Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchYanqiu Zheng, "In Search of Admiration and Respect: Chinese Cultural Diplomacy in the United States, 1875–1974" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
What does it mean for a country to seek admiration — and what kinds of institutions try to make that admiration possible?
Yanqiu Zheng’s In Search of…
6 months ago
Carol Lilly, "Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans" (Bloomsbury, 2024).
Across the globe, memorial and grave sites are being increasingly weaponized in conflicts and politicized by parties to advance agendas. Here, Carol …
6 months ago
Emily Callaci, "Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor" (Seal Press, 2025)
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provoc…
6 months ago
Karen Auman, "The Good Forest: The Salzburgers, Success, and the Plan for Georgia" (U Georgia Press, 2024)
The Good Forest: The Salzburgers, Success, and the Plan for Georgia (U Georgia Press, 2024) explores some of Georgia’s earliest settlers, the Salzbur…
6 months ago
John Goodall, "The Castle: A History" (Yale UP, 2022)
Episode 119
In The Castle: A History (Yale University Press, 2022) Dr. John Goodall presents a vibrant history of the castle in Britain, from the early Middle Ag…
6 months, 1 week ago
David Boyk, "Provincial Metropolis: Intellectuals and the Hinterland in Colonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Provincial Metropolis: Intellectuals and the Hinterland in Colonial India (Cambridge UP, 2025) tells the story of Patna, in the north Indian region o…
6 months, 1 week ago
Thomas Piketty, "A Brief History of Equality" (Harvard UP, 2022)
Episode 29
It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one …
6 months, 1 week ago
Ethan W. Ris, "Other People's Colleges: The Origins of American Higher Education Reform" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Episode 175
For well over one hundred years, people have been attempting to make American colleges and universities more efficient and more accountable. Indeed, …
6 months, 1 week ago
Philip Nash, "Clare Boothe Luce: American Renaissance Woman" (Routledge, 2022)
Episode 12
Philip Nash's book Clare Boothe Luce: American Renaissance Woman (Routledge, 2022) is a concise and highly readable political biography that examines…
6 months, 1 week ago
Joe Allen, "The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS" (Haymarket Books, 2020)
Episode 9
If the 20th Century was the American Century, it was also UPS's Century. Joe Allen's The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS (Haymarket Boo…
6 months, 1 week ago