New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Elesha J. Coffman, "Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith" (Oxford UP, 2021)
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Elesha J. Coffman's Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith (Oxford UP, 2021) takes a careful look at Mead’s religious origins and influence. As...
Hannah Hahn, "They Left It All Behind: Trauma, Loss, and Memory Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants and their Children" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019)
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Hahn’s They Left It All Behind: Trauma, Loss and Memory Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants and Their Children (Roman and Littlefield,...
Studying LBGT Organizing in China: A Conversation with Caterina Fugazzola
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode of Ethnographic Marginalia, Sneha Annavarapu talks with Dr. Caterina Fugazzola, Earl S Johnson Instructor in Sociology at the Un...
Rose Muzio, "Radical Imagination, Radical Humanity: Puerto Rican Political Activism in New York" (SUNY, 2017)
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Radical Imagination, Radical Humanity: Puerto Rican Political Activism in New York (SUNY, 2017), Rose Muzio analyzes how structural and historic...
Alison Phipps, "Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism" (Manchester UP, 2020)
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We are joined today by Alison Phipps, Professor in Gender Studies and the University of Sussex to talk about her newest book, Me, Not You: The Troub...
John G. Turner, "They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty" (Yale UP, 2020)
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John G. Turner's excellent new history of the early American separatists, They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American ...
Postscript: Trump, Trumpism, and the Future of the GOP
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the impeachment trial ends, Lilly Goren and Susan Liebell explore the future of the GOP with two media-savvy political scientists. Dr. Jonathan Be...
Cathleen D. Cahill, "Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement" (U North Carolina Press, 2020)
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We think we know the story of women's suffrage in the United States: women met at Seneca Falls, marched in Washington, D.C., and demanded the vote unt...
Howard Sherman, "Another Day's Begun: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century" (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Howard Sherman's Another Day's Begun: Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021) provides a fascinating tour of c...
Eli Revelle Yano Wilson, "Front of the House, Back of the House: Race and Inequality in the Lives of Restaurant Workers" (NYU Press, 2020)
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How can ethnographic research shine light on the reproduction of social inequality in upscale Los Angeles restaurants? In today’s episode we talk wi...
Duncan Bell, "Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America" (Princeton UP, 2020)
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Published in December 2020, Duncan Bell’s Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America (Princeton University Press, 2020)...
Wilfred M. McClay, "Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story" (Encounter Books, 2021)
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Attention high school teachers of American history! Listen up, homeschooling parents of adolescents. General readers in need of a comprehensive histor...
Paul O. Jenkins, "Bluegrass Ambassadors: The McLain Family Band in Appalachia and the World" (West Virginia UP, 2020)
11 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Paul O. Jenkins about his book Bluegrass Ambassadors: The McLain Family Band in Appalachia and the World (West Virginia UP, 2020)...
M. Condon and A. Wichowsky, "The Economic Other: Inequality in the American Political Imagination" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
11 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Meghan Condon and Amber Wichowsky have written an incredibly timely and fascinating study of our understanding of income inequality in the United Stat...
Robert J. Mrazek, "The Indomitable Florence Finch: The Untold Story of a War Widow Turned Resistance Fighter and Savior of American POWs" (Hachette, 2020)
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robert J. Mrazek, an author of eleven books and former congressman from New York, has written a gripping account of one the most determine heroines of...
Ray Allen, "Jump Up!: Caribbean Carnival Music in New York City" (Oxford UP, 2019)
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jump Up!: Caribbean Carnival Music in New York City (Oxford University Press, 2019) is a comprehensive history of Trinidadian calypso and steelband...
R. Roberts and J. Smith, "War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War" (Basic Books, 2020)
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the fall of 1918, a fever gripped Boston. The streets emptied as paranoia about the deadly Spanish flu spread. Newspapermen and vigilante investiga...
Jim Mackin, "Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side: Bloomingdale–Morningside Heights" (Fordham UP, 2020)
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side: Bloomingdale-Morningside Heights (Fordham UP, 2020), Jim Mackin introduces readers to almos...
Richard Kreitner, "Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union" (Little Brown, 2020)
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Journalists, scholars, politicians, and citizens often assume that calls for secession are political or historical aberrations. Our founding myth is t...
