Shows / New Books in History
New Books in History
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 History
Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s…
- New Books in History
The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States with Steven Sarson (U Virginia Press, 2025)
How reading the Declaration of Independence as a document of history explains its intended meaning Thomas Jefferson chose his words carefully. Few could have…
- New Books in History
Jefferson’s Wolf: A Founding Father’s Troubling Answer to the Problem of Slavery with Christa Dierksheide and Nicholas Guyatt (Belknap Press, 2026)
In this episode, Matthew Mason (Professor of History at Brigham Young University) interviews Christa Dierksheide (Brockman Foundation Jefferson Scholars…
- New Books in History
Troop Movements: Labor, Race, and Global Freedom Struggles in America’s World War II with Tejasvi Nagaraja (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
Tejasvi Nagaraja joins Michael Stauch to talk about Troop Movements: Labor, Race, and Global Freedom Struggles in America’s World War II (U Pennsylvania Press…
- New Books in History
On the Street of the Hidden Shops: One City Block, Two Thousand Years, and a Walk Through the Layered Lives of Rome with Elizabeth Rodini (U Chicago Press, 2026)
Elizabeth Rodini joins Jana Byars to talk about her new forthcoming book, On the Street of Hidden Shops: One City Block, Two Thousand Years, and a Walk Through…
- New Books in History
Runes: A Concise History with Tom Birkett (Oxford UP, 2025)
Tom Birkett, University College, Cork, joins Jana Byars to discuss his new book, Runes: A Concise History (Oxford UP, 2025) An accessible and illuminating…
- New Books in History
Declarations of Independence: Indigenous Resilience, Colonial Rivalries, and the Cost of Revolution with Christopher R. Pearl (U Virginia Press, 2024)
Chris Pearl's Declarations of Independence: Indigenous Resilience, Colonial Rivalries, and the Cost of Revolution (U Virginia Press, 2024) is a fascinating…
- New Books in History
Fascists of the World, Unite?: A History of Fascist Internationalism in the 1930s with Martin Kristoffer Hamre (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025)
Fascists of the World, Unite?: A History of Fascist Internationalism in the 1930s (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025) analyzes the ideas and forms of international…
- New Books in History
Offshore Oildom: America’s Energy Expansion into the Ocean with Tyler Priest (LSU Press, 2026)
Offshore Oildom: America’s Energy Expansion into the Ocean (LSU Press, 2026) tells the riveting story of the United States’ quest to secure the oil riches of…
- New Books in History
Disability: A History of Resistance with David Turner (Random House, 2026)
Despite there being more than 16 million disabled people in the UK today, disability rarely features in mainstream accounts of our past. That absence is not…
- New Books in History
Searching for Jane Crow: Black Women and Mass Incarceration in America from the Auction Block to the Cell Block with Talitha LeFlouria (Beacon Press, 2022)
In Searching for Jane Crow: Black Women and Mass Incarceration in America from the Auction Block to the Cell Block (Beacon Press, 2022), historian Talitha L…
- New Books in History
Spanish Louisiana: Contest for Borderlands, 1763–1803 with Frances Kolb Turnbell (LSU Press, 2024)
Sandwiched between the long period of French colonization, and the brief return to the French empire before the Americans enter the scene, the Spanish period…
- New Books in History
Freedom Round the Globe: A World History of the American Revolution with Sarah M. S. Pearsall (Doubleday, 2026)
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • In a groundbreaking global exploration of the ideas that drove the American Revolution, a prize-winning…
- New Books in History
Racism and Antiracism in Divided Germany with Michelle Lynn Kahn and Lauren Stokes (Cornell UP, 2026)
Racism and Antiracism in Divided Germany (Cornell UP, 2026) addresses how racism expresses itself and what it means to be antiracist by tracing the history of…
- New Books in History
Skipping School: A History of American Homeschooling and How It Went Mainstream with Dixie Dillon Lane (Eerdmans, 2026)
Discover the untold story of why homeschooling moved from the margins to the mainstream of American education. In this groundbreaking study Skipping School: A…
- New Books in History
Hidden Terrors: The Scourge of Cholera in Jackson's America with Paul Kelton (Oxford UP, 2026)
In this episode of In Conversation, Lilyanna D'Amato speaks with Paul Kelton about his new book, Hidden Terrors: The Scourge of Cholera in Jackson's America…
- New Books in History
The French Médersa: Islamic Education and Empire in Northwest Africa with Samuel D. Anderson (Cornell UP, 2026)
The French Médersa: Islamic Education and Empire in Northwest Africa (Cornell UP, 2026) explores how the French state pursued a century-long project of…
- New Books in History
Troubled Times: The Boston Courthouse Bombing Of 1976 with Kevin Galvin (Brandeis UP, 2026)
Kevin Galvin's Troubled Times: The Boston Courthouse Bombing Of 1976 (Brandeis UP, 2026), interweaves the stories of a revolutionary and a bombing victim to…
- New Books in History
An Anticolonial Development: Race, Schooling, and Emancipation in Twentieth-Century West Africa with Elisa Prosperetti (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In An Anticolonial Development: Race, Schooling, and Emancipation in Twentieth-Century West Africa (Cambridge UP, 2026), Elisa Prosperetti argues that while…
- New Books in History
Painting Paranoia: Cold War Art and Anti-Communism with Julia Bailey (U Illinois Press, 2026)
The Soviet Union’s rise as a totalitarian state and economic rival to the United States sparked a cultural cold war. The conflict was colored by paranoia and a…
- New Books in History
Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature of the Late Qing with Katherine L. Alexander (U Michigan Press, 2025)
Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature of the Late Qing (U Michigan Press, 2025) by Katherine L. Alexander explores how one late Qing…
- New Books in History
The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915
When American fascists suddenly goose-stepped down Main Street in the 1930s, fascism was seen by the rest of the country as a terrifying and radical new…
- New Books in History
The Centrality of Slavery: Empire and Enslavement in Colonial Illinois and Missouri with John Craig Hammond (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
The Centrality of Slavery: Empire and Enslavement in Colonial Illinois and Missouri (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) examines how French and American colonizers…
- New Books in History
Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity with Samar Abdel-Rahman (American U of Cairo Press, 2026)
Samar Abdel-Rahman's Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity (American University of Cairo Press, 2026) explores male…
- New Books in History
Sojourners, Sultans, and Slaves: America and the Indian Ocean in the Age of Abolition and Empire with Gunja SenGupta (U California Press, 2023)
In the nineteenth century, global systems of capitalism and empire knit the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds into international networks in contest over…
- New Books in History
The Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory, 1924-2024 with Amy King (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In this episode, I speak with Dr Amy King of Bristol University about her book, The Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory…
- New Books in History
The Institutional Foundations of Ukrainian Democracy with Nataliya Kibita (Oxford UP, 2024)
Ukraine and Russia are today at opposite points of the political spectrum: Despite 300 years of contact with Russian authoritarian politics, Ukraine's…
- New Books in History
The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts with Michael Khodarkovsky (Yale UP, 2026)
What is Russia? For two centuries, observers inside and outside the country have tried to answer that question, and most of them have looked west. The familiar…
- New Books in History
Women in Comics: Iconic Characters and Influential Creators 1923-Today with Susan E. Kirtley and Nhora Lucía Serrano (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026)
Susan E. Kirtley and Nhora Lucía Serrano's Women in Comics (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026) is a richly illustrated, essential guide to the importance of women in…
- New Books in History
Soviet Blocks: The Bizarre Puzzle of How Tetris Embraced Western Values with Julien Mailland (MIT Press, 2026)
A geopolitical and legal history of the bestselling videogame Tetris—the stunningly successful game that began in a Soviet research lab monitored by the KGB…
- New Books in History
The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East with Nicholas Morton (Pegasus, 2026)
From their foundational era in 1097 to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem almost a century later, the Crusader States transformed the Middle Eastern world. In an…
- New Books in History
Bernardo de Gálvez: Spanish Hero of the American Revolution with Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia (UNC Press, 2026)
Although Spain was never a formal ally of the United States during the American Revolution, its entry into the war definitively tipped the balance against…
- New Books in History
Creatures of Story and Song: Tracing Britain's Lost Species with Lee Raye (Reaktion, 2026)
Lee Raye joins Jana Byars to talk about their new book, Creatures of Story and Song: Tracing Britain's Lost Species (Reaktion, 2026). Discover why a beaver was…
- New Books in History
Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing with Rahim Kurwa (U California Press, 2025)
In this episode, Lilyanna D'Amato speaks with Rahim Kurwa about his book Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing (U California Press…
- New Books in History
Into the Reich: The Red Army’s Advance to the Oder in 1945 with Prit Buttar (Osprey, 2025)
Enriched by extraordinary first-hand accounts, Prit Buttar's Into the Reich: The Red Army’s Advance to the Oder in 1945 (Osprey Publishing, 2025) is a…
- New Books in History
Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control with Kelly Lytle Hernández (Norton, 2026)
Kelly Lytle Hernández joins Michael Stauch to discuss how the US immigration system has always been “racist by design.” Many Americans’ understanding of the…
- New Books in History
Kennedy’s Only Hero: How JFK’s Obsession with Winston Churchill Defined His Presidency with Joel Nelson (Public Affairs, 2026)
President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill remain two of the most iconic figures of the twentieth century and Joel Nelson’s new book…
- New Books in History
Let the Oppressed Go Free: Abolitionism in Colonial and Revolutionary America with Nicholas P. Wood (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
David N. Gellman interviews Nicholas P. Wood on Let the Oppressed Go Free: Abolitionism in Colonial and Revolutionary America In Let the Oppressed Go Free…
- New Books in History
Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night with Julian Sancton
I spoke with writer and The Hollywood Reporter editor Julian Sancton about his New York Times bestselling book, Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s…
- New Books in History
The Range of the River: A Riverine History of Empire Across China, India, and Southeast Asia with Iftekhar Iqbal (Stanford UP, 2025)
Six great Asian river systems have their origins in the Tibetan glacial region: the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Red and the…
