New Books in American Studies

Robert Atkinson and Michael Lind, "Big is Beautiful: Debunking the Myth of Small Business" (MIT Press, 2018)

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Small is beautiful, right? Isn't that what we've all been taught? From Jeffersonian politics to the hallowed family farm, from craft breweries to tech...

James W. Pardew, "Peacemakers: American Leadership and the End of Genocide in the Balkans" (U Kentucky Press, 2017)

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In his book  Peacemakers: American Leadership and the End of Genocide in the Balkans (University of Kentucky Press, 2017), Ambassador James W. Pardew...

E. Danto and A. Steiner-Strauss, "Freud/Tiffany: Anna Freud, Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham and the Best Possible School" (Routledge, 2018)

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth Danto and Alexandra Steiner-Strauss’ edited book, Freud/Tiffany: Anna Freud, Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham and The Best Possible School (Rout...

Thomas A. Foster, "Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men (University of Georgia Press, 2019) is the first book-length study of sexual violence against ensl...

Gregory Borchard, "A Narrative History of the American Press" (Routledge, 2018)

18 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The American press is older than the United States itself. Ever since its catalytic role in the American Revolution, journalism has evolved to meet ch...

Kimberly Welch, "Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South" (UNC Press, 2018)

18 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kimberly Welch is the author of Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2018). Welch is Assistant Profes...

Ann Powers, "Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music" (Dey St. Books, 2017)

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music (Dey St. Books, HarperCollins, 2017), Ann Powers explores the rich and, ...

Elaine Hampton and Cynthia Ontiveros, "Copper Stain: ASARCO’s Legacy in El Paso" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Copper Stain: ASARCO’s Legacy in El Paso (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019), Elaine Hampton and Cynthia Ontiveros tell the story of how a Mexic...

Maria Cotera, "Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era" (U of Texas Press, 2018)

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era(University of Texas Press, 2018), Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cote...

Brian Haara, "Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America" (Potomac Books, 2015)

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Bourbon whiskey has been around since nearly the beginning of the United States. Given that longevity, it has been part of the corporate law of the Un...

jayy dodd, "The Black Condition Ft. Narcissus" (Nightboat Books, 2019)

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If the prompt is “respond to a myth of Narcissus using thoughtful, meditative poems,” then jayy dodd gave us a beautiful answer. In The Black Cond...

Laura Alice Watt, "The Paradox of Preservation: Wilderness and Working Landscapes at Point Reyes National Seashore" (U California Press, 2016)

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Wilderness,” “nature,” and their “preservation” are concepts basic to how the National Park Service organizes our relationship to America...

Katie Batza, "Before AIDS: Gay Health Politics in the 1970s" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018)

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The AIDS crisis of the 1980s looms large in recent histories of sexuality, medicine, and politics, and justly so—an unknown virus without a cure rav...

Shirletta J. Kinchen, "Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965–1975" (U Tennessee Press, 2016)

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

During the civil rights era, Memphis gained a reputation for having one of the South’s strongest NAACP branches. But that organization, led by the c...

Hannah Weiss Muller, "Subjects and Sovereign: Bonds of Belonging in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire" (Oxford UP, 2017)

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There is no denying that the public remains fascinated with monarchy. In the United Kingdom, the royal family commands the headlines, but paradoxicall...

Catherine Keyser, "Artificial Color: Modern Food and Racial Fictions" (Oxford UP, 2019)

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Catherine Keyser about early twentieth century fiction and the role that modern food plays in literat...

Marc Stein, "Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe" (UNC Press, 2013)

12 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Focusing on six major Supreme Court cases during the 1960s and 1970s, Marc Stein's book Sexual Injustice (University of North Carolina Press, 2013) ex...

Anthony Ryan Hatch, "Silent Cells: The Secret Drugging of Captive America" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)

12 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past forty years, U.S. prisons and jails have used various psychotropic drugs. In this interview, Anthony Ryan Hatch discusses the need to th...

David Varel, "The Lost Black Scholar: Resurrecting Allison Davis in American Social Thought" (U Chicago Press, 2018)

12 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Allison Davis (1902-1983) was a pioneering anthropologist who did ground-breaking fieldwork in the Jim Crow south,  challenged the racial bias of IQ ...

