New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan, "Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success" (Public Affairs, 2022)
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood, topics in American social discourse—yet, in most cases, the things we belie...
Heba Gowayed, "Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential" (Princeton UP, 2022)
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the world confronts the largest refugee crisis since World War II, wealthy countries are being called upon to open their doors to the displaced, wi...
Donald A. Barclay, "Disinformation: The Nature of Facts and Lies in the Post-Truth Era" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022)
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Does the idea of a world in which facts mean nothing cause anxiety? Fear? Maybe even paranoia? Disinformation: The Nature of Facts and Lies in the Po...
Elizabeth Rodrigues, "Collecting Lives: Critical Data Narrative as Modernist Aesthetic in Early Twentieth-Century Us Literatures" (U Michigan Press, 2022)
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On a near-daily basis, data is being used to narrate our lives. Categorizing algorithms drawn from amassed personal data to assign narrative destinies...
Book Talk 52: Linda Patterson Miller on Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When first published in 1926, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises changed American literature forever. Hemingway follows a disillusioned group o...
Alvin Eng, "Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond" (Fordham UP, 2022)
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond (Fordham UP, 2022) is a memoir that decodes and proces...
Kai Bosworth, "Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the Twenty-First Century" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stunning Indigenous resistance to the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines has made global headlines in recent years. Less remarked on are the ...
Glenda E. Gilmore, "Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South" (UNC Press, 2022)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents...
Zachary F. Price, "Black Dragon: Afro-Asian Performance and the Martial Arts Imagination" (Ohio State UP, 2021)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Dragon: Afro Asian Performance and the Martial Arts Imagination (Ohio State UP, 2022), Zachary F. Price illuminates martial arts as a site ...
Maha Hilal, "Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11" (Broadleaf Books, 2022)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11 published in 2022 with Broadleaf Books, Maha...
Suman Seth, "Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Before the nineteenth century, travelers who left Britain for the Americas, West Africa, India and elsewhere encountered a medical conundrum: why did ...
Dana W. Logan, "Awkward Rituals: Sensations of Governance in Protestant America" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War, there was an awkward persistence of sovereign rituals, vestiges of a monarchical past ...
Nigel Rothfels, "Elephant Trails: A History of Animals and Cultures" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When looking at historic records of all kinds—from prehistoric cave drawings and ancient rock art in Africa and India, from poetic narrations of tra...
Postscript: Post-Roe Politics
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s Postscript uniquely engages abortion politics by addressing structural political issues (voter suppression, gerrymandering, dilutions of m...
Ryan Hall, "Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720-1877" (UNC Press, 2020)
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
No matter what people call them today the northwestern Great Plains have been and continue to be Blackfoot country, argues Colgate University assistan...
Samuel J. Redman, "Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology" (Harvard UP, 2021)
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology (Harvard UP, 2021) is a searching account of nineteenth-century salvage anthropology, an effor...
Paul M. Heideman, "Class Struggle and the Color Line: American Socialism and the Race Question 1900-1930" (Haymarket Books, 2022)
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Class Struggle and the Color Line: American Socialism and the Race Question, 1900-1930 (Haymarket Books, 2018), Paul Heideman collects, for the f...
Mark V. Tushnet, "The Hughes Court: From Progressivism to Pluralism, 1930 to 1941" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mark V. Tushnet's book The Hughes Court: From Progressivism to Pluralism, 1930 to 1941 (Cambridge UP, 2022) describes the closing of one era in con...
Eve Ng, "Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Eve Ng’s new book Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), examines the phenomenon of "cancel culture" from a critical medi...
Kenny Xu, "An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy" (Diversion Book, 2021)
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Even in the midst of a nationwide surge of bias and incidents against them, Asians from coast to coast have quietly assumed mastery of the nation's te...
Katherine Dugan, "Millennial Missionaries: How a Group of Young Catholics Is Trying to Make Catholicism Cool" (Oxford UP, 2019)
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Millennials in the U.S. have been characterized as uninterested in religion, as defectors from religious institutions, and as agnostic about the role ...
