New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Carola Binder, "Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
27 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A sweeping history of the United States’ economy and politics, in Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy (U Chicago Press, 2024)...
Alan Jenkins and Gan Golan, "1/6, The Graphic Novel: What if the Attack on the U.S. Capitol had Succeeded?" (Sun Print Solutions, 2023)
26 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What if the January 6, 2021 Insurrection had been successful? A tale of what was, what could have been, and what still could be? 1/6: The Graphic Nove...
Jesse McCarthy, "The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
26 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
‘The result is that, at the present time, the world is at an impasse.’ In 1956, Aimé Césaire pronounced the world to be at an impasse while reno...
Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans, "The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels" (Crown, 2024)
26 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, people who died destitute or alone were buried in potters’ fields—a Dickensian end that even the most hard-pressed families tried t...
Marc C. Johnson, "Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate" (U Oklahoma Press, 2023)
26 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. Senate is so sharply polarized along partisan and ideological lines today that it's easy to believe it was always this way. But in the turbul...
Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton, "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison" (Routledge, 2023)
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For 40 years, this classic text has taken the issue of economic inequality seriously and asked: Why are our prisons filled with the poor? Why aren't t...
Cathy Stanton, "Food Margins: Lessons from an Unlikely Grocer" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An anthropologist walks into a grocery store—no that’s not the start of a joke, that’s the true story of how Cathy Stanton came to be involved w...
Danielle R. Olden, "Racial Uncertainties: Mexican Americans, School Desegregation, and the Making of Race in Post–Civil Rights America" (U California Press, 2022)
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mexican Americans have often fit uncertainly into the white/non-white binary that has goverens much of American history. After Colorado, and much of t...
Laura Helton, "Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History" (Columbia UP, 2024)
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the first half of the twentieth century, a group of collectors and creators dedicated themselves to documenting the history of African American...
Alex Beringer, "Lost Literacies: Experiments in the Nineteenth-Century US Comic Strip" (Ohio State UP, 2024)
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lost Literacies: Experiments in the Nineteenth-Century US Comic Strip (Ohio State UP, 2024) is the first full-length study of US comic strips from ...
Mark Moyar, "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968" (Encounter, 2023)
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968 (Encounter, 2023) is the long-awaited sequel to the immensely influential Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam...
Omar Valerio-Jiménez, "Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship" (UNC Press, 2024)
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Omar Valerio-Jiménez's book Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship (UNC Press, 2024) analyzes the ways collective memorie...
American Innovation, American Vitality: A Conversation with Chris Buskirk
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How can we restore America's frontier spirit, foster innovation, and stave off decay? Chris Buskirk sits down to discuss his new book America and the...
Mark Robert Rank, "The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity" (Oxford UP, 2023)
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The paradox of poverty amidst plenty has plagued the United States throughout the 21st century--why should the wealthiest country in the world also ha...
Daniel P. Ott, "Harvesting History: McCormick's Reaper, Heritage Branding, and Historical Forgery" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Cyrus McCormick invented the revolutionary mechanical reaper in 1831...right? At least, that's how the story has been told for decades. In Harvesting...
Ryan Reft, "Heroin and Chocolate City: Black Community Responses to Drug Addiction in the Nation’s Capital, 1967-1973" (2024)
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan Reft is a historian in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, where he oversees collections pertaining to 20th and 21st century dom...
Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, "The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics" (Princeton UP, 2024)
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (Princeton UP, 2024) traces the political history of American p...
Stuart A. Reid, "The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination" (Knopf, 2023)
19 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Stuart Reid about his new book The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination (Knopf, 2023). It was...
James A. Cosby, "Rock Music, Authority and Western Culture, 1964-1980" (McFarland, 2024)
19 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The history of rock and roll music can be seen in a long arc of Western civilization's struggle for both greater individual expression and societal st...
Raven Simone Maragh-Lloyd, "Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age" (U California Press, 2024)
19 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age (U California Press, 2024) explores the creative range of Black digital u...
