New Books in Biography & Memoir
Episodes
Joseph Vogel, "James Baldwin and the 1980s: Witnessing the Reagan Era" (U Illinois Press, 2018)
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
By the 1980s, critics and the public alike considered James Baldwin irrelevant. Yet Baldwin remained an important, prolific writer until his death in ...
David T. Beito, "The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance" (Independent Institute, 2023)
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoys regular acclaim from historians, politicians, and educators. Lauded for his New Deal policies, le...
Thomas A. Schwartz, "Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography" (Hill and Wang, 2020)
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past six decades, Henry Kissinger has been America's most consistently praised--and reviled--public figure. He was hailed as a "miracle worke...
Jordana M. Saggese, "The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader" (U California Press, 2021)
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader (University of California Press, 2021), Jordana Moore Saggese provides the first comprehensive sourcebook on the ...
Stuart Elden, “Foucault: The Birth of Power” (Polity Press, 2017)
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How did Foucault become a public, political intellectual? In Foucault: The Birth of Power (Polity Press, 2017), Stuart Elden, Professor of Political T...
Alice Collett, "Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History" (Oxford UP, 2016)
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Alice Collett’s monograph Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History (Oxford University Press, 2016) delves into the lives of six of t...
Carl Rollyson, "The Life of William Faulkner: This Alarming Paradox, 1935-1962" (U Virginia Press, 2020)
25 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
By 1935 William Faulkner was well established as an author of critically praised novels, yet the low volume of his sales forced him to seek work in Ho...
Matt Garcia, "Eli and the Octopus: The CEO Who Tried to Reform One of the World’s Most Notorious Corporations" (Harvard UP, 2023)
25 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The poignant rise and fall of an idealistic immigrant who, as CEO of a major conglomerate, tried to change the way America did business before he hims...
Laurence Jurdem, "The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship that Changed American History" (Simon and Schuster, 2023)
24 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Evoking the political intrigue of the Gilded Age, Laurence Jurdem's book The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, an...
Olga V. Solovieva, "The Russian Kurosawa: Transnational Cinema, Or the Art of Speaking Differently" (Oxford UP. 2023)
22 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Olga V. Solovieva's book The Russian Kurosawa: Transnational Cinema, Or the Art of Speaking Differently (Oxford UP. 2023) offers a new historical pe...
Peter Richardson, "Savage Journey: Hunter S. Thompson and the Weird Road to Gonzo" (U California Press, 2022)
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hunter S. Thompson was never a hippie, but his writing nonetheless helped define the counterculture and the San Francisco scene of the 1960s and early...
Ronald C. White, "On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain" (Random House, 2023)
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Before 1862, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had rarely left his home state of Maine, where he was a trained minister and mild-mannered professor at Bowdo...
Peter Brown, "Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History" (Princeton UP, 2023)
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past seven decades, Peter Brown has transformed our collective understanding of the late Roman Empire and the European Middle Ages alike, est...
Sean Howe, "Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s" (Hachette Books, 2023)
10 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It wasn’t easy writing a biography the mysterious, shape-shifting Thomas King Forçade, but after nine years of research and extensive interviews, ...
Mark Davidson and Parker Fishel, "Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine" (Callaway, 2023)
09 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Several years ago, a treasure trove containing some 6,000 original Bob Dylan manuscripts was revealed to exist. Their destination? Tulsa, Oklahoma. Th...
Jeffrey S. Gurock, "Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend" (NYU Press, 2023)
09 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television ...
Burkhard Bilger, "Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets" (Random House, 2023)
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A New Yorker staff writer investigates his grandfather, a Nazi Party Chief, in this “unflinching, gorgeously written, and deeply moving exploration ...
Susan Blumberg-Kason, "Bernardine's Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China" (Post Hill Press, 2023)
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1929, Bernardine Szold Fritz left Paris on a train bound for China. She was on her way to her fourth wedding, and her fourth husband: An American i...
Emma K. Sutton, "William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emma K. Sutton's William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician (U Chicago Press, 2023) is the first book to map William James's preoccupat...
