New Books in Western European Studies

Keir Giles, "Who Will Defend Europe?: An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent" (Hurst & Co., 2024)

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Who will defend Europe? The answer should be obvious: Europe should be able to defend itself. Yet, for decades, most of the continent enjoyed a defenc...

Camilla Annerfeldt, "Clothing and Identity in Early Modern Rome" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

24 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Camilla Annerfeldt joins to discuss Clothing and Identity in Early Modern Rome (Bloomsbury, 2025). This is the first book-length exploration of the...

Richard D. Oram, "A Land Won from Waste: Scotland AD 400-1400" (Birlinn, 2025)

24 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing together the evidence of archaeology, palaeoecology, climate history and the historical record, this first environmental history of Scotland e...

Dan Sperrin, "State of Ridicule: A History of Satire in English Literature" (Princeton UP, 2025)

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Satire is a funny, aggressive, and largely oppositional literature which is typically created by people who refuse to participate in a given regime’...

Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingd...

Quentin Skinner, "Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political Ideal" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does liberty entail? How have concepts of liberty changed over time? And what are the global consequences? Liberty as Independence: The Making a...

Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir, "Ghosts, Trolls, and the Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends" (Reaktion, 2025)

19 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Ghosts, Trolls, and Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends (Re...

Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism" (Cornell UP, 2025)

18 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Aviva Briefel argues that Victoria...

Ben Jackson, "Material Masculinities: Men and Goods in Eighteenth-Century England" (Manchester UP, 2025)

17 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Material Masculinities: Men and Goods in Eighteenth-Century England (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Ben Jackson examines the material and ...

Rochelle Rojas, "Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675" (Cornell UP, 2025)

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting...

Claire McNulty, "Edinburgh's Unruly Women: Gender, Discipline, and Power, 1560-1660" (Routledge, 2024)

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Edinburgh's Unruly Women: Gender, Discipline, and Power, 1560-1660 (Routledge, 2024) examines experiences of church discipline across parish communit...

Beaty Rubens, "Listen In: How Radio Changed the Home" (Bodleian Library, 2025)

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Radio, today, can feel like a faithful old companion, but its early history was sensational. Between 1922 and 1939, British life was transformed by wh...

Anna Wainwright, "Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in the Italian Renaissance" (U Delaware Press, 2025)

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in Renaissance Italy (University of Delaware Press, 2025) investigates the ever-evolving role of the wido...

Andrew Griebeler, "Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A richly illustrated account of how premodern botanical illustrations document evolving knowledge about plants and the ways they were studied in the p...

Make Britain Great Again? The MAGA-Style Rise of Reform UK

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Britain's Conservative Party is one of the oldest and most successful political parties in history. Local elections in the UK have signalled that they...

Marc Jaffré, "The Courtiers and the Court of Louis XIII, 1610-1643" (Oxford UP, 2025)

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marc Jaffré joins Jana Byars for a lively conversation about The Courtiers and the Court of Louis XIII, 1610- 1643 (Oxford University Press, 2025)...

"I have not Finished...": Rokahya Diallo on being Black, Muslim, and frequently interrupted (Emilie Diouf, JP)

06 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Emilie Diouf of Brandeis English, whose monograph on genocide and trauma is forthcoming, joins John to speak with the celebrated French journalist an...

Jeremy Black, "British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1727-44" (Routledge, 2014)

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Covering the period from the end of the Anglo-French alliance in 1731 to the declaration of war between the two powers in 1744, British Politics and ...

Ipek A. Celik Rappas, "Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location" (Cornell UP, 2025)

04 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location (Cornell University Press, 2025) explores the effort behind creating screen production locations. D...

Miles Pattenden, "Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700" (Oxford UP, 2017)

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jana Byars talks to Miles Pattenden about his book, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford UP, 2017), just about to be released ...

Jeremy Black, "Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714-1727" (Routledge, 2016)

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Through its focus on the relationship between foreign and domestic politics, Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714-1727 (Routledg...

