New Books in American Studies

Jessica Hurley, "Infrastructures of Apocalypse: American Literature and the Nuclear Complex" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Since 1945, America has spent more resources on nuclear technology than any other national project. Although it requires a massive infrastructure that...

Jessie Daniels, "Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It" (Seal Press, 2021)

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In a nation deeply divided by race, the "Karens" of the world are easy to villainize. But in Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our ...

Julian E. Zelizer, "Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement" (Yale UP, 2021)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” So said Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) of his involvement...

Vivian Nun Halloran, "The Immigrant Kitchen: Food, Ethnicity, and Diaspora" (Ohio State UP, 2016)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In The Immigrant Kitchen: Food, Ethnicity, and Diaspora (Ohio State UP, 2016), Vivian Nun Halloran examines food memoirs by immigrants and their des...

Craig Jones, "The War Lawyers: The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare" (Oxford UP, 2020)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last 20 years the world's most advanced militaries have invited a small number of military legal professionals into the heart of their target...

70 Recall This Buck 5: "Studying Up" with Daniel Souleles (EF, JP)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John and Elizabeth continue their conversation with Daniel Souleles, anthropologist at the Copenhagen Business School and author of Songs of Profit,...

Shamira Gelbman, "The Civil Rights Lobby: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Second Reconstruction" (Temple UP, 2021)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historically, how have marginalized and minority groups pushed the boundaries of representative government to pass legislation that benefits them? Pol...

Aaron Weinacht, "Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Ayn Rand: Russian Nihilism Travels to America" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Ayn Rand: Russian Nihilism Travels to America (Lexington, 2021) argues that the core commitments of the nihilist movement...

James Kelly Morningstar, "War and Resistance in the Philippines 1942-1944" (US Naval Institute Press, 2021)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

December 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the American entry into the Second World War. In fact, this interview was recorded on Dec...

Samantha Seeley, "Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States" (UNC Press, 2021)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Samantha Seeley is the author of Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States, published by the University o...

Thom Hartmann, "The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich" (Berrett-Koehler, 2021)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Thom Hartmann about his new book The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely R...

Mindy Thompson Fullilove, "Main Street: How a City's Heart Connects Us All" (New Village Press, 2020)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mindy Thompson Fullilove traverses the central thoroughfares of our cities to uncover the ways they bring together our communities After an 11-year st...

Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr., "Aid Imperium: United States Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia" (U Michigan Press, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The United States is the world's largest donor of foreign aid, and in this profound analysis, Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. demonstrates the links...

Benjamin A. Cowan, "Moral Majorities Across the Americas: Brazil, the United States, and the Creation of the Religious Right" (UNC Press, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This new history of the Christian right does not stop at national or religious boundaries. In Moral Majorities Across the Americas, Brazil, the Unite...

Adam Hilton, "True Blues: The Contentious Transformation of the Democratic Party" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Who governs political parties? Recent insurgent campaigns, such as those of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, have thrust this critical question to the...

Lee B. Wilson, "Bonds of Empire: The English Origins of Slave Law in South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660–1783" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lee B. Wilson is the author of Bonds of Empire: The English Origins of Slave Law in South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660-1783, publish...

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, "Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America" (Oxford UP, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn's book Race Brokers: Housing Markets and Segregation in 21st Century Urban America (Oxford UP, 2021) examines how housing mar...

Elizabeth McHenry, "To Make Negro Literature: Writing, Literary Practice, and African American Authorship" (Duke UP, 2020)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In To Make Negro Literature: Writing, Literary Practice, and African American Authorship (Duke UP 2021), Elizabeth McHenry locates a hidden chapter...

Erin Cech, "The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality" (U California Press, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Should we love work? In The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality (U California Press, 2021), Erin Cech, a...

"Bambi" isn't about what you think it's about: Jack Zipes explains

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Most of us think we know the story of Bambi—but do we? The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest (Princeton UP, 2022) is an all-new, i...

Craig Jones, "The War Lawyers: The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare" (Oxford UP, 2020)

14 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last 20 years the world's most advanced militaries have invited a small number of military legal professionals into the heart of their target...

Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov, "American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship" (UP of Kansas, 2021)

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

All nations make rules -- through their constitutions, legislatures, bureaucratic practices – about who counts as a citizen. American by Birth exa...

Cassandra Lane, "We Are Bridges: A Memoir" (Feminist Press, 2021)

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Cassandra Lane finds herself pregnant at thirty-five, the knowledge sends her on a poignant exploration of memory to prepare for her entry into m...

Bryant Terry, "Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora" (4 Color Books, 2021)

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

James Beard and NAACP Image Award-winning chef and educator, Bryant Terry calls Black Food a “communal shrine to the shared culinary histories of ...

Kristy Nabhan-Warren, "Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland" (UNC Press, 2021)

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Whether valorized as the heartland or derided as flyover country, the Midwest became instantly notorious when COVID-19 infections skyrocketed among wo...

Davarian L Baldwin, "In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities" (Bold Type Press, 2021)

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021) by Dr. Davarian Baldwin examines the political e...

Postscript: SB-8, Dobbs, and the Politics of Abortion

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this Postscript, Susan Liebell and Lilly Goren review this morning’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Texas SB-8, the oral arguments in last week’...

Priya Fielding-Singh, "How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America" (Little Brown Spark, 2021)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Inequality in America manifests in many ways, but perhaps nowhere more than in how we eat. From her years of field research, sociologist and ethnograp...

Robert B. Talisse, "Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side" (Oxford UP, 2021)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Talisse’s new book, Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side (Oxford UP, 2021) is, in a certain sense, a continuation of his wo...

Rebecca L. Davis, "Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics" (UNC Press, 2021)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Personal reinvention is a core part of the human condition. Yet in the mid-twentieth century, certain private religious choices became lightning rods ...

Bryan M. Santin, "Postwar American Fiction and the Rise of Modern Conservatism: A Literary History, 1945–2008" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Postwar American Fiction and the Rise of Modern Conservatism: A Literary History, 1945–2008 (Cambridge UP, 2021), Bryan M. Santin examines ove...

Kate Fortmueller, "Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID" (U Texas Press, 2021)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

By March 2020, the spread of COVID-19 had reached pandemic proportions, forcing widespread shutdowns across industries, including Hollywood. Studios, ...

Fiona Hill, "There Is Nothing for You Here: Opportunity in an Age of Decline" (Mariner Books, 2021)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to the remarkable Fiona Hill about her new memoir There Is Nothing for You Here: Opportunity in an Age of Decline (Mariner Books, 2...

Mia Bay, "Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance" (Harvard UP, 2021)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mobility has been central to the American identity—think of the automobile, the perceived freedom that comes with it, the open road—but Black Amer...

Diana Kelly, "The Red Taylorist: The Life and Times of Walter Nicholas Polakov" (Emerald, 2020)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast Diana Kelly, author of The Red Taylorist: The Life and Times of Walter Nicholas Polakov (Emerald, 2020), tells us of the advantage...

Britt Rusert, "Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture" (NYU Press, 2017)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture (NYU Press, 2017), by Professor Britt Rusert (UMass-Amherst), [Insert li...

Edward J. Ayers, "Southern Journey: The Migrations of the American South, 1790-2020" (LSU Press, 2020)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Taking a wide focus, Southern Journey: The Migrations of the American South, 1790-2020 (LSU Press, 2020) narrates the evolution of southern history ...

Alisa Freedman, "Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost" (Association for Asian Studies, 2021)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alisa Freedman's book Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (Association for Asian Studies, 2021) explore...

Dave Zirin, "The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World" (New Press, 2021)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, amid an epidemic of police shootings of African Americans, the celebrated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a series of quiet protests o...

Leigh Eric Schmidt, "The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism" (Princeton UP, 2021)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Sch...

Lewis A. Grossman, "Choose Your Medicine: Freedom of Therapeutic Choice in America" (Oxford UP, 2021)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout American history, lawmakers have limited the range of treatments available to patients, often with the backing of the medical establishment...

