New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Ronald C. White, "Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President" (Random House, 2021)
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From the New York Times bestselling author of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses, a revelatory glimpse into the mind and soul of our sixteenth preside...
Free Tax Prep That's Never Free: A Discussion with ProPublica's Justin Elliott
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we are talking to ProPublica investigative journalist Justin Elliott. Justin has been with ProPublica since 2012 and writes abou...
D. G. Hart, "American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2020)
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2020), Darryl Hart's addresses the foundational changes in thinking ab...
Dina Fainberg, "Cold War Correspondents: Soviet and American Reporters on the Ideological Frontlines" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In an age of mutual acrimony and closed borders, journalists were among the few individuals who crossed the Iron Curtain. Their reporting strongly inf...
Blake Scott Ball, "Charlie Brown's America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts" (Oxford UP, 2021)
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Despite—or because of—its huge popular culture status, Peanuts enabled cartoonist Charles Schulz to offer political commentary on the most controv...
Nathan D. Grawe, "The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his highly influential book, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Carleton College Professor of Economics, Nathan Grawe, alerted col...
Jessica Ordaz, "The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity" (UNC Press, 2021)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bounded by desert and mountains, El Centro, California, is isolated and difficult to reach. However, its location close to the border between San Dieg...
Jennifer Sherman, "Dividing Paradise: Rural Inequality and the Diminishing American Dream" (U California Press, 2021)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How rural areas have become uneven proving grounds for the American Dream. Small-town economies that have traditionally been based on logging, mining,...
Michael P. Winship, "Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America" (Yale UP, 2019)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The English Reformation started in the middle of the sixteenth century, and right away there were more zealous reformers who were not satisfied with t...
Nadia E. Brown and Danielle Casarez Lemi, "Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites" (Oxford UP, 2021)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
All political candidates make strategic choices about how to present themselves to voters but not all candidates have to “weigh decisions about thei...
Alex Wellerstein, "Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The American atomic bomb was born in secrecy. From the moment scientists first conceived of its possibility to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ...
Katrina Phillips, "Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and the Performance of Native American History" (UNC Press, 2021)
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As tourists increasingly moved across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a surprising number of communities looke...
Patrick Spero, "Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776" (Norton, 2018)
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Boston, Philadelphia, London...Fort Loudon, PA. One of these places is not usually included when imagining the crucial scenes of the American Revoluti...
Andrew L. Whitehead, "Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States" (Oxford UP, 2020)
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why do so many conservative Christians continue to support Donald Trump despite his many overt moral failings? Why do many Americans advocate so vehem...
Joshua D. Rothman, "The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America" (Basic Book, 2021)
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Rothman’s The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America was published by Basic Books in 2021, and tells a sprawling h...
Aaron E. Sánchez, "Homeland: Ethnic Mexican Belonging Since 1900" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ethnic Mexicans living in the United States have always struggled to understand their position within the fabric of the nation-state. The groups that ...
Kathryn Benjamin Golden, "Armed in the Great Swamp': Fear, Maroon Insurrection, and the Insurgent Ecology of the Great Dismal Swamp" (2021)
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2021, we are inundated with daily images of racial terror, state violence, and technologies of punishment showing pictures of broken down, beleague...
Justene Hill Edwards, "Unfree Markets: The Slaves' Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina" (Columbia UP, 2021)
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Justene Hill Edwards is the author of Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina (Columbia University Press,...
David Monod, "Vaudeville and the Making of Modern Entertainment, 1890–1925" (UNC Press, 2020)
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vaudeville is one of the most famous styles of theater in American history, a font of showbiz legend and the training ground for a generation of stars...
N+1: "Like Partisan Review, but Not Dead"
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we are talking to Mark Krotov, the publisher and co-editor of n + 1, a magazine of politics, essays and fiction described once: “...
Matthew Clair, "Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court" (Princeton UP, 2020)
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court (Princeton UP, 2020) by Matthew Clair is a powerful ethnographic study of the ...
Sten Rynniing et al., "War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power" (Chatham House, 2020)
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The "decline of the West" is once again a frequent topic of speculation. Often cited as one element of the alleged decline is the succession of prolon...
