New Books with Miranda Melcher

Tim Clarkson, "A Mighty Fleet and the King's Power: The Isle of Man, AD 400 To 1265" (John Donald, 2023)

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Situated in the middle of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man is like a stepping-stone between the lands that surround it. In medieval times, it played an ...

Elizabeth Elbourne, "Empire, Kinship and Violence: Family Histories, Indigenous Rights and the Making of Settler Colonialism, 1770-1842" (Cambridge UP., 2022)

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Empire, Kinship and Violence: Family Histories, Indigenous Rights and the Making of Settler Colonialism, 1770-1842 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)...

Kathryn Cornell Dolan, "Breakfast Cereal: A Global History" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Breakfast Cereal: A Global History (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Kathryn Dolan presents the long, distinguished and surprising history of breakfast cereal....

Barbara Sjoholm, "From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Material objects—things made, used, and treasured—tell the story of a people and place. So it is for the Indigenous Sámi living in Norway, Sweden...

Charles Read, "Calming the Storms: The Carry Trade, the Banking School and British Financial Crises Since 1825" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

17 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Calming the Storms: The Carry Trade, the Banking School and British Financial Crises Since 1825 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) by Dr. Charles Read expose...

Lachlan McNamee, "Settling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop" (Princeton UP, 2023)

12 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past few centuries, vast areas of the world have been violently colonized by settlers. But why did states like Australia and the United State...

John Miller, "The Heart of the Forest: Why Woods Matter" (British LIbrary, 2022)

12 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Heart of the Forest: Why Woods Matter (British Library, 2022) looks at threats to forest life across the globe. Dr. John Miller draws on literatu...

Michelle McSweeney, "OK" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"OK" as a word accepts proposals, describes the world as satisfactory (but not good), provides conversational momentum, or even agrees (or disagrees)....

Kate Strasdin, "The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe" (Pegasus Books, 2023)

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe (Penguin, 2023) by Dr. Kate Strasdin presents the hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's l...

Antero Garcia, "All through the Town: The School Bus as Educational Technology" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone knows the yellow school bus. It’s been invisible and also omnipresent for a century. Dr. Antero Garcia shows how the U.S. school bus, its f...

Sara Rich, "Mushroom" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

25 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

They are the things we step on without noticing and the largest organisms on Earth. They are symbols of inexplicable growth and excruciating misery. T...

Chrisanthi Giotis, "Borderland: Decolonizing the Words of War" (Oxford UP, 2022)

20 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Every two seconds a person is displaced, caught in one of the more than 40 active conflicts around the world that show no sign of ending. Since 1994, ...

Alexis James, "Unsung: Not All Heroes Wear Kits" (Pitch Publishing, 2023)

20 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Unsung: Not all Heroes Wear Kits (Pitch Publishing, 2022) by Alexis James introduces the sports stars you don't know, telling the stories you can't m...

Chris Alden and Alvaro Mendez, "China and Latin America: Development, Agency and Geopolitics" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

19 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

China's role as an economic powerhouse in Latin America is reshaping a region on the cusp of development and change. Since the turn of the century, bi...

John Miller, "The Philosophy of Tattoos" (British Library, 2021)

17 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Philosophy of Tattoos (British Library, 2021) by Dr. John Miller presents an impressively broad yet personal account, exploring tattooing as a un...

Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson, "Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games" (MIT Press, 2023)

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games (MIT Press, 2023) by Dr. Mary Flanagan & Dr. Mikael Jakobsson is a s...

Mareike Schomerus, "Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

15 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Violent conflict and its aftermath are pressing problems, particularly for international development initiatives. However, the results of development ...

Richard Thompson Ford, "Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History" (Simon & Schuster, 2021)

11 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change...

Jamie Kreiner, "The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction" (Liveright, 2023)

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction (Liveright, 2023) by Dr. Jamie Kreiner presents a revelatory account of how Christi...

Elizabeth T. Hurren, "Hidden Histories of the Dead: Disputed Bodies in Modern British Medical Research" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Hidden Histories of the Dead: Disputed Bodies in Modern British Medical Research (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Dr. Elizabeth T. Hurren maps...

Caroline Dodds Pennock, "On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe" (Knopf, 2023)

26 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe (Knopf, 2023) by Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock presents a landmark work of narrative histor...

