Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)

23 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery was a key part of pre-modern Islamic society, spanning from soldiers to concubines. And one of the most revealing repositories of evidence we ...

Yair Mintzker, "I, Wandering Jew: A Five-Century History of Our Modern Condition" (Princeton UP, 2026)

23 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The story behind the mythical figure of "the Wandering Jew" is one of the most fascinating tales in European history. In I, Wandering Jew, National J...

Roland Betancourt, "Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth" (Princeton UP, 2026)

23 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Dis...

Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant" (Princeton UP, 2026)

17 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a...

Daniel A. Bell, "Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future" (Princeton UP, 2026)

15 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel A. Bell joins the podcast to discuss his new book, Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, a...

Michael L. Satlow, "An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2026)

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Late Antiquity (ca. 200–600 CE), the world was alive with unseen forces—divine agents who influenced every aspect of daily life. For most ordin...

Money Beyond Borders with Barry Eichengreen

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Doubts about the international dominance of the dollar are only growing amid worries about tariffs, political dysfunction, and fraying international a...

Priyanka Kumar, "Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit" (Island Press, 2025)

06 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit--especially apples. T...

Douglas H. Erwin, "The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology" (Princeton UP, 2026)

06 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Origins of the New (Princeton University Press, 2026) presents a revolutionary approach to evolutionary success in all realms of life. In this g...

Avner Greif et al., "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It’s one of the biggest questions in economic history: How did a richer, more advanced China fall behind Europe? Why was Europe the home of the Indu...

Jeanne-Marie Jackson, "The Letter of the Law in J. E. Casely Hayford's West Africa" (Princeton UP, 2026)

31 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The African Gold Coast writer and statesman J. E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) was a key figure in liberal anticolonial thought as well as African and...

Why Did Langston Hughes's "Troubled Lands" Go Unpublished for Nearly a Century?: A Conversation with Ricardo Wilson

27 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Why did Langston Hughes's translations of Mexican and Cuban stories go unpublished for nearly a century? A landmark book—the first complete publica...

The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Most employers in the United States routinely conduct criminal background checks on job applicants, weeding out those with criminal convictions—a...

Stephen G. Brooks, "The Political Economy of Security" (Princeton UP, 2026)

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, The Political Economy of Security (Princeton University Press, 2026), Stephen Brooks provides a systematic empirical and theoretic...

Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What did slavery actually look like in the everyday lives of Jews in the medieval Middle East? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with histori...

H. S. Jones, "Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect" (Princeton UP, 2025)

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

James Bryce (1838–1922) was a leading figure in Britain’s Liberal Party and a distinguished historian, a versatile scholar-politician who moved se...

Suzanne Mettler and Trevor E. Brown, "Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy" (Princeton UP, 2025)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How the urban-rural divide drives partisan polarization Why have Americans living in different places come to experience politics as a battle between ...

Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Eleven days into the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, starting on Feb. 28, 2026, I speak with Vali Nasr, a renowned analyst of Iran. He...

Kim Bowes, "Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The story of ancient Rome is predominantly one of great men with great fortunes. Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent (Princ...

What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Mothers and fathers use their time differently, with women spending roughly twice as many hours on family labor as men. But what about the gendered di...

Wendy Brown, "States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A sympathetic critique that attempts to free Left politics from its own snares, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton Un...

Bryan Caplan's Case Against Education

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today I’m speaking with economist Bryan Caplan about education and bullshit, with a particular focus on his book, The Case Against Education: Why t...

Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark, "Global Governance Under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave" (Princeton UP, 2026)

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Populist leaders around the world increasingly reject international organizations, decrying them as constraints on state power and rallying followers ...

Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sage...

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, "Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025)

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The revelatory and urgent story of how an explosion of misogyny is driving a surge of mass and far-right violence throughout the West--from an interna...

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...

Hanna Pickard, "What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing But Cocaine?: A Philosophy of Addiction" (Princeton UP, 2026)

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Hanna Pickard has written a revolutionary new paradigm for understanding addiction.  Why do people with addiction use drugs self-destructively?...

Jamila Michener and Mallory E. Sorelle, "Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power" (Princeton UP, 2026)

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disp...

The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In an age of growing wealth disparities, politicians on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about the fading American Dream. Yet despite al...

Laura K. Field, "Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Political Theorist Laura Field has written an insightful and detailed exploration of the people and the ideas that have shaped the second Trump Admini...

Joshua Clark Davis, "Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back" (Princeton UP, 2025)

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back (Princeton UP, 2025) shatters one of the...

Nina Bandelj, "Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting" (Princeton UP, 2026)

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Parents are exhausted. When did raising children become such all-consuming, never-ending, incredibly expensive, and emotionally absorbing effort? In t...

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 ...

Arnoud S. Q. Visser, "On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A lively and entertaining cultural history of a supremely annoying intellectual vice Intellectuals have long provoked scorn and irritation, even downr...

Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach, "A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe" (Princeton UP, 2025)

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily li...

