New Books Network
History of Science
Anthropology July 28, 2021

Boasians at War

Anthropology, Race, and World War II

Anthony Q. Hazard

Hosted by Alex Golub
The realities of race that continue to plague the United States have direct ties to the anthropology. Anthropologists often imagine their discipline as inherently anti-racist and historically connected to …

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Archaeology July 27, 2021

Olga Tufnell’s 'Perfect Journey'

Letters and Photographs of an Archaeologist in the Levant and Mediterranean

John D.M. Green and Ros Henry

Hosted by Samuel Pfister
Olga Tufnell (1905–85) was a British archaeologist working in Egypt, Cyprus, and Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s, a period often described as a golden age of archaeological discovery. Tufnell …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast July 22, 2021

Plato’s Heaven

A User’s Guide

James Robert Brown

Hosted by Howard Burton
Plato’s Heaven: A User’s Guide is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and James Robert Brown, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. This wide-ranging …
Medicine July 22, 2021

Epidemic Illusions

On the Coloniality of Global Public Health

Eugene T. Richardson

Hosted by Catriona Gold
In Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health (MIT Press, 2020), physician-anthropologist Eugene T. Richardson explores how public health practices—from epidemiological modeling to outbreak containment—help perpetuate global inequities. This book questions …
Eastern European Studies July 21, 2021

Collaboration in Space and the Search for Peace on Earth

Andrew Jenks

Hosted by Paul Werth
Andrew Jenks' book Collaboration in Space and the Search for Peace on Earth (Anthem Press, 2021) explores the era of space collaboration (from 1970 to the present). This period has been largely …
Science July 19, 2021

Technologies of the Human Corpse

John Troyer

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Death and the dead body have never been more alive in the public imagination--not least because of current debates over modern medical technology that is deployed, it seems, expressly to …
Science July 16, 2021

Forces of Nature

The Women who Changed Science

Anna Reser and Leila McNeill

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
From the ancient world to the present women have been critical to the progress of science, yet their importance is overlooked, their stories lost, distorted, or actively suppressed. Forces of …
Digital Humanities July 15, 2021

Technology and the Historian

Transformations in the Digital Age

Adam Crymble

Hosted by Sarah Kearns
The digital age has touched and changed pretty much everything, even altering how historical research is practiced. In his new book Technology and the Historian: Transformations in the Digital Age …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast July 13, 2021

The Power of Principles

Physics Revealed

Nima Arkani-Hamed

Hosted by Howard Burton
The Power of Principles: Physics Revealed is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Nima Arkani-Hamed, faculty member at the renowned Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton …
Medicine July 7, 2021

Madness in the City of Magnificent Intentions

Martin Summers

Hosted by Claire Clark
From the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries, Saint Elizabeths Hospital was one of the United States' most important institutions for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Founded …
Medicine June 30, 2021

Trans Medicine

The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender

stef m. shuster

Hosted by Claire Clark
A rich examination of the history of trans medicine and current day practice Surfacing in the mid-twentieth century, yet shrouded in social stigma, transgender medicine is now a rapidly growing …
Psychoanalysis June 28, 2021

Disalienation

Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France

Camille Robcis

Hosted by J.J. Mull
On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews scholar and historian Camille Robcis. In her most recent book, Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France (University of Chicago Press, 2021) …
Medicine June 2, 2021

Humane Professions

The Defence of Experimental Medicine, 1876-1914

Rob Boddice

Hosted by Claire Clark
In this compelling history of the co-ordinated, transnational defence of medical experimentation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Rob Boddice explores the experience of vivisection as humanitarian practice. He …
Science May 26, 2021

Blood Relations

Transfusion and the Making of Human Genetics

Jenny Bangham

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Blood is messy, dangerous, and charged with meaning. By following it as it circulates through people and institutions, Jenny Bangham explores the intimate connections between the early infrastructures of blood …
Science, Technology, and Society May 21, 2021

The Earthquake Observers

Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter

Deborah R. Coen

Hosted by Carla Nappi
Earthquakes have taught us much about our planet's hidden structure and the forces that have shaped it. This knowledge rests not only on the recordings of seismographs but also on …
In Conversation: An OUP Podcast May 17, 2021

On the Fringe

Where Science Meets Pseudoscience

Michael D. Gordin

Hosted by Marshall Poe
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 …
Middle Eastern Studies May 5, 2021

Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life

The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World

Jörg Matthias Determann

Hosted by Asad Dandia
The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the …
Medicine May 5, 2021

Examining Tuskegee

The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy

Susan M. Reverby

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
Some books are new, others are newly relevant – and so worth looking at from a new, contemporary perspective. Such is the case with Susan Reverby’s book Examining Tuskegee: The …
Science, Technology, and Society April 29, 2021

Genetic Crossroads

The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity

Elise K. Burton

Hosted by Laura Stark
Elise K. Burton’s important book, Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity (Stanford University Press, 2021), documents how race and nation became fused in concept and …
German Studies April 23, 2021

Taking Nazi Technology

Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War

Douglas M. O'Reagan

Hosted by Craig Sorvillo
In his new book Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science After the Second World War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), Douglas O’Reagan describes how the Western Allies gathered teams …