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
Imagining Independence; or, Why Does Rip Van Winkle Sleep Through the Revolution?
Thursday, March 12—Inaugurating a series of programs to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, authors and scholars Michael Gorra…
- New Books in American Studies
Sunmin Kim, "The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth-Century Immigration Debate" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
What happens when theories of racial hierarchies interact with reality? How are they contested, refuted and changed in light of that encounter? What role do…
- New Books in American Studies
A.J. Bauer, "Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against The Press" (Columbia UP, 2026)
In Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against The Press (Columbia UP, 2026), A.J. Bauer examines the history of the idea of a…
- New Books in American Studies
Lisa Nakamura, "The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet (U Minnesota Press, 2026) by Dr. Lisa Nakamura challenges the widespread myth that the internet…
- New Books in American Studies
Abe Walker, "Reassembling the UAW: Insurgency, Contention, and the Struggle for Unionism in the American South" (Temple UP, 2026)
When Volkswagen’s Chattanooga Assembly Plant opened in 2012, the United Auto Workers were excited by the golden opportunity to organize in the anti-union…
New Books in American StudiesEntrepreneurial Work Ethic
In this episode of High Theory, Saronik talks with Erik Baker about the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic. The dominant work ethic of our current moment, it asks us…
- New Books in American Studies
Courtney Humphries, "Climate Change and the Future of Boston" (Anthem Press, 2026)
Like many of the world’s iconic coastal cities, Boston faces potentially severe impacts from climate change. Depending on global emissions, Boston could face…
- New Books in American Studies
Eurie Dahn, "Snack" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
In the hierarchy of foods, snacks are deemed trivial – perhaps even childish – especially in contrast to meals, which are seen as substantial and necessary…
- New Books in American Studies
Ethelene Whitmire, "The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram" (Viking, 2026)
On the eve of World War II, a handsome young scholar arrived in Paris. The queer, Black son of a housecleaner, who had nevertheless been decorated in the halls…
- New Books in American Studies
Suzanne Mettler and Trevor E. Brown, "Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy" (Princeton UP, 2025)
How the urban-rural divide drives partisan polarization Why have Americans living in different places come to experience politics as a battle between “us” and…
- New Books in American Studies
Tristan J. Rogers, "Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction" (Routledge, 2025)
In Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction (Routledge, 2025), Tristan J. Rogers argues that philosophical conservatism is a coherent…
- New Books in American Studies
An Evening with Philip Roth: A Conversation with Bernard Avishai, Igor Webb, and Steven Zipperstein
The YIVO Institute was pleased to present a special evening with acclaimed novelist Philip Roth. Roth read excerpts from his new novel, Nemesis (2010), which…
- New Books in American Studies
Katelyn E. Stauffer, "The Politics of Perception: How Beliefs About Women’s Inclusion Shape Democratic Legitimacy in the U.S." (Oxford UP, 2025)
Katelyn Stauffer, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia, has an excellent new book focusing on how voters and citizens perceive…
- New Books in American Studies
Austin McCoy, "Living in a D.A.I.S.Y. Age: The Music, Culture, and World De La Soul Made" (Atria/One Signal, 2026)
For fans of Dilla Time and The Chronicles of DOOM, a culturally connected celebration of the groundbreaking hip-hop group De La Soul, and how they changed the…
- New Books in American Studies
Michelle Adams, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North" (FSG Press, 2025)
In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous decision: In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across the…
- New Books in American Studies
Dana A. Williams, "Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship" (Amistad, 2025)
An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon's profound impact as a…
- New Books in American Studies
George Frazier, "Riverine Dreams: Away to the Glorious and Forgotten Grassland Rivers of America" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Dr. George Frazier is currently an assistant professor of Computer Information Sciences at Washburn University, where his research focuses on such topics as…
- New Books in American Studies
Danielle Wiggins, "Black Excellence: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Black Liberalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
A provocative new history of modern black liberalism Black Excellence: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Black Liberalism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) offers a…
- New Books in American Studies
The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City with Henry Sapoznik
The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City (SUNY Press, 2025) offers a new look at over a century of Yiddish culture in New York City. Author Henry H…
- New Books in American Studies
Catherine Boland Erkkila, "Spaces of Immigration: American Ports, Railways, and Settlements" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)
