New Books in American Studies

New Books Network
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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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

  1. 6h ago

    Chunmei Du, "Everyday Occupation: American Soldiers and Chinese Civilians in the Aftermath of World War II" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Chunmei Du is an Associate Professor of History at Lingnan University. Her work focuses on the social and cultural history of modern China, specifically looking at cross-cultural encounters and the lived experiences of ordinary individuals during periods of profound political transition. In this New Books Network episode, we chat with Du about her latest book, Everyday Occupation: American Soldiers and Chinese Civilians in the Aftermath of World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2025). While many Anglophone histories about the “loss of China” focus on high-level diplomacy and grand strategy, Everyday Occupation zooms in the street-level micropolitics of a brief period between 1945–1949 when American troops were stationed in post-WWII China. The book explores the daily friction between American soldiers and Chinese civilians—from traffic accidents involving jeeps to the sensory shocks from urban odors—and their impact on Chinese sentiments towards the US. Du reveals how these everyday encounters helped pave the way for the communist takeover of China, and continue to cast a shadow over modern US-China relations. Anthony Kao is a writer who intersects international affairs and cultural criticism. He founded/edits Cinema Escapist—a publication exploring the sociopolitical context behind global film and television—and also writes for outlets like The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, and Eater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

    55 min

  2. 6h ago

    Timothy Mason Roberts, "After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires" (Cornell UP, 2025)

    After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Timothy Mason Roberts explores the connection between the United States and North Africa between the Barbary Wars of the early nineteenth century and the era of European decolonization after World War II. Dr. Roberts offers a new approach to the study of empires, highlighting the significance of Algeria in French-American relations from France's first occupation of the country through the first years of independence of the Republic of Algeria. As Dr. Roberts demonstrates, imperial authorities in Washington, DC; Paris; and Algiers rarely collaborated intentionally in institutional partnerships or alliances. Rather, American, French, and Algerian politicians, soldiers, writers, and revolutionaries—often acting at cross purposes and across political and cultural boundaries—sought power by imagining and constructing Algeria as a fissured, dynamic, transimperial space. Focusing on issues of settler colonialism, irregular warfare, racialized citizenship, territorial incorporation, and pan-African identity, After Barbary shows how French Algeria helped make the American and French empires. 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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

    45 min

  3. 1d ago

    Paige Towers, "What They Stole: A Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption" (U Iowa Press, 2026)

    In 1955, following the devastation of the Korean War, Bertha and Harry Holt made headlines for adopting eight Korean children. Driven by evangelical convictions and emboldened by a special act of Congress, the couple founded the Holt Adoption Program, which would facilitate the migration of tens of thousands of Korean children to the United States over the following decades. The Sueppels were among the families profoundly shaped by the legacy of the Holt Adoption Program. To their suburban Iowa City community, Steven and Sheryl Sueppel were kind and charitable, humble yet magnetic—seemingly ideal candidates to adopt. But in 2008, when Steven found himself facing federal embezzlement and money laundering charges, he murdered Sheryl and their adopted children before ending his own life. In What They Stole: A Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption (University of Iowa Press, 2026), Paige Towers traces the interwoven histories of the Holts and the Sueppels, exploring the deeper, often hidden complexities of intercountry adoption: the ethical gray zones, the influences of religion and race, and the global inequalities that made such large-scale child migration possible. Meticulously researched and sensitive with its storytelling, What They Stole examines how good intentions can coexist with systemic harm—and how the consequences of systems like the Holts’ can reverberate across generations. 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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

    1h 1m

  4. 1d ago

    The Instigators

    Black women have always been the most relentless instigators for change—building a democracy for all. In The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy (And What We Can Learn from Them (Harper, 2026), Atima Omara draws on her political knowledge and expertise, as well as history, to examine how they have responded to failed strategic decisions by movement leaders and the modern Democratic Party in previous elections as a context for the present. She also provides actionable recommendations to organizers, donors, candidates, strategists, political party leaders, that everyday people can use in their communities to build an inclusive democracy that endures beyond one election cycle. The Instigators is at once an urgent political guide, historical exploration, and a poignant memoir that pulls from Omara’s two decades of work in Democratic politics and the progressive movement as an elected Democratic Party leader, movement organizer, former candidate, gubernatorial aide, campaign staff to candidates at the national, state, and local level; and now political strategist. Powerful, insightful, and practical, it is imperative reading for everyone eager to protect and rebuild our democracy and create a better tomorrow for all. Our guest is: Atima Omara, who works and leads at the intersection of electoral politics and issue advocacy in the progressive movement. She is a political strategist, advocate, trainer, leader, and speaker with significant political, government, and non-profit experience, and she is a sought-after commentator and strategist. She is the author of The Instigators. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance Reproductive Justice: An Essential Guide The End of White Politics The Vice-Presidents Black Wife Never Caught Leading From The Margins Remembering Lucille Black Woman On Board How Girls Achieve Stuck: How Money, Media and Violence Prevent Change in Congress Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! 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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

