New Books Network
Episodes
Mark Mazower, "On Antisemitism: A Word in History" (Penguin Press, 2025)
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do we mean when we talk about antisemitism? A thoughtful, vital new intervention from the award-winning historian. For most of history, antisemit...
Javier Wallace, "Basketball Trafficking: Stolen Black Panamanian Dreams" (Duke UP, 2025)
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every year, hundreds of international student athletes arrive in the U.S. chasing their basketball dreams — many on F-1 student visas. But for some ...
Patrick Parr, "Malcolm Before X" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing upon interviews, correspondence, and nearly 2000 pages of never-before-used prison records, Malcolm Before X is the definitive examination of ...
Howard Lovy, "Found and Lost: The Jake and Cait Story" (Vine Leaves Press, 2025)
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Howard Lovy is a journalist, book editor, and author with forty years of experience covering everything from Jewish issues and the Mideast conflict to...
Joe Watkins, "Indigenizing Japan: Ainu Past, Present, and Future" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Indigenizing Japan: Ainu Past, Present, and Future (University of Arizona Press, 2025), archaeologist Joe E. Watkins provides a comprehensive lo...
Aamir Hussain, "Under the Full and Crescent Moon" (Dundurn, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Aamir Hussain about his debut novel, Under the Full and Crescent Moon (Dundurn, 2025). In a ba...
Hector Vera, "Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and its...
Ashley D. Farmer, "Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore" (Pantheon, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the world of Black radical politics, the name Audley Moore commands unquestioned respect. Across the nine decades of her life, Queen Mother Moore d...
Jeff Neilson, "Fortress Farming: Agrarian Transitions, Livelihoods, and Coffee Value Chains in Indonesia" (Cornell UP, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last several decades, sources of income derived away from farms have come to play a much bigger role in rural Indonesian households. How do r...
Tim Beasley-Murray, "Critical Games: On Play and Seriousness in Academia, Literature and Life" (Manchester UP, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Which parts of life are serious, and which are a game? In Critical Games: On Play and Seriousness in Academia, Literature and Life (Manchester...
Julia Fawcett, "Movable Londons: Performance and the Modern City" (U Michigan Press, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1666, a fire sparked in a bakery on Pudding Lane grew until it had destroyed four-fifths of central London. The rebuilding efforts that f...
Wendy Doniger, "The Dharma of Unfaithful Wives and Faithful Jackals: Some Moral Tales From The Mahabharata" (Speaking Tiger, 2024)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did Brahma create alluring women, and for what purpose? Why did the righteous King Bhangashvana choose womanhood? How did the sage Markand...
Iris Idelson-Shein, "Between the Bridge and the Barricade: Jewish Translation in Early Modern Europe" (U Penn Press, 2024)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One of the constants of Jewish history is that Jews have learned from the cultures around them. But this exchange of information was not an easy endea...
Carlene Kucharczyk, "Strange Hymn: Poems" (U Mass Press, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"I'll tell you everything I know. Though there might not be much to tell," confesses the speaker in Strange Hymn: Poems (U Mass Press, 2025) ...
R. Jisung Park, "Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World" (Princeton UP, 2025)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
R. Jisung Park is assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds appointments in the School of Social Policy and Practice and t...
Sarah Smarsh, "Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class" (Scribner, 2024)
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her career writing memoir, essays, and journalism centered on ...
Selena Daly, "Emigrant Soldiers: Mobilising Italians Abroad in the First World War" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During the First World War, over 300,000 Italian emigrants returned to Italy from around the world to perform their conscripted military service, a ma...
Jesse Rodenbiker, "Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China" (Cornell UP, 2023)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Based on two years of extensive fieldwork, Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China (Cornell UP, 2023) exami...
13:2 - Sherman Jackson Part 2
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Hizer Mir and Salman Sayyid continue the conversation with Professor Sherman Jackson, discussing his work on the Islamic secular, Isl...