Ramsey Lewis and Aaron Cohen, "Gentleman of Jazz: A Life in Music" (Blackstone, 2023)
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This immersive new autobiography provides insight into the early life and illustrious career of the late great Ramsey Lewis, one of the most popular j...
Barbara D. Savage, "Merze Tate: The Global Odyssey of a Black Woman Scholar" (Yale UP, 2023)
03 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Born in rural Michigan during the Jim Crow era, the bold and irrepressible Merze Tate (1905–1996) refused to limit her intellectual ambitions, despi...
On “Henry Kissinger and His World” with author Barry Gewen
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In my talk with Barry Gewen on his 2020 book, The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (W. W. Norton, 2020), we explore the disp...
Ian Probstein, trans., "Centuries Encircle Me with Fire: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam" (Academic Studies Press, 2022)
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's most influential poets. This collection, compiled, translated, and ed...
Henrietta Harrison, "The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire" (Princeton UP, 2021)
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire (Princeton UP, 2021) is a fascinati...
Roslyn Weiss, "Hasdai Crescas: Collected Writings" (Library of the Jewish People, 2023)
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Roslyn Weiss, editor of Hasdai Crescas: Collected Writings (Library of the Jewish People, 2023). Hasdai Crescas spent his life in ...
E. T. Dailey, "Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen" (Oxford UP, 2023)
26 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A princess born to the Thuringian royal house. A captive in war, forced to marry the Frankish king who killed her family. A queen, who renounced her p...
Diane Carol Fujino, "Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry of Mitsuye Yamada and Michael Yasutake" (U Washington Press, 2020)
25 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, which is co-hosted with Michael Nishimura, features a conversation with Dr. Diane C. Fujino, the author of Nisei Radicals: The Feminis...
Paul Le Blanc, "Lenin: Responding to Catastrophe, Forging Revolution" (Pluto Press, 2023)
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Returning to the New Books Network today is Paul Le Blanc, here to discuss his new book Lenin: Responding to Catastrophe, Forging Revolution (Pluto ...
Amy Harris, "Being Single in Georgian England: Families, Households, and the Unmarried" (Oxford UP, 2023)
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Being Single in Georgian England: Families, Households, and the Unmarried (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Amy Harris is the first book-length ...
Kawika Guillermo, "Nimrods: A Fake-Punk Self-Hurt Anti-Memoir" (Duke UP, 2023)
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Christopher Patterson about two books: the late Y-Dang Troeung's Landbridge [life in fragments] (Knopf Canada, 2023) and Christ...
Greil Marcus, "Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs" (Yale UP, 2022)
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Greil Marcus is perhaps the world’s foremost interpreter of Bob Dylan. This podcast focuses on Marcus’ latest Dylan book, Folk Music: A Bob Dylan...
Christopher Lazarski, "Lord Acton for Our Time" (Northern Illinois UP, 2023)
18 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Extracting lessons for our current age, Christopher Lazarski focuses on liberty--how Acton understood it, what he thought was its foundation and neces...
Warren Zanes, "Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska' (Crown, 2023)
17 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen's hugely successful album The River should h...
Keith Cantú, "Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami And Śivarājayoga" (Oxford UP, 2023)
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Keith Cantú's Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami And Śivarājayoga (Oxford UP, 2023) examines the life of a nineteenth- to early ...
Beatriz Nascimento, "The Dialectic Is in the Sea: The Black Radical Thought of Beatriz Nascimento" (Princeton UP, 2023)
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Beatriz Nascimento (1942-1995) was a poet, historian, artist, and political leader in Brazil's Black movement, an innovative and creative thinker whos...
Jennifer Burns on the Life and Lasting Influence of Milton Friedman
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Burns (Hoover Reserch Fellow and Stanford Associate Professor of History) joins the podcast to discuss her career as well as her new biograph...
Shelley Fraser Mickle, "White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America" (Imagine, 2023)
11 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“I can do one of two things, I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”—Theodore Roosevelt Duri...
Ralph H. Craig III, "Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner" (Eerdmans, 2023)
10 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you don’t know Tina Turner’s spirituality, you don’t know Tina. When Tina Turner reclaimed her throne as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll in th...
Steven E. Lindquist, "The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya" (SUNY Press, 2023)
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya (SUNY Press, 2023), Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary...
