New Books with Miranda Melcher
Episodes
Hsuan L Hsu, "Olfactory Worldmaking" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Smell is a vital, if underappreciated, medium through which we inhabit and imagine the world. In Olfactory Worldmaking (University of Minnesota Pres...
Susanne Vees-Gulani, 'Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token (University of Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Susanne Vees-Gulani explores how memory and p...
Elizabeth Mitchell Elder, "Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
22 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell Elder...
Martha Feldman, "Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome" (Zone Books, 2026)
22 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Around 1830, opera houses stopped using castrati, and Rome and the Vatican became home to their glorious singing, engineered by surgery and intensive ...
Sidra Hamidi, "After Fission: Recognition and Contestation in the Atomic Age" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
21 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Nuclear status is typically treated as a stable feature of a state's capacity to possess, use, or build nuclear weapons. Challenging this view, After...
Danny Bate, "Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them" (Bonnier Books, 2025)
21 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Every letter you’re reading right now has a fascinating story to tell, having been on a long linguistic, historical, political and social journey. T...
Maria A. Sanchez, "Deference and Divergence in Regional Human Rights Courts" (Cornell UP, 2026)
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Deference and Divergence in Regional Human Rights Courts (Cornell UP, 2026), Dr. Maria A. Sanchez tackles a central tension in global governance:...
Karima Moyer-Nocchi, "The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America" (Columbia UP, 2026)
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, a staple of weeknight dinners, family gatherings, and Soul Food restaurants. Humble though th...
Karima Moyer-Nocchi, "The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America" (Columbia UP, 2026)
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, a staple of weeknight dinners, family gatherings, and Soul Food restaurants. Humble though th...
Lisa Nakamura, "The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet (U Minnesota Press, 2026) by Dr. Lisa Nakamura challenges the widespread myth that the...
Abe Walker, "Reassembling the UAW: Insurgency, Contention, and the Struggle for Unionism in the American South" (Temple UP, 2026)
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When Volkswagen’s Chattanooga Assembly Plant opened in 2012, the United Auto Workers were excited by the golden opportunity to organize in the anti-...
Alistair Moffat, "Edinburgh: A New History" (Birlinn, 2024)
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From prehistory to the present day, the story of Edinburgh is packed with incident and drama. As Scotland’s capital since 1437, the city has witness...
Eurie Dahn, "Snack" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
16 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the hierarchy of foods, snacks are deemed trivial – perhaps even childish – especially in contrast to meals, which are seen as substantial and ...
Courtney Humphries, "Climate Change and the Future of Boston" (Anthem Press, 2026)
16 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Like many of the world’s iconic coastal cities, Boston faces potentially severe impacts from climate change. Depending on global emissions, Boston c...
E. and H. Heron, "Flaxman Low: Occult Detective" (MIT Press, 2026)
15 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Flaxman Low, literature’s first professional, full-time “occult detective”—that is, an intrepid investigator who deploys the scientific method...
Susannah B. Mintz, "Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story" (Reaktion, 2026)
15 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story (Reaktion, 2026) proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Dr. Susannah B. Mintz refram...
Yanshuo Zhang, "Creative Belonging: The Qiang and Multiethnic Imagination in Modern China" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
14 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
China is a multicultural country home to fifty-five ethnic minority groups, yet due to linguistic and cultural barriers many of these groups remain un...
Jon Stobart, "Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the English Clergy" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
An innovative approach in the field of material culture and consumption studies, Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the Engli...
Michael Bycroft, "Gems and the New Science: Matter and Value in the Scientific Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Gems and the New Science: Matter and Value in the Scientific Revolution (U Chicago Press, 2026), Dr. Michael Bycroft argues that gems were connec...
Pablo Zavala, "Forging a Mexican People: Collective Subjectivities in Postrevolutionary Print Culture, 1917-1968" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Forging a Mexican People: Collective Subjectivities in Postrevolutionary Print Culture, 1917–1968 (University of Arizona Press, 2026) shows how ill...
Caroline Sharples, "The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History" (Yale UP, 2026)
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Adolf Hitler has taken a long time to die, despite the lethal efficiency of the gun he put to his head in April 1945. Although eagerly anticipated aro...
Sezai Ozan Zeybek, "Animals, Justice, and the Politics of Violence: Shared Struggles in Turkey" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Animals, Justice, and the Politics of Violence: Shared Struggles in Turkey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) by Dr. Sezai Ozan Zeybek explores the intricate...
Mattie Armstrong-Price, "Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways" (U California Press, 2026)
07 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Mattie Armstrong-Pri...
Patrick Chung, "Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026) by Dr. Patrick Chung tr...
Lucy Lavers et al.," Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain" (Penguin, 2025)
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy s...
