New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Berry Grass, "Hall of Waters" (Operating System, 2019)
10 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today I interview Berry Grass, an essayist with a powerful new collection of linked essays called Hall of Waters (Operating System, 2019). Grass’s a...
Sarah Burns, "The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism" (UP of Kansas, 2020)
09 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Burns’ new book The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism (University Press of Kansas, 2020) pulls tog...
Walter Nugent, "Color Coded: Party Politics in the American West, 1950–2016" (U Oklahoma Press, 2018)
09 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The political West is far from monochrome, writes Walter Nugent in Color Coded: Party Politics in the American West, 1950–2016 (University of Oklaho...
Larry Wolff, "Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe" (Stanford UP, 2020)
06 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allied powers met to reenvision the map of Europe in the aftermath of World War I, President ...
Jonathan Hopkin, "Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
06 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Should we understand the rise of Trump or the success of Brexit in terms of populism? Culture? Xenophobia? Do the same political forces produce Sander...
Jennifer E. Gaddis, "The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools" (U California Press, 2019)
06 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a problem with school lunch in America. Big Food companies have largely replaced the nation’s school cooks by supplying cafeterias with ch...
Justin Nystrom, "Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture" (U Georgia Press, 2018)
05 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Justin Nystrom about his latest book, Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orle...
Rebecca E. Zietlow, "The Forgotten Emancipator: James Mitchell Ashley and the Ideological Origins of Reconstruction" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
05 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Though the story of emancipation is well known in American history, the roles of many of the key figures involved in it are often overlooked. Among th...
Mort Zachter, "Red Holzman: The Life and Legacy of a Hall of Fame Basketball Coach" (Sports Publishing, 2019)
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many books have been written about Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusscherre and the other great players on the New York Knicks champ...
Kathy Peiss, "The Information Hunters" (Oxford UP, 2019)
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While armies have seized enemy records and rare texts as booty throughout history, it was only during World War II that an unlikely band of librarians...
Lynn Neal, "Religion in Vogue: Christianity and Fashion in America" (NYU Press, 2019)
03 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Christian imagery, symbols, and motifs have long been used and incorporated in fashion. Famous designers such as Coco Chanel, Gianni Versace, and Dolc...
Lana Dee Povitz, "Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice" (UNC Press, 2019)
03 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the last three decades of the twentieth century, government cutbacks, stagnating wages, AIDS, and gentrification pushed ever more people into pover...
Erika Engstrom, "Feminism, Gender, and Politics in NBC’s Parks and Recreation" (Peter Lang, 2017)
03 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Erika Engstrom is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her latest book, Feminism, Gender, and Politics in NBC’...
Maria Ryan, "Full Spectrum Dominance: Irregular Warfare and the War on Terror" (Stanford UP, 2019)
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
America's war on terror is widely defined by the Afghanistan and Iraq fronts. Yet, as this book demonstrates, both the international campaign and the ...
Michael Rechtenwald, "Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom" (New English Review, 2019)
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his book about enormous sea changes brought about by digital technology, Michael Rectenwald begins and ends his Google Archipelago: The Digital Gul...
Ellen Griffith Spears, "Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town" (UNC Press, 2016)
28 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Ellen Griffith Spears of the University of Alabama, author of Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town (Univer...
Diana Lemberg, "Barriers Down: How American Power and Free-Flow Policies Shaped Global Media" (Columbia UP, 2019)
28 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 1940s, America’s relations with the rest of the world have been guided by the idea of promoting the free flow of information. It’s an id...
Graham R. G. Hodges, "Black New Jersey 1664 to the Present Day" (Rutgers UP, 2019)
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Black New Jersey 1664 to the Present Day (Rutgers University Press, 2018) by Graham Russell Gao Hodges, George Langdon, Jr. Professor of History and A...
Kimberly Dark, "Fat, Pretty, and Soon to Be Old: A Makeover for Self and Society" (AK Press, 2019)
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Fat, Pretty, and Soon to Be Old: A Makeover for Self and Society (AK Press 2019), sociologist and storyteller Kimberly Dark considers ...
