New Books with Miranda Melcher

Marcy Norton, "The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492" (Harvard UP, 2024)

04 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492 (Harvard University Press, 2024), Dr. Marcy Norton offers a dramatic new interpretation of t...

Nicole Seymour, "Glitter" (Bloombury, 2022)

28 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Glitter (Bloomsbury, 2022) by Dr. Nicole Seymour reveals the complexity of an object often dismissed as frivolous. Dr. Seymour describes how glitter'...

Ben Jacobsen and David Beer, "Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory: Classification, Ranking and the Sorting of the Past" (Bristol UP, 2023)

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Social media platforms hold vast amounts of biographical data about our lives. They repackage our past content as ‘memories’ and deliver them back...

James Cummings, "The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

23 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) by Dr. James Cummings explores the everyday lives of ga...

Kelly Ricciardi Colvin, "Charm Offensive: Commodifying Femininity in Postwar France" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

22 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the French government cultivated images of sensual and sophisticated white French women in an attempt to ree...

Helen Louise Cowie, "Victims of Fashion: Animal Commodities in Victorian Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Animal products were used extensively in nineteenth-century Britain. A middle-class Victorian woman might wear a dress made of alpaca wool, drape hers...

Pardis Mahdavi, "Hyphen" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

To hyphenate or not to hyphenate has been a central point of controversy since before the imprinting of the first Gutenberg Bible. And yet, the hyphen...

Tom Buitelaar, "Assisting International Justice: Cooperation Between UN Peace Operations and the International Criminal Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo" (Oxford UP, 2023)

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Although the International Criminal Court (ICC) - as the only permanent international court that addresses crimes against humanity, genocide, and war ...

Randall Hansen, "War, Work, and Want: How the OPEC Oil Crisis Caused Mass Migration and Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2023)

16 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The oil shock of 1973 changed everything. It brought the golden age of American and European economic growth to an end; it destabilized Middle Eastern...

Troels Burchall Henningsen, "Western Intervention and Informal Politics: Simulated Statebuilding and Failed Reforms" (Routledge, 2021)

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Western Intervention and Informal Politics: Simulated Statebuilding and Failed Reforms (Routledge, 2021) by Dr. Troels Burchall Henningsen examines t...

Louis-Alexandre Berg, "Governing Security After War: The Politics of Institutional Change in the Security Sector" (Oxford UP, 2022)

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Security assistance has become the largest component of international peacebuilding and stabilisation efforts, and a primary tool for responding to ci...

Lynn Z. Bloom, "Recipe" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

13 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recipe (Bloomsbury, 2022) by Lynn Z. Bloom reveals the surprising lessons that recipes teach, in addition to the obvious instructions on how to prepa...

Jean Yen-chun Lin, "A Spark in the Smokestacks: Environmental Organizing in Beijing Middle-Class Communities" (Columbia UP, 2023)

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Environmental organising in Beijing emerged in an unlikely place in the 2000s: new gated residential communities. After rapid population growth and ho...

Melinda N. Ritchie, "Backdoor Lawmaking: Evading Obstacles in the US Congress" (Oxford UP, 2023)

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Civics textbooks focus on how Congress makes policy through the legislative process, but the reality is that members of Congress have limited opportun...

Yan Slobodkin, "The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies" (Cornell UP, 2023)

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. Yan Slobodkin traces the history of famine in t...

Tom Özden-Schilling, "The Ends of Research: Indigenous and Settler Science After the War in the Woods" (Duke UP, 2023)

09 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Ends of Research: Indigenous and Settler Science after the War in the Woods (Duke University Press, 2023) by Dr. Tom Özden-Schilling explore...

Katharine M. Millar, "Support the Troops: Military Obligation, Gender, and the Making of Political Community" (Oxford UP, 2022)

08 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the past, it was assumed that men, as good citizens, would serve in the armed forces in wartime. In the present, however, liberal democratic states...

Emily R. Aguiló-Pérez, "An American Icon in Puerto Rico: Barbie, Girlhood, and Colonialism at Play" (Berghahn Books, 2022)

08 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since her debut in 1959, Barbie has transcended boundaries and transformed into a global symbol of femininity, capturing the imaginations of girls all...

Fae Dussart, "In the Service of Empire: Domestic Service and Mastery in Metropole and Colony" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite recent research, the 19th-century history of domestic service in empire and its wider implications is underexplored. In the Service of Empire...