Mark Lawrence Schrad, "Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition" (Oxford UP, 2021)

07 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition (Oxford UP, 2021) is a unique retelling of the history of temperance and prohibition. Ra...

Aldona Jonaitis, "Art of the Northwest Coast," Second Edition (U Washington Press, 2021)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Originally published in 2006, Art of the Northwest Coast offers an expansive history of this great tradition, from the earliest known works to those...

Samuel Moyn, "Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War" (FSG, 2021)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Is it possible that efforts to make war more humane can actually make it more common and thus more destructive?   This tension at the heart of this ...

Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian, "The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back" (New Press, 2021)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As people reach for social justice and better lives, they create public goods--free education, public health, open parks, clean water, and many others...

David Herzberg, "White Market Drugs: Big Pharma and the Hidden History of Addiction in America" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The contemporary opioid crisis is widely seen as new and unprecedented. Not so. It is merely the latest in a long series of drug crises stretching bac...

Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, "Figures of the Future: Latino Civil Rights and the Politics of Demographic Change" (Princeton UP, 2021)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Figures of the Future: Latino Civil Rights and the Politics of Demographic Change (Princeton UP, 2021) examines the “contemporary population polit...

Michael S. Neiberg, "When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance" (Harvard UP, 2021)

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rath...

Nicole Nguyen, "Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) is a powerful reassessment of the U.S. g...

Jan Nisbet and Nancy Weiss, "Pain and Shock in America: Politics, Advocacy, and the Controversial Treatment of People with Disabilities" (Brandeis UP, 2021)

02 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Amid a string of fall 2021 news reports about past-due exonerations and (white) self-defense that document the limits of racial justice within the U.S...

Amy Fried and Douglas B. Harris, "At War with Government: How Conservatives Weaponized Distrust from Goldwater to Trump" (Columbia UP, 2021)

02 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Political Scientists Amy Fried (University of Maine) and Douglas B. Harris (Loyola University Maryland) have a new book, At War with Government: How ...

69 Recall this Buck 4: Daniel Souleles on Private Equity (JP, EF)

02 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this installment of our Recall this Buck series (check out our earlier conversations with Thomas Piketty, Peter Brown and Christine Desan), Joh...

Andrew Roberts, "The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III" (Viking, 2021)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Following upon the success of his magisterial account of Winston Churchill, Andrew Roberts returns with an outstanding biography of George III: T...

Noah Isenberg ed., Shelley Frisch, trans., "Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna" (Princeton UP, 2021)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance repor...

Stephen Skowronek et al, "Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive" (Oxford UP, 2021)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive (Oxford University Press, 2021) powerfully dissects one of the fundament...

Joseph C. Ewoodzie, "Getting Something to Eat in Jackson: Race, Class, and Food in the American South" (Princeton UP, 2021)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Getting Something to Eat in Jackson (Princeton Press, 2021) uses food—what people eat and how—to explore the interaction of race and class in the...

Sean Brennan, "The Priest Who Put Europe Back Together: The Life of Rev. Fabian Flynn, CP" (Catholic U of America Press, 2018)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Philp Fabian Flynn led a remarkable life, bearing witness to some of the most pivotal events of the twentieth century. Flynn took part in the invasion...

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, "The Sixteen-Dollar Taco: Contested Geographies of Food, Ethnicity, and Gentrification" (U Washington Press, 2021)

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

White middle-class eaters are increasingly venturing into historically segregated urban neighborhoods in search of "authentic" eating in restaurants r...

Crystal Webster, "Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North" (UNC Press, 2021)

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For all that is known about the depth and breadth of African American history, we still understand surprisingly little about the lives of African Amer...

Peter Cole, "Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly" (PM Press, 2021)

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early twentieth century, when many US unions disgracefully excluded black and Asian workers, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) warmly w...

Hadassah Lieberman, "Hadassah: An American Story" (Brandeis UP, 2021)

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Born in Prague to Holocaust survivors, Hadassah Lieberman and her family immigrated in 1949 to the United States. She went on to earn a BA from Boston...

