New Books in Intellectual History

James Q. Whitman, "Masters of Slaves to Lords of Lands: The Transformation of Ownership in the Western World" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

04 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today we think of land as the paradigmatic example of property, while in the past, the paradigmatic example was often a slave. In this seminal work...

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...

Siniša Malešević, "Nationalism as a Way of Life: The Rise and Transformation of Modern Subjectivities" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

04 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

While nationalism is a term that is often associated with instability, violence, extremism, terrorism, wars and even genocide, in fact most forms of n...

D. Vance Smith, "Atlas’s Bones: The African Foundations of Europe" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

02 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A major new look at Africa’s influence on European culture and how colonization remade Africa in the image of a medieval Europe.Virgil. Chaucer. ...

Richard Ivan Jobs and Steven Van Wolputte, "In the Land of the Lacandón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2025)

02 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-1930s the amateur French ethnographer and filmmaker Bernard de Colmont ventured into the mountainous state of Chiapas to study the Lacandó...

Mostafa Hussein, "Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in Late Ottoman and British Palestine" (Princeton UP, 2025)

01 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades before the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948, native and immigrant Jews in Palestine mediated between Jewish and Arab cultures wh...

Deirdre Loughridge & Thomas Patteson, "The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments" (Reaktion, 2026)

30 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Deirdre Loughridge & Dr. Thomas Patteson is a guided tour through centuries of in...

Stephen B. Young ed., "Adam Smith and Modern Economics: Reclaiming the Moral High Ground" (de Gruyter, 2026)

29 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For more than two centuries, economists and researchers have struggled with the conundrum of reconciling Adam Smith’s views on economics and ethics....

A Shakeup Is Coming for the Nation-State: A Conversation with Stephen Sims

27 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Sims’ New Atlantis essay examines how emerging technologies are reshaping the structure and authority of the modern nation-state. He argue...

Tiffany Jo Werth, "The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton" (Oxford UP, 2024)

25 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Tiffany Jo Werth explores how stones, rocks, and the broader minera...

Vin Nardizzi, "Marvellous Vegetables in the English Renaissance" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

24 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

John Gerard’s natural history of plants, The Herball (1597), is considered a failure in the history of science. Despite this reputation, it has endu...

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...

The Crisis of American Political Economy: On the New Conservative Policy Agenda with Chris Griswold

22 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this sixth episode of Season 5, I interview Mr. Chris Griswold. An alum of Wheaton College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he was formerly a s...

Amanda Anderson and Simon During, "Humanities Theory" (Oxford UP, 2026)

18 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Humanities Theory (Oxford UP, 2026) pioneers a new topic: the theory of the humanities. It is an urgent topic right now because the humanities face ...

Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant" (Princeton UP, 2026)

17 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a...

Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

17 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Scholars have long viewed intelligence as the preserve of nation states. Where the term ‘private sector intelligence’ is used, the focus has been ...

Jason Welle, "Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism: The Contribution of al-Sulami" (I.B. Tauris, 2024)

16 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In his debut work, Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism: The Contribution of al-Sulami (I.B. Tauris, 2024), Jason Welle sheds a new light on...

Daniel A. Bell, "Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future" (Princeton UP, 2026)

15 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel A. Bell joins the podcast to discuss his new book, Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, a...

Devika Dutt et al., "Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction" (Polity Press, 2025)

14 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Decolonization has long been debated across the social sciences, but the economics discipline has so far avoided such critical engagement. Decolonizi...

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...

Jasper Bernes, "The Future of Revolution: Communist Prospects from the Paris Commune to the George Floyd Uprising" (Verso Books, 2025)

12 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How might a twenty-first-century revolution against class society succeed? Communism comes from the future, but its hopes haunt our past. Reading rev...

Melissa Butcher, "The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future" (Manchester UP, 2026)

07 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As Melissa Butcher puts it in her book The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future (Manchester UP, 2026) when asked to rank the imp...

