New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Judith Pearson, "Crusade to Heal America: The Remarkable Life of Mary Lasker" (Mayo Clinic Press, 2023)
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Woodard Lasker had a singular goal: saving lives by increasing medical research. Together with her husband, advertising genius Albert, they crea...
Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, "Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam" (Duke UP, 2021)
26 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Through a creative focus on skin, in Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam (Duke UP, 2021), Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu examines th...
Neema Avashia, "Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place" (West Virginia UP, 2022)
25 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Neema Avashia is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was born and raised in southern West Virginia. She has been an educator and activist in the Bos...
Sarah Keyes, "American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
25 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Overland Trail into the American West is one of the most culturally recognizable symbols of the American past: white covered wagons traversing the...
Angela Wanhalla, "Of Love and War: Pacific Brides of World War II" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
25 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1942 and 1945 more than two million servicemen occupied the southern Pacific theater, the majority of whom were Americans in service with the ...
Marcia Bricker Halperin, "Kibbitz and Nosh: When We All Met at Dubrow's Cafeteria" (Cornell UP, 2023)
25 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the middle decades of the twentieth century in New York City, Dubrow’s cafeterias in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and the garment district of...
Daniel Dain, "A History of Boston" (Peter E. Randall, 2023)
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Boston is today one of the world's greatest cities, first in higher education, hospitals, life science companies, and sports teams. It was the home of...
Matthew Fox-Amato, "Exposing Slavery: Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America" (Oxford UP, 2019)
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Shortly after its introduction, photography transformed the ways Americans made political arguments using visual images. In the mid-19th century, phot...
Christopher J. Devine, "I’m Here to Ask for Your Vote: How Presidential Campaign Visits Influence Voters" (Columbia UP, 2023)
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During presidential campaigns, candidates crisscross the country nonstop—visiting swing states, their home turf, and enemy territory. But do all tho...
Imani D. Owens, "Turn the World Upside Down: Empire and Unruly Forms of Black Folk Culture in the U.S. and Caribbean" (Columbia UP, 2023)
23 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the first half of the twentieth century, Black hemispheric culture grappled with the legacies of colonialism, U.S. empire, and Jim Crow. As writers...
Gregory D. Smithers, "Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)
23 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his book, Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal(University of Oklahoma Press, 2019), Dr. Gregory D. Smithers effectively a...
T. Corey Brennan, "The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political Symbol" (Oxford UP, 2022)
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Fascism" is a word ubiquitous in our contemporary political discourse, but few know about its roots in the ancient past or its long, strange evolutio...
Daniel Skinner et al., "The City and the Hospital: The Paradox of Medically Overserved Communities" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An enduring paradox of urban public health is that many communities around hospitals are economically distressed and, counterintuitively, medically un...
Laurence Ralph, "Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him" (Grand Central Publishing, 2023)
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In September of 2019, Luis Alberto Quiñonez—known as Sito— was shot to death as he sat in his car in the Mission District of San Francisco. He wa...
Emily Legg, "Stories of Our Living Ephemera: Storytelling Methodologies in the Archives of the Cherokee National Seminaries, 1846-1907" (Utah State UP, 2023)
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Stories of Our Living Ephemera: Storytelling Methodologies in the Archives of the Cherokee National Seminaries, 1846-1907 (Utah State University Pres...
Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, "American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15" (FSG, 2023)
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner so...
Matthew C. Ward, "Making the Frontier Man: Violence, White Manhood, and Authority in the Early Western Backcountry" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)
18 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For western colonists in the early American backcountry, disputes often ended in bloodshed and death. Making the Frontier Man: Violence, White Manhoo...
John Howland, "Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music" (U California Press, 2021)
18 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music (U California Press, 2021) explores a deluxe-production aesth...
Lawrence Glickman, "Free Enterprise: An American History" (Yale UP, 2019)
18 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Free enterprise” is an everyday phrase that connotes an American common sense. It appears everywhere from political speeches to pop culture. And ...
Max Felker-Kantor, "DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools" (UNC Press, 2023)
17 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With its signature "DARE to keep kids off drugs" slogan and iconic t-shirts, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was the most popular drug educatio...
