New Books in Biography & Memoir

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—...

Michèle Miller Sigg, "Birthing Revival: Women and Mission in Nineteenth-Century France" (Baylor UP, 2022)

05 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The nineteenth century witnessed a flurry of evangelical and missionary activity in Europe and North America. This was an era of renewed piety and int...

Jill L. Newmark, "Without Concealment, Without Compromise: The Courageous Lives of Black Civil War Surgeons" (Southern Illinois UP, 2023)

03 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Of some twelve thousand Union Civil War surgeons, only fourteen were Black men. This book is the first-ever comprehensive exploration of their lives a...

James Crossley and Robert J. Myles, "Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict" (Zero Books, 2023)

02 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Alongside their collective acumen in traditional historical-critical and social-scientific approaches to the New Testament, James Crossley and Robert ...

D. J. Taylor, "Orwell: The New Life" (Pegasus Books, 2023)

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A fascinating exploration of George Orwell--and his body of work--by an award-winning Orwellian biographer and scholar, presenting the author anew to ...

Talking Clarence Thomas: A Conversation with Amul Thapar

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As the last few months of landmark Supreme Court decisions have showcased, Clarence Thomas is one of the most important men in America. To wrap up our...

Breaking Out: An Indian Woman's American Journey

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Padma Desai grew up in the 1930s in the provincial world of Surat, India, where she had a sheltered and strict upbringing in a traditional Gujarati An...

Adom Getachew and Jennifer Pitts eds. "W. E. B. Du Bois: International Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

30 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the most significant American political thinkers of the twentieth century. This volume collects 24 of his essays and speec...

The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In April 2014, David Bromwich spoke at the Institute about his forthcoming book, The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautifu...

Stephen C. Taysom, "Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith" (U of Utah Press, 2023)

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph F. Smith was born in 1838 to Hyrum Smith and Mary Fielding Smith. Six years later both his father and his uncle, Joseph Smith Jr., the founding...

Michelle Dowd, "Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult--A Memoir" (Algonquin, 2023)

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult, published by Algonquin Books, and written by Michelle Dowd. Forager is a memoi...

Nicole Evelina, "America's Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor" (Two Dot Books, 2023)

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After being forgotten for nearly 130 years, the “Mother of Suffrage in Missouri” and her husband are finally taking their rightful place in histor...

Howard Fishman, "To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse" (Dutton, 2023)

22 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Howard Fishman's To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse (Dutton, 2023) is a fascinating hybrid biography that weav...

Hannah Pittard, "We Are Too Many: A Memoir [Kind of]" (Henry Holt, 2023)

14 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when you come of age in mid-life? Why is so challenging to figure out your own past? Can you find the permission to be weird? (And can yo...

Alfred J. Rieber, "Stalin As Warlord" (Yale UP, 2022)

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Second World War was arguably the defining moment in the history of the Soviet Union. In Stalin as Warlord (Yale University Press, 2022), eminen...

Joseph Sassoon, "The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire" (Pantheon, 2022)

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Joseph Sassoon about his book The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire (Pantheon, 2022) They were one...

Francis L. Sampson, "Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre" (Catholic U of America Press, 2023)

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films...

Peter Stansky, "The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War" (Stanford UP, 2023)

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Few English writers wielded a pen so sharply as George Orwell, the quintessential political writer of the twentieth century. His literary output at on...

TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara

02 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tristan Tzara, one of the most important figures in the twentieth century's most famous avant-garde movements, was born Samuel Rosenstock (or Samueli ...

Katherine C. Mooney, "Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of a Black Jockey" (Yale UP, 2023)

02 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Isaac Murphy, born enslaved in 1861, still reigns as one of the greatest jockeys in American history. Black jockeys like Murphy were at the top of the...

Stephen Hauser, "The Face Laughs While the Brain Cries: The Education of a Doctor" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)

01 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Stephen L. Hauser and a patient named Andrea were both 27 years old when they met. He was an up-and-coming neurologist-in-training; she was a Harv...

Deirdre Bair on Artist Saul Steinberg

01 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, we hear a 2011 talk by Deirdre Bair about the artist Saul Steinberg. Bair received the 1978 National Boo...

