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About Peter Aigner

NBN Episodes hosted by Peter:

General History May 4, 2021

All the Nations Under Heaven

Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York

Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers, and Robert W. Snyder

Hosted by Peter Aigner
All the Nations Under Heaven: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York by Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers, and Robert W. Snyder (Columbia University Press, 2019) covers almost …
General History April 30, 2021

Patria

Puerto Rican Revolutionary Exiles in Late Nineteenth-Century New York

Edgardo Meléndez

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Edgardo Meléndez's book Patria: Puerto Rican Revolutionaries in Nineteenth Century New York (Centro Press, 2019) examines the activities and ideals of Puerto Rican revolutionary exiles in New York City at the …
General History March 9, 2021

New York Recentered

Building the Metropolis from the Shore

Kara Murphy Schlichting

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Providing a fresh perspective is one of the biggest challenges for historians of New York City. Kara Murphy Schlichting, however, has managed to do just that in her recent book …
American Studies February 16, 2021

Radical Imagination, Radical Humanity

Puerto Rican Political Activism in New York

Rose Muzio

Hosted by Peter Aigner
In Radical Imagination, Radical Humanity: Puerto Rican Political Activism in New York (SUNY, 2017), Rose Muzio analyzes how structural and historical factors--including colonialism, economic marginalization, racial discrimination, and the Black and Brown …
American Studies June 24, 2020

A History of New York in 27 Buildings

The 400-Year Untold Story of an American Metropolis

Sam Roberts

Hosted by Peter Aigner
In his new book A History of New York in 27 Buildings: The 400-Year Untold Story of an American Metropolis (Bloomsbury, 2019), New York Times correspondent Sam Roberts tells the …
Jewish Studies June 2, 2020

Jewish New York

The Remarkable Story of a City and a People

Deborah Dash Moore

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People (NYU Press, 2017) reveals the multifaceted world of one of the city’s most important ethnic and religious groups …
General History June 3, 2015

The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right

Sophia Z. Lee

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Americans believe they have a number of protections on the job, which are common in other democracies (free speech and privacy, defense against capricious firing, etc.). They are wrong. And …
General History May 22, 2015

The Fierce Urgency of Now

Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society

Julian E. Zelizer

Hosted by Peter Aigner
In recent decades, as Democrats and Republicans have grown more and more polarized ideologically, and gridlock has becoming increasingly standard in Congress, there has been a noticeable pining for the …
General History February 20, 2015

On Democracy's Doorstep

The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought

J. Douglas Smith

Hosted by Peter Aigner
This year we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, a legal revolution with far-reaching cultural, political, and economic import. But as J. Douglas Smith argues in On …
General History February 13, 2015

Sharing the Prize

The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South

Gavin Wright

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Americans rightly think of the civil rights legislation of 1964 and '65 as a social and legal revolution. InSharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the …
Sociology January 2, 2015

Segregation

A Global History of Divided Cities

Carl H. Nightingale

Hosted by Peter Aigner
We often think of South Africa or America when we hear the word 'segregation.' Or -- a popular view -- that social groups have always chosen to live apart.But as …
General History December 20, 2014

Defining Democracy

Electoral Reform and the Struggle for Power in New York City

Daniel O. Prosterman

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Daniel Prosterman's new book Defining Democracy:Electoral Reform and the Struggle for Power in New York City (Oxford University Press, 2013) investigates a neglected topic in U.S. history: the occasional efforts …
General History November 25, 2014

Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings

The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn

Brian Purnell

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Scholars interested in the history of the civil rights movement in the North will definitely be interested in Brian Purnell's new book, Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings:The …
Sociology November 12, 2014

Americans Against the City

Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century

Steven Conn

Hosted by Peter Aigner
Americans have a paradoxical relationship with cities, Steven Conn argues in his new book,Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 2014). Nearly three-quarters of the …
General History October 31, 2014

Machine Made

Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

Terry Golway

Hosted by Peter Aigner
For most Americans, Tammany Hall is a symbol of all that was dishonest, corrupt, illiberal, and venal about urban government and the political machines that ran it in the past …
General History October 23, 2014

City of Ambition

FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York

Mason B. Williams

Hosted by Peter Aigner
"Today, many New Yorkers take the FDR to get to La Guardia," Mason B. Williams jokes in the opening line of his new book City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia …