New Books in History
Episodes
Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen, "Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)
19 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The connections between Hong Kong and Japan began far earlier than many realise. Yet only recently has Hong Kong’s historic Japanese community recei...
James O'Leary, "The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America" (Oxford UP, 2025)
19 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The premiere of Oklahoma! in 1943 is commonly called a “turning point” in the history of the Broadway musical. Often characterized as the first...
Cristina Florea, "Bukovina: The Life and Death of an East European Borderland" (Princeton UP, 2025)
16 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Bukovina, when it has existed on official maps, has always fit uneasily among its neighbors. The region is now divided between Romania and Ukraine but...
Cheryl Thompson, "Staging Blackface in Canada: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898-1919" (Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2026)
16 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the early twentieth century, as variety shows flooded Canadian stages, new forms of blackface, inspired by modern forms of amusements, changed the ...
Brook Wilensky-Lanford, "A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026)
15 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since conquistadores claimed Taino land in the name of their Catholic God and New England Puritans formed their strictly Protestant “city on a ...
Pamela Walker Laird, "Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth" (Cambridge University Press, 2025)
14 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four c...
Derek R. Peterson, "A Popular History of Idi Amin's Uganda" (Yale UP, 2025)
14 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Idi Amin ruled Uganda between 1971 and 1979, inflicting tremendous violence on the people of the country. How did Amin's regime survive for eight ca...
Jake Dyble, "Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany" (Boydell Press, 2025)
12 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still under...
Sarah McNamara, "Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South" (UNC Press, 2023)
11 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Decades before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, radical, working-class women and men from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Strai...
Justin F Jackson, "The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines" (UNC Press, 2025)
10 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the US Army seemed minuscule and ill-equipped for global conflict. Yet over the next fifteen years, i...
Aditya Deshbandhu, "The 21st Century in 100 Games" (Routledge, 2024)
09 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The 21st Century in 100 Games (Routledge India, 2024) is an interactive public history of the contemporary world. It creates a ludological retelling...
Bruce Dearstyne, "Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change" (SUNY Press, 2026)
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change (SUNY Press, 2026), edited by Bruce Dearstyne and published by SUNY Press, examines what the volu...
Robert B. Marks, "Deep Time in the Mono Lake Basin: Nature and History Over the Last 10,000 Years" (U California Press, 2026)
07 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"Deep Time," a way of understanding the distant past popularized in the late 20th century by the writer John McPhee, changes our perspective on histor...
Sarah M. Cushman et al eds., "The Routledge Handbook to Auschwitz-Birkenau" (Routledge, 2026)
07 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Routledge Handbook to Auschwitz-Birkenau (Routledge, 2026) examines Auschwitz-Birkenau as both a site and a symbol of Nazi genocide. Scholars fr...
Bruno Shirley, "Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026)
05 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Shirley's monograph, Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215 (ARC Humanities ...
Homa Katouzian, "Iran and the Revolution: A History" (Yale UP, 2026)
04 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Iran is, once again, in global headlines, following U.S. strikes on the country earlier this year. Operation Epic Fury, as the Department of Defense c...
Weipin Tsai, "The Making of China's Post Office: Sovereignty, Modernization, and the Connection of a Nation" (Harvard UP, 2024)
03 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How did a vast, nationwide institution like a modern postal system come into being in Qing China—right at the very end of the empire? In The Mak...
Sean Scalmer, "A Fair Day's Work: The Quest to Win Back Time" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
31 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Australia has a special place in the history of struggle for a Fair Day's Work. In giving a history of Australian worker struggles over the length of...
Joanna Dee Das, "Faith, Family, and Flag: Branson Entertainment and the Idea of America" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
31 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Faith, Family, and Flag: Branson Entertainment and the Idea of America (University of Chicago Press, 2025) examines the history of Branson, Mi...
Christos Lynteris, "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
30 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, rats are nearly synonymous with plague, but this association is surprisingly recent. For centuries, plague devastated populations without be...
Annette Gordon-Reed ed., "Jefferson on Race: A Reader" (Princeton UP, 2026)
30 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jeffer...
Hannah Shepherd, "The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region" (U California Press, 2025)
29 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (U California Press, 2025), Hannah Shepherd examines the shared hi...
Timothy Mason Roberts, "After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires" (Cornell UP, 2025)
29 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Timothy Mason Roberts explores the connecti...
H. A. Drake, "The Wisdom of the Ancients: Four Ideas That Changed the World" (Oxford UP, 2025)
28 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Wisdom of the Ancients: Four Ideas That Changed the World (Oxford UP, 2025) is about four cornerstones of modern thought that were put in ...
Timothy McCall, "Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
28 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood. Timo...
