Egypt is often the focus of religious and political histories of early twentieth century. The striking hardening of nationalist and Islamic movements within Arab societies during this period is frequently described through the growth of the Mus

Alexej Lochmatow, "Public Knowledge in Cold War Poland: Scholarly Battles and the Clash of Virtues, 1945–1956" (Routledge, 2023)

30 days ago 1h 4m

In the years after World War II, Polish scholars and scientists faced a complex and deeply personal political reality, the result of a long and violent history of war and occupation combined with pressure from Stalinist Soviet Union. In Public

Nicole Eaton, "German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad" (Cornell UP, 2023)

Nov 18th, 2023 1h 12m

German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad (Cornell UP, 2023) reveals how Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, twentieth-century Europe's two most violent revolutionary regimes, transformed a single city and the peop

Saida Grundy, "Respectable: Politics and Paradox in Making the Morehouse Man" (U California Press, 2022)

1 Feb 28th, 2023 1h 1m

How does it feel to be groomed as the "solution" to a national Black male "problem"? This is the guiding paradox of Respectable: Politics and Paradox in Making the Morehouse Man (U California Press, 2022), an in-depth examination of graduates o

Matt Christman and Daniel Bessner, "Hinge Points: A Podcast About Historical Contingency"

Nov 23rd, 2021 55m 48s

How do we balance the importance of individual human agency with our understanding of larger socio-economic structures? How do we explore crucial “what ifs” in history? How do we make this stuff accessible to a wider audience? These are the que

Paul Preston, "A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence and Social Division in Modern Spain" (Liveright, 2020)

Nov 8th, 2021 58m 16s

Sir Paul Preston’s A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence, and Social Division in Modern Spain (Liveright, 2020) is a masterful synthesis that offers a novel way of thinking about the turbulent history of Spain. Pres

Jason Bruner, "Imagining Persecution: Why American Christians Believe There Is a Global War Against Their Faith" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

Jul 28th, 2021 1h 46m

Many American Christians have come to understand their relationship to other Christian denominations and traditions through the lens of religious persecution. Jason Bruner's Imagining Persecution: Why American Christians Believe There Is a Glob

Joshua Mitchell, "American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time" (Encounter Books, 2020)

1 Jun 2nd, 2021 1h 4m

Brace yourself for a sobering analysis of the state of the body politic and national soul. America is ailing from three main afflictions that are dangerously undermining the nation’s ability to act in the interest of the common good.So argues

Susan M. Reverby, "Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy" (UNC Press, 2013)

May 5th, 2021 44m 8s

Some books are new, others are newly relevant – and so worth looking at from a new, contemporary perspective. Such is the case with Susan Reverby’s book Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and its Legacy (UNC Press, 2013). When the

Barbara J. King, "Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

Mar 19th, 2021 49m 28s

As people come to understand more about animals' inner lives-the intricacies of their thoughts and the emotions that are expressed every day by whales and cows, octopus and mice, even bees-we feel a growing compassion, a desire to better their

Jason Lutes, "Berlin" (Drawn and Quarterly, 2018)

Feb 11th, 2021 1h 6m

In his pathbreaking graphic novel, Berlin (Drawn and Quarterly, 2018), Jason Lutes creates a multifaceted exploration of urban life during the Weimar Republic. The book contains a variety of mostly fictional characters, all of whom capture asp

Oliver Gloag, "Albert Camus: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2020)

Jan 13th, 2021 1h 42m

Albert Camus, one of the most famous French philosophers and novelists, has a diverse fan base. British alternative rockers The Cure sang about The Stranger in their first big hit, “Killing an Arab”, released in 1980. George W. Bush announced t

Kyle Johannsen, "Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering" (Routledge, 2020)

Jan 11th, 2021 1h 10m

Many sentient (or possibly sentient) wild animals follow a reproductive strategy whereby they have large numbers of offspring, the vast majority of which suffer and die quickly or suffer and die slowly. Either way, there is a huge amount of suf

Margaret Randall, "I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary" (Duke UP, 2020)

1 Apr 24th, 2020 50m 42s

Margaret Randall’s new memoir, I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary was published by Duke University Press in March 2020. Randall, born in New York City in 1936, lived in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua as an adult, where she was involv

The Blues Brothers

Sep 11th, 2023 18m 46s

Jake and Elwood sing “Everybody Needs Someone to Love” and everybody loves The Blues Brothers: “You … me … them … everybody!” Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about John Landis’s 1980 film that has become movie comfort-food for people raise

Robert Hellyer, "Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups" (Columbia UP, 2021)

Oct 15th, 2021 46m 25s

Robert Hellyer’s Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups (Columbia UP, 2021) is a tale of American and Japanese teaways, skillfully weaving together stories of Midwesterners drinking green tea (with milk and sugar, to be

Jane Ward, "The Tragedy of Heterosexuality" (NYU Press, 2020)

1 Jun 22nd, 2021 1h 10m

Heterosexuality is in crisis. Reports of sexual harassment, misconduct, and rape saturate the news in the era of #MeToo. Straight men and women spend thousands of dollars every day on relationship coaches, seduction boot camps, and couple’s the

Sean Guynes and Martin Lund, "Unstable Masks: Whiteness and American Superhero Comics" (Ohio State UP, 2020)

Jun 17th, 2021 58m 39s

In Unstable Masks: Whiteness and American Superhero Comics (Ohio State UP, 2020), Sean Guynes and Martin Lund have assembled more than fifteen chapters that interrogate our thinking about superheroes, especially those written and created in the

Audrey Truschke, “Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court” (Columbia UP, 2016)

1 Apr 3rd, 2017 49m 46s

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey

Allison Schrager, "An Economist Walks Into A Brothel And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk" (Portfolio, 2019)

15 hours ago 40m 40s

Whether you are a commuter weighing options of taking the bus vs walking to get you to work on time or a military general leading troops into war, risk is something we deal with every day. Even the most cautious of us can’t opt out—the question

Melody Yunzi Li, "Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the United States" (Rutgers UP, 2023)

16 hours ago 42m 21s

Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the U.S. (Rutgers University Press, 2023) examines how contemporary Chinese diasporic narratives address the existential loss of home for immigrant communities at a time

Christian Hansel, "Memory Makes the Brain: The Biological Machinery That Uses Experiences To Shape Individual Brains" (World Scientific, 2021)

16 hours ago 1h 10m

If you're interested in memory, you'll find a lot in Memory Makes the Brain: The Biological Machinery That Uses Experiences To Shape Individual Brains (World Scientific, 2021), from cellular processes to unique and interesting perspectives on a

Markus Vinzent, "Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

16 hours ago 43m 1s

How do we know what we know about the origins of the Christian religion? Neither its founder, nor the Apostles, nor Paul left any written accounts of their movement. The witnesses' testimonies were transmitted via successive generations of copy

Jaume Aurell, "What Is a Classic in History?: The Making of a Historical Canon" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

16 hours ago 48m 1s

What is a classic in historical writing? How do we explain the continued interest in certain historical texts, even when their accounts and interpretations of particular periods have been displaced or revised by newer generations of historians?

Victoria Sparey, "Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture" (Manchester UP, 2024)

16 hours ago 57m 34s

Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Victoria Sparey examines the varied representation of adolescent characters in Shakespeare's plays. Using ear