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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:
September 6, 2026
Scotland's Geomythography
What can we learn from our landscape? How can Geomythography help us understand our cultural heritage? What is Geomythography? Geomythography is the i…
September 6, 2026
China's Date Debate
China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Emily Matson is an in-depth investigation of the Chi…
September 5, 2026
Mass Expulsion
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, governments around the world have expelled, en masse, more than 30 million people. Yet despite its preva…
September 5, 2026
Extra! Extra!
American pop culture loves newsies. The children who bawled out headlines and sold newspapers on city streets in the late nineteenth and early twentie…
September 4, 2026
Truth Commissions and International Law
Truth Commissions and International Law: Jurisdiction, Representation, Authority (Cambridge University Press, 2026) examines how truth commissions con…
September 4, 2026
Play to Survive
We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we survive th…
September 4, 2026
Legal Weapons of the Wealthy
In Legal Weapons of the Wealthy: The Offshoring of Elite Conflict in Emerging Markets (Cornell University Press, 2026), Dr. Nikhil Kalyanpur examines …
September 2, 2026
Divination Engines
Since the advent of computers, society has fantasized about conversing with machines. In Divination Engines: Natural Language Processing, Artificial I…
September 2, 2026
Diseases Have No Eyes
Diseases Have No Eyes: Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice (Temple University Press, 2026) investigates how communities in Central Valley,…
September 1, 2026
The Wind Beneath the Stone
When world kettle-bell lifting champion David Keohan heard the old tales of stone-lifting, he was captivated, setting off on a quest to rediscover…
September 1, 2026
Edinburgh
Romanticism made Scotland famous. It critically shaped the course of Scottish culture, while impacting on cultures elsewhere and inaugurating the coun…
September 1, 2026
This Beautiful Country
In This Beautiful Country: How Italy's Nature Shaped Its Culture and Civilisation (Chelsea Green, 2026), discover Italy’s unique ecological past and h…
August 30, 2026
Blue Sea, Black Gold, Red Banner
Blue Sea, Black Gold, Red Banner: The South Caucasus and Scandinavia, 1880s–1920s (Northern Illinois University Press, 2026) tells the story of the …
August 29, 2026
'PS: Burn after Reading'
After Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko defected in 1945, Canada was shocked by the revelation that its own citizens were engaged in espionage for…
August 29, 2026
Savage
Savage: The Making of Modern Dogs in British Hong Kong (Cornell University Press, 2026) explores the dark side of colonial modernity through canin…
August 28, 2026
How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America
Between 1990 and 2020, women candidates won only 6% of the world’s presidential races. How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America (Temple U…
August 26, 2026
Forest of the Sea
In a matter of decades, a spectacular cold-water paradise thirty million years in the making is succumbing to warming oceans. Kelp forests are lar…
August 25, 2026
How Economics Discovered Women
In the 1970s, as women started to enter the labor force in unprecedented numbers, economists began to examine their roles as economic actors. The resu…
August 24, 2026
Purges
Purges: How Dictators Fight to Survive (Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Edward Goldring delves into one of the key tactics that autocrats deplo…
August 24, 2026
The Military Entertainment Complex
The Military Entertainment Complex: Chimurenga Afrosonic Making of Zimbabwe (MIT Press, 2026) by Dr. Mhoze Chikowero is the story of the making of pos…
August 23, 2026
Constructing the Medieval Maritime State
Constructing the Medieval Maritime State: Identity, Violence, and Connection in the Mediterranean (Oxford University Press, 2026) by Professor Travi…
August 23, 2026
American Metropolis
Mexico City was America's largest city in the seventeenth century – a genuine metropolis. In American Metropolis: The Making of Mexico City (Cambridge…
August 22, 2026
The Emergence of International Health Policy in Southeast Asia, India, and Sri Lanka, 1937–1978
Examining the emergence of international public health policy between the 1930s and 80s, The Emergence of International Health Policy in Southeast Asi…
August 22, 2026
Liquid Faith
Since time immemorial, water has been a major theme in myth, religion and folklore throughout the world. With its 12,000-mile coastline, as well a…