New Books in Western European Studies

R. T. Howard, "Spying on the Reich: The Cold War Against Hitler" (Oxford UP, 2023)

11 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Exactly a century ago, intelligence agencies across Europe first became aware of a fanatical German nationalist whose political party was rapidly gath...

Peter H. Wilson, "Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500" (Harvard UP, 2023)

10 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the...

Osman Balkan, "Dying Abroad: The Political Afterlives of Migration in Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

10 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On any given day, the remains of countless deceased migrants are shipped around the world to be buried in ancestral soils. Others are laid to rest in ...

Anne L. Murphy, "Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England" (Princeton UP, 2023)

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The eighteenth-century Bank of England was an institution that operated for the benefit of its shareholders--and yet came to be considered, as Adam Sm...

Felipe Valencia, "The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)

05 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On today’s episode on New Books Network, we're joined by Dr. Felipe Valencia, Associate Professor of Spanish in the World Languages and Cultures Dep...

Jonathan Abel, "Guibert's General Essay on Tactics" (Brill, 2021)

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"'The God of War' is near to revealing himself, because we have heard his prophet." So wrote Jean Colin, naming Napoleon the God of War and Jacques-An...

Eliyana R. Adler and Katerina Capková, "Jewish and Romani Families in the Holocaust and its Aftermath" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Diaries, testimonies and memoirs of the Holocaust often include at least as much on the family as on the individual. Victims of the Nazi regime experi...

Negotiating Decolonization: The Limits of a Fairy Tale

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of International Horizons, Valerie Rosoux, Research Director at the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) discusses the disagre...

The Future of Wales: A Discussion with Will Hayward

29 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Will Wales ever become an independent country? The UK’s other constituent parts – Scotland and Northern Ireland - seem more likely to breakaway: t...

Naoíse Mac Sweeney, "The West: A New History of an Old Idea" (Dutton, 2023)

27 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Naoíse Mac Sweeney presents a radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascin...

Jessica M. Marglin, "The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship Across the Modern Mediterranean" (Princeton UP, 2022)

27 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the winter of 1873, Nissim Shamama, a wealthy Jew from Tunisia, died suddenly in his palazzo in Livorno, Italy. His passing initiated a fierce laws...

Neither Friend nor Enemy: Sweden-North Korea Relations

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the fourth NIAS-Korea episode. We invite Dr. Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein to discuss Sweden-North Korea relations. It may seem odd that amo...

Kenneth Mondschein, "On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Western culture has been obsessed with regulating society by the precise, accurate measurement of time since the Middle Ages. In On Time: A History o...

Nicholas Scott Baker, "In Fortune's Theater: Financial Risk and the Future in Renaissance Italy" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I was joined by Nicholas Scott Baker to discuss his book, In Fortune’s Theater: Financial Risk and the Future in Renaissance Italy...

Patrick J. Corbeil, "Empire and Progress in the Victorian Secularist Movement: Imagining a Secular World" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Empire and Progress in the Victorian Secularist Movement: Imagining a Secular World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) by Dr. Patrick Corbeil is the first ex...

Black Film, British Cinema II

25 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Clive Nwonka and Anamik Saha discuss their forthcoming book Black Film, British Cinema II (publishing in March with Goldsmiths Press), a book which...

Alan Marshall, "Intelligence and Espionage in the English Republic C. 1600-60" (Manchester UP, 2023)

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Alan Marshall's book Intelligence and Espionage in the English Republic C. 1600-60 (Manchester UP, 2023) is a richly detailed account of the ideas ...

The Place Is Here: The Work of Black Artists in 1980s Britain

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nick Aikens and Elizabeth Robles discuss The Place Is Here (Sternberg Press, 2019) and the range of perspectives on black art in Thatcherite Britain...

Suzanne Sutherland, "The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe" (Cornell UP, 2022)

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe (Cornell UP, 2022), Suzanne Sutherland explores the role ...

Maurizio Isabella, "Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions" (Princeton UP, 2023)

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After the turbulent years of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna’s attempt to guarantee peace and stability across Europe, a new revoluti...

Christoph Kalter, "Postcolonial People: The Return from Africa and the Remaking of Portugal " (Cambridge UP, 2022)

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the space of a few months in 1975, more than 500,000 Portuguese settlers fled their homes in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tomé and Princ...

