New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Lester D. Friedman, "Citizen Spielberg" (U of Illinois Press, 2022)
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of S...
David Hajdu and John Carey, "A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge" (Columbia UP, 2021)
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Too often, vaudeville is seen from the perspective of its decline: it is the corny, messy art form that predated the book musical, or that gave us Cha...
Jenifer L. Barclay, "The Mark of Slavery: Disability, Race, and Gender in Antebellum America" (U of Illinois Press, 2021)
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Time and again, antebellum Americans justified slavery and white supremacy by linking blackness to disability, defectiveness, and dependency. In The ...
Robert Buderi, "Where Futures Converge: Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub" (MIT Press, 2022)
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” It's a life science hub, hosting Biog...
Gary Gerstle, "The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era" (Oxford UP, 2022)
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The epochal shift toward neoliberalism–– a web of related policies that, broadly speaking, reduced the footprint of government in society and reas...
Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, "American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York" (Princeton UP, 2021)
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (Princeton University Press, 2022), Nomi Stolzenberg and David ...
On Zen in America, Shunryu Suzuki, and the San Francisco Zen Center
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Downing teaches creative writing at Tufts University. This conversation features a deep dive into Michael’s nonfiction book Shoes Outside t...
Megan Tobias Neely, "Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street" (U of California Press, 2022)
04 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is the finance industry fair? In Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street (University of California Press, 2022) Megan Tobias Neely,...
Michael J. Graetz and Ian Shapiro, "The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It" (Harvard UP, 2020)
04 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is an age of crisis. That much we can agree on. But a crisis of what? And how do we get out of it? Many on the right call for tax cuts and deregu...
Michael Kazin, "What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party" (FSG, 2022)
04 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Democratic Party is the world’s oldest mass political organization. Since its inception in the early nineteenth century, it has played a central...
Richard K. Rein, "American Urbanist: How William H. Whyte's Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life" (Island Press, 2022)
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On an otherwise normal weekday in the 1980s, commuters on busy Route 1 in central New Jersey noticed an alarming sight: a man in a suit and tie dashin...
All About Birds: A Series of Regional Field Guides from Princeton University Press
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The All About Birds Regional Field-Guide Series brings birding enthusiasts the best information from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s web...
Mark Newman, "Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945-1992" (UP of Mississippi, 2018)
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945-1992 (UP of Mississippi, 2018), Mark Newman draws on a vast range ...
Rebecca Cypess, "Women and Musical Salons in the Enlightenment" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today we speak to Rebecca Cypess, Associate Professor at Rutgers University, about her new book: Musical Salons in the Enlightenment (University of ...
Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath, "The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy" (Harvard UP, 2022)
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Oligarchy is a threat to the American republic. When too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands, we risk losing the “rep...
Paige Sweet, "The Politics of Surviving: How Women Navigate Domestic Violence and Its Aftermath" (U California Press, 2021)
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For women who have experienced domestic violence, proving that you are a “good victim” is no longer enough. Victims must also show that they are r...
Nick Marx, "Sketch Comedy: Identity, Reflexivity, and American Television" (Indiana UP, 2019)
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Sketch comedy – more than any other television genre – lays bare the process of identity formation, pokes fun at its contradictions, and invite...
Erin L. Thompson, "Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments" (Norton, 2022)
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, the national debate over public monuments often frames the removal of statutes as a revision of history. But Dr. Thompson sugg...
Nitasha Tamar Sharma, "Hawai'i Is My Haven: Race and Indigeneity in the Black Pacific" (Duke UP, 2021)
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hawai'i Is My Haven: Race and Indigeneity in the Black Pacific (Duke UP, 2021) maps the context and contours of Black life in the Hawaiian Islands. T...
Natali Valdez, "Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era" (U California Press, 2022)
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era (University of California Press, 2022), Natali Valdez examines re...
Jørgen Jensehaugen, "Arab-Israeli Diplomacy Under Carter: The US, Israel and the Palestinians" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The history of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East is marked by numerous stark failures and a few ephemeral successes. Jimmy Carter's short-lived Middle...
