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
Scott Kurashige, "American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism" (U California Press, 2026)
This probing account shines a new light on the problem of anti-Asian violence and inspires us to build lasting solidarity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, racist…
- New Books in American Studies
Charles W. A. Prior, "Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)
In Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic (U Nebraska Press, 2026), Professor Charles W. A. Prior offers a new…
- New Books in American Studies
Jason R. Young, "The Mask of Memory: White Racial Fantasy After the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2026)
In the early twentieth century, a group of white writers, artists, and performers from the cultural hub of Charleston, South Carolina, created and curated a…
- New Books in American Studies
Miranda Yaver, "Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Miranda Yaver’s new book, Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States (Cambridge UP, 2026), has lots of examples and incidents…
- New Books in American Studies
Samira K. Mehta, "God Bless the Pill: The Surprising History of Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion" (UNC Press, 2026)
Most people today understand contraception as central to women’s liberation, and when the birth control pill arrived in 1960, the media thought it would usher…
New Books in American StudiesRugged Individualism
In this special student edition of High Theory, Andrew Bennett, Jo Hoffman, Kai North, and Ally Sullivan tell us about Rugged Individualism, a concept they…
- New Books in American Studies
Caste and Race: Ambedkar and King with the Ambedkar King Study Circle
This episode features S. Karthikeyan and S. Subbulakshmi, the Convenor and Secretary of the Ambedkar King Study Circle, an anti-caste organization based in…
- New Books in American Studies
Jack Cheevers, "Kennedy’s Coup: A White House Plot, a Saigon Murder, and America's Descent into Vietnam" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)
Based on a decade of research and writing, enriched by eyewitness interviews and revealing documents obtained through dozens of freedom of information…
- New Books in American Studies
Douglas Waller, "The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner" (Penguin, 2026)
Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely hidden…
- New Books in American Studies
Zaakir Tameez, "Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation" (Henry Holt, 2025)
A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and Reconstruction Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist…
- New Books in American Studies
Constance Bailey et al. "Get It While It's Hot: Gas Station, Roadside, and Convenience Cuisine in the U.S. South" (LSU Press, 2026)
Get It While It’s Hot (LSU Press, 2026) is an innovative collection that examines an increasingly commonplace belief across the U.S. South—that some of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Vanda Krefft, "Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women" (Algonquin Books, 2026)
It’s a safe bet that most of the secretaries on the TV series Mad Men would have attended the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. The iconic institution…
- New Books in American Studies
The Crisis of American Political Economy: On the New Conservative Policy Agenda with Chris Griswold
In this sixth episode of Season 5, I interview Mr. Chris Griswold. An alum of Wheaton College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he was formerly a senior…
- New Books in American Studies
The Information State: How is the State Surveilling and Manipulating us These Days?
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny interviews Jacob Siegel, writer, Army veteran, and author of The Information State…
- New Books in American Studies
Jim Downs, "Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine" (Harvard UP, 2023)
Jim Downs’ most recent book is Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine. Professor Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National…
- New Books in American Studies
Adam Henig, "Baseball's Outcast: The Story of Ron LeFlore" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
When twenty-three-year-old Ron LeFlore played his first organized baseball game, it was in a yard at the State Prison of Southern Michigan where he was serving…
- New Books in American Studies
Kasey Jernigan, "Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity…
- New Books in American Studies
Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller, "Boom to Bust: How Streaming Broke Hollywood Workers" (U California Press, 2026)
Boom to Bust is a timely investigation into the rise of Peak TV and the perfect storm that caused a rapid decline in Hollywood work. When Hollywood writers and…
- New Books in American Studies
Nathaniel Greenberg, "The Long War of Ideas: American Public Diplomacy in Arabic After 9/11" (Columbia UP, 2026)
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, US officials identified the so-called battle for hearts and minds as the “second front” in the war on terror. A wave…
- New Books in American Studies
Emely Rumble, "Bibliotherapy in The Bronx" (Row House, 2025)
Bibliotherapy in The Bronx (Row House, 2025) by Emely Rumble, LCSW, is a groundbreaking exploration of the healing power of literature in the lives of…
- New Books in American Studies