Amir Saemi, "Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil" (Oxford UP, 2024)

04 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Amir Saemi’s exciting book Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil (Oxford UP, 2024) is a fascinating and dee...

Peter E. Gordon, "Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver" (Yale UP, 2026)

03 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acume...

Shredding Capitalism with Sven Beckert (Paul Kramer, JP)

02 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

John is joined by the brilliant and affable Paul Kramer of Vanderbilt (The Blood of Government) to discuss Capitalism: A Global History (Penguin,...

Jeanne-Marie Jackson, "The Letter of the Law in J. E. Casely Hayford's West Africa" (Princeton UP, 2026)

31 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The African Gold Coast writer and statesman J. E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) was a key figure in liberal anticolonial thought as well as African and...

Mark Pennington, "Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2025)

30 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom by Mark Pennington This highly original and innovative book is the first to co...

Ainehi Edoro, "Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think" (Columbia UP, 2026)

29 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the fo...

Emmanuel Ofuasia, "Ìwà: the Process-Relational Dimension to African Metaphysics" (Springer, 2024)

29 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Correction: In the interview, the host mistakenly mentioned that Prof. Ofuasia is teaching the University of Pretoria. In reality, Prof Ofuasia is c...

On Trump as a “World Historical Individual” with author John B. Judis

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The philosopher G.W.F. Hegel “viewed history as consisting of stages punctuated by times of upheaval,” the author John B. Judis wrote in a recent...

The Philosophy of Hope: On Immanence and Transcendence with R.J. Snell

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this third episode of Season 5, I interview Dr. R.J. Snell, a visiting instructor at Princeton University, the director of academic programs at th...

David Bather Woods, "Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy's Greatest Pessimist" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy’s Greatest Pessimist by David Bather Woods An engaging biography of one of the most influe...

Susanne Vees-Gulani, 'Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token (University of Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Susanne Vees-Gulani explores how memory and p...

The Vilna Gaon and the Making of Modern Judaism

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The beginnings of contemporary Jewry are often associated with Jewish figures in Western Europe such as Moses Mendelssohn. But in his book, The Geniu...

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...

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...

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...

Alec Ryrie, "The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It" (Reaktion, 2025)

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Examining everything from popular novels to politics, an investigation of persistent fascination with Nazis—and where it might take us. We live in ...

Tristan J. Rogers, "Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction" (Routledge, 2025)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction (Routledge, 2025), Tristan J. Rogers argues that philosophical conservati...

William H. F. Altman, "Ascent to the Good: The Reading Order of Plato’s Dialogues from Symposium to Republic" (Lexington, 2018)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At the crisis of his Republic, Plato asks us to imagine what could possibly motivate a philosopher to return to the Cave voluntarily for the benefit o...

Wendy Brown, "States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A sympathetic critique that attempts to free Left politics from its own snares, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton Un...

Jacob Stegenga, "Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 2026), philosopher Jacob Stegenga breaks with the most domina...

Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sage...

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 ...

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

21 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...

W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines" (MIT Press, 2025)

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that ...

Neilesh Bose, "Chips from a Calcutta Workshop: Comparative Religion in Nineteenth Century India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Chips from a Calcutta Workshop: Comparative Religion in Nineteenth Century India (Cambridge University Press, 2025) explores the development an...

Shelley Puhak, "The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady-a countess, from one of Europe's o...

Vanessa Rampton, "Making Medical Progress: History of a Contested Idea" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

15 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Answers to the question 'what is medical progress?' have always been contested, and any one response is always bound up with contextual ideas of perso...

Laura K. Field, "Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Political Theorist Laura Field has written an insightful and detailed exploration of the people and the ideas that have shaped the second Trump Admini...

Hang Tu, "Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past" (Harvard UP, 2025)

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How does emotion shape the landscape of public intellectual debate? In Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past (H...

Daniel R. Langton, "Darwin in the Jewish Imagination: Jews' Engagement with Evolutionary Theory" (Oxford UP, 2026)

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Professor Daniel Langton, author of Darwin in the Jewish Imagination: Jews' Engagement with Evolution...