Ellen Jones, "Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas" (Columbia UP, 2022)
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas (Columbia University Press, 2022), Ellen C. Jones centers not just translat...
Steven J. Brady, "Chained to History: Slavery and US Foreign Relations to 1865" (Cornell UP, 2022)
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Chained to History: Slavery and US Foreign Relations to 1865 (Cornell University Press, 2022), Dr. Steven J. Brady places slavery at the centre o...
Ellen Baumler, "The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State: A History of Montana's Cemeteries" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State: A History of Montana's Cemeteries (U Nebraska Press, 2021) is a groundbreaking history of death in M...
Kathleen Courtenay Stone, "They Called Us Girls: Stories of Female Ambition from Suffrage to Mad Men" (Cynren Press, 2022)
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In mid-twentieth-century America, women faced a paradox. Thanks to their efforts, World War II production had been robust, and in the peace that follo...
Francesca Morgan, "A Nation of Descendants: Politics and the Practice of Genealogy in U.S. History" (UNC Press, 2021)
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In A Nation of Descendants: Politics and the Practice of Genealogy in U.S. History (University of North Carolina Press, 2021), historian Francesca M...
Robert P. Kolker, "Triumph Over Containment: American Film in the 1950s" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of “containment culture” in America,...
Emily J. Levine, "Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University" (UChicago Press, 2021)
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During the nineteenth century, nearly ten thousand Americans traveled to Germany to study in universities renowned for their research and teaching. By...
Elle Dowd, "Baptized in Tear Gas: From White Moderate to Abolitionist" (Broadleaf, 2021)
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this raw and thought-provoking memoir, Dowd brings us on her journey though the Ferguson uprising into abolition. For years Elle Dowd considered he...
Tia Brown McNair, "From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education" (Jossey-Bass, 2020)
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear: Why it is so important to have the conversation about “Equity in Higher Education” a...
Elisabeth Ceppi, "Invisible Masters: Gender, Race, and the Economy of Service in Early New England" (Dartmouth College Press, 2018)
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Early American literature scholar Elisabeth Ceppi’s thought-provoking new book, Invisible Masters: Gender, Race, and the Economy of Service in Earl...
Heather R. Hlavka and Sameena Mulla, "Bodies in Evidence: Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication" (NYU Press, 2021)
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Scholars Heather Hlavka (Marquette University) and Sameena Mulla (Emory University) have written a new book that examines and interrogates the place a...
Michael D. Breidenbach, "Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America" (Harvard UP, 2021)
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Here is a fun quiz question. What distinction does Charles Carroll (1737–1832) hold in American History? Answer: he was the longest-surviving signer...
Liz Clarke, "The American Girl Goes to War: Women and National Identity in US Silent Film" (Rutgers UP, 2022)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1910s, films about war often featured a female protagonist. The films portrayed women as spies, cross-dressing soldiers, and athletic defen...
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, "Between Empire and Republic: America in the Colonial Canadian Imagination" (Lexington, 2022)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We don’t think of Canada as a republic. Even in its modern and vibrantly multi-cultural form, there is something monarchical about the place. The Qu...
Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt, "Able to Lead: Disablement, Radicalism, and the Political Life of E. T. Kingsley" (U British Columbia Press, 2021)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
People with disabilities have always struggled to make ends meet. Finding a job you can actually do, a housing situation you can afford that meets you...
Daudi Abe, "Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle" (U Washington Press, 2020)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
West Coast hip hop means much more than LA, argues Dr. Daudi Abe, a professor of humanities at Seattle Central College. In Emerald Street: A Histor...
Jerry Ceppos, "Covering Politics in the Age of Trump" (LSU Press, 2021)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the United States moves on from the Trump era — and perhaps begins to contemplate what a second one might look like — conversations about journ...
Jonathan M. Katz, "Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Katz’s Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire (St. Martin’s Press, 202...