Amanda Podany, "Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East" (Oxford UP, 2022)

25 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East (Oxford University Press, 2022), a sweeping history of the ancient Near East,...

Nicolai Jørgensgaard Graakjær, "The Sounds of Spectators at Football" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

25 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The sounds of spectators at football (soccer) are often highlighted – by spectators, tourists, commentators, journalists, scholars, media producers,...

Azzan Yadin-Israel, "Temptation Transformed: The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

20 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Temptation Transformed: The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple (University of Chicago Press, 2023) by Dr. Azzan Yadin-Israel presents a...

Zoe Adams, "The Legal Concept of Work" (Oxford UP, 2022)

19 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"Why do we think about some practices as work, and not others? Why do we classify certain capacities as economically valuable skills, and others as in...

Lisa Hajjar, "The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight Against Torture" (U California Press, 2022)

18 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture (University of California Press, 2022) by Dr. Lisa Hajjar examines how hundreds of lawyers mo...

Laura Janet Feller, "Being Indigenous in Jim Crow Virginia: Powhatan People and the Color Line" (U Oklahoma Press, 2022)

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Spanning a century of fraught history, Being Indigenous in Jim Crow Virginia: Powhatan People and the Color Line (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022...

Kevin Blackburn, "The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory" (National U of Singapore Press, 2022)

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"Comfort women" or ianfu is the euphemism used by the Japanese military for the women they compelled to do sex work in the Second World War. The role ...

Sarah Kunz, "Expatriate: Following a Migration Category" (Manchester UP, 2023)

15 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who are expatriates? How do they differ from other migrants? And why should we care about such distinctions? Expatriate: Following a Migration Catego...

John Goodlad, "The Salt Roads: How Fish Made a Culture" (Birlinn, 2022)

10 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Salt Roads: How Fish Made a Culture (Birlinn, 2022) by John Goodlad is the extraordinary story of how salt fish from Shetland became one of the s...

Rowan Dorin, "No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe" (Princeton UP, 2023)

05 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Beginning in the twelfth century, Jewish moneylenders increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs of European authorities, who denounced the evils...

Francesca Sobande and layla-roxanne hill. "Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

27 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be Black in Scotland today? How are notions of nationhood, Scottishness, and Britishness implicated in this? Why is it important ...

Justin Gregg, "If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity" (Little, Brown, 2022)

26 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without...

Antonia Witt, "Undoing Coups: The African Union and Post-coup Intervention in Madagascar" (Zed Books, 2020)

11 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the beginnings of independence, a number of African nations have been plagued by repeated coup d'états. Within the African Union (AU), there ha...

Lior Lehrs, "Unofficial Peace Diplomacy: Private Peace Entrepreneurs in Conflict Resolution Processes" (Manchester UP, 2022)

08 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Unofficial Peace Diplomacy: Private Peace Entrepreneurs in Conflict Resolution Processes (Manchester University Press, 2022) by Dr. Lior Lehrs analys...

Karma Ben-Johanan, "Jacob’s Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican II" (Harvard UP, 2022)

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jacob’s Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican II (Harvard University Press, 2022) by Dr. Karma Ben-Johanan presents a revealing...

Carl Griffin, "The Politics of Hunger: Protest, Poverty and Policy in England, 1750-1840" (Manchester UP, 2020)

19 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were supposedly the period in which the threat of famine lifted for the peoples of England. But hunger r...

Jane Tynan, "Trench Coat" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

19 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Object Lessons is a Bloomsbury series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This interview focuses on Trenc...

Hester Barron, "The Social World of the School: Education and Community in Interwar London" (Manchester UP, 2022)

18 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Social World of the School: Education and Community in Interwar London (Manchester UP, 2022) shows why the study of schooling matters to the his...

Sarah Zukerman Daly, "Violent Victors: Why Bloodstained Parties Win Postwar Elections" (Princeton UP, 2022)

18 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

One of the great puzzles of electoral politics is how parties that commit mass atrocities in war often win the support of victimized populations to es...

Janet I. Lewis, "How Insurgency Begins: Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyond" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

06 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How and why do rebel groups initially form? Prevailing scholarship has attributed the emergence of armed rebellion to the explosion of pre-mobilized p...

Hettie Judah, "Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones" (Penguin, 2022)

05 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Inspired by the lapidaries of the ancient world, Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (John Murray/Penguin, 2022) by Hettie Judah is a beautifully...

