New Books in Western European Studies

Helena Taylor, "Women Writing Antiquity: Gender and Learning in Early Modern France" (Oxford UP, 2024)

13 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Women Writing Antiquity: Gender and Learning in Early Modern France (Oxford UP, 2024) recounts women authors' struggle to define the female intellect...

Pamela O. Long on the Long, Long, Long History of Technology

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with MacArthur “Genius Prize” winning historian Pamela Long about her long career writing about the histo...

A Deep Dive on Karl Marx's "Capital"

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over 150 years ago, Marx published the first volume of Capital, a systematic and voluminous account of capitalism, from the economic bedrock all the ...

Kyle Falcon, "Haunted Britain: Spiritualism, Psychical Research and the Great War" (Manchester UP, 2023)

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Great War haunted the British Empire. Shell shocked soldiers relived the war's trauma through waking nightmares consisting of mutilated and grotes...

Marco Bastos, "Brexit, Tweeted: Polarization and Social Media Manipulation" (Bristol UP, 2024)

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dissecting 45 million tweets from the period that followed the Brexit referendum, Brexit, Tweeted: Polarization and Social Media Manipulation (Brist...

Serena Laiena, "The Theatre Couple in Early Modern Italy: Self-Fashioning and Mutual Marketing" (U Delaware Press, 2023)

05 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Serena Laiena joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, The Theater Couple in Early Modern Italy: Self-Fashioning and Mutual Marketing (Universit...

Francesco Piraino, "Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Francesco Piraino’s Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism and the New Age (University of Edinburgh Press, 2024) is a vital contribution to the grow...

William Cook Miller, "The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture" (Cornell UP, 2023)

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Enthusiast: Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of a character type that was develo...

Julia Caterina Hartley, "Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France" (Bloomsbury. 2023)

02 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Julia Caterina Hartley about Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France (Bloomsbur...

Paola Bertucci, "In the Land of Marvels: Science, Fabricated Realities, and Industrial Espionage in the Age of the Grand Tour" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How a journey through Italy casts light on secrets, stereotypes, and the manipulation of information in eighteenth-century science. In 1749, the celeb...

Annette Kehnel, "The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability" (Brandeis UP, 2024)

29 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Annette Kehnel joins Jana Byars to talk about The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability (Brandeis University Press, 2024). A fascinati...

J. C. D. Clark, "The Enlightenment: An Idea and Its History" (Oxford UP, 2024)

28 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Enlightenment studies are currently in a state of flux, with unresolved arguments among its adherents about its dates, its locations, and the contents...

Alessandra Russo, "A New Antiquity: Art and Humanity as Universal, 1400-1600" (Penn State UP, 2024)

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We tend to think of sixteenth-century European artistic theory as separate from the artworks displayed in the non-European sections of museums. In A ...

Charmian Mansell, "Female Servants in Early Modern England" (Oxford UP, 2024)

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Charmian Mansell joins Jana Byars to talk about Female Servants in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2024).  What was it like to be a ...

Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman, "Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite" (Harvard UP, 2024)

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who runs Britain? In Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite (Harvard UP, 2024), Aaron Reeves, and Sam Friedman, both Professo...

Joseph Harley, "At Home with the Poor: Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in England, c.1650-1850" (Manchester UP, 2024)

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At Home with the Poor: Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in England, c.1650-1850 (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Joseph Harley opens the doors to...

Susan Doran, "From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I" (Oxford UP, 2024)

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford UP, 2024) tells the story of the troubled accession of England's first S...

The Far-Right Threat in German Politics: A Discussion with Marcus Böick

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The recent elections in eastern Germany, where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to win a parliamentary election at t...

Jason A. Josephson Storm, "The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences" (U Chicago Press, 2017)

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A great many theorists have argued that the defining feature of modernity is that people no longer believe in spirits, myths, or magic. Jason Ā. Jose...

Aideen O’Shaughnessy, "Embodying Irish Abortion Reform: Bodies, Emotions, and Feminist Activism" (Bristol UP, 2024)

21 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Aideen O'Shaughnessy is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Lincoln. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, ...

Lucy Weir, "Performance, Masculinity, and Self-Injury" (Routledge, 2024)

21 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Can self-harm be art? In Performance, Masculinity, and Self-Injury (Routledge, 2024), Lucy Weir, a Reader in History of Art at the University of E...