Hannah Carlson, "Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close" (Algonquin Books, 2023)

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a subject that stirs up plenty of passion: Why do men’s clothes have so many pockets and women’s so few? In her captivating book Pockets: ...

Christopher A. Whatley and Joanna Hambly, "Salt: Scotland's Newest Oldest Industry" (Birlinn, 2023)

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Salt is a vital commodity. For many centuries it sustained life for Scots as seasoning for a diet dominated by grains (mainly oats), and for preservat...

Hilary French, "Ballroom: A People’s History of Dancing" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early twentieth century, American ragtime and the Parisian tango fuelled a dancing craze in Britain. Public ballrooms were built throughout the...

Sara Byala, "Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African" (Oxford UP, 2023)

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Travel to virtually any African country and you are likely to find a Coca-Cola, often a cold one at that. Bottled asks how this carbonated drink bec...

Samiparna Samanta, "Meat, Mercy, Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920" (Oxford UP, 2021)

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Meat, Mercy, and Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920 (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Samiparna Samanta disenta...

Rachel Stephens, "Hidden in Plain Sight: Concealing Enslavement in American Visual Culture" (U Arkansas Press, 2023)

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, abolitionists crafted a variety of visual messages about the plight of enslaved people, portraying the vio...

Daniel Jütte, "Transparency: The Material History of an Idea" (Yale UP, 2023)

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Transparency is a mantra of our day. It is key to the Western understanding of a liberal society. We expect transparency from, for instance, political...

Andrew Pettegree, "The Book at War: Libraries and Readers in an Age of Conflict" (Basic Books, 2023)

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chairman Mao was a librarian. Stalin was a published poet. Evelyn Waugh served as a commando - before leaving to write Brideshead Revisited. Since the...

Jeff Jarvis, "The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The age of print is a grand exception in history. For five centuries it fostered what some call print culture – a worldview shaped by the completene...

Sandra Destradi, "Reluctance in World Politics: Why States Fail to Act Decisively" (Bristol UP, 2023)

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why do international actors, including powerful states, often fail to develop clear foreign policies and instead adopt indecisive, ‘muddling-through...

Poppy Corbett et al., "Creative Histories of Witchcraft: France, 1790–1940" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How can researchers study magic without destroying its mystery? Drawing on a collaborative project between the playwright Dr. Poppy Corbett, the poet ...

D. L. d'Avray, "The Power of Protocol: Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400-c.1600" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Power of Protocol: Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400 – c.1600 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. David d’Avray ...

Charles S. Maier, "The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries" (Harvard UP, 2023)

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We thought we knew the story of the twentieth century. For many in the West, after the two world conflicts and the long cold war, the verdict was clea...

Richard Schoch, "Shakespeare’s House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the 'B...

Charlotte Al-Khalili, "Waiting for the Revolution to End: Syrian Displacement, Time and Subjectivity (UCL Press, 2023)

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Waiting for the Revolution to End: Syrian Displacement, Time and Subjectivity (UCL Press, 2023) by Dr. Charlotte Al-Khalili explores the Syrian revol...

Rebecca Simon, "The Pirates’ Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ship" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Pirate's Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ship (Reaktion, 2023), Dr. Rebecca Simon presents a rollicking account of pirates’ codes, the strict ru...

Peter Bellerby, "The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Bellerby is the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, the world's only truly bespoke makers of globes. His team of skilled craftspeople make ex...

Ceri Houlbrook, "‘Ritual Litter' Redressed" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ritual deposition is not an activity that many people in the Western world would consider themselves participants of. The enigmatic beliefs and magica...

G. H. Bennett, "The War for England's Shores: S-Boats and the Fight Against British Coastal Convoys" (US Naval Institute Press, 2023)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The War for England's Shores: S-Boats and the Fight Against British Coastal Convoys (US Naval Institute Press, 2023) by Dr. G. H. Bennett examines th...

E. T. Dailey, "Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen" (Oxford UP, 2023)

26 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A princess born to the Thuringian royal house. A captive in war, forced to marry the Frankish king who killed her family. A queen, who renounced her p...

Dirk Van Laak, "Lifelines of Our Society: A Global History of Infrastructure" (MIT Press, 2023)

26 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Infrastructure is essential to defining how the public functions, yet there is little public knowledge regarding why and how it became today's stronge...

