New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Mark Vellend, "Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More than We Think, from Proteins to Politics" (Princeton UP, 2025)

27 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How the science of evolution explains how everything came to be, from bacteria and blue whales to cell phones, cities, and artificial intelligence Ev...

J. Doyne Farmer, "Making Sense of Chaos" (Yale UP, 2024)

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We live in an age of increasing complexity--an era of accelerating technology and global interconnection that holds more promise, and more peril, than...

Jonas Enander, "Facing Infinity: Black Holes and Our Place on Earth" (The Experiment Press, 2025)

23 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Humanity's relationship with black holes began in 1783 in a small English village, when clergyman John Michell posed a startling question: What if the...

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, "More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy" (Harper, 2025)

23 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It has become habitual to think of our relationship with energy as one of transition: with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil, oil by nuclear and t...

Stephen A. Harris, "50 Plants That Changed the World" (Bodleian Library, 2025)

17 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever stopped to think about how your morning cappuccino came to be? From the coffee bush that yielded the beans, to the grass for the cattle ...

Mark Seligman, "AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature" (First Hill Books, 2025)

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem ...

Lucy Sante, "Nineteen Reservoirs: On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City (The Experiment, 2022)

14 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From 1907 to 1967, a network of reservoirs and aqueducts was built across more than one million acres in upstate New York, including Greene, Delaware,...

Samuel Arbesman, "The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future" (PublicAffairs, 2025)

13 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the tradition of classics such as The Lives of a Cell, a bold reframing of our relationship with technology that argues code is "a universal force...

The High Frontier: Gerard O’Neill’s Space Utopia

13 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is the first episode of Cited Podcast’s new season, Green Dreams. Green Dreams tells stories of radical environmental thinkers and their d...

Simon James Copland, "The Male Complaint: The Manosphere and Misogyny Online" (Polity, 2025)

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Inspired by leaders such as Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, the online Manosphere has exploded in recent years. Dedicated to anti-feminism, these com...

Jessica Urwin, "Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia" (U of Washington Press, 2025)

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Though a nonnuclear state, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth...

Human Leadership for Humane Technology

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we spoke with Cornelia C. Walther about her three books examining technology's role in society. Walther, who spent nearly two decades...

Dan Roche, "Eyes by Hand: Prosthetics of Art and Healing" (MIT Press, 2025)

05 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Eyes by Hand: Prosthetics of Art and Healing (MIT Press, 2025) is a book about artificial eyes—about the artisans and artists who make them, and ab...

Bénédicte Meillon, "Ecopoetics of Reenchantment: Liminal Realism and Poetic Echoes of the Earth" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

05 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ecopoetics of Reenchantment: Liminal Realism and Poetic Echoes of the Earth (Bloomsbury, 2022) tackles the reenchantment process at work in a pa...

Santiago Zabala, "Signs from the Future: Philosophy of Warnings" (Columbia UP, 2025)

04 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Returning to NBN is the philosopher Santiago Zabala, here to introduce his new book Signs from the Future: A Philosophy of Warnings (Columbia Univer...

Anthony Bonato, "Dots and Lines: Hidden Networks in Social Media, AI, and Nature" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025)

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Can networks unlock secrets of AI or make sense of a social media mess? A behind-the-scenes look at how networks reveal reality. According to mathema...

Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen, "The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds Across Landscapes and Imagination" (Reaktion, 2025)

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination (Reaktion, 2025), nature writers Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen set ...

Tia Sahrakorpi on a Use-Based History of Electricity in Finland

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Tiia Sahrakorpi, Visiting Professor at Weber State University, about her interesting book project, Our ...

Anne Lawrence-Mathers, "Medieval Meteorology: Forecasting the Weather from Aristotle to the Almanac" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

31 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we speak to Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Professor of History at the University of Reading about her new book Medieval Meteorology: Foreca...

Joshua Specht, "Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America" (Princeton UP, 2019)

31 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why do Americans eat so much beef? In Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America (Princeton University Press, 2019), the h...

Dan Davies, "The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How the World Lost Its Mind" (U of Chicago Press, 2025)

30 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For this episode of Liminal Library, I interviewed Dan Davies about The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How t...

Ian Scoones, "Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World" (Polity, 2024)

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Uncertainties are everywhere. Whether it’s climate change, financial volatility, pandemic outbreaks or new technologies, we don’t know what the fu...

Agnes Arnold-Forster, "The Cancer Problem: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2021)

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Agnes Arnold-Forster's book The Cancer Problem: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford UP, 2021) offers the first medical, cultural, and s...

