New Books in American Studies

Sara Austin, "Monstrous Youth: Transgressing the Boundaries of Childhood in the United States" (Ohio State UP, 2022)

20 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Monstrous Youth: Transgressing the Boundaries of Childhood in the United States (Ohio State Press, 2022), Sara Austin traces the evolution of mo...

Marga Vicedo, "Intelligent Love: The Story of Clara Park, Her Autistic Daughter, and the Myth of the Refrigerator Mother" (Beacon Press, 2021)

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1960s, Massachusetts writer and homemaker Clara Park and her husband took their 3-year-old daughter, Jessy, to a specialist after noticin...

James J. Connolly et al., "Vulnerable Communities: Research, Policy, and Practice in Small Cities" (Cornell UP, 2022)

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Vulnerable Communities: Research, Policy, and Practice in Small Cities (Cornell UP, 2022) examines the struggles of smaller cities in the United Sta...

Aziz Z. Huq, "The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies" (Oxford UP, 2021)

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Just recently, the Supreme Court rejected an argument by plaintiffs that police officers should no longer be protected by the doctrine of qualified im...

On Religion, Food, and Eating in America

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Nora Rubel is the Jane and Alan Batkin Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair of the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Roche...

Judah Schept, "Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia" (NYU Press, 2022)

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the United States began the project of mass incarceration, rural communities turned to building prisons as a strategy for economic development. Mor...

Matthew Specter, "The Atlantic Realists: Empire and International Political Thought Between Germany and the United States" (Stanford UP, 2022)

16 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Atlantic Realists: Empire and International Political Thought Between Germany and the United States (Stanford UP, 2022), intellectual histori...

Çigdem Çidam, "In the Street: Democratic Action, Theatricality, and Political Friendship" (Oxford UP, 2021)

16 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Çigdem Çidam, Associate Professor of Political Science at Union College, has a new book titled In the Street: Democratic Action, Theatricality, and...

Charles Elton, "Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision" (Abrams Press, 2022)

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision (Abrams Press, 2022) is the first biography of critically acclaimed then critically...

Amy L. Stone, "Queer Carnival: Festivals and Mardi Gras in the South" (NYU Press, 2022)

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Queer Carnival: Festivals and Mardi Gras in the South (NYU Press, 2022) reveals the importance of citywide celebrations like Mardi Gras and Fiesta f...

Ellen Griffith Spears, "Rethinking the American Environmental Movement Post-1945" (Routledge, 2019)

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Rethinking the American Environmental Movement Post-1945 (Routledge, 2019) turns a fresh interpretive lens on the past, drawing on a wide range of n...

Mary Sarah Bilder, "Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution" (U Virginia Press, 2022)

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution (U Virginia Press, 2022), Mary Sarah Bilder looks to the 1780s...

Lydia Wilkes et al., "Rhetoric and Guns" (Utah State UP, 2022)

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guns hold a complex place in American culture. Over 30,000 Americans die each year from gun violence, and guns are intimately connected to issues of p...

On Early American Yoga

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Philip Deslippe is a historian of American religion with a background in American Studies and literature. His research focuses on Asian, metaphysical,...

John Wills, "Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2019)

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1975, design engineer Dave Nutting completed work on a new arcade machine. A version of Taito's Western Gun, a recent Japanese arcade machine, Nutt...

Wanda M. Corn, "Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern" (Prestel Publishing, 2017)

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Wanda M. Corn's book Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern (Prestel Publishing, 2017) explores how Georgia O’Keeffe lived her life steeped in modernism,...

Nadia Y. Kim, "Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in LA" (Stanford UP, 2021)

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The air in Los Angeles can be lethal, and nobody knows this better than the city’s Latinx and Asian immigrants, argues Dr. Nadia Kim in Refusing De...

David P. Oakley, "Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post-Cold War Relationship" (UP of Kentucky Press, 2019)

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the late eighties and early nineties, driven by the post–Cold War environment and lessons learned during military operations, United States polic...

Steven K. Green, "Separating Church and State: A History" (Cornell UP, 2022)

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson distilled a leading idea in the early American republic and wrote of a wall of separation between church and state...

Louis M. Maraj, "Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics" (Utah State UP, 2020)

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics (Utah State University Press, 2020) explores notions of Blackness in white institutional—particularly...