Rosamond McKitterick, "Rome and the Invention of the Papacy: The Liber Pontificalis" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The remarkable, and permanently influential, papal history known as the Liber pontificalis shaped perceptions and the memory of Rome, the popes, and t...

Bruce Pass, ed., "Herman Bavinck, "On Theology: Herman Bavinck's Academic Orations" (Brill, 2020)

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Theology: Herman Bavinck's Academic Orations (Brill, 2020) presents four previously untranslated works by Herman Bavinck (1854-1921), here introdu...

Carlo Parisi, "Dagger Fencing: The Italian School" (Fallen Rook, 2016)

20 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, fighting with dagger versus dagger, or with knife versus knife, is not a common scenario that people might expect to face. However, it was more...

Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of The Fern Loved Gully

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tai Shani (Turner Prize winning artist, educator and author of Our Fatal Magic) and Amy Hale (anthropologist, folklorist, and writer) discuss the...

Troy Bickham, "Eating the Empire: Food and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Reaktion Books, 2020)

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When students gathered in a London coffeehouse and smoked tobacco; when Yorkshire women sipped sugar-infused tea; or when a Glasgow family ate a bowl ...

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

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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

Annabel L. Kim, "Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

14 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Annabel Kim's second book*, Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) digs into fecal matter as ...

Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida, "Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

13 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the centenary of the fascist party's ascent to power in Italy, Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today (Bloo...

Andrew R. Casper, "An Artful Relic: The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2021)

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1578, a fourteen-foot linen sheet bearing the faint bloodstained imprint of a human corpse was presented to tens of thousands of worshippers in Tur...

Michael Brown, "Emotions and Surgery in Britain, 1793-1912" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

10 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this innovative analytical account of the place of emotion and embodiment in nineteenth-century British surgery, Michael Brown examines the changin...

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

10 May 2023

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...

Christine Kooi, "Reformation in the Low Countries, 1500-1620" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

06 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this new history of the Reformation in the Netherlands, Christine Kooi synthesizes fifty years of scholarship provide a broad general history of th...

Emma Hagström Molin, "Spoils of Knowledge: Seventeenth-Century Plunder in Swedish Archives and Libraries" (Brill, 2023)

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Spoils of Knowledge: Seventeenth-Century Plunder in Swedish Archives and Libraries (Brill, 2023), Emma Hagström Molin offers novel perspectives ...

Tim Clarkson, "A Mighty Fleet and the King's Power: The Isle of Man, AD 400 To 1265" (John Donald, 2023)

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Situated in the middle of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man is like a stepping-stone between the lands that surround it. In medieval times, it played an ...

Deborah Bauer, "Marianne Is Watching: Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and the Origins of the French Surveillance State" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), the French Third Republic sought to rebuild its strength to avenge its defeat and secu...

Stéfanie von Hlatky, "Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations" (Oxford UP, 2022)

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing launched the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Successive UN Security Council resoluti...

Macs Smith, "Paris and the Parasite: Noise, Health, and Politics in the Media City" (MIT Press, 2021)

29 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The social consequences of anti-parasitic urbanism, as efforts to expunge supposedly biological parasites penalize those viewed as social parasites. A...

Robin Prior, "Conquer We Must: A Military History of Britain, 1914-1945" (Yale UP, 2022)

28 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The First and Second World Wars were separated by a mere two decades, making the period 1914-1945 an unprecedentedly intense and violent era of histor...

Corrado Confalonieri, "Torquato Tasso and the Desire for Unity: 'Jerusalem Delivered' and a New Theory of the Epic" (Carocci editore, 2022)

27 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A form at the origins of Western literature, the epic has always been theorized in contrast to other literary genres, those that would either perfect ...

Ferenc Hörcher, "Art and Politics in Roger Scruton's Conservative Philosophy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ferenc Hörcher's book Art and Politics in Roger Scruton's Conservative Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) covers the field of and points to the ...

Rachel Anne Gillett, "At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris" (Oxford UP, 2021)

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Rachel Gillett's At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris (Oxford University Press, 2021) explores the world of ...