David Hardin, "Standpipe: Delivering Water in Flint" (Belt, 2021)
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A brief, elegant memoir of the author's work as a Red Cross volunteer delivering emergency water to residents of Flint, Michigan, Standpipe sets the...
Mary Pilon, "The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game" (Bloomsbury, 2015)
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The inside story of the world's most famous board game-a buried piece of American history with an epic scandal that continues today. The Monopolists: ...
Doron Taussig, "What We Mean by the American Dream: Stories We Tell about Meritocracy" (Cornell UP, 2021)
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Doron Taussig invites us to question the American Dream. Did you earn what you have? Did everyone else? The American Dream is built on the idea that A...
Louis Nelson, "Mosaic: War Monument Mystery" (239 Productions, 2021)
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Korean War is now America's seminal war. It was the first war conducted with the new United Nations, the first war fought against the Chinese Comm...
John Murillo III, "Impossible Stories: On the Space and Time of Black Destructive Creation" (Ohio State UP, 2021)
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Impossible Stories: On the Space and Time of Black Destructive Creation (Ohio State UP, 2021), John Murillo offers bold new readings of recent an...
Ayesha S. Chaudhry, "The Colour of God" (OneWorld, 2021)
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode, we speak with Ayesha Chaudhry about her new book, The Colour of God (Oneworld Publications, 2021). The book describes Chaudh...
Andrew T. Walker, "Liberty for All: Defending Everyone's Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age" (Brazos Press, 2021)
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Christians are often thought of as defending only their own religious interests in the public square. They are viewed as worrying exclusively about th...
Kathleen Collins, "From Rabbit Ears to the Rabbit Hole: A Life with Television" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book From Rabbit Ears to the Rabbit Hole: A Life with Television (University of Mississippi Press, 2021) TV scholar and fan Kathleen C...
Jordana M. Saggese, "The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader" (U California Press, 2021)
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader (University of California Press, 2021), Jordana Moore Saggese provides the first comprehensive sourcebook on the ...
Leonard Cassuto and Robert Weisbuch, "The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education" (John Hopkins UP, 2021)
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Whether and how to reform, indeed to transform graduate education has been a matter for debate, discussion and experimentation over the past 30 years ...
Brian Castner, "Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike" (Doubleday, 2021)
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1897, the United States was mired in the worst economic depression that the country had yet endured. So when all the newspapers announced gold was ...
Mary Woodger and Casey Griffiths, "50 Relics of the Restoration" (Ceder Fort, 2020)
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Just as early Christians sought out pieces of the cross or searched for the location of Noah's Ark, it is natural for members of the Church of Jesus C...
Alison M. Parker, "Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell" (UNC Press, 2020)
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Alison M. Parker’s new book Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell (University of North Carolina Press, 2020) explores the life o...
Christina Ward, "American Advertising Cookbooks: How Corporations Taught Us to Love Bananas, Spam, and Jell-O" (Process, 2018)
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Christina Ward’s newest book American Advertising Cookbooks: How Corporations Taught Us to Love Spam, Bananas, and Jell-O (Process Media, 2019) ex...
Kate Dossett, "Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal" (UNC Press, 2020)
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Dossett's book Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal (UNC Press, 2020) turns conventional understandings of the Federal Theatre Project on its...
LaTonya J. Trotter, "More Than Medicine: Nurse Practitioners and the Problems They Solve for Patients, Health Care Organizations, and the State" (Cornell UP, 2020)
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In More Than Medicine: Nurse Practitioners and the Problems They Solve for Patients, Health Care Organizations, and the State (Cornell UP, 2020), La...
T. Sanders et al., "Paying for Sex in a Digital Age: US and UK Perspectives" (Routledge, 2020)
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Providing one of the first comprehensive, cross-cultural examinations of the dynamic market for sexual services, this book presents an evidence-based ...
Susan Lee Johnson, "Writing Kit Carson: Fallen Heroes in a Changing West" (UNC Press, 2020)
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The only constant in Western history is change. Susan Lee Johnson, Harry Reid Endowed Chair in the History of the Intermountain West at UNLV, knows t...
