New Books in Biography & Memoir

Jane Little Botkin, "The Pink Dress: A Memoir of a Reluctant Beauty Queen" (She Writes Press, 2024)

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Growing up in West Texas, Jane Little Botkin didn’t have designs on becoming a beauty queen. But not long after joining a pageant on a whim in colle...

Francis Stevens, "The Heads of Cerberus and Other Stories" (MIT Press, 2024)

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When three people in Philadelphia inhale dust developed by a scientist who has discovered parallel universes, they are transported into an interdimens...

Jack Palmer, "Zygmunt Bauman and the West: A Sociology of Intellectual Exile" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2023)

22 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Palmer’s Zygmunt Bauman and the West: A Sociology of Intellectual Exile (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) invites us to reconsider a ...

Robert Polner and Michael Tubridy, "An Irish Passion for Justice: The Life of Rebel New York Attorney Paul O'Dwyer" (Cornell UP, 2024)

22 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the city of New York from the 1930s to the 1990s, Irish attorney Paul O’Dwyer was a fierce and enduring presence in courtrooms, on picket lines, ...

Tom Navon, "Radical Assimilation in the Face of the Holocaust: Otto Heller (1897–1945)" (SUNY Press, 2024)

21 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This book explores the confrontation of radically assimilated Jews with the violent collapse of their envisioned integration into a cosmopolitan Europ...

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, "Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde" (FSG, 2024)

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We remember Audre Lorde as an iconic writer, a quotable teacher whose words and face grace T-shirts, nonprofit annual reports, and campus diversity-ce...

Jack Margolin, "The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army (Reaktion, 2024) exposes the history and the future of the Wagner Group, Russia’s notorious and ...

William H. F. Altman, "The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism" (Lexington Books, 2010)

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Leo Strauss was a German-Jewish emigrant to the United States, an author, professor and political philosopher. Born in 1899 in Kirchhain in the Kingdo...

Will Grant, "Populista: The Rise of Latin America's 21st Century Strongman" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Will Grant about his book Populista: The Rise of Latin America's 21st Century Strongman (Bloomsbury, 2021). or more than six dec...

Philip Freeman, "Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor" (Yale UP, 2023)

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Philip Freeman about his new book Julian: Rome’s Last Pagan Emperor (Yale UP, 2023). Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Ap...

Grant Olwage, "Paul Robeson's Voices" (Oxford UP, 2023)

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Robeson's Voices (Oxford UP, 2023) is a meditation on Robeson's singing, a study of the artist's life in song. Music historian Grant Olwage exa...

Peter Rose, "The Good War of Consul Reeves" (Blacksmith Books, 2024)

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Macau was supposed to be a sleepy post for John Reeves, the British consul for the Portuguese colony on China’s southern coast. He arrived, alone, i...

Matthew C. Ehrlich, "The Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug Shook Organized Medicine" (U Illinois Press, 2024)

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The brainchild of an obscure Yugoslav physician, Krebiozen emerged in 1951 as an alleged cancer treatment. Andrew Ivy, a University of Illinois vice p...

Yaacob Dweck, "Dissident Rabbi: The Life of Jacob Sasportas" (Princeton UP, 2019)

08 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1665, Sabbetai Zevi, a self-proclaimed Messiah with a mass following throughout the Ottoman Empire and Europe, announced that the redemption of the...

Sara E. Johnson, "Encyclopédie Noire: The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry's Intellectual World" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2023)

07 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you peer closely into the bookstores, salons, and diplomatic circles of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Sain...

Tom Boniface-Webb, "Modern Music Masters: Oasis" (MMM, 2020)

07 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the first book in the Modern Music Masters series, Tom Boniface-Webb examines the Manchester band Modern Music Masters-Oasis (MMM, 2020). Founde...

Magdalena J. Zaborowska, "Me and My House: James Baldwin's Last Decade in France" (Duke UP, 2018)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The last sixteen years of James Baldwin's life (1971–87) unfolded in a village in the South of France, in a sprawling house nicknamed “Chez Baldwi...

