New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Anne Marie Todd, "Valley of Heart's Delight: Environment and Sense of Place in the Santa Clara Valley" (U California Press, 2022)
07 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This agricultural history explores the transformation of the Santa Clara Valley over the past one hundred years from America's largest fruit-producing...
Samantha Pickette, "Peak TV's Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy" (Lexington, 2022)
07 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy (Lexington Books, 2022), Samantha...
Robin Bartlett, "Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History" (Casemate, 2023)
06 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Robin Bartlett about his new book Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History (Casemate, 2023). The year 1968 was arguably the...
Stephen Roach, "Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives" (Yale UP, 2022)
06 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Denial is a classic symptom of codependency ... Lacking a sense of self, codependent partners tend to be hypersensitive to criticism or negative feedb...
Chad Williams, "The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War" (FSG, 2023)
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and suppo...
Jack Buffington, "Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st-Century Covenant with America" (Georgetown UP, 2023)
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global economic "shutdown" in March 2020, our supply chains began to fail, and out-of-stocks and delivery delays b...
Journalistic Collaboration (JP)
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Fainaru and his brother Mark Fainaru-Wada wrote a bestselling and award-winning book (and accompanying PBS documentary series) about the NFL ...
Cedric Johnson, "After Black Lives Matter: Policing and Anti-Capitalist Struggle" (Verso, 2023)
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The historic uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd transformed the way Americans and the world think about race and policing. Why did it ...
Reece Jones, "White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall" (Beacon Press, 2021)
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Recent racist anti-immigration policies, from the border wall to the Muslim ban, have left many Americans wondering: How did we get here? In White Bo...
Boomers: A Conversation with Helen Andrews
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Andrews, senior editor at The American Conservative, joins Madison's Notes to discuss her new book, Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Free...
Christen T. Sasaki, "Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i" (U California Press, 2022)
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if Hawai'i wasn't the 50th state? In Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i (U California Press, 2022), U...
Chad E. Pearson, "Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century" (UNC Press, 2022)
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, employers, government officials, journalists, and powerful individuals deployed a variety o...
Susan Hartman, "City of Refugees: The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town" (Beacon Press, 2022)
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can scholars employ the practices and techniques of investigative journalism? Susan Hartman provides an answer in her intimate look at refugee exp...
All Men Are Created Equal: A Conversation with Allen C. Guelzo
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is the Declaration of Independence unique? Does the Declaration prescribe a form of government? What is the relationship between the Declaration and t...
Downeast Maine and the Unseen Story of Rural America: A Conversation with Gigi Georges
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gigi Georges has had an extensive career in politics, public service, and academia. She joins Madison's Notes to discuss her new book, Downeast: Five ...
John Lisle, "The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D...
Brian Domitrovic, "The Emergence of Arthur Laffer: The Foundations of Supply-Side Economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966–1976" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Emergence of Arthur Laffer: The Foundations of Supply-Side Economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966–1976 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) explores...
Elliott West, "Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
30 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion (U Nebraska Press, 2023) renowned historian Elliott West presents a sweeping nar...
Annie Zaleski, "Lady Gaga: Applause" (Palazzo Editions, 2022)
30 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As one of the world's best-selling musicians, Lady Gaga has set the musical bar high. Since her debut album, The Fame (2008), she has sold more than...
Locke, Tocqueville, and Civic Education: A Conversation with Jeffrey Sikkenga
30 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why is education so important in a democracy? Are democracies capable of producing the citizens they need? What do John Locke and Alexis de Tocquevill...
This is My Body: Communion and Cannibalism in Colonial New England and New France
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Carla Cevasco, Assistant Professor of American Studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, discusses her recent article, "This is My Body:...
Ana Schwartz, "Unmoored: The Search for Sincerity in Colonial America" (UNC Press, 2022)
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
New England's Puritans were devoted to self-scrutiny. Consumed by the pursuit of pure hearts, they latched on to sincerity as both an ideal and a soci...
