New Books in History

Patrick Luiz Sullivan De Oliveira, "Ascending Republic: The Ballooning Revival in Nineteenth-Century France" (MIT Press, 2025)

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On August 27, 1783, a large crowd gathered in Paris to watch the first ascent of a hydrogen balloon. Despite the initial feverish enthusiasm, by the m...

Elisabeth Åsbrink, "1947: Where Now Begins" (Other Press, 2019)

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An award-winning writer captures a year that defined the modern world, intertwining historical events around the globe with key moments from her perso...

Cheryl Thompson, "Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict and Freedom, 1812-1895" (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2025)

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2025) traces the origins o...

Felix Cowan, "The Kopeck Press: Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908-1918" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

30 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Felix Cowan about his new book, The Kopeck Press Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908–1918 (Univ...

Felix Cowan, "The Kopeck Press: Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908-1918" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

30 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Felix Cowan about his new book, The Kopeck Press Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908–1918 (Univ...

Sergey Radchenko, "To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What would it feel like To Run the World? The Soviet rulers spent the Cold War trying desperately to find out. In To Run The World: The Kremlin’s C...

Sarah Gold McBride "Whiskerology: The Culture of Hair in Nineteenth-Century America" (Harvard UP, 2025)

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hair is always and everywhere freighted with meaning. In nineteenth-century America, however, hair took on decisive new significance as the young nati...

Talin Suciyan, "Outcasting Armenians: Tanzimat of the Provinces" (Syracuse UP, 2023)

28 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The history of Tanzimat in the Ottoman Empire has largely been narrated as a unique period of equality, reform, and progress, often framing it as the ...

Michael Grunwald, "We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate" (Simon & Schuster, 2025)

28 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Grunwald is a well renown journalist, who over the last thirty years has focused on public policy and national politics, with the last fifteen...

Stacy Horn, "Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York" (Algonquin Books, 2019)

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Conceived as the most modern, humane incarceration facility the world had ever seen, New York's Blackwell's Island, site of a lunatic asylum, two pris...

Char Miller, "Burn Scars: A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning" (Oregon State UP, 2024)

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fire is a means of control and has been deployed or constrained to levy power over individuals, societies, and ecologies. In Burn Scars: A Documenta...

Louis P. Masur, "A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison, and the Forging of a Friendship" (Oxford UP, 2025)

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on hors...

Louis P. Masur, "A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison, and the Forging of a Friendship" (Oxford UP, 2025)

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on hors...

Vali Nasr, "Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History" (Princeton UP, 2025)

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country’s goal...

Yaroslav Hrytsak, "Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation" (PublicAffairs, 2024)

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the world witnessed the “creative, freewheeling, darkly humorous, and deeply resilient society” that is conte...

Philip Kadish, "The Great White Hoax: Frauds, Forgeries, and 200 Years of Selling Racism in America" (The New Press, 2025)

24 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fake news, outright political lies, a shamelessly partisan press, and the collapse of truth, civility, and shared facts, Dr. Philip Kadish argues, are...

Bernd Roeck, "The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance" (Princeton UP, 2025)

22 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today I’m speaking with Bernd Roeck about his book, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance (Princeton University Press, 2025)....

Vivian Kong, "Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

22 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be British? To answer this, Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 (Cambridge UP, 2023) by Dr. Vivian...

John Barr, "1960s University Buildings: The Golden Age of British Modern Architecture" (Lund Humphries, 2025)

21 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 1960s continue to hold an almost mythical place in Western culture, particularly in Britain, where change was widespread and infiltrated many aspe...

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, "Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays and Writings" (Harper, 2025)

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfict...

David Crystal, "Bookish Words and Their Surprising Stories" (Bodleian Library, 2025)

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Bookish Words & their Surprising Stories (Bodleian, 2025) by Dr. David Crystal, explore how books have played a pivotal role in the history of En...

Chris Horton, "Ghost Nation: The Story of Taiwan and Its Struggle for Survival" (MacMillan, 2025)

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Horton is a freelance journalist who has been based in Taiwan since 2015, before many Western publications had any dedicated presence on the is...

John Man, "Conquering the North: China, Russia, Mongolia: 2,000 Years of Conflict" (Oneworld Publications, 2025)

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

China, famously, built the Great Wall to defend against nomadic groups from the Eurasian steppe. For two millennia, China interacted with groups from ...

Emily Webber, "Mining Men: Britain's Last Kings of the Coalface" (Penguin, 2025)

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the last generation of British miners: fathers and sons, brothers and comrades, big hitters and broken men, strikers and scabs. Mining M...

Violet Moller, "Inside the Stargazer's Palace: The Transformation of Science in 16th-Century Europe" (OneWorld, 2024)

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus declared the earth revolved around the Sun, overturning centuries of scholastic presumption. A new age was coming into vi...

