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About Miranda Melcher
I have had the pleasure of interviewing over 1,200 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:
May 9, 2026
The Great Repair
The Great Repair: Emotions, Memory, and the German–Jewish Settlement after the Holocaust (Cornell UP, 2026) explores how Jews and Germans began repara…
May 8, 2026
Every Man's Home a Castle
“Parental rights” is a rallying cry for today’s American conservatives, signaling opposition to mandatory vaccination and “woke” public school curricu…
May 7, 2026
The Japanese Garden
As detailed in The Japanese Garden: Ella Christie and Cowden (Birlinn, 2026) by Lucy Stewart, at the turn of the twentieth century, Scottish adventure…
May 2, 2026
In the Land of the Lacandón
In the mid-1930s the amateur French ethnographer and filmmaker Bernard de Colmont ventured into the mountainous state of Chiapas to study the Lacandón…
May 1, 2026
Treaty Ground
In Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic (U Nebraska Press, 2026), Professor Charles W. A. Prior off…
April 30, 2026
God Bless the Pill
Most people today understand contraception as central to women’s liberation, and when the birth control pill arrived in 1960, the media thought it wou…
April 30, 2026
The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments
The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Deirdre Loughridge & Dr. Thomas Patteson is a guided tour through centuries of ins…
April 29, 2026
A Volatile Picture
A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka (U Washington Press, 2026) by Dr. Vindhya Buthpitiya is a groundbreaking et…
April 29, 2026
Sounds for a New World
In the Greco-Roman world, gods were known to tame soundscapes, or acoustic landscapes. Zeus, Apollo, Orpheus, and other Classical deities demonstrated…
April 28, 2026
The Craft of Indo-Arabic Numerals
In the thirteenth-century Mediterranean, commerce transformed as merchants shifted from Roman to Indo-Arabic numerals—an alternative that better facil…
April 28, 2026
Selling Opportunity
As detailed in Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay (Penguin, 2026) by Mary Lisa Gavenas, as the only woman in Forbes’ Greatest Business Stories…
April 25, 2026
The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton
The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Tiffany Jo Werth explores how stones, rocks, and the broader mineral…
April 24, 2026
Electric Life
Electric Life: Utility Regulation and the Fight for Energy Democracy (MIT Press, 2026) by Dr. Nikki Luke traces the intertwined history of Atlanta’s r…
April 23, 2026
Flexible India
Yoga has offered the Indian state unprecedented opportunities for global, media-savvy political performance. Under Modi, it has promoted yoga tourism …
April 23, 2026
Disneyland and the Rise of Automation
When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Disn…
April 23, 2026
Trans Cinema
Since the 1990s, a largely underground upwelling of trans creativity has helped new trans identities, communities, and political movements come togeth…
April 22, 2026
From Occupation to Integration
After the collapse of the National Socialist regime in May 1945, France became one of four principal occupying powers in a defeated Germany. Within th…
April 22, 2026
The Navigator's Letter
One of the riskiest air raids of World War II occurred on August 1, 1943, over the oil fields at Ploesti, Romania--Nazi Germany's primary fuel source.…
April 21, 2026
Marriage Material
It is no secret that marriage rates in the United States are at an all-time low. Despite this significant decline, the institution of marriage endures…
April 21, 2026
Fairies
Many people think they know what fairies are, what a fairy looks like, and how a fairy is expected to behave. Dr. Francis Young's Fairies: A History (…
April 21, 2026
Whiplash
For nearly a century, every Democratic president—and many Republicans—entered office promising to restructure America’s health care system. Barack Oba…
April 21, 2026
The First Social Democracy
Following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the small nation of Georgia established its independence in May 1918. Its leaders surprised the world by…
April 20, 2026
Lipstick
From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself. Who wears lipstick today – as a mat…
April 19, 2026
The Long War of Ideas
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, US officials identified the so-called battle for hearts and minds as the “second front” in the war on terror.…