John Delury, "Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China" (Cornell UP, 2022)

04 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China (Cornell University Press, 2022) by Dr. John Delury reconstructs t...

Huw J. Davies, "The Wandering Army: The Campaigns That Transformed the British Way of War" (Yale UP, 2022)

01 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Wandering Army: The Campaigns that Transformed the British Way of War (Yale University Press, 2022), Dr. Huw J. Davies presents a compelling ...

Trevor Jackson, "Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690-1830" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Whose fault are financial crises, and who is responsible for stopping them, or repairing the damage? Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of Europ...

Michael A. Verney, "A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

23 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by Dr. Michael A. Verney ...

Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow, "Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back" (Beacon Press, 2022)

23 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (wh...

Lyndsie Bourgon, "Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods" (Little, Brown Spark, 2022)

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There's a strong chance that chair you are sitting on was made from stolen lumber. In Tree Thieves: Crime And Survival In North America's Woods (Lit...

Caroline Roope, "The History of the London Underground Map" (Pen and Sword Transport, 2022)

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Few transportation maps can boast the pedigree that London’s iconic ‘Tube’ map can. Sported on t-shirts, keyrings, duvet covers, and most recent...

Benjamin de Carvalho and Halvard Leira, "The Sea and International Relations" (Manchester UP, 2022)

16 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

While the world's oceans cover more than seventy percent of its surface, the sea has largely vanished as an object of enquiry in International Relatio...

Christopher Marquis and Kunyuan Qiao, "Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise" (Yale UP, 2022)

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise (Yale University Press, 2022) by Dr. Christopher Marquis & Dr. Kunyuan Qiao presents a tho...

James Griffiths, "Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language" (Zed Books, 2021)

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As globalisation continues languages are disappearing faster than ever, leaving our planet's linguistic diversity leaping towards extinction. The scie...

Francesca Stavrakopoulou, "God: An Anatomy" (Knopf, 2022)

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words...

Sofi Thanhauser, "Worn: A People's History of Clothing" (Vintage, 2022)

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Worn: A People's History of Clothing (Vintage, 2022) by Sofi Thanhauser explores linen, cotton, silk, synthetics, wool: through the stories of these ...

Abiodun Alao, "Rage and Carnage in the Name of God: Religious Violence in Nigeria" (Duke UP, 2022)

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Rage and Carnage in the Name of God (Duke University Press, 2022), Dr. Abiodun Alao examines the emergence of a culture of religious violence in ...

Andrew Fiss, "Performing Math: A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

09 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Performing Math: A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom (Rutgers University Press, 2020) by Dr. Andrew Fiss tel...

Charles Read, "The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain's Financial Crisis" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022)

09 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain’s Financial Crisis (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) is rich in archival detail and offers a ground-breaking analysi...

Jianglin Li, "When the Iron Bird Flies: China's Secret War in Tibet" (Stanford UP, 2022)

09 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In When the Iron Bird Flies: China's Secret War in Tibet (Stanford University Press, 2022), Jianglin Li presents an untold story that reshapes our u...

Bree Akesson and Andrew R. Basso, "From Bureaucracy to Bullets: Extreme Domicide and the Right to Home" (Rutgers UP, 2022)

04 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There are currently a record-setting number of forcibly displaced persons in the world. This number continues to rise as solutions to alleviate humani...

Andrew Fitzmaurice, "King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century" (Princeton UP, 2021)

03 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian ...

Tom Haines-Doran, "Derailed: How to Fix Britain's Broken Railways" (Manchester UP, 2022)

31 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why don't trains run on time? Why are fares so expensive? Why are there so many strikes? Few would disagree that Britain's railways are broken, and ha...

Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe

25 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An alienated society divided into groups and classes suspicious of one another does not pose an especially great problem for an authoritarian regime t...

Jeffers Lennox, "North of America: Loyalists, Indigenous Nations, and the Borders of the Long American Revolution" (Yale UP, 2022)

19 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the Thirteen Colonies’ struggle for independence from Britain is well known to every American schoolchild. But at the start of the Revo...

E. Amanda McVitty, "Treason and Masculinity in Medieval England: Gender, Law and Political Culture" (Boydell Press, 2020)

12 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Treason and Masculinity in Medieval England: Gender, Law and Political Culture (Boydell Press, 2020) by Dr. E. Amanda McVitty presents a groundbreaki...