Charles Reagan Wilson, "The Southern Way of Life: Meanings of Culture and Civilization in the American South" (UNC Press, 2023)
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How does one begin to understand the idea of a distinctive southern way of life--a concept as enduring as it is disputed? In this examination of the A...
High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies
28 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Author of High Weirdness, Erik Davis discusses psychedelic politics, media paranoia, conspiracy theories, and consensus reality in the time of COVID-...
The Future of the Republican Party: A Conversation with Congressman Mike Gallagher '06
28 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What does the future hold for the Republican Party? What are the greatest challenges facing America today? How many pull-ups should a young man be abl...
Tatiana D. McInnis, "To Tell a Black Story of Miami" (UP of Florida, 2022)
28 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In To Tell a Black Story of Miami (UP of Florida, 2022), Tatiana McInnis examines literary and cultural representations of Miami alongside the city'...
Arleen Tuchman, "Diabetes: A History of Race and Disease" (Yale UP, 2020)
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Arleen Marcia Tuchman’s book, Diabetes: A History of Race and Disease (Yale UP, 2020), tells the American history of a disease that continues to ...
Christina Dunbar-Hester, "Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can we stop infrastructure from damaging the planet? In Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond...
Keith Brian Wood, "Memphis Hoops: Race and Basketball in the Bluff City,1968-1997" (U Tennessee Press, 2021)
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Memphis Hoops: Race and Basketball in the Bluff City, 1968-1997 (U Tennessee Press, 2021) tells the story of basketball in Tennessee’s southwester...
Kaitlin Sidorsky and Wendy J. Schiller, "Inequality across State Lines: How Policymakers Have Failed Domestic Violence Victims in the United States" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, one in four women will be victims of domestic violence each year. Despite the passage of federal legislation on violence against...
Elizabeth Elbourne, "Empire, Kinship and Violence: Family Histories, Indigenous Rights and the Making of Settler Colonialism, 1770-1842" (Cambridge UP., 2022)
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Empire, Kinship and Violence: Family Histories, Indigenous Rights and the Making of Settler Colonialism, 1770-1842 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)...
Helle Strandgaard Jensen, "Sesame Street: A Transnational History" (Oxford UP, 2023)
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Sesame Street: A Transnational History (Oxford UP, 2023), author Helle Strandgaard Jensen tells the story of how the American television show bec...
Will York, "Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age" (Headpress, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age (Headpress, 2023), Will York draws on over 100 interviews with musicians...
Beth Bailey, "An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era" (UNC Press, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
By the Tet Offensive in early 1968, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as...
Jeffrey E. Stern, "The Mercenary: A Story of Brotherhood and Terror in the Afghanistan War" (PublicAffairs, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had...
Michael K. Johnson, "Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and Genre" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Western as a genre is alive and vibrant, argues University of Maine - Farmington professor of English literature Michael K. Johnson. In Speculati...
Benjamin L. Carp, "The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution" (Yale UP, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
New York City, the strategic center of the Revolutionary War, was the most important place in North America in 1776. That summer, an unruly rebel army...
Dwayne Epstein, "Killin' Generals: The Making of The Dirty Dozen, the Most Iconic WW II Movie of All Time" (Citadel Press, 2023)
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
An explosive inside look at The Dirty Dozen, the star-studded war film that broke the rules, shocked the critics, thrilled audiences, and became an a...
Paul A. Lombardo, "Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“Three generations of imbeciles are enough” were the infamous words U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in 1927. In Buck v...
Nicholas Guyatt, "The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain's Most Terrifying Prison" (Basic Books, 2022)
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After the War of 1812, more than five thousand American sailors were marooned in Dartmoor Prison on a barren English plain; the conflict was over but ...
Joshua Myers, "Of Black Study" (Pluto Press, 2022)
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Myers considers the work of thinkers who broke with the racial and colonial logic of academic disciplinarity and how the ideas of Black intelle...
