Podcast Episodes

Bradford A. Bouley, "The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

In 1644 four norcini or pork butchers were accused of killing not pigs, but seven of their fellow citizens, stripping the meat from the bones, then…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Gretchen Heefner, "Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Deserts, the Arctic, outer space—these extreme environments are often seen as inhospitable places at the edges of our maps. But from the 1940s thro…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Laura B. McGrath, "Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In this interview, we speak with Laura B. McGrath, an Assistant Professor of English at Temple University and the author of Middlemen: Literary Agent…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Angela Frederick, "Disabled Power: A Storm, A Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster" (NYU Press, 2025)

A call to place disability at the center of climate and disaster responses
Every disaster is a disability disaster, argues Angela Frederick. Disabled …

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Ambrogio Caiani, "Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation" (Apollo, 2026)

It's a shadowy, ornate world of cover-ups and hidden motives. In Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation (…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

US 250: A Conversation with Peter John Loewen

This week on Democracy Dialogues, Rachel Beatty Riedl speaks with Peter John Loewen to reflect on the 250th anniversary of US independence. They disc…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Hector Amaya, "The Economy of Anonymity: Power in the Age of Identification" (Stanford UP 2026)

We use avatars to play video games. We use pseudonyms on social media. We use VPNs to mask our identities and activities. In the digital realm, ano…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Georgia Holly et al, .eds., "Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond" (U Edinburgh Press, 2025)

Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond (U Edinburgh Press, 2025) outlines the need to embed…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Fenwick McKelvey, "SimPolitics: America’s Quest to Solve Politics with Computers" (MIT Press, 2026)

This book is available open access.

For more than six decades, the public has been promised that computers will revolutionize politics, both natio…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Paul Stangl, "San Francisco Seafood: A History from Ocean to Table" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

For early San Franciscans, seafood was an important source of nutrition and a feature of social life, inspiring culinary developments that remain c…

1 month, 3 weeks ago