Michael Rossi, "The Republic of Color: Science, Perception, and the Making of Modern America" (Chicago UP, 2019)
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The appreciation of color is considered universal among human societies, yet varies vastly according to cultural norms and material circumstances. In ...
Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid, "Ms. Marvel's America: No Normal" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In their co-edited volume, Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal (University Press of Mississippi, 2020), Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid focus on t...
Tavia Nyong’o, "Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life" (NYU Press, 2028)
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tavia Nyong’o's Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (NYU Press, 2018), examines a broad range of artists and disciplines, from Adrian ...
Kimberly Mack, "Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White" (U Mass Press, 2020)
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The familiar story of Delta blues musician Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil at a Mississippi crossroads in exchange for guitar virtuosit...
Gennady Estraikh, "Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century" (ASP, 2020)
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early decades of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Yiddish speaking immigrants actively participated in the American Socialist and la...
Mical Raz, "Abusive Policies: How the American Child Welfare System Lost Its Way" (UNC Press Books, 2020)
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1970s, a new wave of public service announcements urged parents to help end an American tradition of child abuse. The message, relayed re...
Earl Wright II, "Jim Crow Sociology: The Black and Southern Roots of American Sociology" (University of Cincinnati Press, 2020)
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Crow Sociology: The Black and Southern Roots of American Sociology (U Cincinnati Press, 2020) is an extraordinary new volume that examines the o...
Kevin Weddle, "The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2021)
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
British hopes that the American War for Independence would be brought to a swift conclusion began to wane in the early months of 1777. Despite brillia...
The Role of Community Colleges in Higher Education: A Discussion with Penny Wills
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to b...
Gretchen Sorin, "Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights" (Liveright, 2020)
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gretchen Sorin’s book, Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights (Liveright, 2020) is Sorin’s ode to a part of...
Sheldon George, "Trauma and Race: A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity" (Baylor UP, 2016)
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his book, Trauma and Race: A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity (Baylor UP, 2016), Sheldon George treats an old idea--that Africa...
Frank L. Jones, "Sam Nunn: Statesman of the Nuclear Age" (UP Kansas, 2020)
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a 2012 opinion piece bemoaning the state of the US Senate, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank cited a “leading theory: There are no giants in...
Arlin C. Migliazzo, "Mother of American Evangelicalism: The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Mears" (Eerdmans, 2020)
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Arlin Migliazzo’s Mother of Modern Evangelicalism: The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Mears (Eerdmans, 2020) documents the life and ministry of one...
Tony Tekaroniake Evans, "Teaching Native Pride: Upward Bound and the Legacy of Isabel Bond" (Washington State UP, 2020)
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1877, Eloosykasit was on his way Tolo Lake, a gathering place frequented by the Nez Perce, when he heard news of the Wallowa band's flight from the...
Tim Cresswell, "Maxwell Street: Writing and Thinking Place" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the nature of place, and how does one undertake to write about it? To answer these questions, geographer and poet Tim Cresswell looks to Chica...
Joshua Mendelsohn, "The Cap: How Larry Fleisher and David Stern Built the Modern NBA" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today the salary cap is an NBA institution, something fans take for granted as part of the fabric of the league or an obstacle to their favorite team’...
Holly Jackson, "American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation" (Crown, 2019)
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Should we understand radical protest as central to American culture? Dr. Holly Jackson, associate professor of English at the University of Massachus...
Tyler Stovall, "White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2021)
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The era of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to our modern conceptions of freedom and democracy, was also the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trad...
Francis J. Bremer, "One Small Candle: The Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England" (Oxford UP, 2020)
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Bremer's outstanding new book, One Small Candle: The Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England (Oxford UP, 2020), describes t...
Roundtable on W. E. B. Du Bois' "Black Reconstruction in America" (1935)
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I am delighted to have y’all listen to the conversation I had with three of my favorite historians in all the dad-gum world. January 2021 has been a...
Thomas P. Crocker, "Overcoming Necessity: Emergency, Constraint, and the Meanings of American Constitutionalism" (Yale UP, 2020)
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A core duty of government is keeping those it governs safe. However, in modern democratic states, government is structured by a Constitution, which es...