Chaim Miller, "Turning Judaism Outward: A Biography of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe" (Kol Menachem, 2014)
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), the Lubavitcher Rebbe, took an insular Chasidic group that was almost decimated by the Holocaust and tra...
Shakespeare in America
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
James Shapiro spoke at the Institute in 2014 about Shakespeare in America, the anthology he edited for the Library of America. He is the Larry Miller...
Kunal M. Parker, "The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought, 1870-1970" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought, 1870-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Kunal M. Parker explores the...
Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson, "Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade" (Harvard UP, 2024)
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, the vastness of the Chinese market tempted foreign companies in search of customers. But in the 1970s, when the United States and China...
Christopher Tounsel, "Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity" (Cornell UP, 2024)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher Tounsel's book Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the history of ...
Tessa Winkelmann, "Dangerous Intercourse: Gender and Interracial Relations in the American Colonial Philippines, 1898–1946" (Cornell UP, 2023)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Dangerous Intercourse: Gender and Interracial Relations in the American Colonial Philippines, 1898–1946 (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. T...
Lisa Bhungalia, "Elastic Empire: Refashioning War Through Aid in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2023)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The United States integrated counterterrorism mandates into its aid flows in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the early years of the global war on ...
Douglas L. Reside, "Fixing the Musical: How Technologies Shaped the Broadway Repertory" (Oxford UP, 2023)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of shows have opened on Broadway. Why do we remember some and not others? The musical theatre repertory is not composed of titles popular in...
M. Steven Fish, "Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge" (Rivertowns Books, 2024)
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Defeating the forces of authoritarianism is the political combat task of our age, and we must take it up with the certitude and boldness that our emin...
Can the Constitution Still Unite Us?: A Conversation with Yuval Levin
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During an era of broad political dissatisfaction, what is the history and role of the Constitution? Does the Constitution still have the power to unit...
Kevin Woodson, "The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
America's elite law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms are known for grueling hours, low odds of promotion, and personnel practi...
Courtney Thorsson, "The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture" (Columbia UP, 2023)
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture (Columbia University Press, 2023) explores how an incredible group of B...
Cecily N. Zander, "The Army under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era" (LSU Press, 2024)
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Cecily N. Zander’s The Army under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era (LSU Press, 2024) is a pathbreaking study focusing on...
Denise Von Glahn, "Circle of Winners: How the Guggenheim Foundation Composition Awards Shaped American Music Culture" (U Illinois Press, 2023)
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Founded in 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation provides support to what their current website says are "exceptional individuals in pur...
Maria Cristina Garcia, "State of Disaster: The Failure of U. S. Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change" (UNC Press, 2022)
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Natural disasters and the dire effects of climate change cause massive population displacements and lead to some of the most intractable political and...
Pamela Aronson and Matthew R. Fleming, "Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life" (Routledge, 2023)
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life (Routledge, 2023) by Dr. Pamela Aronson and Matthew R. Fleming caref...
Alissa Quart, "Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream" (Ecco Press, 2023)
11 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The promise that you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is central to the story of the American Dream. It's the belief that if you work hard an...
Dan Chapman, "A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey Through an Endangered Land" (Island Press, 2022)
11 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, keeping a detailed journal of his adventures as he traipsed from Ken...
Kendra Y. Hamilton, "Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess" (U Georgia Press, 2024)
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Kendra Y. Hamilton’s Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess (University of Georgia Press, 2024) is a literary and cultural history ...
Robert K. D. Colby, "An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South" (Oxford UP, 2024)
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Confederate States of America was born in defense of slavery and, after a four-year struggle to become an independent slaveholding republic, died ...
Book Banning: A Discussion with Christine Emeran of the National Coalition Against Censorship
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Book bans and book challenges are both on the rise. And they are increasing at unprecedented rates. But why is this happening? Dr. Christine Emeran of...