Mirelsie Velazquez, "Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977" (U Illinois Press, 2022)
17 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The postwar migration of Puerto Rican men and women to Chicago brought thousands of their children into city schools. These children's classroom exper...
Norman Hill and Velma Murphy Hill, "Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain: The Extraordinary Story of Love, Civil Rights, and Labor Activism" (Regalo Press, 2023)
17 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The remarkable story of a couple who came together during the civil rights movement and made fighting for equality and civil and workers' rights their...
Ian Saxine, "Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier" (NYU Press, 2019)
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier (NYU Press, 2019), Ian Saxine, Visiting Assistant Profes...
Sarah Parry Myers, "Earning Their Wings: The WASPs of World War II and the Fight for Veteran Recognition" (UNC Press, 2023)
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's licence who coul...
Richard L. Hasen, "A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy" (Princeton UP, 2024)
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout history, too many Americans have been disenfranchised or faced needless barriers to voting. Part of the blame falls on the Constitution, wh...
Steven Harvey, "The Beloved Republic" (Wandering Aengus Press, 2023)
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Harvey is the author of numerous books, including his latest collection of essays The Beloved Republic (Wandering Aengus Press). Besides bei...
Marisol LeBrón, "Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico" (U California Press, 2019)
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marisol LeBrón’s new book, Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2019), examines ...
Kimberly Meltzer, “From News to Talk: The Expansion of Opinion and Commentary in U.S. Journalism” (SUNY Press, 2019)
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From talking heads on cable news to hot takes online, there seems to be more opinion than ever in journalism these days. There’s an entire body of r...
Josh Fernandez, "The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist" (PM Press, 2024)
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Josh Fernandez about his new memoir The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist (PM Press, 2024). Josh F...
Andrius Gališanka, "John Rawls: The Path to a Theory of Justice" (Harvard UP, 2019)
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is hard to overestimate the influence of John Rawls on political philosophy and theory over the last half-century. His books have sold millions of ...
Jeanne Theoharis, "The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South" (NYU Press, 2019)
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this New Books Network/Gotham Center for NYC History podcast, guest host Beth Harpaz, editor of the City University of New York website SUM, interv...
William Gale, "Fiscal Therapy: Curing America's Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future" (Oxford UP, 2019)
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The US government is laboring under an enormous debt burden, one that will impact the living standards of future generations of Americans by limiting ...
James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson, "Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis" (Russell Sage, 2021)
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Soaring levels of political, legal, economic, and social inequality have been documented by social scientists – but the public conversation and scho...
Timothy A. Sayle, "Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order" (Cornell UP, 2019)
11 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization regularly appears in newspapers and political science scholarship. Surprisingly, historians have yet to devote ...
Tim Keogh, "In Levittown’s Shadow: Poverty in America’s Wealthiest Postwar Suburb" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
11 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There is a familiar narrative about American suburbs: after 1945, white residents left cities for leafy, affluent subdivisions and the prosperity they...
Daniel Immerwahr, "How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States" (FSG, 2019)
11 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Is America an Empire?” is a popular question for pundits and historians, likely because it sets off such a provocative debate. All too often, how...
Richard A. Detweiler, "The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment" (MIT Press, 2021)
11 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We speak with Richard Detweiler about his new book The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry and Accomplishment (MIT Press, 202...
Brian H. Williams, "The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal" (Broadleaf Books, 2023)
10 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Trauma surgeon and professor Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all: gunshot wounds, stabbings, and traumatic brain injuries. In The Bodies Keep Comin...
Richard T. Rodríguez, "A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad" (Duke UP, 2022)
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad (Duke UP, 2022), Richard T. Rodríguez examines the relat...
Nicholas B. Dirks, "City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing from his experiences of having belonged to the faculty, administrative, and presidential circles of the university, author Nicholas B. Dirks ...
Jennifer Sdunzik, "The Geography of Hate: The Great Migration through Small-Town America" (U Illinois Press, 2023)
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the Great Migration, Black Americans sought new lives in midwestern small towns only to confront the pervasive efforts of white residents deter...
Gregory Wallance, "Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s perhaps one of history’s funny accidents that relations between the U.S. and Russia were changed not by one, but two, George Kennans. Decades...