Christopher S. Celenza, "The Evolution of Western Thought: Volume 1, From the Ancient World to Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
27 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A rich and immersive reinterpretation of the history of Western thought, The Evolution of Western Thought: Volume 1, From the Ancient World to Late A...
Jeremy Yellen, "The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War" (Cornell UP, 2019)
27 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jeremy Yellen’s The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War (Cornell University Press, 2019) is a challenging transn...
Patrick Wyman, "Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World" (HarperCollins, 2026)
26 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a familiar story about us humans: we went from hunting and gathering to farming, wandering bands to villages and cities, clans and chieftain...
Julia F. Irwin, "Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century" (UNC Press, 2023)
26 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century (UNC Press, 2023) offers a sweeping history of US foreign disaster ass...
Jeffrey Whyte, "The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War" (Oxford UP, 2023)
25 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jeffrey Whyte's book The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War (Oxford UP, 2023) exp...
Mary T. Freeman, "Abolitionists and the Politics of Correspondence" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
23 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Freeman, associate professor of history at the University of Maine, joins Michael Stauch to discuss her new book Abolitionists and the Politi...
Mary T. Freeman, "Abolitionists and the Politics of Correspondence" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
23 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Freeman, associate professor of history at the University of Maine, joins Michael Stauch to discuss her new book Abolitionists and the Politi...
Ruth Balint, "Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and Their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe" (Cornell UP, 2021)
22 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this unique “history from below," Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and Their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe (Cornell University Press,...
Kori Schake, "The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States" (Wiley, 2025)
21 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
One of the biggest worries of the US Constitution's Framers was the danger of a standing army to a democracy, so they designed a system to ensure civi...
Thomas Doherty, "How Film Became History: The Rise of the Archival Documentary in 1930s America" (Columbia UP, 2026)
20 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
By the 1930s, filmmakers had access to a backlog of footage from nearly forty years of motion pictures, allowing them to create a new kind of film sti...
Denise Z. Davidson, "Surviving Revolution: Bourgeois Lives and Letters" (Cornell UP, 2025)
19 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Denise Z. Davidson joins Jana Byars to talk about Surviving Revolution: Bourgeois Lives and Letters (Cornell UP, 2025). The book explores how two ...
Evan N. Dawley, "Taiwan: A People′s History" (Reaktion Books, 2026)
18 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
While most English-language histories of Taiwan focus on its geopolitical role, Taiwan: A People’s History (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Evan N. Dawley ...
Justin Randolph, "Mississippi Law: Policing and Reform in America’s Jim Crow Countryside (UNC Press, 2026)
17 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Justin Randolph, assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University, joins Michael Stauch to discuss Mississippi Law: Policing and Reform in A...
Eloise Moss, "The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
17 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats. Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which...
Gordon Simmons, "Mutiny in the Mountains: West Virginia Public Workers, 1969-2019" (PM Press, 2026)
15 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Former chief steward and union organizer Gordon Simmons joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new book on the history of labor struggles by public secto...
Stephen F. Knott, "Conspirator in Chief: The Long Tradition of Conspiracy Theories in the American Presidency" (UP Kansas, 2025)
14 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Political Scientist Steve Knott has a new book that focuses on conspiracy theories within the American presidency and often promulgated by the pres...
Benjamin Robert Siegel, "Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers" (Oxford UP, 2026)
13 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Markets of Pain offers a sweeping history of the business of licit opium--following cultivators, merchants, scientists, and policymakers--and shows h...
Es-pranza Humphrey, "Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen" (Poster House Museum, 2026)
12 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Starting in the 1880s, Black performers, and those invested in telling stories centering Black people, attempted to counter the dehumanizing and harmf...
Wil Haygood, "The War within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home" (Knopf, 2026)
12 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Award-winning author Wil Haygood joins Michael Stauch to discuss The War within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home (Knopf, 2026) h...
Angus Burgin on the Rise of the Internet
11 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We were joined by Angus Burgin, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and talked about how the arrival of the Internet remade li...
Holly EJ Black, "The Story of Printmaking: A Global History of Art" (Yale UPs, 2026)
11 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The significance of printmaking within the history of art is often underplayed, obscured or misunderstood. The Story of Printmaking: A Global History...
Shannon McKenna Schmidt, "You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode With Her" (Sourcebooks, 2026)
10 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From the author of The First Lady of WWII comes You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode W...
Mark Peterson, "The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History" (Princeton UP, 2026)
09 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A provocative new history of America's constitution and an urgent call to action for a nation confronted by challenges its founders could never have i...
Julia Bowes, "Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism" (Princeton UP, 2026)
08 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“Parental rights” is a rallying cry for today’s American conservatives, signaling opposition to mandatory vaccination and “woke” public scho...