Seamus Heaney’s Afterlives
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1995, Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. During his speech, he explained that the adequacy of lyric poetry spoke to the “‘...
Shannon McKenna Schmidt, "The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back" (Sourcebooks, 2023)
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Shannon McKenna Schmidt's The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back (Sourcebooks, 2023) is the f...
David Alan Parnell, "Belisarius & Antonina: Love and War in the Age of Justinian" (Oxford UP, 2023)
04 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Belisarius and Antonina were titans in the Roman world some 1,500 years ago. Belisarius was the most well-known general of his age, victor over the Pe...
Jacqueline R. Braitman, "She Damn Near Ran the Studio: The Extraordinary Lives of Ida R. Koverman" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am happy to be interviewing historian and author Dr. Jacqueline R. Braitman about her very engaging biography, She Damn Near Ran t...
Sharony Green, "The Chase and Ruins: Zora Neale Hurston in Honduras" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Zora Neale Hurston, an anthropologist and writer best known for her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, led a complicated life often marked b...
Scott Eyman, "Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided" (Simon & Schuster, 2023)
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The remarkable, must-read story of Charlie Chaplin’s years of exile from the United States during the postwar Red Scare, and how it ruined his film ...
Woodrow Wilson: Patrick Weil’s "The Madman in the White House"
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Patrick Weil, author of The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, ...
Matthew Thiessen, "A Jewish Paul: The Messiah's Herald to the Gentiles" (Baker Academic, 2023)
22 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Excavating and interpreting Paul’s thought, belief, ideas, and mission from his authentic letters and those otherwise attributed to him remains an o...
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" (Vintage, 2006)
21 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s major motion picture, Oppenheimer, this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography explores the life and times of J. ...
Sanjay Krishnan on V. S. Naipaul: To make the Deformation the Formation (JP)
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
John Plotz of Recall This Book spoke in 2020 with Sanjay Krishnan, Boston University English professor and Conrad scholar about his marvelous new bo...
The Unquiet Legacy of Jewish Radical Meir Kahane
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas in October, 2023 I spoke with Shaul Magid, author of Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Polit...
Paul Clammer, "Black Crown: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom" (Hurst, 2023)
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How did a Caribbean child, born into plantation slavery, come to defeat Napoleon's armies in battle and crown himself king of the first free black nat...
Vikram Visana, "Uncivil Liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji’s Political Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Uncivil liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji's Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Vikram V...
Victoria Houseman, "American Classicist: The Life and Loves of Edith Hamilton" (Princeton UP, 2023)
15 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) didn't publish her first book until she was sixty-two. But over the next three decades, this former headmistress would beco...
Jana Randow and Alessandro Speciale, "Mario Draghi, the Craftsman: The True Story of the Man Who Saved the Euro" (Rizzoli, 2019)
14 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Within our mandate, the [European Central Bank] is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough". With tho...
Peter Stark, "Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison's Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation" (Random House, 2023)
14 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The conquest of Indigenous land in the eastern United States through corrupt treaties and genocidal violence laid the groundwork for the conquest of t...
Kristen Green, "The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail" (Seal Press, 2022)
14 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation’s first HBCUs. In The ...
Parks M. Coble, "The Collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek Lost China's Civil War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
14 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Parks M. Coble's book The Collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek Lost China's Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2023) revisits one of the most st...
Helen Rappaport, "In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon" (Pegasus Books, 2022)
13 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Raised in Jamaica, Mary Seacole first came to England in the 1850s after working in Panama. She wanted to volunteer as a nurse and aide during the Cri...
Patrick Laude, "Surrendering to the Self: Ramana Maharshi's Message for the Present" (Hurst, 2021)
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi (1879- 1950) is perhaps the most widely known Indian spiritual figure of the last century, second only to Gandhi. Pat...
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, "The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn" (UNC Press, 2023)
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (UNC Press, 2023), award-winning historian Amrita Chakrabarti Myers has recovered...
Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein, "The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice" (U Notre Dame Press, 2023)
08 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein's book The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice (U Notre Dame Press, 2023) explo...
Charlotte Gray, "Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt" (Simon & Schuster, 2023)
07 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later t...