George Black, "The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam" (Knopf, 2023)
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The American war in Vietnam has left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny ...
The Garage: A History
22 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of the MIT Press podcast, Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela discuss their book, Garage. Frank Lloyd Wright invented the garage w...
Thomas Aiello, "Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate" (U Georgia Press, 2023)
22 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Thomas Aiello joins E. James West to discuss Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott News...
George Washington and American Honor: A Conversation with Craig Bruce Smith
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What made George Washington the "greatest man in the world"? What is his legacy outside the United States? What did "honor" mean to America's Founding...
Unalienable Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Conversation with Secretary Pompeo and Ambassador Glendon
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is the relationship between America's Founding principles and her foreign policy? What are unalienable rights and how do we know they exist? How ...
David Chrisinger, "The Soldier's Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II" (Penguin, 2023)
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ernie Pyle, a legendary journalist and war correspondent, was widely considered one of the greatest chroniclers of World War II. His dispatches from t...
Benjamin E. Park, "Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier" (Liveright, 2020)
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, treated as fringe cultists at best or marginalized as polygamists unworthy of serious ...
Cristina Mejia Visperas, "Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory" (NYU, 2022)
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
An abolitionist approach to STS and the history of the life sciences: this is the model that Cristina Mejia Visperas offers in her book, Skin Theor...
Kathryn Cornell Dolan, "Breakfast Cereal: A Global History" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Breakfast Cereal: A Global History (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Kathryn Dolan presents the long, distinguished and surprising history of breakfast cereal....
Benjamin E. Park, "American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783-1833" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
America was born in an age of political revolution throughout the Atlantic world, a period when the very definition of 'nation' was transforming. Benj...
Elizabeth S. Hurd and Winnifred F. Sullivan, "At Home and Abroad: The Politics of American Religion" (Columbia UP, 2021)
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From right to left, notions of religion and religious freedom are fundamental to how many Americans have understood their country and themselves. Idea...
Susan Burch, "Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and Beyond Institutions" (UNC Press, 2021)
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1902 and 1934, the United States confined hundreds of adults and children from dozens of Native nations at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indian...
Ryan M. Brooks, "Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"In other words, like David Foster Wallace — who celebrates McCain for his display of “‘moral authority’” and commitment to “‘service’...
Tina Post, "Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression" (NYU Press, 2023)
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Explores expressionlessness, inscrutability, and emotional withholding in Black cultural production. Arguing that inexpression is a gesture that acq...
Donald Harman Akenson, "The Americanization of the Apocalypse: Creating America's Own Bible" (Oxford UP. 2023)
16 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the early twentieth century, a new, American scripture appeared on the scene. It was the product of a school of theological thinking known as Dispe...
Lincoln at Gettysburg: A Conversation with Allen C. Guelzo
16 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Allen C. Guelzo, Director of the James Madison Program's Initiative on Politic...
Tomiko Brown-Nagin, "Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality" (Pantheon Books, 2022)
15 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With the US Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, “it makes sense to revisit the life and work of another Black woman who profoundly ...
The Future of Antisemitism: A Discussion with Dave Rich
15 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Few people would describe themselves as antisemites. And yet many Jews living in Europe and the US believe that they encounter anti-semitism quite fre...
Gregory J. Kaliss, "Beyond the Black Power Salute: Athlete Activism in an Era of Change" (U Illinois Press, 2023)
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Unequal opportunity sparked Jim Brown's endeavors to encourage Black development while Billie Jean King fought so that women tennis players could earn...
Daniel Neofetou, "Rereading Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg and the Cold War" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Neofetou's Rereading Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg and the Cold War (Bloomsbury, 2021) rereads Clement Greenberg's account of Abs...
Dror Goldberg, "Easy Money: American Puritans and the Invention of Modern Currency" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Economists endlessly debate the nature of legal tender monetary systems--coins and bills issued by a government or other authority. Yet the origins of...