Timothy Twining, "The Limits of Erudition: The Old Testament in Post-Reformation Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The history of early modern biblical scholarship has often been told as a teleological narrative in which a succession of radical thinkers dethroned t...

Donald S. Prudlo, "Stimulus Pastorum: A Charge to Pastors" (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The work of St. Bartholomew of Braga, O.P. (1514-1590) appears here in English for the first time despite its long and enduring influence in ecclesias...

Fernando Collantes, "Milk in Spain and the History of Diet Change: The Political Economy of Dairy Consumption Since 1950" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

29 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In barely three generations the Spanish diet has changed beyond recognition. The traditional concerns around nutritional health and scarcity have been...

Annalisa Marzano, "Plants, Politics and Empire in Ancient Rome" (Cambridge UP. 2022)

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Plants, Politics and Empire in Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Annalisa Marzano investigates the cultural and political dimens...

Lorna Gibb, "Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages" (Princeton UP, 2025)

27 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An enthralling tour of the world’s rarest and most endangered languages Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the result...

Eleanor Paynter, "Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present" (U California Press, 2024)

26 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Eleanor Paynter responds to the cris...

Udi Greenberg, "The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s" (Harvard UP, 2025)

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Reconciliation between Europe's Protestants and Catholics led to a new era of Christian collaboration.  Why did these erstwhile foes end their schis...

Christopher Harding, "The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East" (Allen Lane, 2024)

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Harding’s The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East (Allen Lane, 2024) is a fascinating survey of two millenni...

Asa Simon Mittman, "Cartographies of Exclusion: Anti-Semitic Mapping in Medieval England" (Penn State UP, 2024)

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the battles over Jerusalem to the emergence of the “Holy Land,” from legally mandated ghettos to the Edict of Expulsion, geography has long b...

Reider Payne, "War and Diplomacy in the Napoleonic Era" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Though Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh remains well known today for his role in shaping the post-Napoleonic peace settlement in Europe, his half-...

Maurizio Ferrera, "Politics and Social Visions: Ideology, Conflict, and Solidarity in the EU" (Oxford UP, 2024)

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The starting point of this book is the 'civil war' of ideas that broke out during the early 2010s about the purpose and even the desirability of the E...

Fernanda Gallo, "Hegel and Italian Political Thought: The Practice of Ideas, 1832-1900" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

20 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Political Theorist Fernanda Gallo (Homerton College, University of Cambridge) has a fascinating new book, Hegel and Italian Political Thought: The Pr...

Faith Tibble, "Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings" (T&T Clark, 2025)

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jesus' Crown of Thorns has become one of the most ubiquitous features of Christian religious art, but was the original crown anything like the crown o...

Agnieszka Pasieka, "Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe" (Princeton UP, 2024)

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Radical nationalism is on the rise in Europe and throughout the world. Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton Uni...

Mary Bosworth, "Supply Chain Justice: The Logistics of British Border Control" (Princeton UP, 2024)

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the UK’s fully outsourced “immigration detainee escorting system,” private sector security employees detain, circulate and deport foreign nat...

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "The Idea of the City in Late Antiquity: A Study in Resilience" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The city was one of the central and defining features of the world of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean. Challenging the idea that the ancient city 'd...

Margaret Urwin, "A State in Denial: British Collaboration with Loyalist Paramilitaries" (Mercier Press, 2016)

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A State in Denial: British Collaboration with Loyalist Paramilitaries (Mercier Press, 2016) uses previously secret official documents to explore the...

Sam Wetherell, "Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does the history of Liverpool tell us about the future of Britain? In Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain (Bloomsbury, 2025), Sam Wetherall,...

Stephen J. Campbell, "Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life" (Princeton UP, 2025)

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) never signed a painting, and none of his supposed self-portraits can be securely ascribed to his hand. He revealed nex...

Stefanie Fischer and Kim Wünschmann, "Oberbrechen: a German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past" (Oxford UP, 2024)

08 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of...