Felia Allum, "Women of the Mafia: Power and Influence in the Neapolitan Camorra" (Cornell UP, 2024)

21 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Women of the Mafia: Power and Influence in the Neapolitan Camorra (Cornell UP, 2024) by Dr. Felia Allum dives into the Neapolitan criminal underworl...

Jack Crangle, "Migrants, Immigration and Diversity in Twentieth-century Northern Ireland: British, Irish or 'Other’?" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Addressing questions about what it means to be ‘British’ or ‘Irish’ in the twenty-first century, Migrants, Immigration and Diversity in Twent...

Michael Livingston, "Agincourt: Battle of the Scarred King" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Agincourt is one of the most famous battles in English history, a defining part of the national myth. This groundbreaking study by Michael Livingston ...

William H. F. Altman, "The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism" (Lexington Books, 2010)

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Leo Strauss was a German-Jewish emigrant to the United States, an author, professor and political philosopher. Born in 1899 in Kirchhain in the Kingdo...

Zrinka Stahuljak, "Fixers: Agency, Translation, and the Early Global History of Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Fixers: Agency, Translation, and the Early Global History of Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Dr. Zrinka Stahuljak challenges scho...

Caroline Burt and Richard Partington, "Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State" (Faber & Faber, 2024)

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State (Faber & Faber, 2024) offers a lively, new and sweeping history of the rise of the sta...

Karl Marx, "Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1" (Princeton UP, 2024)

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was living in exile in England when he embarked on an ambitious, multivolume critique of the capitalist system of production. Th...

Wendy Ugolini, "Wales in England, 1914-1945: A Social, Cultural, and Military History" (Oxford UP, 2024)

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At the beginning of the twentieth century, for many English men and women of Welsh origin the idea of being in some part 'Welsh' reaffirmed their own ...

Jennifer Redmond and Mary McAuliffe, "The Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Modern Ireland: A Reader" (Four Courts Press, 2024)

14 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mary McAuliffe is a historian and lecturer in Gender Studies at UCD. Her latest publications include (is The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn co-authored wi...

Lynn M. Tesser, "Rethinking the End of Empire: Nationalism, State Formation, and Great Power Politics" (Stanford UP, 2024)

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why did a nation-state order emerge when nationalist activism was usually an elitist pursuit in the age of empire? Ordinary inhabitants and even most ...

Whitney Barlow Robles, "Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History" (Yale UP, 2023)

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dive into the world of animals with Whitney Barlow Robles in her captivating new book, Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History (Yale UP, 2...

Edel Bhreathnach, "Monasticism in Ireland, AD 900-1250" (Four Courts Press, 2024)

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The history of monasticism in early Ireland is dominated by its flourishing during the sixth and seventh centuries, a period dominated by Columba of I...

Morgane Cadieu, "On Both Sides of the Tracks: Social Mobility in Contemporary French Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An analysis of social mobility in contemporary French literature that offers a new perspective on figures who move between social classes. Social clim...

Martha Rampton, "Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000" (Cornell UP, 2021)

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Martha Rampton, Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000 (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores how magic ...

Raquel Velho on Disability, Infrastructure, and London's Public Transport System

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Raquel Velho, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a...

Naomi Leite, "Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging" (U California Press, 2017)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging (U California Press, 2017) is a lively, readable exploration of "chosen" iden...

Duncan Simpson, "I am pleased to inform the director: letters from Portuguese people to PIDE (1958-1968)" (Silveira, BookBuilders, 2022)

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Duncan Simpson about his book Tenho o prazer de informar o senhor director: cartas de portugueses à PIDE (1958-1968)   ("I am...

Daniel Laqua, "Activism Across Borders Since 1870: Causes, Campaigns and Conflicts in and Beyond Europe" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the Occupy protests to climate change school strikes and the Black Lives Matter movement, the 21st century has been rife with activism. Although ...

Andrea Moudarres, "The Enemy in Italian Renaissance Epic: Images of Hostility from Dante to Tasso" (U Virginia Press, 2019)

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Enemy in Italian Renaissance Epic: Images of Hostility from Dante to Tasso (University of Delaware Press, 2019), Andrea Moudarres examines i...

Violet Moller, "The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found" (Doubleday, 2019)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Violet Moller has written a narrative history of the transmission of books from the ancient world to the modern. In The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Y...

