New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Steven W. Webster, "American Rage: How Anger Shapes Our Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Steven W. Webster about his book American Rage: How Anger Shapes Our Politics (Cambridge UP, 2020). We discuss the behavioral im...
Michael E. Sawyer, "Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X" (Pluto Press, 2020)
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part of a Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. In this series, we delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and ...
Ian Ayres and Fredrick E. Vars, "Weapon of Choice: Fighting Gun Violence While Respecting Gun Rights" (Harvard UP, 2020)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, gun violence is in a state of national crisis, yet efforts to reform gun regulation face significant political and constitutiona...
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, "Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge" (Simon and Schuster, 2017)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge ...
Mark Wild, "Renewal: Liberal Protestants and the American City After World War II" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Renewal: Liberal Protestants and the American City after World War II (U Chicago Press, 2019), Mark Wild traces the achievements and losses of A...
Martha S. Jones, "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All" (Basic Books, 2020)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power-and how it transformed America In the standard story, the suffrage crusade beg...
Nick Haddad, "The Last Butterflies: A Scientist's Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature" (Princeton UP, 2019)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Butterflies have long captivated the imagination of humans, from naturalists to children to poets. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a world without ...
Daniel S. Lucks, "Reconsidering Reagan: Racism, Republicans, and the Road to Trump" (Beacon Press, 2020)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ronald Reagan is regarded today as one of the most consequential presidents of the postwar era, yet many aspects of his legacy are largely unappreciat...
Trevor Pearce, "Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
15 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Pragmatism’s Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 2020), Trevor Pearce demonstrates that the...
Waleed F. Mahdi, "Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation" (Syracuse UP, 2020)
15 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It comes as little surprise that Hollywood films have traditionally stereotyped Arab Americans, but how are Arab Americans portrayed in Arab films, an...
Tony Bolden, "Groove Theory: The Blues Foundation of Funk" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Groove Theory: The Blues Foundation of Funk (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) by Tony Bolden, an Associate Professor of African and African Ame...
Nazita Lajevardi, "Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What is the status of Muslim Americans in American democracy? Dr. Nazita Lajevardi’s superb new study concludes they are ‘outsiders at home.’ In...
Brandon Mills, "The World Colonization Made: The Racial Geography of Early American Empire" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Brandon Mills is the author of The World Colonization Made: The Racial Geography of Early American Empire, published by the University of Pennsylvani...
Susan M. Reverby, "Co-Conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman" (UNC Press, 2020)
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Alan Berkman (1945–2009) was no campus radical in the mid-1960s; he was a promising Ivy League student, football player, Eagle Scout, and fraternity...
Timothy Hampton, "Bob Dylan: How the Songs Work" (Zone Books, 2020)
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Timothy Hampton's Bob Dylan: How the Songs Work (Zone Books, 2020) is a fascinating and meticulous study of Bob Dylan's songwriting craft. Hampton d...
Erica Fretwell, "Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race, and the Aesthetics of Feeling" (Duke UP, 2020)
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We so often take our senses as natural, but perhaps we should understand them as historically situated. Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race and ...
Justin Gifford, "Revolution Or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver" (Lawrence Hill, 2020)
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Revolution Or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver (Lawrence Hill Books, 2020) is a remarkable biography that examines the notorious Black revolution...
Stacie Taranto and Leandra Zarnow, "Suffrage at 100: Women in American Politics since 1920" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
10 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Suffrage at 100: Women in American Politics since 1920 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020) is a wonderful and sweeping exploration of the way that women and th...
Matthew Spady, "The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It" (Fordham UP, 2020)
09 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In northern Manhattan in 1841, the naturalist John James Audubon bought 14 acres of farmland on the banks of the Hudson River and built his family a h...
Timothy P. Storhoff, "Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) explores the channels of musical exchange between Cuba...
Ben Tarnoff and Moira Weigel, "Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do and How They Do It" (FSG Originals, 2020)
07 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do and How They Do It (FSG Originals, 2020), the celebrated writers and Logic cofound...
