New Books in American Politics

New Books Network
  • 5.0 (2)
  • POLITICS

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

  1. 22H AGO

    Are We Entering An Arms Race in Outer Space?

    This week on International Horizons, RBI interim director Eli Karetny interviewed Mallory Stewart, Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Strategic Risks. Stewart discusses the evolving role of the US Space Force and the shift in its doctrine toward achieving "space superiority" and orbital control. The blurry lines between the militarization and weaponization of space were widely noted, especially given the challenges of operating in a grueling and opaque environment. Stewart also commented on the limitations of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty in regulating modern technology, noting the US's preference for establishing norms of responsible behavior rather than entering new, unverifiable treaties. Finally, Stewart recognized the importance of public-private partnerships in building resilience, but also acknowledged the urgent need for international risk reduction measures to prevent a destabilizing space arms race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    53 min

  2. 22H AGO

    Julia Bowes, "Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism" (Princeton UP, 2026)

    “Parental rights” is a rallying cry for today’s American conservatives, signaling opposition to mandatory vaccination and “woke” public school curricula. In Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism (Princeton UP, 2026), Dr. Julia Bowes traces the origins of the modern parental rights movement to the nineteenth century, when the introduction of compulsory schooling laws, child labor regulations, and vaccine requirements provoked a resistance rooted in the presumed right of white men to govern their homes. A wide-ranging coalition—including Irish Catholic immigrants in Illinois, Mormon enclaves in Utah, and Protestant clergy in Virginia—believed that the state had usurped the “natural rights” of parents and “invaded the home.”Dr. Bowes shows how, by the turn of the century, those disparate voices had coalesced into national conservative movements. Anti-vaccinationists, alternative medical practitioners, and parents who opposed compulsory school medical exams joined forces to form the National League for Medical Freedom. Deciding a case brought by conservative Catholic lawyers, the Supreme Court declared parental rights a “fundamental liberty” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. And the Sentinels of the Republic, a conservative citizen’s lobby, mobilized a campaign to defeat the proposed federal Child Labor Amendment, bringing together pro-family and free-market politics with far-reaching consequences.Exploring the emergence of parental rights as an antistatist ideology through legal cases, legislative debates, and political movements, Dr. Bowes argues that the expansion of state power over children provoked such fierce opposition because the paternal rights of white men—considered the “rights-bearing” individuals of American democracy—were widely viewed as the mark and measure of their independence. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    39 min

  3. 1D AGO

    Fighting for a Foothold: How Government and Markets Undermine Black Middle-Class Suburbia

    Prince George’s County, Maryland, is a suburban jurisdiction in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and is home to the highest concentration of Black middle-class residents in the United States. As such, it is well positioned to overcome white domination and anti-Black racism and their social and economic consequences. Yet Prince George’s does not raise tax revenue sufficient to provide consistent high-quality public goods and services. In Fighting for a Foothold: How Government and Markets Undermine Black Middle-Class Suburbia (Russell Sage Foundation, 2026) sociologist Angela Simms examines the factors contributing to Prince George’s financial troubles. Dr. Simms draws on two years of observations of Prince George’s County’s budget and policy development processes, interviews with nearly 60 Prince George’s leaders and residents, and budget and policy analysis for Prince George’s County and its two Whiter, wealthier neighbors, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia. She argues legacy and ongoing government policies and business practices—such as federal mortgage insurance policy prior to 1968, local government reliance on property taxes, and private investment patterns—have resulted in disparities in wealth accumulation between Black and white Americans, not only for individuals and families but local jurisdictions as well. Fighting for a Foothold is an in-depth analysis of the fiscal challenges experienced by Prince George’s County and by the suburban Black middle-class and majority-Black jurisdictions, more broadly. The book reveals how race, class, and local jurisdiction boundaries in metropolitan areas interact to create different material living conditions for Americans. Our guest is: Dr. Angela Simms, who is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of Fighting for a Foothold. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics. She is the creator and producer of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: House of Diggs The Social Constructions of Race The Fight To Save The Town Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress Of Bears and Ballots Remembering Lucille The Names of All the Flowers What Might Be The End of White Politics Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading or sharing episodes. Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 9m

  4. 3D AGO

    Lerone Martin, "Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr." (Amistad, 2026)

    We know who Martin Luther King Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and activism? Before Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights leader, a Nobel Laureate, and a global hero, he was an emotional boy, a middling high school student devoted to fashion, dancing, and dating. Lerone A. Martin, Faculty Director of the Martin Luther King Institute at Stanford University, traces these roots to develop a fuller understanding of the influential preacher’s emotional life, his youthful confusion about his future and career direction, his teenage missteps, and his inspiration to fight for justice. Revelatory, humanizing, and compassionate, Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr. (Amistad, 2026) unearths MLK’s days as “Little Mike,” the ever-eager middle child and a precocious prankster; his early experiences of segregation and the summers he spent on a Connecticut tobacco farm, his first trip outside the Jim Crow South; his transformative time at Morehouse, playing basketball, hosting parties, studying sociology, and joining the Ministers’ Union; and his winding path to seminary, his spiritual devotion, and his relationship with Coretta, his wife-to-be. As America undergoes another era of turmoil and change, this powerful biography—and this discussion—provides a vital roadmap for how greatness comes to light, and how history shapes a leader. You can find Lerone Martin, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. 3D AGO

    What Does the American Presidency Mean?