Daniel Todman, "Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947" (Oxford UP, 2020)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The second of Daniel Todman's two sweeping volumes on Great Britain and World War II, Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947 (Oxford UP, 2020), begin...

Lise Butler, "Michael Young, Social Science, and the British Left, 1945-1970" (Oxford UP, 2020)

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lise Butler’s Michael Young, Social Science and the British Left, 1945-70 (Oxford UP, 2020) invites us to revisit a figure who, in Butler’s wor...

Ludovico Silva, "Marx's Literary Style" (Verso, 2023)

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Marx’s Literary Style, the Venezuelan poet and philosopher Ludovico Silva argues that much of the confusion around Marx’s work results from ...

Ellen Hampton, "Doctors at War: The Clandestine Battle Against the Nazi Occupation of France" (LSU Press, 2023)

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ellen Hampton's Doctors at War: The Clandestine Battle Against the Nazi Occupation of France (LSU Press, 2023) tells the stories of physicians in Fr...

Anders Persson, "EU Diplomacy and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1967-2019" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

24 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly 50 years since the European Foreign Ministers issued their first declaration on the conflict between Israel and Palestine in 1971, the Europea...

Laurien Vastenhout, "Between Community and Collaboration: 'Jewish Councils' in Western Europe under Nazi Occupation" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The first comprehensive, comparative study of the 'Jewish Councils' in the Netherlands, Belgium and France during Nazi rule. In the postwar period, th...

Christopher Beckman, "Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine" (Hurst, 2024)

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine (Hurst, 2024) by Christopher Beckman takes readers on a tantalising voyage thro...

Ren Pepitone, "Brotherhood of Barristers: A Cultural History of the British Legal Profession, 1840–1940" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How did ideas of masculinity shape the British legal profession and the wider expectations of the white-collar professional? Brotherhood of Barrister...

Oliver Volckart, "The Silver Empire: How Germany Created Its First Common Currency" (Oxford UP, 2024)

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The problems that gave rise to the widespread desire to introduce a common currency were myriad. While trade was able to cope with-and even to benefit...

Joachim C. Häberlen, "Beauty Is in the Street: Protest and Counterculture in Post-War Europe" (Penguin, 2023)

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In post-war Europe, protest was everywhere. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Paris to Prague, Milan to Wroclaw, ordinary people took to the str...

Shaun S. Yates, "Over-Efficiency in the Lower Criminal Courts: Understanding a Key Problem and How to Fix it" (Policy Press, 2024)

17 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our pursuit of efficiency in the lower criminal courts, have we lost sight of quality justice? Through the critical examination of original stenogr...

Javier Fernández-Galeano, "Queer Obscenity: Erotic Archives in Dictatorial Spain" (Stanford UP, 2024)

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Queer Obscenity: Erotic Archives in Dictatorial Spain (Stanford University Press, 2024) takes us inside the archive to demonstrate how the incongrui...

Lesley Smith, "Fragments of a World: William of Auvergne and His Medieval Life" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lesley Smith of Oxford University joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Fragments of a World: William of Auvergne and His Medieval Life (Univ...

Barbara Emerson, "The First Cold War: Anglo-Russian Relations in the 19th Century" (Hurst, 2024)

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Britain and Russia maintained a frosty civility for a few years after Napoleon's defeat in 1815. But, by the 1820s, their relations degenerated into c...

Sara J. Charles, "The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages (Reaktion, 2024) by Sara J. Charles takes the reader on an immersive journey through mediae...

Marissa Nicosia, "Imagining Time in the English Chronicle Play: Historical Futures, 1590-1660" (Oxford UP, 2023)

11 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imagining Time in the English Chronicle Play: Historical Futures, 1590-1660 (Oxford University Press, 2023) argues that dramatic narratives about mon...

George Musgrave, "The England No One Cares About: Lyrics from Suburbia" (Goldsmiths Press, 2023)

10 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An exploration of the much-derided English suburbs through rap music. There are many different Englands. From the much-romanticized rolling countrysid...

Cordelia Heß, "The Medieval Archive of Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century Sweden" (de Gruyter, 2021)

10 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The significance of religion for the development of modern racist antisemitism is a much debated topic in the study of Jewish-Christian relations. Cor...

Dora Osborne, "What Remains: The Post-Holocaust Archive in German Memory Culture" (Camden House, 2020)

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With the passing of those who witnessed National Socialism and the Holocaust, the archive matters as never before. However, the material that remains ...