Emily E. LB. Twarog, "Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth-Century America" (Oxford UP, 2017)
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The history of women's political involvement has focused heavily on electoral politics, but throughout the twentieth century women engaged in grassroo...
Great Books: Deborah Plant on Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
25 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.” This line from Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God, captures wh...
Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020)
25 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Philli...
Phil Christman, "Midwest Futures" (Belt Publishing, 2020)
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What does the future hold for the Midwest? A vast stretch of fertile farmland bordering one of the largest concentrations of fresh water in the world,...
Orly Clergé, "The New Noir: Race, Identity and Diaspora in Black Suburbia" (U California Press, 2019)
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How has the expansion of the Black American middle class and the increase in the number of Black immigrants among them since the Civil Rights period t...
Daniel Skinner, "Medical Necessity: Health Care Access and the Politics of Decision Making" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The definition of medical necessity has morphed over the years, from a singular physician’s determination to a complex and dynamic political contest...
Steve Suitts, "Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement" (NewSouth Books, 2020)
21 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
School choice, widely touted as a system that would ensure underprivileged youth have an equal opportunity in education, has grown in popularity in th...
Bryant Simon, "The Hamlet Fire: A Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives" (The New Press, 2017)
21 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bryant Simon, Professor of History at Temple University, discusses his new book, The Hamlet Fire: A Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap L...
Amy Shira Teitel, "Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA" (Bloomsbury, 2016)
21 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amy Shira Teitel talks about Apollo and the community of people who are deeply attached to space history. Teitel is a spaceflight historian and the cr...
L. Benjamin Rolsky, "The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left" (Columbia UP, 2019)
21 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As someone who grew up watching All in the Family and Sanford and Son, I’ve long been familiar with Norman Lear and his work. What I didn’t know, ...
Ryan Weber, "Cosmopolitanism and Transatlantic Circles in Music and Literature" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018)
20 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Musicologists have long tried to understand how cosmopolitanism and nationalism affected classical music. Ryan Weber takes on this task in his book, C...
Randal Schnoor, "Jewish Family: Identity and Self-Formation at Home" (Indiana UP, 2018)
20 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Jewish Family: Identity and Self-Formation at Home (Indiana University Press, 2018), Alex Pomson and Randal Schnoor examine the impact of the famil...
Kristen Millares Young, "Subduction" (Red Hen Press, 2020)
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Kristen Millares Young’s debut novel, Subduction (Red Hen Press, 2020), provides a lyrical exploration of cultural encounters in the Pacific Northwe...
Peter Cole, "Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area" (U Illinois Press, 2018)
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is a fascinating, densely researched...
Eddie Michel, "The White House and White Africa" (Routledge, 2018)
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence was one of the last crises of formal imperialism. British settlers in present-day Zimbabwe, then ...
Donald L. Miller, "Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy" (Simon and Schuster, 2019)
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Donald L. Miller explains in great detail how Grant ultimately s...
Great Books: Emily Bernard on Larsen's "Passing"
18 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nella Larsen's gripping 1929 novel Passing recounts the fateful encounter, first on a fancy Chicago hotel rooftop restaurant on a sweltering August af...
Eric Lomazoff, "Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy: Politics and Law in the Early American Republic" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
18 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Lomazoff has written a kind of detective novel about the national bank controversy during the early years of the new republic. Lomazoff poses, i...
Lee Drutman, "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America" (Oxford UP, 2020)
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There are quite a few authors writing about the problems facing American democracy and how best to solve those problems. Many of the problematic issue...
Iyko Day, "Alien Capital: Asian Racialization and the Logic of Settler Colonial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2016)
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In our efforts to comprehend the systematic dispossession of indigenous peoples in settler colonies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, or I...
Juliane Hammer, "Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts Against Domestic Violence" (Princeton UP, 2019)
14 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How do Muslim Americans respond to domestic violence? What motivates Muslim individuals and organizations to work towards eradicating domestic violenc...
Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle, "Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy" (The New Press, 2018)
14 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle, Professors of History at California State University—Fresno, discuss their co-authored book, Denmark Vesey’s Gar...
