Support Kritika | Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Join the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!
- African Studies
- African American Studies
- American Politics
- American Studies
- American South
- American West
- Asian American Studies
- Asian Politics
- Australian and New Zealand Studies
- British Studies
- Canadian Studies
- Caribbean Studies
- Central Asian Studies
- Chinese Studies
- East Asian Studies
- Eastern European Studies
- European Politics
- French Studies
- German Studies
- Iberian Studies
- India Studies
- Indian Ocean World
- Indigenous Studies
- Iranian Studies
- Irish Studies
- Israel Studies
- Italian Studies
- Japanese Studies
- Korean Studies
- Latino Studies
- Latin American Studies
- Mexican Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Pacific Studies
- Polish Studies
- Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Southeast Asian Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Taiwan Studies
- Turkish Studies
- Ukrainian Studies
- Western European Studies
- World Affairs
- Animal Studies
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Business, Management, and Marketing
- Media and Communications
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
- Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
- Education
- Economics
- Finance
- Geography
- Gender Studies
- Genocide Studies
- Higher Education
- Human Rights
- Journalism
- Language and Translation
- Law
- LGBTQ+ Studies
- National Security
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Policing, Incarceration, and Reform
- Political Science
- Politics & Polemics
- Postcolonial Studies
- Public Policy
- Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
- Sociology
- Sound Studies
- Sports
- Urban Studies
- Big Ideas
- Celebration Studies
- Co-Authored
- Cover Story
- Historical Materialism
- History Ex Silo
- Interpretive Political and Social Science
- Invested Investor
- Landscape Architecture
- Mormonism
- NBN Seminar
- New Books with Miranda Melcher
- On the Cusp: Between Strategy and Ethics
- Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science
- Practical History
- Preparing for Life After Grad School
- Psychology and Climate Change
- Syriac Studies
- The Chair: In The Room at the Fed
- Oceanic Studies
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 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…
October 19, 2026
Christmas Carols
The English Christmas carol has been sung in court and cloister, tavern and field since medieval times. But with the first Festival of Nine Lessons an…
October 19, 2026
Queer Resistance
Queer Resistance: Contesting State, Family, and Inequality in Post-Socialist China (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Susanne Yuk-Ping Choi examines tr…
October 18, 2026
Punishment
Why was the Japanese Army so brutal before and during World War Two? This haunting question anchors a sweeping investigation into the moral universe o…
October 18, 2026
Fire in the Heart of the City
In American history, few tragedies have been as consequential—and as enduringly misunderstood—as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. Long re…
October 17, 2026
Night Hawk
On July 5, 1828, more than a century before Superman arrived on Earth, a superhero took flight in Philadelphia’s night sky. Buried on page three of a …
October 17, 2026
Multiracial Mandarin
Who has the “right” to learn Mandarin Chinese? In Multiracial Mandarin: Asian Americans and Impossible Language (U Minnesota Press, 2026), Dr. David S…
October 16, 2026
Britain and the Ottoman Maghreb, 1662–1712
From the mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth century, a wide network of English-speaking men, women, and children took up residence in the Ottoman Mag…
October 16, 2026
How Dungeons and Dragons Changed the Way We Play
First released in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons revolutionized game design and interactive media by allowing players to create and perform their own fi…
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 …