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General History
General History October 2, 2023

The Edwin Fox

How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914

Boyd Cothran and Adrian Shubert

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
It began as a small, slow, and unadorned sailing vessel—in a word, ordinary. Later, it was a weary workhorse in the age of steam. But the story of the Edwin …

General History

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Interviews with historians about their new books.

African Studies October 2, 2023

History of South Africa

From 1902 to the Present

Thula Simpson

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
South Africa was born in war, has been cursed by crises and ruptures, and today stands on a precipice once again. Thula Simpson's History of South Africa: From 1902 to …
General History October 2, 2023

A Brief History of the Pacific

The Great Ocean

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Jeremy Black's A Brief History of the Pacific: The Great Ocean (Robinson, 2023) succeeds in examining both the indigenous presence on ocean's islands and Western control or influence over the …
Genocide Studies October 1, 2023

Supreme Courts Under Nazi Occupation

Derk Venema

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Derk Venema's edited volume Supreme Courts Under Nazi Occupation (Amsterdam UP, 2022) is the first extensive treatment of leading judicial institutions under Nazi rule in WWII. It focusses on all democratic …
African American Studies October 1, 2023

Black Female Intellectuals in 19th Century America

Born to Bloom Unseen?

Rebecca J. Fraser

Hosted by Katrina Anderson
Drawing on letters, personal testimony, works of art, novels, and historic Black newspapers, this book is an interdisciplinary exploration of Black women’s contributions to the intellectual life of nineteenth-century America …
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 …
Literary Studies October 1, 2023

Workshops of Empire

Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War

Eric Bennett

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
During and just after World War II, an influential group of American writers and intellectuals projected a vision for literature that would save the free world. Novels, stories, plays, and …
General History September 30, 2023

Political Disappointment

A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis

Sara Marcus

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Moving from the aftermath of Reconstruction through the AIDS crisis, a new cultural history of the United States shows how artists, intellectuals, and activists turned political disappointment--the unfulfilled desire for …
Medieval History September 30, 2023

Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World

Michelle Karnes

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also in the period’s philosophical writing. Rather …
Literary Studies September 30, 2023

Possible Knowledge

The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science

Debapriya Sarkar

Hosted by John Yargo
Debapriya Sarkar’s new book, titled Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) is a study of how poets and philosophers took up the “the possible” as …
Jewish Studies September 29, 2023

The Unknown History of Jewish Women Through the Ages

On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty

Rachel Elior

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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Rachel Elior's book The Unknown History of Jewish Women: On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty (de Gruyter, 2023) is a comprehensive study on the history of Jewish women, which discusses their …
Canadian Studies September 28, 2023

Gifts from Amin

Ugandan Asian Refugees in Canada

Shezan Muhammedi

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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In August 1972, military leader and despot Idi Amin expelled Asian Ugandans from the country, professing to return control of the economy to "Ugandan citizens." Within ninety days, 50,000 Ugandans …
Asian Review of Books September 28, 2023

Sovereigns of the Sea

Omani Ambition in the Age of Empire

Seema Alavi

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
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It’s one of the strange artifacts of history that Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, was once controlled by the Sultanate of Oman. In 1832, then Sultan Sayyid Saïd bin …
African American Studies September 28, 2023

Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America

Revolution, Race and Popular Performance

Peter Reed

Hosted by Katrina Anderson
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American culture maintained a complicated relationship with Haiti from its revolutionary beginnings onward. In Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America: Revolution, Race and Popular Performance (Cambridge UP, 2022), Peter P. Reed …
Australian and New Zealand Studies September 28, 2023

Blood and Dirt

Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand

Jared Davidson

Hosted by Ed Amon
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Picture, for a minute, every artwork of colonial New Zealand you can think of. Now add a chain gang. Hard-labour men guarded by other men with guns. Men moving heavy …
History of Science September 27, 2023

Pseudoscience

A Very Short Introduction

Michael D. Gordin

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
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Everyone has heard of the term "pseudoscience," typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unproven. Many would be able to agree on …
Korean Studies September 27, 2023

Celluloid Democracy

Cinema and Politics in Cold War South Korea

Hieyoon Kim

Hosted by Anthony Kao
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Before South Korea became the democracy and media powerhouse that it is today, it underwent several decades of authoritarian rule during the Cold War from the late 1940s to late …
British Studies September 27, 2023

The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age

Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845

Michael Wheeler

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
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What was special about 1845 and why does it deserve particular scrutiny? In The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845 (Cambridge UP, 2022), one …
Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work September 27, 2023

Pregnancy Test

Karen Weingarten

Hosted by Jana Byars
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In the 1970s, the invention of the home pregnancy test changed what it means to be pregnant. For the first time, women could use a technology in the privacy of …
Middle Eastern Studies September 27, 2023

Placing Islam

Geographies of Connection in Twentieth-Century Istanbul

Timur Warner Hammond

Hosted by Reuben Silverman
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For centuries, the Mosque of Eyüp Sultan has been one of Istanbul’s most important pilgrimage destinations, in large part because of the figure buried in the tomb at its center …