Mark Blake, "Dreams: The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac" (Pegasus Books, 2024)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An illuminating deep-dive into everything Fleetwood Mac--the songs, the rivalries, the successes, and the failures—Dreams: The Many Lives of Fleetwo...

James M. Scott, "Black Snow: Curtis Lemay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb" (Norton, 2024)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our interview about Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022), James M. ...

Kostas Kampourakis, "Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many historical figures have their lives and works shrouded in myth, both in life and long after their deaths. Charles Darwin (1809–82) is no excep...

Jonathan Butler, "Join the Conspiracy: How a Brooklyn Eccentric Got Lost on the Right, Infiltrated the Left and Brought Down the Biggest Bombing Network in New York" (Fordham UP, 2024)

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the shadow of recent turmoil, Join the Conspiracy: How a Brooklyn Eccentric Got Lost on the Right, Infiltrated the Left and Brought Down the Bigge...

Sanjay Lal, "Gandhi's Thought and Liberal Democracy" (Lexington Books, 2019)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is religion indispensable to public life? What can Gandhi’s thought contribute to the modern state? With an intense focus on both the depth and pra...

Karen Ordahl Kupperman, "Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught Between Cultures in Early Virginia" (NYU Press, 2019)

01 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught Between Cultures in Early Virginia(New York University Press, 2019), Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Silver Profess...

Lise Butler, "Michael Young, Social Science, and the British Left, 1945-1970" (Oxford UP, 2020)

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lise Butler’s Michael Young, Social Science and the British Left, 1945-70 (Oxford UP, 2020) invites us to revisit a figure who, in Butler’s wor...

Ludovico Silva, "Marx's Literary Style" (Verso, 2023)

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Marx’s Literary Style, the Venezuelan poet and philosopher Ludovico Silva argues that much of the confusion around Marx’s work results from ...

Christopher Lovins, "King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea" (SUNY Press, 2019)

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Though traditionally regarded as a monarch who failed to arrest the gradual decline of his kingdom, the Korean king Chŏngjo has benefited in recent d...

Steve Moriarty, "Mia Zapata and the Gits: A True Story of Art, Rock and Revolution" (Ferel House, 2024)

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mia Zapata and the Gits: A True Story of Art, Rock and Revolution (Ferel House, 2024) by Steve Moriarty, shares the story of the Seattle based The ...

Adam Zamoyski, "Izabela the Valiant: The Story of an Indomitable Polish Princess" (William Collins, 2024)

24 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Princess Izabela Czartoryska was a towering figure of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century European cultural and intellectual life. Married a...

Rachel Kousser, "Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great" (Mariner Books, 2024)

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 330 BC, Alexander the Great conquers the city of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. His troops later burn it to the ground, ...

Lesley Smith, "Fragments of a World: William of Auvergne and His Medieval Life" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lesley Smith of Oxford University joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Fragments of a World: William of Auvergne and His Medieval Life (Univ...

A Hidden Life (with Brian Zahnd)

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What would you do in the place of Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter in 1943? Mumble your loyalty oath to Hitler like everyone else—or refuse and ...

Shaul Magid, "Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical" (Princeton UP, 2021)

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rabbi Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane ...

James Madison and the Spirit of Self-Government: A Conversation with Colleen Sheehan

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who was James Madison? Why were his Notes on Government so valuable to the American founding? Did James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Wash...

Zoë Bossiere, "Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir" (Abrams Press, 2024)

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I interview Zoë Bossiere about Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir (Abrams Press, 2024). Bossiere is writer from Tucson, Arizona. They are th...

Paul Volcker: “The only number that works is zero”

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

More than any other global institution, the US Federal Reserve’s decisions and communications drive capital markets and alter financial conditions e...

Arthur Burns: “The smartest guy in the room”

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

More than any other global institution, the US Federal Reserve’s decisions and communications drive capital markets and alter financial conditions e...

Bill Martin: “Truman looked at him and said: ‘Traitor’”

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

More than any other global institution, the US Federal Reserve’s decisions and communications drive capital markets and alter financial conditions e...

Na'ou Liu, "Urban Scenes" (Cambria Press, 2023)

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"In this tango palace everything was swaying rhythmically to and fro, bodies of men and women, beams of colored light, brilliant wine glasses, red and...

