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
“American Elegy” with author Ed Simon
I discuss with the author his book American Elegy: Reflections on 250 Years of the Dis-United States of America (Ig Publishing, 2026). Simon is the founding…
- New Books in American Studies
Doubled Up: Shared Households and the Precarious Lives of Families
More than eleven million children in the US live in doubled-up households, sharing space with extended family or friends. These households are even more common…
- New Books in American Studies
Paul Helseth and David P. Smith eds., "New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929" (Routledge, 2024)
New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929 (Routledge, 2024) focuses on Princeton Theological Seminary and the theologians who taught there from the time of…
- New Books in American Studies
Gregg Andrews, "Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970" (LSU Press, 2026)
In Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970 (LSU Press, 2026), Dr. Gregg Andrews examines the…
- New Books in American Studies
Daniel Rood, "In the Shadow of the Great House: A History of the Plantation in America" (Norton, 2026)
Dan Rood’s In the Shadow of the Great House (W.W. Norton & Co., 2026) is one of the first contemporary books to focus on the primary engine of slavery, race…
- New Books in American Studies
Krzysztof Rowiński, "Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film" (Routledge, 2026)
Today’s guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book…
- New Books in American Studies
Nicholas Freudenberg, "Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice Since The 1960s" (Columbia UP, 2026)
Today I'm speaking with Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Public Health at the CUNY School of Public Health. We are discussing his…
- New Books in American Studies
Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (UNC Press, 2025)
What was it like to live in a city experiencing occupation by a foreign army? What did it mean when a family had to quarter an officer in their home? More…
- New Books in American Studies
Lila Corwin Berman, "Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship" (Princeton UP, 2026)
The history of Jews in the United States is often told as if they immigrated, gained citizenship, and almost immediately achieved full legal rights. Yet this…
- New Books in American Studies
Stephen Robertson, "Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935" (Stanford UP, 2024)
The violence that spread across Harlem on the night of March 19, 1935 was the first large-scale racial disorder in the United States in more than a decade and…
- New Books in American Studies
How “They” See “Us” with editor Madeleine Schwartz
The remarkable political ascent of Donald J. Trump and his sustained grip on a certain segment of American society have given fresh life to a question as old…
- New Books in American Studies
Jonathan L. Friedmann, "Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West" (U Wisconsin Press, 2025)
Only a few Westerns contain explicitly Jewish stories or themes, and very rarely do Old West tales involve identifiably Jewish characters. Yet Jewish…
- New Books in American Studies
250 Years of Special Providence: On American Grand Strategy Since the Declaration with Walter Russell Mead
To celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, Madison’s Notes is having a special Fourth of July episode to close out the season. So in Episode 12 of Season 5…
- New Books in American Studies
Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory
In Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (UNC Press, 2026), historian John Garrison Marks tells the story…
- New Books in American Studies
A.D. Carson, "Owning My Masters (Mastered): The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
Owning My Masters (Mastered) is a digital archive of original rap music and spoken word poetry containing two volumes of music, an annotated timeline, videos…
- New Books in American Studies
Rosa Campbell, "The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared: Shere Hite and the Hite Report" (Melville House, 2026)
Despite being one of the leading thinkers of the second wave feminist movement, today Shere Hite is little known, little written about, and, unsurprisingly…
- New Books in American Studies
Thomas Paine at the Semiquincentennial: A Conversation with Gregory Claeys
Thomas Paine: Collected Writings (Princeton University Press, 2026) is the first major new edition of Paine’s works, bringing together all his writings in six…
- New Books in American Studies
The Once and Future Republic: On Cicero, Locke, and the Making of America with Michael C. Hawley
In preparation for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, it would be wise to look back at the ancient thinkers and writers who helped inspire its early…
- New Books in American Studies
John Wills, "Doom Town, USA: The Nevada Test Site As Ground Zero of 1950s American Culture" (UP of Kansas, 2026)
In March 1953 and May 1955, government officials—including the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), the US Department of Defense, and the Atomic Energy…
- New Books in American Studies
Scott Reich, "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game" (Compass Rose, 2026)
On a crisp September afternoon in 1917, as the country waged war and the national pastime faced questions about its purpose, baseball paused to reconsider what…
- New Books in American Studies
Shawn William Miller, "Dream Road to Pan America: A Century in Pursuit of the World's Longest Highway" (U California Press, 2026)