Jennifer Randles, "Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood" (U California Press, 2026)
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American f...
Eleanor Gordon et al., "Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939" (Oxford UP, 2025)
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939 (Oxford UP, 2025) by Professor Eleanor Gordon, Professor Katie Barclay, and D...
Lorraine Grimes, "Single Mothers in Twentieth-century Ireland and Britain: Pregnancy, Migration and Institutionalization" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout the twentieth century, many women in Ireland and Britain endured shame and institutionalisation for becoming pregnant outside of marriage. ...
Miles Kenney-Lazar, "Socializing Land: Plantations, Dispossession, and Resistance in Laos" (U Hawai’i Press, 2025)
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2008, there has been tremendous public interest in the social and ecological ramifications of the global land rush, a rapid increase of capital ...
Nicole E. Trujillo-Pagán, "Detroit Never Left: Black Space, White Borders, Latino Crossings" (NYU Press, 2025)
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Detroit seemed to experience an explosive rebirth following its bankruptcy, the largest in US municipal history. It was as if the slate had been wiped...
Claire Provost and Matt Kennard, "Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
02 Mar 2026
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...
Jieun Kiaer, "Emoji Speak: Communication and Behaviours on Social Media" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
02 Mar 2026
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...
Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, "Fleeced: Unraveling the History of Wool and War" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
01 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Not everything about wool is warm and fuzzy. Wool, for millennia the cold climate textile fiber, has a long relationship to war, both in terms of supp...
Joanna Bourke, "Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker" (Reaktion, 2026)
01 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Why do certain women become icons of evil? Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Joanna Bourke offe...
James Giesler, "Francisco de Saavedra's American Revolutionary War, The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown" (James Giesler, 2025)
01 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Francisco de Saavedra’s American Revolutionary War: The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown (James Giesler, 2025) by James Giesler is t...
Barbie Zelizer, "How the Cold War Broke the News: The Surprising Roots of Journalism's Decline" (Polity, 2025)
28 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us would agree that American journalism has problems. Rushed reporting and thin coverage. Timidity in the face of adversity. Polarized perspec...
Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)
28 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans examines the impact of ...
Margaret S. Graves, "Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics" (Princeton UP, 2026)
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the internation...
Allison Powers, "Arbitrating Empire: United States Expansion and the Transformation of International Law" (Oxford UP, 2024)
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Arbitrating Empire: United States Expansion and the Transformation of International Law (Oxford UP, 2024) by Dr. Allison Powers offers a new history ...
Subodhana Wijeyeratne, "The Islands and the Stars: A History of Japan's Space Programs" (Stanford UP, 2026)
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is among the six largest national space agencies in the world, along with China's CNSA, US's NASA, and R...
Jane Ohlmeyer, "Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World" (Oxford UP, 2023)
22 Feb 2026
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...
Richard Schoch, "Shakespeare’s House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
22 Feb 2026
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...
Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman, "The Thread Collectors" (Harper Collins, 2022)
22 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Thread Collectors (Harper Collins, 2022) by Shaunna J Edwards and Alyson Richman takes readers to 1863, where, in a small Creole cottage in New O...
Lynda Nead, "British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain" (Yale UP, 2025)
22 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1950s, American glamour swept into a war-torn Britain as part of a broader transatlantic exchange of culture and commodities. But in this proce...
Mark D. Steinberg, "Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay: Sex, Crime, Violence, and Nightlife in the Modern City" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Using public storytelling as a driving force, Moral Storytelling in 1920s New York, Odessa, and Bombay: Sex, Crime, Violence, and Nightlife in the Mo...
Wendy Wolford, "The Plantation Ideal: Landscapes of Extraction in Mozambique" (U California Press, 2025)
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Plantations have been the privileged tool of colonial rule and extraction in Mozambique for more than one hundred years despite never having delivered...
Raiford Guins, "King PONG: How Atari Bounced Across Markets to Make Millions" (MIT Press, 2026)
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
PONG is one of the longest- and most consistently circulating video games. Released in 1972, it remains at our fingertips as Android or iOS app, hoste...
Erick Guerra, "Overbuilt: The High Costs and Low Rewards of US Highway Construction" (Island Press, 2025)
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The world’s largest public works investment visible from space, the Interstate Highway System and the hundreds of thousands of miles of supporting r...
David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them—unless we can’t find them. Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history...
W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines" (MIT Press, 2025)
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that ...
Sara Pennell & Jon Stobart, "Auctions and the Consumption of Second-Hand Goods in Georgian England" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Auctions and the Consumption of Second-Hand Goods in Georgian England (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Dr. Sara Pennell & Professor Jon Stobart provides the fir...