Brandi Clay Brimmer, "Claiming Union Widowhood: Race, Respectability, and Poverty in the Post-Emancipation South" (Duke UP, 2020)

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Claiming Union Widowhood: Race, Respectability, and Poverty in the Post-Emancipation South (Duke UP, 2020), Brandi Clay Brimmer analyzes the US p...

Andie Tucher, "Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History" (Columbia UP, 2022)

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Long before the current preoccupation with “fake news,” American newspapers routinely ran stories that were not quite, strictly speaking, true. To...

Sarah Deutsch, "Making a Modern U.S. West: The Contested Terrain of a Region and Its Borders, 1898-1940" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

To many Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the West was simultaneously the greatest symbol of American opportunity, the greatest sto...

Megan Kate Nelson, "Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America" (Scribner, 2022)

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1871 an expedition entered the territory now encompassed by Yellowstone National Park. Led by doctor and self-taught geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer...

Elizabeth Alexander, "The Trayvon Generation" (Grand Central, 2022)

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Trayvon Generation (Grand Central, 2022) expands upon Elizabeth Alexander’s gripping essay — under the same name — originally published in...

Paul Lerner et al., "Jewish Consumer Cultures in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Europe and North America" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jewish Consumer Cultures in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Europe and North America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) investigates the place and meaning ...

Mark Anthony Neal, "Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive" (NYU Press, 2022)

10 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We are living in an era of unprecedented access to popular culture: contemporary digital infrastructure provides anyone with an internet connection ac...

Danya Glabau, "Food Allergy Advocacy: Parenting and the Politics of Care" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

10 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A detailed exploration of parents' fight for a safe environment for their kids, interrogating how race, class, and gender shape health advocacy The su...

Edward Anthony Avery-Natale, "Ethics, Politics, and Anarcho-Punk Identifications: Punk and Anarchy in Philadelphia" (Lexington, 2016)

10 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Edward Anthony Avery-Natale's book Ethics, Politics, and Anarcho-Punk Identifications: Punk and Anarchy in Philadelphia (Lexington, 2016) explores ...

Risa Brooks et al., "Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations: The Military, Society, Politics, and Modern War" (Oxford UP, 2020)

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Most existing literature regarding civil-military relations in the United States references either the Cold War or post-Cold War era, leaving a signif...

Treva B. Lindsey, "America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Struggle for Justice" (U California Press, 2022)

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Echoing the energy of Nina Simone's searing protest song that inspired the title, this book is a call to action in our collective journey toward just ...

Melissa Vosen Callens, "Ode to Gen X: Institutional Cynicism in 'Stranger Things' and 1980s Film" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Ode to Gen X: Institutional Cynicism in "Stranger Things" and 1980s Film (University Press of Mississippi, 2021), Melissa Vosen Callens explores ...

On Religion and Photography in 19th-Century America

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Rachel Lindsey is Assistant Professor in Saint Louis University’s Department of Theological Studies. She has a Ph.D. and M.A. in American Religi...

Bryan D. Palmer, "James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928" (U Illinois Press, 2010)

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The history of revolutionary politics is rich enough that it includes the full spectrum of inspiration and tragedy. Those with revolutionary aspiratio...

Peter C. Zimmerman, "The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight (UP of Mississippi, 2021) is a celebration of jazz and the men and women who created and transformed it...

Stephen Deusner, "Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers" (U Texas Press, 2021)

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Deusner's Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers (U Texas Press, 2021) is the book-length study Drive-B...

Dustin Tahmahkera, "Cinematic Comanches: The Lone Ranger in the Media Borderlands" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries Comanches have captivated imaginations. Yet their story in popular accounts abruptly stops in 1875, when the last free Comanches entered...

A Newly Discovered Essay by Fredrick Douglas: "Slavery" (1894-1895)

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest is Leslie Leonard, who received their doctorate in American Studies and 19th C. American Literature from the University of Massachuset...

Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner, "Can Legal Weed Win?: The Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics" (U California Press, 2022)

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Cannabis "legalization" hasn't lived up to the hype. Across North America, investors are reeling, tax collections are below projections, and people ar...

Andrea C. Mosterman, "Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York" (Cornell UP, 2021)

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York (Cornell UP, 2021), Andrea C. Mosterman addresses the persistent myt...

Andy Hines, "Outside Literary Studies: Black Criticism and the University" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This striking contribution to Black literary studies examines the practices of Black writers in the mid-twentieth century to revise our understanding ...