David Alan Sklansky, "A Pattern of Violence: How the Law Classifies Crimes and What it Means for Justice" (Harvard UP, 2020)
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the George Floyd killing, many Americans are engaging in a renewed debate about the role violence and especially police violence, plays...
Matthew K. Shannon, "Losing Hearts and Minds: American-Iranian Relations and International Education during the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2017)
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Losing Hearts and Minds: American Iranian Relations and International Education During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2017), Matthew K. Shannon, an a...
Heath Brown, "Homeschooling the Right: How Conservative Education Activism Erodes the State" (Columbia UP, 2021)
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Political Scientist Heath Brown’s new book, Homeschooling the Right: How Conservative Education Activism Erodes the State (Columbia UP, 2021) is ...
M. Vollman Makris and M. Gatta, "Gentrification Down the Shore" (Rutgers UP, 2020)
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Gentrification Down the Shore (Rutgers University Press, 2020), Molly Vollman Makris and Mary Gatta engage in a rich ethnographic investigation o...
David Komline, "The Common School Awakening: Religion and the Transatlantic Roots of American Public Education" (Oxford UP, 2020)
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The origins of American public schools can help shed light on continued contemporary discussions around religion and education in American discourse. ...
Lila Corwin Berman, "The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multibillion-Dollar Institution" (Princeton UP, 2020)
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For years, American Jewish philanthropy has been celebrated as the proudest product of Jewish endeavors in the United States, its virtues extending fr...
Patrick Vitale, "Nuclear Suburbs: Cold War Technoscience and the Pittsburgh Renaissance" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From submarines to the suburbs--the remaking of Pittsburgh during the Cold War During the early Cold War, research facilities became ubiquitous featur...
Thomas S. Kidd, "Who Is an Evangelical?" (Yale UP, 2019)
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
News and media outlets have become especially attentive to the political leanings of a particular subset of American Protestants: the Evangelicals. Le...
Susan M. Reverby, "Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy" (UNC Press, 2013)
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some books are new, others are newly relevant – and so worth looking at from a new, contemporary perspective. Such is the case with Susan Reverby’...
Robert Snyder, "All the Nations Under Heaven: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York" (Columbia UP, 2019)
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
All the Nations Under Heaven: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York by Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers, and Robert W. Snyder (Columb...
David A. Rennie, "American Writers and World War I" (Oxford UP, 2020)
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In American Writers and World War I (Oxford University Press, 2020), David A. Rennie argues that authors' war writing continuously evolved in resp...
Maureen Mahon, "Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll" (Duke UP, 2020)
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Maureen Mahon’s book, Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll (Duke University Press, 2020), focuses on the contributions t...
Adam Hochschild, "Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020)
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the political ferment of early twentieth century New York City, when socialists and reformers battled sweatshops, and writers and artists thought a...
C. G. Faricy and C. Ellis, "The Other Side of the Coin: Public Opinion toward Social Tax Expenditures" (Russell Sage Foundation, 2021)
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In The Other Side of the Coin: Public Opinion toward Social Tax Expenditures (Russell Sage Foundation, 2021), political scientists Christopher Ellis...
Richard Brookhiser, "Give Me Liberty: A History of America's Exceptional Idea" (Basic Books, 2019)
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Give Me Liberty: A History of America's Exceptional Idea (Basic Books, 2019), Richard Brookhiser has written a history of an idea, liberty, usin...
Jessi Streib, "Privilege Lost: Who Leaves the Upper Middle Class and How They Fall" (Oxford UP, 2020)
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Talking about social class and the American class structure is a challenge. It can be easy to talk about the class system too rigidly, implying that “...
American Feminists and the Global Fight for Democratic Equality
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For the Many: American Feminists and the Global Fight for Democratic Equality (Princeton University Press, 2021) presents an inspiring look at how ...
Bradford Pearson, "The Eagles of Heart Mountain: A True Story of Football, Incarceration and Resistance in World War II America" (Atria, 2021)
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the spring of 1942, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona ...