Alexander Rose, "The Lion and the Fox: Two Rival Spies and the Secret Plot to Build a Confederate Navy" (Mariner Books, 2022)
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the New York Times bestselling author of Washington’s Spies, the thrilling story of the Confederate spy who came to Britain to turn the tide...
Abortion and the Law
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s Postscript focuses on abortion politics in the United States, with particular attention to the April 7, 2023 federal court decisions in Te...
Michelle McSweeney, "OK" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"OK" as a word accepts proposals, describes the world as satisfactory (but not good), provides conversational momentum, or even agrees (or disagrees)....
Mari N. Crabtree, "My Soul Is a Witness: The Traumatic Afterlife of Lynching" (Yale UP, 2023)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In My Soul Is a Witness: The Traumatic Afterlife of Lynching (Yale UP, 2023), Mari N. Crabtree traces the long afterlife of lynching in the South t...
Andrew Curley, "Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation" (U Arizona Press, 2023)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For almost fifty years, coal dominated the Navajo economy. But in 2019 one of the Navajo Nation’s largest coal plants closed. This comprehensive new...
Andrew Long, "Secrets of the Cold War: Espionage and Intelligence Operations from Both Sides of the Iron Curtain" (Pen and Sword History, 2022)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Cold War was a major geopolitical contest between the United States and the Soviet Union over predominance over the entire world. Unlike the previ...
Laura Hobson Faure, "A 'Jewish Marshall Plan': The American Jewish Presence in Post-Holocaust France" (Indiana UP, 2022)
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While the role the United States played in France’s liberation from Nazi Germany is widely celebrated, it is less well known that American Jewish in...
Judge Amy Coney Barrett on "The Constitution as Our Story"
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Amy Coney Barrett is a judge on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2019, Judge Barrett delivered the James Madison Program's Annual Walter F. M...
The Cooperative Extension System
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of High Theory, Karl Dudman tells us about the Cooperative Extension System. Formed in 1914 as an extension of the Land Grant Universi...
Lauren Kay Johnson, "The Fine Art of Camouflage" (MilSpeak Books, 2023)
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lauren Kay Johnson is just seven when she first experiences a sacrifice of war as her mother, a nurse in the Army Reserves, deploys in support of Oper...
Howard Gillette, Jr., "The Paradox of Urban Revitalization: Progress and Poverty in America's Postindustrial Era" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the twenty-first century, cities in the United States that had suffered most the shift to a postindustrial era entered a period widely proclaimed a...
Steve Kemper, "Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor" (Mariner Books, 2022)
08 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Mariner Books, 2022) is a riveting, behind-the-scenes account of the per...
Leah Mickens, "In the Shadow of Ebenezer: A Black Catholic Parish in the Age of Civil Rights and Vatican II" (NYU Press, 2022)
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The history and practices of African American Catholics has been vastly understudied, and Black Catholics are often written off as a fringe sector of ...
Gay on God's Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s book is: Gay on God's Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities (UNC Press, 2018), by Jonathan Coley. Al...
Antero Garcia, "All through the Town: The School Bus as Educational Technology" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows the yellow school bus. It’s been invisible and also omnipresent for a century. Dr. Antero Garcia shows how the U.S. school bus, its f...
Alan Blinder, "A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961-2021" (Princeton UP, 2022)
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Spanning twelve presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, and eight Federal Reserve chairs, from William McChesney Martin to Jerome Powell, this ...
Abortion and the Pro-Life Movement: A Conversation with Alexandra DeSanctis
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alexandra DeSanctis is a Staff Writer for National Review and a Visiting Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She joins Madison's Notes to d...
Lincoln and the American Founding: A Conversation with Lucas Morel
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What did Abraham Lincoln read? What makes him "America's greatest defender"? What should we do with Confederate memorials? Lucas Morel, the John K. Bo...
Joseph Giacomelli, "Uncertain Climes: Debating Climate Change in Gilded Age America" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Even people who still refuse to accept the reality of human-induced climate change would have to agree that the topic has become inescapable in the Un...
