New Books Network Podcast

Darts & Letters September 1, 2023

The Past and Present of Psychedelic Medicine

A Discussion with Erika Dyke and David Nickles

Erika Dyke and David Nickles

Hosted by Gordon Katic

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Psychedelics have gone from the counterculture, to the mainstream. However, can you turn take such an ineffable thing — a tool for personal revelation, cosmic oneness, spiritual enlightenment, whatever people …

Drugs, Addiction and Recovery August 15, 2023

Quick Fixes

Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge

Benjamin Y. Fong

Hosted by Emily Dufton

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Benjamin Y. Fong is author of the new book Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge, which was just released in July, 2023 by Verso …

Drugs, Addiction and Recovery August 12, 2023

When Crack Was King

A People's History of a Misunderstood Era

Donovan X. Ramsey

Hosted by Emily Dufton

The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan's war on drugs, journalist Donovan X …

Asian Review of Books August 3, 2023

Angels Tapping at the Wine-Shop's Door

A History of Alcohol in the Islamic World

Rudi Matthee

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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When meeting an expatriate friend on my first trip to Dubai, the host at the restaurant where we were meeting quickly ushered me up to the second floor. For foreigners …

Japanese Studies July 16, 2023

The Arts of the Microbial World

Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan

Victoria Lee

Hosted by Nathan Hopson

Victoria Lee’s The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan (U Chicago Press, 2021) is an in-depth exploration of the social history of microbial science in modern Japan …

Food July 15, 2023

Wine

Meg Bernhard

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Today I talked to Meg Bernhard about her new book Wine (Bloomsbury, 2023). Agricultural product and cultural commodity, drink of ritual and drink of addiction, purveyor of pleasure, pain, and memory …

Drugs, Addiction and Recovery July 12, 2023

Methadone and Covid-19

A Discussion with Helen Redmond

Helen Redmond

Hosted by Emily Dufton

Helen Redmond is a Harlem-based documentary filmmaker, journalist, licensed clinical social worker, and professor at NYU. As senior editor and a multimedia journalist at Filter, a website that covers drug …

General History July 3, 2023

Globalization in a Glass

The Rise of Pilsner Beer through Technology, Taste and Empire

Malcolm F. Purinton

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

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Globalization in a Glass: The Rise of Pilsner Beer through Technology, Taste and Empire (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Malcolm Purinton charts the spread of Pilsner beer from its inception in …

Asian Review of Books June 8, 2023

The Opium Business

A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China

Peter Thilly

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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Opium is an awkward commodity. For the West, it’s a reminder of some of the shadier and best forgotten parts of its history. For China (and a few other countries) …

Women's History May 21, 2023

Do Everything

The Biography of Frances Willard

Christopher H. Evans

Hosted by Jane Scimeca

Frances Willard (1839-1898) was one of the most prominent American social reformers of the late nineteenth century. As the long-time president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Willard built …

Policing, Incarceration, and Reform May 15, 2023

The Prescription-To-Prison Pipeline

The Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain

Michelle Smirnova

Hosted by Deidre Tyler

In The Prescription-To-Prison Pipeline: The Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain (Duke UP, 2023), Michelle Smirnova argues that the ongoing opioid drug epidemic is the result of an endless cycle in …

East Asian Studies May 14, 2023

The Opium Business

A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China

Peter Thilly

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos

The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the opium trade — but not through the relatively well-trodden history of the ‘Opium Wars.’ …

MIT Press Podcast May 11, 2023

Andy Roberts on LSD's Cosmic Courier

Pharmacological Histories Ep. 4

Andy Roberts

Hosted by MIT Press

Michael Hollingshead, the man who turned Timothy Leary onto LSD, managed to fundamentally influenced modern drug culture whilst remaining virtually anonymous in popular culture at large. In this episode, biographer …

MIT Press Podcast May 10, 2023

Bita Moghaddam on Ketamine

Pharmacological Histories Ep. 3

Bita Moghaddam

Hosted by MIT Press

In this episode, Bita Moghaddam discusses the emergence of ketamine as a combat anesthetic in the Vietnam war, its transformation into a recreation drug central to club culture, and its …

MIT Press Podcast May 8, 2023

Nancy D. Campbell on Naloxone

Pharmacological Histories Ep. 1

Nancy D. Campbell

Hosted by MIT Press

Drawing on interviews with approximately sixty advocates, drug users, former users, friends, families, witnesses, clinicians, and scientists; Nancy D. Campbell has drawn together a history of a defining tragedy of …

MIT Press Podcast May 2, 2023

Break on Through

Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture

Lucas Richert

Hosted by MIT Press

In Break On Through, Lucas Richert explores Anti-psychiatry, psychedelics, and radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s. In this interview Lucas discusses the …

MIT Press Podcast April 28, 2023

High Weirdness

Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies

Erik Davis

Hosted by MIT Press

Author of High Weirdness, Erik Davis discusses psychedelic politics, media paranoia, conspiracy theories, and consensus reality in the time of COVID-19. A study of the spiritual provocations to be found …

Drugs, Addiction and Recovery April 2, 2023

Psychonauts

Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind

Mike Jay

Hosted by Claire Clark

Mike Jay's Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind (Yale UP, 2023) is a provocative and original history of the scientists and writers, artists and philosophers who took drugs …

Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness March 26, 2023

Home Is Within You

A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption

Nadia Davis

Hosted by Elizabeth Cronin

Home Is Within You As a young Latina and Native American lawyer and former wife of California’s attorney general and treasurer, Nadia Davis has long been subjected to public scrutiny …

Political Science March 16, 2023

The Informal Regulation of Criminal Markets in Latin America

Hernán Flom

Hosted by Lilly Goren

Political Scientist Hernán Flom has written a fascinating and nuanced analysis of how the criminal drug markets operate in Argentina and Brazil. Instead of tracking the path that illegal drugs …