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New Books in American Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in American Studies
Domingo Morel, "Developing Scholars: Race, Politics, and the Pursuit of Higher Education" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Over the past fifty years, debates concerning race and college admissions have focused primarily on the policy of affirmative action at elite institutions of…
- New Books in American Studies
Andrew Stone Higgins, "Higher Education for All: Racial Inequality, Cold War Liberalism, and the California Master Plan" (UNC Press, 2023)
The 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education remains to this day the largest and most ambitious attempt to provide free, universal college education in…
- New Books in American Studies
Connie DeNave, "The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass" (2023)
In The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass Ceiling (2023), Connie DeNave shares her experiences in the public relations world during the British…
- New Books in American Studies
D. Andrew Johnson, "Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)
In 1708, the governor of South Carolina responded to a request from London to provide a detailed account of the colony's population. Among the groups included…
- New Books in American Studies
Laura F. Edwards, "Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States" (Oxford UP, 2022)
What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In…
- New Books in American Studies
Ian Miller, "Self-Esteem: An American History" (Polity Press, 2024)
By the end of the twentieth century, the idea of self-esteem had become enormously influential. A staggering amount of psychological research and self-help…
- New Books in American Studies
Karen M. Dunak, "Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life" (NYU Press, 2024)
When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis became First Lady of the United States over sixty years ago, she stepped into the public spotlight. Although Jackie is perhaps…
- New Books in American Studies
Deborah Parker, "Becoming Belle Da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian Through Her Letters" (Villa I Tatti, 2024)
In Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian through Her Letters (Harvard University Press, October 2024), Deborah Parker chronicles the making and…
- New Books in American Studies
Erin Lee Mock, "Changed Men: Veterans in American Popular Culture after World War II" (U Virginia Press, 2024)
Millions of GIs returned from overseas in 1945. A generation of men who had left their families and had learned to kill and to quickly dispatch sexual urges…
New Books in American StudiesRisk
In this episode of High Theory, Faye Raquel Gleisser tells us about Risk. A calculable danger in economics, athletics, sociology, or healthcare, risk has…
- New Books in American Studies
Agustina Paglayan, "Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education" (Princeton UP, 2024)
How the expansion of primary education in the West emerged not from democratic ideals but from the state's desire to control its citizens. Nearly every country…
- New Books in American Studies
D. M. Giangreco, "Truman and the Bomb: The Untold Story" (Potomac Books, 2023)
Many myths have grown up around President Harry S. Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons against Imperial Japan. In destroying these myths, D. M…
- New Books in American Studies
Postscript: Reflections on the 2024 American Presidential Election
Many pundits are rushing to judgement – claiming to identify the “one” reason that Donald Trump won or Kamala Harris lost the 2024 Presidential Election…
- New Books in American Studies
We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance
Today’s book is: We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press, 2024) by Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson. Black resistance to white supremacy is…
- New Books in American Studies
Sara Glass, "Kissing Girls on Shabbat: A Memoir" (Atria, 2024)
Growing up in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Sara Glass knew one painful truth: what was expected of her and what she desperately wanted…
- New Books in American Studies
The Disappearance and Return of Inequality Studies in Economics
This is episode three Cited Podcast’s new season, the Use & Abuse of Economic Expertise. This season tells stories of the political and scholarly battles…
- New Books in American Studies
Hunter Hargraves, "Uncomfortable Television" (Duke UP, 2024)
From The Wire to Intervention to Girls, postmillennial American television has dazzled audiences with novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics. Yet this…
- New Books in American Studies
Anthony Grasso, "Dual Justice: America's Divergent Approaches to Street and Corporate Crime" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
The United States incarcerates its citizens for property crime, drug use, and violent crime at a rate that exceeds any other developed nation – and…
- New Books in American Studies
Paul M. Renfro, "The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America" (UNC Press, 2024)
In the 1980s, as HIV/AIDS ravaged queer communities and communities of color in the United States and beyond, a straight white teenager named Ryan White…
- New Books in American Studies
Donna J. Nicol, "Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action" (U Rochester Press, 2024)
Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Rochester Press, 2024) examines…
- New Books in American Studies
James M. Bradley, "Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Despite serving as the 8th president of the United States, Martin Van Buren gets little consideration for his impact on American history. In his new biography…
- New Books in American Studies
Andrew Stravers et al., "Beyond the Wire: US Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion" (Oxford UP, 2022)
The United States stands at a crossroads in international security. The backbone of its international position for the last 70 years has been the massive…
- New Books in American Studies
Why Can’t the US Compete with China in Infrastructure?