Shelley Puhak, "The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady-a countess, from one of Europe's o...
Alexis Lerner, "Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States (University of Toronto Press, 2025) is an empirically grounded ethnographic study of how gr...
Vanessa Rampton, "Making Medical Progress: History of a Contested Idea" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
15 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Answers to the question 'what is medical progress?' have always been contested, and any one response is always bound up with contextual ideas of perso...
Lynneth Miller Renberg, "Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022)
14 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg pre...
Dan Hassler-Forest, "Fast and Furious Franchising: How the Serialized Blockbuster Remade Hollywood" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
14 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Fast and Furious Franchising charts the transformation of Hollywood through the story of one of its most successful cinematic universes. Released in 2...
Claire Morelon, "Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prague, 1914–1920" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Prague entered the First World War as the third city of the Habsburg empire, but emerged in 1918 as the capital of a brand new nation-state, Czechoslo...
Manchán Magan, "Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape" (Chelsea Green, 2026)
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Most people associate Britain and Ireland with the English language, a vast, sprawling linguistic tree with roots in Latin, French, and German, and br...
Tom Bolton, "Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain’s Nuclear Power Stations" (Strange Attractor, 2025)
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The United Kingdom has sixteen nuclear power stations. Most go under the radar, but their presence is enormous, both physically and culturally. They d...
Marc Mierowsky, "A Spy Amongst Us: Daniel Defoe's Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence" (Yale UP, 2026)
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 1706, Edinburgh was on the brink of a popular uprising. Men and women took to the streets to protest the planned union with England, fearing the en...
Caillan Davenport, "Behind Caesar's Back: Rumor, Gossip, and the Making of the Roman Emperors" (Yale UP, 2026)
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Behind Caesar's Back: Rumor, Gossip, and the Making of the Roman Emperors (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Caillan Davenport presents a thrilling explo...
Jameson R. Sweet, "Mixed-Blood Histories: Race, Law, and Dakota Indians in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Historical accounts tend to neglect mixed-ancestry Native Americans: racially and legally differentiated from nonmixed Indigenous people by U.S. gover...
Lucy Donkin, "Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages" (Cornell UP, 2022)
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Lucy Donkin’s Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2022) illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in...
Nancy Castaldo, "Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World" (Island Press, 2025)
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Squirrels are a common sight, seemingly everywhere in wild and urban nature. Their chattering antics in city parks delight us while their raids on our...
Ashlyn Hand, "Prioritizing Faith: International Religious Freedom and U.S. Foreign Policy" (NYU Press, 2025)
08 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 formally established the promotion of religious freedom as a U.S. foreign policy and national security...
Hilary French, "Ballroom: A People’s History of Dancing" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
07 Feb 2026
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...
Polina Dimova, "At the Crossroads of the Senses: The Synaesthetic Metaphor Across the Arts in European Modernism" (Penn State UP, 2024)
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Inspired by Richard Wagner’s idea of the total artwork, European modernist artists began to pursue multimedia projects that mixed colors, sounds, an...
Olivier Esteves, "France, You Love It but Leave It: The Silent Flight of French Muslims" (Polity, 2025)
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Their names are Mohamed, Samira, sometimes Matthieu or Sophie. They were born and bred in France and are highly qualified, but they have decided to go...
Jacqueline Riding, "Hard Streets: Working-Class Lives in Charlie Chaplin’s London" (Profile Books, 2025)
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the hard streets: working-class London in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in Hard Streets: Working-Class Lives in Charl...
Dafeng Xu, "Chinatown: San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake and the Paradox of American Immigration Policy" (JHU Press, 2026)
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. Spanning 30 city blocks and h...
Jennifer Vail, "Friction: A Biography" (Harvard UP, 2026)
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Friction, the force that resists motion, is synonymous with difficulty and complication. If you’ve ever replaced tires worn smooth by the road or re...
Itohan I. Osayimwese, "Africa's Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage" (Princeton UP, 2025)
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Between the nineteenth century and today, colonial officials, collectors, and anthropologists dismembered African buildings and dispersed their parts ...
Jessica Lake, "Special Damage: The Slander of Women and the Gendered History of Defamation Law" (Stanford UP, 2025)
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 1788, Mary Smith was ruined and banished from "civilised" society when her neighbor accused her of carrying a bastard child. To silence the ruinous...
Danielle N. Boaz, "Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur" (Oxford UP, 2023)
02 Feb 2026
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...
Mark Harrison, "Secret Leviathan: Secrecy and State Capacity under Soviet Communism" (Stanford UP, 2023)
01 Feb 2026
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...
Nicole Wegner, "Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
01 Feb 2026
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...
