New Books in History

Mark Hlavacik, "Willing Warriors: A New History of the Education Culture Wars" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

28 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How the rise of the culture wars afflicts the politics of education.  On August 9, 2022, the Denton Independent School District held a meeting to ad...

Nicholas W. Gentile, "Enemies to Their Country: The Marblehead Addressers and Consensus in the American Revolution" (U Mass Press, 2025)

28 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Nicholas W. Gentile complicates our understanding of the American Revolution through a microhistory of one Massachusetts town in his new book, Enemie...

Cathryn J. Prince, "For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman" (U Illinois Press, 2026)

27 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

My guest today is Cathryn J. Prince the author of For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman (U Illinois Press, 2026). From her start ...

Alan McDougall, "Dreams and Songs to Sing: A People's History of Liverpool FC from Shankly to Klopp" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

27 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Alan McDougall, Professor of History at the University of Guelph, and the author of Dreams and Songs To Sing: A People’s His...

Tom Wells, "The Kissinger Tapes: Inside His Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations" (Oxford UP, 2026)

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A richly detailed collection of transcripts of Henry Kissinger's secretly recorded phone conversations from his time in the Nixon administration that ...

Satya Shikha Chakraborty, "Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India (Cambridge UP, 2025) offers a compelling cultural and social ...

James Lin, "The Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan" (U California Press, 2025)

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean for a small state to imagine itself as a model for the developing world? And how were these visions of agrarian development received...

Nana Osei-Opare, "Socialist De-Colony: Black and Soviet Entanglements in Ghana's Cold War" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Led by the charismatic Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana won its political independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. It precipitated both the dying spiral of c...

Katharine Gerbner, "Archival Irruptions: Constructing Religion and Criminalizing Obeah in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica" (Duke UP, 2025)

24 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 1760, following the largest slave revolt in the eighteenth-century British Empire, the Afro-Caribbean word Obeah first appeared in British coloni...

Andrew I. Port, "Germany" (Polity, 2025)

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Few countries are more haunted by the darker aspects of their history than Germany. Nazi crimes continue to cast a long shadow at home and abroad. ...

The Jews in Poland-Lithuania and Russia: 1350 to the Present Day

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, Poland and Russia formed the heartland of the Jewish world. Until World War II, this area was home to over forty percent of world Jewry...

Danny Bate, "Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them" (Bonnier Books, 2025)

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Every letter you’re reading right now has a fascinating story to tell, having been on a long linguistic, historical, political and social journey. T...

Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What did slavery actually look like in the everyday lives of Jews in the medieval Middle East? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with histori...

Philip C. Almond, "Noah and the Flood in Western Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In a world beset by climatic emergencies, the continuing resonance of the flood story is perhaps easy to understand. Whether in the tortured alpha mal...

Santiago Muñoz-Arbeláez, "The New Kingdom of Granada: The Making and Unmaking of Spain's Atlantic Empire" (Duke UP, 2025)

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Kingdom of Granada: The Making and Unmaking of Spain's Atlantic Empire (Duke UP, 2025) tells the history of the making and unmaking of e...

Karima Moyer-Nocchi, "The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America" (Columbia UP, 2026)

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today, macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, a staple of weeknight dinners, family gatherings, and Soul Food restaurants. Humble though th...

Timothy Manion, "Why Barbarossa Failed: Germany and Russia in the Second World War" (Helion, 2026)

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Why did Operation Barbarossa fail? For more than eight decades, historians have offered one dominant answer: Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet U...

Sunmin Kim, "The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth-Century Immigration Debate" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

19 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when theories of racial hierarchies interact with reality? How are they contested, refuted and changed in light of that encounter? What r...

A.J. Bauer, "Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against The Press" (Columbia UP, 2026)

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against The Press (Columbia UP, 2026), A.J. Bauer examines the history of the idea o...

Kalpana Karunakaran, "A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras" (Context, 2026)

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this intimate, yet simultaneously anthropological, exploration of the life of her maternal grandmother Pankajam (1911–2007), Kalpana Karunakaran ...

H. S. Jones, "Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect" (Princeton UP, 2025)

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

James Bryce (1838–1922) was a leading figure in Britain’s Liberal Party and a distinguished historian, a versatile scholar-politician who moved se...

Alistair Moffat, "Edinburgh: A New History" (Birlinn, 2024)

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From prehistory to the present day, the story of Edinburgh is packed with incident and drama. As Scotland’s capital since 1437, the city has witness...

Antwain K. Hunter, "A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715-1865" (UNC Press, 2025)

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Spanning the 1720s through the end of the Civil War, A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715-1865 (UNC Press, 20...

Ethelene Whitmire, "The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram" (Viking, 2026)

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

On the eve of World War II, a handsome young scholar arrived in Paris. The queer, Black son of a housecleaner, who had nevertheless been decorated in ...