Lee Wind, "No Way, They Were Gay?: Hidden Lives and Secret Loves" (Zest Books, 2021)
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Which stories are left out of the history books? What’s in the documents omitted from the “official” record? And what happens when we go in sear...
Viet Thanh Nguyen, "A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023)
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023), Viet Th...
Janet Somerville, "Yours, for Probably Always: Martha Gellhorn's Letters of Love and War 1930-1949" (Firefly Books, 2022)
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Before email, when long distance telephone calls were difficult and expensive, people wrote letters, often several each day. Today, those letters prov...
Sumit Chakrabarti, "Local Selfhood, Global Turns: Akshay Kumar Dutta and Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century Bengal" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sumit Chakrabarti's book Local Selfhood, Global Turns: Akshay Kumar Dutta and Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century Bengal (Cambridge UP, 2023) exa...
Sirpa Salenius, "An Abolitionist Abroad: Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe" (U Massachusetts Press, 2016)
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Parker Remond (1826–1894) left the free black community of Salem, Massachusetts, where she was born, to become one of the first women to trave...
Mark Thomas Edwards, "Walter Lippmann: American Skeptic, American Pastor" (Oxford UP, 2023)
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Walter Lippmann was arguably the most recognized and respected political journalist of the twentieth century. His "Today and Tomorrow" columns attract...
Jessica Hendry Nelson, "Joy Rides Through the Tunnel of Grief" (U Georgia Press, 2023)
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Hendry Nelson, Joy Rides through the Tunnel of Grief (University of Georgia Press, 2023) is a compelling memoir in essays. When Nelson's fa...
Michael O’Sullivan, "The Poet & the Baroness: W. H. Auden and Stella Musulin, a Friendship" (CEU Press, 2023)
22 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press/CEU Review of Books) sat down with biographer and historian Michael O...
Jeffrey Angles, ed., "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again: The Original Novellas by Shigeru Kayama" (U Michigan Press, 2023)
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Godzilla emerged from the sea to devastate Tokyo in the now-classic 1954 film, produced by Tōhō Studios and directed by Ishirō Honda, creating a gl...
Anthony Gad Bigio, "A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic" (Hamilton Books, 2023)
17 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (Hamilton Books, 2023), Anthony Gad Bigio ...
Chris Molanphy, "Old Town Road" (Duke UP, 2023)
15 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Old Town Road (Duke University Press, 2023), Chris Molanphy considers Lil Nas X’s debut single as pop artifact, chart phenomenon, and cultura...
Gregory Cahill, "The Golden Voice: The Ballad of Cambodian Rock's Lost Queen" (Life Drawn, 2023)
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Golden Voice: The Ballad of Cambodian Rock's Lost Queen (Life Drawn, 2023) is very well-reseraech graphic novel based on the life of beloved Camb...
A Better Way to Buy Books
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has alre...
Sarah Ruden, "Vergil: The Poet's Life" (Yale UP, 2023)
10 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Aeneid stands as a towering work of Classical Roman literature and a gripping dramatization of the best and worst of human nature. In the proces...
L. M. Ratnapalan, "Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific: The Transformation of Global Christianity" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
09 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How does Robert Louis Stevenson’s engagement with Pacific Islands cultures demonstrate processes of inculturation and the transformation of global C...
Jonathan Sandler, "The English GI: World War II Graphic Memoir of a Yorkshire Schoolboy's Adventures in the United States and Europe" (2022)
08 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Sandler’s The English GI: World War II Graphic Memoir of a Yorkshire Schoolboy’s Adventures in the United States and Europe, is an adapt...
Steven Veerapen, "The Wisest Fool: The Life of James VI and I" (Birlinn, 2023)
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
James VI and I has long endured a mixed reputation. To many, he is the homosexual King, the inveterate witch-roaster, the smelly sovereign who never w...
Tomaz Jardim, "Ilse Koch on Trial: Making the 'Bitch of Buchenwald'" (Harvard UP, 2023)
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On September 1, 1967, one of the Third Reich's most infamous figures hanged herself in her cell after nearly twenty-four years in prison. Known as the...
