New Books in American Studies
Episodes
Joseph Jarvis, "The Purple World: Healing the Harm in American Health Care" (Scrivener Books, 2018)
15 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
American’s pay double what every other developed nation in the world pays for healthcare. Does that mean that we are the healthiest? No. In fact, we...
Elizabeth Todd-Breland, "A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s" (UNC Press, 2018)
14 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Todd-Breland’s new book A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s (University of North Carolin...
Pat Garofalo, "The Billionaire Boondoggle: How Our Politicians Let Corporations and Bigwigs Steal Our Money and Jobs" (Thomas Dunne, 2019)
13 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Politicians love to woo entertainment corporations to their states and cities through subsidies and tax cities. But Pat Garofalo argues that such ince...
Richard Drake, "Charles Austin Beard: The Return of the Master Historian of American Imperialism" (Cornell UP, 2018)
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
During the first half of the 20th century the American historian Charles Austin Beard enjoyed both professional success and a national prominence that...
Nico Slate, "Lord Cornwallis is Dead: The Struggle for Democracy in the United States and India" (Harvard UP, 2019)
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the twenty-first century, India and the United States are two closely connected states. Some of this is economic, and with it comes a concern that ...
David Colander and Craig Freedman, "Where Economics Went Wrong: Chicago's Abandonment of Classical Liberalism" (Princeton UP, 2018)
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you are reading this, you have probably run into the "Chicago" model at some point or another, in terms of public policy, orthodox modern finance, ...
Martha S. Jones, "Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Martha S. Jones, in her excellent new book Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America(Cambridge University Press, 2018), ...
Reece Peck, "Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Reece Peck's Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class (Cambridge University Press, 2019) offers a unique argument of why the Fox News Chan...
Rick Van Noy, "Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As climate change politics abound, Dr. Rick Van Noy’s Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South (University of Georgia Press, ...
Darren Barany, "The New Welfare Consensus: Ideological, Political and Social Origins" (SUNY Press, 2018)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The 1996 repeal of Aid to Families with Dependent Children -- the New Deal-era relief program for poor women with children -- was a seminal moment in ...
Meredith McCarroll, "Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film" (U Georgia Press, 2018)
07 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you mention Appalachia to many people, they may immediately respond with the "Deliverance" dueling banjos theme. Unfortunately, this is an example ...
Daniel Immerwahr, "How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States" (FSG, 2019)
07 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Is America an Empire?” is a popular question for pundits and historians, likely because it sets off such a provocative debate. All too often, how...
Joyce Antler, "Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement" (NYU Press, 2018)
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Joyce Antler is the Samuel J. Lane Professor Emerita of American Jewish history and culture at Brandeis University. Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices fr...
Scott Mobley, "Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity, 1873-1898" (Naval Institute Press, 2018)
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of the New Books in Military History podcast is something of a sea change, so to speak, as we turn our attention to naval policy and stra...
James Schwoch, "Wired into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier" (U Illinois Press, 2018)
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It's been called the first Internet. In the nineteenth century, the telegraph spun a world wide web of cables and poles, carrying electronic signals w...
Margaret Hennefeld, "Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes" (Columbia UP, 2018)
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the early days of film, female comedians appeared in films that included both strange activities and slapstick. In her new book Specters of Slapsti...
Janis Powers, "Health Care: Meet The American Dream" (River Grove Books, 2018)
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
American health care is the most expensive in the world, yet it produces some of the worst outcomes among developed nations. Many people offer unreali...
Trent MacNamara, "Birth Control and American Modernity: A History of Popular Ideas" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Birth control, and the access to it, has continued to be a divisive issue in American political and social life. While birth control has almost become...
Greg Sargent, "An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics" (HarperCollins, 2018)
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Greg Sargent’s new book, An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics (HarperCollins, 201...
Ronald L. Lewis and Robert L. Zangrando, "Walter F. White: The NAACP’s Ambassador for Racial Justice" (West Virginia UP, 2019)
01 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Though overshadowed today by more celebrated figures, Walter Francis White was one of the most prominent campaigners for civil rights in mid-20th-cent...
Matthew Bowman, "Christian: The Politics of a Word in America" (Harvard UP, 2018)
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The intersection of religion and politics in the United States is one of the nation's most enduring conversations. Christian: The Politics of a Word i...
Bernadete Barton, "Stripped: More Stories from Exotic Dancers" (NYU Press, 2017)
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Women get into stripping for money, writes Dr. Bernadete Barton, and the experience the girls have throughout their career in exotic dancing varies. D...
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, "The Ideas that Made America: A Brief History" (Oxford UP, 2019)
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen's The Ideas that Made America: A Brief History (Oxford University Press, 2019) is a sweeping examination of the key ideas t...
Bradford Vivian, "Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture" (Oxford UP, 2017)
27 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of New Books in Communications, Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Dr. Bradford Vivian (he/his) of Penn State University on his fabulous...
S. A. Duncan and A. McClellan, "The Art of Curating: Paul J. Sachs and the Museum Course at Harvard" (Getty Research Institute, 2018)
27 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew McClellan and Sally Anne Duncan’s book offers a behind-the-scenes exploration of the career of Paul J. Sachs (1878-1965) and the graduate pro...
Jocelyn M. Boryczka, "Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue, and Vice in Backlash Politics" (Temple UP, 2012)
27 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In her book Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue, and Vice in Backlash Politics (Temple University Press, 2012), Jocelyn M. Boryczka explores the fraught p...
Adrienne Brown, "The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race" (John Hopkins UP, 2017)
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Adrienne Brown joins the New Books Network this week to talk about her fascinating 2017 book, The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of...
B. I. Page, J. Seawright, and M. J. Lacombe, "Billionaires and Stealth Politics" U Chicago Press, 2019)
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With at least one new billionaire in the 2020 presidential race, the politics of the one percent are with us again. What do billionaires believe? And ...
Matthew C. Godfrey, ed., "The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 7" (Church Historians Press, 2018)
22 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Smith, the nineteenth-century American prophet who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, can, at times, be considered an elu...
Adriaan C. Neele, "Before Jonathan Edwards: Sources of New England Theology" (Oxford UP, 2019)
20 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Edwards is by now widely recognised as America’s most important early philosopher and theologian. Much of the scholarship that exegetes his...
Kendall Phillips, "A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema" (U Texas, 2018)
20 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Dr. Kendall Phillips (he) of Syracuse University on his fabulous new book A...
Janne Lahti, "The American West and the World: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives" (Routledge, 2019)
20 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One of the enduring questions in American historiography is: just where exactly is the West? In The American West and the World: Transnational and Com...
Joy Lisi Rankin, "A People’s History of Computing in the United States" (Harvard UP, 2018).
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We know, perhaps too well, the innovation-centric history of personal computing. Yet, computer users were not necessarily microelectronics consumers f...