New Books Network
World Affairs
National Security April 16, 2021

Can Democracy Safeguard the Future?

Graham Smith

Hosted by Kyle Beadle
Our democracies repeatedly fail to safeguard the future. From pensions to pandemics, health and social care through to climate, biodiversity and emerging technologies, democracies have been unable to deliver robust …

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History April 14, 2021

Britain and Italy in the Era of the First World War

Defending and Forging Empires

Stefano Marcuzzi

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
This is a reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Dr. Stefano Marcuzzi, Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, tries to shed new …
History April 14, 2021

A Brief History of Britain 1851-2021

From World Power to ?

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
Jeremy Black, one of the most prolific and punchy of historians of modern Britain, has written a new account of a period on which he has previously published. A Brief …
Sports April 14, 2021

The Fastest Game in the World

Hockey and the Globalization of Sports

Bruce Berglund

Hosted by Bob D'Angelo
Today we are joined by Bruce Berglund, author of The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports (University of California Press, 2020). In this sweeping look …
Australian and New Zealand Studies April 13, 2021

Cruelty Or Humanity

Challenges, Opportunities and Responsibilities

Stuart Rees

Hosted by Bede Haines
Stuart Rees's Cruelty or Humanity: Challenges, Opportunities and Responsibilities (Policy Press, a Bristol University Press imprint, 2020) exposes politicians' fascination with cruelty in their deliberations about policies. Through empirical analysis, human stories and …
World Affairs April 12, 2021

Lie Machines

How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives

Philip N. Howard

Hosted by Medha Prasanna
Technology is breaking politics - what can be done about it? Artificially intelligent "bot" accounts attack politicians and public figures on social media. Conspiracy theorists publish junk news sites to …
Geography April 9, 2021

The Death of Asylum

Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago

Alison Mountz

Hosted by D. Kadich
The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) arrives at an extraordinarily consequential moment for the future of asylum protections. Even as more and …
History April 8, 2021

A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations

Colonial Era to the Present

Christopher R. Dietrich

Hosted by Dexter Fergie
The field of US foreign-relations history is not what it used to be, and that’s a good thing. Earlier historians narrowly defined the field as diplomatic history­­ and kept vast …
National Security April 2, 2021

Avoiding the Terrorist Trap

Why Respect for Human Rights is the Key to Defeating Terrorism

Thomas David Parker

Hosted by Beth Windisch
Faced with a major terrorist threat, states seem to reach instinctively for the most coercive tools in their arsenal and, in doing so, risk exacerbating the situation. This policy …
Finance March 30, 2021

Boom and Bust

A Global History of Financial Bubbles

William Quinn and John D. Turner

Hosted by Daniel Peris
Are we in the midst of a financial bubble? Do the current valuations of the electronic vehicle stocks or their SPACs make you raise an eyebrow?  The trouble with bubbles is that …
World Affairs March 29, 2021

Trouble of the World

Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital

Zach Sell

Hosted by Geoffrey Gordon
The middle decades of the 19th century witnessed the expansion of slavery and white settlement and dispossession of Indigenous lands west of the Mississippi River, the abolition of slavery in …
History March 26, 2021

Sulphuric Utopias

A History of Maritime Fumigation

Lukas Engelmann and Christos Lynteris

Hosted by Michael Vann
As we mark the one-year anniversary of the COIVD-19 pandemic, take the time to listen to this discussion of previous efforts to fight yellow fever, cholera, and plague pandemics. Lukas …
German Studies March 24, 2021

Selling Weimar

German Public Diplomacy and the United States, 1918-1933

Elisabeth Piller

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In the decade after World War I, German-American relations improved swiftly. While resentment and bitterness ran high on both sides in 1919, Weimar Germany and the United States managed to …
History March 24, 2021

Roosevelt's and Churchill's Atlantic Charter

A Risky Meeting at Sea that Saved Democracy

Michael Kluger and Richard Evans

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Winston Churchill was no stranger to storms. They had engulfed him in various ways throughout his long career and he had always turned to face them with jutting jaw and …
Political Science March 18, 2021

Disorienting Neoliberalism

Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom

Benjamin L. McKean

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom (Oxford UP, 2020) takes on a number of different dimensions of neoliberalism to help readers consider not only how this ideological …
History March 17, 2021

Epidemics and the Modern World

Mitchell L. Hammond

Hosted by Michael Vann
Normally we write blogposts that try to convince you to listen to a conversation with an author about their fascinating book. In the time of COVID-19, it doesn't seem necessary …
Political Science March 15, 2021

The Far Right Today

Cas Mudde

Hosted by Susan Liebell
What is the difference between Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president? Why should we understand Trump as part of a dangerous “fourth wave” of …
World Affairs March 10, 2021

American Slavery and Russian Serfdom in the Post-Emancipation Imagination

Amanda Brickell Bellows

Hosted by Sharika Crawford
This ambitious work explores the literary and cultural production about Russian peasants and African Americans in the post-emancipation period. Brickell Bellows draws on visual images from advertisements to oil paintings as …
History March 8, 2021

Statesman of Europe

A Life of Sir Edward Grey

T. G. Otte

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
'The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life-time.' The words of Sir Edward Grey, looking out from the windows of …
History March 2, 2021

The Dutch in the Early Modern World

A History of a Global Power

David Onnekink and Gijs Rommelse

Hosted by Jana Byars
David Onnekink, professor of early modern history at the University of Utrecht discusses his latest book, the delightful, The Dutch in the Early Modern World: History of a Global Power …