Carol Dyhouse, "Love Lives: From Cinderella to Frozen" (Oxford UP, 2021)
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cinderella stories captured the imagination of girls in the 1950s, when dreams of meeting the right man could seem like a happy ending, a solution to ...
Tara T. Green, "Reimagining the Middle Passage: Black Resistance in Literature, Television, and Song" (Ohio State UP, 2018)
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From ships and novels to Mardi Gras, water, and television, how does the legacy of the Middle Passage, the leg of the Atlantic through which African p...
Karlos K. Hill, "The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the evening of May 31, 1921, thousands of white Oklahomans assaulted the Greenwood District of the city of Tulsa. In what would come to be known as...
Edgardo Meléndez, "Patria: Puerto Rican Revolutionary Exiles in Late Nineteenth-Century New York" (Centro Press, 2019)
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Edgardo Meléndez's book Patria: Puerto Rican Revolutionaries in Nineteenth Century New York (Centro Press, 2019) examines the activities and ideals...
E. Patrick Johnson, "Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South" (U of North Carolina Press, 2011)
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
E. Patrick Johnson's Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) has been a monograph, a documentary film, a s...
Paul M. Renfro et al., "Growing Up America: Youth and Politics Since 1945" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Growing Up America: Youth and Politics Since 1945 (U Georgia Press, 2019) is a fascinating book that weaves together the burgeoning field of Childhoo...
Viet Thanh Nguyen, "The Committed" (Grove Press, 2021)
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What do you ask a novelist who has won a Pulitzer, a Guggenheim, and a MacArthur genius grant? Cocktail advice, of course. When I had the honor of cha...
Nikki Lane, "The Black Queer Work of Ratchet: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the (Anti)Politics of Respectability" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019)
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nikki Lane's The Black Queer Work of Ratchet: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the (Anti)Politics of Respectability (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019) enters as...
Susan Ware, "American Women's Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote, 1776-1965" (Library of America, 2020)
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which granted women the right to vote nationwide, was the culmi...
Brent D. Ziarnick, "To Rule the Skies: General Thomas S. Power and the Rise of Strategic Air Command in the Cold War" (US Naval Institute Press, 2021)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A sadist. A madman. A sociopath seduced by the terrible allure of nuclear weapons. These are but a few of the pejoratives commonly used to describe Un...
Richard Hammond, "Strangling the Axis: The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Strangling the Axis: The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2020) , D...
Felipe Hinojosa, "Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio" (U Texas Press, 2021)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1960s, the American city found itself in steep decline. An urban crisis fueled by federal policy wreaked destruction and displacement on p...
Alfred L. Martin, Jr., "The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom" (Indiana UP, 2021)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do race and sexuality intersect in the American sitcom? In The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom (Indiana University Press...
Hari Ziyad, "Black Boy Out of Time: A Memoir" (Little a, 2021)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of nineteen children in a blended family, Hari Ziyad was raised by a Hindu Hare Kṛṣṇa mother and a Muslim father. Through reframing their ow...
K. Bunn-Marcuse and A. Jonaitis, "Unsettling Native Art Histories on the Northwest Coast" (U Washington Press, 2020)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Inseparable from its communities, Northwest Coast art functions aesthetically and performatively beyond the scope of non-Indigenous scholarship, from ...
Gordon H. Chang, "Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad" (HMH, 2019)
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do we understand our contemporary politics of race in historical, economical, and political context? How do we make sense of the Chinese Exclusion...
Jarvis R. Givens, "Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching" (Harvard UP, 2021)
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to New Books in African American Studies, a channel on the New Books Network. I am your host, Adam McNeil. On today’s podcast, I am intervie...
Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro, "Minds Wide Shut How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us" (Princeton UP, 2021)
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Two very thoughtful oddfellows--a labor economist and a Russian literature scholar--take on the world's problems in their newest collaboration, Minds...
James Doucet-Battle, "Sweetness in the Blood: Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Decades of data cannot be ignored: African American adults are far more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than white adults. But has science gone so f...
Douglas M. O'Reagan, "Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science After the Second World War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), Dou...
Fatima Shaik, "Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood" (HNOC, 2021)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fatima Shaik's book Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood (Historic New Orleans Collections, 2021) tells the story of the Soc...