Carolyn Woods Eisenberg, "Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia" (Oxford UP, 2023)
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia (Oxford UP, 2023) is a compelling, meticulous narrative of the way national security...
Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
JoAnne Yates, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, Emerita and Professor of Managerial Communication and Work and Organization Studies at MIT’...
Jason Gilmore and Charles Rowling, "Exceptional Me: How Donald Trump Exploited the Discourse of American Exceptionalism" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today, I’m sitting down with Dr. Jason Gilmore, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Utah State University to discuss his recently publ...
Deborah Carr, "Aging in America" (U California Press, 2023)
02 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The aging of America will reshape how we live and will transform nearly every aspect of contemporary society. Renowned life course sociologist Deborah...
Eva Hagberg, "When Eero Met His Match: Aline Louchheim Saarinen and the Making of an Architect" (Princeton UP, 2022)
01 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Aline B. Louchheim (1914-1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero...
David Horgan, "Helmi's Shadow: A Journey of Survival from Russia to East Asia to the American West" (U Nevada Press, 2021)
01 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Helmi's Shadow: A Journey of Survival from Russia to East Asia to the American West (U Nevada Press, 2021) tells the sweeping true story of two Russ...
Julia H. Lee, "The Racial Railroad" (NYU Press, 2022)
01 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the seeming supremacy of car culture in the United States, the train has long been and continues to be a potent symbol of American exceptional...
Land of Hope: A Conversation with Bill McClay
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bill McClay is the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma and the author of Land of Hope: An Invit...
David Lester and Marcus Rediker, "Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic, a Graphic Novel" (Beacon Press, 2023)
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic, A Graphic Novel (Beacon Press, 2023) is a comic adaptation of Rediker’s now classic 2004 ...
Gary Kulik: Conscientious Objector Who Served in Vietnam
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gary Kulik was a Catholic Conscientious Objector (CO) during the Vietnam War, but when he was drafted he decided to go and serve as a medic. He tells ...
Eric Alterman, "We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel" (Basic Book, 2022)
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fights about the fate of the state of Israel, and the Zionist movement that gave birth to it, have long been a staple of both Jewish and American poli...
Susan Burgess, "LGBT Inclusion in American Life: Pop Culture, Political Imagination, and Civil Rights" (NYU Press, 2023)
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
LGBT Inclusion in American Life: Pop Culture, Political Imaginations, and Civil Rights (NYU Press, 2023) is a tour de force that weaves together the...
Geoff Harkness, "DVS Mindz: The Twenty-Year Saga of the Greatest Rap Group to Almost Make It Outta Kansas" (Columbia UP, 2023)
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
99.9% of aspiring rappers never make it in the music industry. So why do we only hear the stories of the ones who do? DVS Mindz might be the greatest ...
Rebecca Herman, "Cooperating with the Colossus: A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America" (Oxford UP, 2022)
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the Second World War, the United States built over two hundred defense installations on sovereign soil in Latin America in the name of cooperat...
Ethan Warren, "The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha" (Columbia UP, 2023)
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Thomas Anderson’s evolution from a brash, self-anointed “Indiewood” auteur to one of his generation’s most distinctive voices has been on...
Mark Robert Rank, "The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity" (Oxford UP, 2023)
29 Mar 2023
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...
Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd, "Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South" (U Georgia Press, 2022)
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd's book Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South (U Georgia Press, 2022) explains a curiosity: why a fem...
Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right but... US Lies and Media Reporting in the 2003 Iraq War
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of International Horizons, journalist and UN director of Human Rights Watch Louis Charbonneau describes the US's government misinfor...
Leslie M. Alexander, "Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States" (U Illinois Press, 2022)
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The emergence of Haiti as a sovereign Black nation lit a beacon of hope for Black people throughout the African diaspora. Leslie M. Alexander's study ...