Shows / New Books in American Studies
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
Jessica Hooten Wilson, "Flannery O'Connor's 'Why Do the Heathen Rage?' A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress" (Brazos Press, 2024)
When celebrated American novelist and short story writer Flannery O’Connor died at the age of thirty-nine in 1964, she left behind an unfinished third novel…
- New Books in American Studies
Joanna Crosby, "Apples and Orchards Since the Eighteenth Century: Material Innovation and Cultural Tradition" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Showing how the history of the apple goes far beyond the orchard and into the social, cultural and technological developments of Britain and the USA, Apples…
- New Books in American Studies
Cristina Brito, "Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)
Cristina Brito's book Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa (Amsterdam University Press, 2024) deals with peoples' practices…
- New Books in American Studies
Zhongping Chen, "Transpacific Reform and Revolution: The Chinese in North America, 1898-1918" (Stanford UP, 2023)
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the turbulent end of China’s imperial system, violent revolutionary movements, and the fraught…
- New Books in American Studies
Alvita Akiboh, "Imperial Material: National Symbols in the US Colonial Empire" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
This is an ambitious history of flags, stamps, and currency—and the role they played in US imperialism over the 20th century. In Imperial Material: National…
- New Books in American Studies
Justin Owen Rawlins, "Imagining the Method: Reception, Identity, and American Screen Performance" (U Texas Press, 2024)
Only one performance style has dominated the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: “Method acting.” The first reception-based analysis of film acting, Imagining the…
- New Books in American Studies
Mimi Khúc, "dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss" (Duke UP, 2023)
Mimi Khúc is a PhD, writer, scholar, and teacher of things unwell. She is currently the Co-Editor of The Asian American Literary Review and an adjunct lecturer…
- New Books in American Studies
David P. Gushee, "Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies" (William B. Eerdmans, 2023)
Why do some devout Christians support authoritarian leaders who threaten the very democracies that protect religious freedoms? The resounding support from…
- New Books in American Studies
Kristine M. McCusker, "Just Enough to Put Him Away Decent: Death Care, Life Extension, and the Making of a Healthier South, 1900-1955" (U Illinois Press, 2023)
Kristine M. McCusker's book Just Enough to Put Him Away Decent: Death Care, Life Extension, and the Making of a Healthier South, 1900-1955 (U Illinois Press…
- New Books in American Studies
Terry Williams, "Life Underground: Encounters with People Below the Streets of New York" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Aboveground, Manhattan’s Riverside Park provides open space for the densely populated Upper West Side. Beneath its surface run railroad tunnels, disused for…
- New Books in American Studies
Carly Goodman, "Dreamland: America's Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction" (UNC Press, 2023)
In a world of border walls and obstacles to migration, a lottery where winners can gain permanent residency in the United States sounds too good to be true…
- New Books in American Studies
Alissa Quart and David Wallis, "Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World's Richest Country" (Haymarket, 2023)
Going for Broke, edited by Alissa Quart, Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and David Wallis, former Managing Director of EHRP…
- New Books in American Studies
Gerald Epstein, "Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us" (U California Press, 2024)
Bankers brought the global economic system to its knees in 2007 and nearly did the same in 2020. Both times, the US government bailed out the banks and left…
- New Books in American Studies
Leadership in Business, Leadership Abroad: A Conversation with Dave McCormick *96
Dave McCormick *96 has enjoyed incredible success in a wide variety of arenas: after graduating from West Point, where he competed as a varsity wrestler, he…
- New Books in American Studies
Sara J. Grossman, "Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy" (Duke UP, 2023)
In Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy (Duke UP, 2023), Sara J. Grossman explores how environmental…
- New Books in American Studies
Judith Pearson, "Crusade to Heal America: The Remarkable Life of Mary Lasker" (Mayo Clinic Press, 2023)
Mary Woodard Lasker had a singular goal: saving lives by increasing medical research. Together with her husband, advertising genius Albert, they created the…
- New Books in American Studies
Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, "Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam" (Duke UP, 2021)
Through a creative focus on skin, in Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam (Duke UP, 2021), Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu examines the ongoing…
- New Books in American Studies
Angela Wanhalla, "Of Love and War: Pacific Brides of World War II" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
Between 1942 and 1945 more than two million servicemen occupied the southern Pacific theater, the majority of whom were Americans in service with the U.S…
- New Books in American Studies
Marcia Bricker Halperin, "Kibbitz and Nosh: When We All Met at Dubrow's Cafeteria" (Cornell UP, 2023)
In the middle decades of the twentieth century in New York City, Dubrow’s cafeterias in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and the garment district of Manhattan…
- New Books in American Studies