Carl R. Trueman, "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution" (Crossway, 2020)
07 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“My aim is to explain how and why a certain notion of the self has come to dominate the culture of the West, why this self finds its most obvious ma...
E. Chemerinsky and H. Gillman, "The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State" (Oxford UP, 2020)
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout American history, views on the proper relationship between the state and religion have been deeply divided. And, with recent changes in the...
Caroline H. Yang, "The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form" (Stanford UP, 2020)
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form (Stanford University Press, 2020) explores how antiblack racism lived on...
D. T. Lawrence and E. J. Lawless, "When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri" (UP of Mississippi, 2018)
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The town of Pinhook in Missouri was founded in the 1940s by southern Black farmers who were looking for land that they could purchase and own in the f...
Michael Brenes, "For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)
03 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump campaigned on a great many things in 2016, but one of the issues he used to criticize Democrats was their role in supporting sequestratio...
Mark Somos, "American States of Nature: The Origins of Independence, 1761-1775" (Oxford UP, 2019)
03 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Federalist no. 2, John Jay considered the ‘wide spreading country’ of the American republic. It was, he argued, as if the land itself was fas...
Nancy D. Campbell, "OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose" (MIT Press, 2020)
03 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Reducing harm or shrinking the likelihood of accidental death are remarkably contentions projects—in areas from sex education, to pandemic managemen...
M. T. Mulder and G. Marti, "The Glass Church: Robert H. Schuller, the Crystal Cathedral, and the Strain of Megachurch Ministry" (Rutgers UP, 2020)
02 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In The Glass Church: Robert H. Schuller, the Crystal Cathedral, and the Strain of Megachurch Ministry (Rutgers UP, 2020), Mark Mulder and Gerardo Ma...
Anjali Vats, "The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans" (Stanford UP, 2020)
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans (Stanford University Press, 2020) by Anjali Vats is an intricat...
Claire Herbert, "A Detroit Story: Urban Decline and the Rise of Property Informality" (U California Press, 2021)
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bringing to the fore a wealth of original research, A Detroit Story: Urban Decline and the Rise of Property Informality (University of California Pr...
College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom: A Conversation with Eddie R. Cole
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some of America's most pressing civil rights issues--desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free s...
Carl Rollyson, "The Life of William Faulkner: This Alarming Paradox, 1935-1962" (U Virginia Press, 2020)
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
By 1935 William Faulkner was well established as an author of critically praised novels, yet the low volume of his sales forced him to seek work in Ho...
Jonathan Boyarin, "Yeshiva Days: Learning on the Lower East Side" (Princeton UP, 2020)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
New York City's Lower East Side has witnessed a severe decline in its Jewish population in recent decades, yet every morning in the big room of the ci...
Jill Watts, "The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt" (Grove Press, 2020)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When did Black Americans move from stalwart party of Lincoln Republicans to dedicated New Deal Democrats? How did a group of self-organized Black econ...
Clayborne Carson, "Malcolm X: The FBI File" (Skyhorse, 2012)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is a Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. We delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and thought in the context of Black Na...
David Adjmi, "Lot Six" (Harper, 2020)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lot Six (Harper 2020) is a moving and hilarious memoir from playwright David Adjmi. The book traces Adjmi’s search for his identity, during which h...
Matthew H. Rafalow, "Digital Divisions: How Schools Create Inequality in the Tech Era" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I speak with Matt Rafalow, about his book, Digital Divisions: How Schools Create Inequality in the Tech Era (University of Chicago...
Harvey Araton, "Our Last Season: A Writer, a Fan, a Friendship" (Penguin, 2020)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Harvey Araton’s new book Our Last Season: A Writer, a Fan, a Friendship (Penguin, 2020), reads like a mix between Tuesdays with Morrie and a seq...
Jennifer M. Randles, "Essential Dads: The Inequalities and Politics of Fathering" (U California Press, 2020)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Essential Dads: The Inequalities and Politics of Fathering (University of California Press, 2020), sociologist Jennifer Randles shares the stor...
