New Books with Miranda Melcher

Christopher J. Devine, "I’m Here to Ask for Your Vote: How Presidential Campaign Visits Influence Voters" (Columbia UP, 2023)

24 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During presidential campaigns, candidates crisscross the country nonstop—visiting swing states, their home turf, and enemy territory. But do all tho...

Jack Levin and Julie B. Wiest, "Covert Violence: The Secret Weapon of the Powerless" (Bristol University Press, 2023)

23 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Covert violence occurs in all social institutions—including families and close relationships, education, workplaces, politics, mass media, and healt...

Harriet Lyon, "Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

22 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The dissolution of the monasteries was recalled by individuals and communities alike as a seismic rupture in the religious, cultural, and socio-econom...

Ruth Ahnert and Sebastian E. Ahnert, "Tudor Networks of Power" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tudor Networks of Power (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Ruth Ahnert & Dr. Sebastian Ahnert is the product of a groundbreaking collaboration be...

T. Corey Brennan, "The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political Symbol" (Oxford UP, 2022)

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"Fascism" is a word ubiquitous in our contemporary political discourse, but few know about its roots in the ancient past or its long, strange evolutio...

Vytautas Jankauskas and Steffen Eckhard, "The Politics of Evaluation in International Organizations" (Oxford UP, 2023)

19 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Evaluation has become a key tool in assessing the performance of international organisations, in fostering learning, and in demonstrating accountabili...

Matthew C. Ward, "Making the Frontier Man: Violence, White Manhood, and Authority in the Early Western Backcountry" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)

18 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For western colonists in the early American backcountry, disputes often ended in bloodshed and death. Making the Frontier Man: Violence, White Manhoo...

Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss, "The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV's France" (Getty, 2022)

17 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mediterranean maritime art and the forced labour on which it depended were fundamental to the politics and propaganda of France’s King Louis XIV (r....

Sarah Parry Myers, "Earning Their Wings: The WASPs of World War II and the Fight for Veteran Recognition" (UNC Press, 2023)

16 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's licence who coul...

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, "Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World" (U California Press, 2022)

16 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World (University of California Press, 2022) by Dr. Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre is a bold, rigoro...

Ed Simon, "Relic" (Bloomsbury. 2024)

15 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Object Lessons is a Bloomsbury series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book, Relic, by Dr. Ed S...

Jenna Ng, "The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie" (Amsterdam UP, 2021)

14 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Screens are ubiquitous today. Yet contemporary screen media eliminate the presence of the screen and diminish the visibility of its boundaries. As the...

Laura Flannigan, "Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485–1547" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

13 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The dawn of the Tudor regime is one of most recognisable periods of English history. Yet the focus on its monarchs' private lives and ministers' const...

Daniel Druckman, "Negotiation, Identity and Justice: Pathways to Agreement" (Routledge, 2023)

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Containing research conducted and published over a half century, Negotiation, Identity and Justice: Pathways to Agreement (Routledge, 2023) by Dr. D...

Joshua Paul Dale, "Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World" (Profile Books, 2023)

10 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why are some things cute, and others not? What happens to our brains when we see something cute? And how did cuteness go global, from Hello Kitty to D...

Xuelei Huang, "Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

10 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this vivid and highly original reading of recent Chinese history, Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell (Cambridge University Press, 2023) D...

Kerstin Bree Carlson, "The Justice Laboratory: International Law in Africa" (Brookings Institution Press, 2022)

09 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since World War II, the United Nations and other international actors have created laws, treaties, and institutions to punish perpetrators of gen...

Jake Berman, "The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

07 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Every driver in North America shares one miserable, soul-sucking universal experience—being stuck in traffic. But things weren’t always like this....

Brydie Kosmina, "Feminist Afterlives of the Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

06 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Feminist Afterlives of the Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) by Dr. Brydie Kosmina investigates the witch as a key ...

Nicholas Dames, "The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century" (Princeton UP, 2023)

05 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do books have chapters? With this seemingly simple question, Dr. Nicholas Dames embarks on a literary journey spanning two millennia, revealing ho...

Julia Ornelas-Higdon, "The Grapes of Conquest: Race, Labor, and the Industrialization of California Wine, 1769–1920" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

California’s wine country conjures images of pastoral vineyards and cellars lined with oak barrels. As a mainstay of the state’s economy, Californ...

Georgina Hickey, "Breaking the Gender Code: Women and Urban Public Space in the Twentieth-Century United States" (U Texas Press, 2023)

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the closing years of the nineteenth century, women received subtle--and not so subtle--messages that they shouldn't be in public. Or, if they wer...

Sheila Marie Bock, "Claiming Space: Performing the Personal Through Decorated Mortarboards" (Utah State UP, 2023)

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Claiming Space: Performing the Personal through Decorated Mortarboards (Utah State University Press, 2023) by Dr. Sheila Bock examines the growing tr...

Emma Bridges, "Warriors' Wives: Ancient Greek Myth and Modern Experience" (Oxford UP, 2023)

01 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Epic poetry and tragic drama provide us with some of the richest ancient Greek depictions of women who are married to soldiers. In tales of the Trojan...

Alan K. Chen and Justin Marceau, "Truth and Transparency: Undercover Investigations in the Twenty-First Century" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

31 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Undercover investigators have been celebrated as critical conduits of political speech and essential protectors of transparency. They have also been d...

Erin R. Graham, "Transforming International Institutions: How Money Quietly Sidelined Multilateralism at the United Nations" (Oxford UP, 2023)

30 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on historical institutionalism and interpretive tools of international law, Transforming International Institutions: How Money Quietly Sideli...