Gregory Wallance, "Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s perhaps one of history’s funny accidents that relations between the U.S. and Russia were changed not by one, but two, George Kennans. Decades...
Wendy Cheng, "Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism" (U Washington Press, 2023)
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, which is co-hosted with Tandee Wang, features a conversation with Dr. Wendy Cheng, author of Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Camp...
Calvin John Smiley, "Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition" (U California Press, 2023)
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition (University of California Press, 2023), Calvin John Smiley explores the lives of people who w...
Jake Berman, "The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every driver in North America shares one miserable, soul-sucking universal experience—being stuck in traffic. But things weren’t always like this....
Matthew Kruer, "Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America" (Harvard UP, 2021)
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A gripping account of the violence and turmoil that engulfed England’s fledgling colonies and the crucial role played by Native Americans in determi...
Robert Alpert et al., "Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics and Zombies in American Movies" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As I may be the target audience for Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics and Zombies in American Movies (Edinburgh UP, 2023), I really enjoyed interv...
Todd Mildfelt and David D. Schafer, "Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind: James Montgomery and His War on Slavery" (U Oklahoma Press, 2023)
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A controversial character largely known (as depicted in the movie Glory) as a Union colonel who led Black soldiers in the Civil War, James Montgomery...
Mark Guarino, "Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The untold story of Chicago's pivotal role as a country and folk music capital. Chicago is revered as a musical breeding ground, having launched major...
Alex Squadron, "Life in the G: Minor League Basketball and the Relentless Pursuit of the NBA" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the G League--the official minor league of the National Basketball Association. Life in the G: Minor League Basketball and the Relentless...
Elizabeth Varon, "Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South" (Simon & Schuster, 2023)
04 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An authoritative biography of the controversial Confederate general, who later embraced Reconstruction and became an outcast in the South. It was the ...
Courtney Brannon Donoghue, "The Value Gap: Female-Driven Films from Pitch to Premiere" (U Texas Press, 2023)
04 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Conversations about gender equity in the workplace accelerated in the 2010s, with debates inside Hollywood specifically pointing to broader systemic p...
Dustin Kiskaddon, "Blood and Lightening: On Becoming a Tattooer" (Stanford UP, 2023)
04 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Any tattoo is the outcome of an intimate, often hidden process. The people, bodies, and money that make tattooing what it is blend together and form a...
Murray Forman and Mark V. Campbell, "Hip Hop Archives: The Politics and Poetics of Knowledge Production" (Intellect, 2023)
04 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the vast popularity and cultural influence of hip-hop, efforts to archive its history are still in fairly early stages. Hip-Hop Archives: The...
Julia Ornelas-Higdon, "The Grapes of Conquest: Race, Labor, and the Industrialization of California Wine, 1769–1920" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
03 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
California’s wine country conjures images of pastoral vineyards and cellars lined with oak barrels. As a mainstay of the state’s economy, Californ...
Michael O'Malley, "The Beat Cop: Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
03 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Francis O’Neill (1848–1936) was a Chicago police officer and a folk music collector. Michael O’Malley connects these two seemingly unrelated act...
William L. Bird, "In the Arms of Saguaros: Iconography of the Giant Cactus" (U Arizona Press, 2023)
03 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An essential—and monumental—member of the Sonoran Desert ecosystem, the saguaro cactus has become the quintessential icon of the American West. In...
George Fisher, "Beware Euphoria: The Moral Roots and Racial Myths of America's War on Drugs" (Oxford UP, 2024)
03 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
George Fisher, the Judge John Crown Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, just released his new book Beware Euphoria: The Moral Roots and Racial M...
Georgina Hickey, "Breaking the Gender Code: Women and Urban Public Space in the Twentieth-Century United States" (U Texas Press, 2023)
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the closing years of the nineteenth century, women received subtle--and not so subtle--messages that they shouldn't be in public. Or, if they wer...
Marc Arsell Robinson, "Washington State Rising: Black Power on Campus in the Pacific Northwest" (NYU Press, 2023)
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1960s, as the United States was wracked by protests, assassinations, and political unrest, students in Washington State seized the moment...