Mark Somos, Matthew Cleary, Pablo Dufour, Edward Jones Corredera, and Emanuele Salerno, "The Unseen History of International Law" (Oxford UP, 2025)

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Unseen History of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2025) locates and describes almost one thousand surviving copies of the first nine ...

Frederick Reece, "Forgery in Musical Composition: Aesthetics, History, and the Canon" (Oxford University Press, 2025)

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We all know about art forgeries, but why write fake classical music? In Forgery in Musical Composition: Aesthetics, History, and the Canon (Oxford U...

Barbara Allen, "Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds: Stories of Extinction" (Reaktion, 2025)

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds: Stories of Extinction (Reaktion, 2025) by Reverend Barbara Allen presents thirty-one extinct species through the p...

L. Sasha Gora, "Culinary Claims: Indigenous Restaurant Politics in Canada" (University of Toronto Press, 2025)

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Culinary Claims: Indigenous Restaurant Politics in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2025) by Dr. L. Sasha Gora explores the complex relationships...

Susan L. Carruthers, "Making Do: Britons and the Refashioning of the Postwar World" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

15 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine a world in which clothing wasn't superabundant – cheap, disposable, indestructible – but perishable, threadbare and chronically scarce. Ei...

Giovanni Aloi, "Lawn" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A quintessential feature in Western gardens and landscaping, the lawn is now at the center of a climate change controversy. The large carbon footprint...

Alison Griffiths, "Nomadic Cinema: A Cultural Geography of the Expedition Film" (Columbia UP, 2025)

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From In Borneo, the Land of the Head-Hunters to The Epic of Everest to Camping Among the Indians, the early twentieth century was the heyday of ex...

Sarah Bilston, "The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession" (Harvard UP, 2025)

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1818, a curious root arrived in a small English village, tucked—seemingly by accident—in a packing case mailed from Brazil. The amateur botanis...

Constant Willem Hijzen, "Roots of Counterterrorism: Contemporary Wisdom from Dutch Intelligence" (Oxford UP, 2024)

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It seems beyond doubt, since 9/11, that the main responsibility of intelligence and security services is to prevent ticking bombs from going off. The ...

Elise Franklin "Disintegrating Empire: Algerian Family Migration and the Limits of the Welfare State in France" (University of Nebraska Press, 2024)

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode is a conversation with Dr. Elise Franklin whose first book, Disintegrating Empire: Algerian Family Migration and the Limits of the...

Julia Sneeringer, "West Germany: A Society in Motion, 1949-89" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

08 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Julia Sneeringer's book provides a concise overview of developments in the Federal Republic of Germany from the end of the Second World War and German...

Sladja Blažan, "Ghosts and Their Hosts: The Colonization of the Invisible World in Early America" (University of Virginia Press, 2025)

08 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Ghosts and Their Hosts: The Colonization of the Invisible World in Early America (University of Virginia Press, 2025), Dr. Sladja Blažan explain...

Jenn Hobbs, "Bodily Fluids, Fluid Bodies and International Politics: Feminist Technoscience, Biopolitics and Security" (Bristol University Press, 2024)

07 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, security actors have become increasingly concerned with health issues. Bodily Fluids, Fluid Bodies and International Politics: Femin...

Geoffrey Wawro, "The Vietnam War: A Military History" (Basic Books, 2024)

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosi...

Brando Simeo Starkey, "Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System" (Doubleday, 2025)

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System (Doubleday, 2025) takes readers...

Claire Knight, "Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953" (Cornell UP, 2024)

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953 (Cornell UP, 2024) explores a neglected period in the history ...

Matthew Shindell, "Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps and Matter" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The first book to combine exquisite cartographical charts of the Moon with a thorough exploration of the Moon’s role in popular culture, science, an...

Roger Chickering, "The German Empire, 1871–1918" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Furious economic growth and social change resulted in pervasive civic conflict in Imperial Germany. Roger Chickering presents a wide-ranging history o...

Serhii Plokhy, "The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine" (Basic Books, 2015)

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Ukraine is embroiled in an ongoing struggle with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence, celebrated historian Serh...

Stephen R. Platt, "The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II" (Knopf, 2025)

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The extraordinary life of forgotten World War II hero Evans Carlson, commander of America’s first special forces, secret confidant of FDR, and one o...

Carol A. Heimer, "Governing the Global Clinic: HIV and the Legal Transformation of Medicine" (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

HIV emerged in the world at a time when medicine and healthcare were undergoing two major transformations: globalization and a turn toward legally inf...

Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingd...

Sven Trakulhun, "Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

01 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Siam had been dealing with Christian missionaries for centuries, but from the 1830s a new wave of Protestant missionaries began to work in Siam, just ...