163* The Drama of Celebrity with Sharon Marcus (JP)

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As Oscar Season rolls around, Recall This Book looks back to John's 2019 discussion with Columbia University professor Sharon Marcus about The Drama ...

Yossef Rapoport, "Becoming Arab: The Formation of Arab Identity in the Medieval Middle East" (Princeton UP, 2025)

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today, much of the Middle East is “Arab”—an identity that now extends across North Africa and up through the Near East to Syria. Yet how did thi...

Steve Ramirez, "How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past" (Princeton UP, 2025)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain...

Reena Goldthree, "Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean" (Princeton UP, 2025)

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Following the outbreak of World War I, tens of thousands of men from the British Caribbean volunteered as soldiers to fight on behalf of the British E...

Keidrick Roy, "American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism" (Princeton UP, 2024)

08 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Though the United States has been heralded as a beacon of democracy, many nineteenth-century Americans viewed their nation through the prism of the Ol...

Miriam Udel, "Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children's Literature" (Princeton UP, 2025)

06 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As migration carried Yiddish to several continents during the long twentieth century, an increasingly global community of speakers and readers clung t...

Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)

04 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastr...

Andrew Porwancher, "American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews" (Princeton UP, 2025)

28 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A scion of the Protestant elite, Theodore Roosevelt was an unlikely ally of the waves of impoverished Jewish newcomers who crowded the docks at Ellis ...

Andrew W. Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain in the Making" (Princeton UP, 2025)

26 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fuji: A Mountain in the Making (Princeton UP, 2025) is A panoramic biography of Japan's iconic mountain from the Ice Age to the present Mount Fuji ...

Emanuel Deutschmann, "Mapping the Transnational World: How We Move and Communicate Across Borders, and Why It Matters" (Princeton UP, 2022)

23 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Increasingly, people travel and communicate across borders. Yet, we still know little about the overall structure of this transnational world. Is it r...

Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Among the most common challenges on college campuses today is figuring out how to navigate our politically charged culture and engage productively wit...

Celina Su, "Budget Justice: On Building Grassroots Politics and Solidarities" (Princeton UP, 2025)

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Amid political repression and a deepening affordability crisis, Budget Justice: On Building Grassroots Politics and Solidarities (Princeton U...

John Tolan, "Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present" (Princeton UP, 2025)

15 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the t...

Andrew Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain In The Making" (Princeton UP, 2025)

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork: a roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is M...

Dan Edelstein, "The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin" (Princeton UP, 2025)

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Political thinkers from Plato to John Adams saw revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balan...

The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies

07 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Democratic Dialogues, co-hosts Rachel Beatty Riedl and Esam Boraey speak with Susan C. Stokes, Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished S...

Adam Silverstein, "Haman" (Princeton UP, 2025)

05 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Haman, infamous as the antagonist in the book of Esther, appears as a villainous figure in virtually all varieties of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam...

Jessica F. Green, "Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s no secret that the Paris Agreement and voluntary efforts to address climate change are failing. Governments have spent three decades crafting i...

Philip Pettit, "The State" (Princeton UP, 2023)

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The State (Princeton University Press, 2023), the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking, offering a majo...

Marion Turner, "The Wife of Bath: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2023)

27 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognisably real woman in English ...

Ludovic Orlando, "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World" (Princeton UP, 2025)

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, Ludovic Orlando, a genetics researcher, embarked on the Pegasus Project, an ambitious endeavor to use genetics to discover the origin of the ...

Nicholas Buccola, "One Man’s Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle Over an American Ideal" (Princeton UP, 2025)

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the acclaimed author of The Fire Is upon Us, the dramatic untold story of Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr.'s decade-long clash over th...

Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the convent...

On Democracy and Bullshit with Hélène Landemore

18 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today I’m speaking with Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, about Democracy and Bullshit, with a special focus ...

David Garland, "Law and Order Leviathan: America’s Extraordinary Regime of Policing and Punishment" (Princeton UP, 2025)

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The United States has long been an international outlier, with a powerful business class, a weak social state, and an exceptional gun culture. In Law...

Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of th...

Jenny C. Mann, "The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime" (Princeton UP, 2021)

08 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University ...

Rachel Myrick, "Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability" (Princeton UP, 2025)

01 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the ef...

Tamar Mitts, "Safe Havens for Hate: The Challenge of Moderating Online Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025)

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Content moderation on social media has become one of the most daunting challenges of our time. Nowhere is the need for action more urgent than in the ...

John Blair, "Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World" (Princeton UP, 2025)

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World (Princeton UP, 2025) by Professor John Blair provides the first in-depth, globa...

Joshua Clark Davis, "Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back" (Princeton UP, 2025)

28 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back (Princeton UP, 2025) shatters one of the mo...

R. Jisung Park, "Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World" (Princeton UP, 2025)

25 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

R. Jisung Park is assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds appointments in the School of Social Policy and Practice and t...

