Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast

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Interviews with Cambridge UP authors about their new books

  1. 18 ABR

    Jane Vaynman, "Enemies in Agreement: Political Volatility and the Design of Arms Control" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

    Why do adversaries sometimes cooperate to restrain their military competition? Why do they design arms control agreements with intrusive verification in some cases but rely on minimal transparency in others? Amidst ongoing international competition, arms control remains rare despite potential mutual benefits, and agreements vary dramatically in their approaches to monitoring. Enemies in Agreement: Political Volatility and the Design of Arms Control (Cambridge UP, 2026) reveals how uncertainty from domestic political changes, such as leadership transitions or social unrest, can enable arms control. The book identifies two paths to agreement: during periods of uncertainty, states that previously relied on informal understandings hedge by establishing lightly monitored agreements, while those that anticipated deception take calculated risks through agreements with intensive verification. Through comprehensive data analysis and rich case studies, Jane Vaynman challenges conventional wisdom about uncertainty in international relations while offering policymakers insights. As states confront challenges from nuclear competition to emerging technologies, understanding when arms control becomes viable is more vital than ever.Our guest is Professor Jane Vaynman, an Assistant Professor of Strategic Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).

    39 min

  2. 17 ABR

    Penny Roberts, "Huguenot Networks: Truth and Secrecy in Sixteenth-Century Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Huguenot Networks: Truth and Secrecy in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge UP, 2025), Penny Robert's latest book, takes us into the world of secret intelligence gathering during the French Wars of Religion. Robert's discovery of the interrogation record of a Huguenot merchant, Jean Tivinat, arrested in May 1570 for attempting to secretly carry letters to England, unspools into a broader story about the intersections between confessional affiliations, international affairs, knowledge, trust, and networking in a tumultuous time. As she argues, clandestine communication was crucial to maintaining ties amongst a widely dispersed and threatened religious community. Huguenot Networks is a lively read and sure to appeal to anyone interested in the history of espionage, Huguenots, international affairs in Elizabethan England, or the French Wars of Religion. Elspeth Currie is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at Boston College where she studies women’s intellectual history in early modern Europe.

    53 min

  3. 12 ABR

    Christian Henderson, "Monarchies of Extraction: The Gulf States in the Global Food System" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

    In a region known for its export of oil, Monarchies of Extraction: The Gulf States in the Global Food System (Cambridge UP, 2026) explores how the Gulf states are simultaneously defined by the importation of food. Charting the economics and politics of the Gulf through an examination of its food system, Christian Henderson demonstrates how these states constitute a distinct social metabolism within the global food system. Starting with the pre-oil phase, this book examines the politics of agrarian change in the Gulf. In the contemporary period, Henderson considers the way that the Gulf states have evolved into 'inverted farms', where the import of prodigious quantities of agricultural commodities has enabled these economies to overcome their lack of arable land. As a result of this trade, states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have developed their own agribusiness sectors. Henderson further shows how food and consumption in the Gulf states constitute political questions of diet, sustainability, and boycott. Christian Henderson is a lecturer at the University of Leiden. His research focuses on the Arab region, with a particular focus on Gulf investment in the states of North Africa and the Levant, rural development and business politics. Alongside his academic work, he has worked as a journalist in Lebanon and with Al Jazeera in Qatar. Alec Fiorini is a PhD student at Queen Mary University London's Centre for Labour, Sustainability and Global Production (CLaSP) researching the political economy of nitrogen fertilizer supply chains.

    1 h 3 min

  4. 4 ABR

    Christine Grandy, "Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth-Century Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

    What is the role of television in the history of the UK? In Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth-Century Britain (Cambridge UP, 2026) Christine Grandy, an Associate Professor in History at the University of Lincoln, explores how producers, audiences, and television programmes themselves addressed race and racism in the Twentieth-Century. Drawing on a huge range of archival material, the book demonstrates the explicit racism associated with white audiences and TV programming, along with the critical resistance offered by audiences of colour. Thinking through how this history of audience and TV production racism has been forgotten, the analysis is a vital contribution to our own contemporary discussions about race and media, in the UK and beyond. The book is essential reading for arts, humanities and social science scholars, along with anyone interested in the past and future of television.

    52 min

  5. 30 MAR

    Derek Krueger "Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and the Love of God in Medieval Constantinople" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

    Derek Krueger Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge UP, 2026) The Byzantine Abbot Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) transgressed the homophobic norms of medieval Orthodox society. His longing for God was distinctly homoerotic, and he depicted union with the divine as a queer sort of marriage. His Orthodox theology of theosis, the deification of the entire person, meant that Symeon taught the salvation of all the parts of the body. But monks also desired the eradication of lust and the punishment of those who fell prey to it. Sermons and biblical commentary defined men who had sex with men as sodomites; and saints' lives warned of the consequences of same-sex desires. Those who renounced sex redirected their desire rather than eliminating it. Symeon's queer erotics shed light on other devotions distinctive to medieval Orthodoxy, including the veneration of saints and worship with icons. Monastic Desires makes a groundbreaking contribution to the history of sexuality and the history of Christianity. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Derek Krueger is emeritus professor of religious studies at UNC Greensboro, the author of multiple books including Liturgical Subjects: Biblical Narratives and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium, the editor of far more, and former editor of the book series Divinations: Rereading Late Antiquity. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