Sheila Marie Bock, "Claiming Space: Performing the Personal Through Decorated Mortarboards" (Utah State UP, 2023)
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Claiming Space: Performing the Personal through Decorated Mortarboards (Utah State University Press, 2023) by Dr. Sheila Bock examines the growing tr...
Ismar Volić, "Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation" (Princeton UP, 2024)
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What's the best way to determine what most voters want when multiple candidates are running? What's the fairest way to allocate legislative seats to d...
The Culture Trap, with Sociologist Derron Wallace (EF, JP)
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Elizabeth and John talk with Derron Wallace, sociologist of education and Brandeis colleague, about his new book The Culture Trap, ...
Matthew D. Lassiter, "The Suburban Crisis: White America and the War on Drugs" (Princeton UP, 2023)
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most accounts of post-1950s political history tell the story of of the war on drugs as part of a racial system of social control of urban minority pop...
Eviane Leidig, "The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization" (Columbia UP, 2023)
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On mainstream social media platforms, far-right women make extremism relatable. They share Instagram stories about organic foods that help pregnant wo...
Maryam Kashani, "Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival" (Duke UP, 2023)
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the Black Power movement and state surveillance to Silicon Valley and gentrification, Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival (D...
Colorblindness and the Classics: A Conversation with Andre Archie
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why has Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a color-blind society suffered so many recent setbacks? Classical philosopher Andre Archie argues that we n...
Charlotte Coté, "A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast" (U Washington Press, 2022)
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Food is at the center of everything, writes University of Washington professor of American Indian Studies Charlotte Coté. In A Drum in One Hand, A...
Holly A. Baggett, "Making No Compromise: Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, and the Little Review" (Northern Illinois UP, 2023)
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Holly A. Baggett's Making No Compromise: Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, and the Little Review (Northern Illinois UP, 2023) is the first book-length...
Hajar Yazdiha, "The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement" (Princeton UP, 2023)
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the post-civil rights era, wide-ranging groups have made civil rights claims that echo those made by Black civil rights activists of the 1960s, fro...
David M. Henkin, "The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Made Us who We are" (Yale UP, 2021)
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Made Us who We are (Yale UP, 2021) is an investigation into the evolution of the seven-day week and...
On Authoritarianism: A Discussion with Author and Political Scientist Matthew C. MacWilliams
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly half of Americans “are inconsistent supporters of democracy and democratic institutions,” Matthew C. MacWilliams writes at the start of his...
Sarah Diefendorf, "The Holy Vote: Inequality and Anxiety Among White Evangelicals" (U California Press, 2023)
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Through two years of ethnographic fieldwork at a megachurch, sociologist Dr. Sarah Diefendorf investigates the ways in which the evangelical church is...
Caitlin Killian, "Failing Moms: Social Condemnation and Criminalization of Mothers" (Polity Press, 2023)
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The role of mother is often celebrated in the United States as the most important job in the world but Dr. Caitlin Killian argues that American mother...
Paul Franke, "Feeling Lucky: The Production of Gambling Experiences in Monte Carlo and Las Vegas" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Monte Carlo and Las Vegas have become synonymous with casino gambling. Both destinations featured it as part of a broad variety of leisure and consum...
Sandro Galea, "Within Reason: A Liberal Public Health for an Illiberal Time" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
28 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A provocative chronicle of how US public health has strayed from its liberal roots. The Covid-19 response was a crucible of politics and public health...
Alka Vaid Menon, "Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards" (U California Press, 2023)
28 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Cosmetic surgery was once associated with a one-size-fits-all approach, modifying patients to conform to a single standard of beauty. As this surgery ...
Damien Sojoyner, "Against the Carceral Archive: The Art of Black Liberatory Practice" (Fordham UP, 2023)
28 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Against the Carceral Archive: The Art of Black Liberatory Practice (Fordham UP, 2023) is a meditation upon what author Damien M. Sojoyner calls the “...
Calder Walton, "Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West" (Simon & Schuster, 2024)
28 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West (Simon & Schuster, 2024) is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been w...
Caleb Wellum, "Energizing Neoliberalism: The 1970s Energy Crisis and the Making of Modern America" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How the 1970s energy crisis facilitated a neoliberal shift in US political culture. In Energizing Neoliberalism: The 1970s Energy Crisis and the Maki...