Nick Spencer, "The Landscapes of Science and Religion: What Are We Disagreeing About?" (Oxford UP, 2025)

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. The scientific capacity to man...

Jack Buffington, "Environmental Innovation: An Action Plan for Saving the Economy and the Planet by 2050" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024)

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Environmental sustainability policy has failed due to focusing on symptoms rather than the root cause problems. Through significant research and a det...

Ben Connable, "Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

23 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War (Georgetown UP, 2025) reveals the gritty details of land warfare at the tactical level and challen...

Tim Lenton, "Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis" (Oxford UP, 2025)

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As global change escalates, we are already starting to experience damaging tipping points in the social, ecological and climate systems that we depend...

Jimi Jones and Marek Jancovic, "The Future of Memory: Jimi Jones and Marek Jancovic" (U of Illinois Press, 2025)

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're pleased to welcome Dr. Jimi Jones and Dr. Marek Jancovic, authors of The Future of Memory: A History of Lossless Format Standards in the Moving...

Gary Rivlin, "AI Valley: Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence" (Harper Collins, 2025)

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A veteran Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist shadows the top thinkers in the field of Artificial Intelligence, introducing the breakthroughs and develo...

Noah Giansiracusa, "Robin Hood Math: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life" (Penguin, 2025)

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Everything we do today is recorded as data that’s sold to the highest bidder. Plugging our personal data into impersonal algorithms has made governm...

Thomas Christian Bächle and Jascha Bareis eds., "The Realities of Autonomous Weapons (Bristol UP, 2025)

19 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Autonomous weapons exist in a strange territory between Pentagon procurement contracts and Hollywood blockbusters, between actual military systems and...

Raphael Cormack, "Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult" (Norton, 2025)

18 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An international history of the uncanny in the 1920s and 1930s. The interwar period was a golden age for the occult. Spiritualists, clairvoyants, fak...

Joshua Nall, "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2019)

17 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re hearing an awful lot about the fraught relationship between science and media. In his book, News from M...

Hannah Star Rogers, "Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022)

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

'Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022)' by Hannah Star Rogers When I sat down with Hannah Star Rogers to discuss her new book...

Petter Törnberg and Justus Uitermark, "Seeing Like a Platform: An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity" (Taylor & Francis, 2025)

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

'Seeing Like a Platform: An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity (Taylor & Francis, 2025)' by Petter Törnberg & Justus Uitermark In m...

Tatiana Bur, "Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

11 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tatiana Bur, Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge UP, 2025) This open-access book investigates the ways that techno...

Vijay Selvam, "Principles of Bitcoin: Technology, Economics, Politics, and Philosophy" (Columbia UP, 2025)

11 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Principles of Bitcoin presents a holistic, first-principles-based framework for understanding one of the most misunderstood inventions of our time. B...

Kenneth Jones, "African American Males and Video Games: How Gaming Technology Can Motivate and Enhance Learning" (Myers Education, 2025)

10 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

African American males are confronted with formidable barriers in their pursuit of quality education, resulting in stark disparities in academic perfo...

Lewis A. Grossman, "Choose Your Medicine: Freedom of Therapeutic Choice in America" (Oxford UP, 2021)

09 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout American history, lawmakers have limited the range of treatments available to patients, often with the backing of the medical establishment...

Paul Thagard, "Bots and Beasts: What Makes Machines, Animals, and People Smart?" (MIT Press, 2021)

09 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Octopuses can open jars to get food, and chimpanzees can plan for the future. An IBM computer named Watson won on Jeopardy! and Alexa knows our favo...

Ayo Wahlberg, "Good Quality: The Routinization of Sperm Banking in China" (U California Press, 2018)

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From its crude and uneasy beginnings thirty years ago, Chinese sperm banking has become a routine part of China’s pervasive and restrictive reproduc...

Athena Aktipis, "The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer" (Princeton UP, 2020)

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When we think of the forces driving cancer, we don’t necessarily think of evolution. But evolution and cancer are closely linked because the histori...

Emilio Elizalde, "The True Story of Modern Cosmology: Origins, Main Actors and Breakthroughs" (Springer, 2021)

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This book tells the story of how, over the past century, dedicated observers and pioneering scientists achieved our current understanding of the unive...

David J. Helfand, "The Universal Timekeepers: Reconstructing History Atom by Atom" (Columbia UP, 2023)

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Atoms are unfathomably tiny. It takes fifteen million trillion of them to make up a single poppy seed—give or take a few billion. And there’s hard...

154 Planetary Boundaries are Non-Negotiable: Kim Stanley Robinson

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With influential series on California, on the terraforming of Mars, and on human civilization as reshaped by rising tides, Kim Stanley Robinson h...

