New Books in History

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...

Orit Rozin, "Emotions of Conflict, Israel 1949-1967" (Oxford UP, 2024)

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Israel’s citizens have had to cope with the emotional challenges of the threats their country has faced during its first two decades. Emotions of C...

Nathalie Cooke, "Tastes and Traditions: A Journey Through Menu History" (Reaktion, 2025)

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Menus are invaluable snapshots of the food consumed at specific moments in time and place. Tastes and Traditions: A Journey through Menu History (Re...

Sam Klug, "The Internal Colony: Race and the American Politics of Global Decolonization" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The Internal Colony: Race and the American Politics of Global Decolonization (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Dr. Sam Klug reveals the centra...

David G. Williamson, "Poland Betrayed: The Nazi-Soviet Invasions of 1939" (Pen & Sword, 2011)

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After staging a mock attack at Gleiwitz, Germany unleashed its blitzkrieg on Poland on September 1, 1939. Two week later, Soviet forces streamed into ...

Kathleen Thelen, "Attention, Shoppers!: American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy" (Princeton UP, 2025)

08 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The United States is widely recognized as the quintessential consumer society, one where huge companies like Walmart and Amazon are famous for enticin...

Ian Rapley, "Green Star Japan: Esperanto and the International Language Question, 1880–1945" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ian Rapley’s Green Star Japan: Esperanto and the International Language Question, 1880-1945 (U Hawaii Press, 2024) is a sociopolitical history of ...

Robert J. Antony, "Outlaws of the Sea: Maritime Piracy in Modern China" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)

06 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Did you know Hong Kong used to be a hub for pirates? That factoid has long been part of the popular history for Hong Kong—and for Southern China bro...

Jim Storr, "War and Warfare in the Twentieth Century" (Howgate Publishing, 2025)

05 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What can we learn from war, and warfare, in the twentieth century? What observations and deductions can we make, and what lessons can we draw? ‘War ...

James M. O’Toole, "For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America" (Harvard UP, 2025)

04 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God’s forgiveness. The...

Lavanya Vemsani, "Reframing India in World History" (Lexington Books, 2024)

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Reframing India in World History breaks the stereotypical portrayal of India based on misconstrued historical theories. Prevalent constructions of In...

Michael Vorenberg, "Lincoln's Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War" (Knopf, 2025)

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One historian’s journey to find the end of the Civil War—and, along the way, to expand our understanding of the nature of war itself and how socie...

Tana Li, "A Maritime Vietnam: From Earliest Times to the Nineteenth Century" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

01 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When we think of Vietnamese history, we tend to think of plucky peasant guerillas fighting for their independence against French colonial rule or Amer...

Peter Whitewood, "The Soviet-Polish War and its Legacy: Lenin’s Defeat and the Rise of Stalinism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This detailed study traces the history of the Soviet-Polish War (1919-20), the first major international clash between the forces of communism and ant...

Ashis Ray, "The Trial That Shook Britain: How a Court Martial Hastened Acceptance of Indian Independence" (Routledge India, 2024)

30 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1945 to 1946, postwar India was enthralled by the treason trial of three officers—formerly of the Indian National Army, who fought against the Br...

Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, "The Age of Revolutions: And the Generations Who Made It" (Basic Books, 2024)

29 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A panoramic new history of the revolutionary decades between 1760 and 1825, from North America and Europe to Haiti and Spanish America, showing how pr...

Matt Lodder, "Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art" (Yale UP, 2024)

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There is a pervasive stereotype of tattoo culture as relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors, and ne’er-do-wells, yet it has existed in the...

Kobi Kabalek, "Rescue and Remembrance: Imagining the German Collective After Nazism" (U Wisconsin Press, 2025)

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Rescue and Remembrance: Imagining the German Collective After Nazism (U Wisconsin Press, 2025), Kobi Kabalek examines how the rescue of Jews duri...

William Blakemore Lyon, "Forged in Genocide: Migrant Workers Shaping Colonial Capitalism in Namibia, 1890-1925" (de Gruyter, 2024)

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Forged in Genocide traces the early history of colonial capitalism in Namibia with a central focus on migrants who came to be key to the economy duri...

The Audiobook's Century-Long Overnight Success

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—...

Surekha Davies, "Humans: A Monstrous History" (U California Press, 2025)

23 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Join award-winning historian of science in Humans: A Monstrous History (University o...

Maggie M. Cao, "Painting US Empire: Nineteenth-Century Art and Its Legacies" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

22 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Painting US Empire: Nineteenth-Century Art and Its Legacies (University of Chicago Press, 2025) by Dr. Maggie Cao is the first book to offer a synthe...

Mick Brown, "The Nirvana Express: How the Search for Enlightenment Went West" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mick Brown’s The Nirvana Express: How the Search for Enlightenment Went West (Oxford UP, 2023) is a riveting account about the West's engagement w...

Joseph A. Seeley, "Border of Water and Ice: The Yalu River and Japan's Empire in Korea and Manchuria" (Cornell UP, 2024)

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Icy, unpredictable, and treacherous, the dangers of the Yalu River were heightened in the twentieth century when it became the longest non-maritime bo...

Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, "Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult" (Ibidem Press, 2014)

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist (Ibidem Verlag, 2014) is the first comprehensive and scholarly biography of the U...

