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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
The Future of Life Expectancy: A Discussion with Angus Deaton
In 2015, Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University and his wife Professor Anne Case published a paper highlighting the rising mortality rate among…
- New Books in American Studies
Bruce W. Dearstyne, "The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State's History" (2nd Edition; SUNY Press, 2022)
In The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State's History (2nd Edition; SUNY Press, 2022), Bruce W. Dearstyne presents New York State history…
- New Books in American Studies
Elisabeth Anderson, "Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State" (Princeton UP, 2021)
The beginnings of the modern welfare state are often traced to the late nineteenth-century labor movement and to policymakers’ efforts to appeal to…
- New Books in American Studies
Anthony Shaw and Giora Goodman, "Hollywood and Israel: A History" (Columbia UP, 2022)
From Frank Sinatra’s early pro-Zionist rallying to Steven Spielberg’s present-day peacemaking, Hollywood has long enjoyed a “special relationship” with Israel…
- New Books in American Studies
R. Douglas Arnold, "Fixing Social Security: The Politics of Reform in a Polarized Age" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Since its establishment, Social Security has become the financial linchpin of American retirement. Yet demographic trends—longer lifespans and declining…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard Brent Turner, "Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism" (NYU Press, 2021)
In his fascinating and riveting new book Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism (NYU Press, 2021), historian…
- New Books in American Studies
Todd R. Clear and Natasha A. Frost, "The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America" (NYU Press, 2015)
Over the last 40 years, the US penal system has grown at an unprecedented rate―five times larger than in the past and grossly out of scale with the rest of the…
- New Books in American Studies
William D. Adler, "Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787-1860" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787-1860 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) threads together political science, history, economics…
- New Books in American Studies
David Hajdu and John Carey, "A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge" (Columbia UP, 2021)
Too often, vaudeville is seen from the perspective of its decline: it is the corny, messy art form that predated the book musical, or that gave us Chaplin…
- New Books in American Studies
Lester D. Friedman, "Citizen Spielberg" (U of Illinois Press, 2022)
Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of Spielberg…
- New Books in American Studies
Gary Gerstle, "The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era" (Oxford UP, 2022)
The epochal shift toward neoliberalism–– a web of related policies that, broadly speaking, reduced the footprint of government in society and reassigned…
- New Books in American Studies
Jenifer L. Barclay, "The Mark of Slavery: Disability, Race, and Gender in Antebellum America" (U of Illinois Press, 2021)
Time and again, antebellum Americans justified slavery and white supremacy by linking blackness to disability, defectiveness, and dependency. In The Mark of…
- New Books in American Studies
Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, "American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York" (Princeton UP, 2021)
In American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (Princeton University Press, 2022), Nomi Stolzenberg and David Myers tell…
New Books in American StudiesOn Zen in America, Shunryu Suzuki, and the San Francisco Zen Center
Michael Downing teaches creative writing at Tufts University. This conversation features a deep dive into Michael’s nonfiction book Shoes Outside the Door…
- New Books in American Studies
Robert Buderi, "Where Futures Converge: Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub" (MIT Press, 2022)
Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” It's a life science hub, hosting Biogen, Moderna…
- New Books in American Studies
Megan Tobias Neely, "Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street" (U of California Press, 2022)
Is the finance industry fair? In Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street (University of California Press, 2022) Megan Tobias Neely, an assistant…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael J. Graetz and Ian Shapiro, "The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It" (Harvard UP, 2020)
This is an age of crisis. That much we can agree on. But a crisis of what? And how do we get out of it? Many on the right call for tax cuts and deregulation…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael Kazin, "What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party" (FSG, 2022)
The Democratic Party is the world’s oldest mass political organization. Since its inception in the early nineteenth century, it has played a central role in…
- New Books in American Studies
All About Birds: A Series of Regional Field Guides from Princeton University Press
The All About Birds Regional Field-Guide Series brings birding enthusiasts the best information from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark Newman, "Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945-1992" (UP of Mississippi, 2018)
In Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945-1992 (UP of Mississippi, 2018), Mark Newman draws on a vast range of archives…
- New Books in American Studies
