Shows / New Books in Politics and Polemics
New Books in Politics and Polemics
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 Politics and Polemics
Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva, "The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game" (UNC Press, 2024)
In The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game (UNC Press, 2024), Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva offer an existential challenge…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Simon Kuznets and the Invention of the Economy
Economics sometimes feels like a physics–so sturdy, so objective, and so immutable. Yet, behind every clean number or eye-popping graph, there is usually a…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Nathan J. Murphy, "The Ideas That Rule Us: How Other People's Ideas Rule our Lives and How to Change it" (Prepolitica, 2024)
The Ideas That Rule Us: How Other People's Ideas Rule Our Lives and How to Change it (Prepolitica, 2024), political theory researcher, author, and entrepreneur…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Matilde Masso, "Contested Money: Towards a New Social Contract" (Routledge, 2023)
Discussing money is always accompanied by controversy as well as enchantment. Debating what money is and how it performs its main functions in the contemporary…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide
In early June 2020, Christina Gessler and Zerlina Maxwell met remotely to discuss Maxwell’s soon-to-be-released book. This episode is an encore presentation of…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
S4E11 Religion and Republic: A Conversation with Miles Smith
In our latest podcast episode, we sat down with historian Miles Smith, who teaches at Hillsdale College, to discuss his new book, Religion and Republic…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Adam Greenfield, "Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire" (Verso, 2024)
In Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire (Verso, 2024), Adam Greenfield presents a compelling vision for collective resilience in an age of…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
René Boer, "Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives" (Valiz, 2023)
In cities across the world, a new urban condition is spreading rapidly: an ever-increasing push toward efficiency, sanitization, surveillance and the active…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Steven Levitsky, "Tyranny of the Minority: How to Reverse an Authoritarian Turn, and Forge a Democracy for All" (Crown, 2024)
America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Keith E. Whittington, "You Can't Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms" (Polity Press, 2024)
Who controls what is taught in American universities – professors or politicians? The answer is far from clear but suddenly urgent. Unprecedented efforts are…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Sarah M. Stitzlein, "Teaching Honesty in a Populist Era: Emphasizing Truth in the Education of Citizens" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Democracy is struggling in an age of populism and post-truth. In a world swirling with competing political groups stating conflicting facts, citizens are left…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
The Social Contract in the Ruins: A Conversation with Dr. Paul DeHart
In the latest episode of Madison’s Notes, we sit down with Dr. Paul DeHart, professor of Political Science at Texas State University and author of The Social…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Marietje Schaake, "The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Over the past decades, under the cover of "innovation," technology companies have successfully resisted regulation and have even begun to seize power from…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Chris Cutrone, "Marxism and Politics: Essays on Critical Theory 2006-2024" (Sublation Media, 2024)
Capitalism is a revolutionary situation of the last stage of pre-history, and the potential and possibility for freedom, or else it is just what Hegel said…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Eunsong Kim, "The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property" (Duke UP, 2024)
In The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property (Duke University Press, 2024), Eunsong Kim traces how racial capitalism and…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Wes Marshall, "Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion That Science Underlies Our Transportation System" (Island Press, 2024)
In the US we are nearing four million road deaths since we began counting them in 1899. The numbers are getting worse in recent years, yet we continue to…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor, "Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future" (The New Press, 2024)
A clarion call for justice in the quest for clean energy California’s Salton Sea region is home to some of the worst environmental health conditions in the…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
S4E9 The Fragility of China: A Conversation with Dennis Unkovic
In this episode of Madison's Notes, we sit down with Dennis Unkovic to discuss his latest book, The Fragility of China (Encounter Books, 2024). Unkovic delves…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, "Corporatocracy: How to Protect Democracy from Dark Money and Corrupt Politicians" (NYU Press, 2024)
What threatens American democracy and the rule of law? In her new book, Corporatocracy: How to Protect Democracy from Dark Money and Corrupt Politicians (NYU…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Jonathan Turley, "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage" (Simon and Schuster, 2024)
“It’s a free country.” Many of us recall saying that as children as we learned that we were American citizens who were endowed with certain rights—such as free…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Alan F. Blackwell, "Moral Codes: Designing Alternatives to AI" (MIT Press, 2024)
Why the world needs less AI and better programming languages. Decades ago, we believed that robots and computers would take over all the boring jobs and…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Marco Bastos, "Brexit, Tweeted: Polarization and Social Media Manipulation" (Bristol UP, 2024)
Dissecting 45 million tweets from the period that followed the Brexit referendum, Brexit, Tweeted: Polarization and Social Media Manipulation (Bristol…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Michael J. Thompson, "Descent of the Dialectic: Phronetic Criticism in an Age of Nihilism" (Routledge, 2024)
In Descent of the Dialectic: Phronetic Criticism in an Age of Nihilism (Routledge, 2024), Michael J. Thompson reconstructs the concept and practice of…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Gerald Sim, "Screening Big Data: Films That Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy" (Routledge, 2024)
Screening Big Data: Films that Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy (Routledge, 2024) examines the influence of key films on public understanding of big data and the…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Jon Michaels and David Noll, "Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy" (Atria/One Signal, 2024)
Law professors Jon Michaels and David Noll use their expertise to expose how state-supported forms of vigilantism are being deployed by MAGA Republicans and…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
From Tribalism to Common Humanity: A Conversation with Dr. John Ellis
For most of recorded history, neighboring countries, tribes, and peoples everywhere in the world regarded each other with apprehension—when not outright fear…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Jerome E. Copulsky, "American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order" (Yale UP, 2024)
A question has long hung over the the United States regarding the proper role of religion in public life. Those who long for a Christian America claim that the…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Jonathan Maskit, "Bicycle" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Free Speech 70: Michael S. Roth on the Rise of Student Protests, the Fall of Some College Presidents, and Why Liberal Education Matters
