Visit New Books Network en Español!

New Books Network
Technology
General History August 17, 2022

Inventing the Alphabet

The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present

Johanna Drucker

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by Dr. Johanna Drucker provides the first account of two-and-a-half millennia of scholarship …

Technology

Subscribe:

Interviews with technologists and scholars of technology about their new books.

Economics August 16, 2022

The Future of Money

How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance

Eswar S. Prasad

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021) provides a cutting-edge look at how accelerating financial change, from the …
General History August 16, 2022

Road to Nowhere

What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation

Paris Marx

Hosted by Michael Vann
In Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation (Verso, 2022), Paris Marx identifies two convergent forces in the 20th century: the growth of the climate …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones August 16, 2022

The Future of Net Zero

A Discussion with Eric Lonergan

Eric Lonergan and Corrine Sawyers

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
There is no shortage of words written about climate change and the goal of reaching net zero - but there is a shortage of practical suggestions about to get to …
Darts & Letters August 12, 2022

Made of Corn

How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 2 of 2)

Hosted by Gordon Katic
This is part 2 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. For the final episode of our “Activism & Academia”-themed week of programming, we’re …
Darts & Letters August 11, 2022

Modifying Maize

How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 1 of 2)

Hosted by Gordon Katic
This is part 1 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. When genetically modified corn was found in the highlands of Mexico, Indigenous campesino …
British Studies August 11, 2022

British Rail

A New History

Christian Wolmar

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
You think you know British Rail. But you don't know the whole story. Now, award-winning writer Christian Wolmar provides a new perspective on national loss in a time of privatisation …
Mobilities and Methods August 10, 2022

Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Social Media's Influence on Fashion, Ethics, and Property

Minh-Ha T. Pham

Hosted by Lakshita Malik
In 2016, social media users in Thailand called out the Paris-based luxury fashion house Balenciaga for copying the popular Thai “rainbow bag,” using Balenciaga’s hashtags to circulate memes revealing the …
French Studies August 8, 2022

Toxique

Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie

Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
What happens when you bring together an important collection of previously secret archival documents dealing with France's nuclear detonations in the Pacific from 1966 to 1996, a nuclear scientist, and …
Darts & Letters August 5, 2022

American Chernobyl, Part 2

The Most Poisonous Place in the USA

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Hanford is the most-polluted place in America. In our last episode, you heard about the nuclear plant's largely-forgotten history--how it poisoned the people living downwind. On our season finale: a …
Darts & Letters August 4, 2022

America's Chernobyl, Part 1

Living in a Poison Town

Hosted by Gordon Katic
In this episode of Cited: What it means to live in a place where your home can give you cancer. Richland, Washington is a company town that sprang up almost …
Music August 3, 2022

DIY Music and the Politics of Social Media

Ellis Jones

Hosted by Gummo Clare
Since the 1970s, there has been a rich, global lineage of broadly guitar-based music scenes which have enacted a political critique of the commercial music industries under the banner of …
Darts & Letters August 2, 2022

Socialise the Series of Tubes

Toward a Democratic Internet

Ben Tarnoff

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Recently a major outage took nearly a third of Canada offline. No phone, no internet… even access to 911 got shut down in some places. So why does one company …
Darts & Letters August 1, 2022

Lost Utopias

A History of World’s Fairs and the Nature of Technology

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Techno-utopianism is everywhere. It’s driven by a new tech-bro/crypto culture, supported by online hordes of true believers, and couched in philosophies of meritocracy and technocracy. But this thinking is not …
Military History July 28, 2022

The Medieval Crossbow

A Weapon Fit to Kill a King

Stuart Ellis-Gorman

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
The crossbow is an iconic weapon of the Middle Ages and, alongside the longbow, one of the most effective ranged weapons of the pre-gunpowder era. Unfortunately, despite its general fame …
Historical Materialism July 27, 2022

Automation and Autonomy

Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry

James Steinhoff

Hosted by Reuben Niewenhuis
Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) argues that Marxist theory is essential for understanding the contemporary industrialization of the form of artificial …
British Studies July 27, 2022

Grappling with the Bomb

Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests

Nic Maclellan

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Nic Maclellan's book Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests (ANU Press, 2017) is a history of Britain’s 1950s program to test the hydrogen bomb, code name Operation Grapple. In …
Technology July 26, 2022

Genre and Video Game

Introducing an Impossible Taxonomy

Felix Schniz

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst
Felix Schniz's book Genre and Video Game: Introducing an Impossible Taxonomy (Genre und Videospiel: Einführung in eine unmögliche Taxonomie) explains video game genres as multidimensional and deeply mutable concepts enacted by the …
Education July 21, 2022

Labor's End

How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work

Jason Resnikoff

Hosted by Thomas Discenna
Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work (U Illinois Press, 2021) traces the discourse around automation from its origins in the factory to its wide-ranging implications in political …
Medicine July 20, 2022

Our Transgenic Future

Spider Goats, Genetic Modification, and the Will to Change Nature

Lisa Jean Moore

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
The process of manipulating the genetic material of one animal to include the DNA of another creates a new transgenic organism. Several animals, notably goats, mice, sheep, and cattle are …