Thomas C. Field, "From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era" (Cornell UP, 2014)
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do ideologies of development shape the perceptions of security threats of US foreign policymakers and the political and military leaders of develo...
Alisa Perkins, "Muslim American City: Gender and Religion in Metro Detroit" (NYU Press, 2020)
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The call to prayer breaks the hustle and bustle of an urban sonic landscape in unique ways. For Muslims living in Hamtramck, Michigan broadcasting the...
Jeffrey D. Broxmeyer, "Electoral Capitalism: The Party System in New York's Gilded Age" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Broxmeyer has written a fascinating and insightful book about the party system in New York during the Gilded Age, but this is really only the fou...
Cedric Burrows, "The Construction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X in Composition Textbooks: Rereading Readers" (2011)
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is part of our Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. In this series, we delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and thought ...
Maya Stovall, "Liquor Store Theatre" (Duke UP, 2020)
25 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For six years, anthropologist and artist Maya Stovall enacted a series of dance performances outside of liquor stores in the McDougall-Hunt neighbor...
Lara M. Brown, "Amateur Hour: Presidential Character and the Question of Leadership" (Routledge, 2020)
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Political scientist Lara Brown’s new book, Amateur Hour, is a complex and important multi-method study of the presidency, starting from the origina...
Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright, 2020)
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Michael Gorra about his new book The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War (Liveright, 2020). This episode touches on two ...
Matthew Rowley, "Trump and the Protestant Reaction to Make America Great Again" (Routledge, 2020)
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between American Protestant Evangelicals and the candidacy, presidency, and legacy of Donald Trump arrests the attention of journalis...
David C. Lane, "Other End of the Needle: Continuity and Change Among Tattoo Workers" (Rutgers UP, 2020)
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In The Other End of the Needle (Rutgers University Press, 2020), David C. Lane, Ph.D. investigates the intricacies of the tattoo industry. Particu...
Jason Berry, "City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300" (UNC Press, 2018)
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Jason Berry delivers a history of N...
Andrew Jewett, "Science Under Fire: Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America" (Harvard UP, 2020)
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Americans today are often skeptical of scientific authority. Many conservatives dismiss climate change and Darwinism as liberal fictions, arguing that...
Brad Vermurlen, "Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism" (Oxford UP, 2020)
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since the turn of the millennium, American Evangelical Protestantism has seen a swell of interest in Calvinist theology. Variously described as the Ne...
Daniel T. Rodgers, "As a City on a Hill: The Story of America's Most Famous Lay Sermon" (Princeton UP, 2020)
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, John Winthrop's famous phrase, "We shall be as a city upon a hill," has become political creed and rallying cr...
Richard J. Boles, "Dividing the Faith: The Rise of Segregated Churches in the Early American North" (NYU Press, 2020)
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Dividing the Faith: The Rise of Segregated Churches in the Early American North (NYU Press, 2020), Richard J. Boles argues that, contrary to tra...
Anne Goldman, "Stargazing in the Atomic Age" (U Georgia Press, 2021)
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During World War II, with apocalypse imminent, a group of well-known Jewish artists and scientists sidestepped despair by challenging themselves to so...
Jeffrey B. Perry, "Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918–1927" (Columbia UP, 2020)
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918-1927 (Columbia University 2020) by Jeffrey B. Perry, independent scholar and archivist, is an exten...
Dora Zhang, "Strange Likeness: Description and the Modernist Novel" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this interview, I talk with Dora Zhang, associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, about ...
Bruce Haynes, "Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family" (Columbia UP, 2019)
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family (Columbia UP, 2019) tells the story of one Harlem family across three generations, connec...
Chris Hamby, "Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice" (Little Brown, 2020)
14 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Chris Hamby about his book Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice (Little Brown, 2020). Hamby looks...
Mike Anthony, "Life at Hamilton: Sometimes You Throw Away Your Shot, Only to Find Your Story" (Waterside, 2020)
13 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Mike Anthony moved to New York City to become an actor, he’d imagined being under the bright lights of Broadway, living a life full of fame and...