Maggie Messitt, "Newspaper" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Newspaper (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. Maggie Messitt is about more than news printed on paper. It brings us inside our best and worst selves, from cens...
Steve McCauley excavates John Cheever's "The Five-Forty-Eight" (JP)
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We debut a new feature: Recall This Story, in which a contemporary writer picks out a bygone story to read and to analyze. Surely there is no better n...
David Tal, "The Making of an Alliance: The Origins and Development of the US-Israel Relationship" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Laying the foundation for an understanding of US-Israeli relations, this lively and accessible book provides critical background on the origins and de...
Julia Havas, "Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television" (Wayne State UP, 2022)
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While American television has long relied on a strategic foregrounding of feminist politics to promote certain programming's cultural value, Woman Up...
Battlefield to Big Sky: A Conversation with Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran and entrepreneur Tim Sheehy has led an action-packed life: a 2008 graduate of the Naval Academy, as a Navy SEAL he completed deployments in ...
Marion R. Casey, "The Green Space: The Transformation of the Irish Image" (NYU Press, 2024)
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marion Casey is a professor at Glucksman Ireland House at New York University where she also serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She has publ...
Ariana Mangual Figueroa, "Knowing Silence: How Children Talk about Immigration Status in School" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Learning from children about citizenship status and how it shapes their schooling. There is a persistent assumption in the field of education that chi...
Eziaku Atuama Nwokocha, "Vodou en Vogue: Fashioning Black Divinities in Haiti and the United States" (UNC Press, 2023)
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Haitian Vodou, spirits impact Black practitioners' everyday lives, tightly connecting the sacred and the secular. As Eziaku Atuama Nwokocha reveals...
James Wolfinger, "If There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress: Black Politics in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia" (Temple UP, 2022)
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress: Black Politics in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia (Temple UP, 2022) provides an in-depth historical ana...
Tanisha M. Fazal, "Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War" (Oxford UP, 2024)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Decisions to go to war are often framed in cost-benefit terms, and typically such assessments do not factor in longer term costs. However, recent dram...
Donald Stoker, "Why America Loses Wars: Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this provocative challenge to United States policy and strategy, former Professor of Strategy & Policy at the US Naval War College, and author or e...
Salar Mameni, "Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2023)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics (Duke UP, 2023), Salar Mameni historicizes the popularization of the scientific notion of the Anthropocene alongsid...
Sydney Stern, "The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics" (U Mississippi Press, 2019)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Herman J. (1897–1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the sc...
Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, "Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1935, two Soviet satirists, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, undertook a 10,000-mile American road trip from New York to Hollywood and back. They immort...
Patrick Humphries, "Cleopatra and the Undoing of Hollywood: How One Film Almost Sunk the Studios" (History Press, 2023)
04 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The astonishing behind-the-scenes story of the 1963 film Cleopatra and how it changed the face of Hollywood makes it one of the most fabled films of...
David J. Silbey and Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, "Wars Civil and Great: The American Experience in the Civil War and World War I" (UP of Kansas, 2023)
04 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Civil War and the Great War occupy very different places in American memory and, often, in U.S. history books. Yet, they were fought only fifty ye...
Sara B. Franklin, "The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America" (Atria, 2024)
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath...
Kristi Irene McKim, "Rushmore" (British Film Institute, 2023)
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Earning critical acclaim and commercial success upon its 1998 release, Rushmore-the sophomore film of American auteur Wes Anderson-quickly gained the...
Crystal Wilkinson, "Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks" (Clarkson Potter, 2023)
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized t...
Leading from the Margins: College Leadership from Unexpected Places
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s book is: Leading From the Margins: College Leadership from Unexpected Places (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024), by Dr. Mary Dana Hinton, which is a...
Renée Bergland, "Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science" (Princeton UP, 2024)
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for p...
Jennifer M. Black, "Branding Trust: Advertising and Trademarks in Nineteenth-Century America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the early nineteenth century, the American commercial marketplace was a chaotic, unregulated environment in which knock-offs and outright frauds th...