Gretchen Felker-Martin, "Black Flame" (Tor Nightfire, 2025)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One woman's deadly obsession with a haunted archival film precipitates her undoing in Black Flame (Tor Nightfire, 2025) from the USA Today bests...
Amy Shea, "Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Death is the great equalizer, but not all deaths are created equal. In recent years, there has been an increased interest and advocacy concerning end-...
Taru Salmenkari, "Global Ideas, Local Adaptations: Chinese Activism and the Will to Make Civil Society" (Edward Elgar, 2025)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring the boundaries, fringes, and inner workings of civil society, Taru Salmenkari investigates local forms of political agency in China in light...
Harry Cliff, "Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe" (Doubleday, 2024)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have be...
Scott D. Anthony, "Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) arrives at the perfect moment as artificial inte...
Hindutva and Anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and leader of the Centre for South Asian Democracy. M. Sud...
Michael B. Cosmopoulos, "The World of Homer: Archaeology, Social Memory, and the Emergence of Greek Epic Poetry" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Epic poetry, notably the Iliad and the Odyssey, stands as one of the most enduring legacies of ancient Greece. Although the impact of these epics o...
Abhimanyu Kumar and Aletta André, "The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy" (HarperCollins India, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Begum Wilayat Mahal, the self-proclaimed heir to the House of Awadh, has fascinated journalists and writers for decades. She claimed she was Indian ro...
What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money, work for justice, run marathons, sing in a choir, have children, travel the world? The things we...
Robert C. Bird, "Legal Knowledge in Organizations: A Source of Strategic and Competitive Advantage" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Legal Knowledge in Organizations: A Source of Strategic and Competitive Advantage (Cambridge UP, 2025) offers a step-by-step guide on how to utilize...
Dagmar Wujastyk, "Indian Alchemy: Sources and Contexts" (Oxford UP, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Indian Alchemy: Sources and Contexts (Oxford UP, 2025) serves to expand readers' understanding of what it meant to practice alchemy on the Indian su...
Kate McDowell, "Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries: Crafting Ethical Narratives for Advocacy and Impact" (ALA, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s polarized landscape, libraries face two key challenges: the difficulty of turning raw data into narratives that effectively advocate for ...
Alice Lovejoy, "Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War" (U California Press, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another ta...
Matthew D. Nelsen, "The Color of Civics: Civic Education for a Multiracial Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2023)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew D. Nelsen, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, has a new book out that focuses on the content of civic edu...
Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier, "Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship" (MIT Press, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is changing democracy. We still get to decide how.AI’s impact on democracy will go far beyond headline-grabbing political deepfakes and automated...
Joanna Woronkowicz, "Artists at Work: Rethinking Policy for Artistic Careers" (Stanford UP, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be an artist? In Artists At Work: Rethinking Policy for Artistic Careers (Stanford UP, 2025) Joanna Woronkowicz, the co-found...
Tami Parr, "Goats in America: A Cultural History" (Oregon State UP, 2025)
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The humble goat has played a surprising and important role throughout the history of the United States. Despite this, goats are often overlooked by ma...
Yong-Shik Lee, "Sustainable Peace in Northeast Asia" (Anthem Press, 2023)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the long run, countries in Northeast Asia will have to see the need for collective defense. Otherwise, you won’t be able to stop rivalry between ...
Maggie Gram, "The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History" (Basic Books, 2025)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Maggie Gram is a writer, cultural historian, and designer. She leads an experience-design team at Google. She has taught at the Maryland Institute Col...
Cristina Plamadeala, "Dossierveillance, Collaboration, and Fear in Society: The Saga of a Journey Through the Securitate Archives and Beyond" (Routledge, 2025)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring the cultural history of surveillance practices of the Securitate, Romania's secret police during its communist period, the book blends biogr...
Stuart Hart, "Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future" (Stanford Business Books, 2024)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future (Stanford Business Books, 2024) Hart argues that the current Milt...