Gaoheng Zhang, "Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities" (Fordham UP, 2025)
31 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities (Fordham UP, 2025) by Dr. Gaoheng Zhang designs a novel analytical framework to a...
Nathan Munier, "Zimbabwe's Diamond Trade: The State, Resource Politics and Development" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
31 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when states experience a rapid increase in resource wealth? This book examines the significant diamond find in eastern Zimbabwe in 2006, ...
Mark Gallagher, "Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, and Male Sex Appeal" (U Texas Press, 2025)
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, and Male Sex Appeal (U Texas Press, 2025), Dr. Mark Gallagher presents an examination of male screen sex a...
Swapna Kona Nayudu, "The Nehru Years: An International History of Indian Non-Alignment" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Scholars of international relations, political thought, and India's international and diplomatic history are increasingly interested in the relevance ...
Olivia Weisser, "The Dreaded Pox: Sex and Disease in Early Modern London" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, venereal disease, or the 'pox,' was a dreaded diagnosis throughout Europe. Its ghastly marks, along with ...
Bram de Maeyer, "Building for Belgium: Belgian Embassies in a Globalising World (1945-2020)" (Leuven UP, 2025)
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Embassy buildings are the most tangible evidence of a state’s diplomatic presence abroad. State authorities have invested in the architectural conce...
Karin Wulf, "Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America" (Oxford UP, 2025)
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In eighteenth-century America, genealogy was more than a simple record of family ties—it was a powerful force that shaped society. Lineage: Genealo...
Toby Green, "The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa (U Chicago Press, 2025) by Professor Toby Green t...
Kimberley Johnson, "Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis" (Cornell UP, 2025)
25 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis (Cornell UP, 2025) by Dr. Kimberley Johnson is about how the Black Power movement res...
Simon Devereaux, "Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
25 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900 (Cambridge UP, 2023) by Dr. Simon Devereaux provides the first comprehensive account of executio...
Emily Mendenhall, "Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long COVID" (U California Press, 2026)
24 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Inspired by her work with long COVID patients, in Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long COVID (U California Press, 2026) medical anthr...
Daniel Eastman An, "Fear of God: Practicing Emotion in Late Antique Monasticism" (U California Press, 2025)
24 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the writings of ancient Christians, the near-ubiquitous references to the "fear of God" have traditionally been seen as a generic placeholder for p...
Anna Reid, "A Nasty Little War: The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution" (Basic Books, 2024)
24 Jan 2026
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...
Betto van Waarden, "Politicians and Mass Media in the Age of Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How did politicians deal with mass communication in a rapidly changing society? And how did the performance of public politics both help and hinder de...
Michelle Henning, "A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog, and Empire" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog, and Empire (U Chicago Press, 2026), Professor Michelle Henning presents an environmental history...
Lauren D. Sawyer, "Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture" (NYU Press, 2025)
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Gaining mass popularity in the mid-1990s with the True Love Waits rally on the Washington Mall, purity culture began as an urge from evangelical conse...
Emilie Connolly, "Vested Interests: Trusteeship and Native Dispossession in the United States" (Princeton UP, 2025)
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From the earliest days of its founding, the United States set its sights on Native territory. Amid better-known “Indian wars,” the federal governm...
Michael P.M. Fox et al., eds., " Framing the First World War: How Divergent Views Shaped a Global Conflict" (UP of Kansas, 2025)
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The character of the conflict that erupted in 1914 defied the expectations of many political leaders and military analysts. Despite the mountains of b...
Kellen Hoxworth, "Transoceanic Blackface: Empire, Race, Performance" (Northwestern UP, 2024)
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Transoceanic Blackface: Empire, Race, Performance (Northwestern UP, 2024) Dr. Kellen Hoxworth presents a sweeping history of racialized performan...
Patrick McGuigan and Carlos Yescas, "One Cheese to Rule Them All: In Search of the World's 100 Best Cheeses" (Murdoch Books, 2025)
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Are you a Comté connoisseur or does your heart belong to Rogue River Blue? Can you tell your Brie from your Camembert? Can you name an award-winning ...
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, "Taco" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Taco (Bloomsbury, 2025) is a deep dive into the most iconic Mexican food from the perspective of a Mexico City native. In a narrative that moves from...
Justin Gregg, "If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity" (Little, Brown, 2022)
18 Jan 2026
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...
Amanda G. Madden, "Civil Blood: Vendetta Violence and the Civic Elites in Early Modern Italy" (Cornell UP, 2025)
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Civil Blood: Vendetta Violence and the Civic Elites in Early Modern Italy (Cornell UP, 2025) is a study of the practice of vendetta among the civic e...
Min Joo Lee, "Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race (Rutgers UP, 2025) by Dr. Min Joo Lee explores the romantic relationships between Korean...