Steven Capsuto, "Alternate Channels: Queer Images on 20th-Century TV" (2020)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Capsuto's book Alternate Channels: Queer Images on 20th-Century TV (2020) explores the fight for lesbian and gay visibility on 20th-century A...
Caleb Iyer Elfenbein, "Fear in Our Hearts: What Islamophobia Tells Us about America" (NYU Press, 2021)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Fear In Our Hearts: What Islamophobia Tells Us about America (NYU Press, 2021), Caleb Iyer Elfenbein, Associate Professor at Grinnell College, e...
Bernadette Barton, "The Pornification of America: How Raunch Culture Is Ruining Our Society" (NYU Press, 2021)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bernadette Barton, Ph.D. exposes the double standard we attach to women’s sexuality in The Pornification of America: How Raunch Culture is Ruining...
Andrew Maraniss, "Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke" (Philomel Books, 2021)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On October 2nd, 1977, Glenn Burke, outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, made history without even swinging a bat. When his teammate Dusty Baker hit...
Tamika Y. Nunley, "At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C." (UNC Press, 2021)
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The capital city of a nation founded on the premise of liberty, nineteenth-century Washington, D.C., was both an entrepot of urban slavery and the tar...
Carrie Noland, "Merce Cunningham: After the Arbitrary" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Carrie Noland's Merce Cunningham: After the Arbitrary (University of Chicago Press, 2020) goes past conventional understandings of Cunningham that i...
Lorna N. Bracewell, "Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the #MeToo Era" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since the historic #MeToo movement materialized in 2017, innumerable survivors of sexual assault and misconduct have broken their silence and called o...
Stephen K. Stein, "Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States: Kinky People Unite" (Routledge, 2021)
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States: Kinky People Unite (Routledge, 2021) chronicles the development of sadomasochistic sexual...
Massoud Hayoun, "When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History" (New Press, 2019)
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History (New Press, 2019) is part-memoir, part-history of Jewish Arabs. We follow Massoud Hayoun as...
Candace Fujikane, "Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartography in Hawai'i" (Duke UP, 2021)
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i (Duke University Press, 2021), Candace Fuj...
Doron Taussig, "What We Mean by the American Dream: Stories We Tell about Meritocracy" (Cornell UP, 2021)
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Doron Taussig invites us to question the American Dream. Did you earn what you have? Did everyone else? The American Dream is built on the idea that A...
Joseph P. Laycock, "Speak of the Devil: How the Satanic Temple Is Changing the Way We Talk about Religion" (Oxford UP, 2020)
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, when the state of Oklahoma erected a statue of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capitol, a group calling themselves The Satan...
Jane Little Botkin, "The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1916, hundreds of local female household workers attempted to establish a union in Denver. The organizer behind the effort was Jane Street, a remar...
Bill Nowlin, "Vinyl Ventures: My Fifty Years at Rounder Records" (Equinox, 2021)
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Vinyl Ventures: My Fifty Years at Rounder Records (Equinox, 2021), founder Bill Nowlin combines memoir with a history of the founding and evoluti...
Postscript: Biden's First 100 Days
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Much has long been made of the bold legislative action that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt marshalled forward in his first 100 days in office in ...
Rachel B. Gross, "Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice" (NYU Press, 2021)
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern Eur...
Regina N. Bradley, "Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South" (UNC Press, 2021)
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) pulses with the beats of a new American South, prob...
Amy B. Voorhees, "A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture" (UNC Press, 2021)
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) , Amy B. Voorh...
Richard Jean So, "Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction" (Columbia UP, 2020)
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the story of race in American fiction? In Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction (Columbia University Pr...
Phillip Lopate, "The Golden Age of the American Essay: 1945-1970" (Anchor Books, 2021)
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The three decades that followed World War II were an exceptionally fertile period for American essays. The explosion of journals and magazines, the ri...
Johana Londoño, "Abstract Barrios: The Crises of Latinx Visibility in Cities" (Duke UP, 2020)
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The rapid gentrification of Black and brown neighborhoods in urban areas by predominantly upper-class white and other white-adjacent peoples is largel...