Kathryn Robson, "Beyond the Happy Ending: Imagining Happiness in Contemporary French Women's Writing and Film" (Liverpool UP, 2025)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Kathryn Robson's Beyond the Happy Ending: Imagining Happiness in Contemporary French Women's Writing and Film (Liverpool UP, 2025), happiness (...
Aileen Teague, "Policing on Drugs: The United States, Mexico, and the Origins of the Modern Drug War, 1969-2000" (Oxford UP, 2025)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, images of cartels, security agents donning face coverings, graphs depicting egregious murder rates, and military guards at US border crossings ...
Greg Soden, "Unscripted Moments: Conversations with Propagandhi (2020-2025)" (Earth Island Books, 2025)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Propagandhi formed in 1986 in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada and are now based in Winnipeg. Their outspoken influence and consistency in anti-fa...
Teresa M. Mares and Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, "Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain" (U California Press, 2025)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Food consumers are demanding a healthier and more sustainable food system. Yet labor is rarely part of the discussion. In Will Work for Food: Labor A...
Becky M. Nicolaides, "The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945" (Oxford UP, 2024)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The adoption of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, triggered a wave of immigration to the U.S. not seen since before the First World War. But these newcomer...
Arnab Roy and Paul Ugor eds., "The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions" (U Alberta Press, 2025)
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Offering a fresh comparative lens, The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions (U Alb...
Michael W. Twitty, "Recipes from the American South" (Phaidon Press, 2025)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The views expressed by the guest are their own and do not reflect those of the New Books Network or its hosts. This episode contains some content that...
Maurice Samuels, "Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair" (Yale UP, 2024)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting “Death to Judas!” In Alfred Dreyfus: The Man...
Mia Yinxing Liu, "Literati Lenses: Wenren Landscape in Chinese Cinema of the Mao Era" (U Hawai’i Press, 2019)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chinese cinema has a long history of engagement with China’s art traditions, and literati (wenren) landscape painting has been an enduring source of...
Peter D. Blackmer, "Unleashing Black Power: Grassroots Organizing in Harlem and the Advent of the Long, Hot Summers" (UVA Press, 2025)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Unleashing Black Power: Grassroots Organizing in Harlem and the Advent of the Long, Hot Summers (UVA Press, 2025) explores the local dynamics, natio...
Eva Meijer, "Multispecies Assemblies" (Vine Press, 2025)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Animals speak. Plants do too. Seas and mountains are not a mute background to human actions, but have interests and agency. Many more-than-human being...
Delia Casadei, "Risible: Laughter without Reason and the Reproduction of Sound" (U California Press, 2024)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Risible: Laughter without Reason and the Reproduction of Sound (University of California Press, 2024) explores the forgotten history of laughter, fro...
José Marichal, "You Must Become an Algorithmic Problem: Renegotiating the Socio-Technical Contract" (Policy Press, 2025)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the age of AI, where personal data fuels corporate profits and state surveillance, what are the implications for democracy? This incisive book Yo...
Carl Rollyson, "The Making of Sylvia Plath (UP Mississippi, 2024)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her...
Jeffrey D. Sharon, "The Great Balancing Act: An Insider's Guide to the Human Vestibular System" (Columbia UP, 2025)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What's the secret to keeping your balance? The ear does more than hear: it helps us stay stable by perceiving movements and gravity. Elegant sensors d...
Megan Walsh, "The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters" (Columbia Global Reports, 2022)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does contemporary China’s diverse and exciting fiction tell us about its culture, and the relationship between art and politics? The Subplot: ...
Ladelle McWhorter, "Unbecoming Persons: The Rise and Demise of the Modern Moral Self" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How should one live? What should one do? And what do these questions have to do with being a good person? In Unbecoming Persons: The Rise and Demine ...
Stephen Fritz, "The First Soldier: Hitler as a Military Leader" (Yale UP, 2018)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The First Soldier: Hitler as a Military Leader (Yale University Press, 2018), Stephen Fritz professor of history at East Tennessee St...
