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 StudiesYou Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape
Writer and educator Marcus Gilroy-Ware (After the Fact?, Filling the Void) speaks with Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner about their new book You Are Here…
- New Books in American Studies
Yang Va Lor, "Unequal Choices: How Social Class Shapes Where High-Achieving Students Apply to College" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
High-achieving students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to end up at less selective institutions compared to their…
New Books in American StudiesAppendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons and Dragons expert Jon Peterson (The Elusive Shift, Game Wizards) speaks with Peter Bebergal (Season of the Witch, Too Much to Dream) about his new…
- New Books in American Studies
Chris Campion and Bud Lee, "The War is Here: Newark 1967" (ZE Books, 2023)
July 1967. After the arrest, beating, and imprisonment of cab driver John Smith by local police, the city of Newark--already a tinderbox, became a hotbed of…
- New Books in American Studies
Joel Lafayette Fletcher III, "With Hawks and Angels: Episodes from a Southern Life" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)
In this episode of Queer Voices I talk to Joel Lafayette Fletcher III about his book With Hawks and Angels: Episodes from a Southern Life (UP of Mississippi…
- New Books in American Studies
Scott McGaugh, "Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin: The Glider Pilots of World War II" (Osprey, 2023)
This book distills war down to individual young men climbing into defenseless gliders made of plywood, ready to trust the towing aircraft that would pull them…
- New Books in American Studies
Tazeen M. Ali, "The Women’s Mosque of America: Authority and Community in US Islam" (NYU Press, 2022)
The Women’s Mosque of America (WMA), a multiracial, women-only mosque in Los Angeles, is the first of its kind in the United States. Since 2015, the WMA has…
- New Books in American Studies
Naoíse Mac Sweeney, "The West: A New History of an Old Idea" (Dutton, 2023)
Dr. Naoíse Mac Sweeney presents a radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating…
New Books in American StudiesStrategy and Saratoga: A Conversation with Kevin Weddle
At the Battle of Saratoga, the tide of the Revolutionary War turned in favor of unlikely victors: the American patriots. What were the major strategy elements…
- New Books in American Studies
Evelyn Alsultany, "Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion" (NYU Press, 2022)
In Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion (NYU Press, 2022), Evelyn Alsultany, Professor at the University of Southern California, argues that, even…
- New Books in American Studies
Kenneth Mondschein, "On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
Western culture has been obsessed with regulating society by the precise, accurate measurement of time since the Middle Ages. In On Time: A History of Western…
New Books in American StudiesMissing: Men at Work — A Conversation with Nick Eberstadt
Over six million prime-age men are neither working nor looking for work; America's low unemployment rate hides the fact that many men have dropped out of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Saskia Coenen Snyder, "A Brilliant Commodity: Diamonds and Jews in a Modern Setting" (Oxford UP, 2022)
During the late nineteenth century, tens of thousands of diggers, prospectors, merchants, and dealers extracted and shipped over 50 million carats of diamonds…
- New Books in American Studies
Party
Sheila Liming talks about the party, social gatherings that occasion joy and dread and various emotions in between. The party is both a pause and an…
New Books in American StudiesAmerica & Democracy Ep. 5: Brandon Terry on MLK
In the final episode of this series, Brandon Terry, political theorist and African American Studies scholar at Harvard discusses the life and work of Martin…
- New Books in American Studies
James Zarsadiaz, "Resisting Change in Suburbia: Asian Immigrants and Frontier Nostalgia in L.A." (U California Press, 2022)
The myth of the frontier West found its home in America's late twentieth century suburbs, argues University of San Francisco associate professor James…
New Books in American StudiesMoney or Meaning? A Discussion on Choice and Restlessness with Ben and Jenna Storey
What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by…
- New Books in American Studies
Rebecca Brückmann, "Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation" (U Georgia Press, 2021)
Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation (U Georgia Press, 2021) offers a comparative sociocultural and spatial history…
- New Books in American Studies
Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, "From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
In From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969 (U Nebraska Press, 2020), Alicia Gutierrez-Romine examines the history of criminal…
- New Books in American Studies
Christopher H. Evans, "Do Everything: The Biography of Frances Willard" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Frances Willard (1839-1898) was one of the most prominent American social reformers of the late nineteenth century. As the long-time president of the Woman's…
New Books in American StudiesAmerica & Democracy Ep. 3: Carol A. Stabile on the Red Scare