Erich Schwartzel, "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy" (Penguin, 2022)

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From trade to technology to military might, competition between the United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape. But this battle fo...

Melissa Ford, "A Brick and a Bible: Black Women's Radical Activism in the Midwest During the Great Depression" (Southern Illinois UP, 2022)

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this first study of Black radicalism in midwestern cities before the civil rights movement, Melissa Ford connects the activism of Black women who c...

On the Business of Religion in an Iconic Department Store

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Nicole Kirk is a historian of American religious history, associate professor, and the Frank and Alice Schulman Chair of Unitarian Universalist Hi...

Pavla Simková, "Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands" (U Massachusetts Press, 2021)

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Boston Harbor Islands have been called Boston's "hidden shores." While some are ragged rocks teeming with coastal wildlife, such as oystercatchers...

Robert Chao Romero, "Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity" (InterVarsity Press, 2020)

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For five hundred years, Latina/o culture and identity have been shaped by their challenges to the religious, socio-economic, and political status quo,...

Mickle Maher, "Six Plays" (Agate Press, 2022)

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

6 Plays (Agate Press, 2022) collects six plays written over a twenty year period by playwright Mickle Maher. Maher is a legend of the Chicago theatr...

Caleb Elfenbein, "Fear in Our Hearts: What Islamophobia Teaches Us About America" (NYU Press, 2021)

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In his sparkling and politically urgent new book Fear in Our Hearts: What Islamophobia Teaches Us About America (NYU Press, 2021), Caleb Elfenbein ...

Andrew Bickford, "Chemical Heroes: Pharmacological Supersoldiers in the US Military" (Duke UP, 2021)

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Chemical Heroes: Pharmacological Supersoldiers in the US Military (Duke UP, 2021), Andrew Bickford analyzes the US military's attempts to design...

Matthew Mark Silver, "Zionism and the Melting Pot: Preachers, Pioneers, and Modern Jewish Politics" (U Alabama Press, 2020)

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Zionism and the Melting Pot: Preachers, Pioneers, and Modern Jewish Politics (U Alabama Press, 2020) moves away from commonplace accounts of the orig...

Sarah Mittlefehldt, "Tangled Roots: The Appalachian Trail and American Environmental Politics" (U Washington Press, 2013)

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Appalachian Trail, a thin ribbon of wilderness running through the densely populated eastern United States, offers a refuge from modern society an...

Irvin J. Hunt, "Dreaming the Present: Time, Aesthetics, and the Black Cooperative Movement" (UNC Press, 2022)

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In their darkest hours over the course of the twentieth century, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ella Baker, George Schuyler, and Fannie Lou Hamer gathered hundreds...

Erin Murphy, "Burmese Haze: US Policy and Myanmar's Opening--And Closing" (Association for Asian Studies, 2022)

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Myanmar—or Burma, if that’s the name you prefer—is one of a small set of countries: nations that, despite natural bounty and a vibrant populatio...

James S. Bielo, "Materializing the Bible: Scripture, Sensation, Place" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when the written words of biblical scripture are transformed into experiential, choreographed environments? To answer this question, anth...

Garrett M. Graff, "Watergate: A New History" (Simon and Schuster, 2022)

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Award-winning journalist and editor Garrett Graff has produced a fascinating, propulsive, and captivating narrative about the Watergate scandal that r...

Mark A. Raider and Gary Phillip Zola, "New Perspectives in American Jewish History: A Documentary Tribute to Jonathan D. Sarna" (Brandeis UP, 2021)

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

New Perspectives in American Jewish History: A Documentary Tribute to Jonathan D. Sarna (Brandeis UP, 2021) is a collection of annotated primary sour...

Mario Daniels and John Krige, "Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America (University of Chicago Press, 2022) is the first historical study of export control reg...

Colleen Wessel-McCoy, "Freedom Church of the Poor: Martin Luther King Jr's Poor People's Campaign" (Fortress Academic, 2021)

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looked over into the promised land and tried to discern how we would get there, he called the poor to le...

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, "When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today" (Harper, 2021)

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It was the Golden Age of Radio and powerful men were making millions in advertising dollars reaching thousands of listeners every day. When television...

Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan, "Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success" (PublicAffairs, 2022)

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success (PublicAffairs, 2022), Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan reveal the true story of im...