Eric Berkowitz, "Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorship in the West from the Ancients to Fake News" (Beacon Press, 2021)

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Eric Berkowitz has written a short history of a censorship, a large topic that has been a phenomenon since the advent of recorded history. In Danger...

Kevin Bruyneel, "Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States" (UNC Press, 2021)

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin Bruyneel confronts the chronic displacement of Indigeneity in the politics and discourse around race in American political theory and culture, a...

Yael Levy, "Chick TV: Antiheroines and Time Unbound" (Syracuse UP, 2021)

26 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Yael Levy examines the underexplored antiheroine of early twenty-first century television in Chick-TV: Antiheroines and Time Unbound (Syracuse UP,...

Robin J. Hayes, "Love for Liberation: African Independence, Black Power, and a Diaspora Underground" (U Washington Press, 2021)

26 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During the height of the Cold War, passionate idealists across the US and Africa came together to fight for Black self-determination and the antiracis...

Clint Smith, "How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America" (Little, Brown and Company, 2021)

26 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do we narrate history, both the troubling past and what we chose to remember? Clint Smith sets out to wrestle with this question and its relations...

Shelby Criswell, "Queer As All Get Out: 10 People Who've Inspired Me" (Street Noise Books, 2021)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Queer Voices of the South, I talk with Shelby Criswell, whose book Queer As All Get Out: 10 People Who've Inspired Me (Street Noi...

Gretchen E. Minton, "Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country's Love Affair with the World's Most Famous Writer" (U New Mexico Press, 2020)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tracing more than two centuries of history, Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country’s Love Affair with the World’s Most Famous Writer (Universi...

Marc Gallicchio, "Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II" (Oxford UP, 2020)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender for...

James Bailey Blackshear and Glen Sample Ely, "Confederates and Comancheros: Skullduggery and Double-Dealing in the Texas-New Mexico Borderlands" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)

23 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A vast and desolate region, the Texas-New Mexico borderlands have long been an ideal setting for intrigue and illegal dealings--never more so than in ...

Steven P. Brown, "Alabama Justice: The Cases and Faces That Changed a Nation" (U Alabama Press, 2020)

23 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Steven P. Brown, professor of political science at Auburn University, has written a history of notable U.S. Supreme Cases and justices that hailed fro...

Christopher Coker, "The Rise of the Civilizational State" (Polity Press, 2019)

23 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years the resurgence of great power competition has gripped the headlines, with new emerging powers (such as Russia and China) seeking to ch...

Jasmine Mitchell, "Imagining the Mulatta: Blackness in U. S. and Brazilian Media" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

22 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Brazil markets itself as a racially mixed utopia. The United States prefers the term melting pot. Both nations have long used the image of the mulatta...

Postscript: The Supreme Court, Concealed Carry, and How Your Laws Might Change

22 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An earlier Postscript explained what was at stake for concealed carry laws in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court – and guessed at what the oral ...

Tanya L. Roth, "Her Cold War: Women in the U.S. Military, 1945–1980" (UNC Press, 2021)

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tanya L. Roth's Her Cold War: Women in the U.S. Military, 1945–1980 (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) explains that while Rosie the Rivet...

Dennis C. Rasmussen, "Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America's Founders" (Princeton UP, 2021)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Americans conjure the image of the signing of the Constitution of the United States, they often think about the various paintings that depict the...

Kate Fortmueller, "Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production" (U Texas Press, 2021)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Despite their considerable presence in Hollywood, extras and working actors have received scant attention within film and media studies as significant...

David Barak-Gorodetsky, "Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview David Barak-Gorodetzky about his new book, Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist (U Nebrask...

Adam Bonica and Maya Sen, "The Judicial Tug of War: How Lawyers, Politicians, and Ideological Incentives Shape the American Judiciary" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Why have conservatives decried 'activist judges'? And why have liberals - and America's powerful legal establishment - emphasized qualifications and e...

Stephen Cushman, "The Generals' Civil War: What Their Memoirs Can Teach Us Today" (UNC Press, 2021)

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades following the American Civil War, several of the generals who had laid down their swords picked up their pens and published accounts of...