The Future of Opinion Polls: A Conversation with Mark Pack
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the culture wars intensify, it seems that all sources of neutral authority get challenged and that includes opinion polls. Accusations about bias a...
Paul Conrad, "The Apache Diaspora: Four Centuries of Displacement and Survival" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Apache Diaspora: Four Centuries of Displacement and Survival (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021), Paul Conrad brings to life the stories of displac...
The Problem with Museums: A Conversation with Georgina Adam and Nizan Shaked
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the past few years, museums of contemporary art have come under a fair deal of scrutiny. Pressures from groups such as Decoloinise This Space or ...
Emily West, "Buy Now: How Amazon Branded Convenience and Normalized Monopoly" (MIT Press, 2022)
09 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How Amazon combined branding and relationship marketing with massive distribution infrastructure to become the ultimate service brand in the digital e...
Mónica Guzmán, "I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times" (BenBella Books, 2022)
09 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer...
Kelly Lytle Hernández, "Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands" (Norton, 2022)
09 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (Norton, 2022)tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who spark...
Dhanveer Singh Brar, "Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century" (Goldsmiths Press, 2021)
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century (Goldsmiths Press, 2021) uses three Black electronic musics...
Jaclyn Granick, "International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Jaclyn Granick about her book International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War (Cambridge UP, 2021). In 1914, ...
LaGina Gause, "The Advantage of Disadvantage: Costly Protest and Political Representation for Marginalized Groups" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Does protest influence political representation? If so, which groups are most likely to benefit from collective action? The Advantage of Disadvantage...
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, "Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)" (Haymarket, 2022)
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media, both onl...
Aaron Cohen, "Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Curtis Mayfield. The Chi-Lites. Chaka Khan. Chicago’s place in the history of soul music is rock solid. But for Chicagoans, soul music in its heyda...
On Christianity and American Political Culture
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Bowman received his PhD. in history from Georgetown University. He is associate professor of history at Henderson State University, where he t...
Julie Pfeiffer, "Transforming Girls: The Work of Nineteenth-Century Adolescence" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Transforming Girls: The Work of Nineteenth-Century Adolescence (UP of Mississippi, 2021) explores the paradox of the nineteenth-century girls’ book...
The Future of Statues: A Conversation with Alex Von Tunzelmann
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are the rights and wrongs of toppling statues? Sometimes everyone agrees it’s a good idea. After the second world war, for example, the defeat ...
Robert E. Gutsche Jr., "The Future of the Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy: After Trump" (Routledge, 2022)
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Future of the Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy: After Trump (Routledge, 2022), Dr. Robert E. Gutsche Jr. examines the effects of Donal...
Julian E. Zelizer, "The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment" (Princeton UP, 2022)
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment (Princeton University Press, 2022) presents a first draft of history by offering ne...
Joan DeJean, "Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast" (Basic, 2022)
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1719, a ship named La Mutine (the mutinous woman), sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for the Mississippi. It was loaded with urgentl...
Christian Dyogi Phillips, "Nowhere to Run: Race, Gender, and Immigration in American Elections" (Oxford UP, 2021)
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why has the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in elected office proved so persistent in American politics? In Nowhere to Run: Race, ...
Ellen S. More, "The Transformation of American Sex Education: Mary Calderone and the Fight for Sexual Health" (NYU Press, 2022)
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mid-century America had a problem talking about sex. Dr. Mary Calderone first diagnosed this condition and, in 1964, led the uphill battle to de-stigm...
Jasmin Zine, "Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) Jasmin Zine explores the experiences of ...
Marlon B. Ross, "Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness" (Duke UP, 2022)
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness (Duke University Press, 2022) by Marlon B. Ross focuses on the figure of the sissy in order ...
Rana A. Hogarth, "Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840" (UNC Press, 2017)
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Medicine and slavery went hand-in-hand. But what was the nature of this vile partnership? In Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the ...