Tabassum Fahim Ruby, "Muslim Women's Rights: Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada" (Routledge, 2019)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Muslim Women’s Rights: Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada (Routledge 2019) By Tabassum Fahim Ruby follows the legal debates and pub...
D. G. Young, "Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States" (Oxford UP, 2019)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (s/t) Dr. Dannagal Goldthwaite Young (s/h) about why liberals love satire and conservativ...
Jim Downs, "Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation" (Basic Books, 2016)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the tremendous gains of the LGBT movement in recent years, the history of gay life in this country remains poorly understood. According to con...
Travis Vogan, "ABC Sports: The Rise and Fall of Network Sports Television" (U California Press, 2018)
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Travis Vogan, Associate Professor of Journalism and American Studies at the University of Iowa, and the author of ABC Sports: ...
Justin Gage, "We Do Not Want the Gates Closed Between Us: Native Networks and the Spread of the Ghost Dance" (U Oklahoma Press, 2020)
24 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Writing to U.S. President Grover Cleveland in 1888, Oglala Lakota leaders Little Wound, Young Man Afraid of His Horses, and Red Cloud insisted upon a ...
Ellen Lamont, "The Mating Game: How Gender Still Shapes How We Date" (U California Press, 2020)
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ellen Lamont's new book The Mating Game: How Gender Still Shapes How We Date (University of California Press, 2020) offers an in-depth analysis of ...
Nicholas Guyatt, "Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation" (Basic Books, 2016)
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why did the Founding Fathers fail to include blacks and Indians in their cherished proposition that “all men are created equal”? Racism is the usu...
Liza Black, "Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941-1960" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Behind the braided wigs, buckskins, and excess bronzer that typified the mid-century "filmic Indian" lies a far richer, deeper history of Indigenous l...
Andre E. Johnson, "No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner' (UP Mississippi, 2020)
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
No Future in this Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner by Andre E. Johnson, an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media St...
Jon D. Schaff, "Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy" (SIU Press, 2019)
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There are so many Abraham Lincolns. There is the ruthless Lincoln willing to suspend habeas corpus and who, as president, presided over record levels ...
Christina Meyer, "Producing Mass Entertainment: The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid" (Ohio State UP, 2019)
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Yellow Kid was a ubiquitous figure at the end of the nineteenth century. Originally created by Richard F. Outcault, the Kid first appeared as a ch...
Luke A. Nichter, "The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War" (Yale UP, 2020)
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the grand-son of Woodrow Wilson’s senatoria...
Benjamin F. Armstrong, "Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two centuries before the daring exploits of Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders captured the public imagination, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were already...
Vanessa Diaz, "Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood" (Duke UP, 2020)
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While Hollywood’s images present a veneer of fantasy for some, the work to create such images is far from escapism. In Manufacturing Celebrity: Lat...
Saladin Ambar, "Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era" (Oxford UP, 2014)
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1964, Malcolm X was invited to debate at the Oxford Union Society at Oxford University. The topic of debate that evening was the infamous phrase fr...
Jerome Slater, "Mythologies Without End: The US, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917-2020" (Oxford UP, 2020)
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The history of modern Israel is a fiercely contested subject. From the Balfour declaration to the Six-Day War to the recent assault on Gaza, ideologic...
Conspiracy Theories are More Dangerous Than Ever: A Discussion with Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracis...
Kat D. Williams, "Isabel 'Lefty' Alvarez: The Improbable Life of a Cuban American Baseball Star" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For many of its participants, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) offered them an opportunity to change their lives, yet few ...
R. Muirhead and N. L. Rosenblum, "A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy" (Princeton UP, 2019)
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracis...
Eithne Quinn, "A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood" (Columbia UP, 2019)
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What is the history of equal rights in Hollywood? In A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia UP, 2019), Ei...
Audrey J. Horning, "Ireland in the Virginian Sea: Colonialism in the British Atlantic" (UNC Press, 2017)
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Ireland in the Virginian Sea: Colonialism in the British Atlantic (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Audrey Horning revisits the fraught...
