The process of colonialism seeks to demean Indigenous intellect and destroy Indigenous literary traditions. Reconstructing those legacies is thus an act of anti-colonial resistance. This is the impetus behind Noenoe K. Silva’s The Power of the

Patricia O’Toole, “The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made” (Simon and Schuster, 2018)

Dec 10th, 2018 36m 42s

Whether you love him or hate him, it is indisputable that few, if any, other 20th-century American presidents were as historically consequential as Woodrow Wilson. Historian Patricia O’Toole explores the many complexities and ramifications of t

Andrew Roberts, “Churchill: Walking With Destiny” (Viking, 2018)

Dec 10th, 2018 46m 39s

For all of the books written about Winston Churchill, much remains to be said about his extensive life and career. In Churchill: Walking With Destiny (Viking, 2018), Andrew Roberts takes advantage of newly available archival holdings – most not

Snigdha Poonam, “Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World” (Harvard UP, 2018)

Dec 7th, 2018 38m 21s

49.91% of India’s population was below the age of 24 in the 2011 Census. By 2020 India will become the world’s youngest country with 64% of its population in the working age group of 15-64 years. This is India’s much touted “demographic dividen

Thomas Borchert, “Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China’s Southwest Border” (U Hawaii Press, 2017)

Dec 7th, 2018 1h 3m

What makes a Buddhist monk? This is the motivating question for Thomas Borchert, Professor of Religion at the University of Vermont, as he explores the social and educational formation of Buddhists from Southwest China. Borchert introduces his

Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan, “Transition Economies: Transformation, Development, and Society in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union” (Routledge, 2018)

Dec 7th, 2018 41m 43s

We spoke with the author Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan. His book Transition Economies: Transformation, Development, and Society in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (Routledge, 2018) is a very interesting contribution to the understanding of

Emily Jungmin Yoon, “A Cruelty Special to Our Species” (Ecco Books, 2018)

Dec 7th, 2018 46m 4s

In her first full-length collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco Books, 2018), Emily Jungmin Yoon examines forms of violence against women. At its core these poems delves into the lives of Korean comfort women of the 1930s and 40s, r

Hüseyin Yılmaz, “Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought” (Princeton UP, 2018)

Dec 7th, 2018 1h 29m

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hü

Paola Bertucci, “Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France” (Yale UP, 2018)

Dec 6th, 2018 53m 5s

Paola Bertucci‘s Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France (Yale University Press, 2018) is an innovative new look at the role of artisans in the French Enlightenment. As savants attempted to appropriate lea

Julian Meyrick, Robert Phiddian and Tully Barnett, “What Matters?: Talking Value in Australian Culture” (Monash UP, 2018)

Dec 6th, 2018 32m 31s

How should we value culture? In What Matters? Talking Value in Australian Culture (Monash University Press, 2018), Professors Julian Meyrick, Robert Phiddian and Tully Barnett, from Flinders University’s Laboratory Adelaide: The Value of Cultur

Sara Komarnisky, “Mexicans in Alaska: An Ethnography of Mobility, Place, and Transnational Life” (U Nebraska Press, 2018)

Dec 6th, 2018 55m 24s

“There are Mexicans in Alaska?” This was the response Sara Komarnisky heard repeatedly when describing her research on three generations of transnational migrants who divide their time between Anchorage, Alaska and Acuitzio del Canje, Michoacán

Kevin Hamilton and Ned O’Gorman, “Lookout America!: The Secret Hollywood Studio at the Heart of the Cold War” (Dartmouth College Press, 2018)

Dec 5th, 2018 58m 6s

One of the major aspects of the end of the Cold War has been the discovery and release of records related to many government activities from the period. In Lookout America!: The Secret Hollywood Studio at the Heart of the Cold War (Dartmouth Co

Llerena Searle, “Landscapes of Accumulation: Real Estate and the Neoliberal Imagination in Contemporary India” (U Chicago Press, 2015)

Dec 5th, 2018 43m 55s

Few who have visited India in the past two decades will have failed to noticed the sudden and spectacular urban transformation that has taken place in many of its cities. Gated residential complexes with tennis courts and indoor gyms, glitzy of

