Help Support H-Net! | Visit New Books Network en Español!

New Books Network
NBN Book of the Day
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones February 4, 2023

The Future of Nuclear Fusion

A Discussion with Sharon Ann Holgate

Sharon Ann Holgate

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
How useful will nuclear fusion be? In a major breakthrough last year at the National Ignition Facility in California, 192 lasers achieved fusion – and created energy - for the first time. It was clearly an important moment. But might the development of fusion technology come too late? Owen Bennett Jones speaks with Sharon Ann Holgate, author of Nuclear Fusion: The Race to Build a Mini Sun on Earth (Icon Books, 2022) …
Science, Technology, and Society February 3, 2023

Should You Believe Wikipedia?

Online Communities and the Construction of Knowledge

Amy S. Bruckman

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
As we interact online we are creating new kinds of knowledge and community. How are these communities formed? How do we know whether to trust them as sources of information …
Anthropology February 2, 2023

Computing Taste

Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation

Nick Seaver

Hosted by Mathew Gagné
The people who make music recommender systems have lofty goals: they want to broaden listeners’ horizons and help obscure musicians find audiences, taking advantage of the enormous catalogs offered by …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast February 1, 2023

What Do You Want Out of Life?

A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters

Valerie Tiberius

Hosted by Mark Klobas
What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money--or work for justice? To run marathons--or sing in a choir? To have children--or travel the world? The …
Secularism January 31, 2023

The Varieties of Atheism

Connecting Religion and Its Critics

David Newheiser

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
The Varieties of Atheism: Connecting Religion and Its Critics (University of Chicago Press, 2022), edited by Professor David Newheiser reveals the diverse nonreligious experiences obscured by the combative intellectualism of …
East Asian Studies January 30, 2023

The Emergence of Global Maoism

China's Red Evangelism and the Cambodian Communist Movement, 1949-1979

Matthew Galway

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
How do ideas manifest outside of their place of origin, and how do they change once they do? The Emergence of Global Maoism: China’s Red Evangelism and the Cambodian Communist …
Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast January 29, 2023

This Is Not Who We Are

America’s Struggle Between Vengeance and Virtue

Zachary Shore

Hosted by Mark Klobas
What kind of country is America? Zachary Shore tackles this polarizing question by spotlighting some of the most morally muddled matters of WWII. Should Japanese Americans be moved from the …
Law January 28, 2023

The China Nexus

Thirty Years in and Around the Chinese Communist Party's Tyranny

Benedict Rogers

Hosted by Jane Richards
The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party's Tyranny (Optimum Publishing, 2022) brings together Benedict Rogers' 30 years of advocacy, research and work in and around China. Opening …
Medicine January 27, 2023

Habit Forming

Drug Addiction in America, 1776-1914

Elizabeth Kelly Gray

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
Habitual drug use in the United States is at least as old as the nation itself. Elizabeth Kelly Gray's book Habit Forming: Drug Addiction in America, 1776-1914 (Oxford UP, 2023) traces the …
Animal Studies January 26, 2023

If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal

What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity

Justin Gregg

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first …
Eastern European Studies January 25, 2023

In the Shadow of the Holocaust

Poland, the United Nations War Crimes Commission, and the Search for Justice

Michael Fleming

Hosted by Piotr Kosicki
In the midst of the Second World War, Central and East European governments-in-exile struggled to make their voices heard as they reported back to the Allies and sought to reach …
Popular Culture January 24, 2023

Finding Jackie

The Second Act of America's First Lady

Oline Eaton

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In her new book, Finding Jackie: A Life Reinvented (Diversion Books, 2023), scholar and writer Oline Eaton examines the story of an era's biggest "star of life," Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, as …
Intellectual History January 23, 2023

A New History of the Humanities

The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present

Rens Bod

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Many histories of science have been written, but A New History of the Humanities (Oxford UP, 2014) offers the first overarching history of the humanities from Antiquity to the present …
American Studies January 22, 2023

Bob Dylan's New York

A Historic Guide

Dick Weissman

Hosted by Robert Snyder
New York has long been a city where people go to reinvent themselves. And since the dawn of the twentieth century, New York City’s Greenwich Village has been at …
Environmental Studies January 21, 2023

Endangered Maize

Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction

Helen Anne Curry

Hosted by Isobel Akerman
In Endangered Maize: Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction (U California Press, 2022), historian Helen Anne Curry investigates more than a hundred years of agriculture and conservation practices to …
Biography January 20, 2023

Tough Guy

The Life of Norman Mailer

Richard Bradford

Hosted by Daniel Moran
Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, firstly in 1969 for The Armies of the Night and again in 1980 for The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's life comes as close as …
Media January 19, 2023

License to Travel

A Cultural History of the Passport

Patrick Bixby

Hosted by Marci Mazzarotto
This surprising global history of an indispensable document reveals how the passport has shaped art, thought, and human experience while helping to define the modern world. In License to Travel …
Intellectual History January 18, 2023

We the Elites

Why the US Constitution Serves the Few

Robert Ovetz

Hosted by Keith Krueger
We have been ruled long enough. It is time to govern ourselves. If we are to get past the Constitution and all systems based on constitutions, we need to move …
Critical Theory January 17, 2023

The Coming of the American Behemoth

The Origins of Fascism in the United States, 1920 -1940

Michael Joseph Roberto

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 shocked and appalled a number of people, forcing a critical reevaluation of what was possible, and what we ought to be vigilant …
Genocide Studies January 16, 2023

Invisible Atrocities

The Aesthetic Biases of International Criminal Justice

Randle C. DeFalco

Hosted by Jeff Bachman
International criminal justice is, at its core, an anti-atrocity project. Yet just what an 'atrocity' is remains undefined and undertheorized. Randle C. DeFalco's book Invisible Atrocities: The Aesthetic Biases of …