New Books Network
American West
American West May 7, 2021

Writing Kit Carson

Fallen Heroes in a Changing West

Susan Lee Johnson

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
The only constant in Western history is change. Susan Lee Johnson, Harry Reid Endowed Chair in the History of the Intermountain West at UNLV, knows this better than most. Author of …

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Art April 27, 2021

Unsettling Native Art Histories on the Northwest Coast

Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse and Aldona Jonaitis

Hosted by Kirstin Ellsworth
Inseparable from its communities, Northwest Coast art functions aesthetically and performatively beyond the scope of non-Indigenous scholarship, from demonstrating kinship connections to manifesting spiritual power. Contributors to Unsettling Native Art Histories …
Political Science April 26, 2021

Ghosts of Gold Mountain

The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad

Gordon H. Chang

Hosted by Susan Liebell
How do we understand our contemporary politics of race in historical, economical, and political context? How do we make sense of the Chinese Exclusion acts and ongoing racial discrimination? In Ghosts …
Biography April 20, 2021

The Girl Who Dared to Defy

Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver

Jane Little Botkin

Hosted by Mark Klobas
In 1916, hundreds of local female household workers attempted to establish a union in Denver. The organizer behind the effort was Jane Street, a remarkable 29-year-old woman who, as Jane …
American West April 13, 2021

California Exposures

Envisioning Myth and History

Richard White

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
This book began as a bet between a father and son: could Richard White, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and renowned historian of the American West, tell a complete history of …
American West April 9, 2021

Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion

Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo

Elyssa Ford

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Imagine a rodeo rider atop a bucking bronco, hat in hand, straining to remain astride. Is the rider in your mind's eye white? Is the person male? Popular imaginings and high …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast April 1, 2021

The Water Crisis on the High Plains

A Discussion with Lucas Bessire

Lucas Bessire

Hosted by Marshall Poe
The Ogallala aquifer has nourished life on the American Great Plains for millennia. But less than a century of unsustainable irrigation farming has taxed much of the aquifer beyond repair …
Christian Studies March 29, 2021

Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America

Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest

Crawford Gribben

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
In America's Pacific Northwest a group of conservative Protestants have been conducting a new experiment in cultural transformation. Dissatisfied with what they see as the clumsy political engagement and vapid literary …
Animal Studies March 22, 2021

The Reign of Wolf 21

In the Valley of the Druid King

Rick McIntyre

Hosted by Mark Molloy
Today I talked to Rick McIntyre about the first two books of his ongoing The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series. The first book we discuss, The Rise of Wolf 8 …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight March 11, 2021

The Good Hand

A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Michael P. F. Smith about his book The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown (Viking, 2021) Michael Smith is a folk …
History March 9, 2021

The Making of American Catholicism

Regional Culture and the Catholic Experience

Michael J. Pfeifer

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Michael J. Pfeifer's The Making of American Catholicism: Regional Culture and the Catholic Experience (NYU Press, 2021 traces the development of Catholic cultures in the South, the Midwest, the West, and …
American West March 8, 2021

Calamity

The Many Lives of Calamity Jane

Karen Jones

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Calamity Jane is an enigma of Western history. Clad in men’s clothing, she rode across the American West in the latter half of the 19th century, making a name for …
American West March 2, 2021

The Port of Missing Men

Billy Gohl, Labor, and Brutal Times in the Pacific Northwest

Aaron Goings

Hosted by Ryan Tate
In the early twentieth century so many dead bodies surfaced in the rivers around Aberdeen, Washington, that they were nicknamed the "floater fleet." When Billy Gohl (1873-1927), a powerful union …
American West February 24, 2021

Cinematic Settlers

The Settler Colonial World in Film

Janne Lahti and Rebecca Weaver-Hightower

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
The medium of cinema emerged during the height of Victorian-era European empires, and as a result, settler colonial imperialism has thematically suffused film for well over a century. In Cinematic …
American West February 23, 2021

This Land Is My Land

Rebellion in the West

James R. Skillen

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
On January 6th, 2021, when right wing supporters of Donald Trump staged an insurrection at the US Capitol building, they were participating in a long tradition of conservative rebellion with …
Film February 22, 2021

The Brothers Mankiewicz

Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics

Sydney Stern

Hosted by Joel Tscherne
Herman J. (1897–1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture’s only …
Literature December 30, 2020

Anything Will Be Easy After This

A Western Identity Crisis

Bethany Maile

Hosted by Zoe Bossiere
There is something quintessentially American about the idea of the west. Though the time of western expansion has long since passed, stories about cowboys on horses and pioneers panning for …
Sociology December 7, 2020

Voices from the Valley

Tech Workers Talk About What They Do--and How They Do It

Ben Tarnoff and Moira Weigel

Hosted by Patrick Sheehan
In Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do and How They Do It (FSG Originals, 2020), the celebrated writers and Logic cofounders Moira Weigel and Ben …
Critical Theory November 16, 2020

A Piece of the Action

Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood

Eithne Quinn

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What is the history of equal rights in Hollywood? In A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia UP, 2019), Eithne Quinn, a senior lecturer …
American West October 26, 2020

To Live and Defy in LA

How Gangsta Rap Changed America

Felicia Angeja Viator

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
In 1985, Greg Mack, a DJ working for Los Angeles radio station KDAY, played a song that sounded like nothing else on West Coast airwaves: Toddy Tee’s “The Batteram,” a …