Kerry Eggers, "Jail Blazers: How the Portland Trail Blazers Became the Bad Boys of Basketball" (Sport Publishing, 2018)

11 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the late ’90s and early 2000s, the Portland Trail Blazers were one of the hottest teams in the NBA. For almost a decade, they won 60 percent of t...

Jinah Kim, "Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas" (Duke UP, 2019)

11 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas (Duke University Press, 2019), Jinah Kim explores questions of loss, memory,...

Chinyere K. Osuji, "Boundaries of Love: Interracial Marriage and the Meaning of Race" (NYU Press, 2019)

11 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The increasing presence of interracial relationships is often read as an antidote to racism or as an indicator of the decreasing significance of race....

Seán Moore, "Slavery and the Making of Early American Libraries" (Oxford UP, 2019)

11 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Early American libraries stood at the nexus of two transatlantic branches of commerce—the book trade and the slave trade. Slavery and the Making of ...

Jonathan Gienapp, "The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era" (Harvard UP, 2018)

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In his book, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard University Press, 2018), Jonathan Gienapp revisits the...

Douglas Sheflin, "Legacies of Dust: Land Use and Labor on the Colorado Plains" (U Nebraska Press, 2019)

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The “Dust Bowl” remains a mainstay in American history textbooks. When dust storms swept over the southern plains in the 1930s, they upended farmi...

Sarah Anne Carter, "Object Lessons: How Nineteenth-Century Americans Learned to Make Sense of the Material World" (Oxford UP, 2018)

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The metaphor “object lesson” is a familiar one, still in everyday use. But what exactly does the metaphor refer to? In her book Object Lessons: Ho...

Tanisha C. Ford, "Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl's Love Letter to the Power of Fashion" (St. Martins Press, 2019)

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this highly engaging book, fashionista and pop culture expert Tanisha C. Ford investigates Afros and dashikis, go-go boots and hotpants of the sixt...

Lynn Downey, "Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World" (U Massachusetts Press, 2016)

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly every consumer today is familiar with the name Levi Strauss thank to the jeans that bear his name. As Lynn Downey explains in her book Levi Str...

Eric Blanc, "Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics" (Verso, 2019)

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Eric Blanc is the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics(Verso, 2019). Blanc is a former teacher, journali...

Emily S. Johnson, "This Is Our Message: Women's Leadership in the New Christian Right" (Oxford UP, 2019)

08 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past 50 years, the architects of the religious right have become household names: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson. They have used ...

Genevieve Carpio, "Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race" (U California Press, 2019)

08 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her new book, Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race (University of California Press, 2019), Professor Genevieve Carpio con...

Donald Stoker, "Why America Loses Wars: Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

08 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this provocative challenge to United States policy and strategy, former Professor of Strategy & Policy at the US Naval War College, and author or e...

Diana Pasulka, "American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology" (Oxford UP, 2019)

08 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of be...

Melvin C. Johnson, "Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley: A Mormon Ulysses of the American West" (Greg Kofford Books, 2019)

08 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley: A Mormon Ulysses of the American West (Greg Kofford Books, 2019) narrates the wide-ranging life of John Hawley’...

Petra Goedde, "The Politics of Peace: A Global Cold War History" (Oxford UP, 2019)

05 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier histories of the Cold War haven’t exactly been charitable toward the peace activists and pacifists who led peace initiatives. Pacifists in t...

Tiffany Gill, "To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism" (U Illinois Press, 2019)

05 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Annette Joseph-Gabriel talks with Tiffany Gill about the history of African American travel in the late twentieth century and its significance to Blac...

Robin Scheffler, “A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

04 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Could cancer be a contagious disease? Although this possibility might seem surprising to many of us, it has a long history. In fact, efforts to develo...

Greta LaFleur, "The Natural History of Sexuality in Early America" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)

04 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In The Natural History of Sexuality in Early America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), Greta LaFleur invites readers to consider a different bod...

Stephen Hardy and Andrew Holman, "Hockey: A Global History" (U Illinois Press, 2018)

03 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Stephen Hardy, retired professor of kinesiology and affiliate professor of history at the University of New Hampshire, and Andr...