John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle, "Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living" (Princeton UP, 2023)

01 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living (Princeton UP, 2023) invites readers to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Th...

Greg A. Salazar, "Calvinist Conformity in Post-Reformation England: The Theology and Career of Daniel Featley" (Oxford UP, 2022)

01 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Calvinist Conformity in Post-Reformation England: The Theology and Career of Daniel Featley (Oxford UP, 2022) is the first modern full-scale examinat...

Anna Müller, "An Ordinary Life?: The Journeys of Tonia Lechtman, 1918-1996" (Ohio UP, 2023)

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

With An Ordinary Life? The Journeys of Tonia Lechtman, 1918-1996 (Ohio University Press, 2023), historian Anna Müller has produced a beautifully wr...

Kaya Sahin, "Peerless Among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman" (Oxford UP, 2023)

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Süleyman, who ruled the Ottoman Empire between 1520 and 1566, was a globally recognized figure during his lifetime. In Peerless Among Princes: The ...

David Wenham, "Jesus in Context: Making Sense of the Historical Figure" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

27 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jesus changed our world forever. But who was he and what do we know about him? David Wenham's Jesus in Context: Making Sense of the Historical Figure...

Marcello Musto, "The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography" (Stanford UP, 2020)

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the last years of his life, Karl Marx expanded his research in new directions-studying recent anthropological discoveries, analyzing communal forms...

Thomas W. Lippman, "Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

24 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United Stat...

Samuel G. Freedman, "Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, ...

Frank Costigliola, "Kennan: A Life Between Worlds" (Princeton UP, 2023)

19 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The diplomat and historian George F. Kennan (1904-2005) ranks as one of the most important figures in American foreign policy--and one of its most com...

Tanvi Srivastava, trans., "The War Diary of Asha-san: From Tokyo to Netaji's Indian National Army" (Harper Collins, 2022)

15 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On a trip many years ago to New Delhi, I was struck by an official memorial to Subhas Chandra Bose, the wartime leader of the Indian National Army, th...

Judith Hicks Stiehm, "Janet Reno: A Life" (UP of Florida, 2023)

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this first full biography of former United States attorney general Janet Reno (1938–2016), Judith Hicks Stiehm describes the independent and unco...

Douglas Kerr, "Orwell and Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)

09 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Douglas Kerr's book Orwell and Empire (Oxford UP, 2022) i...

Randy Grigsby, "This Labyrinth of Darkness and Light: Henrietta Szold, the Rescue of Children from Hitler's Europe and Her Palestine Experience" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2022)

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on Henrietta Szold's letters and diary, extensive research, and historical sources of that time in Germany and Palestine, the book is a powerf...

James H. Meyer, "Red Star over the Black Sea: Nazim Hikmet and His Generation" (Oxford UP, 2023)

03 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nâzım Hikmet (1902-1963) is best known as a poet and communist whose daring flight by motorboat from Turkey to the Eastern Bloc captured internation...

Perry Mehrling, "Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

02 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Charles Kindleberger ranks as one of the twentieth century's best known and most influential international economists. This book traces the evolution ...

Monica Macias, "Black Girl from Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity" (Duckworth, 2023)

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Monica Macias, the youngest daughter of Equatorial Guinea’s first president at just seven years old, lands in Pyongyang, North Korea in 1979. Her fa...

Ashok Gopal, "A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B. R. Ambedkar" (Navayana, 2023)

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) is perhaps the most iconised historical figure in India. Born into a caste deemed ‘unfit for human association’...

Learning for Liberation: The Life and Legacy of Paulo Freire

29 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Paulo Freire offers activists and academics everywhere a lesson in what it means to be a radical intellectual. He is known as the founder of critical ...

Joel Lafayette Fletcher III, "With Hawks and Angels: Episodes from a Southern Life" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)

28 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Queer Voices I talk to Joel Lafayette Fletcher III about his book With Hawks and Angels: Episodes from a Southern Life (UP of Mis...

Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden: A Girl's Life in the Incredible String Band

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Damon Kruskowski, author of Ways of Hearing and The New Analog, previously member of Galaxie 500 and currently a member of Damon & Naomi interviews...