James K. Wellman, Jr., "High on God: How Megachurches Won the Heart of America" (Oxford UP, 2020)
13 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, the number of megachurches increased from 350 in 1990 to over 1,600 in 2011 with that number continuing to grow exponentially in...
Rupert Lewis, "Marcus Garvey" (UP of West Indies, 2018)
13 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rupert Lewis has written a biography of Marcus Garvey published by the University Press of the West Indies in 2018. His book Marcus Garvey documents t...
A. K. Sandoval-Strausz, "Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City" (Basic Books, 2019)
12 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In A. K. Sandoval-Strausz’s recent work, Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City (Basic Books, 2019), ties together a magnific...
Kimberly Meltzer, “From News to Talk: The Expansion of Opinion and Commentary in U.S. Journalism” (SUNY Press, 2019)
12 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From talking heads on cable news to hot takes online, there seems to be more opinion than ever in journalism these days. There’s an entire body of r...
Jay Wexler, "Our Non-Christian Nation" (Redwood Press, 2019)
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Less and less Christian demographically, America is now home to an ever-larger number of people who say they identify with no religion at all. These n...
Mario T. García, "Father Luis Olivares, A Biography: Faith Politics and the Origins of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles" (UNC Press, 2018)
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the leader of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles during the 1980s, Father Luis Olivares brazenly defied local Catholic authorities and the feder...
Great Books: Benjamin Reiss on Thoreau's "Walden"
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
America’s “environmental prophet,” Henry David Thoreau, set out for a simpler, more mindful, and more deeply lived life on Walden Pond on July 4...
Roger Gilles, "Women on the Move: The Forgotten Era of Women’s Bicycle Racing" (U Nebraska Press, 2018)
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Roger Gilles, Director of the Honors College and Professor of Writing at Grand Valley State University, and author of Women on ...
Megan Kate Nelson, "The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West" (Scribner, 2019)
10 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What did the American Civil War look like from Diné Bikéyah and Apacheria? This is just one of the many questions that drives historian Megan Kate N...
Jodie Adams Kirshner, "Broke: Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promise" (St. Martin's Press, 2019)
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Broke: Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promise (St. Martin's Press, 2019), Jodie Adams Kirshner tells the story of the peo...
Saladin Ambar, "Reconsidering American Political Thought: A New Identity" (Routledge, 2019)
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Saladin Ambar has written a masterful examination and analysis of American political thought in this new book which does, in fact, reconsider our thin...
Howard Jones, "My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness" (Oxford UP, 2017)
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his book My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness (Oxford UP, 2017), Dr. Howard Jones describes how on March 16th, 1968, several units ...
Michael F. Robinson, "The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture" (U Chicago Press, 2006)
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Radio host Kevin Fox interviews Michael F. Robinson about the history of American Arctic exploration, the subject of his book, The Coldest Crucible: A...
Blain Roberts, "Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the Twentieth-Century South" (UNC Press, 2016)
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Blain Roberts of California State University, Fresno, talks about intersections of race, identity, and memory in the South in a wide-ranging...
Brad Balukjian, "The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
06 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Brad Balukjian, author of the book The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife (University of Nebraska, ...
Kate Lockwood Harris, "Beyond the Rapist: Title IX and Sexual Violence on US Campuses" (Oxford UP, 2019)
06 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at ...
Christian J. Koot, "A Biography of a Map in Motion: Augustine Herrman’s Chesapeake" (NYU Press, 2017)
06 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Labels on a map: Surrey. Lower Norfolk. The Isle of Wight. Northumberland. Middlesex. Not a map England, but of the British colonies of Virginia and M...
Michael Bobelian, "Battle for the Marble Palace: Abe Fortas, Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the Forging of the Modern Supreme Court" (Schaffner, 2019)
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Bobelian has written a history of the nomination of Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968. In Battle for the Marble...
Matthew Goodman, "The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team" (Ballantine Books, 2019)
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 1949-50 CCNY Beavers basketball team were one of the unlikeliest of champions in sports history. CCNY was a tuition-free in Harlem, New York, inte...