Spaces of Immigration: American Ports, Railways, and Settlements (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025) follows the travel routes of immigrants during a foundational…
- New Books in American Studies
Patrick Chung, "Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026) by Dr. Patrick Chung traces the…
- New Books in American Studies
Jennifer Randles, "Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood" (U California Press, 2026)
Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American families…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael James Roberts et al., "Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing" (San Diego State UP, 2024)
In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024), Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take…
- New Books in American Studies
Elizabeth Suhay, "Debating the American Dream: How Explanations for Inequality Polarize Politics" (Russell Sage Foundation, 2025)
Our guest today is Elizabeth Suhay, the author of Debating the American Dream: How Explanations for Inequality Polarize Politics. Faith in the American…
- New Books in American Studies
Helen Redmond, "Liquid Handcuffs: Policing and Punishment in Methadone Clinics and the Future of Opioid Addiction Treatment" (North Atlantic Books, 2026)
A hard-hitting exposé of how methadone clinics fail people in recovery—and an urgent, unapologetic case for their abolition. Methadone is a life-saving…
- New Books in American Studies
Seth S. Tannenbaum, "Bleacher Seats and Luxury Suites: Democracy and Division at the Twentieth-Century Ballpark" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
Celebrated as a democratic space for all Americans, the major league ballpark in fact privileged the middle- and upper-class white male fan while tacitly…
- New Books in American Studies
Coming Out as Dalit with Yashica Dutt
This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance…
- New Books in American Studies
James Giesler, "Francisco de Saavedra's American Revolutionary War, The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown" (James Giesler, 2025)
Francisco de Saavedra’s American Revolutionary War: The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown (James Giesler, 2025) by James Giesler is the story of…
- New Books in American Studies
Clarissa E. Francis, "Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement" (Routledge, 2025)
Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement (Routledge, 2025) explores scholarship, practice, and…
- New Books in American Studies
Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, "Lincoln and the Jews: A History" (NYU Press, 2025)
In this expanded edition to a groundbreaking work, now in paperback, Lincoln and the Jews: A History (NYU Press, 2025), Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell…
- New Books in American Studies
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, "Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The revelatory and urgent story of how an explosion of misogyny is driving a surge of mass and far-right violence throughout the West--from an internationally…
- New Books in American Studies
Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)
During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, mended…
- New Books in American Studies
Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons, "The Sons of Gunshooter: A Navajo Resistance Story" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
In 1919, the brother of one of the West’s most famous Indian traders was shot to death in a remote corner of the Navajo Nation. Part history, part true crime…
- New Books in American Studies
Fred Turner on Countercultures, Cybercultures, and Californian and Texan Ideologies
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen, talk to Fred Turner…
- New Books in American Studies
Jamila Michener and Mallory E. Sorelle, "Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are…
- New Books in American Studies
Josh Seim, "The Welfare Assembly Line: Public Servants in the Suffering City" (U California Press, 2026)
Despite claims that we live in a "post-welfare society," welfare offices remain vital not only for those who depend on them for benefits but also for those who…
- New Books in American Studies
Stephen Stacks, "The Resounding Revolution: Freedom Song After 1968" (U Illinois Press, 2025)
What happened to freedom singing after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination? Stephen Stacks considers this question in The Resounding Revolution: Freedom…
- New Books in American Studies
Allison Powers, "Arbitrating Empire: United States Expansion and the Transformation of International Law" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Arbitrating Empire: United States Expansion and the Transformation of International Law (Oxford UP, 2024) by Dr. Allison Powers offers a new history of the…
- New Books in American Studies
American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong with Brenda Wineapple and Geoff Wisner
Wednesday, February 18—Called “the greatest American diary of the nineteenth century,” the journal of the patrician New York City lawyer George Templeton…
- New Books in American Studies
Zalman Newfield, "Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism" (Temple UP, 2026)
Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of…
- New Books in American Studies
Cecilia Márquez, "Making the Latino South: A History of Racial Formation" (UNC Press, 2023)
