Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!

New Books Network

About Ian Cook

NBN Episodes hosted by Ian:

Sound Studies July 13, 2018

Keywords in Sound

David Novak and Matt Sakakeeny

Hosted by Ian Cook
Featuring twenty entries on subjects such as music, voice, noise, shape and the body Keywords in Sound (Duke, 2015) pushes at the boundaries of ‘sound studies’ through its intellectual overviews …
South Asian Studies June 29, 2018

Waste of a Nation

Garbage and Growth in India

Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey

Hosted by Ian Cook
Is India facing a waste crisis? As its population, cities and consumption grow what are the implications for the health, well being and everyday lives of Indians? In Waste of …
Sound Studies June 15, 2017

Sonic Rupture

A Practice-led Approach to Urban Soundscape Design

Jordan Lacey

Hosted by Ian Cook
Sonic Rupture: A Practice-led Approach to Urban Soundscape Design (Bloomsbury 2016) by Jordan Lacey offers a practice-led alternative approach to urban soundscape design. Rather than understanding the functional noises of …
South Asian Studies June 8, 2017

Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Political Economy of Eastern Mediterranean Exchange Relations

Rajan Gurukkal

Hosted by Ian Cook
Rajan Gurukkal's Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade: Political Economy of Eastern Mediterranean Exchange Relations (Oxford University Press, 2016) casts a critical eye over the exchanges, usually and problematically termed trade, between …
South Asian Studies March 6, 2017

Nation at Play

A History of Sport in India

Ronojoy Sen

Hosted by Ian Cook
Covering sporting activities from ancient times right up to the modern day, Ronojoy Sen's Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India (Columbia University Press, 2016) is at once …
South Asian Studies March 2, 2017

Patronage as Politics in South Asia

Anastasia Piliavsky

Hosted by Ian Cook
Does patronage always imply a corruption of democratic political processes? Across sixteen essays by historians, political scientists and anthropologists Patronage as Politics in South Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2014), edited …
South Asian Studies November 23, 2016

Reengineering India

Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy

Carol Upadhya

Hosted by Ian Cook
How is India's burgeoning IT industry reshaping the country? What types of capital is IT attracting and what formations does it take? How are software engineers managed? What are their …
South Asian Studies November 2, 2016

The Pariah Problem

Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India

Rupa Viswanath

Hosted by Ian Cook
The so called "Pariah Problem" emerged in public consciousness in the 1890s in India as state officials, missionaries and "upper"caste landlords, among others, struggled to understood the situation of Dalits …
South Asian Studies October 28, 2016

Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets

Medicine and Martial Arts in South India

Roman Sieler

Hosted by Ian Cook
Roman Sieler's

 Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets: Medicine and Martial Arts in South India (Oxford University Press, 2015) is a fine-grained ethnographic study of varmakkalai--the art of vital spots, a South …
South Asian Studies September 26, 2016

Nature in the City

Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future

Harini Nagendra

Hosted by Ian Cook
In Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future (Oxford University Press, 2016), Harini Nagendra traces centuries of interaction between ecology and urban change, revealing not only …
South Asian Studies August 17, 2016

BITS of Belonging

Information Technology, Water, and Neoliberal Governance in India

Simanti Dasgupta

Hosted by Ian Cook
What links a water privatization scheme and a prominent software company in India's silicon city, Bangalore? Simanti Dasgupta's new book, BITS of Belonging: Information Technology, Water, and Neoliberal Governance in …
South Asian Studies August 11, 2016

Rule by Aesthetics

World-Class City Making in Delhi

D. Asher Ghertner

Hosted by Ian Cook
D. Asher Ghertner explores why the ways things look are fundamental for Delhi's transformation into a "world class"city. Based on deep ethnographic engagement in one of the city's slums that …
South Asian Studies August 2, 2016

Pipe Politics, Contested Waters

Embedded Infrastructures of Millennial Mumbai

Lisa Bjorkman

Hosted by Ian Cook
Mumbai is in many ways the paradigmatic city of India's celebrated economic upturn, but the city's transformation went hand-in-hand with increasing water woes. In Pipe Politics, Contested Waters: Embedded Infrastructures …
Science Fiction June 29, 2016

Europe in Autumn

Dave Hutchinson

Hosted by Ian Cook
Do not call Dave Hutchinson prescient. Even though his Fractured Europe Sequence envisions a continent crumbling into ever-smaller countries, the idea that his homeland could Brexit the EU had not …
South Asian Studies June 26, 2016

Reel World

An Anthropology of Creation

Anand Pandian

Hosted by Ian Cook
Do we live in a real world or a 'reel world,' in which life begins to feel like a film? In this wonderful ethnography of the Tamil film industry, Anand …
South Asian Studies June 13, 2016

The Trouble with Marriage

Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India

Srimati Basu

Hosted by Ian Cook
Are solutions to marital problems always best solved through legal means? Should alternative dispute resolutions be celebrated? In her latest book The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence …
South Asian Studies May 19, 2016

Making News in Global India

Media, Publics, Politics

Sahana Udupa

Hosted by Ian Cook
What role does Bangalore's private news culture play in shaping the southern Indian metropolis' ongoing urban transformation? Sahana Udupa's new book Making News in Global India: Media, Publics, Politics (Cambridge …
South Asian Studies April 8, 2016

Paper Tiger

Law, Bureaucracy and the Developmental State in Himalayan India

Nayanika Mathur

Hosted by Ian Cook
A village terrorized by a man eating tiger and a state struggling to implement possibly the largest social security program in the world coalesce in this wonderful ethnography of bureaucracy …
South Asian Studies March 2, 2016

Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia

Parsi Legal Culture, 1772-1947

Mitra Sharafi

Hosted by Ian Cook
Parsis, also known as Zoroastrians, were deeply entwined with the colonial legal system of British India and Burma, far beyond what one might expect from their relativity small numbers. Mitra …
South Asian Studies February 24, 2016

Jallad

Death Squads and State Terror in South Asia

Tasneem Khalil

Hosted by Ian Cook
State executioners in their various guises are explored in all their horrific detail by Tasneem Khalil, in his new book Jallad: Death Squads and State Terror in South Asia (Pluto …
South Asian Studies February 3, 2016

Rituals of Ethnicity

Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India

Sara Shneiderman

Hosted by Ian Cook
Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) by Sara Shneiderman is the first comprehensive ethnography of the Thangmi, a Himalayan community who move …
South Asian Studies January 18, 2016

Dehli

Pages From A Forgotten History

Arthur Dudney

Hosted by Ian Cook
Delhi: Pages From A Forgotten History (Hay House India, 2015) by Arthur Dudney tells the story of India's capital and beyond through the lens of Persian literary culture. A lively …
South Asian Studies October 2, 2015

Entangled Urbanism

Slum, Gated Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon

Sanjay Srivastava

Hosted by Ian Cook
Entangled Urbanism: Slum, Gated Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon (Oxford University Press, 2015) is the latest book by Sanjay Srivastava. A wonderfully readable piece of urban anthropology …
South Asian Studies September 22, 2015

Impossible Citizens

Dubai's Indian Diaspora

Neha Vora

Hosted by Ian Cook
Neha Vora's Impossible Citizens: Dubai's Indian Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2013) is a wonderfully rich and engaging account of middle class Indians who live and work, supposedly temporarily, in Dubai …