What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money, work for justice, run marathons, sing in a choir, have children, travel the world? The things we...

David Bressoud, "Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas" (Princeton UP, 2019)

19 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas (Princeton UP, 2019) takes readers on a remarkable journey through hundreds of years to tell the story ...

David Stasavage, "The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today" (Princeton UP, 2020)

18 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Globa...

Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)

17 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton UP, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief th...

Hilary Holladay, "The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025)

17 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A major American writer, thinker, and activist, Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and ma...

The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit

16 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. ...

Make Your Manuscript Work: A Guide to Developmental Editing for Scholarly Writers

09 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Developmental editing holds the power to make a manuscript connect with publishers and readers, yet few scholarly writers have the training to do it w...

Georgios Varouxakis, "The West: The History of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2025)

04 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did “the West” come to be used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did “Westerners” begin ...

Mark Vellend, "Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More than We Think, from Proteins to Politics" (Princeton UP, 2025)

27 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How the science of evolution explains how everything came to be, from bacteria and blue whales to cell phones, cities, and artificial intelligence Ev...

Jack Hartnell, "Wound Man: The Many Lives of a Surgical Image" (Princeton UP, 2025)

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Wound Man—a medical diagram depicting a figure fantastically pierced by weapons and ravaged by injuries and diseases—was reproduced widely acr...

Celene Reynolds, "Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX" (Princeton UP, 2025)

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the US Congress enacted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, no one expected it to become a prominent tool for confronting sexual harass...

Laura Garbes, "Listeners Like Who?: Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry" (Princeton UP, 2025)

13 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why is radio so white? In Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry (Princeton UP, 2025) Laura Garbes, a Sociol...

Andrea Louise Campbell, "Taxation and Resentment: Race, Party, and Class in American Tax Attitudes" (Princeton UP, 2025)

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why Americans favor progressive taxation in principle but not in practice Most Americans support progressive taxation in principle, and want the rich...

Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe, "Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England" (Princeton UP, 2025)

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What do children believe in? In Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England (Princeton UP, 2025) Anna Strhan, a Reader...

David Woodman, "The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Professor David Woodman is a foundational biog...

David Edmonds, "Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, a Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need" (Princeton UP, 2025)

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine this: You’re walking past a shallow pond and spot a toddler thrashing around in the water, in obvious danger of drowning. You look around fo...

Joshua Specht, "Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America" (Princeton UP, 2019)

31 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why do Americans eat so much beef? In Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America (Princeton University Press, 2019), the h...

Margaret E. Roberts, "Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall" (Princeton UP, 2020)

31 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’...

Peter Conti-Brown and Sean H. Vanatta, "Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America" (Princeton UP, 2025)

29 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to supervise a bank? And why does it matter who holds that power? In this episode, Sean H. Vanatta joins us to explore the hidden ma...

Tom Arnold-Forster, "Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025)

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the years before World War I until the late 1960s, the journalist and political theorist Walter Lippmann was one of the most influential writers ...

Walter Scheidel, "What Is Ancient History?" (Princeton UP, 2025)

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk o...

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, "Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism" (Princeton UP, 2022)

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (Princeton UP, 2022) explores why dictatorships born of social revolutio...

Konrad H. Jarausch, "Embattled Europe: A Progressive Alternative" (Princeton UP, 2021)

23 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A bracing corrective to predictions of the European Union’s decline, by a leading historian of modern Europe Is the European Union in decline? Recen...

Nan Z. Da, The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear (Princeton UP, 2025)

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I’m Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. On this show, we interview authors w...

Mary Bridges on US Bankers Abroad and the Making of a Global Superpower

18 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Mary Bridges, Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International...

Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape...

Audrey Truschke, "India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent" (Princeton UP, 2025)

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I’m Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. On this show, we interview authors w...

Athena Aktipis, "The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer" (Princeton UP, 2020)

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When we think of the forces driving cancer, we don’t necessarily think of evolution. But evolution and cancer are closely linked because the histori...

David D. Hall, "The Puritans: A Transatlantic History" (Princeton UP, 2019) 

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This book is a sweeping transatlantic history of Puritanism from its emergence out of the religious tumult of Elizabethan England to its founding role...

Margaret C. Jacob, "The Secular Enlightenment" (Princeton UP, 2019)

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Secular Enlightenment by Professor Margaret C. Jacob, has been called a major new history on how the Enlightenment transformed people's everyday l...

William Marx, "Libraries of the Mind" (Princeton UP, 2025)

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Erich Auerbach wrote his classic work Mimesis, a history of narrative from Homer to Proust, based largely on his memory of past reading. Having left ...

On Bullshit in AI

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re continuing our series on Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit. I have the privilege to speak with Arvind Narayanan co-author o...

Dan-el Padilla Peralta, "Classicism and Other Phobias" (Princeton UP, 2025)

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Classicism and Other Phobias (Princeton University Press, 2025) shows how the concept of “classicism” lacks the capacity to affirm the aesthetic ...