A century after the Pan-American Highway was first conceived, its story remains largely unknown—even to the hundreds of motorists who annually attempt the…
- New Books in American Studies
Ranita Ray, "Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)
A powerful exposé of the American public education system's indifference toward marginalized children and the "slow violence" that fashions schools into…
- New Books in American Studies
John Kapusta, "Self-Realization Nation: How Artists of the Creative Counterculture Made a New America" (U California Press, 2026)
John Kapusta's Self-Realization Nation: How Artists of the Creative Counterculture Made a New America (U California Press, 2026) is the story of an unexpected…
- New Books in American Studies
Gina M. Pérez, "Sanctuary People: Faith-Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities" (NYU Press, 2024)
In her latest book, Sanctuary People: Faith Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities (NYU Press, 2024), Dr. Gina Perez explores sanctuary practices in Ohio…
- New Books in American Studies
John K. Roth, "Saving the American Dream: Meditations for Dark Times" (Wipf and Stock, 2026)
The American Dream at its best is an ethical ideal and a moral compass. If respected and sustained, it can guide the United States through Trump 2.0. Anchored…
- New Books in American Studies
Where Harlem Rests at the Woodlawn Cemetery
A cemetery as open-air museum? Historian and award-winning author of Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central…
- New Books in American Studies
Rebecca Kosick, "Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press" (Wayne State UP, 2026)
Can publishing change the world? In Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press Rebecca Kosick (Wayne State UP, 2026), an Associate Professor in…
- New Books in American Studies
Jeremy J. Holland, "The Political Worldviews of American Social Movements: Partisan Politics and the Future of Democracy" (Routledge, 2026)
The Political Worldviews of American Social Movements: Partisan Politics and the Future of Democracy (Routledge, 2026) explores the political worldviews of…
- New Books in American Studies
James O'Leary, "The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The premiere of Oklahoma! in 1943 is commonly called a “turning point” in the history of the Broadway musical. Often characterized as the first integrated…
- New Books in American Studies
Blair LM Kelley, "Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days" (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026)
Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026) is the first fully illustrated history of Juneteenth and…
- New Books in American Studies
Inside the Mississippi Marathon: How Mississippi Dramatically Improved Its Education System with Rachel Canter
In 2008, Rachel Canter founded Mississippi First, an education non-profit with the mission of improving educational outcomes for students across the state…
- New Books in American Studies
Anna O. Law, "Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Anna O. Law, the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights in the Department of Political Science at City University of New York-Brooklyn Campus, has a…
- New Books in American Studies
Charlotte Brooks, "The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family’s Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution" (U California Press, 2026)
The story of the Moy family—U.S.-born Chinese-American siblings who grow up in the first half of the 20th century—is one that spans the Pacific, covering New…
- New Books in American Studies
Adrian Ciani, "Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American Catholics, and the Partition of Palestine" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)
The modern relationship between the Vatican and the State of Israel is rooted in a long history of hostility between Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Through the…
- New Books in American Studies
Anna Harwell Celenza, "On the Record: Music that Changed America (Norton, 2026)
There is no shortage of books on music and politics, but Anna Harwell Celenza explores an interesting premise in her book On the Record: Music that Changed…
- New Books in American Studies
Jesse Montgomery, "It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story" (UNC Press, 2026)
Jesse Montgomery joins Michael Stauch to discuss It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story (UNC Press, 2026). They examine how young white…
- New Books in American Studies
Robert Suits, "The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants" (Princeton UP, 2026)
From the mid-nineteenth century through the dust bowl years of the Great Depression, a new kind of migrant worker became a familiar sight in communities across…
- New Books in American Studies
Brook Wilensky-Lanford, "A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026)
Ever since conquistadores claimed Taino land in the name of their Catholic God and New England Puritans formed their strictly Protestant “city on a hill,”…
- New Books in American Studies
Pamela Walker Laird, "Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth" (Cambridge University Press, 2025)
"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four centuries…
- New Books in American Studies
Stephanie Coontz, "For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage" (Viking, 2026)
Marriage rates have fallen dramatically since the 1970s. Yet far from devaluing marriage, people still overwhelmingly describe marriage as the highest…
- New Books in American Studies
Curtis Dozier, "The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate" (Yale UP, 2026)
Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white…
- New Books in American Studies
Poet-Prophet of American Democracy: Walt Whitman’s Vital Political Prose
Walt Whitman’s outrage at American politics and politicians was surpassed only by his passionate faith in democracy’s future. Both his anger and his hope fire…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard Bennet and Alexander Noyes, "War at Arm's Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance" (Yale UP, 2026)
An in-depth examination of how the United States can build more effective partner militaries. Military assistance has a bad reputation. Large-scale attempts to…
- New Books in American Studies
Sarah McNamara, "Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South" (UNC Press, 2023)
Decades before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, radical, working-class women and men from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Straits, made…
- New Books in American Studies
Justin F Jackson, "The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines" (UNC Press, 2025)
In 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the US Army seemed minuscule and ill-equipped for global conflict. Yet over the next fifteen years, its…
- New Books in American Studies
Karine Premont and Christopher J. Devine eds., "Second in Command: Reevaluating the Role of Vice Presidents and Running Mates in Modern American Politics" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
Karine Premont and Christopher Devine have a new edited volume focusing on the American Vice Presidency and analyzing not just the office and the…
- New Books in American Studies
“America’s Founding Son”: Author & Musician Bob Crawford on the Life of John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the great visionary of America’s post-founding era, a writer and orator of consummate skill who reframed the origins and principles of…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael Staudenmaier, "White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago" (UNC Press, 2026)
Independent historian Michael Staudenmaier joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new book about “becoming Puerto Rican” in Chicago. Staudenmaier’s book, White…
- New Books in American Studies
Bruce Dearstyne, "Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change" (SUNY Press, 2026)
Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change (SUNY Press, 2026), edited by Bruce Dearstyne and published by SUNY Press, examines what the volume calls…
- New Books in American Studies
Margaret O’Mara on the Clintons, Tech, and Memory
We were joined by Professor Margaret O’Mara of the University of Washington, who had a front row seat to the Clinton campaign and went on to become an expert…
- New Books in American Studies
Kristian Williams, "Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, from Settlement to Uprising" (AK Press, 2026)
Kristian Williams, longtime activist and writer, joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new book Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, from Settlement…
- New Books in American Studies
Ashok Malhotra, "Imperial Science, the Organic Movement and the Path to Shangri La, 1900-1969" (UCL Press, 2026)
Imperial Science, the Organic Movement and the Path to Shangri La, 1900-1969 (UCL Press, 2026) is a global history project that examines the diffusion of…
- New Books in American Studies
Eileen Otis, "Walmart: Made in China" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Walmart: Made in China (Stanford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Eileen Otis tells the story of Walmart's expansion in China, making the case that it is the…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael Brownstein et al., "Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change" (MIT Press, 2025)
A novel and scientific approach to creating transformative social change—and the surprising ways that each of us can help make a real difference. Changing the…
- New Books in American Studies
Robert W. Snyder, "When the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers" (Cornell UP, 2026)
The COVID-19 pandemic delivered its first and most devastating strike in the United States in New York City in the Spring of 2020. Closely connected to the…
- New Books in American Studies
David Cunningham on Contesting Confederate Monuments (JP)
David Cunningham joins John to speak about his pathbreaking article about visiting each of the 113 communities that removed or relocated Confederate symbols…
- New Books in American Studies
Mollie Barnes, "Paper Heroines: Women Writers in Conversation and Community Across the Sea Islands, 1838-1902" (U South Carolina Press, 2026)
In Paper Heroines: Women Writers in Conversation and Community Across the Sea Islands, 1838-1902 (U South Carolina Press, 2026), Dr. Mollie Barnes studies…
- New Books in American Studies
Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)
Prior to the American Revolution, the urban centers of colonial North America had little direct experience of war. With the outbreak of violence, British…
- New Books in American Studies
Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, "Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word and Me" (37 Ink, 2026)
The N-word is one of the most perplexing, controversial and misunderstood words in the American lexicon. It’s a word that Elizabeth Pryor has not only…
- New Books in American Studies
Kati Curts, "Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America" (NYU Press, 2025)
Henry Ford did not just mass produce cars. As a member of the Episcopal Church, reader of New Thought texts, believer in the “gospel of reincarnation,” mass…