Maxim Samson, "Earth Shapers: How Humans Mastered Geography and Remade the World" (Profile Books, 2025)

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mountains, meridians, rivers, and borders--these are some of the features that divide the world on our maps and in our minds. But geography is far les...

The Social Impact of Automating Translation

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Tazin Abdullah speaks with Dr. Esther Monzó-Nebot, Associate Professor in Translation and Inter...

Gavin Williams, "Format Friction: Perspectives on the Shellac Disc" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With the rise of the gramophone around 1900, the shellac disc traveled the world and eventually became the dominant sound format in the first half of ...

On Bullshit in AI

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re continuing our series on Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit. I have the privilege to speak with Arvind Narayanan co-author o...

Christa Kuljian, "Our Science, Ourselves: How Gender, Race, and Social Movements Shaped the Study of Science" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Christa Kuljian arrived on the Harvard College campus as a first-year student in the fall of 1980 with copies of Our Bodies, Ourselves and Ms. ...

Anil Ananthaswamy, "Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI" (Dutton, 2024)

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Machine learning systems are making life-altering decisions for us: approving mortgage loans, determining whether a tumor is cancerous, or deciding if...

Aline Nardo, "Evolutionary Theory and Education" (Brill, 2025)

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How has evolutionary theory shaped educational thinking over the past two centuries? ‘Evolutionary Theory and Education: The Influence of Evolution...

Book Talk 67 : The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What is reliable knowledge? Listen to philosopher Michael Strevens, author of The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science, to und...

Kurt D. Fausch, "A Reverence for Rivers: Imagining an Ethic for Running Waters" (OSU Press, 2025)

28 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In A Reverence for Rivers: Imagining an Ethic for Running Waters (OSU Press, 2025), Kurt Fausch draws on his experience as a stream ecologist, h...

Joseph Gfroerer, "War Stories from the Drug Survey: How Culture, Politics, and Statistics Shaped the National Survey on Drug Use and Health" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

26 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph Gfroerer spent nearly 40 years working as a statistician for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Hea...

Paul A. Thomas, "Inside Wikipedia: How It Works and How You Can Be an Editor" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this book, Paul A. Thomas—a seasoned Wikipedia contributor who has accrued about 60,000 edits since he started editing in 2007—breaks down the ...

Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, "The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want" (Harper, 2025)

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it goin...

Rene Almeling, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, Brian T. Nguyen eds., "Seminal: On Sperm, Health, and Politics" (NYU Press, 2025)

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Seminal: On Sperm, Health, and Politics, Rene Almeling, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, and Brian T. Nguyen come together across disciplines to offer a...

Ben Westhoff, "Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic" (Grove Press, 2019)

20 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative journalist whose best-selling 2019 book Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest...

How ClioVis is Transforming Education and Historical Research

19 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

 Today I’m speaking with Marcus Golding, historian and Director of Educational Operations at ClioVis. ClioVis is an incredible software and learnin...

Meegan Kennedy, "Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy: Beautiful Mechanism" (Oxford UP, 2025)

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy: Beautiful Mechanism (Oxford UP, 2025) by Dr. Meegan Kennedy examines a revolutionary period in microscopi...

Cara Wallis, "Social Media and Ordinary Life: Affect, Ethics, and Aspiration in Contemporary China" (NYU Press, 2025)

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Focusing on domestic workers, rural microentrepreneurs, disadvantaged young creatives, and young feminists, Social Media and Ordinary Life (NYU Pres...

Haley Cohen Gilliland, "A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children" (Simon & Schuster, 2025)

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the early hours of March 24, 1976, the streets of Buenos Aires rumble with tanks as soldiers seize the presidential palace and topple Argentina’s...

Chris Bernhardt, "Beautiful Math: The Surprisingly Simple Ideas behind the Digital Revolution in How We Live, Work, and Communicate" (MIT Press, 2024)

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most of us know something about the grand theories of physics that transformed our views of the universe at the start of the twentieth century: quantu...

Savannah Mandel on an Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with space anthropologist, writer, and Virginia Tech doctoral candidate, Savannah Mandel, about her book, Gr...

Andréa Becker, "Get It Out: On the Politics of Hysterectomy" (NYU Press, 2025)

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At least one hysterectomy is performed every minute of the year, making it the most common gynecological surgery worldwide. By the age of sixty-five, ...

Emma Marris, "Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

13 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), Emma Marris wrestles with big ethical questions facin...

David S. Wall, "Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age" (Polity, 2024)

13 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How has the digital revolution transformed criminal opportunities and behaviour? What is different about cybercrime compared with traditional criminal...

