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

New Books Network

About Elena McGrath

Elena McGrath is an Assistant Professor of History at Union College

NBN Episodes hosted by Elena:

Latin American Studies April 5, 2023

The Rural State

Making Comunidades, Campesinos, and Conflict in Peru's Central Sierra

Javier Puente

Hosted by Elena McGrath
On the eve of the twentieth century, Peru seemed poised for prosperity and development. Both foreign capitalists and local elites imagined that the highlands would be essential to Peru's future sustainable national economy …
Latin American Studies November 2, 2022

Water for All

Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia

Sarah T. Hines

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Sarah T. Hines's Water for All Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia (University of California Press, 2021) chronicles how Bolivians democratized water access, focusing on the Cochabamba region, the country's third …
Latin American Studies August 26, 2022

Nationalizing Nature

Iguazu Falls and National Parks at the Brazil-Argentina Border

Frederico Freitas

Hosted by Elena McGrath
In Nationalizing Nature: Iguazu Falls and National Parks at the Brazil-Argentina Border (Cambridge UP, 2021), Frederico Freitas uncovers the crucial role played by conservation in the region’s territorial development by exploring how …
Latin American Studies August 26, 2021

No Globalization Without Representation

U.S. Activists and World Inequality

Paul Adler

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Paul Adler's No Globalization Without Representation: U.S. Activists and World Inequality (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) is a history of the hardworking but understudied public interest progressives who waged a war from within the …
Latin American Studies August 9, 2021

Fields of Revolution

Agrarian Reform and Rural State Formation in Bolivia, 1935-1964

Carmen Soliz

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Fields of Revolution: Agrarian Reform and Rural State Formation in Bolivia, 1935-1964, published in 2021 by the University of Pittsburgh Press is a ground-breaking study of Bolivia’s revolutionary experiment in …
Latin American Studies August 2, 2021

La Paz's Colonial Specters

Urbanization, Migration, and Indigenous Political Participation, 1900-52

Luis Sierra

Hosted by Elena McGrath
La Paz's Colonial Specters: Urbanization, Migration, and Indigenous Political Participation, 1900-52 (Bloomsbury, 2021) explores the urban history of one of Latin America’s most indigenous large cities in the first half …
Latin American Studies April 23, 2021

Uncertain Citizenship

Everyday Practices of Bolivian Migrants in Chile

Megan Ryburn

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Megan Ryburn’s Uncertain Citizenship: Everyday Practices of Bolivian Migrants in Chile (University of California Press, 2018) is a multi-sited ethnography of citizenship practices of Bolivian migrants in Chile. The book asks …
Latin American Studies November 9, 2020

Our Time is Now

Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala

Julie Gibbings

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Our Time is Now: Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala (Cambridge University Press, 2020) is an ambitious exploration of modernity, history, and time in post-colonial Guatemala. Set in the Q’eqchi …
Latin American Studies July 23, 2020

Conscript Nation

Coercion and Citizenship in the Bolivian Barracks

Elizabeth Shesko

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Elizabeth Shesko’s Conscript Nation: Coercion and Citizenship in the Bolivian Barracks (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020) is an intimate and rich history of the militarization of Bolivia over the course …
Latin American Studies June 23, 2020

An Open Secret

The History of Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion in Modern Bolivia

Natalie Kimball

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Natalie Kimball is the author of An Open Secret: The History of Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion in Modern Bolivia, out this year from Rutgers University Press. An Open Secret argues …
Latin American Studies June 2, 2020

Mexico in the Time of Cholera

Donald F. Stevens

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Donald F. Stevens offers us a portrait of early republican life in his new book, Mexico in the Time of Cholera, published in 2019 by the University of New Mexico …
Latin American Studies May 28, 2020

Landscape of Migration

Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia's Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present

Ben Nobbs-Thiessen

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia's Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present (UNC Press, 2020), traces the entwined histories of Andean, Mennonite, and Okinawan migrants to Amazonian …
Latin American Studies April 23, 2020

Itineraries of Expertise

Science, Technology, and the Environment in Latin America

Andra B. Chastain and Timothy W. Lorek

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Emerging out of a 2016 conference, Andra Chastain and Timothy Lorek have brought together Environmental History, Latin American Studies, and Science and Technology Studies in a single volume that reshapes …
Latin American Studies April 22, 2020

Before the Flood

The Itaipu Dam and the Visibility of Rural Brazil

Jacob Blanc

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Jacob Blanc’s Before the Flood: The Itaipu Dam and the Visibility of Rural Brazil (Duke University Press, 2019) tells the story of the the Itaipu dam, a massive hydroelectric complex …
Latin American Studies July 23, 2019

Domesticating Democracy

The Politics of Conflict Resolution in Bolivia

Susan Ellison

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Susan Ellison’s Domesticating Democracy: The Politics of Conflict Resolution in Bolivia (Duke University Press, 2018) explores the world of foreign-funded alternate dispute resolution (ADR) organizations working in El Alto, Bolivia …
Latin American Studies July 8, 2019

Now Peru is Mine

The Life and Times of a Campesino Activist

Manuel Llamojha Mitma and Jaymie Patricia Heilman

Hosted by Elena McGrath
Now Peru is Mine: The Life and Times of a Campesino Activist (Duke University Press, 2016) tells the remarkable story of a campesino and indigenous political activist whose career spanned …
Latin American Studies May 30, 2019

The Polyphonic Machine

Capitalism, Political Violence, and Resistance in Contemporary Argentine Literature

Niall Geraghty

Hosted by Elena McGrath
What options for resistance are left to the author of fiction in a nation structured by totalizing political and economic violence? This is the question at the heart of Niall …