In this episode, Dr. Shahar Hameiri and Dr. Lee Jones discuss the political economy and financing behind global infrastructure development, with a focus on…
- New Books in American Studies
Aran Robert Shetterly, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul" (Amistad, 2024)
On November 3, 1979, as activist Nelson Johnson assembled people for a march adjacent to Morningside Homes in Greensboro, North Carolina, gunshots rang out. A…
- New Books in American Studies
Elia Powers, "Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality" (Rutgers UP, 2024)
Elia Powers' book Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality (Rutgers UP, 2024) explores how journalists from historically…
- New Books in American Studies
The Impeachment Power: A Conversation with Keith Whittington
In this week’s episode we step into conversation with Keith Whittington about his new book, The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an…
- New Books in American Studies
Matthew Ferrence, "I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay" (West Virginia UP, 2024)
Today I talked to Matthew Ferrence about his book I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay (West Virginia UP, 2024). When a…
- New Books in American Studies
Anne M. Whitesell, "Living Off the Government?: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Welfare" (NYU Press, 2024)
Who deserves public assistance from the government? This age-old question has been revived by policymakers, pundits, and activists following the massive…
- New Books in American Studies
Justene Hill Edwards, "Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank" (Norton, 2024)
In Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank (W. W. Norton, 2024), Justene Hill Edwards exposes how the rise and tragic failure of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Sanaullah Khan, "Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self" (Lexington Books, 2023)
Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self (Lexington Books, 2023) explores the interrelation between carceral conditions and…
- New Books in American Studies
Mirin Fader, "Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon" (Hachette, 2024)
It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA. Both via…
- New Books in American Studies
Phuc Tran, "Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In" (Flatiron Books, 2020)
For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In (Flatiron Books, 2020)…
- New Books in American Studies
Ben Yagoda, "Gobsmacked!: The British Invasion of American English" (Princeton UP, 2024)
The British love to complain that words and phrases imported from America--from French fries to Awesome, man!--are destroying the English language. But what…
- New Books in American Studies
From Rubinomics to Bidenomics: On the Democratic Party’s Shifting Trade & Industrial Policy
This is episode two Cited Podcast’s new season, the Use & Abuse of Economic Expertise. This season tells stories of the political and scholarly battles behind…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard Schoch, "How Sondheim Can Change Your Life" (Atria Books, 2024)
For fans of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is one of the true titans – the genius who brought us Sweeney Todd and West Side Story, Into the Woods, and…
- New Books in American Studies
Ashli Quesinberry Stokes and Wendy Atkins-Sayre, "Hungry Roots: How Food Communicates Appalachia's Search for Resilience" (U South Carolina Press, 2024)
A journey through Southern Appalachia to explore the complex messages food communicates about the region. Depictions of Appalachian food culture and practices…
- New Books in American Studies
Kirsten Widner and Anna Gunderson, "The Haves and Have-Nots in Supreme Court Representation and Participation, 2016 to 2021" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
There has been a lot of commentary from scholars and journalists as to the meaning of Donald Trump’s three appointments to the United States Supreme Court –…
- New Books in American Studies
Ronald Drabkin, "Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor" (William Morrow, 2024)
Frederick Rutland—”Rutland of Jutland”—was a war hero, renowned World War I aviator…and a Japanese spy. In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, Rutland shared…
- New Books in American Studies
Friederike Baer, "Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Between 1776 and 1783, Britain hired an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight in its war against the Americans. Collectively known as Hessians, they…
- New Books in American Studies
Lennard J. Davis, "Poor Things: How Those with Money Depict Those Without It" (Duke UP, 2024)
For generations most of the canonical works that detail the lives of poor people have been created by rich or middle-class writers like Charles Dickens, John…
- New Books in American Studies
Eric Helleiner, "The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History" (Cornell UP, 2021)
At a time when critiques of free trade policies are gaining currency, The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History (Cornell UP, 2021) helps make sense…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael Hardt, "The Subversive Seventies" (Oxford UP, 2023)