Katarina Kušic, "Beyond International Intervention: Politics of Improvement in Serbia" (University of Michigan Press, 2025)

01 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Studies of statebuilding and peacebuilding have been criticized for their disregard of people living the consequences of intervention projects. Beyon...

Jack Ashby, "Nature's Memory: Behind the Scenes at the World’s Natural History Museums" (Penguin, 2025)

31 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Nature's Memory: Behind the Scenes at the World’s Natural History Museums (Penguin, 2025), zoologist Jack Ashby shares hidden stories behind th...

Nneka D. Dennie, "Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth Century Black Radical Feminist" (Oxford UP, 2023)

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1849, the Mary Ann Shadd Cary had not yet become one of the first Black woman newspaper editors in North America. She was decades away from being a...

Xing Hang, "The Port: Hà Tiên and the Mo Clan in Early Modern Asia" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Port (present-day Hà Tiên), situated in the Mekong River Delta and Gulf of Siam littoral, was founded and governed by the Chinese creole Mo clan...

Antonio J. Muñoz, "Hitler's War Against the Partisans During Operation Barbarossa: June 1941 to the Spring of 1942" (Frontline, 2025)

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A detailed history of Nazi anti-partisan warfare on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa. From the start of the war on the Eastern Front, Hi...

Alex Davies, "Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car" (Simon & Schuster, 2022)

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car (Simon & Schuster, 2022), Alex Davies tells the enlightening and significant story of the effort ...

Jana Dambrogio and Daniel Starza Smith, "Letterlocking: The Hidden History of the Letter" (MIT Press, 2025)

27 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Before the invention of the gummed envelope in the 1830s, how did people secure their private letters? The answer is letterlocking—the ingenious pro...

Julia McClure, "Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire" (Oxford UP, 2025)

26 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Julia McClure examines how changing conce...

From Hal to Siri: How Computers Learned to Speak

25 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s Science in Human Cul...

Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism" (Cornell UP, 2025)

24 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Aviva Briefel argues that Victoria...

Jennifer T. Roberts, "Out of One, Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture" (Princeton UP, 2024)

24 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Covering the whole of the ancient Greek experience from its beginnings late in the third millennium BCE to the Roman conquest in 30 BCE, Out of One, ...

Michael A. Meyer, "Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler" (CCAR Press, 2025)

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Reform Judaism looks different today than it did a century ago. There are a lot of factors that lead to that change, but among these is Rabbi Alexande...

Jennifer Lynn Gross, "Sisterhood of the Lost Cause: Confederate Widows in the New South" (LSU Press, 2025)

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Historians have thoroughly documented the vast devastation of the Civil War. In the attention they have paid to aspects of that destruction, however, ...

Brian VanDeMark, "Kent State: An American Tragedy" (Norton, 2024)

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fifty-five years after the terrible shooting at Kent State University, I spoke with Brian VanDeMark, a Professor of History at the US Naval Academy, a...

Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025)

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culminat...

Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

19 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. ...

Globalization's Backlash: Echoes of the Interwar Era in Today’s World

18 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week on International Horizons, RBI Director John Torpey interviews historian Tara Zahra, author of Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass ...

Daniel MacFarlane, "The Lives of Lake Ontario: An Environmental History" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2024)

17 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Join me for a fascinating conversation with one of today’s leading voices in environmental studies, Daniel Macfarlane, as we explore his new book T...

Becky Aikman, "Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger during World War II" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

They were crop dusters and debutantes, college girls and performers in flying circuses-all of them trained as pilots. Because they were women, they we...

Marc Jaffré, "The Courtiers and the Court of Louis XIII, 1610-1643" (Oxford UP, 2025)

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marc Jaffré joins Jana Byars for a lively conversation about The Courtiers and the Court of Louis XIII, 1610- 1643 (Oxford University Press, 2025)...

Pollyanna Rhee, "Natural Attachments: The Domestication of American Environmentalism, 1920–1970" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Barbara, California, in 1969 quickly became a landmark in the history of American environmentalism...

Michael David-Fox, "Crucibles of Power: Smolensk Under Stalinist and Nazi Rule" (Harvard UP, 2025)

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Michael David Fox's Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule (Harvard UP, 2025) provides a local, close-up look at the everyday w...

Noise and Information in the Office

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ever wonder who’s to blame for the noise and distraction of the open office? Our guest has answers. Joseph L. Clarke is a historian of art and arch...

Jeremy Black, "British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1727-44" (Routledge, 2014)

11 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Covering the period from the end of the Anglo-French alliance in 1731 to the declaration of war between the two powers in 1744, British Politics and ...

Hasia R. Diner, "Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America" (St. Martin's Press, 2024)

10 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America (St. Martin's Press, 2024) tells the extraordinary story of how Irish...

