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About Miranda Melcher
I completed my PhD in Defense Studies at King's College London, where I researched how to negotiate and implement peace treaties. My book is forthcoming in 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.I have had the pleasure of interviewing over 400 authors on the New Books Network, on a range of topics! I tend to interview authors of 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.
Dr. Miranda Melcher (Ph.D., Defense Studies, Kings College, London) studies post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with deep analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
NBN Episodes hosted by Miranda:
April 17, 2024
Wholesale Couture
Wholesale Couture: London and Beyond, 1930-70 (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Liz Tregenza seeks to revise the notion that wholesale couturiers were simply …
April 16, 2024
A History of the World in 10 Dinners
For every lover of food culture, A History of the World in 10 Dinners: 2,000 Years, 100 Recipes (Rizzoli, 2023) by Victoria Flexner and Jay Reifel pre…
April 16, 2024
How the Spanish Empire Was Built
Sixteenth-century Spain was small, poor, disunited and sparsely populated. Yet the Spaniards and their allies built the largest empire the world had e…
April 15, 2024
Arctic Circles and Imperial Knowledge
In 1845 an expedition led by Sir John Franklin vanished in the Canadian Arctic. The enduring obsession with the Franklin mystery, and in particular In…
April 14, 2024
Mask
From the theatre mask and masquerade to the masked criminal and the rise of facial recognition software, masks have long performed as an instrument fo…
April 13, 2024
Space Rover
In 1971, the first lunar rover arrived on the moon. The design became an icon of American ingenuity and the adventurous spirit and vision many equated…
April 13, 2024
State-Building as Lawfare
State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Egor Lazarev explores the use o…
April 12, 2024
Aftershock
In the summer of 1976, an earthquake swallows up the city of Tangshan, China. Among the hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for survival is a m…
April 11, 2024
The Lettered Indian
Bringing into dialogue the fields of social history, Andean ethnography, and postcolonial theory, The Lettered Indian: Race, Nation, and Indigenous Ed…
April 8, 2024
On Amistà
Although we often think of friendship today as an indisputable value of human social life, for thinkers and writers across late mediaeval Christian so…
April 7, 2024
Deeping It
Deeping It: Colonialism, Culture & Criminalisation of UK Drill (404 Ink, 2023) by Adèle Oliver shines a critical light on UK drill and its fraught rel…
April 6, 2024
Peasant Politics of the Twenty-First Century
Peasant Politics of the Twenty-First Century: Transnational Social Movements and Agrarian Change (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Marc Edelman …
April 6, 2024
Peasant Politics of the Twenty-First Century
Peasant Politics of the Twenty-First Century: Transnational Social Movements and Agrarian Change (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Marc Edelman …
April 5, 2024
How Language Shapes Relationships in Professional Sports Teams
While the topic of relationships in professional sports teams is gaining greater attention from researchers and practitioners, the role that coach and…
April 4, 2024
Reds in Blue
Before Josef Stalin's death in 1953, the USSR had, at best, an ambivalent relationship with noncommunist international organisations. Although it had …
April 3, 2024
The Invention of Prehistory
Books about the origins of humanity dominate bestseller lists, while national newspapers present breathless accounts of new archaeological findings an…
April 2, 2024
Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War
Why do great powers go to war? Why are non-violent, diplomatic options not prioritised? Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War: How Leaders of Great Pow…
April 1, 2024
Righting the American Dream
After two years in the White House, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president, but in 1983 something changed.…
March 31, 2024
A Delicate Matter
Eighteenth-century France witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of materially unstable art, from oil paintings that cracked within years of their c…
March 31, 2024
Between Immunity and Impunity
How do top-level public officials take advantage of immunity from foreign jurisdiction afforded to them by international law? How does the immunity en…
March 30, 2024
Dark Star
In Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle (MIT Press, 2023), Dr. Matthew Hersch challenges the existing narrative of the most significant human…
March 29, 2024
Daring Exploits of Pirate Black Sam Bellamy
In 1717, the Council of Trade and Plantations received "agreeable news" from New England. "Bellamy with his ship and Company" had perished on the shoa…
March 28, 2024
Bigger Fish to Fry
What defines cooking as cooking, and why does cooking matter to the understanding of society, cultural change and everyday life? Bigger Fish to Fry: A…
March 27, 2024
Anti-Colonialism and the Crises of Interwar Fascism
What is fascism? Is it an anomaly in the history of modern Europe? Or its culmination? In Anti-Colonialism and the Crises of Interwar Fascism (Blooms…