    Coming in the thick of the second Trump term, What Does the American Presidency Mean? The Need for Interpretation in Presidency Studies is a timely and provocative new title for the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. In it, Richard Holtzman sets an agenda for interpretivist presidency research. Using Tulis’s The Rhetorical Presidency as a bridge between presidency studies and interpretive political science, the book succinctly outlines how by interpreting presidential words and symbols our understanding of the presidency is enriched, and causal-inferential studies of presidential behaviour, complemented. Though the book directly addresses researchers of the American presidency, as we discuss in this episode of New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science, it holds lessons for researchers of executive power everywhere.  Presidency studies your thing? Other episodes on the New Books Network that might interest you include Coe and Scacco on The Ubiquitous Presidency, and Hennessey and Wittes talking about their Unmaking the Presidency. Looking for something to read? To start the day Rich suggests Thich Nhat Han’s Peace is Every Step, and perhaps to conclude it, Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut.  This interview summary was not synthesised by a machine. Unlike the makers and owners of those machines, the author accepts responsibility for its contents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    52 min

  6. 5D AGO

    Alice Echols, "Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic" (Oxford UP, 2026)

    A rich history of cross-racial coalitions and alliances of the Sixties' freedom movement, acclaimed historian Alice Echols's Black Power, White Heat reshapes our understanding of the entire era. One of the most divisive issues in recent progressive politics has been what role, if any, allies might legitimately play in other people's movements. Despite the significance of this debate, it has taken place in a historical vacuum.In Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic, (Oxford UP, 2026) the Sixties historian Alice Echols explores what happened some sixty years ago when whites and Blacks came together in the fight against racism. She tells this story by focusing on two Black-led organizations that bookend the Sixties: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party. In SNCC, whites were, in part, meant to generate a "white heat" so searing it would accelerate change. Results were mixed, and white activists formed new movements, from women's liberation to draft resistance.By 1967, the Black Panther Party was advancing its own unique brand of "revolutionary nationalism," and seeking out white supporters. Partnering with whites brought the group visibility and resources, but it also put the Panthers at odds with other Black radicals, with unfortunate consequences.Black Power, White Heat explains how solidarity lost credibility, and not just from within the movement. Here, the FBI played a key role, and so did the discourse of "radical chic," advanced most effectively by the journalist Tom Wolfe. Still, even as Black-white solidarity lost steam, it was not entirely played out. In some of the era's most important political trials, even courtrooms became sites of solidarity as predominantly white juries returned verdicts that suggested they trusted Black Panther defendants more than the District Attorneys prosecuting them. Clear-eyed about the difficulties of solidarity, Black Power, White Heat nonetheless emphasizes the achievements and considerable promise of uniting across difference, and in ways that will inform and deepen current debates roiling progressive politics. Alice Echols is Professor of History at the University of Southern California. She is the author of numerous books, including Daring to Be Bad, Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin, Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 13m

  7. 5D AGO

    Daniel Gross, "Unions of Our Own: Eight Building Blocks to Change Work and the World" (Haymarket, 2026)

    My guest today, Daniel Gross, comes to NBN to discuss his new book Unions of Our Own: Eight Building Blocks to Change Work and the World (Haymarket, 2026). Written with workers in mind, it’s an accessible and very practical guide to organizing one’s workplace, bringing Gross’ multiple decades as a union organizer and labor lawyer to readers who might know what they need, but don’t know where to start or how to get there. Gross breaks the massive task of organizing ones workplace into easy steps that also leave a lot of room for individuals to flexibly apply to their own particular situations, giving them some basic scaffolding on which to operate. It also comes with sample forms one can use at various stages of the process, giving readers a clear sense of how to organize and break everything down into clearly compartmentalized and more manageable tasks. Readers can also go online to Unions of Our Own to get printable versions of these forms as an accessible way to start their journey. Daniel Gross is a longtime labor organizer and labor lawyer. He is the coauthor of Labor Law for the Rank & Filer: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law, and currently works with the Solidarity Union Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 38m

  8. 6D AGO

    Scott Kurashige, "American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism" (U California Press, 2026)

    This probing account shines a new light on the problem of anti-Asian violence and inspires us to build lasting solidarity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, racist demagoguery fomented a campaign of terror against Asian Americans. But these attacks were part of a much longer pattern that made anti-Asian racism integral to the outbreak of white supremacist, misogynist, and colonial violence across 175 years of U.S. history. Written in the radical spirit of Howard Zinn, American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism (U California Press, 2026) represents the culmination of thirty-five years of study and activism by award-winning scholar Scott Kurashige. From the lynching of Asian immigrants during the exclusion era to the ongoing slaughter of Asian civilians by the U.S. military, the book connects domestic and global events that have been erased from the official record. Going beyond victimhood, Kurashige traces the rise of Asian American community protest and activism in response to the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin and other overlooked tragedies. While many have worked to legislate and prosecute hate crimes, Kurashige argues that hope lies in grassroots activism for multiracial solidarity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    47 min
See All (1.7K)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

Information

You Might Also Like