinacht

Antony Kalashnikov's Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time (Cornell UP, 2023) analyzes Stalinist monument-building. From the 1930's through the Great Patriotic War, architectural monuments such as …

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 16, 2023

Word Play

Experimental Poetry and Soviet Children's Literature

Ainsley Morse

Hosted by Polina Popova

Ainsley Morse's book Word Play: Experimental Poetry and Soviet Children's Literature (Northwestern UP, 2021) traces the history of the relationship between experimental aesthetics and Soviet children’s books, a relationship that persisted over …

Military History September 14, 2023

To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42

Prit Buttar

Hosted by Stephen Satkiewicz

The city of St. Petersburg held great significance to the Russian Empire when Peter the Great first built the city in 1703. It was intended to be Russia's "window to …

America and Beyond with Paul Starobin September 13, 2023

The Shadow War between America and Russia

A Discussion with George S. Beebe

George S. Beebe

Hosted by Paul Starobin

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Western analysts and media often assess the prospect that Moscow might use nuclear weapons as the war in Ukraine grinds on, possibly to a flailing Russia’s disadvantage. George Beebe, though …

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 9, 2023

Red Leviathan

The Secret History of Soviet Whaling

Ryan Tucker Jones

Hosted by Erika Monahan

The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. That catch helped bring many whale species to near extinction by …

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 4, 2023

Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725

Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign

Endre Sashalmi

Hosted by Steven Usitalo

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic Studies Press, 2022) highlights the main features and trends of …

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 3, 2023

Art of Transition

The Field of Art in Post-Soviet Russia

Elise Herrala

Hosted by Iva Glisic

Art of Transition: The Field of Art in Post-Soviet Russia (Routledge, 2021) investigates contemporary art in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union. By drawing on historical and ethnographic …

America and Beyond with Paul Starobin August 24, 2023

On the (Still Bright) Future of Nostalgia

Revisiting Svetlana Boym's Landmark Book with Peter Fritzsche

Peter Fritzsche

Hosted by Paul Starobin

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I am joined on “America and Beyond” by historian Peter Fritzsche for an appreciation of The Future of Nostalgia (Basic Books), the landmark book published by the late Svetlana Boym …

Military History August 17, 2023

Putin's War on Ukraine

Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution

Samuel Ramani

Hosted by AJ Woodhams

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Eight years after annexing Crimea, Russia embarked on a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022. For Vladimir Putin, this was a legacy-defining mission--to restore Russia's sphere of influence …

History Ex Silo August 14, 2023

Toward a More Expansive View of Medieval Europe

Kyivan Rus and Norman Salerno in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

Christian Raffensperger and Joanna Drell

Hosted by Stephen Bittner

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Focusing on gender relations, family formation, and marriage patterns in areas peripheral to the England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, Christian Raffensperger and Joanna Drell argue for a more …

European Politics August 13, 2023

Russia's War Against Ukraine

The Whole Story

Mark Edele

Hosted by Tim Jones

"That Russia and Ukraine have diverged politically so radically since 1991 is partially due to their position vis-à-vis the imploded empire they emerged from," writes Mark Edele in Russia's War …

Military History August 11, 2023

Goodbye, Eastern Europe

An Intimate History of a Divided Land

Jacob Mikanowski

Hosted by AJ Woodhams

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Eastern Europe, the moniker, has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone now, and they might tell you that Estonia is in the Baltics …

Ukrainian Studies August 11, 2023

Ukraine's Many Faces

Land, People, and Culture Revisited

Olena Palko and Manuel Férez Gil

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed

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Russia's large-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022 once again made Ukraine the focus of world media. Behind those headlines remain the complex developments in Ukraine's history, national identity …

Anthropology August 10, 2023

Gleaning for Communism

The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice

Xenia A. Cherkaev

Hosted by Robin Steiner

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Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice (Cornell UP, 2023) is a historical ethnography of the property regime upon which Soviet legal scholars legislated a large …