    56 min

  5. 2d ago

    Andrea Zarafshon Moore, "Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory" (Fordham UP, 2025)

    It is a compulsion of the human race to find a way to memorialize those we have lost and why we have lost them, from a gravestone of a loved one to war monuments that honor thousands who died in battle. In Audible Loss: New Music and the Crisis of Memory (Fordham UP, 2025), Andrea Zarafshon Moore examines how contemporary music has been used to memorialize three recent crises in the United States: the AIDS crisis, 9-11, and ongoing anti-Black violence. Moore reads these crises and the music that memorializes them to reveal the ways the are methodologically and ideologically similar to and different from each other. She explores the broader debates and discourses through which commemoration is always filtered and the ways interpretive consensus has been constructed and articulated in both musical and other memorial forms. Moore weaves close musical analysis with a wide-ranging discussion of how Americans memorialize, who Americans memorialize, and what memorials are meant to accomplish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

    1h 10m

  6. 2d ago

    Christopher S. Celenza, "The Evolution of Western Thought: Volume 1, From the Ancient World to Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    A rich and immersive reinterpretation of the history of Western thought, The Evolution of Western Thought: Volume 1, From the Ancient World to Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) – the first in a major trilogy – explores the transmission and development of philosophical ideas from Plato and Aristotle to Jesus, Paul, Augustine and Gregory the Great. Christopher Celenza recalibrates philosophy's story not as abstract argumentation but rather as lived practice: one aimed at excavating wisdom and shaping life. Emphasizing the importance of textual tradition and elucidation across diverse contexts, the author shows how philosophical and religious ideas were transformed and readjusted over time. By focusing on the centrality of Christianity to Western thought, he reveals how ancient ideas were alchemized within religious frameworks, and how – across the centuries – ethical and intellectual traditions intersected to shape culture, memory, and the pursuit of sagacity. Ever attentive to ongoing conversations between past and present, this expansive intellectual history brings perspectives to the subject that are both nuanced and fresh. Christopher S. Celenza is an American scholar of Renaissance history and the current James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, where he is also a professor of history and classics 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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

    1h 10m

  7. 3d ago

    Jason S. Spicer, "Co-Operative Enterprise in Comparative Perspective: Exceptionally Un-American?" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Co-operative enterprises, which are democratically owned and governed by their workers, customers, or suppliers, have long captured the imagination of activists and social scientists alike. In centering economic democracy and a collectivist-democratic logic, and in embodying a "third way" alternative to profit-maximizing corporations and state-owned enterprises, co-operatives offer the promise of a more sustainable and equitable economy. Despite extensive study of co-operatives' real and imagined benefits, we know little about the conditions under which they achieve the lasting scale needed to be a viable alternative and transform the economy. Under what conditions can co-operatives achieve such scale? And are such conditions present in the United States, where, despite repeated organizing efforts, co-operatives remain exceptionally rare at scale? Through a rigorous comparative-historical analysis of co-operative enterprises in different national contexts, Co-operative Enterprise in Comparative Perspective: Exceptionally Un-American? (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Jason Spicer seeks to answer these questions. Deploying two different variants of the new institutionalism, Dr. Spicer treats the United States as a central case of comparative failure, as contrasted to three rich democracies where the co-operative business model has been more successful: Finland, France, and New Zealand. The cause of co-operatives' comparative weakness in the United States is identified as reflecting the joint effect of economic liberalism and structural racism. Only in the United States did the co-operative face, in its initial development, two well-entrenched incumbents operating with competing ownership models: the investor-owned firm and the race-based chattel slavery system of ownership of people. Proponents of these two models acted to deprive the co-operative movement of resources, and undermined the solidarity at the co-operative business model's heart, splintering the American co-operative movement in the process. In subsequent waves of co-operative organizing, advocates have never fully succeeded in overcoming these initial obstacles, resulting in a different outcome in the United States, consistent with broader conceptions of the United States as a perennial outlier (i.e., ""American exceptionalism""). In contrast, in the successful cases, advocates were better able to leverage resources to animate a national solidarity and procure the necessary political and economic resources to achieve scale. 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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

    38 min

  8. 3d ago

    Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America

    In the decades directly following the Holocaust, American Jewish leaders debated how to preserve and produce Jewish culture, fearful that growing affluence and suburbanization threatened the future of Jewish life. Many communal educators and rabbis pinned their hopes on residential summer camps for Jewish youth: institutions that sprang up across the U.S. as places for children and teenagers to socialize, recreate, and experience Jewish culture. Camp life was shaped both by adults’ fears, hopes, and dreams about the Jewish future as well as children and teenagers’ own desires and interests. Focusing on the lived experience of campers and camp counselors, Sandra Fox’s new book, The Jews of Summer: Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America, explores how a cultural crisis birthed a rite of passage that remains a significant influence in American Jewish life. Join YIVO for a discussion with Fox about this new book led by Philissa Cramer (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). This book talk originally took place on February 27, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

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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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

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