    1 h 29 min

  6. 25 MAR

    Satya Shikha Chakraborty, "Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India (Cambridge UP, 2025) offers a compelling cultural and social history of ayahs (nannies/maids), by exploring domestic intimacy and exploitation in colonial South Asia. Working for British imperial families from the mid-1700s to the mid-1900s, South Asian ayahs, as Chakraborty shows, not only provided domestic labor, but also provided important moral labor for the British Empire. The desexualized racialized ayah archetype upheld British imperial whiteness and sexual purity, and later Indian elite 'upper' caste domestic modernity. Chakraborty argues that the pervasive cultural sentimentalization of the ayah morally legitimized British colonialism, while obscuring the vulnerabilities of caregivers in real-life. Using an archive of petitions and letters from ayahs, fairytales they told to British children, court cases, and vernacular sources, Chakraborty foregrounds the precarious lives, voices, and perspectives of these women. By placing care labor at the center of colonial history, the book decolonizes the history of South Asia and the British Empire.Satya Shikha Chakraborty is an Associate Professor of History at The College of New Jersey.Saumya Dadoo is a PhD Candidate at MESAAS, Columbia University

    1 h 4 min

  7. 24 MAR

    Alan McDougall, "Dreams and Songs to Sing: A People's History of Liverpool FC from Shankly to Klopp" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Today we are joined by Alan McDougall, Professor of History at the University of Guelph, and the author of Dreams and Songs To Sing: A People’s History of Liverpool F.C. From Shankly to Klopp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025). In our conversation, we discussed the rise of Liverpool as a global football club, the crises that beset the club during the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters, and the necessity of inherent optimism of fandom in contemporary sports. In Dreams and Songs to Sing, McDougall writes the history of Liverpool FC from Shankly to Klopp in a register that will appeal to both popular and scholarly readers. McDougall is a lifelong Liverpool supporter, and he is careful to point out where his connections to the club and its fandom might shade his examination, but he also shows how those same affective connections allow him to a unique entry point into issues only visible to fans and that supports can be even more critical than a detached observer. This is especially true in his investigation of Heysel and Hillsborough. The book proceeds roughly chronologically. The book’s early chapters examine the club’s connection to Liverpool’s working-class district 4 and to their Anfield home ground. He pays special attention to the supporter’s end - the notorious Kop. Using oral history interviews, McDougall illustrates the exceptional pull of the stadium to both local and global fans. The heart of the book is its engaging, thick description of the club’s history during the Shankly era. McDougall shows that not only was Shankly a very successful manager, and quite funny, but that he ran the club with a sense of Liverpool’s local identity. A man who arrived at the right time – he benefitted from Liverpool’s growing global reputation; Beatlemania gave the city a sound but players and fans rubbed shoulders with comics, musicians, and poets. Shankly embodied the very local socialist, working-class attitudes of the majority of club supporters. His retirement shook the whole city. McDougall uses a family repository of letters to show how people from around the city, the country, and the world wrote to him to express sadness at him leaving and to wish him luck. McDougall’s account might be from an insider, but his analysis does not shy away from shining a light on the difficult social politics that accompanied the club’s enormous success on the field. European Cup victories sit alongside the deadly hooligan violence at Heysel. Black players like Howard Gayle and John Barnes face racism from the club’s supporters. The club first ignores and then undervalues the rise of women’s football. McDougall’s history ends in the Klopp era – perhaps a mercy to Liverpool fans! He shows how the contemporary club embodies the idea of a global club with a local heart. The international ownership of the club has successfully navigated the rise of the Premier League and the increasing commercialization of European football, but local supporters have been innovative at creating a culture of resistance to changes that could undermine the glocal identity of Liverpool. Klopp symbolized this new football club: cosmopolitan, emotional, forward, successful. Compelling and hard to put down, McDougall’s Dreams and Songs to Sing will appeal to all readers of sports history. It will be of particular interest to Liverpool supporters and football fanatics.

    1 h 6 min

  8. 24 MAR

    Nana Osei-Opare, "Socialist De-Colony: Black and Soviet Entanglements in Ghana's Cold War" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Led by the charismatic Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana won its political independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. It precipitated both the dying spiral of colonialism across the African continent and the world's first Black socialist state. Utilising materials from Ghanaian, Russian, English, and American archives, Nana Osei-Opare offers a provocative and new reading of this defining moment in world history through the eyes of workers, writers, students, technical-experts, ministers, and diplomats. Osei-Opare shows how race and Ghana-Soviet spaces influenced, enabled, and disrupted Ghana's transformational socialist, Cold War, and decolonization projects to achieve Black freedom. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core. Elisa Prosperetti is an Assistant Professor of African and global history at NIE/NTU in Singapore.

    48 min
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Interviews with Cambridge UP authors about their new books

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  • Creador
    New Books Network
  • Años de actividad
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodios
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    Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast

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