Ian Tyrrell, "American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Tyrrell's American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea (UChicago Press, 2021) is a powerful dissection of a core American myth. The id...
Daniel Y. Kim, "The Intimacies of Conflict: Cultural Memory and the Korean War" (NYU Press, 2020)
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode I talk with Daniel Y. Kim, Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Brown University, about his 2020 book Intimacies o...
Jenni Calder, "Frontier Scots" (Luath Press, 2020)
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today there are up to 25 million Americans who claim to have Scottish heritage. Many of these people are the descendants of Scots who journeyed to Ame...
Kecia Ali, ed., "Half of Faith: American Muslim Marriage and Divorce in the Twenty-First Century" (Open BU, 2021)
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Half of Faith: American Muslim Marriage and Divorce in the Twenty-First Century, readers find a wide range of texts on Muslim Americans’ experie...
Richard A. Detweiler, "The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment" (MIT Press, 2021)
18 Mar 2022
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...
Andrew Rudalevige, "By Executive Order: Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power" (Princeton UP, 2021)
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Rudalevige, the Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government at Bowdoin College, has a new book that examines the processes that transpires in...
Lily E. Hirsch, "Weird Al: Seriously" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Funny music is often dismissed as light and irrelevant, but Weird Al Yankovic’s fourteen successful studio albums prove there is more going on than...
E. James West, "Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America" (U of Illinois Press, 2020)
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (University of Illinois Press, 2020) reveals the previously hidden i...
Carole Emberton, "To Walk about in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner" (Norton, 2022)
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Priscilla Joyner was born into the world of slavery in 1858 North Carolina and came of age at the dawn of emancipation. Raised by a white slaveholding...
K. Stephen Prince, "The Ballad of Robert Charles: Searching for the New Orleans Riot Of 1900" (UNC Press, 2021)
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For a brief moment in the summer of 1900, Robert Charles was arguably the most infamous black man in the United States. After an altercation with poli...
Gene Zubovich, "Before the Religious Right: Liberal Protestants, Human Rights, and the Polarization of the United States" (UPenn Press, 2022)
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The study of the religious right has in many ways overshadowed other strands of U.S. religious history in the 20th century. This is owed in no small ...
Annie Berke, "Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television" (U California Press, 2022)
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is the hidden history of women in the television industry? In Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television (U California Press...
Katherine D. Moran, "The Imperial Church: Catholic Founding Fathers and United States Empire" (Cornell UP, 2020)
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Through a fascinating discussion of religion's role in the rhetoric of American civilizing empire, The Imperial Church: Catholic Founding Fathers and...
Nanna Katrine Luders Kaalund, "Explorations in the Icy North: How Travel Narratives Shaped Arctic Science in the Nineteenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Harsh conditions, intense isolation, and acute danger inevitably impacted the making and communicating eighteenth-century scientific knowledge leading...
Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant, "To Live More Abundantly: Black Collegiate Women, Howard University, and the Audacity of Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe" (U Georgia Press, 2022)
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant about her book To Live More Abundantly: Black Collegiate Women, Howard University, and the Audacity of ...
Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza, "A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism" (Oxford UP, 2021)
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism (Oxford UP, 2021), Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza exam...
Sophie Cooper, "Forging Identities in the Irish World: Melbourne and Chicago, 1840-1922" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Forging Identities in the Irish World: Melbourne and Chicago, 1840-1922 (Edinburgh UP, 2022,) explores the shifting influences of religious demograph...
Daniel R. Bare, "Black Fundamentalists: Conservative Christianity and Racial Identity in the Segregation Era" (NYU Press, 2021)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the modernist-fundamentalist controversy came to a head in the early twentieth century, an image of the “fighting fundamentalist” was imprinted...
Tim Smolko and Joanna Smolko, "Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music" (Indiana UP, 2021)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During the Cold War, over 500 songs were written about nuclear weapons, fear of the Soviet Union, civil defense, bomb shelters, McCarthyism, uranium m...
Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright Publishing, 2020)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
William Faulkner, one of America's most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such ...