Ethel Morgan Smith, "Path to Grace: Reimagining the Civil Rights Movement" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The civil rights movement is often defined narrowly, relegated to the 1950s and 1960s, and populated by such colossal figures as Martin Luther King Jr...
Richard L. Bushman, "Joseph Smith's Gold Plates: A Cultural History" (Oxford UP, 2023)
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Renowned historian of Mormonism Richard Lyman Bushman's latest book presents a vibrant history of a sacred object that gave birth to a new religion:...
Damon Scott, "The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco" (U Texas Press, 2024)
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Damon Scott is a lively hist...
Mark Zachary Taylor, "Presidential Leadership in Feeble Times: Explaining Executive Power in the Gilded Age" (Oxford UP, 2023)
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mark “Zak” Taylor, a political scientist at Georgia Tech University, has a new book that explores the presidents of the Gilded Age, from Ulysses G...
Nicholas Radburn, "Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade" (Yale UP, 2023)
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the eighteenth century, Britain’s slave trade exploded in size. Formerly a small and geographically constricted business, the trade had, by t...
James R. Fichter, "Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776" (Cornell UP, 2023)
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776 (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. James R. Fichter reveals that despite the so-called...
Loka Ashwood et al., "Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-By-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm" (UNC Press, 2023)
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since the late 1970s, Right to Farm Laws have been adopted by states across the US to limit nuisance lawsuits against farmers engaged in standard agri...
Kareem R. Muhammad, "The Fight for Black Empowerment in the USA: America’s Last Hope" (Routledge, 2023)
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Kareem Muhammad has a new book that focuses on the role of Black voters in the United States – specifically in their power as participants in de...
On Zionism and the Left: A Discussion with Author and Cultural Critic Susie Linfield
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“How has it come to this? How has ‘Zionist’…become the dirtiest word to the international Left?” Susie Linfield poses that ripe question at ...
Ian MacAllen, "Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Ian MacAllen traces the evolution of traditional Italian-American cuisi...
Ofer Sharone, "The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed" (Oxford UP, 2024)
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An eye-opening look at how all American workers, even the highly educated and experienced, are vulnerable to the stigma of unemployment. After receivi...
Aaron Carnes, "In Defense of Ska: The Ska Now More Than Ever Edition" (Clash Books, 2023)
21 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The era of ska shame is officially over, and ska fans no longer need to hide in the basement, skanking alone. The creator of the popular podcast In D...
Cassander L. Smith, "Race and Respectability in an Early Black Atlantic" (LSU Press, 2023)
21 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Race and Respectability in an Early Black Atlantic (LSU Press, 2023) by Dr. Cassander L. Smith examines the means through which people of African des...
Joseph C. Russo, "Hard Luck and Heavy Rain: The Ecology of Stories in Southeast Texas" (Duke UP, 2022)
21 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Hard Luck and Heavy Rain: The Ecology of Stories in Southeast Texas (Duke UP, 2022) (Duke UP, 2023), Joseph C. Russo takes readers into the ever...
Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, "Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
20 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Professor of History at The New School, and author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s...
Robert C. Post, "The Taft Court (10): Making Law for a Divided Nation, 1921–1930" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Robert C. Post's book The Taft Court (10): Making Law for a Divided Nation, 1921–1930 (Cambridge UP, 2023) offers the definitive history of the S...
Leanne Trapedo Sims, "Reckoning with Restorative Justice: Hawai'i Women's Prison Writing" (Duke UP, 2023)
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Reckoning with Restorative Justice Hawaii Women's Prison Writing (Duke University Press, 2023), Dr. Leanne Trapedo Sims explores the experienc...
Patricia Strach and Kathleen S. Sullivan, "The Politics of Trash: How Governments Used Corruption to Clean Cities, 1890–1929" (Cornell UP, 2023)
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Political Scientists Patricia Strach (The University at Albany, State University of New York) and Kathleen S. Sullivan (Ohio University) have written ...
Neall W. Pogue, "The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement" (Cornell UP, 2022)
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How does the Bible instruct humans to interact with the Earth? Over the last few decades, white conservative evangelical Christians have increasingly ...