R. Scott Huffard, Jr., "Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South" (UNC Press, 2019)
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
R. Scott Huffard Jr. is the author of Engines of Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South, published by the Univers...
David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe, "Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America" (UC Press, 2020)
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It seems unthinkable that citizens of one of the most powerful nations in the world must risk their lives and livelihoods in the search for access to ...
Great Books: Glenn Wallis on Gibran's "The Prophet"
04 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Kahlil Gibran’s 1923 The Prophet is book that’s changed people’s lives. It is a deceptively simple book, but it contains a radical insight. “O...
Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, "Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean" (Princeton UP, 2019)
03 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the late nineteenth century, a small group of Cubans and Puerto Ricans of African descent settled in the segregated tenements of New York City. At ...
Jacob Remes, "Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era" (U Illinois Press, 2015)
31 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Jacob Remes of SUNY Empire State College discusses his book, Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era (...
Catherine Newell, "Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2017)
31 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Catherine Newell talks about the religious roots of the final frontier, focusing on the collaboration of artist Chesley Bonestell, science writer Will...
SpearIt, “American Prisons: A Critical Primer on Culture and Conversion to Islam” (First Edition Design, 2017)
31 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
America has the largest incarcerated population in the world. This staggering and troubling fact has driven a great deal of scholarship. Much of this ...
Andrea Boyles, "You Can’t Stop the Revolution: Community Disorder and Social Ties in Post-Ferguson America" (U California Press, 2019)
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“Black lives matter before death.” (p.132) In her powerful new book, You Can’t Stop the Revolution: Community Disorder and Social Ties in Post-F...
Catherine A. Stewart, "Long Past Slavery: Representing Race in the Federal Writers’ Project" (UNC Press, 2016)
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Catherine A. Stewart is the author of Long Past Slavery: Representing Race in the Federal Writers’ Project, published by the University of North Car...
K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. How...
Christopher J. Phillips, "Scouting and Scoring: How We Know What We Know About Baseball" (Princeton UP, 2019)
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The so-called Sabermetrics revolution in baseball that began in the 1970s, popularized by the book—and later Hollywood film—Moneyball, was suppose...
Gregory P. Downs, "The Second American Revolution: The Civil War-Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic" (UNC Press, 2019)
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Much of the confusion about a central event in United States history begins with the name the "Civil War." In reality, the Civil War was not merely ci...
Andrew R. M. Smith, "No Way But To Fight: George Foreman and the Business of Boxing" (U Texas Press, 2020)
28 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Andrew R. M. Smith, author of No Way But To Fight: George Foreman and the Business of Boxing (University of Texas Press, 2020)....
Leah Stokes, "Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy" (Oxford UP, 2020)
28 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why do even successful clean energy policies fail to create momentum for more renewable energy? In her new book Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Grou...
Mark Katz, "Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World" (Oxford UP, 2019)
28 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2014, a cohort of twenty-five hip hop artists assembled in Washington, D.C. for the first orientation meeting of a new cultural diplomacy pro...
Daniel Denvir, "All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It" (Verso, 2020)
27 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is often said that with the election of Donald Trump nativism was raised from the dead. After all, here was a president who organized his campaign ...
Scott C. Esplin, "Return to the City of Joseph: Modern Mormonism's Contest for the Soul of Nauvoo" (U Illinois Press, 2019)
27 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-twentieth century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) returned to Nauvoo, Illinois, home to the thriving religious commu...
Keri Holt, "Reading These United States: Federal Literacy in the Early Republic, 1776-1830" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
27 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Keri Holt is the author of Reading These United States: Federal Literacy in the Early Republic, 1776-1830, published by the University of Georgia Pres...
Jodie Jackson, “You Are What You Read: Why Changing Your Media Diet Can Change The World” (Unbound, 2019)
27 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The old mantra “if it bleeds it leads” is alive and well in today’s media landscape. In fact, social media and up-to-the-second news have made i...
Adrienne Petty, "Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina Since the Civil War" (Oxford UP, 2013)
24 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Adrienne Petty discusses her book, Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina Since the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2013...