Katharine Sykes, "Symbolic Reproduction in Early Medieval England" (Oxford UP, 2024)

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Katharine Sykes joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Symbolic Representation in Early Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 2024). In ...

Nicholas Orme, "Going to Church in Medieval England" (Yale UP, 2021)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For people in medieval England, the parish church was an integral part of their community. In Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University P...

Douglas Greene, "The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade's Revenge" (Routledge, 2024)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Returning to the New Books Network is Doug Greene, here to discuss his book The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky (Routledge, 2024). Sp...

Petra Goedde, "The Politics of Peace: A Global Cold War History" (Oxford UP, 2019)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier histories of the Cold War haven’t exactly been charitable toward the peace activists and pacifists who led peace initiatives. Pacifists in t...

Laura Beers. "Orwell’s Ghosts Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century" (Norton, 2024)

03 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is Orwell still relevant today?  In Orwell’s Ghosts Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century (Norton, 2024), Laura Beers, a Professor of Histor...

Richard D. Oram, "Where Men No More May Reap Or Sow: The Little Ice Age: Scotland 1400-1850" (Birlinn, 2024)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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

David A. Messenger, "Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain" (LSU Press, 2014)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the waning days and immediate aftermath of World War II, Nazi diplomats and spies based in Spain decided to stay rather than return to a defeated G...

Tim Cooper, "When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter" (Crossway, 2024)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our current culture seems to be increasingly divided on countless issues, including those affecting the church. But for centuries, theological disagre...

Gilad Sharvit, "Dynamic Repetition: History and Messianism in Modern Jewish Thought" (Brandeis UP, 2022)

27 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dynamic Repetition: History and Messianism in Modern Jewish Thought (Brandeis UP, 2022) proposes a new understanding of modern Jewish theories of mes...

David Burke, "The Puppet Masters: How MI6 Masterminded Ireland's Deepest State Crisis" (Mercier Press, 2024)

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Puppet Masters: How MI6 Masterminded Ireland's Deepest State Crisis (Mercier Press, 2024), David Burke uncovers the clandestine activities o...

Nancy M. Bradbury, "Rival Wisdoms: Reading Proverbs in the Canterbury Tales" (Penn State UP, 2024)

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this elegantly written study Rival Wisdoms: Reading Proverbs in the Canterbury Tales (Penn State University Press, 2024), Dr. Nancy Mason Bradbur...

Charles Barr, "British Cinema: a Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2022)

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cinema has had a hugely influential role on global culture in the 20th century at multiple levels: social, political, and educational. The part of Bri...

Anton Howes, "Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation" (Princeton UP, 2020)

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past 300 years, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way ima...

Alessandra Montalbano, "Ransom Kidnapping in Italy: Crime, Memory, and Violence" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For over thirty years, modern Italy was plagued by ransom kidnappings perpetrated by bandits and organised crime syndicates. Nearly 700 men, women, an...

Michelle Moffat, "Scottish Society in the Second World War: Tradition, Tension, Transformation" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Surprisingly little is known about Scottish experiences of the Second World War. Scottish Society in the Second World War (Edinburgh University Pres...

Anthony Di Renzo, "Pasquinades: Essays from Rome's Famous Talking Statue" (Cayuga Lake Books, 2023)

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Anthony Di Renzo's Pasquinades: Essays from Rome's Famous Talking Statue (Cayuga Lake Books, 2023) is the most audacious guide to Rome you will eve...

Nuria Silleras-Fernandez, "The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia" (Cornell UP, 2024)

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Nuria Silleras-Fernande...

Sarah Milton, "Ageing and New Intimacies: Gender, Sexuality and Temporality in an English Salsa Scene" (Manchester UP, 2024)

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The 'baby boom' generation, born between the 1940s and the 1960s, is often credited with pioneering new and creative ways of relating, doing intimacy ...

Helen Freear-Papio and Candyce Crew Leonard, "The Theatre of Twenty-First Century Spain" (Vernon Press, 2022)

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The interview featured an in-depth dialogue about The Theatre of Twenty-First Century Spain (Vernon Press, 2022), a bilingual collection that examin...

Yosefa Raz, "The Poetics of Prophecy: Modern Afterlives of a Biblical Tradition" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the mid-1700s, poets and scholars have been deeply entangled in the project of reinventing prophecy. Moving between literary and biblical studie...

