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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:
November 10, 2026
Border Land
The earliest written record of a political boundary in England dates from around 880, when King Alfred and Danish warlord Guthrum formalised a legal t…
November 10, 2026
Seeing Red
Have you ever had one of those days when you’ve had to explain to a leading Senator that the woman approaching his table is actually a Soviet spy hopi…
November 9, 2026
Cinderella
A glass slipper, a fairy godmother, a transformed pumpkin, lizard footmen and seamstress mice: these familiar images evoke a very particular story, on…
November 8, 2026
The Tablet Computer
Tablet computers appear commonplace today, yet for decades they represented an ambitious—and often unrealized—vision of personal computing. The Tablet…
November 8, 2026
The Disease of Money
The twelfth century was a pivotal time in Japan’s history. It witnessed intense factionalism at the imperial court in Kyoto, Japan’s first national ci…
November 7, 2026
Constructing a Renaissance Pope
Constructing a Renaissance Pope: Rhetoric, Ceremony, and Authority in the Age of Leo X (1513-1521) (Oxford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Elizabeth Mc…
November 4, 2026
People For Oil
The oil industry today sponsors dozens of citizen advocacy organizations. Often called 'front groups' or 'astroturf,' they have become key actors in f…
November 4, 2026
Black Market Intimacies
Black Market Intimacies: The Transpacific Sexual Economy of the Korean War (Stanford UP, 2026) reveals how illicit exchanges of money and commodities …
November 3, 2026
Jim Crow from the Harbor
How do poor Black communities co-exist with downtown revitalization? How do Black social movements respond to urban renewal to ensure access to better…
November 3, 2026
Home Team Away
Home Team Away: Watching European Football in Urban China (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Yuan Gong calls for a rethinking of sport fandom that is div…
November 1, 2026
Art for the White House
With Art for the White House: A Changing Portrait of America (White House Association, 2026), Leslie Greene Bowman presents a wholly new perspective o…
November 1, 2026
Romantic Media and Wartime Networks
Romantic Media and Wartime Networks (Stanford UP, 2026) by Dr. Deven Parker tells the story of how Britain revolutionized its state communication netw…
October 28, 2026
Mapping Medical Modernity
Mapping Medical Modernity: Urban Space and Public Health in Tokyo, 1868–1920 (U Pittsburgh Press, 2026) by Professor Susan L. Burns explores the histo…
October 27, 2026
American Amazigh
American Amazigh: Remaking North African Indigeneity and Belonging in the Diaspora (NYU Press, 2026) by Dr. Heide Castañeda examines the complex ident…
October 26, 2026
In Praise of Addiction
Elizabeth Roberts has experienced the suffering wrought by addiction: her sister’s destructive alcoholism and dependency on prescription drugs, her mo…
October 26, 2026
Carceral Utopia
What underpins the legitimacy of the prison system in the twenty-first century? Despite numerous challenges and setbacks, there is still a widespread …
October 25, 2026
From Blood to Ink
The first book ever on how the press covered the Gettysburg campaign, From Blood to Ink: How the Press Covered the Gettysburg Campaign (U Georgia Pres…
October 25, 2026
Incense and Performance
At the time of the conquest of Mexico, the anonymous authors of the Anales de Tlatelolco (1560s) recorded the deaths of two Mexica ritual specialists.…
October 24, 2026
Selling the Word of God
Selling the Word of God: The Early Commercial History of the English Bible (Bodleian, 2026) by Dr. Harry Spillane is a history of the English Bible as…
October 24, 2026
Constructing Christendom
In Constructing Christendom: Conquest and Diocese Formation in Medieval Iberia (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026), Dr. Thomas W. Barton examines how church …
October 23, 2026
Art for War
Understanding the world of art—particularly antiquities and archaeological artifacts—requires tracing how objects are removed from the ground, displac…
October 23, 2026
Forgive Us Our Debts
When American churches face financial difficulties, a disproportionately high number of Black churches reorganize under chapter 11 bankruptcy. There a…
October 22, 2026
Justice Was Her Calling
Before Ruth Bader Ginsburg persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down sex discrimination, Dorothy Kenyon drew the legal blueprint. Justice Was Her Cal…
October 20, 2026
First Among Equals
Today, political theorists and philosophers treat as axiomatic the claim that all persons are equal. Dig deeper, however, and what we mean by equality…