New Books Network

Grinnell College: Authors and Artists January 3, 2022

Spectacle of Grief

Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era

Sarah J. Purcell

Hosted by Marshall Poe

Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era (UNC Press, 2022) examines how the public funerals of major figures from the Civil War era shaped public memories …

Political Science December 20, 2021

Beyond Slavery's Shadow

Free People of Color in the South

Warren E. Milteer, Jr.

Hosted by Susan Liebell

We often focus on enslaved people of color but Dr. Warren E. Milteer Jr.’s Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South (UNC Press, 2021) directs our attention …

General History December 16, 2021

Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain

Migration and the Making of the United States

Samantha Seeley

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Samantha Seeley is the author of Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States, published by the University of North Carolina Press in …

General History December 27, 2021

The Birth Certificate

An American History

Susan J. Pearson

Hosted by Catriona Gold

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver’s license, verifying information for new employers, or claiming state …

Sociology December 10, 2021

Public Confessions

The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics

Rebecca L. Davis

Hosted by Deidre Tyler

Personal reinvention is a core part of the human condition. Yet in the mid-twentieth century, certain private religious choices became lightning rods for public outrage and debate. Rebecca L. Davis's …

African American Studies November 30, 2021

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood

African American Children in the Antebellum North

Crystal Webster

Hosted by Adam McNeil

For all that is known about the depth and breadth of African American history, we still understand surprisingly little about the lives of African American children, particularly those affected by …

Latin American Studies November 30, 2021

Lula and His Politics of Cunning

From Metalworker to President of Brazil

John D. French

Hosted by Candela Marini

Known around the world simply as Lula, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was born in 1945 to illiterate parents who migrated to industrializing São Paulo. He learned to read at …

Native American Studies November 29, 2021

Settler Memory

The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States

Kevin Bruyneel

Hosted by John Cable

Kevin Bruyneel confronts the chronic displacement of Indigeneity in the politics and discourse around race in American political theory and culture, arguing that the ongoing influence of settler-colonialism has undermined …

Women's History November 19, 2021

Her Cold War

Women in the U.S. Military, 1945–1980

Tanya L. Roth

Hosted by Jane Scimeca

Tanya L. Roth's Her Cold War: Women in the U.S. Military, 1945–1980 (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) explains that while Rosie the Riveter had fewer paid employment options after …

Biography November 17, 2021

The Generals' Civil War

What Their Memoirs Can Teach Us Today

Stephen Cushman

Hosted by Mark Klobas

In the decades following the American Civil War, several of the generals who had laid down their swords picked up their pens and published accounts of their service in the …

African American Studies November 15, 2021

The Souls of Womenfolk

The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South

Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh

Hosted by Joseph Stuart

Beginning on the shores of West Africa in the sixteenth century and ending in the U.S. Lower South on the eve of the Civil War, Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh traces a bold …

Women's History October 29, 2021

Funding Feminism

Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women's Movement, 1870-1967

Joan Marie Johnson

Hosted by Jane Scimeca

Joan Marie Johnson examines an understudied dimension of women's history in the United States: how a group of affluent white women from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries advanced …

Catholic Studies October 28, 2021

Meatpacking America

How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland

Kristy Nabhan-Warren

Hosted by Carlos Ruiz Martinez

Whether valorized as the heartland or derided as flyover country, the Midwest became instantly notorious when COVID-19 infections skyrocketed among workers in meatpacking plants—and Americans feared for their meat supply …

African American Studies October 18, 2021

The Colored Conventions Movement

Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century

P. Gabrielle Foreman and Jim Casey

Hosted by Adam McNeil

P. Gabrielle Foreman and Jim Casey's edited volume The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century (UNC Press, 2021) is the first to focus on the Colored Conventions movement …

American West October 14, 2021

Imperial Metropolis

Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941

Jessica M. Kim

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Between 1865 and 1900, the population of Los Angeles grew from around 5,000 people to over 100,000. With population growth that explosive came the opportunity for vast riches to be …

LGBTQ+ Studies October 4, 2021

Cruising for Conspirators

How a New Orleans DA Prosecuted the Kennedy Assassination As a Sex Crime

Alecia P. Long

Hosted by Morris Ardoin

New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison's decision to arrest Clay Shaw on March 1, 1967, set off a chain of events that culminated in the only prosecution undertaken in the …

General History August 31, 2021

Madhouse

Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History

Jennifer L. Lambe

Hosted by Rozzmery Palenzuela Vicente

"On the outskirts of Havana lies Mazorra, an asylum known to--and at times feared by--ordinary Cubans for over a century. Since its founding in 1857, the island's first psychiatric hospital …

Environmental Studies August 25, 2021

Red Coats and Wild Birds

How Military Ornithologists and Migrant Birds Shaped Empire

Kirsten A. Greer

Hosted by Matthew Brown

Remapping empire, nature, and scientific enquiry beyond the simple binary exchange between periphery and metropole, Dr. Kirsten Greer demonstrates how ornithology, the study of birds, became entwined with tours of …

African American Studies August 20, 2021

Rice

A Savor the South Cookbook

Michael Twitty

Hosted by N'Kosi Oates

Rice is a central ingredient to Southern foodways, and it is one of the most versatile grains served around the world. It could be prepared as a side dish, an …

General History August 18, 2021

Cuban Memory Wars

Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile

Michael J. Bustamante