Richard Stamz and Patrick A. Roberts, "Give 'em Soul, Richard!: Race, Radio, and Rhythm and Blues in Chicago" (U Illinois Press, 2010)

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Give 'em Soul, Richard!: Race, Radio, and Rhythm and Blues in Chicago (U Illinois Press, 2010) is the remarkable story of a remarkable man. Richard S...

Tracey Deutsch, "Building a Housewife's Paradise: Gender, Politics, and American Grocery Stores in the Twentieth Century" (UNC Press, 2010)

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The title of the book that we are introducing today is Building a Housewife's Paradise Gender, Politics, and American Grocery Stores in the Twentiet...

David Swift, "The Identity Myth: Why We Need to Embrace Our Differences to Beat Inequality" (Constable & Robinson, 2022)

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In conversations about polarised political issues, phrases like ‘it’s not about race, it’s about class’ have become the perfect way to induce ...

Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross, "Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How did Africans become 'blacks' in the Americas? Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (Cambridge ...

Charlie Eaton, "Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Elite colleges have long played a crucial role in maintaining social and class status in America while public universities have offered a major steppi...

Ilana M. Horwitz, "God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion's Surprising Impact on Academic Success" (Oxford UP, 2022)

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion's Surprising Impact on Academic Success (Oxford University Press, 2022), Ilana M. Horwitz offers a revealin...

Adam M. Romero, "Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture" (U California Press, 2021)

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The toxicity of pesticides to the environment and humans is often framed as an unfortunate effect of their benefits to agricultural production. In Ec...

Daniel J. Burge, "A Failed Vision of Empire: The Collapse of Manifest Destiny, 1845-1872" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ask you average high school student or undergraduate about nineteenth century US history and if nothing else, they likely know the phrase "manifest de...

Chris Wade, "The Films of James Woods" (Wisdom Twins Books, 2022)

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

James Woods is one of the most versatile and captivating actors in American film history. From his breakthrough performance as Greg Powell in The Onio...

Steven G. Epstein, "The Quest for Sexual Health: How an Elusive Ideal Has Transformed Science, Politics, and Everyday Life" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since the 1970s, health professionals, researchers, governments, advocacy groups, and commercial interests have invested in the pursuit of something c...

Carlos Acevedo, "The Duke: The Life and Lies of Tommy Morrison" (Hamilcar, 2022)

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1990s, Tommy Morrison, a young roughneck from Jay, Oklahoma, burst onto the boxing scene to become one of the most controversial fighters...

Andrew Hunt, "We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War Culture in the Age of Reagan" (U Massachusetts Press, 2022)

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ronald Reagan’s hagiography has created an entire mythology around the 40th president of the US; anticommunism and the fight against the ‘Evil Emp...

Jafari S. Allen, "There's a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life" (Duke UP, 2022)

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In There's a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life (Duke UP, 2022), Jafari S. Allen offers a sweeping and lively ethnographic and intell...

Brandon T. Jett, "Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South" (Louisiana State UP, 2021)

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this groundbreaking work, Professor Brandon T. Jett unearths how police departments evolved with the urbanization of the Jim Crow South, to targ...

Christopher J. Gilbert, "Caricature and National Character: The United States at War" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2021)

26 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Christopher Gilbert, Assistant Professor of English at Assumption College, has a new book that examines the understanding of American national cha...

Mark Edmundson, "Song of Ourselves: Walt Whitman and the Fight for Democracy" (Harvard UP, 2021)

26 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Walt Whitman knew a great deal about democracy that we don’t. Most of that knowledge is concentrated in one stunning poem, Song of Myself. In S...

The Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training: A Discussion with Susan Rockwell Johnson and Margery B. Thompson

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

ADST has the world’s largest collection of U.S. diplomatic oral history. They have over 2,500 oral histories at ADST.org Susan Rockwell Johnson is t...

Kate Luce Mulry, "An Empire Transformed: Remolding Bodies and Landscapes in the Restoration Atlantic" (NYU Press, 2021)

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Charles II ascended the English throne in 1660 after two decades of civil war, he was confronted with domestic disarray and a sprawling empire in...

Stephen Vider, "The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Domesticity After World War II" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Vider uncovers how LGBTQ people reshaped domestic life in the postwar United States. From the Stonewall riots to the protests of ACT UP, histo...

Sean J. Drake, "Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb" (U California Press, 2022)

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb (U California Press, 2022), sociologist Sean J. Drake addresses...