Rebecca Lemov, "The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion" (Norton, 2025)

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Because brainwashing affects both the world and our observation of the world, we often don’t recognize it while it’s happening—unless we know wh...

Tom Waidzunas et al., "Out Doing Science: LGBTQ STEM Professionals and Inclusion in Neoliberal Times" (UMass Press, 2025)

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past 50 years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer professionals have organized to achieve greater inclusion into the fields of sc...

Phil Tiemeyer, "Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants" (Cornell UP, 2025)

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants (Cornell University Press, 2025) is a global history of postwar aviation th...

Edward Tenner, "Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge: Essays in Unintended Consequences" (APS Press, 2025)

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did the addition of lifeboats after the Titanic shipwreck contribute to another tragedy in Chicago harbor three years later? How efficient are wil...

Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, "The Ghost Lab: How Bigfoot Hunters, Mediums, and Alien Enthusiasts Are Wrecking Science" (PublicAffairs, 2025)

08 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, New Books Network host Nina Bo Wagner talks to Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling about his recently published book The Ghost Lab: How Bigfoot...

Myles Lennon, "Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2025)

08 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the face of accelerating climate change, anticapitalist environmental justice activists and elite tech corporations increasingly see eye to eye. Bo...

Brent Z. Kaup and Kelly F. Austin, "The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease" (U of California Press, 2025)

04 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Brent Z. Kaup & Dr. Kelly F. Austi...

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...

Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper, "Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins" (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

30 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A thrilling exploration of competing cosmological origin stories, comparing new scientific ideas that upend our very notions of space, time, and reali...

Matthew Wisnioski on the History of the Idea and Culture of “Innovation” in the United States

30 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Wisnioski, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, about his new book, Eve...

David Zweig, "An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions" (MIT Press, 2025)

23 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions (MIT Press, 2025) is a devastating account of the decision-making...

Elliot Lichtman, "The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games" (MIT Press, 2025)

22 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games (MIT Press, 2025), Elliot Lichtman will teach ...

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...

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...

Jeremy Stolow, "Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography" (MIT Press, 2025)

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Jeremy Stolow is the first book of its kind: an extended historical, anthropological, and...

Trans Technologies

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How can technology creates new possibilities for transgender people? How do trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology? Tran...

Anna Gjika, "When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age" (Univ of California Press, 2023)

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Stories of teen sexting scandals, cyberbullying, and image-based sexual abuse have become commonplace fixtures of the digital age, with many adults st...

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...

Ben Snyder on Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore’s Surveillance Experiment

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this 100th episode (!!!) of Peoples & Things, host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Benjamin H. Snyder, Associate Professor of Sociology at Williams College...

Kean Birch, "Data Enclaves" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Data Enclaves (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) focuses on our increasing dependence upon Big Tech to live, manage, and enjoy our lives. The author examines...

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...

Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis, "Power On!" (MIT Press, 2022)

09 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An interview with Jean Ryoo and Jane Margolis about Power On! A diverse group of teenage friends learn how computing can be personally and political...

Beth Linker on Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian Beth Linker, Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the...

Lina Pinto-García, "Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

31 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Lina Pinto-García delves into the relationship between...

Erica D. Lonergan and Shawn W. Lonergan, "Escalation Dynamics in Cyberspace" (Oxford UP, 2023)

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To what extent do cyberspace operations increase the risks of escalation between nation-state rivals? Scholars and practitioners have been concerned a...

Mitchell Thomashow, "To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning" (MIT Press, 2020)

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why we must rethink our residency on the planet to understand the connected challenges of tribalism, inequity, climate justice, and democracy. How can...

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

27 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 ...

Tim Minshall, "How Things Are Made: A Journey Through the Hidden World of Manufacturing" (Ecco, 2025)

25 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This book from Cambridge University Professor Tim Minshall provides an enlightening view of how the world of manufacturing world has an immense influe...

William F. Owen, "Euclid's Army: Preparing Land Forces for Warfare Today" (Howgate Publishing, 2024)

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Rejecting much of the conventional wisdom to what makes up a modern Army, William F. Owen's Euclid's Army: Preparing Land Forces for Warfare Today (...

Empire of Gain: Inside Trump’s Billion-Dollar Crypto Hustle

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones are joined by crypto journalist Matt Binder and longtime observer of U.S. politics and policy Edward Luce...

Who Owns These Tools? Vauhini Vara and Aarthi Vadde (SW)

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In an essay about her recent book Searches (Pantheon, 2025), a genre-bending chronicle of the deeply personal ways we use the internet and the uncan...

From Hal to Siri: How Computers Learned to Speak

19 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...