Julia Stephens, "Worldly Afterlives: Tracing Family Trails Between India and Empire" (Princeton UP, 2025)
07 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The British Empire covered much of the world during the 19th century–and each time someone moved through it, they left a paper trail in their wake. ...
Odd Arne Westad, "The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History" (Henry Holt and Co, 2026)
06 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From a renowned Yale historian comes a chilling look at the looming threat of the next Great Power war and the urgent interventions necessary to avoi...
Lerone Martin, "Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr." (Amistad, 2026)
05 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We know who Martin Luther King Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and activism? Before Mar...
Sophie Rose, "Intimacy and Social (Dis)Order in Dutch Colonial Expansion: Regulating Sex, Marriage, and Family Life, 1600–1800" (Brill, 2025)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Explosive sexual scandals, bitter domestic conflicts, and dramatic changes in fortune. Sex, marriage, and family life were matters of enormous consequ...
Alice Echols, "Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic" (Oxford UP, 2026)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A rich history of cross-racial coalitions and alliances of the Sixties' freedom movement, acclaimed historian Alice Echols's Black Power, White Heat r...
Szabolcs László, "Cold War Brokers: Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility,1956-1989" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the CEU Review of Books Podcast, I sat down with Szabolcs László to talk about his new book, Cold War Brokers: Hungarian-America...
Benjamin Y. Fong and Paul Prescod, "Rustin's Challenge" (2026)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There was no more trenchant and substantive critic of the Left from the Left in the 1960s and 1970s than Bayard Rustin. Some liberals and leftists t...
Michelle P. Brown, "Illumino: A History of Medieval Britain in Twelve Illuminated Manuscripts" (Reaktion, 2025)
03 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The history of medieval Britain through twelve remarkable illuminated manuscripts. Illumino: A History of Medieval Britain in Twelve Illuminated Manu...
Paola De Santo, "The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy" (U Delaware Press, 2026)
03 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Paola de Santo joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy (U Delaware Pres...
Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)
02 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. An...
Scott Kurashige, "American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism" (U California Press, 2026)
02 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This probing account shines a new light on the problem of anti-Asian violence and inspires us to build lasting solidarity. During the COVID-19 pandem...
Jason R. Young, "The Mask of Memory: White Racial Fantasy After the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2026)
01 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the early twentieth century, a group of white writers, artists, and performers from the cultural hub of Charleston, South Carolina, created and cur...
Anthony Kaldellis, "1453: The Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople" (Oxford UP, 2026)
01 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A detailed account of the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453, a watershed year that closed the book, once and for all, on the Roman Empir...
Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
27 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026) Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barb...
Gennady Estraikh, "The History of Birobidzhan: Building a Soviet Jewish Homeland in Siberia" (Bloombury, 2023)
26 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Gennady Estraikh. His book titled, The History of Birobidzhan: Building a Soviet Jewish Homeland in Siberia (B...
Zaakir Tameez, "Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation" (Henry Holt, 2025)
25 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and ReconstructionCharles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist...
Lukas Novotny, "Modern New York: The Illustrated Story of Architecture in the Five Boroughs from 1920 to Today" (Rizzoli, 2023)
25 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Modern New York: The Illustrated Story of Architecture in the Five Boroughs from 1920 to Today (Rizzoli, 2023), Lukas Novotny calls attention not...
Mattie Fitch, "The People, the Workers, and the Citizens: Antifascist Cultures and the Popular Front in France, 1934–1939" (Routledge, 2025)
24 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Mattie Fitch, Associate Professor at Marymount University and author of The People, The Workers and the Citizens: Antifascist ...
Vanda Krefft, "Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women" (Algonquin Books, 2026)
24 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a safe bet that most of the secretaries on the TV series Mad Men would have attended the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. The icon...
Yair Mintzker, "I, Wandering Jew: A Five-Century History of Our Modern Condition" (Princeton UP, 2026)
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The story behind the mythical figure of "the Wandering Jew" is one of the most fascinating tales in European history. In I, Wandering Jew, National J...
Drew Flanagan, "From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955" (LSU Press, 2026)
22 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After the collapse of the National Socialist regime in May 1945, France became one of four principal occupying powers in a defeated Germany. Within th...
Jan Cress Dondi, "The Navigator's Letter" (Union Square, 2026)
22 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
One of the riskiest air raids of World War II occurred on August 1, 1943, over the oil fields at Ploesti, Romania--Nazi Germany's primary fuel source....
Jim Downs, "Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine" (Harvard UP, 2023)
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Downs’ most recent book is Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine. Professor Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-Nat...