K. Mistry and H. Gurman, "Whistleblowing Nation: The History of National Security Disclosures and the Cult of State Secrecy" (Columbia UP, 2020)
13 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the past decade, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden became household names. They were celebrated by many as truth-tellers who blew the whistle on g...
T. Maschi and K. Morgen, "Aging Behind Prison Walls: Studies in Trauma and Resilience" (Columbia UP, 2020)
12 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, more than 200,000 men and women over age fifty are languishing in prisons around the United States. It is projected that by 2030, one-third of ...
K. M. Broton and C. L. Cady, "Food Insecurity on Campus: Action and Intervention" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The new essay collection Food Insecurity on College Campuses edited by Katharine M. Broton and Clare L. Cady explores the widespread problem of food...
Barbara Dennis, "Walking with Strangers: Critical Ethnography and Educational Promise" (Peter Lang, 2020)
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Barbara Dennis of Indiana University on her new ethnography, Walking with Strangers: Critical Ethnography and Educa...
Thomas Doherty, "Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century" (Columbia UP, 2020)
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century (Columbia University Press, 2020), Thomas Doherty offers a lively and ...
Daniel Horowitz, "Entertaining Entrepreneurs: Reality TV's Shark Tank and the American Dream in Uncertain Times" (UNC Press, 2020)
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Great Recession threatened the well-being of tens of millions of Americans, dramatically weakened the working class, hollowed out the middle class...
Mike Miley, "Truth and Consequences: Game Shows in Fiction and Film" (UP Mississippi, 2020)
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Although nearly every other television form or genre has undergone a massive critical and popular reassessment or resurgence in the past twenty years,...
David A. Varel, "The Scholar and the Struggle: Lawrence Reddick's Crusade for Black History and Black Power" (UNC Press, 2020)
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most notable African American intellectuals of his generation, Lawrence Reddick helped to spearhead the early Black history movement, serve...
Michael J. Sandel, "The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?" (FSG, 2020)
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalle...
Ari Y. Kelman, "Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in Evangelical America" (NYU Press, 2018)
07 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do songwriters, worship leaders, and music industry professionals collaborate to make music that can become prayer? Ari Y. Kelman explores this qu...
Courtenay Stallings, "Laura's Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks" (Fayetteville Mafia Press, 2020)
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Miranda Corcoran speaks to Courtenay Stallings about her new book, Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks (Fayetteville Mafia...
Ilya Shapiro, "Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest Court" (Gateway, 2020)
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
High drama at the high court. Grandstanding at Senate hearings. Distrust on all sides. Nominations made by presidents and ignored or voted down by the...
Arie Perliger, "American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism" (Columbia UP, 2020)
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In an unsettling time in American history, the outbreak of right-wing violence is among the most disturbing developments. In recent years, attacks ori...
Andrew A. Robichaud, "Animal City: The Domestication of Urban America" (Harvard UP, 2019)
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Americans once lived alongside animals. They raised them, worked them, ate them, and lived off their products. This was true not just in rural areas b...
Claire M. Wolnisty, "A Different Manifest Destiny: U. S. Southern Identity and Citizenship in Nineteenth-Century South America" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Manifest Destiny and the role of expansion in American slavery is dominated by the history of Western migration. In A Different Manifest...
Jodi Rios, "Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis" (Cornell UP, 2020)
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis (Cornell University Press, 2020), Dr. Jodi Rios ...
Michael Kagan, "The Battle to Stay in America: Immigration's Hidden Front Line" (U of Nevada Press, 2020)
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The debate over American immigration policy has obsessed politicians and disrupted the lives of millions of people for decades. In The Battle To Stay...
Anthony Valerio, "Before the Sidewalk Ended: A Walk with Shel Silverstein" (Daisy H. Productions, 2020)
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anthony Valerio's Before the Sidewalk Ended: A Walk with Shel Silverstein (Daisy H. Productions, 2020) is a startling portrait of the great writer ...
Jen Manion, "Female Husbands: A Trans History" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Long before people identified as transgender or lesbian, there were female husbands and the women who loved them. Female husbands - people assigned fe...
Lauren Jae Gutterman, "Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019)
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Through interviews, diaries, memoirs, and letters, Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage (University of Pennsylvania Pres...
