New Books Network

About Matthew Johnson

NBN Episodes hosted by Matthew:

African American Studies October 30, 2020

The Campus Color Line

College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom

Eddie Cole

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
Some of America’s most pressing civil rights issues—desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free speech—have been closely intertwined with higher education institutions. Although it is commonly known …
American Studies October 16, 2019

Crack

Rock Cocaine, Street Capitalism, and the Decade of Greed

David Farber

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
A shattering account of the crack cocaine years from award-winning American historian David Farber, Crack: Rock Cocaine, Street Capitalism, and the Decade of Greed (Cambridge University Press, 2019) tells the …
African American Studies December 24, 2018

Postwar

Waging Peace in Chicago

Laura McEnaney

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
When World War II ended, Americans celebrated a military victory abroad, but the meaning of peace at home was yet to be defined. From roughly 1943 onward, building a postwar …
American Studies November 21, 2018

The Mismeasure of Minds

Debating Race and Intelligence Between Brown and The Bell Curve

Michael E. Staub

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision required desegregation of America’s schools, but it also set in motion an agonizing multi-decade debate over race, class, and IQ. In The …
American Studies October 26, 2018

Upending the Ivory Tower

Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League

Stefan M. Bradley

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
The eight elite institutions that comprise the Ivy League, sometimes known as the Ancient Eight—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell—are American stalwarts that have profoundly influenced history …
American Studies October 9, 2018

The Road to Disaster

A New History of America’s Descent Into Vietnam

Brian VanDeMark

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
Many books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the young stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite millions of words of analysis and …
American Studies September 4, 2018

Cuban Revolution in America

Havana and the Making of a United States Left, 1968–1992

Teishan A. Latner

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
Cuba’s grassroots revolution prevailed on America's doorstep in 1959, fueling intense interest within the multiracial American Left even as it provoked a backlash from the U.S. political establishment. In this …
American Studies August 23, 2018

Land of the Fee

Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class

Devin Fergus

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
Politicians, economists, and the media have put forth no shortage of explanations for the mounting problem of wealth inequality - a loss of working class jobs, a rise in finance-driven …
American Studies May 28, 2018

Indians in the Family

Adoption and the Politics of Antebellum Expansion

Dawn Peterson

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
During his invasion of Creek Indian territory in 1813, future U.S. president Andrew Jackson discovered a Creek infant orphaned by his troops. Moved by an “unusual sympathy,” Jackson sent the …
African American Studies May 22, 2018

Denmark Vesey’s Garden

Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy

Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
A book that strikes at the source of the recent flare-ups over Confederate symbols in Charlottesville, New Orleans, and elsewhere, Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts' Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery …
Popular Culture January 8, 2018

Consuming Japan

Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America

Andrew McKevitt

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
In Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America (UNC Press, 2017), Andrew McKevitt explores the intense and ultimately fleeting moment in 1980s America when the future looked …
American Studies December 13, 2017

From Oligarchy to Republicanism

The Great Task of Reconstruction

Forrest Nabors

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
In From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction (University of Missouri Press, 2017) , Forrest Nabors sets out to show that congressional Republicans regarded the work of Reconstruction …
Art November 28, 2017

Horace Poolaw

Photographer of American Indian Modernity

Laura E. Smith

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
In Horace Poolaw, Photographer of American Indian Modernity (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), Laura E. Smith, Assistant Professor of Art History at Michigan State University, unravels the compelling life story …
American Studies November 2, 2017

From Head Shops to Whole Foods

The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs

Joshua Clark Davis

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
In From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs (Columbia University Press, 2017), historian Joshua Clark Davis offers an unconventional history of the 1960s and …
American Studies November 1, 2017

An American Genocide

The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873

Benjamin Madley

Hosted by Matthew Johnson
In less than thirty years, California's Indian population fell from 150,000 to 30,000. In An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (Yale University Press, 2016) …