Stephen F. Jones, "The First Social Democracy: The Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921" (Harvard UP, 2026)
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the small nation of Georgia established its independence in May 1918. Its leaders surprised the world by...
Francis Young, "Fairies: A History" (John Wiley & Sons, 2026)
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Many people think they know what fairies are, what a fairy looks like, and how a fairy is expected to behave. Dr. Francis Young's Fairies: A History ...
Samuel Clowes Huneke, "I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany" (Aevo UTP, 2026)
18 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany (Aevo UTP, 2026) brings to life the unrelenting defiance of queer women in fascist Germany. ...
Penny Roberts, "Huguenot Networks: Truth and Secrecy in Sixteenth-Century Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
17 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Huguenot Networks: Truth and Secrecy in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge UP, 2025), Penny Robert's latest book, takes us into the world ...
Victor Li, "Supreme Pressure: The Rejection of John J. Parker and the Birth of the Modern Supreme Court Confirmation Process" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
15 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Supreme Pressure: The Rejection of John J. Parker and the Birth of the Modern Supreme Court Confirmation Process (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) exami...
David-James Gonzales, "Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange County, California" (Oxford UP, 2025)
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On March 2, 1945, five Mexican American families and their Jewish American lawyer filed a class-action lawsuit against four school districts in Orange...
Donald Sassoon, "Revolutions: A New History" (Verso Books, 2025)
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Revolutions: A New History (Verso Books, 2025) is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in ter...
Transnational Solidarities with Nico Slate
13 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
My conversation with Nico Slate began with him reflecting on his own path into the study of historical connections between South Asia and the United S...
Money Beyond Borders with Barry Eichengreen
13 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Doubts about the international dominance of the dollar are only growing amid worries about tariffs, political dysfunction, and fraying international a...
Clifton Crais, "The Killing Age: How Violence Made the Modern World" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
12 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A bracing account of how our current planetary crisis emerged from the worst cataclysmic destruction in human history, which Clifton Crais terms the M...
David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)
11 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advoc...
Ruth Mandujano López, "Steamships Across the Pacific: Maritime Journeys between Mexico, China, and Japan, 1867–1914" (U Hong Kong Press, 2025)
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How did the movement of people, goods, and ships reshape connections between Latin America and Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuri...
Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof, "The Burgeoning European Print Trade: The Distribution of Prints Via the Plantin-Moretus Press of Antwerp" (Harvey Miller, 2025)
08 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof join Jana Byars to talk about their new book, The Burgeoning European Print Trade: The Distribution of Prints Via the P...
Michael W. Tuck, "The Castle Slaves of the Gambia River: A Creole Community in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World" (Brill, 2026)
08 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Castle Slaves of the Gambia River: A Creole Community in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World (Brill, 2026) historian D...
David Arditi, "Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok" (Anthem Press, 2026)
07 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Who makes a living from the music industry? In Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok (Anthem Press, 2...
Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)
06 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, ...
Eleanor Houghton, "Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes" (Bloomsbury 2026)
05 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told ...
Daniel Rachel, "This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich" (Akashic Books, 2026)
04 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last seven decades, some of rock 'n' roll's most celebrated figureheads have flirted with the imagery and theater of the Third Reich. From Ke...
Christine Grandy, "Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth-Century Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
04 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What is the role of television in the history of the UK? In Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth-Century Britain (Cambridge UP, 2026) Chris...
Danielle Bainbridge, "Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive" (NYU Press, 2026)
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive (NYU Press, 2026) is a bold and incisive reconsideration of the relationship...
Caroline Tracey, "Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History" (W. W. Norton, 2026)
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Salt lakes are some of the most beautiful and unusual landscapes that you can find on this planet, even as they can be quite alien to people used to f...
The Club: Where American Artists Found Refuge in Belle Epoque Paris
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Belle Époque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the...
Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson, "Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away" (U Hawaiʻi Press, 2026)
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“Japanese war crimes are notorious. During the Second World War, as Japanese forces overran Southeast Asia and the Pacific, they massacred, murdered...
Tyesha Maddox, "A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) examines the signif...
Kristin Ciupa, "The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market" (Brill, 2026)
30 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market (Brill, 2026) is the latest book from Dr. Kristin Ciup...
Gregory Smits, "The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
30 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Ryukyu Islands between Japan and Taiwan consist of around 160 islands and are home to about 1.5 million inhabitants. Across the islands' history, ...
Matthew Guariglia and Brian Hochman, "The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation into the National Security State" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2026)
29 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Fifty years ago, a government investigation led by US senator Frank Church uncovered some of the darkest state secrets of the twentieth century. The C...
Nick Juravich, "Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education" (U Illinois Press, 2024)
29 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're speaking with Nicholas Juravich, author of Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education (U Illinois Press, 2024). I...