Mònica Calabritto, "Murder and Madness on Trial: A Tale of True Crime from Early Modern Bologna" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2023)

23 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Monica Calabritto of Hunter College talks to us today about her new book, Murder and Madness on Trial: A Tale of True Crime from Early Modern Bologna...

Ninon Dubourg, "Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages: Un/Suitable for Divine Service?" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

22 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Ninon Dubourg about her new book Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages: Un/Suitable for Divine Service? (Amsterdam UP, 2023). ...

Luca Zan, "The Venice Arsenal: Between History, Heritage, and Re-Use" (Routledge, 2022)

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Venice Arsenal: Between History, Heritage, and Re-Use (Routledge, 2022) reviews four decades of debate about restoring an industrial heritage sit...

Timothy Sean Quinn, "Apiqoros: The Last Essays of Salomon Maimon" (Hebrew Union College Press, 2021)

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Although Kant considered him the greatest critic of his work, and Fichte thought him the most impressive mind of the generation, Salomon Maimon (1753-...

Charles Read, "Calming the Storms: The Carry Trade, the Banking School and British Financial Crises Since 1825" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

17 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Calming the Storms: The Carry Trade, the Banking School and British Financial Crises Since 1825 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) by Dr. Charles Read expose...

David Baumeister, "Kant on the Human Animal: Anthropology, Ethics, Race" (Northwestern UP, 2022)

16 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

While Immanuel Kant’s account of human reason is well known and celebrated, his account of human animality (Thierheit) is virtually unknown. Animali...

The Future of Antisemitism: A Discussion with Dave Rich

15 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Few people would describe themselves as antisemites. And yet many Jews living in Europe and the US believe that they encounter anti-semitism quite fre...

Freddy Foks, "Participant Observers: Anthropology, Colonial Development, and the Reinvention of Society in Britain" (U California Press, 2023)

14 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Freddy Foks's Participant Observers: Anthropology, Colonial Development, and the Reinvention of Society in Britain (U California Press, 2023) is a n...

Christopher S. Celenza, "The Italian Renaissance and the Origin of the Humanities: An Intellectual History, 1400-1800" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

13 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Celenza is one of the foremost contemporary scholars of the Renaissance. His ambitious new book The Italian Renaissance and the Origin of...

Celeste Day Moore, "Soundscapes of Liberation: African American Music in Postwar France" (Duke UP, 2021)

12 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Celeste Day Moore is a historian of African American culture, media, and Black internationalism in the twentieth century. Her first book, Soundscapes...

Thomas M. Lekan, "Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti" (Oxford UP, 2020)

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did the Serengeti become an internationally renowned African conservation site and one of the most iconic destinations for a safari? In Our Gigan...

The Roots of Equity and Equality: A Conversation with Teresa Bejan

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The ideas of equity and equality are all over the news, yet there seems to be little agreement on what exactly each term means. Political theorist and...

Jacques Dalarun et al., "A Female Apostle in Medieval Italy: The Life of Clare of Rimini" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A Female Apostle in Medieval Italy: The Life of Clare of Rimini (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) centers on a fascinating woman, Clare of Rimini (c. 126...

Laura Hobson Faure, "A 'Jewish Marshall Plan': The American Jewish Presence in Post-Holocaust France" (Indiana UP, 2022)

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

While the role the United States played in France’s liberation from Nazi Germany is widely celebrated, it is less well known that American Jewish in...

Kate Strasdin, "The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe" (Pegasus Books, 2023)

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe (Penguin, 2023) by Dr. Kate Strasdin presents the hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's l...

Simon Strange, "Blank Canvas: Art School Creativity and the Development of Punk, Post Punk and New Wave Music" (Intellect, 2023)

08 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Blank Canvas: Art School Creativity From Punk to New Wave (Intellect Publishing, 2022), Simon Strange explores the relationship between art an...

Johnny Walker, "Rewind, Replay: Britain and the Video Boom, 1978-92" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)

07 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nostalgia for the 1980s is in the air. From Stranger Things to the relaunch of 80s franchises like Top Gun, the American entertainment industry cas...

David I. Kertzer, "The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler" (Random House, 2022)

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during...