Richard Alfred Muller, "Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology" (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024)

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024), Dr. Richard A. Muller delves into one of the most controvers...

Bruno Leipold, "Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2024)

06 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought (Princeton UP, 2024), Bruno Leipold argues that, cont...

Patrick Wallis, "The Market for Skill: Apprenticeship and Economic Growth in Early Modern England" (Princeton UP, 2025)

05 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Apprenticeship dominated training and skill formation in early modern Europe. Years spent learning from a skilled master were a nearly universal exper...

Liz William, "Rough Music: Folk Customs, Transgression and Alternative Britain" (Reaktion, 2025)

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Rough Music: Folk Customs, Transgression and Alternative Britain (Reaktion, 2025) by Liz Williams explores transgression and shame in British folklor...

Hannan Hever, "Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism: Chapters in Literary Politics" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

30 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) reveals how political and literary dialogues and conflicts between the Hebrew literature of...

William Max Nelson, "Enlightenment Biopolitics: A History of Race, Eugenics, and the Making of Citizens" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Enlightenment Biopolitics (U Chicago Press, 2024), historian William Max Nelson pursues the ambitious task of tracing the context in which biopol...

Bruce L. Vernarde, "The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France" (Cornell UP, 2024)

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Murder in a cathedral, horrific illnesses and deformities, narrow escapes from injury and death, a vengeful dragon, a wandering eyeball, a bawdy monk ...

Jeremy Black, "A History of Britain's Transport" (Pen and Sword, 2025)

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An accessible book to draw on popular interest in transport history, routes, vehicles and experiences. Transport history is social and industrial nati...

Kiran Mehta, "To Detain or to Punish: Magistrates and the Making of the London Prison System, 1750–1840" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Imprisonment was rarely used as punishment in Britain before 1800. The criminal justice system was based on terror and deterrence, sentencing convicts...

Ben Bowles, "Boaters of London: Alternative Living on the Water" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

23 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Boaters of London is an ethnography that delves into the process of becoming a boater, adopting an alternative lifestyle on the water and the politic...

Holly Grout, "Playing Cleopatra: Inventing the Female Celebrity in Third Republic France" (LSU Press, 2024)

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Questions about the meaning of womanhood and femininity loomed large in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French culture. In Playing Cleop...

Clive Bloom, "London Uncanny: A Gothic Guide to the Capital in Weird History and Fiction" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From Kensington to the East End, under candlelight, gas lamp and then neon signs, London is both a bustling physical metropolis and a stirring psychic...

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

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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

Andrew Janiak, "The Enlightenment's Most Dangerous Woman: Émilie Du Châtelet and the Making of Modern Philosophy" (Oxford UP, 2024)

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Enlightenment's Most Dangerous Woman: Émilie du Châtelet and the Making of Modern Philosophy (Oxford UP, 2024) introduces the work and legacy ...

Alexandra Verini, "English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

16 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women’s utopianism th...

Anna Nilsson Hammar and Svante Norrhem, "Serving Aristocracy: Negotiation, Learning, and Mobility in an Early Modern Knowledge Community" (Routledge, 2025)

15 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Serving Aristocracy: Negotiation, Learning, and Mobility in an Early Modern Knowledge Community (Routledge, 2025) by Dr. Anna Nilsson Hammar & Dr. Sv...

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

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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

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

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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

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

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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

Gregory Soderberg, "John Brown of Haddington on Frequent Communion" (Wipf & Stock, 2024)

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Shallow and quickly outdated Christian worship practices have left many searching for something with deeper roots. Many churches have rediscovered the...

Abby Innes, "Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why has the United Kingdom, historically one of the strongest democracies in the world, become so unstable? What changed? Late Soviet Britain: Why Ma...

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

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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

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

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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

Ethan Kleinberg, "Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought" (Stanford UP, 2021)

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's ...

Deborah Reed-Donahay, "Sideways Migration: Being French in London" (Routledge, 2025)

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sideways Migration: Being French in London (Routledge, 2025) examines the relationship between migration and socioeconomic status. In particular, it ...