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

10 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)

08 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...

Alex Prichard, "Anarchism: a Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2022)

08 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If you asked a passerby on the street what anarchism is, they may answer that it is an ideology based on chaos, disorder, and violence. But is this tr...

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

07 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...

Kevin Hart, "Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

07 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation (U Chicago Press, 2023), Kevin Hart develops a new hermeneutics of contemplation through a med...

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...

Patricia Daley and Ian Klinke, "Human Geography: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025)

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Human geography offers answers to some of the most important challenges of our time. To understand contemporary struggles over global economic inequal...

Andrew Billing, "Animal Rhetoric and Natural Science in Eighteenth-century Liberal Political Writing" (Routledge, 2023)

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Animal Rhetoric and Natural Science in Eighteenth-century Liberal Political Writing: Political Zoologies of the French Enlightenment (Routledge, 202...

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 ...

Arnoud S. Q. Visser, "On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A lively and entertaining cultural history of a supremely annoying intellectual vice Intellectuals have long provoked scorn and irritation, even downr...

Luca Cottini, "The Rise of Americanism in Italy, 1888-1919" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a pivotal time for the United States as the nation emerged as a political and industrial powe...

Danielle N. Boaz, "Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur" (Oxford UP, 2023)

01 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Coined in the middle of the nineteenth century, the term "voodoo" has been deployed largely by people in the U.S. to refer to spiritual practices--rea...

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

31 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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

Swapna Kona Nayudu, "The Nehru Years: An International History of Indian Non-Alignment" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Scholars of international relations, political thought, and India's international and diplomatic history are increasingly interested in the relevance ...

Brahim El Guabli, "Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences" (U California Press, 2025)

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences (U California Press, 2025) traces the cultural and intellectual histories t...

Melissa Adler, "Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and the Mastery of Subjects" (Fordham UP, 2025)

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and the Mastery of ...

Karin Wulf, "Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America" (Oxford UP, 2025)

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In eighteenth-century America, genealogy was more than a simple record of family ties—it was a powerful force that shaped society. Lineage: Genealo...

Duy Lap Nguyen, "Walter Benjamin and the Critique of Political Economy: A New Historical Materialism" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual and philosopher associated with the Frankfurt School, who tragically died at 48 years old in 1940 as ...

Bradley R. Simpson, "The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941-2000" (Oxford UP, 2025)

25 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The idea of self-determination is one of the most significant in modern international politics. For more than a century diplomats, lawyers, scholars, ...

Christian Raffensperger, "Authorship, Worldview, and Identity in Medieval Europe" (Routledge, 2022)

24 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What did medieval authors know about their world? Were they parochial and focused on just their monastery, town, or kingdom? Or were they aware of the...

Michelle Henning, "A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog, and Empire" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog, and Empire (U Chicago Press, 2026), Professor Michelle Henning presents an environmental history...

Michael P.M. Fox et al., eds., " Framing the First World War: How Divergent Views Shaped a Global Conflict" (UP of Kansas, 2025)

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The character of the conflict that erupted in 1914 defied the expectations of many political leaders and military analysts. Despite the mountains of b...

Duncan Kelly, "Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Duncan Kelly is a new intellectu...

John Samuel Harpham, "Intellectual Origins of American Slavery: English Ideas in the Early Modern Atlantic World" (Harvard UP, 2025)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The period from 1550 to 1700 was critical in the development of slavery across the English Atlantic world. During this time, English discourse about s...

Mark Christian Thompson, "Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

18 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Christian Thompson's book, Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2022) examines the changin...

Keidrick Roy, "American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism" (Princeton UP, 2024)

18 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Though the United States has been heralded as a beacon of democracy, many nineteenth-century Americans viewed their nation through the prism of the Ol...

Catherine Clarke, "A History of England in 25 Poems" (Penguin, 2025)

17 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This is the history of England told in a new way: glimpsed through twenty-five remarkable poems written down between the eighth century and today, whi...