Rebecca Cypess, "Women and Musical Salons in the Enlightenment" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Today we speak to Rebecca Cypess, Associate Professor at Rutgers University, about her new book: Musical Salons in the Enlightenment (University of Chicago…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard K. Rein, "American Urbanist: How William H. Whyte's Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life" (Island Press, 2022)
On an otherwise normal weekday in the 1980s, commuters on busy Route 1 in central New Jersey noticed an alarming sight: a man in a suit and tie dashing across…
- New Books in American Studies
Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath, "The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy" (Harvard UP, 2022)
Oligarchy is a threat to the American republic. When too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands, we risk losing the “republican…
- New Books in American Studies
Paige Sweet, "The Politics of Surviving: How Women Navigate Domestic Violence and Its Aftermath" (U California Press, 2021)
For women who have experienced domestic violence, proving that you are a “good victim” is no longer enough. Victims must also show that they are recovering, as…
- New Books in American Studies
Erin L. Thompson, "Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments" (Norton, 2022)
In the United States, the national debate over public monuments often frames the removal of statutes as a revision of history. But Dr. Thompson suggests that…
- New Books in American Studies
Natali Valdez, "Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era" (U California Press, 2022)
In Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era (University of California Press, 2022), Natali Valdez examines research…
- New Books in American Studies
Nick Marx, "Sketch Comedy: Identity, Reflexivity, and American Television" (Indiana UP, 2019)
“Sketch comedy – more than any other television genre – lays bare the process of identity formation, pokes fun at its contradictions, and invites us to debate…
- New Books in American Studies
Nitasha Tamar Sharma, "Hawai'i Is My Haven: Race and Indigeneity in the Black Pacific" (Duke UP, 2021)
Hawai'i Is My Haven: Race and Indigeneity in the Black Pacific (Duke UP, 2021) maps the context and contours of Black life in the Hawaiian Islands. This…
- New Books in American Studies
Ellen Jones, "Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas" (Columbia UP, 2022)
In Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas (Columbia University Press, 2022), Ellen C. Jones centers not just translation but…
- New Books in American Studies
Jørgen Jensehaugen, "Arab-Israeli Diplomacy Under Carter: The US, Israel and the Palestinians" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
The history of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East is marked by numerous stark failures and a few ephemeral successes. Jimmy Carter's short-lived Middle East…
- New Books in American Studies
Steven J. Brady, "Chained to History: Slavery and US Foreign Relations to 1865" (Cornell UP, 2022)
In Chained to History: Slavery and US Foreign Relations to 1865 (Cornell University Press, 2022), Dr. Steven J. Brady places slavery at the centre of the story…
- New Books in American Studies
Ellen Baumler, "The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State: A History of Montana's Cemeteries" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)
The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State: A History of Montana's Cemeteries (U Nebraska Press, 2021) is a groundbreaking history of death in Montana. It…
- New Books in American Studies
Kathleen Courtenay Stone, "They Called Us Girls: Stories of Female Ambition from Suffrage to Mad Men" (Cynren Press, 2022)
In mid-twentieth-century America, women faced a paradox. Thanks to their efforts, World War II production had been robust, and in the peace that followed, more…
- New Books in American Studies
Emily J. Levine, "Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University" (UChicago Press, 2021)
During the nineteenth century, nearly ten thousand Americans traveled to Germany to study in universities renowned for their research and teaching. By the…
- New Books in American Studies
Francesca Morgan, "A Nation of Descendants: Politics and the Practice of Genealogy in U.S. History" (UNC Press, 2021)
In A Nation of Descendants: Politics and the Practice of Genealogy in U.S. History (University of North Carolina Press, 2021), historian Francesca Morgan…
- New Books in American Studies
Robert P. Kolker, "Triumph Over Containment: American Film in the 1950s" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of “containment culture” in America, as the media…
- New Books in American Studies
Elisabeth Ceppi, "Invisible Masters: Gender, Race, and the Economy of Service in Early New England" (Dartmouth College Press, 2018)
Early American literature scholar Elisabeth Ceppi’s thought-provoking new book, Invisible Masters: Gender, Race, and the Economy of Service in Early New…
- New Books in American Studies
Elle Dowd, "Baptized in Tear Gas: From White Moderate to Abolitionist" (Broadleaf, 2021)
In this raw and thought-provoking memoir, Dowd brings us on her journey though the Ferguson uprising into abolition. For years Elle Dowd considered herself an…
- New Books in American Studies
Heather R. Hlavka and Sameena Mulla, "Bodies in Evidence: Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication" (NYU Press, 2021)
