New Books Network

About Stephen Colbrook

NBN Episodes hosted by Stephen:

General History January 4, 2021

Her Neighbor's Wife

A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage

Lauren Jae Gutterman

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
Through interviews, diaries, memoirs, and letters, Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) traces the stories of hundreds of women, like Barbara Kalish, who …
General History October 17, 2019

Double Crossed

The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War

Matthew Avery Sutton

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought "Wild" Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team of religious activists for the Office of Strategic Services …
General History September 5, 2019

Debating the American State

Liberal Anxieties and the New Leviathan, 1930-1970

Anne M. Kornhauser

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
The New Deal left a host of political, institutional, and economic legacies. Among them was the restructuring of the government into an administrative state with a powerful executive leader and …
General History September 5, 2019

Donkey Work

Congressional Democrats in Conservative America, 1974-1994

Patrick Andelic

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
What happened to the Democratic Party after the 1960s? In many political histories, the McGovern defeat of 1972 announced the party’s decline—and the conservative movement’s ascent. What the conventional narrative …
General History August 27, 2019

Dying to Be Normal

Gay Martyrs and the Transformation of American Sexual Politics

Brett Krutzsch

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
On October 14, 1998, five thousand people gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to mourn the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who had been murdered …
General History August 26, 2019

Herman Melville

Among the Magazines

Graham Thompson

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
"What I feel most moved to write, that is banned―it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the otherway I cannot." Herman Melville wrote these words as he struggled to survive …
General History August 7, 2019

Getting Tough

Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America

Julilly Kohler-Hausmann

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
In 1970s America, politicians began "getting tough" on drugs, crime, and welfare. These campaigns helped expand the nation's penal system, discredit welfare programs, and cast blame for the era's social …
General History August 1, 2019

Policing the Open Road

How Cars Transformed American Freedom

Sarah A. Seo

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
When Americans think of freedom, they often picture the open road. Yet nowhere are we more likely to encounter the long arm of the law than in our cars. Sarah …
General History July 15, 2019

Before AIDS

Gay Health Politics in the 1970s

Katie Batza

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
The AIDS crisis of the 1980s looms large in recent histories of sexuality, medicine, and politics, and justly so—an unknown virus without a cure ravages an already persecuted minority, medical …
General History July 12, 2019

Sexual Injustice

Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe

Marc Stein

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
Focusing on six major Supreme Court cases during the 1960s and 1970s, Marc Stein's book Sexual Injustice (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) examines the generally liberal rulings on birth …
General History July 8, 2019

This Is Our Message

Women's Leadership in the New Christian Right

Emily S. Johnson

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
Over the past 50 years, the architects of the religious right have become household names: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson. They have used their massively influential platforms to build …
General History July 2, 2019

Anointed with Oil

How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America

Darren Dochuk

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America (Basic Books, 2019) places religion and oil at the center of American history. As prize-winning historian Darren Dochuk reveals, from …
General History June 26, 2019

Bad Girls

Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties

Amanda Littauer

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
In her innovative and revealing study of midcentury American sex and culture, Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), Amanda Littauer …
General History June 24, 2019

The Rebel Café

Sex, Race, and Politics in Cold War America’s Nightclub Underground

Stephen R. Duncan

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
The art and antics of rebellious figures in 1950s American nightlife―from the Beat Generation to eccentric jazz musicians and comedians―have long fascinated fans and scholars alike. In The Rebel Café …
General History May 14, 2019

Reforming Sodom

Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights

Heather R. White

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
With a focus on mainline Protestants and gay rights activists in the twentieth century, Heather R. White challenges the usual picture of perennial adversaries with a new narrative about America's …
General History April 25, 2019

Remaking the American Patient

How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers

Nancy Tomes

Hosted by Stephen Colbrook
In a work that spans the twentieth century, Nancy Tomes questions the popular--and largely unexamined--idea that in order to get good health care, people must learn to shop for it …