Alexandra Popoff, "Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success" (Yale UP, 2024)

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ayn Rand is a provocative and polarizing figure. Strongly pro-capitalist and anti-communist, Rand was a dogmatic preacher of her moral philosophy. Bas...

Edward Shanks, "The People of the Ruins" (MIT Press, 2024)

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The People of the Ruins (originally published in 1920), Edward Shanks imagines England in the not-so-distant future as a neo mediaeval society wh...

Marriner Eccles: Reform “may not have happened in 1935 if Eccles hadn't been there”

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

More than any other global institution, the US Federal Reserve’s decisions and communications drive capital markets and alter financial conditions e...

Yiman Wang, "To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World" (U California Press, 2024)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theatre, radio, and A...

Douglas Greene, "The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade's Revenge" (Routledge, 2024)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Returning to the New Books Network is Doug Greene, here to discuss his book The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky (Routledge, 2024). Sp...

Laura Beers. "Orwell’s Ghosts Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century" (Norton, 2024)

03 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is Orwell still relevant today?  In Orwell’s Ghosts Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century (Norton, 2024), Laura Beers, a Professor of Histor...

Iman Mersal, "Traces of Enayat" (Transit Books, 2023)

03 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Traces of Enayat (Transit Books, 2023) is a work of creative nonfiction tracing the mysterious life and erasure of Egyptian literature’s tragic her...

Shaul Magid on the Jewish Radicalism of Meir Kahane (JP, Eugene Sheppard)

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For Kahane, the greatest enemy of the Jews was not the black nationalist, the greatest enemy of the Jews was not the Arabs. The greatest enemy of the ...

Steven E. Lindquist, "The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya" (SUNY Press, 2024)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya (SUNY Press, 2024), Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary...

Tim Cooper, "When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter" (Crossway, 2024)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our current culture seems to be increasingly divided on countless issues, including those affecting the church. But for centuries, theological disagre...

Jim Higgins, "Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground" (Trouser Press, 2024)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the time he began recording with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s until his death in 2013, Lou Reed released nearly 50 original albums. In Sw...

Robin Darling Young et al, "Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy" (Oxford UP, 2024)

28 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Gnostic Trilogy is the best-known and most important work by the ascetic philosopher and teacher Evagrius of Pontus. Among the writers of his age,...

Sheila Curran Bernard, "Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

28 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Known worldwide as Lead Belly, Huddie Ledbetter (1889-1949) is an American icon whose influence on modern music was tremendous - as was, according to ...

Justin B. Stein, "Alternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)

27 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the second half of the twentieth century, Reiki went from an obscure therapy practiced by a few thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans to a globa...

Robyn Hitchcock, "1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left" (Akashic Books, 2024)

27 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left (Akashic Books, 2024) explores how that pivotal slice of time tastes to a bright, obsessive-compulsive boy...

Naomi Westerman, "Happy Death Club: Essays on Death, Grief, and Bereavement Across Cultures" (404 Inklings, 2024)

26 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Playwright Naomi Westerman was an anthropology graduate student studying death rituals around the world when her whole family died, turning the end of...

Steven Powell, "Love Me Fierce In Danger: The Life of James Ellroy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Love Me Fierce In Danger: The Life of James Ellroy (Bloomsbury, 2023) is the story of James Ellroy, one of the most provocative and singular figures ...

Francis X. Clooney, S.J., "Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This autobiography--Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story (Bloomsbury, 2024)--traces Francis X. Clooney's intellectual and spiritual j...

Dan Morrison, "The Poisoner of Bengal: The 1930s Murder That Shocked the World" (Juggernaut, 2024)

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the 1930s. Amarendra Chandra Pandey, the youngest son of an Indian prince, is about to board a train when a man bumps into him. Amarendra feels...

David Burke, "The Puppet Masters: How MI6 Masterminded Ireland's Deepest State Crisis" (Mercier Press, 2024)

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Puppet Masters: How MI6 Masterminded Ireland's Deepest State Crisis (Mercier Press, 2024), David Burke uncovers the clandestine activities o...