Hope Williard, "Friendship in the Merovingian Kingdoms: Venantius Fortunatus and His Contemporaries" (ARC Humanities Press, 2022)

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hope Williard's book Friendship in the Merovingian Kingdoms: Venantius Fortunatus and His Contemporaries (Arc Humanities Press, 2022) explores how ...

Patrick Bixby, "Nietzsche and Irish Modernism" (Manchester UP, 2022)

05 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Patrick Bixby's book Nietzsche and Irish Modernism (Manchester UP, 2022) demonstrates how the ideas of the controversial German philosopher played ...

Stuart Elden, "The Archaeology of Foucault" (Polity, 2022)

05 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did Foucault’s thought develop in the 1960s? In The Archaeology of Foucault (Polity, 2022) Stuart Elden, a professor of Political Theory an...

Mauro Resmini, "Italian Political Cinema: Figure of the Long '68" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Traditionally, the definition of political cinema assumes a relationship between cinema and politics. In contrast to this view, author Mauro Resmini s...

Andrew D. Berns, "The Land Is Mine: Sephardi Jews and Bible Commentary in the Renaissance" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

02 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardi Jews such as Isaac Abravanel, Abraham Saba, and Isaac Arama wrote biblical commentaries that stress...

Jason Knirck, "Democracy and Dissent in the Irish Free State: Opposition, Decolonization, and Majority Rights" (Manchester UP, 2023)

02 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jason Knirck is the chair of the History Department at Central Washington University. He is a modern Irish historian who also teaches British and west...

Susan R. Grayzel, "The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

01 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode, we sit down with Dr. Susan R. Grayzel, Professor of History at Utah State University to discuss The Age of the Gas Mask: How British...

School Authority, Parents' Rights: Rita Koganzon on Early Modern Education

30 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities,...

School Authority, Parents' Rights: Rita Koganzon on Early Modern Education

30 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities,...

Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, "Dindshenchas Érenn" (U College Cork, 2022)

29 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The purpose of the present volume, Dindshenchas Érenn (U College Cork, 2022), is to provide an accessible overview and entry into the complex lite...

Declan Warde et al., "Safety As We Watch: Anaesthesia in Ireland 1847-1998" (Wordwell Books, 2022)

27 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The discovery of anaesthesia which could be administered safely to eliminate the pain of surgery and other medical and dental procedures is widely con...

Joshua D. Schendel, "The Necessity of Christ's Satisfaction: A Study of the Reformed Scholastic Theologians William Twisse (1578-1646) and John Owen (1616-1683)" (Brill, 2022)

27 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The seventeenth century Reformed Orthodox discussions of the work of Christ and its various doctrinal constitutive elements were rich and multifaceted...

John Soderberg, "Animals and Sacred Bodies in Early Medieval Ireland: Religion and Urbanism at Clonmacnoise" (Lexington Books, 2021)

24 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Clonmacnoise was among the busiest, most economically complex, and intensely sacred places in early medieval Ireland. In Animals and Sacred Bodies in...

Peter Heather, "Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300" (Knopf, 2023)

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the fourth century AD, a new faith grew out of Palestine, overwhelming the paganism of Rome and resoundingly defeating a host of other rival belief...

John P. Bequette, "Bede the Theologian: History, Rhetoric, and Spirituality" (Catholic U of America Press, 2022)

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Revered by contemporaries and posterity for both his sanctity and his scholarship, Bede (672-735) is a pivotal figure in the history of the Church. Kn...

Andrew Phemister, "Land and Liberalism: Henry George and the Irish Land War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

20 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Phemister is Research Associate at Newcastle University. He has previously held postdoctoral positions in History at NUI Galway, the University...

Jessica Brantley, "Medieval English Manuscripts and Literary Forms" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

19 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest is Jessica Brantley, Professor of English at Yale University. Professor Rosenberg is the author of the previous monograph, Reading in...

Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, "Pioneers of Capitalism: The Netherlands 1000–1800" (Princeton UP, 2022)

18 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the Middle Ages, the Netherlands played a significant role in the emergence of capitalism, which led to the impressive Dutch Golden Age and pav...

Rick de Villiers, "Eliot and Beckett's Low Modernism: Humility and Humiliation" (Edinburgh UP, 2021)

17 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Humility and humiliation have an awkward, often unacknowledged intimacy. Humility may be a queenly, cardinal or monkish virtue, while humiliation poin...