On the Internment of Japanese Buddhists in World War Two

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Duncan Ryuken Williams was born in Tokyo, Japan to a Japanese mother and British father. After growing up in Japan and England until age 17, he moved ...

Alejandro Nava, "Street Scriptures: Between God and Hip-Hop" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I speak with Alejandro Nava about his new book, Street Scriptures: Between God and Hip-Hop (U Chicago Press, 2022). This book explores an imp...

Howard Mortman, "When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill" (Cherry Orchard, 2020)

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Howard Mortman's book When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill (Cherry Orchard, 2020) is about the rab...

The Future of Neoliberalism: A Conversation with Gary Gerstle

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The word neoliberalism is often used more as an insult than a description of a set of beliefs. And people can be rather hazy about the beliefs it refe...

John Markoff, "Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand" (Penguin, 2022)

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Stewart Brand has long been famous if you know who he is, but for many people outside the counterculture, early computing, or the environmental moveme...

Carolina Bank Muñoz and Penny Lewis, "A People's Guide to New York City" (U California Press, 2022)

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

New York City is a preeminent global city, serving as the headquarters for hundreds of multinational firms and a world-renowned cultural hub for fashi...

Jim Downs, "Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine" (Harvard UP, 2021)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London's 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading ...

Emily Mendenhall, "Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji" (Vanderbilt UP, 2022)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji (Vanderbilt UP, 2022) is the story of what happened in Okoboji, a small Iowan tourist town, when ...

Catherine McCormack, "Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies" (Norton, 2021)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Art historian Catherine McCormack challenges how culture teaches us to see and value women, their bodies, and their lives. Venus, maiden, wife, mother...

Liz Carlisle, "Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming" (Island Press, 2022)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A powerful movement is happening in farming today—farmers are reconnecting with their roots to fight climate change. For one woman, that’s meant l...

Scott Reynolds Nelson, "Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World" (Basic Books, 2022)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Grain traders wandering across the steppe; the Russian conquest of Ukraine (in the 18th century, that is); boulevard barons and wheat futures; railro...

Ellen Schrecker, "The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s (University of Chicago Press, 2021) is a magisterial examination of the turmoil that rocked Am...

John Lardas Modern, "Neuromatic: Or, a Particular History of Religion and the Brain" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Neuromatic: Or, a Particular History of Religion and the Brain (U Chicago Press, 2021), religious studies scholar John Lardas Modern offers a spr...

Peter McFarlane with Doreen Manuel, "Brotherhood to Nationhood: George Manuel and the Making of the Modern Indian Movement" (Between the Lines, 2020)

22 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Brotherhood to Nationhood: George Manuel and the Making of the Modern Indian Movement (Between the Lines Books, 2020) details the life of George Man...

Christopher W. Wells, "Environmental Justice in Postwar America: A Documentary Reader" (U Washington Press, 2018)

20 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades after World War II, the American economy entered a period of prolonged growth that created unprecedented affluence—but these developm...

John DeFerrari and Douglas Peter Sefton, "Sixteenth Street NW: Washington, DC's Avenue of Ambitions" (Georgetown UP, 2022)

20 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sixteenth Street NW in Washington, DC, has been called the Avenue of the Presidents, Executive Avenue, and the Avenue of Churches. From the front door...

Living in the United States as an Immigrant: A Collection of Stories

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today, millions of immigrants have found a home in the United States. But often, such people end up losing their individual cultures, languages, and i...

Shannon L. Walsh, "Eugenics and Physical Culture Performance in the Progressive Era: Watch Whiteness Workout" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Dr. Shannon Walsh, Associate Professor of Theatre History, and author of Eugenics and Physical Culture Performance in the Prog...

Konden Smith Hansen, "Frontier Religion: The Mormon-American Contest for the Meaning of America, 1857-1907" (U Utah Press, 2019)

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Frontier Religion: The Mormon-American Contest for the Meaning of America, 1857-1907 (U Utah Press, 2019) Konden Smith Hansen examines the dramat...

Alicia Puglionesi, "In Whose Ruins: Power, Possession, and the Landscapes of American Empire" (Scribner, 2022)

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The important new book by Alicia Puglionesi, In Whose Ruins: Power, Possession and the Landscapes of American Empire (Scribner, 2022), is a fat sam...