Ellen Fenzel Arnold, "Medieval Riverscapes: Environment and Memory in Northwest Europe, C. 300-1100" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

01 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jana Byars talks to Ellen Arnold about Medieval Riverscapes: Environment and Memory in Northwest Europe, 300 - 1100 (Cambridge UP, 2024). Fishermen...

Megan Moran, "Gender and Family Networks in Early Modern Italy" (Amsterdam UP, 2024)

23 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Women from the Ricasoli and Spinelli families formed a wide variety of social networks within and beyond Florence through their letters as they negoti...

Peter Ramey, "The Word-Hoard Beowulf: A Translation with Commentary" (Angelico Press, 2023)

22 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Beowulf is the product of a profoundly religious imagination, but the significance of the poem’s Christianity has been downplayed or denied altoget...

Mary Flannery, "Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

22 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For over six centuries, Chaucer has epitomized poetic greatness, though more recent treatments of The Canterbury Tales’ lively and often risqué s...

Kathryn Taylor, "Ordering Customs: Ethnographic Thought in Early Modern Venice" (U Delaware Press, 2023)

18 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ordering Customs: Ethnographic Thought in Early Modern Venice (University of Delaware Press, 2023) explores how Renaissance Venetians sought to make ...

Ruby Lowe on John Milton’s Definition of Free Speech

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

British poet John Milton published one of the earliest and still tremendously important defenses of free speech for our modern world. From his famous ...

Shane Bobrycki, "The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages" (Princeton UP, 2024)

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

By the fifth and sixth centuries, the bread and circuses and triumphal processions of the Roman Empire had given way to a quieter world. And yet, as S...

Marcel Elias, "English Literature and the Crusades: Anxieties of Holy War, 1291-1453" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

16 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The period from the Mamlūk reconquest of Acre (1291) to the Ottoman siege of Constantinople (1453) witnessed the production of a substantial corpus o...

Jacqueline M. Burek, "Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain's Long Twelfth Century" (York Medieval Press, 2023)

16 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Histories of Britain composed during the "twelfth-century renaissance" display a remarkable amount of literary variety (Latin varietas). Furthermore,...

Trevor Wilson, "Alexandre Kojève and the Specters of Russian Philosophy" (Northwestern UP, 2024)

15 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Trevor Wilson about his new book, Alexandre Kojève and the Specters of Russian Philosophy (Northwestern Unive...

Adam Pennington, "Henry VIII and the Plantagenet Poles: The Rise and Fall of a Dynasty" (Pen and Sword History, 2024)

15 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The story of King Henry VIII, a man who married six times only to execute two of those wives, is part of Great Britain’s national and international ...

Erika Graham-Goering et al., "Lordship and the Decentralised State in Late Medieval Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025)

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jana Byars talks to Erika Graham-Goering of the University of Oslo about Lordship and the Decentralized State in Late Medieval Europe (Oxford Univer...

Pamela Allen Brown, "The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage: Agency, Theatricality, and the Innamorata" (Oxford UP, 2021)

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Pamela Allen Brown joins Jana Byars to talk about The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage (Oxford University Press, 2022), which traces the trans...

Ada Palmer, "Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ada Palmer joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Inventing the Renaissance (U Chicago Press, 2025) and the ways history is written and used....

Philip Howell, "Pub" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The pub is an English institution. Yet its history has been obscured by myth and nostalgia. In Pub (Bloomsbury, 2025) a new addition to the Object L...

Magdalena Buchczyk, "Weaving Europe, Crafting the Museum: Textiles, History and Ethnography at the Museum of European Cultures, Berlin" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Weaving Europe, Crafting the Museum: Textiles, history and ethnography at the Museum of European Cultures, Berlin (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Magdalena...

Sophia Rosenfeld, "The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life" (Princeton UP, 2025)

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Choice touches virtually every aspect of our lives, from what to buy and where to live to whom to love, what profession to practice, and even what to ...