Christopher H. Evans, "Do Everything: The Biography of Frances Willard" (Oxford UP, 2022)

21 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Frances Willard (1839-1898) was one of the most prominent American social reformers of the late nineteenth century. As the long-time president of the ...

Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of The Fern Loved Gully

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tai Shani (Turner Prize winning artist, educator and author of Our Fatal Magic) and Amy Hale (anthropologist, folklorist, and writer) discuss the...

America & Democracy Ep. 5: Brandon Terry on MLK

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the final episode of this series, Brandon Terry, political theorist and African American Studies scholar at Harvard discusses the life and work o...

Catherine Russell, "The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck: Twenty-Six Short Essays on a Working Star" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From The Lady Eve, to The Big Valley, Barbara Stanwyck played parts that showcased her multidimensional talents but also illustrated the limits impo...

Pharmacological Histories Ep. 4: Andy Roberts on LSD's Cosmic Courier

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Hollingshead, the man who turned Timothy Leary onto LSD, managed to fundamentally influenced modern drug culture whilst remaining virtually an...

The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Lee: A Conversation with Allen C. Guelzo

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why should we study Robert E. Lee? Why did he make the fateful decision to betray his country? How should we judge Robert E. Lee? Allen C. Guelzo, Dir...

Matthew Jagel, "Khmer Nationalist: Sơn Ngc Thành, the CIA, and the Transformation of Cambodia" (Northern Illinois UP, 2023)

15 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Khmer Nationalist: Sơn Ngc Thành, the CIA, and the Transformation of Cambodia (Northern Illinois UP, 2023) is a political history of Cambodia from ...

Kim E. Nielsen, "Money, Marriage, and Madness: The Life of Anna Ott" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

14 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Anna Ott died in the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane in 1893. She had enjoyed status and financial success first as a physician's wife and the...

Bill Steigerwald, "30 Days a Black Man: The Forgotten Story That Exposed the Jim Crow South" (Lyons Press, 2017)

13 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The dangerous, trailblazing work of a white journalist and black leader who struck a shocking early blow against legal segregation In 1948, most white...

Benjamin Balint, "Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History" (Norton, 2023)

10 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The twentieth-century artist Bruno Schulz was born an Austrian, lived as a Pole, and died a Jew. First a citizen of the Habsburg monarchy, he would, w...

Harry V. Jaffa and the Fight for America: A Conversation with Glenn Ellmers

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What did Aristotle and Shakespeare mean to Harry Jaffa, and what might they mean to America? Can extremism be prudent? What is the nature of the crisi...

Jonathan Eig, "King: A Life" (FSG, 2023)

07 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life (FSG, 2023) is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights ico...

Chad Williams, "The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War" (FSG, 2023)

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and suppo...

Francis Xavier Clooney, "Saint Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi's Tēmpāvaṇi" (Brill, 2022)

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi was an Italian Jesuit who worked in South India from 1710 to 1747. A brilliant scholar of Tamil, his works include hymns, ins...

Edgar Gomez, "High-Risk Homosexual: A Memoir" (Soft Skull, 2022)

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Writing Latinos, from Public Books, is a new podcast featuring interviews with Latino (a/x/e) authors discussing their books and how their writing co...

John McCannon, "Nicholas Roerich: The Artist Who Would Be King" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. John McCannon's new biography of Russian artist, mystic, and all-around fascinating character Nicholas Roerich follows its subject from his artist...

Brian Domitrovic, "The Emergence of Arthur Laffer: The Foundations of Supply-Side Economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966–1976" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Emergence of Arthur Laffer: The Foundations of Supply-Side Economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966–1976 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) explores...

Annie Zaleski, "Lady Gaga: Applause" (Palazzo Editions, 2022)

30 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As one of the world's best-selling musicians, Lady Gaga has set the musical bar high. Since her debut album, The Fame (2008), she has sold more than...

Ian Hembrow, "Ralph Edwards: Rare Events--The Inside Story of a Worldwide Quest for Safer Medicines" (Springer, 2023)

30 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Medical treatments designed to help people can also be harmful or fatal. Around 2.5 million people die this way each year. So if any kind of medicine ...