Foster Chamberlin, "Uncivil Guard: Policing, Military Culture, and the Coming of the Spanish Civil War" (Louisiana State UP, 2025)

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Uncivil Guard: Policing, Military Culture, and the Coming of the Spanish Civil War (Louisiana State UP, 2025), Foster Chamberlin evaluates the r...

Manuela Ceballos, "Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean" (U California Press, 2025)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Manuela Ceballos’ new book Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean (University of Californi...

Marianna Dudley, "Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley" (Manchester UP, 2025)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley (Manchester University Press, 2025) is a cutting-edge history of wind power in...

Jessica Clarke, "A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre" (Liverpool UP, 2025)

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

"Roman theatre" is a term often used to describe the theatre of ancient Italy during the second and third century BCE. Plautus and Terence are referre...

Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Adrian Masters, "The Radical Spanish Empire: How Paperwork Politics Remade the New World" (Harvard UP, 2026)

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Radical Spanish Empire: How Paperwork Politics Remade the New World by Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Adrian Masters (Harvard UP, 2026) is a grou...

Michelle Adams, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North" (FSG Press, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous decision: In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across...

Kim Bowes, "Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The story of ancient Rome is predominantly one of great men with great fortunes. Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent (Princ...

Elliot B. Hanowski, "Towards a Godless Dominion: Unbelief in Interwar Canada" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2023)

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In recent surveys, one in four Canadians say they have no religion. A century ago, Canada was widely considered to be a Christian nation, and the vast...

Mike Pitts, "Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Rapa Nui, known to Western cultures as Easter Island for centuries, has long been a source of mystery. While the massive stone statues that populate t...

The Augustan Revolution: On Ancient Rome with Reece Edmends

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this second episode of Season 5, I interview Dr. Reece Edmends, a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, and a junior faculty member in the Clas...

Caroline Sharples, "The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History" (Yale UP, 2026)

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Adolf Hitler has taken a long time to die, despite the lethal efficiency of the gun he put to his head in April 1945. Although eagerly anticipated aro...

Daneesh Majid, "The Hyderabadis: From 1947 to the Present Day" (Harper Collins, 2025)

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From the annexation of the princely state of Hyderabad in September 1948 to the formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1956 and the eventual creation of Telan...

Maud Anne Bracke, "Reproductive Rights in Modern France: Reproductive Rights in Modern France: Feminism, Contraception, and Abortion, 1950-1980 (Oxford UP, 2025)

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The introduction of the principle of women's reproductive liberty in France, tentatively by the family planning movement after 1960 and explicitly by ...

Karen Dubinsky, "Strangely, Friends: A History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters" (Between the Lines, 2025)

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Strangely, Friends: A History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters (Between the Lines, 2025) delves into the rich, often overlooked history of persona...

Guoqi Xu, "The Idea of China: A Contested History" (Harvard UP, 2026)

08 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What counts as China, and who counts as Chinese? China became a capitalist superpower by investing in globalization. Now that it has established its ...

Danielle Wiggins, "Black Excellence: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Black Liberalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

08 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A provocative new history of modern black liberalism Black Excellence: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Black Liberalism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025...

Rebecca Sharpless, "People of the Wheat: Culture and Cultivation in North Texas" (U Texas Press, 2026)

07 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve ever wondered where your wheat flour is coming from, who is milling it (and how), or how it came to be such an important staple, then this...

Paul Gillingham, "Mexico: A 500-Year History" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025)

07 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Mexico is among the most unique nations in the world, writes Northwestern University historian Paul Gillingham in Mexico: A 500-Year History (Atlant...

Lucy Lavers et al.," Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain" (Penguin, 2025)

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy s...

Daniel Brook, "The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)

05 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, dubbed the "Einstein of Sex," grew famous (and infamous) for his liberating theory of sexual relativit...

Rachel Walther, "Born to Lose: The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon" (Headpress, 2026)

05 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In her new book, Born to Lose: The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon (Headpress, 2026) film historian Rachel Walther draws on extensive archival ...

Richard Vinen, "The Last Titians: How Churchill and De Gaulle Saved Their Nations and Transformed the World" (Simon & Schuster, 2026)

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A compelling dual biography of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle that shines new light on two of the greatest figures of the 20th century.Winsto...

Amelia Acker, "Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms" (MIT Press, 2025)

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We're so pleased to welcome Dr. Amelia Acker, author of Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms (MIT Press, 2025) to the New Books Netw...

Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast, "Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The battlefields were not the only places that threatened death during World War I. As conflict raged on and supply lines tightened, the allied powers...