Jeffrey Lantis, "Foreign Policy Advocacy and Entrepreneurship: How a New Generation in Congress Is Shaping U.S. Engagement with the World" (U Michigan Press, 2019)

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With the US in the midst of on-going negotiations with Iran, North Korea, and China, how is Congress playing a part? How is the new generation of Cong...

Paul J. Croce, "Young William James Thinking" (John Hopkins UP, 2018)

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Paul J. Croce, professor of history at Stetson University. Young William James Thinking (John Hopkins University Press, 2018) offers a developmental b...

Darren Dochuk, "Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America" (Basic Books, 2019)

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America (Basic Books, 2019) places religion and oil at the center of American history. As pr...

Kirsten Fermaglich, "A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America" (NYU Press, 2018)

01 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout the 20th century, especially during and immediately after WWII, New York Jews changed their names at rates considerably higher than any oth...

Laura R. Barraclough, "Charros: How Mexican Cowboys Are Remapping Race and American Identity" (U California Press, 2019)

01 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Charros: How Mexican Cowboys Are Remapping Race and American Identity (University of California Press, 2019), Dr. Laura R. Barraclough tells a surp...

Carolina Alonso Bejarano, "Decolonizing Ethnography: Undocumented Immigrants and New Directions in Social Science" (Duke UP, 2019)

01 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Almost 30 years ago, following the lead of scholars and thinkers of color and from the global South, anthropologist Faye Harrison and some of her coll...

Caitlyn Collins, "Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving" (Princeton UP, 2019)

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Where in the world do working moms have it best? In her new book, Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving (Princeton Universit...

Sarah Eppler Janda, "Prairie Power: Student Activism, Counterculture, and Backlash in Oklahoma, 1962–1972" (U Oklahoma Press, 2018)

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The sixties happened in Oklahoma too, argued Sarah Eppler Janda in Prairie Power: Student Activism, Counterculture, and Backlash in Oklahoma, 1962–1...

Philip W. Clements, "Science in an Extreme Environment: The American Mount Everest Expedition" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2018)

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Historian of Science Philip W. Clements discusses the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition. His book, Science in an Extreme Environment: The America...

Gregory D. Smithers, "Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)

27 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In his book, Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal(University of Oklahoma Press, 2019), Dr. Gregory D. Smithers effectively a...

Nancy Mirabal, "Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957" (NYU Press, 2017)

27 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957 (NYU Press, 2017), Nancy Mirabal details New York Cuban diaspo...

Kimberly Alexander, "Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)

26 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Fashion is universal,” writes my guest Kimberly Alexander in her book Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018...

Amanda Littauer, "Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties" (UNC Press, 2015)

26 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her innovative and revealing study of midcentury American sex and culture, Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties (Universit...

Candace L. Bailey, "Charleston Belles Abroad: The Music Collections of Harriet Lowndes, Henrietta Aiken, and Louisa Rebecca McCord" (U South Carolina Press, 2019)

26 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Microhistories are an important method of investigating an historical moment with a fine-grain focus that can puncture holes in the generalizations th...

Morgan Marietta, "One Nation, Two Realities: Dueling Facts in American Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2019)

26 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

American society is deeply divided at this moment—not just on values and opinions but on basic perceptions of reality. In their latest book, One Nat...

Gregory H. Wolf, "Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison" (SABR, 2019)

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Wrigley Field is one of a handful of sports stadiums to have transcended its athletic purpose to become a true American landmark. Nestled in its neigh...

Amy Lippert, "Consuming Identities: Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco" (Oxford UP, 2018)

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Along with the rapid expansion of the market economy and industrial production methods, such innovations as photography, lithography, and steam printi...

Amos Mac and Rocco Kayiatos, "Original Plumbing: The Best of Ten Years of Trans Male Culture" (Amethyst Editions, 2019)

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Amos Mac and Rocco Kayiatos first launch Original Plumbing in 2009, they created a magazine the world desperately needed: a creative and celebrat...

Stephen R. Duncan, "The Rebel Café: Sex, Race, and Politics in Cold War America’s Nightclub Underground" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The art and antics of rebellious figures in 1950s American nightlife―from the Beat Generation to eccentric jazz musicians and comedians―have long ...

Nick Estes, "Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline" (Verso, 2019)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The historian Nick Estes traces two centuries of Indigenous-led resistance and anti-colonial struggle. Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus...

