New Books Network Podcast

Economic and Business History June 8, 2023

Virtuous Bankers

A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England

Anne L. Murphy

Hosted by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo

Listen:

The eighteenth-century Bank of England was an institution that operated for the benefit of its shareholders--and yet came to be considered, as Adam Smith described it, "a great engine of …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast May 30, 2023

Night Vision

Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods

Mariana Alessandri

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Under the light of ancient Western philosophies, our darker moods like grief, anguish, and depression can seem irrational. When viewed through the lens of modern psychology, they can even look …

Madison's Notes May 23, 2023

Money or Meaning?

A Discussion on Choice, Restlessness, and Higher Education with Ben and Jenna Storey

Ben Storey and Jenna Storey

Hosted by Annika Nordquist

What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by occupying them …

General History May 23, 2023

Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions

Maurizio Isabella

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

After the turbulent years of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna’s attempt to guarantee peace and stability across Europe, a new revolutionary movement emerged in the southern peripheries …

Political Science May 20, 2023

The State

Philip Pettit

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

In The State (Princeton University Press, 2023), the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking, offering a major new account of the foundations of the state and …

Literary Studies May 18, 2023

Before Modernism

Inventing American Lyric

Virginia Jackson

Hosted by Hal Coase

Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric (Princeton UP, 2023) examines how Black poetics, in antagonism with White poetics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, produced the conditions for the …

Chinese Studies May 17, 2023

The Dean of Shandong

Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University

Daniel A. Bell

Hosted by Keith Krueger

I am not now nor at any time have ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet I serve as dean of a large faculty of political …

Economics May 15, 2023

The Power of Hope

How the Science of Well-Being Can Save Us from Despair

Carol Graham

Hosted by Joseph Tasca

In a society marked by extreme inequality of income and opportunity, why should economists care about how people feel? The truth is that feelings of well-being are critical metrics that …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast May 15, 2023

Period

The Real Story of Menstruation

Kate Clancy

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual's …

Intellectual History May 7, 2023

The Individualists

Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism

Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Is libertarianism a progressive doctrine, or a reactionary one? Does libertarianism promise to liberate the poor and the marginalized from the yoke of state oppression, or does talk of "equal …

Scholarly Communication May 3, 2023

Writing with Pleasure

Helen Sword

Hosted by Daniel Shea

Listen to this interview of Helen Sword, professor emerita in the School of Humanities and the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at the University of Auckland, founder of WriteSPACE, an …

Islamic Studies April 28, 2023

Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism

Teena U. Purohit

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier

Teena Purohit’s new book Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism (Princeton University Press, 2023) maps how various Muslim modernists from the 19th to the 20th centuries used their …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast April 24, 2023

Please Make Me Pretty, I Don't Want to Die

Poems

Tawanda Mulalu

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Please Make Me Pretty, I Don't Want to Die (Princeton UP, 2022) explores tactility, sound, sensuality, and intimacy. Set across the four seasons of a year, these fresh and original …

Education April 23, 2023

How to Think Like Shakespeare

Lessons from a Renaissance Education

Scott Newstok

Hosted by Justin McGeary

How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (Princeton UP, 2020) offers a short, spirited defense of rhetoric and the liberal arts as catalysts for precision, invention, and empathy …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast April 15, 2023

Parfit

A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality

David Edmonds

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Derek Parfit (1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was …

General History April 12, 2023

Settling for Less

Why States Colonize and Why They Stop

Lachlan McNamee

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Over the past few centuries, vast areas of the world have been violently colonized by settlers. But why did states like Australia and the United States stop settling frontier lands …

The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones April 10, 2023

The Future of Dictatorship

A Discussion with Sergei Guriev

Sergei Guriev

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones

Most dictators no longer rule by fear but by spin instead. That’s the contention of Sergei Guriev who has co-authored (with Daniel Treisman) Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny …

Economic and Business History April 6, 2023

A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961-2021

Alan Blinder

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Spanning twelve presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, and eight Federal Reserve chairs, from William McChesney Martin to Jerome Powell, this is an insider's story of macroeconomic policy …

Eastern European Studies April 2, 2023

Rain of Ash

Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust

Ari Joskowicz

Hosted by Vladislav Lilic

Dr. Ari Joskowicz, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Vanderbilt University, is the author of Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2023). Jews and Roma …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast April 1, 2023

When Eero Met His Match

Aline Louchheim Saarinen and the Making of an Architect

Eva Hagberg

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Aline B. Louchheim (1914-1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. She would become his …