Alireza Doostdar, “The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny” (Princeton UP, 2018)

Dec 5th, 2018 59m 6s

Winner of the Middle East Studies Association’s 2018 Albert Hourani Book Award, Alireza Doostdar’s The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny (Princeton University Press, 2018) is a mesmerizing study of discourse

Laszlo Borhi, “Dealing with Dictators: The United States, Hungary, and East Central Europe 1942-1989” (Indiana UP, 2016)

Dec 4th, 2018 34m 43s

How does a political regime function? What contributes to a regime’s longevity and its subversion? Laszlo Borhi’s Dealing with Dictators: The United States, Hungary, and East Central Europe 1942-1989 (Indiana University Press, 2016) invites rea

Jessica Marie Falcone, “Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built” (Cornell UP, 2018)

Dec 4th, 2018 59m 46s

What can we learn from the anthropological study of projects that are never realized, or of dreams that are never fulfilled? In her new book, Battling the Buddha of Love: A Cultural Biography of the Greatest Statue Never Built (Cornell Universi

Jennifer Altehenger, “Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989” (Harvard U Asia Center, 2018)

Dec 4th, 2018 1h 2m

In her new book, historian Jennifer Altehenger, a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese History at King’s College London, grapples with the complex issue of how authorities and cultural workers attempted to create effective law propaganda. L

Aram Goudsouzian and Charles McKinney, “An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee” (UP of Kentucky, 2018)

Dec 4th, 2018 44m 14s

Most people will know that Memphis, Tennessee is where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. That’s too bad, because Memphis played an important role in the struggle for civil rights both before and after King was murdered. Drs. Ara

Adam Malka, “The Men of Mobtown: Policing Baltimore in the Age of Slavery and Emancipation” (UNC Press, 2018)

Dec 4th, 2018 59m 44s

Criminal justice, policing, and mass incarceration have gained significant political attention recently, and the problems of these systems have drawn increasingly frequent calls for reform from the right and left. Historians have turned their a

Amanda H. Lynch and Siri Veland, “Urgency in the Anthropocene” (MIT Press, 2018)

Dec 3rd, 2018 53m 14s

Amanda Lynch and Siri Veland’s Urgency in the Anthropocene (MIT Press, 2018) is a fascinating and trenchant analysis of the core beliefs and ideas that motivate current political responses to global warming. Lynch and Veland examine how the os

John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck, “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America” (Princeton UP, 2018)

Dec 3rd, 2018 42m 47s

In Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America (Princeton University Press, 2018), co-authors John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck explore the underlying question of American identity as a k

John C. Hajduk, “Music Wars: Money, Politics, and Race in the Construction of Rock and Roll Culture, 1940–1960” (Lexington Books, 2018)

Dec 3rd, 2018 1h

In his new book Music Wars: Money, Politics, and Race in the Construction of Rock and Roll Culture, 1940–1960 (Lexington Books, 2018), John C. Hajduk examines the emergence of a “rock and roll culture” in mid 20th century America. Professor Haj

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, “The Politics of Common Sense: State, Society and Culture in Pakistan” (Cambridge UP, 2018)

Nov 29th, 2018 56m 12s

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar’s The Politics of Common Sense: State, Society and Culture in Pakistan (Cambridge University Press, 2018) is an incisive study of continuity as well as change in Pakistan that has moved the country towards religious conserva

Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life” (Viking, 2018)

Nov 29th, 2018 45m 16s

Despite ranking among the most influential people in English history, Thomas Cromwell has long eluded biographers and historians. In Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life (Viking, 2018), though, Diarmaid MacCulloch provides readers with the def

Alec Nevala-Lee, “Astounding” (Dey Street Books, 2018)

Nov 29th, 2018 43m 38s

Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding (Dey Street Books, 2018) is the first comprehensive biography of John W. Campbell, who, as a writer and magazine editor, wielded enormous influence over the field of science fiction in the mid-20th century. “His int