Seth S. Tannenbaum, "Bleacher Seats and Luxury Suites: Democracy and Division at the Twentieth-Century Ballpark" (U Illinois Press, 2026)

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Celebrated as a democratic space for all Americans, the major league ballpark in fact privileged the middle- and upper-class white male fan while t...

E. T. Dailey, "Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen" (Oxford UP, 2023)

02 Mar 2026

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...

Aaron Donaghy, "The Second Cold War: Carter, Reagan, and the Politics of Foreign Policy" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

01 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Towards the end of the Cold War, the last great struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union marked the end of détente, and escalated into...

Christine Loh, "Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2018)

01 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

There can be little doubt that Hong Kong has stood out as a particularly intense East Asian news hotspot in recent years. Whether reports have focused...

Sandra E. Greene, “Slave Owners of West Africa: Decision Making in the Age of Abolition” (Indiana UP, 2017)

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s podcast we talked to Dr. Sandra Greene about her book Slave Owners of West Africa. Decision Making in the Age of Abolition published in 2...

Alice Wiemers, "Village Work: Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana" (Ohio UP, 2021)

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Most development histories focus on large-scale projects and multi-year plans. But how would we understand development differently if we chose a diffe...

The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Even those who do not know much Yiddish have probably heard the word “shtetl,” but what does that word mean exactly? Can we just say that it was a...

Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, men...

Leah Astbury, "Making Babies in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

26 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Leah Astbury's new book, Making Babies in Early Modern England (Cambridge UP, 2025), explores the ideals and realities that governed generation ...

Anna-Luna Post, "Galileo’s Fame: Science, Credibility, and Memory in the Seventeenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From the beginning of Galileo’s career, well before the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, his contemporaries took pains to shape his reputation...

Andrea Mansker, "Matchmaking and the Marriage Market in Postrevolutionary France" (Cornell UP, 2024)

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Matchmaking and the Marriage Market in Postrevolutionary France (Cornell UP, 2024) gives an historical account of the evolution of the matchmakin...

Martin Heidegger, "Being and Time: An Annotated Translation" (Yale UP, 2026)

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A full century ago, a young and relatively unknown philosophy instructor in a small town in Germany would publish a book that would be swiftly picked ...

Lillian Guerra, "Patriots and Traitors in Revolutionary Cuba, 1961-1981" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Authorities in postrevolutionary Cuba worked to establish a binary society in which citizens were either patriots or traitors. This all-or-nothing app...

Cecilia Márquez, "Making the Latino South: A History of Racial Formation" (UNC Press, 2023)

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The presence of Latinx people in the American South has long confounded the region's persistent racial binaries. In Making the Latino South: A Histor...

Marc Masters, "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape" (UNC Press, 2023)

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade the...

Sally Frances Low, "Colonial Law Making: Cambodia Under the French" (NUS Press, 2023)

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 1863 the French established a protectorate over the kingdom of Cambodia. The protectorate, along with Vietnam and Laos, later became part of the co...

Mark Thomas Edwards, "Walter Lippmann: American Skeptic, American Pastor" (Oxford UP, 2023)

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Walter Lippmann was arguably the most recognized and respected political journalist of the twentieth century. His "Today and Tomorrow" columns attract...

Jie-Hyun Lim, "Victimhood Nationalism: History and Memory in a Global Age" (Columbia UP, 2025)

21 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Nationalism today depends on the perception of victimhood. The historical memory of past suffering endows nationalist movements with political legitim...

Jeremy Black, "The Short History of Russia: Returning to Another Country" (Amberley, 2026)

21 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 began a new episode in history and was surrounded by a miscellany of historical claims. The Short History of Russia: ...

Ray Yep, "Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)

20 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong (Hong Kong UP, 2024), Ray Yep explores the latest available archival mater...

David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this ...

David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them—unless we can’t find them. Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history...

David M. Henkin, "Out of the Ballpark: How to Think about Baseball" (Oxford UP, 2026)

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

All over the world, masses of people watch, follow, document, and obsess over baseball. Everything remarkable about the impact of baseball derives fro...

Mélanie Lamotte, "By Flesh and Toil: How Sex, Race, and Labor Shaped the Early French Empire" (Harvard UP, 2026)

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From the beginning of the seventeenth century, French colonies and trading posts sprawled across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the first pan-impe...

Emily Dufton, "Addiction, Inc: Medication-assisted Treatment and America's Forgotten War on Drugs" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How the war on drugs created the gold standard treatment for addiction--until America's opioid crisis got privatized for profit, to the detriment of p...

The Far Edges of the Known World: A New History of the Ancient Past

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his new bleak and barbarous surroundings. Like many Greeks and Roman...

Brian Hallstoos, "Sol Butler: An Olympian's Odyssey through Jim Crow America" (U Illinois Press, 2026)

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A superstar in both football and track and field Sol Butler pioneered the parlaying of sports fame into business prosperity. In Sol Butler: An Oly...

