Visit New Books Network en Español!

New Books Network
American South
American Studies September 29, 2022

George Washington's Final Battle

The Epic Struggle to Build a Capital City and a Nation

Robert P. Watson

Hosted by Daniel Stone
George Washington is remembered for leading the Continental Army to victory, presiding over the Constitution, and forging a new nation, but few know the story of his involvement in the …

American South

Subscribe:

Interviews with scholars of the American South about their new books.

Public Policy September 20, 2022

Retail Inequality

Reframing the Food Desert Debate

Kenneth H. Kolb

Hosted by Stephen Pimpare
Retail Inequality: Reframing the Food Desert Debate (U California Press, 2021) examines the failure of recent efforts to improve Americans' diets by increasing access to healthy food. Based on exhaustive …
American West September 20, 2022

You Will Never Be One of Us

A Teacher, a Texas Town, and the Rural Roots of Radical Conservatism

Timothy Paul Bowman

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
As the 1974 school year began, Wayne Woodward was a beloved high school teacher in a rural Texas town. By the following spring, he was embroiled in a local political …
Music September 19, 2022

My Old Kentucky Home

The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song

Emily Bingham

Hosted by Kristen Turner
Any song as old and as familiar as “My Old Kentucky Home” is bound to have accrued many different meanings and an interesting history. Emily Bingham’s book, My Old Kentucky …
Food September 13, 2022

Asian-Cajun Fusion

Shrimp from the Bay to the Bayou

Carl A. Brasseaux and Donald W. Davis

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Shrimp is easily America’s favorite seafood, but its very popularity is the wellspring of problems that threaten the shrimp industry’s existence. Asian-Cajun Fusion: Shrimp from the Bay to the Bayou …
American South September 13, 2022

Remembering Enslavement

Reassembling the Southern Plantation Museum

Amy Potter et al.

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Remembering Enslavement: Reassembling the Southern Plantation Museum (U Georgia Press, 2022) explores plantation museums as sites for contesting and reforming public interpretations of slavery in the American South. Emerging out of …
African American Studies September 9, 2022

Marcus Nevius on Becoming a Historian, Marronage, Slave Resistance, and More!

Marcus Nevius

Hosted by Adam McNeil
Today's episode of "New Books in African American Studies" is special. Why, you might ask? Because today's episode marks my 100th episode on the NBN! To celebrate, I am chopping it …
American South September 9, 2022

Behind the Big House

Reconciling Slavery, Race, and Heritage in the U.S. South

Jodi Skipper

Hosted by Brandon Jett
When residents and tourists visit sites of slavery, whose stories are told? All too often the lives of slaveowners are centered, obscuring the lives of enslaved people. Behind the Big …
Popular Culture September 7, 2022

Sinkhole

Davida Breier

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
Davida Breier talks about her debut novel Sinkhole (University of New Orleans Press, 2022). Humidity, lovebugs, and murder. Lies from the past and a dangerous present collide when, after fifteen years …
Music September 7, 2022

Her Country

How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be

Marissa R. Moss

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
It was only two decades ago, but, for the women of country music, 1999 seems like an entirely different universe. With Shania Twain, country's biggest award winner and star, and …
Music August 12, 2022

Music and Mystique in Muscle Shoals

Christopher M. Reali

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Paul …
Music August 1, 2022

Following the Drums

African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee

John M. Shaw

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
Following the Drums: African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee (University Press of Mississippi,  2022) is an epic history of a little-known African American instrumental music form. Carefully documenting the …
African American Studies July 29, 2022

Black Majority

Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion

Peter H. Wood

Hosted by Adam McNeil
Welcome to New Books in African American Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I am your host, Adam Xavier McNeil. Today’s podcast is special, not because …
Darts & Letters July 28, 2022

The Battle of Buxton: Saving a Lighthouse in the Era of Climate Change

On Politics & Nature (in Collaboration with 99% Invisible)

Hosted by Gordon Katic
If you tuned in to our “ideas in strange places” themed programming last week, you would have heard an episode of Darts and Letters’ predecessor: Cited. (If you didn’t, check …
American Studies July 27, 2022

Instruments of Empire

Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815

Michael K. Beauchamp

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
M. K. Beauchamp's Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815 (LSU Press, 2021) examines the challenges that resulted from U.S. territorial expansion through the …
Sociology July 22, 2022

Showroom City

Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World

John Joe Schlichtman

Hosted by Michael Johnston
A unique and engaging account of local urban decision-making within the globalizing world High Point, North Carolina, is known as the “Furniture Capital of the World.” Once a manufacturing stronghold …
African American Studies July 19, 2022

The Emancipation Circuit

Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom

Thulani Davis

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
In The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom (Duke UP, 2022) Thulani Davis provides a sweeping rethinking of Reconstruction by tracing how the four million people newly …
American South July 19, 2022

The Tacky South

Katharine A. Burnett and Monica Carol Miller

Hosted by Carrie Helms Tippen
As a way to comment on a person’s style or taste, the word “tacky” has distinctly southern origins, with its roots tracing back to the so-called “tackies” who tacked horses …
Food July 14, 2022

Baking, Bourbon, and Black Drink

Foodways Archaeology in the American Southeast

Tanya M. Peres and Aaron Deter-Wolf

Hosted by Carrie Helms Tippen
Understanding and explaining societal rules surrounding food and foodways have been the foci of anthropological studies since the early days of the discipline. Baking, Bourbon, and Black Drink: Foodways Archaeology …
Environmental Studies July 12, 2022

Scars on the Land

An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South

David Silkenat

Hosted by Brian Hamilton
They worked Virginia's tobacco fields, South Carolina's rice marshes, and the Black Belt's cotton plantations. Wherever they lived, enslaved people found their lives indelibly shaped by the Southern environment. By …