Neema Avashia, "Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place" (West Virginia UP, 2022)
Neema Avashia is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was born and raised in southern West Virginia. She has been an educator and activist in the Boston…
- New Books in American Studies
Sarah Keyes, "American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
The Overland Trail into the American West is one of the most culturally recognizable symbols of the American past: white covered wagons traversing the plains…
- New Books in American Studies
Christopher J. Devine, "I’m Here to Ask for Your Vote: How Presidential Campaign Visits Influence Voters" (Columbia UP, 2023)
During presidential campaigns, candidates crisscross the country nonstop—visiting swing states, their home turf, and enemy territory. But do all those campaign…
- New Books in American Studies
Daniel Dain, "A History of Boston" (Peter E. Randall, 2023)
Boston is today one of the world's greatest cities, first in higher education, hospitals, life science companies, and sports teams. It was the home of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Matthew Fox-Amato, "Exposing Slavery: Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Shortly after its introduction, photography transformed the ways Americans made political arguments using visual images. In the mid-19th century, photographs…
- New Books in American Studies
Gregory D. Smithers, "Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)
In his book, Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal(University of Oklahoma Press, 2019), Dr. Gregory D. Smithers effectively…
- New Books in American Studies
Imani D. Owens, "Turn the World Upside Down: Empire and Unruly Forms of Black Folk Culture in the U.S. and Caribbean" (Columbia UP, 2023)
In the first half of the twentieth century, Black hemispheric culture grappled with the legacies of colonialism, U.S. empire, and Jim Crow. As writers and…
- New Books in American Studies
Daniel Skinner et al., "The City and the Hospital: The Paradox of Medically Overserved Communities" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
An enduring paradox of urban public health is that many communities around hospitals are economically distressed and, counterintuitively, medically…
- New Books in American Studies
Laurence Ralph, "Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him" (Grand Central Publishing, 2023)
In September of 2019, Luis Alberto Quiñonez—known as Sito— was shot to death as he sat in his car in the Mission District of San Francisco. He was nineteen…
- New Books in American Studies
T. Corey Brennan, "The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political Symbol" (Oxford UP, 2022)
"Fascism" is a word ubiquitous in our contemporary political discourse, but few know about its roots in the ancient past or its long, strange evolution to the…
- New Books in American Studies
Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, "American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15" (FSG, 2023)
In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner sought to…
- New Books in American Studies
Emily Legg, "Stories of Our Living Ephemera: Storytelling Methodologies in the Archives of the Cherokee National Seminaries, 1846-1907" (Utah State UP, 2023)
Stories of Our Living Ephemera: Storytelling Methodologies in the Archives of the Cherokee National Seminaries, 1846-1907 (Utah State University Press, 2023)…
- New Books in American Studies
John Howland, "Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music" (U California Press, 2021)
Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music (U California Press, 2021) explores a deluxe-production aesthetic that…
- New Books in American Studies
Lawrence Glickman, "Free Enterprise: An American History" (Yale UP, 2019)
“Free enterprise” is an everyday phrase that connotes an American common sense. It appears everywhere from political speeches to pop culture. And it is so…
- New Books in American Studies
Matthew C. Ward, "Making the Frontier Man: Violence, White Manhood, and Authority in the Early Western Backcountry" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)
For western colonists in the early American backcountry, disputes often ended in bloodshed and death. Making the Frontier Man: Violence, White Manhood, and…
- New Books in American Studies
Max Felker-Kantor, "DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools" (UNC Press, 2023)
With its signature "DARE to keep kids off drugs" slogan and iconic t-shirts, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was the most popular drug education program…
- New Books in American Studies
Mirelsie Velazquez, "Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977" (U Illinois Press, 2022)
The postwar migration of Puerto Rican men and women to Chicago brought thousands of their children into city schools. These children's classroom experience…
- New Books in American Studies
Norman Hill and Velma Murphy Hill, "Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain: The Extraordinary Story of Love, Civil Rights, and Labor Activism" (Regalo Press, 2023)
The remarkable story of a couple who came together during the civil rights movement and made fighting for equality and civil and workers' rights their purpose…
- New Books in American Studies
Ian Saxine, "Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier" (NYU Press, 2019)
In Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier (NYU Press, 2019), Ian Saxine, Visiting Assistant Professor of…
- New Books in American Studies
Sarah Parry Myers, "Earning Their Wings: The WASPs of World War II and the Fight for Veteran Recognition" (UNC Press, 2023)
Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's licence who could afford…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard L. Hasen, "A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Throughout history, too many Americans have been disenfranchised or faced needless barriers to voting. Part of the blame falls on the Constitution, which does…