Helene Meyers, "Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition (Rutgers University Press, 2021) focuses on a rich, usable American Jewish cinematic tradition. This tradition...
Melvin I. Urofsky, "Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue" (Vintage, 2017)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In his major work, Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue (Vintage, 2017), acclaim...
Peter S. Goodman, "Davos Man: How the Billionaire Class Devoured Democracy" (Custom House, 2022)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, New York Times' journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative Davos Men-memb...
Dahlia Schweitzer, "Haunted Homes" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Haunted Homes (Rutgers University Press, 2022), Dahlia Sweitzer explores the ways in which the trope of the haunted house in hor...
Carl R. Weinberg, "Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism In America" (Cornell UP, 2021)
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism In America (Cornell UP, 2021), Carl R. Weinberg argues that creationism's tenacious ho...
Randall Horton, "Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays" (Northwestern UP, 2022)
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays (Northwestern UP, 2022) chronicles the improbable turnaround of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight ...
Matthew C. Ehrlich, "Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK" (University of Illinois Press, 2021)
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1960, University of Illinois professor Leo Koch wrote a public letter condoning premarital sex. He was fired. Four years later, a professor named R...
Dana Stevens, "Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century" (Simon and Schuster, 2022)
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Not a whisper. / Never laughter. / Buster, thank you / for disaster.” So wrote graduate student Dana Stevens, who would go on to become Slate’...
Joshua Myers, "Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition" (Polity, 2021)
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work...
Martin Rizzo-Martinez, "We Are Not Animals: Indigenous Politics of Survival, Rebellion, and Reconstitution in Nineteenth-Century California" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Josefa Velasquez lived a long and full life. When Josefa wasn't co-running a tamale factory and cantina just outside of Wastonville, she was hosting f...
Bill V. Mullen, "James Baldwin: Living in Fire" (Pluto Press, 2019)
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the first major biography of Baldwin in more than a decade, James Baldwin: Living in Fire (Pluto Press, 2019), Bill V. Mullen celebrates the per...
Sherry Scott, "Playhouses: Sexuality and Fundamentalism" (Black Rose Writing, 2022)
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Queer Voices of the South I talk to Dr. Sherry Scott about her new book Playhouses: Sexuality and Fundamentalism, released in Feb...
Celia Stahr, "Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure. In November, 1930, she was thrilled to realize her dream of traveling to the United States to live in San...
Randy E. Barnett and Evan D. Bernick, "The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit" (Harvard UP, 2021)
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment profoundly changed the US constitution, giving the federal judiciary and Congress new powers to protect the ...
Richard W. Etulain, "Thunder in the West: The Life and Legends of Billy the Kid" (U Oklahoma Press, 2020)
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, is one of the most well known figures from the American West. His short life made an outsize...
Amélie Barras et al., "Producing Islams(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality, and Politics" (U Toronto Press, 2022)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Producing Islam(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality and Politics (University of Toronto, 2021), Amélie Barras, Jennifer Selby, and Melanie...
Mark Christian Thompson, "Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Christian Thompson's book, Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2022) examines the changin...
James Lapine, "Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created 'Sunday in the Park with George'" (FSG, 2021)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
James Lapine's Putting it Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George" (FSG, 2021) is a fascinating behind the ...
Brian Ogren, "Kabbalah and the Founding of America: The Early Influence of Jewish Thought in the New World" (NYU Press, 2021)
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In his fascinating survey Kabbalah and the Founding of America: The Early Influence of Jewish Thought in the New World (NYU Press, 2021), Brian Ogr...
76 Land-Grab Universities with Robert Lee (Jerome Tharaud, JP)
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John and new Brandeis host Jerome Tharaud (author of Apocalyptic Geographies) learn exactly how the growth of America's public universities relied...
Carolyn Chen, "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley" (Princeton UP, 2022)
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley...
Jessie Singer, "There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster—Who Profits and Who Pays the Price" (Simon and Schuster, 2022)
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But, a...