A thought-provoking reconsideration of how the revolutionary movements of the 1970s set the mold for today's activism. The 1970s was a decade of "subversives"…
- New Books in American Studies
Melissa Deckman, "The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy" (Columbia UP, 2024)
As the 2024 American presidential election approaches, it is common to hear scholars and journalists discuss the role of particular groups such as Latino men…
- New Books in American Studies
Nicolas Delsol, "Cattle in the Postcolumbian Americas: A Zooarchaeological Historical Study" (UP of Florida, 2024)
In Cattle in the Postcolumbian Americas: A Zooarchaeological Historical Study (University Press of Florida, 2024), Nicolas Delsol compares zooarchaeological…
- New Books in American Studies
Eve Dunbar, "Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction: Black Women Writing Under Segregation" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction: Black Women Writing Under Segregation (U Minnesota Press, 2024) offers new and insightful readings of African American…
- New Books in American Studies
Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva, "The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game" (UNC Press, 2024)
In The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game (UNC Press, 2024), Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva offer an existential challenge…
- New Books in American Studies
Simon Kuznets and the Invention of the Economy
Economics sometimes feels like a physics–so sturdy, so objective, and so immutable. Yet, behind every clean number or eye-popping graph, there is usually a…
- New Books in American Studies
Megan Steigerwald Ille, "Opera for Everyone: The Industry's Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
Every year a relatively small number of canonic operas are produced around the world. Many companies shy away from new works, afraid of alienating a…
- New Books in American Studies
Alexis Peri, "Dear Unknown Friend: The Remarkable Correspondence Between American and Soviet Women" (Harvard UP, 2024)
In the tense years of the early Cold War, American and Soviet women conducted a remarkable pen-pal correspondence that enabled them to see each other as…
- New Books in American Studies
The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide
In early June 2020, Christina Gessler and Zerlina Maxwell met remotely to discuss Maxwell’s soon-to-be-released book. This episode is an encore presentation of…
- New Books in American Studies
Bob Frishman, "Edward Duffield: Philadelphia Clockmaker, Citizen, Gentleman, 1730-1803" (APS Press, 2024)
Edward Duffield (1730–1803) was a colonial Philadelphia clockmaker, whose elegant brass, mahogany, and walnut timekeepers stand proudly in major American…
- New Books in American Studies
S4E11 Religion and Republic: A Conversation with Miles Smith
In our latest podcast episode, we sat down with historian Miles Smith, who teaches at Hillsdale College, to discuss his new book, Religion and Republic…
- New Books in American Studies
Steven Levitsky, "Tyranny of the Minority: How to Reverse an Authoritarian Turn, and Forge a Democracy for All" (Crown, 2024)
America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the…
- New Books in American Studies
Ashawnta Jackson, "Soul-Folk" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Folk music of the 1960s and 1970s was a genre that was always shifting and expanding, yet somehow never found room for so many. In the sounds of soul-folk…
- New Books in American Studies
E. L. Gaston, "Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Over the last two decades, the United States has supported a range of militias, rebels, and other armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Critics have…
- New Books in American Studies
Lois Peters Agnew, "Fitter, Happier: The Eugenic Strain in Twentieth-Century Cancer Rhetoric" (U Alabama Press, 2024)
Fitter, Happier: The Eugenic Strain in Twentieth-Century Cancer Rhetoric (U Alabama Press, 2024) is a thought-provoking exploration of the relationship between…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael J. Alarid, "Hispano Bastion: New Mexican Power in the Age of Manifest Destiny, 1837-1860" (U New Mexico Press, 2022)
In Hispano Bastion: New Mexican Power in the Age of Manifest Destiny, 1837-1860 (University of New Mexico Press, 2023), historian Dr. Michael J. Alarid…
- New Books in American Studies
Peter C. Kunze, "Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
In the early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was struggling, largely bolstered by the success of its theme parks. Within fifteen years, however, it had become…
- New Books in American Studies
Amy Reading, "The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker" (Mariner Books, 2024)
In the summer of 1925, Katharine Sergeant Angell White walked into The New Yorker's midtown office and left with a job as an editor. The magazine was only a…
- New Books in American Studies
Brad Balukjian, "The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania" (Hachette, 2024)
In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose real name…