New Books in Intellectual History

Alexander Vandewalle, "Characters and Characterization in Mythological Video Games" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

18 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The first book-length study on mythology reception in video games, Characters and Characterization in Mythological Video Games (Bloomsbury, 2026) e...

Legacy of the Ancient Greeks: On Classical and Modern Democracy with Josiah Ober

17 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

American democracy is in a period of crisis, so it seems natural to look back to its origins. So here in Episode 10 of Season 5, I interview Professor...

Pamela Walker Laird, "Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth" (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

14 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four c...

Marinus De Jong, "A Church for a Secular World: The Development of Klaas Schilder's Ecclesiology" (Brill, 2025)

14 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The relationship between the Church and the world has been a subject of debate since the Church's earliest days. In A Church for a Secular World: The...

Curtis Dozier, "The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate" (Yale UP, 2026)

13 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how ...

Manasicha Akepiyapornchai, "Surrender to God Across Languages: Multilingual Intellectual History of Premodern India" (Oxford UP, 2026)

11 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Surrender to God Across Languages: Multilingual Intellectual History of Premodern India (Oxford UP, 2026) explores the role of languages in the inte...

Arlene W. Saxonhouse, "Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists" (U Notre Dame Press, 2026)

10 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Athenian Democracy provides innovative readings of ancient theorists to reveal both the complexity of democracy's achievements and its limits. In At...

Natalia Rogach Alexander, "Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey" (Columbia UP, 2025)

10 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

John Dewey is among history’s most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a ph...

Joanna Stalnaker, "The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death" (Yale UP, 2025)

09 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What would the Enlightenment look like if we viewed it through the eyes of the philosophers as they were facing death? Joanna Stalnaker turns our usua...

Stephen C.E. Hopkins, "⁠Translating hell: Vernacular theology and apocrypha in the medieval North Sea"⁠ (Manchester UP, 2026)

08 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the Middle Ages, hell was useful because it was vaguely defined. Canonical scriptures scarcely mention hell, leaving much to the imaginations of e...

Susanna Drake, "Veiling in the Late Antique World" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

08 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Veiling meant many things to the ancients. On women, veils could signify virtue, beauty, piety, self-control, and status. On men, covering the head co...

Lawrence Douglas, "The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice" (Princeton UP, 2026)

03 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice (Princeton University Press, 2026) offers a gripping account of how law ha...

Alex Law, "The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process" (Routledge, 2026)

02 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment have often been claimed for sociology. But, what does it mean to say these thinkers were sociologists, or...

Steven Nadler, "Spinoza, Atheist" (Princeton UP, 2026)

02 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 1656, a young Amsterdam merchant was excommunicated by his Portuguese-Jewish community in the harshest terms it had ever used. Baruch Spinoza was ...

Christos Lynteris, "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

30 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today, rats are nearly synonymous with plague, but this association is surprisingly recent. For centuries, plague devastated populations without be...

Annette Gordon-Reed ed., "Jefferson on Race: A Reader" (Princeton UP, 2026)

30 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jeffer...

H. A. Drake, "The Wisdom of the Ancients: Four Ideas That Changed the World" (Oxford UP, 2025)

28 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Wisdom of the Ancients: Four Ideas That Changed the World (Oxford UP, 2025) is about four cornerstones of modern thought that were put in ...

Christopher S. Celenza, "The Evolution of Western Thought: Volume 1, From the Ancient World to Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

27 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A rich and immersive reinterpretation of the history of Western thought, The Evolution of Western Thought: Volume 1, From the Ancient World to Late A...

Matthieu Felt, "Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan" (Harvard UP, 2023)

25 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan (Harvard UP, 2023) is the first dedicated study of how the oldest Japanese myths, recor...

Timothy McCall, "Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

25 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timo...

Richard Elwes, "Huge Numbers: A Story of Counting Ambitiously, from 4 1/2 to Fish 7" (Basic Books, 2026)

22 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What if, every time you wanted to write down 1,000,000, you had to draw a picture of a god? And what if that number were the biggest you had a s...

An-Ting Yi, "From Erasmus to Maius: The History of Codex Vaticanus in New Testament Textual Scholarship" (de Gruyter, 2024)

21 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Codex Vaticanus is often regarded as a pillar of New Testament scholarship, ancient, authoritative, and decisive. In From Erasmus to Maius: The Histo...

Hugo Drochon, "Elites and Democracy" (Princeton UP, 2026)

20 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A central paradox of democracies is that they are always ruled by elites. What can democracy mean in this context? Today, it is often said that a po...

Carlos Martins, "Fascism: Beyond Hitler and Mussolini" (Desassossego, 2022)

18 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Carlos Martins joins the New Books Network to discuss his book Fascism: Beyond Hitler and Mussolini (Desassossego, 2022) (in Portuguese Fasci...

Paul Stob, "Empire of Skulls: Phrenology, the Fowler Family, and a New Nation's Quest to Unlock the Secrets of the Mind" (Counterpoint Publishing, 2026)

15 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Empire of Skulls: Phrenology, the Fowler Family, and a New Nation's Quest to Unlock the Secrets of the Mind (Counterpoint Publishing, 2026), Dr. ...

Martin Munro and Eliana Vagalau eds., "Jean-Claude Charles: A Reader's Guide" (Liverpool UP, 2022)

14 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Despite being a major figure of Haitian literature, Jean-Claude Charles (1949-2008) has received relatively little scholarly attention to date. Jean...

Chiara Libiseller, "Reconceptualizing War: The Rise and Fall of Fashionable Concepts in Strategic Studies" (Oxford UP, 2026)

12 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The field of Strategic Studies, which studies the use and threat of force for political purposes, has seen the repeated rise of concepts to dominate d...

Angus Burgin on the Rise of the Internet

11 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We were joined by Angus Burgin, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and talked about how the arrival of the Internet remade li...

Patrick Noonan, "Age of Disaffection: The Aesthetic Critique of Politics in 1960s Japan" (Columbia UP, 2025)

10 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The 1960s in Japan have long been understood as a period of radical political engagement. But as political movements from Old Left Communism to New Le...

Henry T. Drummond, "The Cantigas de Santa Maria: Power and Persuasion at the Alfonsine Court" (Oxford UP, 2024)

09 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Amongst the many achievements of the Castilian court of King Alfonso X (1221-184) is the Cantigas de Santa Maria, a collection of 429 songs preserve...

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 ...