In this series of interviews from The MIT Press Podcast, we'll be drawing on the research of various authors to reflect on some of the issues shaping the…
- New Books in American Studies
Book Talk 60: Cleo McNellly Kearns on Mark Twain’s "Huckleberry Finn"
Celebrated, censored, canceled: Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn cannot be avoided. William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American…
New Books in American StudiesCarceral Capitalism
Conor Rose reads from Jackie Wang's Carceral Capitalism. This extract, taken from the opening of the book, offers insight into the Black Lives Matter movement…
- New Books in American Studies
Kathryn J. McGarr, "City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Kathryn McGarr’s City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington (U Chicago Press, 2022) explores foreign policy journalism in…
- New Books in American Studies
Landon Jones, "Celebrity Nation: How America Evolved into a Culture of Fans and Followers" (Beacon, 2023)
Writer and editor Landon (Lanny) Jones, a former PEOPLE magazine editor, reveals how the cult of celebrity has shaped our politics, culture, and personal…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark Paul, "The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America's Lost Promise of Economic Rights" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
Since the Founding, Americans have debated the true meaning of freedom. For some, freedom meant the provision of life's necessities, those basic conditions for…
- New Books in American Studies
Virginia Jackson, "Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric (Princeton UP, 2023) examines how Black poetics, in antagonism with White poetics in the late eighteenth and early…
- New Books in American Studies
Thom Shanker and Andrew Hoehn, "Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats" (Hachette Books, 2023)
Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1 trillion operate. Yet time and time…
New Books in American StudiesThe Life and Legacy of Robert E. Lee: A Conversation with Allen C. Guelzo
Why should we study Robert E. Lee? Why did he make the fateful decision to betray his country? How should we judge Robert E. Lee? Allen C. Guelzo, Director of…
- New Books in American Studies
Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, "Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women" (Sandycove, 2023)
Child abandonment, theft, kidnapping, prostitution, bigamy, and murder! Bad Bridget is a must-read examination of crime and Irish emigrant women in the U.S…
- New Books in American Studies
Kody W. Cooper and Justin Buckley Dyer, "The Classical and Christian Origins of American Politics: Political Theology, Natural Law, and the American Founding" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
America’s religious and political public forum is no longer confined to debates between liberals (be they Catholics or Protestants) and socially conservative…
- New Books in American Studies
Matthew Jagel, "Khmer Nationalist: Sơn Ngc Thành, the CIA, and the Transformation of Cambodia" (Northern Illinois UP, 2023)
Khmer Nationalist: Sơn Ngc Thành, the CIA, and the Transformation of Cambodia (Northern Illinois UP, 2023) is a political history of Cambodia from World War II…
New Books in American StudiesPharmacological Histories Ep. 2: Mikkael A. Sekeres on the Drugs Fighting Leukemia
This episode offers an insight into the work of leading cancer specialist and author of When Blood Breaks Down, Mikkael A. Sekeres. 1 in 2 people will develop…
- New Books in American Studies
Michelle Smirnova, "The Prescription-To-Prison Pipeline: The Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain" (Duke UP, 2023)
In The Prescription-To-Prison Pipeline: The Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain (Duke UP, 2023), Michelle Smirnova argues that the ongoing opioid drug…
- New Books in American Studies
Alvin J. Henry, "Black Queer Flesh: Rejecting Subjectivity in the African American Novel" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
Black Queer Flesh: Rejecting Subjectivity in the African American Novel (U Minnesota Press, 2021) reinterprets key African American novels from the Harlem…
- New Books in American Studies
Bill Steigerwald, "30 Days a Black Man: The Forgotten Story That Exposed the Jim Crow South" (Lyons Press, 2017)
The dangerous, trailblazing work of a white journalist and black leader who struck a shocking early blow against legal segregation In 1948, most white people…
- New Books in American Studies
Jonathan Eig, "King: A Life" (FSG, 2023)
Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life (FSG, 2023) is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin…
- New Books in American Studies
John Klaess, "Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City" (Duke UP, 2022)
In Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City (Duke UP, 2022), John Klaess tells the story of rap's emergence on New York City's airwaves by…
- New Books in American Studies
Maria L. Quintana, "Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) explores the origins of twentieth-century U.S. guestworker…
- New Books in American Studies
Naomi McDougall Jones, "The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood" (Beacon, 2020)
The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood (Beacon, 2020) by Naomi McDougall Jones is a brutally honest look at the…