Anthony J. Badger, "Albert Gore, Sr.: A Political Life" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1956 Albert Gore, Sr. received national attention as one of only three senators from the states of the former Confederacy who refused to sign the i...

Dorinne Kondo, "Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity" (Duke UP, 2018)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity (Duke University Press 2018), Dorinne Kondo brings together critical race studies, affec...

David Munns, "Engineering the Environment: Phytotrons and the Quest for Climate Control in the Cold War" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2017)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Phytotron” is such a great name for something that is, when you look at it, a high-tech greenhouse. But don’t sell it short! The phytotron was ...

David Karol, "Red, Green, and Blue: The Partisan Divide on Environmental Issues" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

21 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David Karol’s new book, Red, Green, and Blue: The Partisan Divide on Environmental Issues (Cambridge University Press, 2019), examines the history o...

Rebecca Janzen, "Liminal Sovereignty: Mennonites and Mormons in Mexican Culture" (SUNY Press, 2018)

21 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Liminal Sovereignty: Mennonites and Mormons in Mexican Culture (SUNY Press, 2018) examines the lives of two religious minority communities in Mexico, ...

Anne A. Cheng, "Ornamentalism" (Oxford UP, 2019)

21 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--Dr. Anne Cheng (...

Heather Mayer, "Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924" (Oregon State UP, 2018)

20 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of labor radicalism in the early twentieth century, where the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (common...

Shennette Garrett-Scott, "Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal" (Columbia UP, 2019)

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Think running an insurance company or a bank is hard?  Try doing it as an African-American woman in the Jim Crow South.  Shennette Garrett-Scott's n...

Alexandra M. Nickliss, "Phoebe Apperson Hearst: A Life of Power and Politics" (Bison Books, 2018)

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Though not as well known today as her husband George or her son William Randolph, Phoebe Apperson Hearst was a woman who rose beyond the gender norms ...

Stacy Fahrenthold, "Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925" (Oxford UP, 2019)

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her debut book, Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925 (Oxford University Press, ...

Carolyn J. Dean, "The Moral Witness: Trials and Testimony after Genocide" (Cornell UP, 2019)

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Carolyn J. Dean’s The Moral Witness: Trials and Testimony after Genocide (Cornell University Press, 2019) examines the cultural history of the idea ...

Marisol LeBrón, "Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico" (U California Press, 2019)

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Marisol LeBrón’s new book, Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2019), examines ...

Chris Donnelly, "Doc, Donnie, The Kid and Billy Brawl: How the 1985 Mets and Yankees Fought For New York’s Baseball Soul" (U Nebraska Press, 2019)

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Donnelly's new book Doc, Donnie, The Kid and Billy Brawl: How the 1985 Mets and Yankees Fought For New York’s Baseball Soul (University of Neb...

David Milne, "Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015)

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There are countless ways to study the history of U.S. foreign policy. David Milne, however, makes the case that it is “often best understood” as “...

Jeannette Eileen Jones, "Search of Brightest Africa: Reimagining the Dark Continent in American Culture, 1884-1936" (U Georgia Press, 2011)

17 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When President Trump talked of Africa as a continent of “shithole countries” where people lived in huts, he was drawing on a set of ideas made pop...

Brett Grainger, "Church in the Wild: Evangelicals in Antebellum America" (Harvard UP, 2019)

17 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We often credit the Transcendentalists with introducing a revolutionary new appreciation for nature into American spirituality when they claimed that ...

Rachel Augustine Potter, "Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

17 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rule-making may rarely make headlines, but the significance of this largely hidden process cannot be underestimated. Rachel Augustine Potter makes the...

Ryan Grim, "We've Got People: From Jesse Jackson to AOC, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement" (Strong Arm Press, 2019)

17 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The modern progressive movement is rising in influence, intensity and numbers. Just where did it come from and where is it going? Ryan Grim, D.C burea...

Mark Peterson, "The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power" (Princeton UP, 2019)

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the vaunted annals of America’s founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary “city upon a hill” and the “cradle of liberty” for...

Ben Merriman, "Conservative Innovators: How States Are Challenging Federal Power" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Expansion of federal power has typically come with the consent of states, often eager to receive the funding tied to new policy priorities. Not so any...