Emily Wilbourne, "Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence" (Oxford UP, 2023)

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, a...

Stefanie Coché, "Psychiatric Institutions and Society: The Practice of Psychiatric Committal in the "Third Reich," the Democratic Republic of Germany, and the Federal Republic of Germany, 1941-1963" (Routledge, 2024)

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Stefanie Coché's Psychiatric Institutions and Society: the Practice of Psychiatric Commital in the “Third Reich,” the Democratic Republic of Ger...

Toby Green, "A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

All too often, the history of early modern Africa is told from the perspective of outsiders. In his book A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Ris...

Matt Houlbrook et al., "Men and Masculinities in Modern Britain: A History for the Present" (Manchester UP, 2024)

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What does the history of men tell us about life today? In Men and Masculinities in Modern Britain: A History for the Present (Manchester UP, 2024), ...

James D. Fisher, "The Enclosure of Knowledge: Books, Power and Agrarian Capitalism in Britain, 1660–1800" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The rise of agrarian capitalism in Britain is usually told as a story about markets, land and wages. The Enclosure of Knowledge: Books, Power and Agr...

David Joseph, "Burgenland: Village Secrets and the First Tremors of the Holocaust" (Amberley, 2023)

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When Hitler marched into Austria in March 1938, he was given a rapturous reception. Millions lined the streets and filled the squares of Vienna. Tobia...

Gayle K. Brunelle and Annette Finley-Croswhite, "Assassination in Vichy: Marx Dormoy and the Struggle for the Soul of France" (U Toronto Press, 2020)

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the night of 25 July 1941, assassins planted a time bomb in the bed of the former French Interior Minister, Marx Dormoy. The explosion on the f...

Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb, "The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics" (Oxford UP, 2021)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The story of four remarkable women who shaped the intellectual history of the 20th century: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris ...

Paige Reynolds, "Modernism in Irish Women's Contemporary Writing: The Stubborn Mode" (Oxford UP, 2023)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Paige Reynolds's book Modernism in Irish Women's Contemporary Writing: The Stubborn Mode (Oxford UP, 2023) examines the tangled relationship between...

Ed Simon, "Devil's Contract: A History of the Faustian Bargain" (Melville House, 2024)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain—the exchange of one’s soul in return for untold riches and power—has ex...

Karine Varley, "Vichy's Double Bind: French Collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Karine Varley's book Vichy's Double Bind: French Collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War (Cambridge UP, 2023) advanc...

Tabitha Stanmore, "Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic" (Bloombury, 2024)

07 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine: it's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facin...

Jessie Abrahams, "Schooling Inequality: Aspirations, Opportunities and the Reproduction of Social Class" (Bristol UP, 2024)

06 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Despite a mass expansion of the higher education sector in the UK since the 1960s, young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds rema...

Elizabeth Storr Cohen and Marlee J. Couling, "Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Modern World" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

06 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth Cohen, Professor Emerita at York University, joins Jana Byars to talk about her new volume, Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Mod...

Jeremy Black, "Defoe's Britain" (St. Augustine's Press, 2023)

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Weight of Words Series continues with Defoe's Britain (St. Augustine's Press, 2023), as historian Jeremy Black uses this writer to interpret Bri...

Language Policy at an Abortion Clinic

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Ella van Hest (Ghent University, Belgium) about her ethnographic research related to language diversity at an abortion ...

Miranda Sachs, "An Age to Work: Working-Class Childhood in Third Republic Paris" (Oxford UP, 2023)

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Childhood as lived during the French Third Republic was very different from childhood during the modern era. Working-class children laboured alongside...

Michael Sonenscher, "Capitalism: The Story Behind the Word" (Princeton UP, 2022)

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What exactly is capitalism? How has the meaning of capitalism changed over time? And what’s at stake in our understanding or misunderstanding of it?...

Peter Murray Jones, "The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England" (Boydell & Brewer, 2024)

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Friars are often overlooked in the picture of health care in late mediaeval England. Physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, barbers, midwives - these are...

Shahmima Akhtar, "Exhibiting Irishness: Empire, Race and Nation, c. 1850-1970" (Manchester UP, 2024)

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Shahmima Akhtar is a historian of race, migration and empire and an assistant professor of Black and Asian British History at the University of Birmin...