The presence of Latinx people in the American South has long confounded the region's persistent racial binaries. In Making the Latino South: A History of…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark D. Steinberg, "Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay: Sex, Crime, Violence, and Nightlife in the Modern City" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Using public storytelling as a driving force, Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay: Sex, Crime, Violence, and Nightlife in the Modern City…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark Thomas Edwards, "Walter Lippmann: American Skeptic, American Pastor" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Walter Lippmann was arguably the most recognized and respected political journalist of the twentieth century. His "Today and Tomorrow" columns attracted a…
- New Books in American Studies
Erick Guerra, "Overbuilt: The High Costs and Low Rewards of US Highway Construction" (Island Press, 2025)
The world’s largest public works investment visible from space, the Interstate Highway System and the hundreds of thousands of miles of supporting roadways…
- New Books in American Studies
David M. Henkin, "Out of the Ballpark: How to Think about Baseball" (Oxford UP, 2026)
All over the world, masses of people watch, follow, document, and obsess over baseball. Everything remarkable about the impact of baseball derives from the…
- New Books in American Studies
Kenneth Lowande, "False Front: The Failed Promise of Presidential Power in a Polarized Age" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
False Front: The Failed Promise of Presidential Power in a Polarized Age The University of Chicago Press, 2024 Kenneth Lowande Political Scientist Kenneth…
- New Books in American Studies
Emily Dufton, "Addiction, Inc: Medication-assisted Treatment and America's Forgotten War on Drugs" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
How the war on drugs created the gold standard treatment for addiction--until America's opioid crisis got privatized for profit, to the detriment of patients…
- New Books in American Studies
John Drabinski, "So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlantic" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
What happens if we turn to James Baldwin, not just for the amazing quotations and excellent photos, but as a critical theorist? What if we read his nonfiction…
- New Books in American Studies
Brian Hallstoos, "Sol Butler: An Olympian's Odyssey through Jim Crow America" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
A superstar in both football and track and field Sol Butler pioneered the parlaying of sports fame into business prosperity. In Sol Butler: An Olympian's…
- New Books in American Studies
Cassandra Shepard, "Settler Colonialism is the Disaster: A Critique of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina and During the COVID-19 Pandemic" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
Settler Colonialism is the Disaster: A Critique of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina and During the COVID-19 Pandemic (U Illinois Press, 2026) is the new…
- New Books in American Studies
Marc James Carpenter, "The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest" (Yale UP, 2025)
The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest (Yale UP, 2025) by Marc James Carpenter is a history book about history. More…
- New Books in American Studies
Digestive Belonging, Trans-Species Sensing & Care in America’s Dairyland
In this episode, we speak with Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Copenhagen, Katy Overstreet. Katy is coordinator for the…
- New Books in American Studies
Laura K. Field, "Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Political Theorist Laura Field has written an insightful and detailed exploration of the people and the ideas that have shaped the second Trump Administration…
- New Books in American Studies
Heather Ann Thompson, "Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage" (Pantheon, 2026)
In this masterful, groundbreaking work Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage (Pantheon, 2026)…
- New Books in American Studies
Zaid Adhami, "Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith" (UNC Press, 2025)
In one of the most important books published in 2025—Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith, published by UNC Press—Zaid Adhami explores…
- New Books in American Studies
Joshua Clark Davis, "Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back (Princeton UP, 2025) shatters one of the most…
- New Books in American Studies
Ron Hayduk, "Untangling the Political Roots of Immigration and Inequality in the United States" (Routledge, 2026)
Untangling the Political Roots of Immigration and Inequality in the United States (Routledge, 2026) examines the causes, consequences, and politics of mass…
- New Books in American Studies
Jameson R. Sweet, "Mixed-Blood Histories: Race, Law, and Dakota Indians in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
Historical accounts tend to neglect mixed-ancestry Native Americans: racially and legally differentiated from nonmixed Indigenous people by U.S. government…
- New Books in American Studies
Nicholas Boggs, "Baldwin: A Love Story" (FSG, 2025)
Baldwin: A Love Story (FSG, 2025) the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer’s personal relationships…
- New Books in American Studies
Charles Alistair McCrary, "Sincerely Held: American Secularism and Its Believers" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
"Sincerely held religious belief" is now a common phrase in discussions of American religious freedom, from opinions handed down by the US Supreme Court to…