169* Hannah Arendt on Oases (JP)
Our Recall This Buck series began by speaking with Christine Desan of Harvard Law School about how key ideas—and the actual currency, physical coins and bills—…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark A. Johnson, "American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon" (U Georgia Press, 2026)
In American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon (U Georgia Press, 2026), Dr. Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon…
- New Books in American Studies
Alisa Kessel, "Rape Fantasies: Rape Culture and the Persistence of Sexual Violence" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Political theorist Alisa Kessel (University of Puget Sound) has an important and impressive new book, Rape Fantasies: Rape Culture and the Persistence of…
- New Books in American Studies
Victor Li, "Supreme Pressure: The Rejection of John J. Parker and the Birth of the Modern Supreme Court Confirmation Process" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
Supreme Pressure: The Rejection of John J. Parker and the Birth of the Modern Supreme Court Confirmation Process (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) examines the 1930…
- New Books in American Studies
David-James Gonzales, "Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange County, California" (Oxford UP, 2025)
On March 2, 1945, five Mexican American families and their Jewish American lawyer filed a class-action lawsuit against four school districts in Orange County…
- New Books in American Studies
Larry M. Bartels and Katherine J. Cramer, "The Politics of Social Change: From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
Few time periods have been as defined by waves of monumental social change as the United States during the 1960s. Even today, almost sixty years later, the era…
- New Books in American Studies
Donald Sassoon, "Revolutions: A New History" (Verso Books, 2025)
Revolutions: A New History (Verso Books, 2025) is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in terms of…
- New Books in American Studies
Voices from a Century of Struggle: Writings of the Jim Crow Era
Tuesday, April 7, 2026—Confronting disenfranchisement, legal segregation, and terrorist violence in the aftermath of the Civil War, Black Americans challenged…
- New Books in American Studies
John Bechtold, "U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space" (Taylor & Francis, 2024)
In U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space (Taylor & Francis, 2024), John Bechtold examines how the US military understands…
- New Books in American Studies
Cedric de Leon, "Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity" (U California Press, 2025)
Our guest today is Cedric de Leon, author of Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity (U California Press, 2025). In this…
- New Books in American Studies
The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence
Each year, police officers kill over 1,000 people they’ve sworn to protect and serve. While some cases, like George Floyd’s and Sandra Bland’s, capture…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael W. Tuck, "The Castle Slaves of the Gambia River: A Creole Community in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World" (Brill, 2026)
In his new book, The Castle Slaves of the Gambia River: A Creole Community in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World (Brill, 2026) historian Dr. Michael W…
- New Books in American Studies
Melissa Butcher, "The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future" (Manchester UP, 2026)
As Melissa Butcher puts it in her book The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future (Manchester UP, 2026) when asked to rank the importance of…
- New Books in American Studies
Priyanka Kumar, "Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit" (Island Press, 2025)
As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit--especially apples. These…
- New Books in American Studies
Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)
On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had…
- New Books in American Studies
Daniel Rachel, "This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich" (Akashic Books, 2026)
Over the last seven decades, some of rock 'n' roll's most celebrated figureheads have flirted with the imagery and theater of the Third Reich. From Keith Moon…
- New Books in American Studies
Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, "The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2025)
Between May 1 and May 22, 1863, Union soldiers marched nearly 200 miles through the hot, humid countryside to assault and capture the fortified city of…
- New Books in American Studies
Danielle Bainbridge, "Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive" (NYU Press, 2026)
Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive (NYU Press, 2026) is a bold and incisive reconsideration of the relationship between…
- New Books in American Studies
Amelia Frank-Vitale, "Leave If You Can: Migration and Violence in Bordered Worlds" (U California Press, 2026)
The consequences of U.S. border policies through the experiences of Honduran migrants. Hondurans have been at the heart of some of the most visible migration…
- New Books in American Studies
The Club: Where American Artists Found Refuge in Belle Epoque Paris
In Belle Époque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the town and…
- New Books in American Studies