Suzanne Scanlon, "Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen" (Vintage, 2024)

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen (Vintage, 2024) is a critical memoir about women, reading, and mental illness. When Suzanne Scanlon was a student ...

Yanagawa Seigan, "The Same Moon Shines on All: The Lives and Selected Poems of Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran" (Columbia UP, 2024)

21 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Yanagawa Seigan (1789–1858) and his wife Kōran (1804–79) were two of the great poets of nineteenth-century Japan. They practiced the art of tradi...

Stephanie Balkwill, "The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century" (U California Press, 2024)

20 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the late fifth century, a girl whose name has been forgotten by history was born at the edge of the Chinese empire. By the time of her death, she h...

Filmmaker, Artist, Writer: A Conversation with Paromita Vohra

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Co...

Fida Jiryis, "Stranger in My Own Land: Palestine, Israel and One Family's Story of Home" (Hurst, 2022)

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this very moving and heartwarming interview I had the opportunity to discuss with Fida Jiyris her work, a beautifully written memoir that tells the...

Diana P. Parsell, "Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington's Cherry Trees" (Oxford UP, 2023)

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Eliza Scidmore (1856-1928) was a journalist, a world traveler, a writer, an amateur photographer, the first female board member of the National Geogra...

Emily Wilbourne, "Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence" (Oxford UP, 2023)

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, a...

Tea Krulos, "American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness" (Feral House, 2020)

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The mainstream news media struggles to understand the power of social media. In contrast, conspiracy advocates, malicious political movements, and eve...

The (ir)Rational Priests: On Ignacio Martín-Baró and Liberation Psychology

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A group of landholding elites waged psychological warfare on the El Salvadoran people, and oppressed them for generations. When a psychologist and Jes...

Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb, "The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics" (Oxford UP, 2021)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The story of four remarkable women who shaped the intellectual history of the 20th century: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris ...

Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992)

07 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconne...

Timothy Grieve-Carlson, "American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius" (Oxford UP, 2024)

06 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius (Oxford UP, 2024) explores the impact of climate change on early modern ...

Jeremy Black, "Defoe's Britain" (St. Augustine's Press, 2023)

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Weight of Words Series continues with Defoe's Britain (St. Augustine's Press, 2023), as historian Jeremy Black uses this writer to interpret Bri...

Marsha Gordon, "Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott" (U California Press, 2024)

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Credited with popularizing the label "ex-wife" in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life b...

Verso l’Alto (with Christine Wohar)

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Christine Wohar talks about Finding Frassati: And Following His Path to Holiness (EWTN, 2021), her book about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. The boo...

Michelle T. King, "Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food" (Norton, 2024)

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971, the New York Times called the Taiwanese-Chinese chef, Fu Pei-Mei, the “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as Michelle T. King no...

Lance J. Sussman, "Portrait of an American Rabbi: In His Own Words" (Xlibris US, 2023)

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rabbi Lance J. Sussman, Ph.D., has been a leading rabbi and scholar of the American Jewish experience throughout his long career. Now Rabbi Emeritus o...

The (ir)Rational Mob: On the Life and Legacy of Gustave Le Bon

29 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Every protest movement has been dismissed as a mere ‘mindless mob,’ caught in a psychological frenzy. Where did this idea come from, and why does ...

Sonja Mejcher-Atassi, "An Impossible Friendship: Group Portrait, Jerusalem Before and After 1948" (Columbia UP, 2024)

29 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Jerusalem, as World War II was coming to an end, an extraordinary circle of friends began to meet at the bar of the King David Hotel. This group of...

Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn, "The Shochet: A Memoir of Jewish Life in Ukraine and Crimea" (Academic Studies Press, 2023)

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are going to explore a fascinating volume of the Yiddish library, the autobiography of Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn. Set in Ukraine and Crimea, t...

Jeremy Schipper, "Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial" (Princeton UP, 2022)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt that Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial (Princeton UP, 2022), Dr. Jeremy Schipper tells the story of...

Peter Hill, "Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East" (Oneworld Academic, 2024)

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Peter Hill about his new book Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East (Oneworld Academic, ...

Ann Powers, "Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell" (Dey Street Books, 2024)

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, Joni Mitchell's life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired cou...