Cindy Schweich Handler, "A German Jew's Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany" (McFarland, 2025)

16 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Cindy Schweich Handler’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Redbook, The Huffington Post, and a host of ot...

Bin Chen, "Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State" (Routledge, 2025)

16 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Chen examines the Chinese Nationalist government's distinctive support for private Muslim teachers schools between the 1920s and 1940s, and explores t...

Alex Alvarez and Richard R. Fernandez, "Lethal Elites: The Institutions and Professionals That Made the Holocaust Possible" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

15 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Lethal Elites: The Institutions and Professionals That Made the Holocaust Possible (Bloomsbury, 2025) is an eye-opening book highlights the role ...

Himanshu Prabha Ray ed., "Recentering Southeast Asia: Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections" (Routledge, 2026)

15 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Recentering Southeast Asia: Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections (Routledge, 2026) assesses the impact of European colonization in the late 1...

Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Gady, "Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century" (Howgate Publishing, 2026)

14 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2026), Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Ga...

Colleen M. Moore, "The Peasants' War: Russia's Home Front in the First World War and the End of the Autocracy" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

14 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

During the First World War, Russia relied on the mass mobilization of its peasant population. In the summer of 1914, approximately four million peasan...

Marc James Carpenter, "The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest" (Yale UP, 2025)

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest (Yale UP, 2025) by Marc James Carpenter is a history book about hist...

Claire Morelon, "Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prague, 1914–1920" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Prague entered the First World War as the third city of the Habsburg empire, but emerged in 1918 as the capital of a brand new nation-state, Czechoslo...

Kristin Roebuck, "Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War" (Columbia UP, 2025)

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In her book Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War (Columbia UP, 2025), historian Kristin Roebuck grapples with the question: Wh...

Jacob Mchangama, "Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media" (Basic Books, 2022)

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Jacob Mchangama, founder and director of the think tank Justitia, has written a one-volume history of freedom of thought, which ranges from the lon...

Joshua D. Zimmerman, "Jozef Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland" (Harvard UP, 2022)

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1920s, Józef Piłsudski was a household name not just in Poland, but across Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean as well. Yet this complex and...

Joshua Clark Davis, "Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back" (Princeton UP, 2025)

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back (Princeton UP, 2025) shatters one of the...

Hilary French, "Ballroom: A People’s History of Dancing" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the early twentieth century, American ragtime and the Parisian tango fuelled a dancing craze in Britain. Public ballrooms were built throughout the...

Nancy Castaldo, "Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World" (Island Press, 2025)

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Squirrels are a common sight, seemingly everywhere in wild and urban nature. Their chattering antics in city parks delight us while their raids on our...

Lucy Donkin, "Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages" (Cornell UP, 2022)

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Lucy Donkin’s Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2022) illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in...

Florian Wagner, "Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Florian Wagner about his new book Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982 (Cambridge UP, 2022). F...

Ian Smith, "Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Ian Smith urges readers of Othello, The Merchant of Venice, ...

Gloria Browne-Marshall, "A Protest History of the United States" (Beacon Press, 2026) Revisited

08 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In December 2025, writer, civil rights attorney, playwright, speaker, and Professor of Constitutional Law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Glo...

Ann Komaromi, "Soviet Samizdat: Imagining a New Society" (Cornell UP, 2022)

08 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Soviet Samizdat: Imagining a New Society (Cornell UP, 2022) traces the emergence and development of samizdat, a significant and distinctive phenomeno...

Thomas Kuehn, "Patrimony and Law in Renaissance Italy" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

07 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Thomas Kuehn, Professor Emeritus at Clemson University talks about his new book, Patrimony and Law in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge University Press,...

Leslie James, "The Moving Word: How the West African and Caribbean Press Shaped Black Political Thought, 1935-1960" (Harvard UP, 2025)

06 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1930s and 1940s, amid intensifying anticolonial activism across the British Empire, dozens of new West African and Caribbean newspapers printed...

164 Maurice Samuels: Jewish Assimilation, Integration and the Dreyfus Affair (JP)

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to the condition of Jews in Christian Europe, France was long known as the haven and heartland of integration and of toleration. And yet...

Jacqueline Riding, "Hard Streets: Working-Class Lives in Charlie Chaplin’s London" (Profile Books, 2025)

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the hard streets: working-class London in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in Hard Streets: Working-Class Lives in Charl...

Andreas Killen, "Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War" (Harper, 2023)

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this eye-opening chronicle of scientific research on the brain in the early Cold War era, the acclaimed historian Andreas Killen traces the complex...

Itohan I. Osayimwese, "Africa's Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage" (Princeton UP, 2025)

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Between the nineteenth century and today, colonial officials, collectors, and anthropologists dismembered African buildings and dispersed their parts ...