Scholars Heather Hlavka (Marquette University) and Sameena Mulla (Emory University) have written a new book that examines and interrogates the place and space…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael D. Breidenbach, "Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Here is a fun quiz question. What distinction does Charles Carroll (1737–1832) hold in American History? Answer: he was the longest-surviving signer of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Tia Brown McNair, "From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education" (Jossey-Bass, 2020)
Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear: Why it is so important to have the conversation about “Equity in Higher Education” and why now is…
- New Books in American Studies
Daudi Abe, "Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle" (U Washington Press, 2020)
West Coast hip hop means much more than LA, argues Dr. Daudi Abe, a professor of humanities at Seattle Central College. In Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop…
- New Books in American Studies
Jerry Ceppos, "Covering Politics in the Age of Trump" (LSU Press, 2021)
As the United States moves on from the Trump era — and perhaps begins to contemplate what a second one might look like — conversations about journalism's…
- New Books in American Studies
Jonathan M. Katz, "Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
Jonathan Katz’s Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) tells the…
- New Books in American Studies
Liz Clarke, "The American Girl Goes to War: Women and National Identity in US Silent Film" (Rutgers UP, 2022)
During the 1910s, films about war often featured a female protagonist. The films portrayed women as spies, cross-dressing soldiers, and athletic defenders of…
- New Books in American Studies
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, "Between Empire and Republic: America in the Colonial Canadian Imagination" (Lexington, 2022)
We don’t think of Canada as a republic. Even in its modern and vibrantly multi-cultural form, there is something monarchical about the place. The Queen appears…
- New Books in American Studies
Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt, "Able to Lead: Disablement, Radicalism, and the Political Life of E. T. Kingsley" (U British Columbia Press, 2021)
People with disabilities have always struggled to make ends meet. Finding a job you can actually do, a housing situation you can afford that meets your needs…
- New Books in American Studies
Daniel Y. Kim, "The Intimacies of Conflict: Cultural Memory and the Korean War" (NYU Press, 2020)
In this episode I talk with Daniel Y. Kim, Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Brown University, about his 2020 book Intimacies of Conflict…
- New Books in American Studies
Ian Tyrrell, "American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
Ian Tyrrell's American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea (UChicago Press, 2021) is a powerful dissection of a core American myth. The idea that the…
- New Books in American Studies
Jenni Calder, "Frontier Scots" (Luath Press, 2020)
Today there are up to 25 million Americans who claim to have Scottish heritage. Many of these people are the descendants of Scots who journeyed to America in…
- New Books in American Studies
Kecia Ali, ed., "Half of Faith: American Muslim Marriage and Divorce in the Twenty-First Century" (Open BU, 2021)
In Half of Faith: American Muslim Marriage and Divorce in the Twenty-First Century, readers find a wide range of texts on Muslim Americans’ experiences with…
- 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
Andrew Rudalevige, "By Executive Order: Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Andrew Rudalevige, the Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government at Bowdoin College, has a new book that examines the processes that transpires in the…
- New Books in American Studies
Carole Emberton, "To Walk about in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner" (Norton, 2022)
Priscilla Joyner was born into the world of slavery in 1858 North Carolina and came of age at the dawn of emancipation. Raised by a white slaveholding woman…
- New Books in American Studies
E. James West, "Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America" (U of Illinois Press, 2020)
Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (University of Illinois Press, 2020) reveals the previously hidden impact of…
- New Books in American Studies
K. Stephen Prince, "The Ballad of Robert Charles: Searching for the New Orleans Riot Of 1900" (UNC Press, 2021)
For a brief moment in the summer of 1900, Robert Charles was arguably the most infamous black man in the United States. After an altercation with police on a…
- New Books in American Studies
Lily E. Hirsch, "Weird Al: Seriously" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)
Funny music is often dismissed as light and irrelevant, but Weird Al Yankovic’s fourteen successful studio albums prove there is more going on than comedic…
- New Books in American Studies
Annie Berke, "Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television" (U California Press, 2022)
What is the hidden history of women in the television industry? In Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television (U California Press, 2022)…
- New Books in American Studies
Gene Zubovich, "Before the Religious Right: Liberal Protestants, Human Rights, and the Polarization of the United States" (UPenn Press, 2022)
The study of the religious right has in many ways overshadowed other strands of U.S. religious history in the 20th century. This is owed in no small part to…
- New Books in American Studies
Katherine D. Moran, "The Imperial Church: Catholic Founding Fathers and United States Empire" (Cornell UP, 2020)
Through a fascinating discussion of religion's role in the rhetoric of American civilizing empire, The Imperial Church: Catholic Founding Fathers and United…