New Books with Miranda Melcher
Episodes
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 ...
Tanya Evans, "Family History, Historical Consciousness and Citizenship: A New Social History" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Family history is one of the most widely practiced forms of public history around the globe, especially in settler migrant nations like Australia and ...
Peter Moore, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Britain and the American Dream (1740–1776)" ( FSG, 2023)
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The most famous phrase in American history once looked quite different. "The preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" was how Thom...
Roma Agrawal, "Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way)" (Norton, 2023)
19 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Smartphones, skyscrapers, spacecraft. Modern technology seems mind-bogglingly complex. But beneath the surface, it can be beautifully simple. In Nuts...
Diane Purkiss, "English Food: A Social History of England Told Through the Food on Its Tables (William Collins, 2022)
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A rich and indulgent history, English Food: A Social History of England Told Through the Food on Its Tables (William Collins, 2022) by Dr. Diane Pur...
Jieun Kiaer, "Emoji Speak: Communication and Behaviours on Social Media" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emoji Speak: Communication and Behaviours on Social Media (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Jieun Kiaer provides an in-depth discussion of emoji use in a glo...
Boaventura de Sousa Santos, "From the Pandemic to Utopia: The Future Begins Now" (Routledge, 2023)
11 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The coronavirus pandemic forces us to rethink our contemporaneity. It has brought to the surface dimensions of human fragility that partially contradi...
Keren Winterford et al., "Reframing Aid: A Strengths-Based Approach for International Development" (Practical Action, 2023)
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The practice of international development continues to change as more is understood about what works. A shift from a deficit or problem-solving approa...
Michael Roper, "Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History" (Manchester UP, 2023)
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Michael Roper documents the lives and historical pursuits of the...
Benjamin Meiches, "Nonhuman Humanitarians: Animal Interventions in Global Politics" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Both critical and mainstream scholarly work on humanitarianism have largely been framed from anthropocentric perspectives highlighting humanity as the...
Finola O'Kane, "Landscape Design and Revolution in Ireland and the United States, 1688-1815" (Paul Mellon Centre, 2023)
30 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Landscape Design and Revolution in Ireland and the United States, 1688-1815 (Yale University Press, 2023) by Dr. Finola O’Kane explores how revolut...
Tom Young, "Unmaking the East India Company: British Art and Political Reform in Colonial India, c. 1813-1858" (Paul Mellon Centre, 2023)
29 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Unmaking the East India Company: British Art and Political Reform in Colonial India, c. 1813-1858 (Paul Mellon Centre, 2023) by Dr. Tom Young illumin...
Melissa Gatter, "Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp: A Nine-to-Five Emergency" (American University in Cairo Press, 2023)
28 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Azraq refugee camp, built in 2014 and host to forty thousand refugees, is one of two official humanitarian refugee camps for Syrian refugees in Jordan...
Lucy Moffat Kaufman, "A People’s Reformation: Building the English Church in the Elizabethan Parish" (McGill-Queen's Press, 2023)
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In A People’s Reformation: Building the English Church in the Elizabethan Parish (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) by Dr. Lucy Moffat Kauf...
Brigitte Buettner, "The Mineral and the Visual: Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture" (Penn State UP, 2022)
23 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Opulent jewelled objects ranked among the most highly valued works of art in the European Middle Ages. At the same time, precious stones prompted soph...
Sheila Miyoshi Jager, "The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia" (Harvard UP, 2023)
23 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Sheila Miyoshi Jager presents dramatic new telling of the dawn of modern East Asia, placing Korea at the center of a transformed world order wroug...
Penny M. Von Eschen, "Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder Since 1989" (Duke UP, 2022)
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder since 1989 (Duke University Press, 2022) Dr. Penny M. Von Eschen offers a sweep...
Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia, "Violent America: The Dynamics of Identity Politics in a Multiracial Society" (Cornell UP, 2023)
18 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Violent America: The Dynamics of Identity Politics in a Multiracial Society (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia coun...
Meg Bernhard, "Wine" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
15 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Meg Bernhard about her new book Wine (Bloomsbury, 2023). Agricultural product and cultural commodity, drink of ritual and drink of...
Randall Patnode, "The Synchronized Society: Time and Control From Broadcasting to the Internet" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Synchronized Society: Time and Control From Broadcasting to the Internet (Rutgers University Press, 2023) by Dr. Randall Patnode traces the histo...
Katherine Giuffre, "Outrage: The Arts and the Creation of Modernity" (Stanford UP, 2023)
10 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A cultural revolution in England, France, and the United States beginning during the time of the industrial and political revolutions helped usher in ...
Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg, "The Closed Book: How the Rabbis Taught the Jews (Not) to Read the Bible" (Princeton UP, 2023)
08 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Early Judaism is often described as the religion of the book par excellence—a movement built around the study of the Bible and steeped in a culture ...
Dinah Hannaford, "Aid and the Help: International Development and the Transnational Extraction of Care" (Stanford UP, 2023)
07 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hiring domestic workers is a routine part of the expat development lifestyle. Whether working for the United Nations, governmental aid agencies, or NG...