Alan Warde et al., "The Social Significance of Dining Out: A Study of Continuity and Change" (Manchester UP, 2020)

12 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dining out used to be considered exceptional. However, the Food Standards Authority reported that in 2014, one meal in six was eaten away from home in...

Suzana Sawyer, "The Small Matter of Suing Chevron" (Duke UP, 2022)

12 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2011, an Ecuadorian court issued the world’s largest environmental contamination liability: a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron. Within years...

Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla, "Africa's Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story" (Pluto Press, 2021)

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Colonialism persists in many African countries due to the continuation of imperial monetary policy. Africa's Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc St...

S. Karly Kehoe, "Empire and Emancipation: Scottish and Irish Catholics at the Atlantic Fringe, 1780–1850" (U Toronto Press, 2021)

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Empire and Emancipation: Scottish and Irish Catholics at the Atlantic Fringe, 1780–1850 (U Toronto Press, 2021) by Dr. S. Karly Kehoe explores how ...

René Provost, "Rebel Courts: The Administration of Justice by Armed Insurgents" (Oxford UP, 2021)

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Warzones are sometimes described as lawless, but this is rarely the case. Armed insurgents often replace the state as the provider of law and justice ...

Monika Nalepa, "After Authoritarianism: Transitional Justice and Democratic Stability" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

05 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Transitional justice – the act of reckoning with a former authoritarian regime after it has ceased to exist – has direct implications for democrat...

Elizabeth Ellcessor, "In Case of Emergency: How Technologies Mediate Crisis and Normalize Inequality" (NYU Press, 2022)

05 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Elizabeth Ellcessor presents a much-needed look at the growth of emergency media and its impact on our lives in In Case of Emergency: How Technol...

Natalie J. Goodison, "Introducing the Medieval Swan" (U Wales Press, 2022)

04 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What comes to mind when we think of swans? Likely their beauty in domestic settings, their preserved status, their association with royalty, and possi...

Emily Joan Ward, "Royal Childhood and Child Kingship: Boy Kings in England, Scotland, France and Germany, c. 1050–1262" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

30 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Royal Childhood and Child Kingship: Boy Kings in England, Scotland, France and Germany, c. 1050–1262 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) refines adu...

Kathryn Harkup, "Death By Shakespeare: Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

26 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

William Shakespeare found dozens of different ways to kill off his characters, and audiences today still enjoy the same reactions – shock, sadness, ...

James Belich, "The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe" (Princeton UP, 2022)

23 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbours. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused...

Jamie Martin, "The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance" (Harvard UP, 2022)

21 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance (Harvard University Press, 2022) presents a pioneering history that tr...

Philip Lymbery, "Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future" (Bloombury, 2022)

19 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the United Kingdom to Italy, from Brazil to the Gambia to the USA, Philip Lymbery, the internationally acclaimed author of Farmageddon, goes beh...

Mohamed Adhikari, "Destroying to Replace: Settler Genocides of Indigenous Peoples" (Hackett, 2022)

16 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Dr. Mohamed Adhikari about his book Destroying to Replace: Settler Genocides of Indigenous Peoples (Hackett, 2022). "This book e...

Christin Essin, "Working Backstage: A Cultural History and Ethnography of Technical Theater Labor" (U Michigan Press, 2021)

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Working Backstage: A Cultural History and Ethnography of Technical Theater Labor (University of Michigan Press, 2021) by Dr. Christin Essin illuminat...

Levi Roach, "Empires of the Normans: Makers of Europe, Conquerors of Asia" (Pegasus Books, 2022)

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Empires of the Normans: Makers of Europe, Conquerors of Asia (Pegasus, 2022) by Dr. Levi Roach is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce freeboote...

Ethan Czuy Levine, "Rape by the Numbers: Producing and Contesting Scientific Knowledge about Sexual Violence" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Science plays a substantial, though under-acknowledged, role in shaping popular understandings of rape. Statistical figures like “1 in 4 women have ...

Carl A. Brasseaux and Donald W. Davis, "Asian-Cajun Fusion: Shrimp from the Bay to the Bayou" (UP of Mississippi, 2022)

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Shrimp is easily America’s favorite seafood, but its very popularity is the wellspring of problems that threaten the shrimp industry’s existence. ...