Neil Maher, "Apollo in the Age of Aquarius" (Harvard UP, 2017)
24 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Neil Maher talks about the social forces that shaped NASA in the 1960s and 70s, connecting the space race with the radical upheavals of the countercul...
Ian Wray, "No Little Plans: How Government Built America’s Wealth and Infrastructure" (Routledge, 2019)
23 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Is planning for America anathema to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness? Is it true, as thinkers such as Friedrich Von Hayek, Milton Friedman, ...
James D. Bratt, "A Christian and a Democrat: A Religious Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt" (Eerdmans, 2019)
23 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when asked at a press conference about the roots of his political philosophy, responded simply, “I am a Christian and a D...
James M. Banner, Jr., "Presidential Misconduct: From George Washington to Today" (The New Press, 2019)
22 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What standard should be used to assess presidential misconduct during the Trump presidency? How should the public, press, Congress, and bureaucracy re...
Tad DeLay, "Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want?" (Cascade Book, 2019)
22 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What does the white evangelical want? In our moment of crisis and rage, this question is everywhere. Scholars ask from where its desires emerged, pund...
Lauren Working, "The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
22 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his Relation of the second voyage to Guiana, published in 1596, George Chapman put the imperial ambitions of England into a telling verse couplet. ...
J. L. Anderson, "Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork, and Power in America" (West Virginia UP, 2019)
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this this interview, Dr. Carrie Tippen talks with J. L. Anderson about the 2019 book Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork, and Power in America published by...
Andrew Marble, "Boy on the Bridge: The Story of John Shalikashvili’s Remarkable Success" (UP of Kentucky, 2019)
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When President Bill Clinton nominated John Shalikashvili to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993, it represented the climax of a long ...
Great Books: Rich Blint on James Baldwin's "Another Country"
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"If we - and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks [...] do not falter in our duty now, we may be able [...] ...
Brian Cervantez, "Amon Carter: A Lone Star Life" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Raised in a one-room log cabin in a small North Texas town, Amon G. Carter (1879–1955) rose to become the founder and publisher of the Fort Worth St...
Catherine Besteman, "Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine" (Duke UP, 2016)
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Catherine L. Besteman's book Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine (Duke University Press, 2016) is an important contribution to ou...
Josh Reno, "Military Waste: The Unexpected Consequences of Permanent War Readiness" (U California Press, 2019)
17 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Seven decades of military spending during the cold war and war on terror have created a vast excess of military hardware – what happens to all of th...
Jane H. Hong, "Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion" (UNC Press, 2019)
17 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over the course of less than a century, the U.S. transformed from a nation that excluded Asians from immigration and citizenship to one that receives ...
Magnus Nordenman, "The New Battle for the Atlantic: Emerging Naval Competition with Russia in the Far North" (Naval Institute Press, 2019)
17 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In The New Battle for the Atlantic: Emerging Naval Competition with Russia in the Far North (Naval Institute Press, 2019), Magnus Nordenman explores t...
Blake Perkins, "Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks" (U Illinois Press, 2017)
17 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Blake Perkins, assistant professor of history at Williams Baptist College, discusses his new book, Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist D...
Lori Gemeiner-Bihler, "Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-1945" (SUNY Press, 2019)
16 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the years following Hitler’s rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more to...
Great Books: Carol Gilligan on Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"
14 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter tells the dramatic story of a woman cast out of society for adultery and condemned to wear a bad...
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America" (W. W. Norton, 2019)
14 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Descendants of a prominent slaveholding family, Elizabeth, Grace, and Katharine Lumpkin grew up in a culture of white supremacy. But while Elizabeth r...
Rachel Louise Moran, "Governing Bodies: American Politics and the Shaping of the Modern Physique" (U Penn Press, 2018)
14 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How did the modern, American body come into being? According to Rachel Louise Moran this is a story to be told through the lens of the advisory state....
Nick Yablon, "Remembrance of Things Present: The Invention of the Time Capsule" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
13 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Remembrance of Things Present: The Invention of the Time Capsule (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Nick Yablon traces the birth of the time caps...