- New Books in American Studies
Philip Clayton Shackelford, "Rise of the Mavericks: The U.S. Air Force Security Service and the Cold War" (US Naval Institute Press, 2023)
The U.S. Air Force had to struggle to establish itself as an independent branch of the American military, and originally was an extension of the Army. The…
- New Books in American Studies
Jack Parlett, "Fire Island" (Hanover Square Press, 2022)
A groundbreaking account of New York's Fire Island, chronicling its influence on art, literature, culture and queer liberation over the past century Fire…
- New Books in American Studies
Timothy Sandefur, "Freedom's Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Freedom in an Age of Darkness" (Cato Institute, 2022)
In 1943, three books appeared that changed American politics forever: Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine, Rose Wilder Lane's The Discovery of Freedom…
New Books in American StudiesCo-Illusion: Dispatches from the End of Communication
In Co-Illusion, writer and critic David Levi Strauss, tracks the rise of Donald Trump and the media landscape that warped around him. In this interview he…
New Books in American StudiesSaturation: Race, Art, and the Circulation of Value
C. Riley Snorton and Hentyle Yapp read from Saturation, a book that offers an analysis of racial representation and controversy in the art world. Controversies…
- New Books in American Studies
Christianity and the American Founding with Mark David Hall
Questions about the nature of the American founding undergird our fraught political discourse: was the American Revolution justified? How religious were the…
- New Books in American Studies
Gregory Harms, "No Politics, No Religion?: How America's Code of Conduct Conceals Our Unity" (Political Animal Press, 2022)
Americans are told that they are divided and polarized, but is it true? No Politics, No Religion?: How America's Code of Conduct Conceals Our Unity (Political…
- New Books in American Studies
Henry Grabar, "Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World" (Penguin, 2023)
Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking spots. But…
- New Books in American Studies
Karin Chenoweth, "Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)
In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement (Harvard Education Press, 2021), long-time education writer Karin…
- New Books in American Studies
Kyla Sommers, "When the Smoke Cleared: The 1968 Rebellion and the Unfinished Battle for Civil Rights in the Nation's Capital" (New Press, 2023)
In April 1968, following the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., a wave of uprisings swept across America. None was more visible—or resulted in more property…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael W. Hankins, "Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia" (Cornell UP, 2021)
Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (Cornell UP, 2021) brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air…
- New Books in American Studies
Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, "Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia" (Fordham UP, 2022)
How is religious conversion transforming American democracy? In one corner of Appalachia, a group of American citizens has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church…
- New Books in American Studies
The Future of Guantanamo: A Discussion with James Connell
Will Guantanamo ever be closed down? Some people are still there – all these years after 9/11. So why are they still held and when will it end? James Connell…
New Books in American StudiesBreak on Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture
In Break On Through, Lucas Richert explores Anti-psychiatry, psychedelics, and radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health…
- New Books in American Studies
Anne Marie Todd, "Valley of Heart's Delight: Environment and Sense of Place in the Santa Clara Valley" (U California Press, 2022)
This agricultural history explores the transformation of the Santa Clara Valley over the past one hundred years from America's largest fruit-producing region…
- New Books in American Studies
Samantha Pickette, "Peak TV's Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy" (Lexington, 2022)
In Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy (Lexington Books, 2022), Samantha Pickette…
- New Books in American Studies
Robin Bartlett, "Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History" (Casemate, 2023)
Today I talked to Robin Bartlett about his new book Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History (Casemate, 2023). The year 1968 was arguably the most…
- New Books in American Studies
Stephen Roach, "Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives" (Yale UP, 2022)
Denial is a classic symptom of codependency ... Lacking a sense of self, codependent partners tend to be hypersensitive to criticism or negative feedback…
- New Books in American Studies
Chad Williams, "The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War" (FSG, 2023)
When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and support the…
- New Books in American Studies
Jack Buffington, "Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st-Century Covenant with America" (Georgetown UP, 2023)
When the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global economic "shutdown" in March 2020, our supply chains began to fail, and out-of-stocks and delivery delays became the…