Paul R. Semendinger, "Roy White: From Compton to the Bronx" (Artemesia, 2023)

26 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Roy White played on the New York Yankees from 1965 through the 1979 season. Roy grew up on the tough streets of Compton and created a successful all-s...

Ferenc Hörcher, "Art and Politics in Roger Scruton's Conservative Philosophy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ferenc Hörcher's book Art and Politics in Roger Scruton's Conservative Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) covers the field of and points to the ...

Tom Hutton, "Hitler's Maladies and Their Impact on World War II" (Texas Tech UP, 2023)

23 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Toward the end of World War II, Hitler's many health complications became even more pronounced, making an evil man yet more erratic and dangerous. Whi...

Vanessa Wilkie, "A Woman of Influence: The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England" (Atria Books, 2023)

22 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For readers of historical biography, meet Alice Spencer Stanley Egerton—the 16th century English noblewoman who was determined to bring her family ...

John Lisle, "The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D...

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, "Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality" (Pantheon Books, 2022)

17 Apr 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 ...

Heidi Langbein-Allen, "Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler's Army" (Pen & Sword Military, 2022)

16 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Heidi Langbein-Allen about Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler's Army (Pen & Sword Military, 2022). Willi Lan...

David Edmonds, "Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality" (Princeton UP, 2023)

15 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Derek Parfit (1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the ...

David Chrisinger, "The Soldier's Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II" (Penguin, 2023)

14 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ernie Pyle, a legendary journalist and war correspondent, was widely considered one of the greatest chroniclers of World War II. His dispatches from t...

Jeremy Richey, "Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol" (Cult Epics, 2022)

13 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A trailblazing figure in film and popular culture, Netherlands native Sylvia Kristel became one of the biggest stars in the world as Emmanuelle in 197...

Alfrid Bustanov and Vener Usmanov, "Muslim Subjectivity in Soviet Russia" (Brill, 2022)

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The world as seen by a Qur’an specialist in late imperial and early Soviet Russia.  Alfrid Bustanov and Vener Usmanov's book Muslim Subjectivity i...

The Gospel According to Dorothy (with Kathryn Wehr)

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1941, Dorothy Sayers, Christian apologist, author of The Mind of the Maker, and even more famous for her Peter Whimsey mystery novels, wrote a cy...

Hope Williard, "Friendship in the Merovingian Kingdoms: Venantius Fortunatus and His Contemporaries" (ARC Humanities Press, 2022)

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hope Williard's book Friendship in the Merovingian Kingdoms: Venantius Fortunatus and His Contemporaries (Arc Humanities Press, 2022) explores how ...

Stuart Elden, "The Archaeology of Foucault" (Polity, 2022)

05 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did Foucault’s thought develop in the 1960s? In The Archaeology of Foucault (Polity, 2022) Stuart Elden, a professor of Political Theory an...

Laura Arnold Leibman, "Once We Were Slaves: The Extraordinary Journey of a Multiracial Jewish Family" (Oxford UP, 2021)

05 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

An obsessive genealogist and descendent of one of the most prominent Jewish families since the American Revolution, Blanche Moses firmly believed her ...

Eva Hagberg, "When Eero Met His Match: Aline Louchheim Saarinen and the Making of an Architect" (Princeton UP, 2022)

01 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Aline B. Louchheim (1914-1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero...

David Horgan, "Helmi's Shadow: A Journey of Survival from Russia to East Asia to the American West" (U Nevada Press, 2021)

01 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Helmi's Shadow: A Journey of Survival from Russia to East Asia to the American West (U Nevada Press, 2021) tells the sweeping true story of two Russ...

Incognito: The Astounding Life of Alexandra David-Neel

01 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I grew up with Alexandra David-Neel’s books on my mum’s bookshelf. She was part of the myth making process that led to my own fascination with Ti...

Wolfgang Marx, "I Don't Belong Anywhere: Gyorgy Ligeti At 100" (Brepols Publishers, 2022)

29 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Wolfgang Marx's I Don't Belong Anywhere: Gyorgy Ligeti At 100 (Brepols Publishers, 2022) commemorates the centenary of Gyorgy Ligeti's birth. The ...