Murray Pittock, "Scotland: The Global History, 1603 to the Present" (Yale UP, 2022)

12 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Scotland: A Global History (Yale University Press, 2022) by Dr. Murray Pittock presents an engaging and authoritative history of Scotland’s influen...

Sarah Craze, "Atlantic Piracy in the Early Nineteenth Century: The Shocking Story of the Pirates and the Survivors of the Morning Star" (Boydell Press, 2022)

09 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The pirate attack on the British brig Morning Star, en route from Ceylon to London, near Ascension Island in 1828 was one of the most shocking episode...

Adam B. Lerner, "From the Ashes of History: Collective Trauma and the Making of International Politics" (Oxford UP, 2022)

09 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, calls for reparations and restorative justice, alongside the rise of populist grievance politics, have demonstrated the stubborn resi...

Julia Margaret Zulver, "High-Risk Feminism in Colombia: Women's Mobilization in Violent Contexts" (Rutgers UP, 2022)

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In High-Risk Feminism in Colombia: Women's Mobilization in Violent Contexts (Rutgers University Press, 2022), Dr. Julia Zulver documents the experie...

Elise Vernon Pearlstine, "Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance" (Yale UP, 2022)

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Plants have long harnessed the chemical characteristics of aromatic compounds to shape the world around them. Frankincense resin from the genus Boswel...

Michael O'Hanlon, "The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint" (Yale UP, 2021)

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint (Yale University Press, 2021) Dr. Michael O’Hanlon presents an in...

William Alexander, "Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World" (Grand Central Publishing, 2022)

02 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The tomato gets no respect. Never has. Stored in the dustbin of history for centuries, accused of being vile and poisonous, appropriated as wartime pr...

Tommi Koivula and Heljä Ossa, "NATO’s Burden-Sharing Disputes: Past, Present and Future Prospects" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In NATO’s Burden-Sharing Disputes: Past, Present and Future Prospects (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), Dr. Tommi Koivula & Heljä Ossa argues that burd...

Kate Phillips, "Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery" (Luath Press, 2022)

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery (Luath Press, 2022) by Kate Phillips traces the story of how and why thousands of Scots made money from ...

Jos van Beurden, "Inconvenient Heritage: Colonial Collections and Restitution in the Netherlands and Belgium" (Amsterdam UP, 2022)

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The discussion about objects, human remains and archives from former colonial territories is becoming increasingly heated. Over the centuries, a multi...

Emily Michelson, "Catholic Spectacle and Rome's Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance" (Princeton UP, 2022)

29 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Starting in the sixteenth century, Jews in Rome were forced, every Saturday, to attend a hostile sermon aimed at their conversion. Harshly policed, th...

Greg Woolf, "The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History" (Oxford UP, 2020)

29 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The human race is on a 10,000 year urban adventure. Our ancestors wandered the planet or lived scattered in villages, yet by the end of this century a...

Emizet F. Kisangani and Jeffrey Pickering, "African Interventions: State Militaries, Foreign Powers, and Rebel Forces" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Foreign military intervention has had a profound impact on post-colonial African history and politics. Interventions have destabilized borderlands, ov...

Carmen Martínez Novo, "Undoing Multiculturalism: Resource Extraction and Indigenous Rights in Ecuador" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) led the Ecuadoran Citizens’ Revolution that claimed to challenge the tenets of neoliberalism and the legacies of...

Paolo Squatriti, "Weeds and the Carolingians: Empire, Culture, and Nature in Frankish Europe, AD 750-900" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Weeds and the Carolingians: Empire, Culture, and Nature in Frankish Europe, AD 750–900 (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Dr. Paolo Squatriti ...

Johanna Drucker, "Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by Dr. Johanna Drucker provides the ...

Eva-Maria Muschik, "Building States: The United Nations, Development, and Decolonization, 1945–1965" (Columbia UP, 2022)

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Postwar multilateral cooperation is often viewed as an attempt to overcome the limitations of the nation-state system. However, in 1945, when the Unit...

Lisa Uperesa, "Gridiron Capital: How American Football Became a Samoan Game" (Duke UP, 2022)

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since the 1970s, a “Polynesian Pipeline” has brought football players from American Sāmoa to Hawaii and the mainland United States to play at the...