Mary E. Stuckey, "Remembering Jefferson: Who He Was, Who We Are" (UP of Kansas, 2025)

17 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Mary E. Stuckey, the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, has a brilliant new book that dive...

Sheiba Kian Kaufman, "Persian Paradigms in Early Modern English Drama" (Oxford UP, 2025)

15 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Persian Paradigms in Early Modern English Drama examines the concept of early modern globality and the development of European toleration discourse t...

Angie Hobbs, "Why Plato Matters Now" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Does Plato matter? An ancient philosopher whose work has inspired and informed countless thinkers and poets across the centuries, his ideas are no lon...

Miriam Udel, "Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children's Literature" (Princeton UP, 2025)

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As migration carried Yiddish to several continents during the long twentieth century, an increasingly global community of speakers and readers clung t...

Douglas Greene, "In Stalin's Shadow: Trotsky and the Legacy of the Moscow Trials" (Resistance Books, 2025)

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Most people on the contemporary left see Stalin as an unfortunate stain on the history of the global left, a part of the historical process that we’...

Noam Sienna, "Jewish Books in North Africa: Between the Early Modern and Modern Worlds" (Indiana UP, 2025)

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Author Noam Sienna unveils a vast Sephardic world created by these books. This literary network transcended geographical boundaries, connecting Jewish...

Paul J. Gutacker, "The Old Faith in a New Nation: American Protestants and the Christian Past" (Oxford UP, 2023)

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Conventional wisdom holds that tradition and history meant little to nineteenth-century American Protestants, who relied on common sense and "the Bibl...

Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastr...

Tony Spawforth, "What the Greeks Did for Us" (Yale UP, 2023)

11 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Our contemporary world is inescapably Greek. Whether in a word like “pandemic,” a Freudian state of mind like the “Oedipus complex,” or a repl...

Jürgen Zimmerer, "Memory Wars: New German Historical Consciousness" (Reclam Verlag, 2023)

10 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Erinnerungskämpfe: Neues deutsches Geschichtsbewusstsein (Ditzingen: Reclam, 2023) is a new, provocative volume on German memory cultures and poli...

Moritz Föllmer, "The Quest for Individual Freedom: A Twentieth-Century European History" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to see oneself as free? And how can this freedom be attained in times of conflict and social upheaval? In this ambitious study, Mori...

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

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

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

Matt Dawson, "The Political Durkheim: Sociology, Socialism, Legacies" (Routledge, 2023)

08 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Dawson's The Political Durkheim: Sociology, Socialism, Legacies (Routledge, 2023) presents Durkheim as an important political sociologist, ins...

Jim Endersby, "The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology's Imaginary Futures, 1900-1935" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology’s Imaginary Futures, 1900–1935 by Jim Endersby In the early twentieth century, varied audiences took biology...

Alison Stone, "Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2023)

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Many women wrote philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain, and they wrote across the full range of philosophical topics. Yet these important women thi...

Mike Jay, "Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind" (Yale UP, 2023)

06 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Mike Jay's Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind (Yale UP, 2023) is a provocative and original history of the scientists and writers...

Richard Wolin, "Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology" (Yale UP, 2023)

05 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean when a radical understanding of National Socialism is inextricably embedded in the work of the twentieth century's most important ph...

Youshaa Patel, "The Muslim Difference: Defining the Line Between Believers and Unbelievers from Early Islam to the Present" (Yale UP, 2023)

04 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

According to a famous prophetic report, “Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them.” What does “imitation” here mean? Rather, what does th...

Philip J. Stern, "Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism" (Harvard UP, 2023)

04 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Philip Stern places the corporation―more than the Crown―at the heart of British colonialism, arguing that companies built and governed global empi...

Betty Milan, "Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

03 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account (Bloomsbury, 2023) brings together the first English translations of Why Lacan, Betty Milan's memoir of her a...

Andrew S. Curran, "Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson" (Other Press, 2026)

02 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

An engaging investigation of how 13 key Enlightenment figures shaped the concept of race, from the acclaimed author of Diderot and the Art of Thinking...