Martin Spychal, "Mapping the State: English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act" (U London Press, 2024)

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 1832 Reform Act was a landmark moment in the development of modern British politics. By overhauling the country’s ancient representative system,...

Laurel Leff, "Well Worth Saving: American Universities' Life-And-Death Decisions on Refugees from Nazi Europe" (Yale UP, 2019)

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Well Worth Saving (Yale University Press, 2019), Professor Laurel Leff explores how American universities responded to the sudden and urgent appe...

Selena Wisnom, "The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

16 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When a team of Victorian archaeologists dug into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge ever seen...

Chiara Faggella, "Becoming Couture: The Italian Fashion Industry after the Second World War" (Manchester UP, 2024)

15 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Becoming couture: The Italian fashion industry after the Second World War (Manchester University Press, 2024) by Dr. Chiara Faggella is the first boo...

Melissa Vise, "The Unruly Tongue: Speech and Violence in Medieval Italy" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Unruly Tongue: Speech and Violence in Medieval Italy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) by Dr. Melissa Vise, offers a new account of how th...

Patrick Beldio, "The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga" (Lexington Books, 2024)

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga (Lexington Books, 2024) analyzes the contributions of the Mother (née Mirra ...

Harriet Atkinson, "Showing Resistance: Propaganda and Modernist Exhibitions in Britain, 1933-53" (Manchester UP, 2024)

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did exhibitions become a vital tool for public communication in early twentieth century Britain? Showing resistance reveals how exhibitions were t...

Martha Bayless, "Entertainment, Pleasure, and Meaning in Early England" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The people of early England (c. 450–1100 CE) enjoyed numerous kinds of entertainment, recreation and pleasure, but the scattered records of such thi...

Jamie Jelinski, "Needle Work: A History of Commercial Tattooing in Canada" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2024)

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1891 J. Murakami travelled from Japan, via San Francisco, to Vancouver Island and began working in and around Victoria. His occupation: creating pe...

On Barak, "Heat, a History: Lessons from the Middle East for a Warming Planet" (U California Press, 2024)

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the flames of record-breaking temperatures licking at our feet, most people fail to fully grasp the gravity of environmental overheating. What...

Lina-Maria Murillo, "Fighting for Control: Power, Reproductive Care, and Race in the US-Mexico Borderlands" (UNC Press, 2025)

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The first birth control clinic in El Paso, Texas, opened in 1937. Since then, Mexican-origin women living in the border cities of El Paso and Ciudad J...

Andrew G. Walder, "Civil War in Guangxi: The Cultural Revolution on China's Southern Periphery" (Stanford UP, 2023)

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guangxi, a region on China's southern border with Vietnam, has a large population of ethnic minorities and a history of rebellion and intergroup confl...

Kristin A. Olbertson, "The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Kristin Olbertson is the...

Andrew C. Isenberg, "The Age of the Borderlands: Indians, Slaves, and the Limits of Manifest Destiny, 1790-1850" (UNC Press, 2025)

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most US history textbooks contain a familiar map: shaded colors stretch across North America, clearly and neatly demarcating the extent of US expansi...

Kirsten L. Scheid, "Fantasmic Objects: Art and Sociality from Lebanon, 1920–1950" (Indiana UP, 2022)

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Fantasmic Objects: Art and Sociality from Lebanon, 1920–1950 (Indiana UP, 2022), Kirsten L. Scheid offers a striking study of both modern art i...

Margaret Peacock, "Frequencies of Deceit: How Global Propaganda Wars Shaped the Middle East" (U California Press, 2025)

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On June 8, 1967, Egypt's most famous radio broadcaster, Ahmed Said, reported that Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian forces had defeated the Israeli army...

Anthony Grafton, "Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa" (Harvard UP, 2023)

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa (Harvard UP, 2023) is a revelatory new account of the magus―the learned magician―and his place i...

Jørgen Møller and Jonathan Doucette, "The Catholic Church and European State Formation, AD 1000-1500" (Oxford UP, 2022)

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Generations of social scientists and historians have argued that the escape from empire and consequent fragmentation of power - across and within poli...

Jeremy Black, "A History of the Railroad in 100 Maps" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since their origins in eighteenth-century England, railroads have spread across the globe, changing everything in their path, from where and how peopl...

Richard Heppner, "Woodstock: From World War to Culture Wars" (SUNY Press, 2024)

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Few towns in America are as famous as Woodstock, New York—although Woodstock may be most famous for an event that happened many miles away! Long bef...

Gary Griggs, "California Catastrophes: The Natural Disaster History of the Golden State" (U California Press, 2024)

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

California has more natural hazards per square mile than any other state, but this hasn’t deterred people from moving here. Entire California towns ...

Nir Arielli, "The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History" (Yale UP, 2025)

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Dead Sea is a place of many contradictions. Hot springs around the lake are famed for their healing properties, though its own waters are deadly t...

Eric Dienstfrey, "Making Stereo Fit: The History of a Disquieting Film Technology" (U California Press, 2024)

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Surround sound is often mistaken as a relatively new phenomenon in cinemas, one that emerged in the 1970s with the arrival of Dolby. Making Stereo Fi...

Manu Pillai, "Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity" (Allen Lane, 2025)

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What is Hinduism? For centuries, that question was particularly thorny, both for local Indians and for colonial outsiders. People inside and outside t...