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About Miranda Melcher
I have had the pleasure of interviewing over 1,400 authors on the New Books Network, on a range of topics! I tend to interview authors of interdisciplinary books that seek to interrogate and subvert preconceptions about elements of history that have either been neglected in scholarship, or authors who are analysing history through a novel lens.
You can follow all of my episodes on the channel New Books with Miranda Melcher, available on all podcast players.
I completed my PhD in Defense Studies at King's College London, where I researched how to negotiate and implement peace treaties. My book on the topic was released in April 2024 from Bloomsbury: Securing Peace in Angola and Mozambique. Prior to my PhD, I earned an MA in Intelligence and International Security from the Department of War Studies at King's College London and a BA in Political Science from Yale University.
Dr. Miranda Melcher (Ph.D. in Defense Studies from Kings College London) is the host of New Books with Miranda Melcher where she interviews authors on a wide range of books related to history and politics.
NBN Episodes hosted by Miranda:
October 14, 2026
The Brass Band Story
Brass bands have played a unique role in the cultural history of Britain. Amidst the industrial revolution, an increasingly urban population turned to…
October 13, 2026
American Bread
There is no humbler food than bread, none easier to take for granted. So ancient that it shows up in prehistoric sites, bread is still full of surpris…
October 10, 2026
Green Thinking
Green Thinking: Unlearning Outdated Ideas in Science, Economics and Politics (Routledge, 2026) is about unlearning, discarding damaging, outdated idea…
October 10, 2026
Europe in the Eleventh Century
Eleventh-century Europe was diverse and fast-changing. Historians have often debated this change through two sets of competing arguments, one about th…
October 9, 2026
The Technocratic International
Most international organisations today-from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the World Health Organisation-present themselves as techn…
October 9, 2026
Tyrants and Traders
How Roman Britain ended is one of the most controversial questions in British history. Unique among former Roman citizens in Western Europe, the Brito…
October 8, 2026
A Pacific Power
Before the First World War Germany was a global empire with colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Annexed to this empire in 1900 was Samoa, a thr…
October 7, 2026
Valuing Nature at the Ends of the World
Belize is often described as a “pristine” ecotourism destination with a landscape that is “naturally” valuable. Yet for much of the twentieth century,…
October 7, 2026
Down and Out in Utopia
Imagine that you have just lost your job. You wonder: “Who or what can I depend on now?” The answer, it turns out, varies significantly depending on w…
October 6, 2026
Conspiracy
Pundits, scholars, and the general public alike have argued that conspiratorial thinking is the greatest threat to liberal democracy. In Conspiracy: T…
October 5, 2026
All Around Is Fairy Ground
Regency gardens dazzled with colour, invention and theatricality: trellises heavy with roses and jasmine, shrubberies designed for intrigue and lawns …
October 3, 2026
The Colombo Plan
Conceived in 1950, the Colombo Plan for Co-operative Development in South and Southeast Asia was a unique experiment in foreign relations. Meeting ann…
October 1, 2026
Assassins and Secret Listeners
Throughout Britain, all day, every day and in the dead of night, the secret listeners went about their solitary work. Hands on headphones, these men a…
October 1, 2026
The Romans - a People`s History
The Romans loom large in the imagination, credited with roads, aqueducts, politics, plumbing and empire – yet these familiar achievements tell only pa…
September 30, 2026
The Quake That Drained the Desert
On May 3, 1887, an earthquake struck near the U.S.-Mexico border. Forty-three people died in Bavispe, Mexico; sixty miles north in Arizona, buildings …
September 26, 2026
Spies and Other Pigeons
Across Pakistan's rooftops, pigeon flyers devote enormous care and labor to birds that soar the skies, take part in competitions, and knit together co…
September 24, 2026
Filial Lines
Filial Lines: Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Comics Form (Cambridge UP, 2026) by Dr. Emmy Waldman is the first book to place the autobiographical…
September 23, 2026
We Will Receive Justice
We Will Receive Justice: Native Histories of the Collapse of the California Missions (U Nebraska Press, 2026) by Dr. Lee M. Panich & Gustavo Flore…
September 22, 2026
The Last Invasion of England
In popular accounts of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the autocratic Catholic King James II was ousted by his subjects and replaced by his Protestan…
September 19, 2026
Brokers of Power
The twenty-first century has seen major transformations in the US electricity sector—but while the use of coal power wanes and the need for renewable …
September 19, 2026
Writing Empire and Self
China’s early medieval period, from the fifth through the early seventh century, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties through the unified Sui, was…
September 18, 2026
Pierogi
Today, pierogi are the most recognizable Polish food in the United States and a symbol of Polish American identity. How did this humble dish attain su…
September 17, 2026
For Customers Only
Americans have nowhere to go. Nationwide, countless public spaces lack one crucial thing: bathrooms, never mind ones that are safe and functional. Yet…
September 17, 2026
The Absent Stone
Where and to whom do ancient things belong? What happens when they are stolen—not by a colonial power, but by a national museum claiming them as state…