Erik Sherman, "Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fernando Valenzuela was only twenty years old when Tom Lasorda chose him as the Dodgers' opening-day starting pitcher in 1981. Born in the remote Mexi...
Kristal Brent Zook, "The Girl in the Yellow Poncho: A Memoir" (Duke UP, 2023)
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At five years old, Kristal Brent Zook sat on the steps of a Venice Beach, California, motel trying to make sense of her white father’s abandonment, ...
Zachary Jacobson, "On Nixon's Madness: An Emotional History" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Richard Nixon battled for the presidency in 1968, he did so with the knowledge that, should he win, he would face the looming question of how to ...
John Szwed, "Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith" (FSG, 2023)
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Who was Harry Smith? Was he an anthropologist, a filmmaker, a painter? Was he a charlatan? A genius? Was he a moocher, a schmuck, a bum? As John Szwed...
Peter K. Andersson, "Fool: In Search of Henry VIII's Closest Man" (Princeton UP, 2023)
02 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first biography of Henry VIII’s court fool William Somer, a legendary entertainer and one of the most intriguing figures of the Tudor age In som...
Tomiko Brown-Nagin, "Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality" (Knopf Doubleday, 2023)
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With the US Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, “it makes sense to revisit the life and work of another Black woman who profoundly ...
On “Henry Kissinger and His World” with author Barry Gewen
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In my talk with Barry Gewen on his 2020 book, The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (W. W. Norton, 2020), we explore the disp...
David Waldstreicher, "The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence" (FSG, 2023)
28 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thy Power, O Liberty, make strong the weak, And (wond’rous instinct) Ethiopians speak. At the age of 19, Phillis Wheatley published the first book i...
Julian Jackson, "France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain" (Harvard UP, 2023)
27 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There was a time when French people put up picture of Marshal Philippe Petain on their walls. He is a figure of immeasurable stature to the country of...
Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst, "I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar Ibn Said's America" (UNC Press, 2023)
25 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Ernst’s and Mbaye Lo’s new book I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar Ibn Said's America (UNC Press, 2023) is a fascin...
Becoming Justice Thomas
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On today’s podcast, we are changing things up a bit. Instead of interviewing the author of a recent book, I am interviewing another podcaster about ...
Kevin Landis, "One Public: New York’s Public Theater in the Era of Oskar Eustis" (Methuen Drama, 2022)
19 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Landis's One Public: New York’s Public Theater in the Era of Oskar Eustis (Methuen Drama, 2022) tells the story of the remarkable first 17...
Earl Cureton and Jake Uitti, "Earl the Twirl: My Life in Basketball" (McFarland, 2023)
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Earl Careton about his new book (co-authored with Jake Uitti), Earl the Twirl: My Life in Basketball (McFarland, 2023) Earl "The ...
Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell, "Johnson at 10: The Inside Story" (Atlantic Books, 2023)
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After his dramatic rise to power in the summer of 2019 amid the Brexit deadlock, Boris Johnson presided over the most turbulent period of British hist...
Jeremy Black, "Smollett's Britain" (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Smollett's Britain (St. Augustine's Press, 2022), acclaimed British historian Jeremy Black examines the layers of craft and insight in Tobias Sm...
Marsha Gordon, "Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott" (U California Press, 2023)
13 Aug 2023
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...
Shana Rosenblatt Mauer, "Mordecai Richler's Imperfect Search for Moral Values" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
12 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From his debut as a novelist, Mordecai Richler challenged, provoked, enraged, entertained, and surprised readers. Criticizing him for his portrayals o...
Michael Broers, "Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire, 1811-1821" (Pegasus Books, 2023)
12 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1811, Napoleon stood at his zenith. He had defeated all his continental rivals, come to an entente with Russia, and his blockade of Britain seemed,...
Ashley Robertson Preston, "Mary Mcleod Bethune the Pan-Africanist" (UP of Florida, 2023)
12 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This book examines the Pan-Africanism of Mary McLeod Bethune through her work, which internationalized the scope of Black women's organizations to cre...
William J. Mann, "Bogie and Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood's Greatest Love Affair" (Harper, 2023)
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the noted Hollywood biographer comes this celebration of the great American love story—the romance between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart—...