Nancy Barile, "I'm Not Holding Your Coat: My Bruises-And-All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion" (Bazillion Points, 2021)
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nancy Barile shares her love of hardcore punk in her new memoir, I'm Not Holding Your Coat: My Bruises and All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion (Bazil...
Anthony Hatch, "Silent Cells: The Secret Drugging of Captive America" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s no secret that the United States has the most expansive prison system of any nation in the world. And the US carceral system overwhelmingly and...
João B. Chaves, "The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South: Southern Baptist Missionaries and the Shaping of Latin American Evangelicalism" (Mercer UP, 2022)
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
João B. Chaves analyzes the first hundred years of Southern Baptist missionary activity in Brazil to reveal how the racialized practices of Southern ...
Dean A. Nowowiejski, "The American Army in Germany, 1918-1923: Success Against the Odds" (UP of Kansas, 2021)
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923: Success against the Odds (UP of Kansas, 2021) by Dean A. Nowowiejski fills a gap in American military and...
On Religious Literacy in American Education
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin P. Marcus is the religious literacy specialist with the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, where he examines the intersection...
Thomas Aiello, "Hoops: A Cultural History of Basketball in America" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From its early days as a sport to build “muscular Christianity” among young men flooding nineteenth-century cities to its position today as a glob...
Nancy L Segal, "Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A lot can be learned from scientific twin studies about the relative contributions of nature versus nurture to human experience. However, when such st...
Kim Kelly, "Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor" (Atria, 2022)
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
American fieldworkers rejecting government-sanctioned indentured servitude across the Pacific. Incarcerated workers advocating for basic human rights ...
Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo, "The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico" (Duke UP, 2021)
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico (Duke UP, 2021), Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo tells t...
Lillian Faderman, "Woman: The American History of an Idea" (Yale UP, 2022)
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lillian Faderman is professor emerita at California State University, Fresno. An award-winning author Dr Faderman, widely known as the mother of lesbi...
The Future of Race: A Discussion with John McWhorter
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Race is the subject of passionate and increasingly angry debate. But amidst all the talk of unconscious bias it’s an area into which many fear to tr...
Nate G. Hilger, "The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis" (MIT Press, 2022)
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, a...
Clayton Howard, "The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac: The Politics of Sexual Privacy in Northern California" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019)
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I don't care what people do in their bedroom, but do they need to flaunt it?" This sentiment is a common refrain in American culture and politics whe...
On Evangelical Christian Nationalism in the Cold War
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The topic of this episode focuses on Dr. Daniel Hummel's piece, “The Limits of Evangelical Christian Nationalism during the Cold War,” which appea...
Michael L. Walker, "Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail" (Oxford UP, 2022)
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jails are the principal people-processing machines of the criminal justice system. Mostly they hold persons awaiting trial who cannot afford or have b...
Sidney G. Tarrow, "Movements and Parties: Critical Connections in American Political Development" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do social movements intersect with the agendas of mainstream political parties? When they are integrated with parties, are they coopted? Or are th...
Charles Alistair McCrary, "Sincerely Held: American Secularism and Its Believers" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Sincerely held religious belief" is now a common phrase in discussions of American religious freedom, from opinions handed down by the US Supreme Cou...
Kristin Henning, "The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth" (Pantheon Books, 2021)
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing upon twenty-five years of experience representing Black youth in Washington, D.C.'s juvenile courts, Kristin Henning confronts America's i...
Vivienne Sanders, "Wales, the Welsh and the Making of America" (U Wales Press, 2021)
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Wales, the Welsh, and the Making of America (University of Wales Press, 2021), Vivienne Sanders writes the first systematic attempt to both recou...
Susan Nance, "Rodeo: An Animal History" (U Oklahoma Press, 2020)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Animals are both the focus of rodeo and its most invisible participants, argues University of Guelph history professor Susan Nance in Rodeo: An Anim...