Erin Mayo-Adam, "Queer Alliances: How Power Shapes Political Movement Formation" (Stanford UP, 2020)
31 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Queer Alliances: How Power Shapes Political Movement Formation (Stanford UP, 2020) examines not only the policies that political movements advocate f...
K. A. Young and M. Schwartz, "Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It" (Verso, 2020)
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is often assumed that American politics is dominated by financial elites and the 1%, who use their massive wealth to gain power and influence, push...
Kyle Riismandel, "Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975–2001" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
29 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One of the lures that drew Americans to the suburbs in the years after World War II was the promise of a secure life. By the mid-1970s, however, it se...
Charles R. Acland, "American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder" (Duke UP, 2020)
29 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ben-Hur (1959), Jaws (1975), Avatar (2009), Wonder Woman (2017): the blockbuster movie has held a dominant position in American popular culture...
Samuel Zipp, "The Idealist: Wendell Willkie's Wartime Quest to Build One World" (Harvard UP, 2020)
29 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1940s, many Americans began to rethink America’s place in the world, and they did so with the help of Wendell Wilkie. Wilikie, the 1940 R...
Elizabeth Catte, "Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia" (Belt, 2021)
29 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1927 and 1979, more than 8,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in five hospitals across the state of Virginia. From this plain and terrib...
Simon J. Gilhooley, "The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution: Slavery and the Spirit of the American Founding" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution: Slavery and the Spirit of the American Founding (Cambridge University Press, 2020) argues that con...
Donald F. Johnson, "Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When we read the Declaration of Independence, what tends to jump off the page are the lofty propositions concerning natural rights. Yet over a third o...
Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, "War for Eternity: Inside Bannon's Far-right Circle of Global Power Brokers" (Dey Street Books, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An explosive and unprecedented inside look at Steve Bannon's entourage of global powerbrokers and the hidden alliances shaping today's geopolitical up...
Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, "After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency" (Lawfair Press, 2020)
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, two attorneys who have worked, respectively, in the Barack Obama and the George W. Bush Administrations, have written a ...
Jonathan Zimmerman, "The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Zimmerman’s The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020) is the first full-length history of coll...
Matt Christman, "The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason" (Simon & Schuster, 2019)
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Let’s face it, 2020 has been a hell of a year. We could all use a good laugh. But as historians and/or fans of history, we have to read something hi...
Miriam Kalman Friedman, "Rivers of Light: The Life of Claire Myers Owens" (Syracuse UP, 2019)
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in a conservative, middle-class family in Texas, Claire Myers Owens sought adventure and freedom at an early age. At twenty years old, she ...
Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter, "Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade" (Columbia UP, 2013)
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s surfing and smoking pot went hand in hand. As surfers traveled the world in search of perfect waves in places like Bali, Indonesia, some ...
Isar P. Godreau, "Scripts of Blackness: Race, Cultural Nationalism, and U.S. Colonialism in Puerto Rico" (U Illinois Press, 2015)
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is part of our Special Series on Third World Nationalism. In the wake of a rise in nationalism around the world, and its general condemnation b...
Ashon T. Crawley, "The Lonely Letters" (Duke UP, 2020)
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In The Lonely Letters (Duke UP, 2020), A tells Moth: “Writing about and thinking with joy is what sustains me, daily. It nourishes me. I do not w...
Edwin Wilson, "Magic Time, a Memoir: Notes on Theatre & Other Entertainment" (Smith & Kraus, 2020)
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Edwin Wilson's book Magic Time, a Memoir: Notes on Theatre & Other Entertainment (Smith & Kraus, 2020) is a spirited memoir of a long and fruitful...
J. A. Ball and T. Burroughs, "A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X" (Black Classic Press, 2015)
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is part of our Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. In this series, we delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and though...
Pete Croatto, "From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment, and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA" (Atria Books, 2020)
21 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The birth of the modern-day NBA is often attributed to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and David Stern. In From Hang Time to Prime Time: Bu...
Alicia Puglionesi, "Common Phantoms: An American History of Psychic Science" (Stanford UP, 2020)
18 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Séances, clairvoyance, and telepathy captivated public imagination in the United States from the 1850s well into the twentieth century. Though skepti...