David Vine, "The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State" (U California Press, 2020)
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since its founding, the United States has been at peace for only eleven years. Across nearly two-and-a-half centuries, that’s a lot of war. In his...
Arlene Davila, "Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, and Politics" (Duke UP, 2020)
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, and Politics (Duke UP, 2020), Arlene Dávila draws on numerous interviews with artists, dealers, and curators to ...
Ido Hartogsohn, "American Trip: Set, Setting, and the Psychedelic Experience in the Twentieth Century" (MIT Press, 2020)
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Are psychedelics invaluable therapeutic medicines, or dangerously unpredictable drugs that precipitate psychosis? Tools for spiritual communion or cog...
Lucas A. Dietrich, "Writing Across the Color Line: U.S. Print Culture and the Rise of Ethnic Literature, 1877-1920" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Writing Across the Color Line: U.S. Print Culture and the Rise of Ethnic Literature, 1877-1920 (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), Lucas ...
Kevin O'Leary, "Madison's Sorrow: Today's War on the Founders and America's Liberal Ideal" (Pegasus Books, 2020)
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The story of America is the struggle between our liberal ideal and illiberal resistance. Donald Trump catalyzed a reactionary revolution by tapping in...
Kevin Mattson, "We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America" (Oxford UP, 2020)
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America (Oxford UP, 2020), Kevin Mattson d...
Mark Glancy, "Cary Grant: The Making of a Hollywood Legend" (Oxford UP, 2020)
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Cary Grant: The Making of a Hollywood Legend (Oxford University Press, 2020) tells the incredible story of how a sad, neglected boy became the suave,...
Robert Vitalis, "Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy" (Stanford UP, 2020)
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We've heard and rehearsed the conventional wisdom about oil: that the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees access to this str...
Kevin Leo Nadal, "Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System" (Lexington Book, 2020)
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout US history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have been pathologized, victimized, and criminalized. Reports of ...
Christine Hong, "A Violent Peace: Race, U.S. Militarism, and Cultures of Democratization in Cold War Asia and the Pacific" (Stanford UP, 2020)
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The image of the US as leading a good war to establish liberal democracy and move towards racial equality dominate the discourses of the Cold War. In ...
Julia S. Charles, "That Middle World: Race, Performance, and the Politics of Passing" (UNC Press, 2020)
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this chronologically and thematically ambitious study of racial passing literature, Julia Charles highlights how mixed-race subjects invent cultura...
Chas Smith, "Cocaine and Surfing: A Sordid History of Surfing’s Greatest Love Affair" (Rare Bird, 2018)
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Surfers are the ultimate bad boys, living the counter-culture life of decadence and hedonism as they travel the world in search of the perfect wave, p...
Billy Coleman, "Harnessing Harmony: Music, Power, and Politics in the United States, 1788-1865" (UNC Press, 2020)
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
CAN you hear the people sing? Political music is often understood as the property of the common people, used as a potent (and noisy) weapon against th...
John Garrison Marks, "Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery: Race, Status, and Identity in the Urban Americas" (U of South Carolina Press, 2020)
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Prior to the abolition of slavery, thousands of African-descended people in the Americas lived in freedom. Their efforts to navigate daily life and ne...
Eric Rutkow, "The Longest Line on the Map The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas" (Scribner, 2019)
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his book The Longest Line on the Map The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas (Scribner, 2019), Professor Er...
Tera W. Hunter, "Bound In Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century" (Harvard UP, 2017)
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Americans have long viewed marriage between a white man and a white woman as a sacred union. But marriages between African Americans have seldom been ...
Walker Robins, "Between Dixie and Zion: Southern Baptists and Palestine before Israel" (U Alabama Press, 2020)
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Between Dixie and Zion: Southern Baptists and Palestine before Israel (University of Alabama Press, 2020), Walker Robins explores how Southern Bapt...
Agnès Delahaye, "Settling the Good Land: Governance and Promotion in John Winthrop’s New England" (Brill, 2020)
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Agnès Delahaye’s new book, Settling the Good Land: Governance and Promotion in John Winthrop’s New England (Brill, 2020), is the story of John Wi...