Megan Kate Nelson, "Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America" (Scribner, 2022)
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the propulsive and vividly told story of how Yellowstone became the w...
Myisha Cherry, "The Case for Rage: Why Anger Is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle" (Oxford UP, 2021)
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
According to a broad consensus among philosophers across the ages, anger is regrettable, counterproductive, and bad. It is something to be overcome or...
Andrea Flores, "The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth Are Transforming What It Means to Belong in America" (UC Press, 2021)
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Andrea Flores’ most recent book, The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth Are Transforming What It Means to Belong in America (University of Califo...
William Sites, "Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Poet and jazz band musician Sun Ra, born in 1914, is one of the most wildly prolific and unfailingly eccentric figures in the history of music. Renown...
Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield, "Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America" (U Illinois Press, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
White publishers and editors used their newspapers to build, nurture, and protect white supremacy across the South in the decades after the Civil War....
Jon Butler, "God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan" (Harvard UP, 2020)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Gilded Age Manhattan, Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant leaders agonized over the fate of traditional religious practice amid chaotic and multiplyin...
Linda LeGarde Grover, "Gichigami Hearts: Stories and Histories from Misaabekong" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stephanie Khattak speaks with Dr. Linda Legarde Grover, an award-winning author whose latest book interweaves family and Ojibwe history with stories f...
David Schwartz, "David Cronenberg: Interviews" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From his early horror movies, including Scanners, Videodrome, Rabid, and The Fly—with their exploding heads, mutating sex organs, rampaging parasite...
Kerry Dean Carso, "Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture" (Cornell UP, 2021)
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture (Cornell UP, 2021) examines historicized garden buildings, known as "follies," from the...
Robert K. Sutton, "Nazis on the Potomac: The Top-Secret Intelligence Operation that Helped Win World War II" (Casemate, 2022)
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Robert K. Sutton's Nazis on the Potomac: The Top-Secret Intelligence Operation that Helped Win World War II (Casemate, 2022) is the first full accou...
The Future of the Apocalyptic Right in the U.S.: A Discussion with Benjamin R. Teitelbaum
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How did Steve Bannon come to believe the strange things he believes? The influential, former Trump aid, began as a Democrat-supporting Naval officer ...
Kristina Wilson, "Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design" (Princeton UP, 2021)
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the world of interior design, mid-century Modernism has left an indelible mark still seen and felt today in countless open-concept floor plans and ...
Charles R. Shipan and Craig Volden, "Why Bad Policies Spread (and Good Ones Don't)" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Building on a deep theoretical foundation and drawing on numerous examples, Volden and Shipan examine how policies spread across the American states i...
Charles E. Cotherman, "To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement" (InterVarsity Press, 2020)
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1960s and on into the next decade, the American pastor and bestselling author Francis Schaeffer regularly received requests from evangelic...
Clarissa Ceglio, "A Cultural Arsenal for Democracy: The World War II Work of U.S. Museums" (U Massachusetts Press, 2022)
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In A Cultural Arsenal for Democracy: The World War II Work of US Museums (University of Massachusetts Press, 2022), Dr. Ceglio argues that attempts ...
Kyle T. Mays, "An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States" (Beacon Press, 2021)
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Kyle T. Mays, an Afro-Indi...
Michella M. Marino, "Roller Derby: The History of an American Sport" (U Texas Press, 2021)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Dr. Michella Marino, the Deputy Director of the Indiana Historical Bureau, a division of the Indiana State Library, and the aut...
Gregg Cantrell, "The People's Revolt: Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism" (Yale UP, 2020)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Pundits, politicians, and scholars often use words like "liberalism" and "populism" uncritically. Dr. Gregg Cantrell, professor of history at Texas Ch...
75* Sean Hill Talks about Bodies in Space and Time with Elizabeth Bradfield
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This conversation, first aired in July 2021, features Brandeis poet Elizabeth Bradfield, and the poet Sean Hill, author of Blood Ties and Brown Liq...