Robin Prior, "Conquer We Must: A Military History of Britain, 1914-1945" (Yale UP, 2022)

17 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The First and Second World Wars were separated by a mere two decades, making the period 1914-1945 an unprecedentedly intense and violent era of histor...

Dalia Nassar and Kristin Gjesdal, "Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition" (Oxford UP, 2021)

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The long nineteenth-century--the period beginning with the French Revolution and ending with World War I--was a transformative period for women philos...

Hugh Hodges, "The Fascist Groove Thing: A History of Thatcher's Britain in 21 Mixtapes" (PM Press, 2023)

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is the late 1970s and '80s as explained through the urgent and still-relevant songs of the Clash, the Specials, the Au Pairs, the Style Council, ...

Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson, "Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games" (MIT Press, 2023)

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games (MIT Press, 2023) by Dr. Mary Flanagan & Dr. Mikael Jakobsson is a s...

Joseph W. Peterson, "Sacred Rivals: Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-Century France and Algeria" (Oxford UP, 2022)

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineer...

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Andrew S. Curran, "Who's Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race" (Harvard UP, 2022)

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who's Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race (Harvard University Press, 2022) is the first translation and p...

Laura Kolb, "Fictions of Credit in the Age of Shakespeare" (Oxford UP, 2021)

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Fictions of Credit in the Age of Shakespeare (Oxford University Press, 2021), Laura Kolb examines how Shakespeare and his contemporaries represen...

Susan Colbourn, "Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO" (Cornell UP, 2022)

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (Cornell UP, 2022), Susan Colbourn tells the story of the height of nuclear crisis a...

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

11 Mar 2023

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...

Richard Thompson Ford, "Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History" (Simon & Schuster, 2021)

11 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change...

Emily Steiner, "John Trevisa's Information Age: Knowledge and the Pursuit of Literature, c. 1400" (Oxford UP, 2021)

11 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What would medieval English literature look like if we viewed it through the lens of the compendium? In that case, John Trevisa might come into focus ...

Marion Turner, "The Wife of Bath: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2023)

10 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognisably real woman in English ...

Jamie Kreiner, "The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction" (Liveright, 2023)

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction (Liveright, 2023) by Dr. Jamie Kreiner presents a revelatory account of how Christi...

Jacqueline Broad, "Women Philosophers of Seventeenth-Century England: Selected Correspondence" (Oxford UP, 2019)

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This volume collects the private letters and published epistles of English women philosophers of the early modern period (c. 1650-1700). It includes t...

Elina Gertsman and Barbara H. Rosenwein, "The Middle Ages in 50 Objects" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The extraordinary array of images included in The Middle Ages in 50 Objects (Cambridge UP, 2018) reveals the full and rich history of the Middle Age...

Ben Dodds, "Myths and Memories of the Black Death" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

06 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Dodds, of the University of Florida, talks with Jana Byars about his new book, Myths and Memories of the Black Death (Palgrave, 2022). This bo...

Caroline Rusterholz, "Women's Medicine: Family Planning and British Female Doctors in Transnational Perspective, 1920-70" (Manchester UP, 2021)

04 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who built the twentieth century birth control movement? In Women's Medicine: Family Planning and British Female Doctors in Transnational Perspectiv...

Ben Davies et al., "Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (Oxford UP, 2022)

04 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on an ethnographic study of novel readers in Denmark and the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic (O...

Geoffrey Parker and Colin Martin, "Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England's Deliverance In 1588" (Yale UP, 2022)

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In July 1588 the Spanish Armada sailed from Corunna to conquer England. Three weeks later an English fireship attack in the Channel--and then a fierce...

Elizabeth T. Hurren, "Hidden Histories of the Dead: Disputed Bodies in Modern British Medical Research" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Hidden Histories of the Dead: Disputed Bodies in Modern British Medical Research (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Dr. Elizabeth T. Hurren maps...

Helen Solterer and Vincent Joos, "Migrants Shaping Europe, Past and Present: Multilingual Literatures, Arts, and Cultures" (Manchester UP, 2022)

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Helen Solterer and Vincent Joos edited volume Migrants Shaping Europe, Past and Present: Multilingual Literatures, Arts, and Cultures (Manchester UP...