New Books Network
Big Ideas
National Security February 26, 2021

Reset

Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society

Ronald J. Deibert

Hosted by John Sakellariadis
Ronald Deibert is a professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and the Director of The Citizen Lab, a public interest research organization that uncovers privacy and human …

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Science January 26, 2021

The Pattern Seekers

A New Theory of Human Invention

Simon Baron-Cohen

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Why are humans alone capable of invention? This question is relevant to every human invention, from music to mathematics, sculpture and science, dating back to the beginnings of civilization. In …
Environmental Studies January 25, 2021

Scorched Earth

Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature

Emmanuel Kreike

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
In Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature (Princeton UP, 2021), Emmanuel Kreike offers a global history of environmental warfare and makes the case for why it should …
Sociology January 21, 2021

Digital Nomads

In Search of Freedom, Community, and Meaningful Work in the New Economy

Rachael A. Woldoff and Robert C. Litchfield

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
In the space of a few weeks this spring, organizations around the world learned that many traditional, in-person jobs could, in fact, be performed remotely. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, however …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel January 8, 2021

The Tyranny of Merit

What's Become of the Common Good?

Michael J. Sandel

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and …
Language January 6, 2021

Extraterrestrial Languages

Daniel Oberhaus

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
In Extraterrestrial Languages (MIT Press 2020), Daniel Oberhaus tells the history of human efforts to talk to aliens, but in doing so, the book reflects on the relationship between communication …
Medicine January 6, 2021

The Structure of Moral Revolutions

Studies of Changes in the Morality of Abortion, Death, and the Bioethics Revolution

Robert Baker

Hosted by Claire Clark
We live in an age of moral revolutions in which the once morally outrageous has become morally acceptable, and the formerly acceptable is now regarded as reprehensible. Attitudes toward same-sex …
Intellectual History December 28, 2020

Ars Vitae

The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living

Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn is a professor of history at Syracuse University. Her new book Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Art of Living (University of Notre …
Science, Technology, and Society December 24, 2020

The Demon in the Machine

How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life

Paul Davies

Hosted by John Traphagan
What is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question, for life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling …
Medicine December 17, 2020

Unraveling

Remaking Personhood in a Neurodiverse Age

Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer

Hosted by Claire Clark
Twentieth-century neuroscience fixed the brain as the basis of consciousness, the self, identity, individuality, even life itself, obscuring the fundamental relationships between bodies and the worlds that they inhabit. In Unraveling …
Politics & Polemics December 7, 2020

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution

Carl R. Trueman

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
“My aim is to explain how and why a certain notion of the self has come to dominate the culture of the West, why this self finds its most obvious …
Science, Technology, and Society December 2, 2020

Points of Contact

Science, Religion, and the Search for Truth

Glenn Sauer

Hosted by John Traphagan
As a scientist and practicing Catholic, Dr. Sauer brings a unique perspective to several of the important issues related to finding a space for dialogue between the at times opposing …
Chinese Studies November 4, 2020

Tea War

A History of Capitalism in China and India

Andrew B. Liu

Hosted by Lukas Rieppel
After water, tea is the most widely consumed drink in the world. It is beloved by consumers in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and it comes in a bewildering …
History October 28, 2020

A Road to Nowhere

The Idea of Progress and Its Critics

Matthew W. Slaboch

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
Has history worked out the way so many have hoped? What did “progress” used to look like and who could possibly have been against it? What areas of human life …
World Affairs October 27, 2020

Fertility and Faith

The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions

Philip Jenkins

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In his new book Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions (Baylor University Press, 2020), Philip Jenkins maps the demographic revolution that has taken hold …
History October 22, 2020

The Kindness of Strangers

How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code

Michael E. McCullough

Hosted by Dan Hill
Why Give a Damn About Strangers? In his book The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code (Basic Books, 2020), Michael E. McCullough explains. McCullough …
World Affairs October 15, 2020

On the Judgment of History

Joan Scott

Hosted by Joshua Tham
Joan Scott’s groundbreaking work in gender and French history is essential reading for any aspiring historian. Indeed, she last joined us on New Books in French Studies to talk about …
Animal Studies October 13, 2020

A Traitor to His Species

Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement

Ernest Freeberg

Hosted by Mark Molloy
In Gilded Age America, people and animals lived cheek-by-jowl in environments that were dirty and dangerous to man and animal alike. The industrial city brought suffering, but it also inspired …
Economics October 12, 2020

Uncharted

How to Map and Navigate the Future Together

Margaret Heffernan

Hosted by Andrea Bernardi
Today I spoke with Dr Margaret Heffernan about her latest book, Uncharted: How to Map and Navigate the Future Together (Simon and Schuster, 2020). Margaret produced programmes for the BBC …
Science October 5, 2020

Every Life is on Fire

How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things

Jeremy England

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
“How did life begin? Most things in the universe aren't alive, and yet if you trace the evolutionary history of plants and animals back far enough, you will find that …