Jenny Benham, "International Law in Europe, 700–1200" (Manchester UP, 2022)

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Was there international law in the Middle Ages? Using treaties as its main source, International Law in Europe, 700-1200 (Manchester University Pres...

Ruth Dalton, "Living in Houses: A Personal History English Domestic Architecture" (Lund Humphries, 2022)

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Living in Houses: A Personal History of English Domestic Architecture (Lund Humphries, 2022), Dr. Ruth Dalton presents a rich and rewarding histo...

Amy Harris, "Being Single in Georgian England: Families, Households, and the Unmarried" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Being Single in Georgian England: Families, Households, and the Unmarried (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Amy Harris is the first book-length ...

Marika Sosnowski, "Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and Statebuilding in Syria" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since 2012, ceasefires have been used in Syria to halt violence and facilitate peace agreements. However, in Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and...

Erin Baggott Carter and Brett L. Carter, "Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

19 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A dictator's power is secure, the authors begin in this muscular, impressive study, only as long as citizens believe in it. When citizens suddenly bel...

Thomas Blake Earle, "The Liberty to Take Fish: Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America" (Cornell UP, 2023)

19 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Liberty to Take Fish: Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. Thomas Blake E...

Proto-Science Fiction Classics: Joshua Glenn on MIT Press's "Radium Age Series"

18 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Under the direction of founding editor Joshua Glenn, the MIT Press’s Radium Age series is reissuing notable proto–science fiction stories from t...

Matthew F. Jordan, "Danger Sound Klaxon!: The Horn That Changed History" (U Virginia Press, 2023)

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Danger Sound Klaxon!:The Horn That Changed History (University of Virginia Press, 2023) reveals the untold story of the Klaxon automobile horn, one o...

Clive Young, "Unlocking Scots: The Secret Life of the Scots Language" (Luath Press, 2023)

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Unlocking Scots: The Secret Life of the Scots Language (Luath, 2023), Dr. Clive Young sets out to uncover the secret life of Scots – the centur...

Malcolm D. Evans, "Tackling Torture: Prevention in Practice" (Bristol UP, 2023)

08 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How big a problem is torture? Are the right things being done to prevent it? Why does the UN appear at times to be so impotent in the face of it? Tac...

Jordan Frith, "Barcode" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Barcodes are about as ordinary as an object can be. Billions of them are scanned each day and they impact everything from how we shop to how we travel...

Fuchsia Dunlop, "Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food" (Norton, 2023)

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese labourers began to sojourn and settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake...

Wm. Matthew Kennedy, "The Imperial Commonwealth: Australia and the Project of Empire, 1867-1914" (Manchester UP, 2023)

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Imperial Commonwealth: Australia and the Project of Empire, 1867-1914 (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Wm. Matthew Kennedy tells the st...

Megan Nutzman, "Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the ancient Mediterranean world, individuals routinely looked for divine aid to cure physical afflictions. Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual He...

David Alan Richards, "I Give These Books: The History of the Yale University Library, 1656-2016" (Oak Knoll, 2022)

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The disparate stories of the libraries of the fledgling colleges in the colonies of the Eastern Seaboard, beginning more than one hundred fifty years ...

James K. Beggan, "How Our Love of Dogs Creates Social Conflict" (Lexington Books, 2022)

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For the last twenty-thousand years, dogs and people have shared a unique bond in the animal kingdom. In How Our Love of Dogs Creates Social Conflict ...

Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale, "Why Men?: A Human History of Violence and Inequality" (Hurst, 2023)

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did humans, a species that evolved to be cooperative and egalitarian, develop societies of enforced inequality? Why did our ancestors create patri...

Joseph Brady and Paul Ferguson, "Dublin: Mapping the City" (Birlinn, 2023)

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Maps are essential tools in finding our way around, but they also tell stories and are great depositories of information. Until the twentieth century ...

Marion Gibson, "Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" (Scribner, 2023)

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Witchfinder General, Salem, Malleus Maleficarum. The world of witch-hunts and witch trials sounds archaic and fanciful, these terms relics of an unenl...

Jeff Jarvis, "Magazine" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For a century, magazines were the authors of culture and taste, of intelligence and policy - until they were overthrown by the voices of the public th...