Sara K. Eskridge, "Rube Tube: CBS and Rural Comedy in the Sixties" (U Missouri Press, 2019)

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The television comedies of the 1960s set in the American South epitomize American innocence. But in their original historical, social, and commercial ...

Marc Gallicchio and Waldo Heinrich, "Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945" (Oxford UP, 2017)

13 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Serious and casual scholars and readers interested in the Pacific War would do well to commit reading Marc Gallicchio’s and Waldo Heinrich’s massi...

E. Douglas Bomberger, "Making Music American: 1917 and the Transformation of Culture" (Oxford UP, 2018)

13 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There has been a recent trend in books that explore one year in detail: 1914, 1927, and 1968 have all received this treatment. E. Douglas Bomberger’...

Matilda Rabinowitz, "Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century" (ILR Press, 2017)

13 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s quite common these days to hear young people being urged to collect and record the stories of their grandparents or parents in order to learn a...

Paul Thomas Chamberlin, "The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace" (Harper, 2018)

13 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Thomas Chamberlin has written a book about the Cold War that makes important claims about the nature and reasons for genocide in the last half of...

Harvard S. Heath, "Confidence Amid Change: The Presidential Diaries of David O. McKay, 1951-1970" (Signature Books, 2019)

12 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The diaries of the ninth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are a collaboration between David O. McKay and his long-time sec...

Chandra Russo, "Solidarity in Practice: Moral Protest and the US Security State" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

12 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her book Solidarity in Practice: Moral Protest and the US Security State (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Chandra Russo explores how solidarity ...

Bryan McCann, "The Mark of Criminality: Rhetoric, Race, and Gangsta Rap in the War-on-Crime Era" (U Alabama Press, 2017)

12 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Communication at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Bryan McCann (he/his)--Associate Professor of Com...

Clare Daniel, "Mediating Morality: The Politics of Teen Pregnancy in the Post-Welfare Era" (U Massachusetts Press, 2017)

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--interviews Dr. C...

Joseph C. Sternberg, "The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future" (PublicAffairs, 2019)

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph C. Sternberg's book The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future (PublicAffairs, 2019) is an analysis o...

Brian Cremins, "Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia" (UP of Mississippi, 2017)

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Cremins' book Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia (University Press of Mississippi, 2017) explores the history of Billy Batson, a boy who me...

Christina Proenza-Coles, "American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World" (NewSouth Books, 2019)

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Christina Proenza-Coles' new book American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World (NewSouth Books, 2019) reveals...

Daniel HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes, "Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)

10 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dan HoSang and Joe Lowndes’ new book,Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity (University of Minnesota Pres...

Alexander Garvin, "The Heart of the City: Creating Vibrant Downtowns for a New Century" (Island Press, 2019)

10 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Downtowns are more than economic engines: they are repositories of knowledge and culture and generators of new ideas, technology, and ventures. They a...

Annie McClanahan, "Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and Twenty-First Century Culture" (Stanford UP, 2016)

07 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When teaching a public course called “The Age of Debt” this winter break, I had the strange realization that one of the the most successful readin...

Long T. Bui, "Returns of War: South Vietnam and the Price of Refugee Memory" (NYU Press, 2018)

07 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Returns of War: South Vietnam and the Price of Refugee Memory (New York University Press, 2018), Long T. Bui examines the complicated relationship ...

Peter Guardino, "The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War" (Harvard UP, 2017)

07 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Mexican-American War was one of the pivotal moments in 19th-century American history. It bridged the Jacksonian period and the Civil War era and w...

Ian Saxine, "Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier" (NYU Press, 2019)

06 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier (NYU Press, 2019), Ian Saxine, Visiting Assistant Profes...

Cathal J. Nolan, "The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost" (Oxford UP, 2019)

06 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could...

Matt Guardino, "Framing Inequality: News Media, Public Opinion, and the Neoliberal Turn in US Public Policy" (Oxford UP, 2019)

06 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Neoliberal policies have been a primary feature of American political economy for decades. In Framing Inequality: News Media, Public Opinion, and the ...

Manu Karuka, "Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad" (U California Press, 2019)

05 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What does anti-imperialism look like from the vantage point of North America? In Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Trans...