Lee Ann S. Wang, "The Violence of Protection: Policing, Immigration Law, and Asian American Women" (Duke UP, 2026)
The Violence of Protection: Policing, Immigration Law, and Asian American Women (Duke UP, 2026) examines U.S. laws designed to rescue immigrant survivors from…
- New Books in American Studies
Tyesha Maddox, "A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)
A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) examines the significance of Caribbean…
- New Books in American Studies
Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese Food
For many Ashkenazi Jews in the United States, Christmastime sparks memories of egg rolls and General Tso's chicken. How did the affinity for Chinese food…
- New Books in American Studies
Matthew Guariglia and Brian Hochman, "The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation into the National Security State" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2026)
Fifty years ago, a government investigation led by US senator Frank Church uncovered some of the darkest state secrets of the twentieth century. The Church…
- New Books in American Studies
Nick Juravich, "Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education" (U Illinois Press, 2024)
Today, we're speaking with Nicholas Juravich, author of Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education (U Illinois Press, 2024). In this book…
- New Books in American Studies
Erica Morawski, "Development Design: Hotels and Politics in the Hispanic Caribbean" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)
Underneath picturesque views of palm trees, fruity cocktails in hotel lounges, and day trips to preserved colonial zones lies a history of tourism design that…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark Hlavacik, "Willing Warriors: A New History of the Education Culture Wars" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
How the rise of the culture wars afflicts the politics of education. On August 9, 2022, the Denton Independent School District held a meeting to address…
- New Books in American Studies
Nicholas W. Gentile, "Enemies to Their Country: The Marblehead Addressers and Consensus in the American Revolution" (U Mass Press, 2025)
Nicholas W. Gentile complicates our understanding of the American Revolution through a microhistory of one Massachusetts town in his new book, Enemies to Their…
- New Books in American Studies
On Our Continuing Age of Oil with Journalist Stanley Reed
Stanley Reed has been covering energy and the Middle East from London for more than three decades, most recently for The New York Times. With the war in Iran…
- New Books in American Studies
Cathryn J. Prince, "For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
My guest today is Cathryn J. Prince the author of For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman (U Illinois Press, 2026). From her start as one of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Tom Wells, "The Kissinger Tapes: Inside His Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations" (Oxford UP, 2026)
A richly detailed collection of transcripts of Henry Kissinger's secretly recorded phone conversations from his time in the Nixon administration that touch on…
- New Books in American Studies
Joanna Siekiera ed., "NATO Stability Policing: Beneficial Tool in Filling the Security Gap and Establishing the Rule of Law, and a Safe and Secure Environment" (NATO Stability Policing Centre Of Excellence, 2024)
Since the end of the Cold War and the resurgence of great power competition on the world stage, NATO has been in a period of transition to adapting to the new…
- New Books in American Studies
Maya L. Kornberg, "Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress" (JHU Press, 2026)
Why fifty years of changemaking and reform haven't fixed Congress—and what that reveals about American democracy. Congress, the central democratic institution…
- New Books in American Studies
Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War" (Oxford UP, 2025)
On Feb. 6, 1945, just three days after the U.S. army started to fight the Japanese in the city of Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declared that “Manila had…
- New Books in American Studies
On Trump as a “World Historical Individual” with author John B. Judis
The philosopher G.W.F. Hegel “viewed history as consisting of stages punctuated by times of upheaval,” the author John B. Judis wrote in a recent essay for…
- New Books in American Studies
Sarah Jaffe, "Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone" (Bold Type Books, 2021)
In Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone (Bold Type Books, 2021), Sarah Jaffe argues that modern culture…
- New Books in American Studies
Steven Pinker, "When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life" (Scribner, 2025)
Common knowledge is necessary for coordination, for making arbitrary but complementary choices like driving on the right, using paper currency, and coalescing…
- New Books in American Studies
Elizabeth Mitchell Elder, "Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
In Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell Elder examines…
- New Books in American Studies
Doug Crandell, "Twenty-Two Cents an Hour: Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages" (Cornell UP, 2022)
In Twenty-Two Cents an Hour: Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages (Cornell UP, 2022), Doug Crandell uncovers the harsh reality of people…
- New Books in American Studies
Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and…