Megan Birk, "The Fundamental Institution: Poverty, Social Welfare, and Agriculture in American Poor Farms" (U Illinois Press, 2022)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
By the early 1900s, the poor farm had become a ubiquitous part of America's social welfare system. Megan Birk's history of this foundational but forgo...
Sam Lebovic, "A Righteous Smokescreen: Postwar America and the Politics of Cultural Globalization" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Sam Lebovic’s A Righteous Smokescreen: Postwar America and the Politics of Cultural Globalization (University of Chicago Press, 2022) is an ex...
On Rock'n'Roll, aka "The Devil's Music"
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Randall J. Stephens is an Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo. He previously taught at Northumbria Universit...
Ernest Hemingway, "The Sun Also Rises: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism" (Norton, 2022)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Finally, the first of Norton’s long-awaited treatments of Ernest Hemingway, the American who, more than anyone, changed the look and sound of mod...
Nina M. Yancy, "How the Color Line Bends: The Geography of White Prejudice in Modern America" (Oxford UP, 2022)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How the Color Line Bends: The Geography of White Prejudice in Modern America (Oxford UP, 2022) explores the connection between prejudice and place i...
Rania Karoula, "The Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939: Engagement and Experimentation" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rania Karoula's The Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) offers a readable and engaging summary of an important ch...
Michael Graziano, "Errand Into the Wilderness of Mirrors: Religion and the History of the CIA" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Graziano’s intriguing book fuses two landmark titles in American history: Perry Miller’s Errand into the Wilderness (1956), about the re...
Stacy G. Ulbig, "Angry Politics: Partisan Hatred and Political Polarization Among College Students" (UP of Kansas, 2020)
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Political Scientist Stacy Ulbig has a new book that dives into the political attitudes and behaviors of college students to assess how polarization an...
Mark R. Anderson, "Down the Warpath to the Cedars: Indians' First Battles in the Revolution" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In May 1776 more than two hundred Indian warriors descended the St. Lawrence River to attack Continental forces at the Cedars, west of Montreal. In ju...
Joseph Darda, "The Strange Career of Racial Liberalism" (Stanford UP, 2022)
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What if, Joseph Darda asks, our desire to solve racism--with science, civil rights, antiracist literature, integration, and color blindness--has entre...
Terry Lautz, "Americans in China: Encounters with the People's Republic" (Oxford UP, 2022)
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Americans in China: Encounters with the People’s Republic (Oxford, 2022) tells the stories of men and women who have lived and worked in China from...
JVN
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Angelina Eimannsberger talks to Saronik about cultural phenomenon Jonathan Van Ness, and movements in queer femininity that they represent. They tou...
Marc Aronson, "Four Streets and a Square: A History of Manhattan and the New York Idea" (Candlewick Press, 2021)
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The poet Walt Whitman wrote in his 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass that New York was a “City of the world! (for all races are here, All lands of t...
Mary Childs, "The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All" (Flatiron Books, 2021)
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From the host of NPR's Planet Money, the deeply-investigated story of how one visionary, dogged investor changed American finance forever. Before Bil...
Jared N. Champion and Peter C. Kunze, "Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians As Public Intellectuals" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the...
Patricia A. Banks, "Black Culture, Inc.: How Ethnic Community Support Pays for Corporate America" (Stanford UP, 2022)
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why do corporations fund cultural organisations and events? In Black Culture, Inc: How ethnic community support pays for corporate America Patricia ...
John S. Huntington, "Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump shocked the nation in 2016 by winning the presidency through an ultraconservative, anti-immigrant platform, but, despite the electoral su...
Charles Dellheim, "Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made the Art World Modern" (Brandeis UP, 2021)
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since the late-1990s, the fate of Nazi stolen art has become a cause célèbre. In Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made the Art World Modern (Brand...