- New Books in History
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the North American Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War with Jason Bell (Hanover Square Press, 2026)
Historians have always known that the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day in June 1944 depended on deceiving the Germans about where the…
- New Books in History
Strong State, Weak Links: Eugenics and the Southern Politics of Welfare with Anna Krome-Lukens (UNC Press, 2026)
In the early twentieth century, most US states established eugenics programs to improve the human race through selective breeding. North Carolina ran one of…
- New Books in History
Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger with A. Wess Mitchell (Princeton UP, 2025)
Great Power Diplomacy. The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger (Princeton UP, 2025) is a captivating history of diplomacy—and an urgent…
- New Books in History
How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington with Marcia Chatelain
There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered beneath…
- New Books in History
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours with Peter S. Onuf and Francis D. Cogliano (Liveright, 2026)
“Does Thomas Jefferson still matter?” ask two leading historians on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson has been…
- New Books in History
The Connoisseur: A Cultural History with Peter Burke (Reaktion, 2026)
Eminent historian Peter Burke joins Jana Byars to discuss his new book, The Connoisseur: A Cultural History (Reaktion, 2026), considering the art connoisseur…
- New Books in History
Antisemitism, an American Tradition with Pamela S. Nadell (Norton, 2025)
Pamela S. Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History and is Director of the Jewish Studies Program. A specialist in American Jewish…
- New Books in History
Projecting Knowledge: The Optical Lantern and Science Communication, 1880s-1940s with Dulce da Rocha Gonçalves, Nico de Klerk and Frank Kessler (Brepols, 2026)
Projecting Knowledge: The Optical Lantern and Science Communication, 1880s-1940s (Brepols, 2026) takes one of those fundamental questions - how does knowledge…
- New Books in History
Aristotle Kallis, "Iconic Fascism: The Excess of Destruction and Creation in Interwar Radical Right-wing Politics" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
In Iconic Fascism: The Excess of Destruction and Creation in Interwar Radical Right-wing Politics (Bloomsbury, 2026) Aristotle Kallis uncovers the paradox at…
- New Books in History
Matthew Mason, "Seeking the High Ground: Slavery and Political Conflict in the British Atlantic World" (U Virginia Press, 2025)
How is it, Samuel Johnson famously asked on the eve of the Revolution, that Americans could so vociferously demand freedom for themselves while so…
- New Books in History
Michael R. Fischbach, "I Did It for My Country: Sirhan Sirhan, Palestine, and the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" (Columbia UP, 2026)
In June 1968, a twenty-four-year-old Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan B. Sirhan assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy, marking yet another killing in a…
- New Books in History
Glenn Peers, "Strange and Familiar History of Byzantine Art: Interpretation, Risk, and Empathy" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026)
Strange and Familiar History of Byzantine Ar: Interpretation, Risk, and Empathy (ARC Humanities Press, 2026) represents a risky experiment in art-history…
- New Books in History
Katherine Grandjean, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution" (Random House, 2026)
Kentucky, 1798: A harrowing series of murders begins. The first body, discovered by cattle drovers, lies bloody at the bottom of a ridge. Then another—a dead…
- New Books in History
Pablo F. Gomez, "Bloody Numbers: The Early Atlantic Slave Trade and the Invention of Modern Corporeality" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
In my conversation with Professor Pablo F. Gómez about his new book, Bloody Numbers: The Early Atlantic Slave Trade and the Invention of Modern Corporeality…
- New Books in History
Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, "Pierogi: An American Story of Polish Food" (Columbia UP, 2026)
Today, pierogi are the most recognizable Polish food in the United States and a symbol of Polish American identity. How did this humble dish attain such lofty…
- New Books in History
Christina E. Firpo, "Beauty and the Nation: Women, Culture, and the National Image in Interwar Vietnam" (Columbia UP, 2025)
During the interwar years, Vietnamese society witnessed a rapid change in the way women looked. Rejecting the model of a sequestered maiden with blackened…
- New Books in History
Darinee Alagirisamy, "Sober State: Origins of Alcohol Prohibition in India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
What happens when a democratic state—still in the process of formation—commits to banning a substance, especially one as controversial as alcohol? Sober State…
- New Books in History
Giuseppe Motta, "Jewish Refugees and the International Community Between the Two World Wars: Beyond the State" (Routledge, 2026)
In this episode of New Books Network, Željko Stanojević speaks with historian Giuseppe Motta about Jewish Refugees and the International Community Between the…
- New Books in History
Lily Geismer on the Democratic Party in the 1990s
In this episode, hosts Lee Vinsel and Ben Waterhouse, along with producer Joe Forte, chat with historian Lily Geismer. Their conversation covers the evolution…
- New Books in History
Mehmet Çelik, "Empire and Nation in the City: Rusçuk from Ottoman Rule to Bulgarian Statehood" (Syracuse UP, 2026)
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Mehmet Çelik about his new book, Empire and Nation in the City: Rusçuk from Ottoman Rule to Bulgarian Statehood, published…