Massimo Modonesi, "The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action" (Haymarket, 2019)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be a political subject? This is one of the key questions asked by Massimo Modonesi in The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and ...
Ron Broglio, "Animal Revolution" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Animals are staging a revolution—they’re just not telling us. From radioactive boar invading towns to jellyfish disarming battleships, Animal Rev...
Stevie Suan, "Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its ...
Deborah Gordon, "No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World" (Oxford UP, 2021)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World (Oxford University Press, 2021), Deborah Gordon shows that no two oils or gases a...
Anthony Valerio, "Semmelweis: The Women's Doctor" (Zantedeschi Books, 2019)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Though his advice has saved the lives of millions of people, the name Ignaz Semmelweis is not one commonly known today. In his book Anthony Valerio’...
Elliott Rabin, "The Biblical Hero: Portraits in Nobility and Fallibility" (Jewish Publication Society, 2020)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Elliott Rabin about his book The Biblical Hero: Portraits in Nobility and Fallibility (Jewish Publication Society, 2020). Approac...
Peter C. Zimmerman, "The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight (UP of Mississippi, 2021) is a celebration of jazz and the men and women who created and transformed it...
David Bressoud, "Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas" (Princeton UP, 2019)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas (Princeton UP, 2019) takes readers on a remarkable journey through hundreds of years to tell the story ...
Martyn Whittock, "Vikings in the East: From Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin – The Origins of a Contested Legacy in Russia and Ukraine" (Biteback, 2025)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Western Europe, we typically associate Vikings with the storm-tossed waters of the North Sea and the North Atlantic, the deep Scandinavian fjords a...
Ada Ferrer, "Cuba: An American History" (Scribner, 2021)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“No country is ever just one thing.” In her new book Cuba: An American History (Scribner, 2021), NYU historian Ada Ferrer shows this again and a...
Kalle Kananoja, "Healing Knowledge in Atlantic Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Healing Knowledge in Atlantic Africa (Cambridge UP, 2021), Kalle Kananoja tells the story of how pre-colonial communities throughout the west coa...
William Doyle, "Napoleon at Peace: How to End a Revolution" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The French Revolution facilitated the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, but after gaining power he knew that his first task was to end it. In this book Will...
Bill V. Mullen, "James Baldwin: Living in Fire" (Pluto Press, 2019)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the first major biography of Baldwin in more than a decade, James Baldwin: Living in Fire (Pluto Press, 2019), Bill V. Mullen celebrates the per...
Danny Orbach, "Plots Against Hitler" (Mariner, 2016)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Plots Against Hitler (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), Danny Orbach, Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusal...
Elisabeth R. Anker, "Ugly Freedoms" (Duke UP, 2022)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Freedom is often considered the cornerstone of the American political project. The 1776 revolutionaries declared it an inalienable right that could ne...
Bradley Morgan, "U2: Until the End of the World" (Weldon Owen, 2025)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bradley Morgan’s U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025) celebrates fifty years of U2 with a career-spanning retrospective featuring m...
Angelos Chaniotis, "Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian" (Harvard UP, 2018)
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The world that Alexander remade in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death in 323 BCE. In Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander...
David Stasavage, "The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today" (Princeton UP, 2020)
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Globa...
Ghazala Wahab, "The Hindi Heartland: A Study" (Aleph Book Company, 2025)
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Hindi heartland, comprising Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, covers nearly 38 per cent o...
In Search of Green China: Ma Tianjie on Pan Yue and the CCP’s “Ecological Civilization"
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A former journalist and environmental campaigner named Pan Yue rose through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party, championing the concept of “ec...
Piotr Pietrzak, "Strengthening International Relations Through Transformative Theory and Practice" (Information Science Reference, 2025)
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the world becomes more connected, strengthening international relations is essential for fostering global stability for economic and cultural growt...
Nancy Newman, "Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York: Including Twenty-Two New Settings of Period Tunes" (SUNY Press, 2025)
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Upstate New York's Anti-Rent Movement is considered the last struggle over feudalism in the United States. Tenant farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk region ...