Jennifer S. Light, "States of Childhood: From the Junior Republic to the American Republic, 1895-1945" (MIT Press, 2020)
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A number of curious communities sprang up across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century: simulated cities, states, and n...
Connor Towne O’Neill, "Down Along with That Devil’s Bones" (Algonquin Books, 2020)
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Down Along with That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy (Algonquin Books, 2020), journalist Con...
David S. Nasca, "The Emergence of American Amphibious Warfare, 1898 to 1945" (Naval Institute Press, 2020)
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amphibious warfare, as outlined by American Rear Admiral James E. Jouett in 1885, was a relatively straightforward affair: to project power from the s...
Kathryn A. Mariner, "Contingent Kinship: The Flows and Futures of Adoption in the United States" (U California Press, 2019)
03 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Contingent Kinship: The Flows and Futures of Adoption in the United States (University of California Press, 2019) offers an ethnography of adoption pr...
J. A. Delton, "The Industrialists: How the National Association of Manufacturers Shaped American Capitalism" (Princeton UP, 2020)
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Historians often portray the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) as a conservative force in debates over free enterprise, battles against unio...
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, "Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right" (Princeton UP, 2020)
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A startling look at the unexpected places where violent hate groups recruit young people. Hate crimes. Misinformation and conspiracy theories. Foiled ...
Ian Buruma, "The Churchill Complex" (Penguin Press, 2020)
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From one of its keenest observers, The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, from Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit (Penguin Press) is a br...
F. H. Buckley, "American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Break-Up" (Encounter Books, 2020)
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Francis Buckley, who is Foundation Professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, has written a fast-moving and provocative new ...
Emily J. Lordi, "The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 1960s" (Duke UP, 2020)
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Soul is one of those concepts that is often evoked, but rarely satisfactorily defined. In The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 19...
Eddie Cole, "The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom" (Princeton UP, 2020)
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some of America’s most pressing civil rights issues—desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and fre...
Robert Fieseler, "Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation" (Liveright, 2018)
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An essential work of American civil rights history, Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation (Liveright...
Michael Stamm, "Dead Tree Media: Manufacturing the Newspaper in Twentieth-Century North America" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Stamm’s book Dead Tree Media: Manufacturing the Newspaper in Twentieth-Century North America (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018) begins with the simple...
Robert Zoellick, "America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy" (Twelve, 2020)
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ranging from Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and James Baker, America in the World: A H...
Thomas Abt, "Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence" (Basic Books, 2019)
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How do we promote peace in the streets? In his new book Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence--and a Bold New Plan for Peace in...
Victor Pickard, "Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society" (Oxford UP, 2020)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Few freedoms in the United States are as cherished as freedom of the press." So begins Chapter One of Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the...
John Yoo, "Defender in Chief: Donald Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power" (All Points Book, 2020)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
John Yoo, the Emanual S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, has written what he terms a surprising defens...
Barry C. Lynn, "Liberty From All Masters: The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People” (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Americans are obsessed with liberty, mad about liberty. On any day, we can tune into arguments about how much liberty we need to buy a gun or get an a...
David Davis, "Wheels of Courage: How Paralyzed Veterans from World War II Invented Wheelchair Sports" (Center Street, 2020)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Out of the carnage of World War II comes an unforgettable tale about defying the odds and finding hope in the most harrowing of circumstances. Wheels ...
Warren Hoffman, "The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical", 2nd edition (Rutgers UP, 2020)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Warren Hoffman’s The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical, 2nd edition (Rutgers UP, 2020) explores the ways that race and racism have shap...
Karlos K. Hill, "The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History" (Oxford UP, 2020)
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The image of Emmett Till’s open coffin, revealing the 14-year old’s horrifically disfigured face, is one of the most heart-wrenching images of the...
John Lobell, "Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy" (Monacelli Press, 2020)
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For everyone interested in the enduring appeal of Louis Kahn, this book demonstrates that a close look at how Kahn put his buildings together will rev...