Anna Reid, "A Nasty Little War: The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution" (Basic Books, 2024)

29 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In A Nasty Little War: The Western Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution (Basic Books, 2024), award-winning reporter Anna Reid tells the extraordi...

Sarah Diefendorf, "The Holy Vote: Inequality and Anxiety Among White Evangelicals" (U California Press, 2023)

29 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Through two years of ethnographic fieldwork at a megachurch, sociologist Dr. Sarah Diefendorf investigates the ways in which the evangelical church is...

Elinor Cleghorn, "Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World" (Dutton, 2022)

28 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. Over centuries, women’s bodies have been demonised and demeaned until we feared them, felt...

Alka Vaid Menon, "Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards" (U California Press, 2023)

28 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cosmetic surgery was once associated with a one-size-fits-all approach, modifying patients to conform to a single standard of beauty. As this surgery ...

Marcia Stephenson, "Llamas beyond the Andes: Untold Histories of Camelids in the Modern World" (U Texas Press, 2023)

27 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Camelids are vital to the cultures and economies of the Andes. The animals have also been at the heart of ecological and social catastrophe: Europeans...

Elliot Short, "Building a Multiethnic Military in Post-Yugoslav Bosnia and Herzegovina" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

27 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On 1 January 2006, soldiers from across Bosnia and Herzegovina gathered to mark the official formation of a unified army; and yet, little over a decad...

Kate Annett-Hitchcock, "The Intersection of Fashion and Disability: A Historical Analysis" (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2023)

26 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The history of the fashion industry has been well written as it relates to people who conform to certain physical norms and cultural stereotypes, wher...

Damon Scott, "The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco" (U Texas Press, 2024)

25 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Damon Scott is a lively hist...

James R. Fichter, "Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776" (Cornell UP, 2023)

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776 (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. James R. Fichter reveals that despite the so-called...

James St. André, "Conceptualising China through Translation" (Manchester UP, 2023)

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Conceptualising China through Translation (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. James St Andre provides an innovative methodology for investigat...

Cornelia Woll, "Corporate Crime and Punishment: The Politics of Negotiated Justice in Global Markets" (Princeton UP, 2023)

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past decade, many of the world’s biggest companies have found themselves embroiled in legal disputes over corruption, fraud, environmental ...

Ian MacAllen, "Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Ian MacAllen traces the evolution of traditional Italian-American cuisi...

Cassander L. Smith, "Race and Respectability in an Early Black Atlantic" (LSU Press, 2023)

21 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Race and Respectability in an Early Black Atlantic (LSU Press, 2023) by Dr. Cassander L. Smith examines the means through which people of African des...

Jane Ohlmeyer, "Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World" (Oxford UP, 2023)

20 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Empire and imperial frameworks, policies, practices, and cultures have shaped the history of the world for the last two millennia. It is nation states...

Bradley R. Clampitt, "Lost Causes: Confederate Demobilization and the Making of Veteran Identity" (LSU Press, 2022)

18 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lost Causes: Confederate Demobilization and the Making of Veteran Identity (LSU Press, 2022) by Dr. Bradley R. Clampitt is a groundbreaking analysis...

Patricio Simonetto, "A Body of One's Own: A Trans History of Argentina" (U Texas Press, 2024)

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As a trans history of Argentina, a country that banned medically assisted gender affirmation practices and punished trans lives, A Body of One’s Ow...

Gustav Cederlof, "The Low-Carbon Contradiction: Energy Transition, Geopolitics, and the Infrastructural State in Cuba" (U California Press, 2023)

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the pursuit of socialism, Cuba became Latin America’s most oil-dependent economy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the country lost 86 percent of...

Elisabeth Gernerd, "The Modern Venus: Dress, Underwear and Accessories in the Late 18th-Century Atlantic World" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

14 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From rumps and stays to muffs and handkerchiefs, underwear and accessories were critical components of the 18th-century woman's wardrobe. They not onl...

Stéphane Jettot, "Selling Ancestry: Family Directories and the Commodification of Genealogy in Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2023)

13 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Often cited but rarely studied in their own right, family directories allow a reconsideration of how ancestry and genealogy became an object of widesp...

Sam Lebovic, "State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America's Secrecy Regime" (Basic Book, 2023)

12 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America's Secrecy Regime (Basic Books, 2023), political historian Dr. Sam Lebovic uncovers th...

Brandon Presser, "The Far Land: 200 Years of Murder, Mania and Mutiny in the South Pacific" (Icon Books, 2022)

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1808, an American merchant ship happened upon an uncharted island in the South Pacific and unwittingly solved the biggest nautical mystery of the e...

Ayelet Brinn, "A Revolution in Type: Gender and the Making of the American Yiddish Press" (NYU Press, 2023)

09 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Revolution in Type: Gender and the Making of the American Yiddish Press (NYU Press, 2023) by Dr. Ayelet Brinn offers a fascinating glimpse into the...

Paul F. Diehl et al., "When Peacekeeping Missions Collide: Balancing Multiple Roles in Peace Operations" (Oxford UP, 2023)

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The contemporary world is beset with a wide variety of conflicts, all of which have features without historical precedent. While most accounts of peac...

Roland Allen, "The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" (Profile Books, 2023)

06 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did this simple invention come from? How did they revolutionise our lives, and why are they such powerful...

Virginia Chieffo Raguin, "The Illuminated Window: Stories Across Time" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Illuminated Window: Stories Across Times (Reaktion, 2023) is a unique journey through stained-glass installations that spans both time and place....

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...