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Military History
Law December 8, 2022

Wars of Law

Unintended Consequences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict

Tanisha M. Fazal

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In Wars of Law: Unintended Consequences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict (Cornell UP, 2020), Tanisha M. Fazal assesses the unintended consequences of the proliferation of the laws of war …

Military History

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Interviews with scholars of military history about their new books.

Iberian Studies December 7, 2022

War, Judgment, And Memory In The Basque Borderlands, 1914-1945

Sandra Ott

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
During the first half of the twentieth century, the French Basque province of Xiberoa was a place of refuge, conflict, and foreign occupation. With the liberation of France in 1944 …
African Studies December 6, 2022

How Insurgency Begins

Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyond

Janet I. Lewis

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
How and why do rebel groups initially form? Prevailing scholarship has attributed the emergence of armed rebellion to the explosion of pre-mobilized political or ethnic hostilities. However, this book finds …
Jewish Studies December 6, 2022

Wartime North Africa

A Documentary History, 1934-1950

Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein's book Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934-1950 (Stanford UP, 2022), the first-ever collection of primary documents on North African history and the Holocaust, gives …
Medieval History December 5, 2022

The Mongol Storm

Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East

Nicholas Morton

Hosted by Maggie Freeman
For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region’s complex history. As Nicholas Morton …
Military History December 4, 2022

Agents of Subversion

The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China

John Delury

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China (Cornell University Press, 2022) by Dr. John Delury reconstructs the remarkable story of a …
East Asian Studies December 2, 2022

Fragile Cargo

The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City

Adam Brookes

Hosted by Ed Pulford
The two parallel Palace Museums in Beijing and Taiwan, and their separate collections of thousands of precious artworks and artifacts from imperial times, reflects a key moment in the 1940s …
Military History December 1, 2022

The Wandering Army

The Campaigns That Transformed the British Way of War

Huw J. Davies

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In The Wandering Army: The Campaigns that Transformed the British Way of War (Yale University Press, 2022), Dr. Huw J. Davies presents a compelling history of the British Army in …
African Studies December 1, 2022

Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda

There is Confusion

Henni Alava

Hosted by Suvi Rautio
Today I had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Henni Alava, postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University, on her fascinating new book published by Bloomsbury as part of the New Directions in Anthropology …
Diplomatic History December 1, 2022

The Nuclear Club

How America and the World Policed the Atom from Hiroshima to Vietnam

Jonathan R. Hunt

Hosted by Grant Golub
The Nuclear Club: How America and the World Policed the Atom from Hiroshima to Vietnam (Stanford UP, 2022) reveals how a coalition of powerful and developing states embraced global governance …
Iberian Studies November 28, 2022

Nazi Juggernaut in the Basque Country and Catalonia

Xabier Irujo and Queralt Solé

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Today I talked to Xabier Irujo about his book (co-authored with Queralt Solé) Nazi Juggernaut in the Basque Country and Catalonia (Center for Basque Studies, 2019). Hitler and Mussolini's decision to help General …
Military History November 25, 2022

The Military and the Market

Jennifer Mittelstadt and Mark R. Wilson

Hosted by Alex Beckstrand
Throughout its history, the U.S. military has worked in close connection to market-based institutions and structures. It has run systems of free and unfree labor, taken over private sector firms …
British Studies November 25, 2022

Under Fire

Black Britain in Wartime 1939-45

Stephen Bourne

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In Under Fire: Black Britain in Wartime 1939-45 (The History Press, 2020), Stephen Bourne tells the whole story of Britain's black community during World War II. On the home front, civilians …
Jewish Studies November 23, 2022

A Ukrainian Chapter

A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir Of Sorrow

Eli Gumener (trans. Michael Eli Nutkiewicz)

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Today I talked to Michael Eli Nutkiewicz about his translation A Ukrainian Chapter: A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir Of Sorrow (Slavica, 2022).  Eli Gumener’s 1921 Yiddish memoir, A Ukrainian Chapter, is …
Military History November 23, 2022

Understanding Urban Warfare

John Spencer and Liam Collins

Hosted by Stephen Satkiewicz
With the growing urbanization of the world's population, it also follows that much of contemporary military operations would also be conducted within such urban centers. The challenges faced by military …
American Studies November 23, 2022

A Great and Rising Nation

Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic

Michael A. Verney

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by Dr. Michael A. Verney illuminates the unexplored early decades …
Biography November 17, 2022

Our Man In Tokyo

An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor

Steve Kemper

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
A gripping, behind-the-scenes account of the personalities and contending forces in Tokyo during the volatile decade that led to World War II, as seen through the eyes of the American …
Military History November 16, 2022

Dying to Learn

Wartime Lessons from the Western Front

Michael A. Hunzeker

Hosted by Samuel Canter
In Dying to Learn: Wartime Lessons from the Western Front (Cornell UP, 2021), Michael Hunzeker develops a novel theory to explain how wartime militaries learn. He focuses on the Western …
Genocide Studies November 11, 2022

Genocide

The Power and Problems of a Concept

Andrea Graziosi and Frank E. Sysyn

Hosted by Jeff Bachman
Since the 1980s the study of genocide has exploded, both historically and geographically, to encompass earlier epochs, other continents, and new cases. The concept of genocide has proved its worth …
Writ Large November 10, 2022

On Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War"

A Discussion with Richard Billows

Richard Billows

Hosted by Zachary Davis
Sometime around 450 BC in ancient Greece, a young Thucydides went with his father to hear the historian Herodotus speak. After the lecture, Thucydides announced that writing history was his …