Paula Marie Seniors, "Mae Mallory, the Monroe Defense Committee, and World Revolutions: African American Women Radical Activists" (U Georgia Press, 2024)

22 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mae Mallory, the Monroe Defense Committee, and World Revolutions: African American Women Radical Activists (U Georgia Press, 2024) explores the signi...

Jared Stearns, "Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers" (Headpress, 2024)

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers (Headpress, 2024), Jared Stearns tells the untold story of the world's most famous X-rated s...

Christopher William England, "Land and Liberty: Henry George and the Crafting of Modern Liberalism" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Henry George’s Progress and Poverty was one of the best-selling books of the 19th century, and his ideas were taken up by by powerful figures as d...

Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere, "Infinite Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega" (Backbeat Books, 2024)

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Infinite Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega (Backbeat, 2024) by Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere is the first biography on the life of Alan Vega, best k...

Peter Bergamin, "The Making of the Israeli Far-Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology” (I. B. Tauris, 2019)

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Bergamin’s, new book, The Making of the Israeli Far-Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology (I. B. Tauris, 2019), is an intellectual biograph...

Aaron Fischman, "A Baseball Gaijin: Chasing a Dream to Japan and Back" (Sports Publishing, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Like many American boys, Tony Barnette yearned to one day make it to “The Show,” playing baseball professionally. The Arizona State pitcher was dr...

Alan H. McGowan, "The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist" (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Alan McGowan delves into Franz Boas’s dual identity as both a scientist and a political activist, shedding light on how his work transcended academi...

Linda Hopkins and Steven Kuchuck, eds., "Diary of a Fallen Psychoanalyst: The Work Books of Masud Khan 1967-1972" (Karnac, 2022)

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Masud Khan (1924-1989), was an eminent and, ultimately, scandalous British psychoanalyst who trained and practised in London during an important perio...

Jonathan A. Seitz, "Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With a focus on Robert Morrison, Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) evaluates the role ...

Robert Cochran, "Haunted Man's Report: Reading Charles Portis" (U Arkansas Press, 2024)

01 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Cochran’s Haunted Man's Report: Reading Charles Portis (U Arkansas Press, 2024) is a pioneering study of the novels and other writings of ...

Ryan White, "Springsteen: Album by Album" (Palazzo Editions, 2024)

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The definitive illustrated book on "The Boss"-- Springsteen: Album by Album (Palazzo Editions, 2024) is now updated to celebrate Bruce Springsteen’...

Peter A. Levine, "An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey" (Park Street Press, 2024)

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey (Park Street Press, 2024), renowned developer of Somatic Experiencing Peter A. Levine shares his pe...

Eileen M. Hunt, "The First Last Man: Mary Shelley and the Postapocalyptic Imagination" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The First Last Man: Mary Shelley and the Postapocalyptic Imagination (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) is the concluding text in political theorist Eilee...

Iris Moon, "Melancholy Wedgwood" (MIT Press, 2024)

26 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Melancholy Wedgwood (MIT Press, 2024) is an experimental biography of the ceramics entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood that reveals the tenuous relationshi...

Marc C. Johnson, "Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate" (U Oklahoma Press, 2023)

26 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. Senate is so sharply polarized along partisan and ideological lines today that it's easy to believe it was always this way. But in the turbul...

Adi Mahalel, "The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism" (SUNY Press, 2023)

26 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz ...

Yehonatan Eybeshitz, "Pearls of Wisdom from Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeshitz: Torah Giant, Preacher & Kabbalist" (Gerber's Miracle Publishers, 2021)

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeshitz was one of the greatest rabbis of the eighteenth century. Even as a child, he was renowned as one of the rare geniuses of hi...

Jerome’s Tears (with David Bonagura Jr.): Death and Mourning in Christian Late Antiquity

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Professor David Bonagura, theologian and Latinist, has translated and edited seven of St. Jerome’s letters dealing with death and mourning. This doc...

Benjamin Brose, "Embodying Xuanzang: The Postmortem Travels of a Buddhist Pilgrim" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Xuanzang (600/602–664) was one of the most accomplished and consequential monks in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Celebrated for his sixteen-ye...