Ann Schmiesing, "The Brothers Grimm: A Biography" (Yale UP, 2024)

04 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ann Schmiesing, Ph.D. is Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, with research interests spanning 18th and...

Whitney Dirks, "Monstrosity, Bodies, and Knowledge in Early Modern England" (Amsterdam UP, 2024)

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Whitney Dirks joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Monstrosity, Bodies, and Knowledge in Early Modern England: Curiosity to See and Behold (...

Blessin Adams, "Thou Savage Woman: Female Killers in Early Modern Britain" (HarperCollins, 2025)

02 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Early Modern Britain was awash with pamphlets, ballads, woodcuts broadcasting bloodthirsty tales of traitorous wives, greedy mistresses, cunning femal...

Adam Franklin-Lyons, "Shortage and Famine in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon" (Penn State Press, 2022)

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Franklin-Lyons joins Jana Byars to talk about Shortage and Famine in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon (Penn State Press, 2022). In the late f...

Elizabeth Campbell, "Museum Worthy: Nazi Art Plunder in Postwar Western Europe" (Oxford UP, 2024)

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Art looting is commonly recognized as a central feature of Nazi expropriation, in both the Third Reich and occupied territories. After the war, the fa...

Philip Rathgeb, "How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA" (Oxford UP, 2024)

28 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Radical right parties are no longer political challengers on the fringes of party systems; they have become part of the political mainstream across th...

Roland Erne et al., "Politicising Commodification: European Governance and Labour Politics from the Financial Crisis to the Covid Emergency" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

28 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Year 2008 marked the introduction of a new economic governance regime in the European Union (EU) in response to the global financial crisis. Politici...

Vera Keller, "Curating the Enlightenment: Johann Daniel Major and the Experimental Century" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did the research universities of the Enlightenment come into being? And what debt do they owe to scholars of the previous era? Focusing on the car...

Michael Sonenscher, "After Kant: The Romans, the Germans, and the Moderns in the History of Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2023)

26 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this wide-ranging work, Michael Sonenscher traces the origins of modern political thought and ideologies to a question, raised by Immanuel Kant, ab...

Matthew McCormack, "Shoes and the Georgian Man" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

24 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Shoes are everyday objects but they are loaded with meaning. Shoes and the Georgian Man (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Matthew McCormack reveals how shoe...

Terrence C. Petty, "Nazis at the Watercooler: War Criminals in Postwar German Government Agencies" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

24 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After World War II, when a new German democracy was born in the western region of the vanquished Third Reich, tens of thousands of civil servants were...

Hélène Tessier, "Laplanche's Vocabulary" (PUF, 2024)

24 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Vocabulaire de Laplanche (PUF, 2024), edited by the renowned scholar and analyst, Hélène Tessier, several of the key readers of Jean Laplanche'...

David Mckinney, "Samuel Beckett and Recent Irish Fiction: A Comparative Study" (Routledge, 2025)

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Samuel Beckett and Recent Irish Fiction: A Comparative Study (Routledge, 2025) considers Samuel Beckett's fiction and drama as major aesthetic and th...

Michelle D. Brock, "Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town" (Manchester UP, 2024)

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Using a wide range of archival material and a microhistorical approach, Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottis...

Andy Wightman, "The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got it" (Birlinn, 2025)

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Who owns Scotland? How did they get it? What happened to all the common land in Scotland? Has the Scottish Parliament made any difference? Can we get ...

Bianca M. Lopez, "Queen of Sorrows: Plague, Piety, and Power in Late Medieval Italy" (Cornell UP, 2024)

21 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Queen of Sorrows: Plague, Piety, and Power in Late Medieval Italy (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Bianca Lopez takes an original approach to ...

April-Louise Pennant, "Babygirl, You've Got This!: Experiences of Black Girls and Women in the English Education System" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

21 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do Black women experience education in Britain? Within British educational research about Black students, gender distinctions have been largely ab...