The campus protests over conflict in Israel and Gaza have engulfed universities, and led to the resignation of several university presidents. In this podcast…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Ian Williams, "Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024)
State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Jeff Schuhrke, "Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade" (Verso, 2024)
How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad. Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
David L. Swartz, "The Academic Trumpists: Radicals Against Liberal Diversity" (Routledge, 2024)
Remember the bleach drinking episode? Remember ‘alternative facts’? Remember ‘I have the best words’? These elements of the Trump presidency spoke to a…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Andrew W. Kahrl, "The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
In The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America (U Chicago Press, 2024), Andrew W. Kahrl uncovers the history of inequitable…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
David M. Driesen, "The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power" (Stanford UP, 2021)
At the end of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether we have a republic or a monarchy. He replied “A Republic…if…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Emily M. Bender on AI Hype
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Emily Bender, Professor of Linguistics, Director of the Masters of Science in Computational Linguistics program…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Ilias Alami and Adam D. Dixon, "The Spectre of State Capitalism" (Oxford UP, 2024)
After close to three decades of the hegemony of free market ideas, the state has made a big comeback as an economic actor since the 2008 financial crisis…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
William Cooper, "How America Works and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System" (Ad Lib, 2024)
Twenty-first-century America isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. William Cooper's How America Works and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the Us Political…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Aideen O’Shaughnessy, "Embodying Irish Abortion Reform: Bodies, Emotions, and Feminist Activism" (Bristol UP, 2024)
Dr. Aideen O'Shaughnessy is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Lincoln. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, an MA in…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, "Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism" (Melville House, 2024)
Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions
Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a practical…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Seth J. Frantzman, "The October 7 War: Israel's Battle for Security in Gaza" (Wicked Son, 2024)
A harrowing account on the frontlines of the war between Israel and Hamas, The October 7 War: Israel's Battle for Security in Gaza (Wicked Son, 2024) War tells…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Danny Sriskandarajah, "Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World" (Headline Press, 2024)
Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World (Headline Press, 2024) is Danny Sriskandarajah‘s radical manifesto for change designed to inspire citizen…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Kevin J. McMahon, "A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Many scholars and members of the press have argued that John Roberts’ Supreme Court is exceptional. While some emphasize the approach to interpreting the…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
John Schofield, "Wicked Problems for Archaeologists: Heritage as Transformative Practice" (Oxford UP, 2024)
'Wicked Problems' are those problems facing the planet and its inhabitants, present and future, which are hard (if not impossible) to resolve and for which…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Celebrating Constitution Day Pt. 1: A Conversation with Cass R. Sunstein
Join us for an in-depth exploration of Professor Cass Sunstein's latest work, Campus Free Speech (Harvard University Press, September 2024). Together, we'll…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Josh Cowen, "The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers" (Harvard Education Press, 2024)
School vouchers are often framed as a way to help students and families by providing choice, but evidence shows that vouchers have a negative impact on…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Red Chidgey and Joanne Garde-Hansen, "Museums, Archives and Protest Memory" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
In Museums, Archives and Protest Memory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), Red Chidgey and Joanne Garde-Hansen address the emergence of ‘protest memory’ as a powerful…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Jess Whatcott, "Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics" (Duke UP, 2024)
In Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics (Duke UP, 2024), Jess Whatcott traces the link between US disability institutions…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Oren Kroll-Zeldin, "Unsettled: American Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine" (NYU Press, 2024)
Unsettled: American Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine (NYU Press, 2024) digs into the experiences of young Jewish Americans who engage with the…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Cary Nelson, "Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles" (Academic Studies Press, 2024)
Completed shortly before Hamas carried out its barbaric October massacre, Cary Nelson's Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
David H. Price, "The American Surveillance State: How the US Spies on Dissent" (Pluto Press, 2022)
When the possibility of wiretapping first became known to Americans they were outraged. Now, in our post-9/11 world, it's accepted that corporations are vested…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
S4E4 In Defense of Bad Science and the Philosophy of Being
What role does science play in shaping our laws? How do we distinguish between good science and bad science? Where does science hit its limits due to our human…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Andy Clarno et al., "Imperial Policing: Weaponized Data in Carceral Chicago" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
Chicago is a city with extreme concentrations of racialized poverty and inequity, one that relies on an extensive network of repressive agencies to police the…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Jonathan Gienapp, "Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique" (Yale UP, 2024)
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Karyne E. Messina, "The Power of Community: A 45 Day Action Plan to Stop Trump from Turning Our Democracy into His Autocracy" (PI Press, 2024)
An Amazon # 1 top release Kindle book during its debut, The Power of Community: A 45 Day Action Plan to Stop Trump from Turning Our Democracy into His…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Susan Greenhalgh, "Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola (U Chicago Press, 2024) takes readers deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powerful…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Bhaskar Sunkara, "The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality" (Basic Books, 2020)
In The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality (Basic Books, 2020), Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Radio Reorient Season 11: A Wrap Up and Round Up
In this final episode of Season 11, the Radio ReOrient team - Hizer Mir, Claudia Radiven, Saeed Khan, Chella Ward and Salman Sayyid - look back over our…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
The Human Advantage: A Conversation with Jay Richards
In this episode, we explore the insights of Jay Richards, author of The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines (Forum, 2019)…
- New Books in Politics and Polemics
Hope Bohanec, "The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs" (Lantern Publishing, 2023)
As consumers become increasingly aware of the animal agriculture industry’s cruelty and environmental devastation, clever industry marketers are adapting with…