Naoko Wake, "American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The little-known history of U.S. survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings reveals captivating trans-Pacific memories of war, illness, g...

Marilyn Lake, "Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform" (Harvard UP, 2019)

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The paradox of Progressivism continues to fascinate more than one hundred years on. Democratic but elitist, emancipatory but coercive, advanced and as...

Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh, "The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South" (UNC Press, 2021)

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Beginning on the shores of West Africa in the sixteenth century and ending in the U.S. Lower South on the eve of the Civil War, Alexis Wells-Oghoghome...

Matthew Stewart, “The Epicurean Republic” (Open Agenda, 2021)

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Epicurean Republic is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and award-winning author and independent scholar Matthew Ste...

Celine-Marie Pascale, "Living on the Edge: When Hard Times Become a Way of Life" (Polity Press, 2021)

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For the majority of Americans, hard times have long been a way of life. Some work multiple low-wage jobs, others face the squeeze of stagnant wages an...

Jen Corrinne Brown, "Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West" (U Washington Press, 2017)

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From beer labels to literary classics like A River Runs Through It, trout fishing is a beloved feature of the iconography of the American West. But as...

Efrén O. Pérez, "Diversity's Child: People of Color and the Politics of Identity" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Political Scientist Efrén Pérez’s new book, Diversity's Child: People of Color and the Politics of Identity (U Chicago Press, 2021), explores th...

Ken Robison, "Cold War Montana" (History Press, 2021)

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Home to some of the most powerful nuclear missile systems in the world, Montana played an indispensable role in the war against Communism. Utilizing t...

Chris McLaughlin, "Mississippi Barking: Hurricane Katrina and a Life That Went to the Dogs" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On August 29, 2005, the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States devastated the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana ...

Samuel Moyn, "Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War" (FSG, 2021)

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Geographic and temporal limits have typically contained modern wars—rulers can ask their populace to risk lives and treasure for so long before losi...

David Lester, "Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel" (Beacon Press, 2021)

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Who is the most fascinating historical figure that you have never heard of? David Lester and Marcus Rediker make a good case that it was Benjamin Lay....

Theresa Keeley, "Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America" (Cornell UP, 2020)

09 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America (Cornell UP, 2020), Theresa Keeley analyzes ...

Alaina E. Roberts, "I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)

09 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Perhaps no other symbol has more resonance in African American history than that of 40 acres and a mule--the lost promise of Black reparations for sla...

Jennifer Carlson, "Policing the Second Amendment: Guns, Law Enforcement, and the Politics of Race" (Princeton UP, 2020)

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Americans talk about guns, they often use terms like “gun rights” or “gun control.” They also tend to separate gun politics and the polit...

Andrea Warner, "Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography" (Graystone Books, 2018)

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Andrea Warner's Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography (Graystone Books, 2018) tells the story, often in Buffy's own words, of the life of th...

Murray Hogben, "Minarets on the Horizon: Muslim Pioneers in Canada" (Mawenzi House, 2021)

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Minarets on the Horizon: Muslim Pioneers in Canada (Mawenzi House 2021) by Murray Hogben is an incredible archive of some of the early Muslim settler...

Samantha Durbin, "Raver Girl: Coming of Age in the 90s" (She Writes Press, 2021)

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A ’90s time capsule buried inside a coming-of-age memoir set against the neon backdrop of the San Francisco Bay Area's rave scene, Raver Girl (She...

Doing an Ethnography of Policing: In Conversation with Sarah Brayne

04 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How has the use of big data and algorithms changed policing and police surveillance? On this episode, we speak with Dr. Sarah Brayne, Assistant Profes...

67 Everything and Less: Mark McGurl on Books in the Age of Amazon

04 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What do you make of Amazon: The new Sears Roebuck? A terrifying monopoly threat? Satisfaction (a paperback in your mailbox, a Kindle edition on your t...

Jussi M. Hanhimäki, "Pax Transatlantica: America and Europe in the Post-Cold War Era" (Oxford UP, 2021)

04 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Is the West finished as a political idea? In recent years, observers have begun pointing to signs that the transatlantic community is eroding. When th...