Catherine Ceniza Choy, "Asian American Histories of the United States" (Beacon Press, 2022)
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To begin the celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, this episode features a conversation with Dr. Catherine Ceniza Choy about her book ...
Allison Schrager, "An Economist Walks Into A Brothel And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk" (Portfolio, 2019)
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Whether you are a commuter weighing options of taking the bus vs walking to get you to work on time or a military general leading troops into war, ris...
Melody Yunzi Li, "Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the United States" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the U.S. (Rutgers University Press, 2023) examines how contemporary Chine...
Adia Harvey Wingfield, "Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It" (Amistad Press, 2023)
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work—from getting a job to workplace norms to a...
Christopher Cameron, "Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism" (Northwestern UP, 2019)
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism (Northwestern University Press, 2019) by Christopher Cameron, an Associate Professor of h...
David Pozen, "The Constitution of the War on Drugs" (Oxford UP, 2024)
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David Pozen is the Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and the author of the new book, The Constitution of the War on Drug...
Karyne Messina, "Barbie and the Great American Identity Crisis: The Unfortunate Reality of a Nation Plagued by Racism, Patriarchy, and Stark Hypocrisy" (Pi Press, 2024)
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Barbie and the Great American Identity Crisis (Pi Press, 2024) is not merely a book but a call to action-a rallying cry for societal introspection a...
Michael De Groot, "Disruption: The Global Economic Shocks of the 1970s and the End of the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2024)
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Disruption: The Global Economic Shocks of the 1970s and the End of the Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Michael De Groot argues tha...
John H. Cable, "Southern Enclosure: Settler Colonialism and the Postwar Transformation of Mississippi" (UP of Kansas, 2023)
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Historians of the American South have come to consider the mechanization and consolidation of cotton farming—the “Southern enclosure movement”—...
Ross Perlin, "Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024)
27 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Half of all 7,000-plus human languages may disappear over the next century and—because many have never been recorded—when they’re gone, it will ...
Leigh Gilmore, "The #MeToo Effect: What Happens When We Believe Women" (Columbia UP, 2023)
27 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The #MeToo movement inspired millions to testify to the widespread experience of sexual violence. More broadly, it shifted the deeply ingrained respon...
Adam J. Criblez, "Kings of the Garden: The New York Knicks and Their City" (Three Hills, 2024)
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Kings of the Garden: The New York Knicks and Their City (Three Hills, 2024), Adam J. Criblez traces the fall and rise of the New York Knicks betw...
Andrea Wenzel, "Antiracist Journalism: The Challenge of Creating Equitable Local News" (Columbia UP, 2023)
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Journalists have a long history of covering race and racism in the United States, telling stories that shed light on protest, activism, institutional ...
Steven C. Beda, "Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country" (U Illinois Press, 2022)
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine an environmentalist. Are you picturing a Birkenstock-clad hippie? An office worker who hikes on weekends? A political lobbyist? What about a...
Dana Gorzelany-Mostak, "Tracks on the Trail: Popular Music, Race, and the US Presidency" (U Michigan Press, 2023)
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From Bill Clinton playing his saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show to Barack Obama referencing Jay-Z's song "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," politicians have...
Teri Ann Finneman et al., "Reviving Rural News: Transforming the Business Model of Community Journalism in the US and Beyond" (Routledge, 2024)
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Based on extensive research into weekly rural publishers and rural readers, Reviving Rural News: Transforming the Business Model of Community Journ...
Pamela Robertson Wojcik, "Unhomed: Cycles of Mobility and Placelessness in American Cinema" (U California Press, 2024)
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Unhomed: Cycles of Mobility and Placelessness in American Cinema (University of California Press, 2024), Dr. Pamela Roberston Wojcik examines Ame...
Alexander Greenhough, "Albert Brooks: Interviews" (UP of Mississippi, 2024)
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Albert Brooks: Interviews (UP of Mississippi, 2024) brings together fourteen profiles of and conversations with Brooks (b. 1947), in which he contemp...
Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles, "Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York" (U Michigan Press, 2023)
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is everywhere in the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1921, its portfolio includes airports, marin...
Gary S. Cross, "Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal" (NYU Press, 2024)
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Free time, one of life’s most precious things, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the pa...
Michael J. Graetz, "The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America" (Princeton UP, 2024)
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The anti-tax movement is "the most important overlooked social and political movement of the last half century", according to our guest Michael J. Gr...
Michael Liu, "Forever Struggle: Activism, Identity, and Survival in Boston's Chinatown, 1880-2018" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Chinatown has a long history in Boston. Though little documented, it represents the city's most sustained neighborhood effort to survive during eras o...
Diana Chapman Walsh, "The Claims of Life: A Memoir" (MIT Press, 2023)
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The engaging memoir of a legendary president of Wellesley College known for authentic and open-hearted leadership, who drove innovation with power and...
Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King, "America’s New Racial Battle Lines: Protect Versus Repair" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is happening to the politics of race in America? In America’s New Racial Battle Lines: Protect Versus Repair (U Chicago Press, 2024), Roger...
Susan Partovi, "Renegade M.D.: A Doctor's Stories from the Streets" (Bookbaby, 2024)
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Susan Partovi first experienced poverty medicine volunteering at a dump site in Tijuana during high school. There, she recognized the need for all...
Fumilayo Showers, "Migrants Who Care: West Africans Working and Building Lives in U.S. Health Care" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As the U.S. population ages and as health care needs become more complex, demand for paid care workers in home and institutional settings has increase...
Guido Alfani, "As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West" (Princeton UP, 2023)
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This provocative and interesting book has received considerable attention. Roaring reviews and interviews include The Financial Times (UK), The...
Tanisha Ford, "Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement" (Amistad Press, 2024)
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An engrossing social history of the unsinkable Mollie Moon, the stylish founder of the National Urban League Guild and fundraiser extraordinaire who r...
Charles E. Curran, "Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian" (Georgetown UP, 2006)
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over the course of our 60th anniversary in 2024, we'll be revisiting some classic Georgetown books. First up is Loyal Dissent by Charles E. Curran....
On Fiorello La Guardia and Why He Still Matters: A Discussion with Author Terry Golway
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Has any American mayor ever made a greater stamp on the public consciousness than the Little Flower, Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York City from ...
Rose Miron, "Indigenous Archival Activism: Mohican Interventions in Public History and Memory" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The past several decades have seen a massive shift in debates over who owns and has the right to tell Native American history and stories. For centuri...
Eve Golden, "Strictly Dynamite: The Sensational Life of Lupe Velez" (UP of Kentucky, 2023)
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Before Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, and Penelope Cruz, there was Lupe Velez―one of the first Latin-American stars to sweep past the xenophobia of old ...
Jerry Grillo, "Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Johnny Mize was one of the greatest hitters in baseball’s golden age of great hitters. Born and raised in tiny Demorest, Georgia, in the northeast G...
Richard Olsen-Harbich, "Sun, Sea, Soil, Wine: Winemaking on the North Fork of Long Island" (SUNY Press, 2024)
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With his new book Sun, Sea, Soil, Wine: Winemaking on the North Fork of Long Island (SUNY Press, 2024), Richard Olsen-Harbich, Long Island's longest...
Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, "Puerto Rico: A National History" (Princeton UP, 2024)
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Puerto Rico is a Spanish-speaking territory of the United States with a history shaped by conquest and resistance. For centuries, Puerto Ricans have c...
Ieva Jusionyte, "Exit Wounds: How America's Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border" (U California Press, 2024)
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
American guns have entangled the lives of people on both sides of the US-Mexico border in a vicious circle of violence. After treating wounded migrant...
Steven Ujifusa, "The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia's Jews on the Eve of World War I" (HarperCollins, 2023)
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the Unite...