Aaron Robertson, "The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America" (FSG, 2024)

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do the disillusioned, the forgotten, and the persecuted not merely hold on to life but expand its possibilities and preserve its beauty? What, in ...

Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate.  ...

Christopher Harding, "The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East" (Allen Lane, 2024)

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Harding’s The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East (Allen Lane, 2024) is a fascinating survey of two millenni...

Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian, "The Great Transformation: China's Road from Revolution to Reform" (Yale UP, 2024)

06 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1968, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, asserting his control of China 15 years later, Deng Xiaoping launched the reform and opening up ...

Martin Thomas, "The End of Empires and a World Remade: A Global History of Decolonization" (Princeton UP, 2024)

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Empires, until recently, were everywhere. They shaped borders, stirred conflicts, and set the terms of international politics. With the collapse of em...

Shaun Walker, "The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West" (Knopf, 2025)

04 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Shaun Walker, The Illegals (Knopf, 2025) is the definitive history of Russia’s most secret spy program, from the earliest days of the Soviet Unio...

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In our conversation about The Battle of Manila (Oxford University Press, 2025), Nicholas Evan Sarantakes explains how U.S. forces under General Doug...

Laura Spinney, "Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Star. Stjarna. Setareh. Thousands of miles apart, humans look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see. Listen to these Eng...

Jeremy Black, "Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714-1727" (Routledge, 2016)

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Through its focus on the relationship between foreign and domestic politics, Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714-1727 (Routledg...

Udi Greenberg, "The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s" (Harvard UP, 2025)

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Reconciliation between Europe's Protestants and Catholics led to a new era of Christian collaboration.  Why did these erstwhile foes end their schis...

Steven Hahn, "Illiberal America: A History" (Norton, 2024)

29 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If your reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was to think, 'That’s not us,' think again. In Illiberal America: A History (...

Reider Payne, "War and Diplomacy in the Napoleonic Era" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Though Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh remains well known today for his role in shaping the post-Napoleonic peace settlement in Europe, his half-...

Ross Benes, "1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times" (UP of Kansas, 2025)

27 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted our Bizarre Times (2025, University of Kansas Press) journalist Ross Benes examin...

Paul M. McGarr, "Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States, and India's Secret Cold War" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

26 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States, and India's Secret Cold War (Cambridge UP, 2024) is the first comprehensive history of India's sec...

Richard Overy, "Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan" (Norton, 2025)

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

September 2 will mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s formal surrender to the United States aboard the USS. Missouri, ending the Second World War. T...

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "The Idea of the City in Late Antiquity: A Study in Resilience" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The city was one of the central and defining features of the world of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean. Challenging the idea that the ancient city 'd...

Gabe Henry, "Enough Is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell" (Dey Street, 2025)

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Eezier to Spell (Dey Street Books, 2025), Gabe Henry presents a  brief and humorous 500-...

Max Hastings, “Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975” (Harper, 2018)

22 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

People of various political stripes in many countries (particularly those countries where various political stripes are allowed) have been arguing abo...

Ulf Zander, "Raoul Wallenberg: Life and Legacy" (Lund UP, 2024)

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Raoul Wallenberg: Life and Legacy (Lund UP, 2024) examines important events in the life of the Swedish diplomat, but this is not a traditional biogra...

Henry Jenkins, "Where the Wild Things Were: Boyhood and Permissive Parenting in Postwar America" (NYU Press, 2025)

20 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 60s produced a Baby Boom generation that catalyzed the dawn of a new era—the space age, the age of television, the global age, and the beginning...

Maurice Jackson, "Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience: How Black Washingtonians Used Music and Sports in the Fight for Equality" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

19 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the Nation's Capital, music and sports have played a central role in the lives of African Americans, often serving as a barometer of social conflic...

Davida Siwisa James, "Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries" (Fordham UP, 2024)

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For last 100 years, the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City has stood as the capital of Black America and the capital of the global African diaspo...

Davida Siwisa James, "Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries" (Fordham UP, 2024)

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For last 100 years, the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City has stood as the capital of Black America and the capital of the global African diaspo...

Lesley J. Gordon, "Dread Danger: Cowardice and Combat in the American Civil War" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

15 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Those who fought in the Civil War were expected to overcome their fear of injury or death as they charged into a hail of bullets. Soldiers could expec...

Stephen J. Campbell, "Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life" (Princeton UP, 2025)

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) never signed a painting, and none of his supposed self-portraits can be securely ascribed to his hand. He revealed nex...

The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History

13 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Geographic labels are sometimes misnomers. The Dead Sea’s name is not, for the most part. Its high salinity levels kill most forms of life, barring ...

Stefanie Fischer and Kim Wünschmann, "Oberbrechen: a German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past" (Oxford UP, 2024)

12 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of...