Nicole Nguyen, "Terrorism on Trial: Political Violence and Abolitionist Futures" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

27 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Rather than functioning as a final arbiter of justice, U.S. domestic courts are increasingly seen as counterterrorism tools that can incapacitate terr...

Stuart McHardy, "The Nine Maidens: Priestesses of the Ancient World" (Luath Press, 2023)

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When King Arthur was conveyed to Avalon they were there. When Odin summoned warriors to Valhalla they were there. When Apollo was worshipped on Greek ...

Linda Kinstler, "Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends" (PublicAffairs, 2023)

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1965, five years after the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, one of his Mossad abductors was sent back to South America to kill another fu...

Margaret K. Nelson, "Keeping Family Secrets: Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s" (NYU Press, 2022)

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

All families have secrets but the facts requiring secrecy change with time. Nowadays A lesbian partnership, a “bastard” son, an aunt who is a pros...

Rosie Harte, "The Royal Wardrobe: Peek into the Wardrobes of History's Most Fashionable Royals" (Headline, 2023)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majest...

Sonja K. Pieck, "Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation along the Former Iron Curtain" (MIT Press, 2023)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The first book-length scholarly treatment of Germany's largest conservation project, the Green Belt, Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservati...

Danielle N. Boaz, "Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Coined in the middle of the nineteenth century, the term "voodoo" has been deployed largely by people in the U.S. to refer to spiritual practices--rea...

Stephen Robert Miller, "Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature" (Island Press, 2023)

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In March 2011, people in a coastal Japanese city stood atop a seawall watching the approach of the tsunami that would kill them. They believed—naive...

Shellen Xiao Wu, "Birth of the Geopolitical Age: Global Frontiers and the Making of Modern China" (Stanford UP, 2023)

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the 1850s until the mid-twentieth century, a period marked by global conflicts and anxiety about dwindling resources and closing opportunities af...

Vikram Visana, "Uncivil Liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji’s Political Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uncivil liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji's Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Vikram V...

Javier Garcia Oliva and Helen Hall, "Constitutional Culture, Independence, and Rights: Insights from Quebec, Scotland, and Catalonia" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Constitutional Culture, Independence, and Rights: Insights from Quebec, Scotland, and Catalonia (University of Toronto Press, 2023), Dr. Javier G...

Colin Dickey, "Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy" (Viking, 2023)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The United States was born in paranoia. From the American Revolution (thought by some to be a conspiracy organized by the French) to the Salem witch t...

Anne Duggan, "The Lost Princess: Women Writers and the History of Classic Fairy Tales" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Lost Princess: Women Writers and the History of Classic Fairy Tales (Reaktion, 2023), Dr. Anne Duggan presents a recovery of the lost, plucky...

Lucy Fulford, "The Exiled: Empire, Immigration and the Ugandan Asian Exodus" (Coronet, 2023)

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uganda, August 1972. President Idi Amin makes a shocking pronouncement – the country’s South Asian population is being expelled. They have ninety ...

James J. A. Blair, "Salvaging Empire: Sovereignty, Natural Resources, and Environmental Science in the South Atlantic" (Cornell UP, 2023)

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Salvaging Empire: Sovereignty, Natural Resources, and Environmental Science in the South Atlantic (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. James J. A....

Tariq D. Khan, "The Republic Shall be Kept Clean: How Settler Colonial Violence Shaped Antileft Repression" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Republic Will Be Kept Clean: How Settler Colonial Violence Shaped Antileft Repression (University of Illinois Press, 2023) by Dr. Tariq D. Khan e...

Andrew Monteith, "Christian Nationalism and the Birth of the War on Drugs" (NYU Press, 2023)

08 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Many people view the War on Drugs as a contemporary phenomenon invented by the Nixon administration. But as Dr. Andrew Monteith shows in Christian Na...

Stephanie R. Larson, "What It Feels Like: Visceral Rhetoric and the Politics of Rape Culture" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2021)

08 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What it feels like: Visceral Rhetoric and the Politics of Rape Culture (Penn State Press, 2021) by Dr. Stephanie Larson interrogates an underexamined...

Charlotte Gray, "Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt" (Simon & Schuster, 2023)

07 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later t...

Benjamin Savill, "England and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages: Papal Privileges in European Perspective, C. 680-1073" (Oxford UP, 2023)

06 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

England and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages: Papal Privileges in European Perspective, c. 680-1073 (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Benjami...