Lorenzo Castellani, "Alberto Beneduce, Mussolini's Technocrat: Power, Knowledge, and Institutions in Fascist Italy" (Routledge, 2025)
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Should "good" people work for authoritarians? Does their implicit endorsement do more harm than their replacement by someone potentially worse? This w...
Hari Krishna Kaul, "For Now, It Is Night: Stories" (NYRB, 2024)
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hari Krishna Kaul’s short stories, shaped by the social crisis and political instability in Kashmir, explore – with a sharp eye for detail, biting...
Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen, "Icelandic Pop: Then, Today, Tomorrow, Next Week" (Reaktion Books, 2025)
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Iceland punches well above its weight in the world of music, producing global icons like Björk, Sigur Rós, Of Monsters and Men, and Laufey, while at...
Lily Hsueh, "Corporations at Climate Crossroads: Multilevel Governance, Public Policy, and Global Climate Action" (MIT Press, 2025)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Lily Hseuh is trained as an economist and public policy scholar, and is an associate professor in Economics and Public Policy in the School of Pu...
James Grehan, "Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century" (Stanford UP, 2025)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It is easy to believe that manners are empty gestures, little more than social artifice or practiced etiquette whose sole purpose is to project civili...
Christopher F. Jones, "The Invention of Infinite Growth: How Economists Forgot About the Natural World" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most economists believe that growth is the surest path to better lives. This has proven to be one of humanity’s most powerful and dangerous ideas. I...
Andrea Freeman, "Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: America’s Politics of Food, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch" (Metropolitan Books, 2024)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The first and definitive history of the use of food in American law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black...
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton UP, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief th...
13:1 - Sherman Jackson Part I
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is Radio ReOrient. Welcome to Season 13. This our tenth year of navigating the post-Western and connecting the Islamosphere. In this episode, Sh...
Caleb Scharf, "The Giant Leap: Why Space Is the Next Frontier in the Evolution of Life" (Hachette UK, 2025)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A leading astrobiologist "demonstrates how becoming a true space-faring species is more than just humanity's future" (Adam Frank, author of The Littl...
Hilary Holladay, "The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A major American writer, thinker, and activist, Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and ma...
Michael T. Bertrand, "Southern History Remixed: On Rock 'n' Roll and the Dilemma of Race" (UP Florida, 2024)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Southern History Remixed: On Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Dilemma of Race (UP Florida, 2024) spotlights the key role of popular music in the shaping...
Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio, "Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern Italy: The Mechanics, Costs, Risks, and Rewards" (Brepols, 2025)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern Italy: The Mechanics, Costs, Risks, and Rewards (Brepols, 2025) by Dr. Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio focuses on eno...
Brandon Taylor, "Minor Black Figures" (Riverhead, 2025)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels Minor Black Figures (Riverhead, 2025), The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for...
Joe Wiggins, "The Intelligent Fund Investor: Practical Steps for Better Results in Active and Passive Funds" (Harriman House, 2022)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Investing in funds is not straightforward. We are faced with a countless range of options and constantly distracted by meaningless noise and turbulent...
158 RTB Ben Fountain in Dark Times (JP)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Fountain is far more than just the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which won RTB hearts and minds (and the National Book Award) lon...
Thomas Smith, "Rewriting the First Crusade: Epistolary Culture in the Middle Ages" (Boydell & Brewer, 2024)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The letters stemming from the First Crusade are premier sources for understanding the launch, campaign, and aftermath of the expedition. Between 1095 ...
Moudhy Al-Rashid, "Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1923, archaeologist Leonard Woolley stumbled upon a room that dated back to 530BC, the time of the Babylonians. Oddly, the room was filled with art...
Julia Ross Cummiskey, "Virus Research in Twentieth-Century Uganda: Between Local and Global" (Ohio UP, 2024)
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Virus Research in Twentieth-Century Uganda: Between Local and Global (Ohio UP, 2024) presents the stories of scientists at the Uganda Virus Research...
The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. ...