Corey Landon Wozniak, "The Buddha at the Bellagio: (Teaching) Religion in Sin City" (Revealer, 2022)
18 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Corey Landon Wozniak about his Revealer article (2022) "The Buddha at the Bellagio: (Teaching) Religion in Sin City." As Wozniak po...
Anne F. Hyde, "Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West" (Norton, 2022)
18 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Often overlooked, there is mixed blood at the heart of America. And at the heart of Native life for centuries there were complex households using inte...
Jennifer Delfino, "Speaking of Race: Language, Identity, and Schooling Among African American Children" (Lexington Book, 2020)
18 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Speaking of Race: Language, Identity, and Schooling Among African American Children (Lexington Books, 2020), Jennifer Delfino explores the lingui...
Matt Sheedy, "Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility " (Routledge, 2021)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility (Routledge, 2021), Matt Sheedy, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Unive...
Lindsey Krinks, "Praying with Our Feet: Pursuing Justice and Healing on the Streets" (Brazos, 2021)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Praying with Our Feet: Pursuing Justice and Healing on the Streets (Brazos Press, 2021), written by Lindsey Krinks was published by Baker Publishing ...
Kenneth Partridge, "Hell of a Hat: The Rise of '90s Ska and Swing" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2021)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the late ’90s, third-wave ska broke across the American alternative music scene like a tsunami. In sweaty clubs across the nation, kids danced th...
Maia Szalavitz, "Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction" (Hachette, 2021)
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction (Hachette Go, 2021) tells a long-running, but largely unknown, story o...
Caits Meissner, ed., "The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer's Life in Prison" (Haymarket Books, 2022)
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket Books, 2022) is an expansive resource for incarcerated writers. With o...
Matthew Alan Hill, "The Rise and Fall of Democracy Promotion in U.S. Foreign Policy: From Carter to Biden" (Routledge, 2022)
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Rise and Fall of Democracy Promotion in US Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2022) employs a transformational change framework to understand US democra...
The Future of Life Expectancy: A Discussion with Angus Deaton
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2015, Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University and his wife Professor Anne Case published a paper highlighting the rising mortality rate amon...
Brandon J. Manning, "Played Out: The Race Man in 21st Century Satire" (Rutgers UP, 2022)
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Brandon J. Manning talks about his most recent book, Played Out: The Race Man in 21st Century Satire (Rutgers UP, 2022). Here's...
Josef Benson and Doug Singsen, "Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes: Whiteness and Its Borderlands in American Comics and Graphic Novels" (UP of Mississippi, 2022)
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
American comics from the start have reflected the white supremacist culture out of which they arose. Superheroes and comic books in general are produc...
Bruce W. Dearstyne, "The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State's History" (2nd Edition; SUNY Press, 2022)
11 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State's History (2nd Edition; SUNY Press, 2022), Bruce W. Dearstyne presents New York State...
Elisabeth Anderson, "Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State" (Princeton UP, 2021)
11 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The beginnings of the modern welfare state are often traced to the late nineteenth-century labor movement and to policymakers’ efforts to appeal to ...
R. Douglas Arnold, "Fixing Social Security: The Politics of Reform in a Polarized Age" (Princeton UP, 2022)
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since its establishment, Social Security has become the financial linchpin of American retirement. Yet demographic trends—longer lifespans and decli...
Richard Brent Turner, "Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism" (NYU Press, 2021)
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In his fascinating and riveting new book Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism (NYU Press, 2021), hist...
Anthony Shaw and Giora Goodman, "Hollywood and Israel: A History" (Columbia UP, 2022)
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From Frank Sinatra’s early pro-Zionist rallying to Steven Spielberg’s present-day peacemaking, Hollywood has long enjoyed a “special relationshi...
William D. Adler, "Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787-1860" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787-1860 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) threads together political science, history, ec...
Todd R. Clear and Natasha A. Frost, "The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration in America" (NYU Press, 2015)
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last 40 years, the US penal system has grown at an unprecedented rate―five times larger than in the past and grossly out of scale with the ...