Malcolm F. Purinton, "Globalization in a Glass: The Rise of Pilsner Beer through Technology, Taste and Empire" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
03 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Globalization in a Glass: The Rise of Pilsner Beer through Technology, Taste and Empire (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Malcolm Purinton charts the spread ...
Samuel Helfont, "Iraq Against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order" (Oxford UP, 2023)
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The move away from post-Cold War unipolarity and the rise of revisionist states like Russia and China pose a rapidly escalating and confounding threat...
Mark Harrison, "Secret Leviathan: Secrecy and State Capacity under Soviet Communism" (Stanford UP, 2023)
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Soviet Union was one of the most secretive states that ever existed. Defended by a complex apparatus of rules and checks administered by the secre...
Ngaire Naffine, "Criminal Law and the Man Problem" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Men have always dominated the most basic precepts of the criminal legal world – its norms, its priorities and its character. Men have been the regul...
James Hannam, "The Globe: How the Earth Became Round" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Globe: How the Earth Became Round (Reaktion, 2023), Dr. James Hannam presents a history of how we came to know that the earth is round, rathe...
David Cressy, "Shipwrecks and the Bounty of the Sea" (Oxford UP, 2022)
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Shipwrecks and the Bounty of the Sea (Oxford University Press, 2022), Dr. David Cressy is a work of social history examining community relationships,...
Nicole Wegner, "Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
18 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) by Dr. Nicole Wegner is not a book about peacekeep...
Margot Tudor, "Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
17 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Margot...
Vera Keller, "The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
17 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many accounts of the scientific revolution portray it as a time when scientists disciplined knowledge by first disciplining their own behavior. Accord...
Robert Aldrich and Andreas Stucki, "The Colonial World: A History of European Empires, 1780s to the Present" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
12 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Colonial World: A History of European Empires, 1780s to the Present (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Robert Aldrich and Dr. Andreas Stucki provides the ...
Celia Fisher, "The Story of Follies: Architectures of Eccentricity" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
04 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Story of Follies: Architectures of Eccentricity (Reaktion, 2023), Celia Fisher presents an amusing, informative guide to a fanciful and charm...
Adrian Masters, "We, the King: Creating Royal Legislation in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish New World" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
03 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We, the King: Creating Royal Legislation in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish New World (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Adrian Masters challeng...
Yang Va Lor, "Unequal Choices: How Social Class Shapes Where High-Achieving Students Apply to College" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
High-achieving students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to end up at less selective institutions compared to their so...
Naoíse Mac Sweeney, "The West: A New History of an Old Idea" (Dutton, 2023)
27 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Naoíse Mac Sweeney presents a radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascin...
Saskia Coenen Snyder, "A Brilliant Commodity: Diamonds and Jews in a Modern Setting" (Oxford UP, 2022)
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the late nineteenth century, tens of thousands of diggers, prospectors, merchants, and dealers extracted and shipped over 50 million carats of ...
Robert F. Trager and Joslyn N. Barnhart, "The Suffragist Peace: How Women's Votes Lead to Fewer Wars" (Oxford UP, 2022)
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the modern age, some parts of the world are experiencing a long peace. Nuclear weapons, capitalism and the widespread adoption of democratic instit...
Rosamond McKitterick, "Rome and the Invention of the Papacy: The Liber Pontificalis" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The remarkable, and permanently influential, papal history known as the Liber pontificalis shaped perceptions and the memory of Rome, the popes, and t...
Maurizio Isabella, "Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions" (Princeton UP, 2023)
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After the turbulent years of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna’s attempt to guarantee peace and stability across Europe, a new revoluti...
Natalie Koch, "Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia" (Verso, 2023)
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The iconic deserts of the American southwest could not have been colonized and settled without the help of desert experts from the Middle East. For ex...
Claire Provost and Matt Kennard, "Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As European empires crumbled in the 20th century, the power structures that had dominated the world for centuries were up for renegotiation. Yet inste...
Victoria Bateman, "Naked Feminism: Breaking the Cult of Female Modesty" (Polity Press, 2023)
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is it right that, despite the promises of feminism, women’s bodies remain at the mercy of state, society and religion? Should a scantily clad woman,...
Aarie Glas, "Practicing Peace: Conflict Management in Southeast Asia and South America" (Oxford UP, 2022)
15 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Southeast Asia and South America are regions made up of largely illiberal states lacking stabilizing great powers or collective identities. But despit...
Allison Christine Meier, "Grave" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
14 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Grave (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Allison C. Meier takes a ground-level view of how burial sites have transformed over time and how they continue to change...
Naomi McDougall Jones, "The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood" (Beacon, 2020)
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood (Beacon, 2020) by Naomi McDougall Jones is a brutally honest look a...
Leah Phillips, "Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The heroic romance is one of the West's most enduring narratives, found everywhere, from religion and myth to blockbuster films and young adult litera...
Britta K. Ager, "The Scent of Ancient Magic" (U Michigan Press, 2022)
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Magic was a fundamental part of the Greco-Roman world. Curses, erotic spells, healing charms, divination, and other supernatural methods of trying to ...
Felix Flicker, "The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life" (Simon and Schuster, 2023)
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you were to present the feats of modern science to someone from the past, those feats would surely be considered magic. In The Magick of Physics: ...