Laura Gowing, "Ingenious Trade: Women and Work in Seventeenth-Century London" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ingenious Trade: Women and Work in Seventeenth-Century London (Cambridge University Press, 2021) by Dr. Laura Gowing recovers the intricate stories o...

Nan Turner, "Clothing Goes to War: Creativity Inspired by Scarcity in World War II" (Intellect Books, 2022)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Clothing Goes to War: Creativity Inspired by Scarcity in World War II (Intellect, 2022) by Nan Turner is the story of clothing use when manufacturing...

Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, "Slavery, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution" (Polity, 2023)

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In their remarkable new book Slavery, Capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution (Polity, 2023), Professor Maxine Berg and Professor Pat Hudson “fo...

Boyd Cothran and Adrian Shubert, "The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914" (UNC Press, 2024)

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It began as a small, slow, and unadorned sailing vessel—in a word, ordinary. Later, it was a weary workhorse in the age of steam. But the story of t...

Isaac McKean Scarborough, "Moscow's Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR" (Cornell UP, 2023)

01 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Moscow's Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. Isaac Mckean Scarborough tells the story of the colla...

Gary Saul Morson, "Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter" (Harvard UP, 2023)

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A noted literary scholar traverses the Russian canon, exploring how realists, idealists, and revolutionaries debated good and evil, moral responsibili...

Megan MacKenzie, "Good Soldiers Don't Rape: The Stories We Tell About Military Sexual Violence" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sexual violence is a significant problem within many Western militaries. Despite international attention to the issue and global #MeToo and #TimesUp m...

Kristin Surak, "The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires" (Harvard UP, 2023)

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our lives are in countless ways defined by our citizenship. The country we belong to affects our rights, our travel possibilities, and ultimately our ...

Diana Rickard, "The New True Crime: How the Rise of Serialized Storytelling Is Transforming Innocence" (NYU Press, 2023)

23 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The New True Crime: How the Rise of Serialized Storytelling Is Transforming Innocence (NYU Press, 2023) by Dr. Diana Rickard examines how serialized ...

C. J. Pascoe, "Nice Is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High" (U California Press, 2023)

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nice is not enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High (University of California Press, 2023) by Dr. C. J. Pascoe is a provocativ...

Oscar Webber, "Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907" (Manchester UP, 2023)

17 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907 (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Oscar Webber is ...

Robyn Muir, "The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A Feminist Analysis" (Bristol UP, 2023)

11 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Disney Princesses are a billion-dollar industry, known and loved by children across the globe. In The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A Feminist Anal...

Maxim Samson, "Invisible Lines: Boundaries and Belts That Define the World" (Profile Books, 2023)

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our world has innumerable boundaries, ranging from the obvious - like an ocean - to subtle differences in language or climate. Most of us cross invisi...

Steven Veerapen, "The Wisest Fool: The Life of James VI and I" (Birlinn, 2023)

07 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

James VI and I has long endured a mixed reputation. To many, he is the homosexual King, the inveterate witch-roaster, the smelly sovereign who never w...

Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek, "After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time" (Verso, 2023)

06 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Does it ever feel like you have no free time? You come home after work and instead of finding a space of rest and relaxation, you're confronted by a p...

Chuck Steele and John M. Jennings, "The Worst Military Leaders in History" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

04 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For Chuck Steele and John M. Jennings's book The Worst Military Leaders in History (Reaktion Books, 2022), fifteen distinguished historians were giv...

Kimberly Mair, "The Biopolitics of Care in Second World War Britain" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

03 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the crisis of the Second World War in Britain, official Air Raid Precautions made the management of daily life a moral obligation of civil defe...

Sarah Clegg, "Women's Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi" (Apollo, 2023)

02 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Creatures like Lilith, the seductive first wife of Adam, and mermaids, who lured sailors to their death, are familiar figures in the genre of monstrou...

Alice Wilson, "Afterlives of Revolution: Everyday Counterhistories in Southern Oman" (Stanford UP, 2023)

26 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Dhufar Revolution was fought between 1965–1976, in an attempt to depose Oman's British-backed Sultan and advance social ideals of egalitarianism...

Stephanie Barczewski, "How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023)

23 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Stephanie Barczewski is an exploration of the evolution of the quintessentially English ...