- New Books in American Studies
Steven Harvey, "The Beloved Republic" (Wandering Aengus Press, 2023)
Steven Harvey is the author of numerous books, including his latest collection of essays The Beloved Republic (Wandering Aengus Press). Besides being a…
- New Books in American Studies
Kimberly Meltzer, “From News to Talk: The Expansion of Opinion and Commentary in U.S. Journalism” (SUNY Press, 2019)
From talking heads on cable news to hot takes online, there seems to be more opinion than ever in journalism these days. There’s an entire body of research…
- New Books in American Studies
Marisol LeBrón, "Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico" (U California Press, 2019)
Marisol LeBrón’s new book, Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2019), examines the rise of…
- New Books in American Studies
Josh Fernandez, "The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist" (PM Press, 2024)
Today I talked to Josh Fernandez about his new memoir The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist (PM Press, 2024). Josh Fernandez is…
- New Books in American Studies
Andrius Gališanka, "John Rawls: The Path to a Theory of Justice" (Harvard UP, 2019)
It is hard to overestimate the influence of John Rawls on political philosophy and theory over the last half-century. His books have sold millions of copies…
- New Books in American Studies
James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson, "Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis" (Russell Sage, 2021)
Soaring levels of political, legal, economic, and social inequality have been documented by social scientists – but the public conversation and scholarship on…
- New Books in American Studies
Jeanne Theoharis, "The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South" (NYU Press, 2019)
In this New Books Network/Gotham Center for NYC History podcast, guest host Beth Harpaz, editor of the City University of New York website SUM, interviews…
- New Books in American Studies
William Gale, "Fiscal Therapy: Curing America's Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future" (Oxford UP, 2019)
The US government is laboring under an enormous debt burden, one that will impact the living standards of future generations of Americans by limiting…
- New Books in American Studies
Daniel Immerwahr, "How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States" (FSG, 2019)
“Is America an Empire?” is a popular question for pundits and historians, likely because it sets off such a provocative debate. All too often, however, people…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard A. Detweiler, "The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment" (MIT Press, 2021)
We speak with Richard Detweiler about his new book The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry and Accomplishment (MIT Press, 2021). This…
- New Books in American Studies
Tim Keogh, "In Levittown’s Shadow: Poverty in America’s Wealthiest Postwar Suburb" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
There is a familiar narrative about American suburbs: after 1945, white residents left cities for leafy, affluent subdivisions and the prosperity they seemed…
- New Books in American Studies
Timothy A. Sayle, "Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order" (Cornell UP, 2019)
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization regularly appears in newspapers and political science scholarship. Surprisingly, historians have yet to devote the…
- New Books in American Studies
Brian H. Williams, "The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal" (Broadleaf Books, 2023)
Trauma surgeon and professor Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all: gunshot wounds, stabbings, and traumatic brain injuries. In The Bodies Keep Coming…
- New Books in American Studies
Jennifer Sdunzik, "The Geography of Hate: The Great Migration through Small-Town America" (U Illinois Press, 2023)
During the Great Migration, Black Americans sought new lives in midwestern small towns only to confront the pervasive efforts of white residents determined to…
- New Books in American Studies
Nicholas B. Dirks, "City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Drawing from his experiences of having belonged to the faculty, administrative, and presidential circles of the university, author Nicholas B. Dirks offers his…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard T. Rodríguez, "A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad" (Duke UP, 2022)
In A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad (Duke UP, 2022), Richard T. Rodríguez examines the relationship…
- New Books in American Studies
Gregory Wallance, "Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)
It’s perhaps one of history’s funny accidents that relations between the U.S. and Russia were changed not by one, but two, George Kennans. Decades before…
- New Books in American Studies
Gregory Wallance, "Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)
It’s perhaps one of history’s funny accidents that relations between the U.S. and Russia were changed not by one, but two, George Kennans. Decades before…
- New Books in American Studies
Wendy Cheng, "Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism" (U Washington Press, 2023)
This episode, which is co-hosted with Tandee Wang, features a conversation with Dr. Wendy Cheng, author of Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies…
- New Books in American Studies
Calvin John Smiley, "Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition" (U California Press, 2023)
In Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition (University of California Press, 2023), Calvin John Smiley explores the lives of people who were…