New Books In Public Health

In American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon (U Georgia Press, 2026), Dr. Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon overcome centuries of religious prohibition, cultural contempt, and dietary advice to become a twenty-first-century culinary and cultural powerhouse? Starting in early modern Britain and tracing the story of bacon through the colonial era, the Civil War, the Progressive Era, modern fad diets, and the emerging craft bacon industry, Johnson provides a new perspective on some familiar American narratives. More than a story of production, marketing, and consumption, Johnson argues, this cultural history connects bacon to race, class, and gender while also illuminating major historical forces, such as migration, warfare, urbanization and suburbanization, reform movements, cultural trends, and globalization. For Dr. Johnson, bacon's story from “most dangerous food in the supermarket” to pop culture and gastronomic phenomenon reflects the cultural values of a nation. 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

Using the analytical framework of reproductive justice, Borders, Citizenship, and Pregnancy: Migrant Women's Experiences of Pregnancy and Maternity Care in the UK (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Gwyneth Lonergan examines migrant women's experiences of pregnancy and maternity care within the broader context of gendered and racialised discourses and policies around health, reproduction and citizenship, austerity and an expanding border regime. Based on interviews and focus groups with migrant mothers, third sector workers and NHS staff, this open-access book explores how immigration policies impact reproductive practices and unevenly distribute access to essential resources and support. The book provides valuable insights into the underlying social causes behind migrant women's relatively poor maternal outcomes and contributes significantly to scholarship on the intersections of citizenship, reproduction and expanding border controls. 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

Europe's Laboratory: Climate and Health in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cornell UP, 2025) is a history of eighteenth-century naturalists and physicians who were involved in the creation of a classification system for the people of the Russian Empire. These Enlightened scholars traveled through Russia describing its people, landscape, and customs. In an era when climate was seen as a significant factor affecting health and bodies, these men wondered: How did the Russians, a "cold" people—phlegmatic or melancholic, according to humoral theory—manage an empire? The experiences and observations of doctors and scholars working within the Russian Empire contributed to advances in understanding and/or treating diseases like scurvy, smallpox, and more. Key insights were embedded in the travel writings and correspondences of colorful eighteenth-century figures who Romaniello brings to life with vibrant biographies. Medical knowledge was entangled with stories of culture and imperial politics as well. In Europe's Laboratory, Romaniello's deft contextualization helps make sense of these intextricable branches of eighteenth-century taxonomies as he demonstrates that the Russian Empire was a part of global knowledge networks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Religion, Spirituality and Public Health: Competing and Complementary Epistemes (British Academy, 2025) focuses on exploring the role of different 'ways of knowing' or arriving at truth, i.e. epistemes, particularly those found in religious and alternative health milieus. While biomedical solutions offer a dominant narrative, these are articulated differently in global contexts. Moreover, individuals often draw upon alternative framings that are sometimes oppositional to and at other times engaged with directives from medical and governmental authorities. The focus of this volume is worldviews and epistemes that are often marginalised or rejected in dominant discourses -- from shamanism in Korea to African Pentecostalism in Britain, and from global online 'AntiVax' narratives to traditional Siddha medicine in South India. Detailed case studies explore the contested, competing and strategically aligned relationships between mainstream and marginal epistemes; between religious healing, spirituality and biomedicine; and between politics and belief. These explorations promote greater insight into how marginalised religious epistemes are employed. Which beliefs and practices are drawn upon to create meaningful and effective responses? And how can we better understand the depth and breadth of these reactions to design more successful public health strategies for future global health crises? Links Inform: here  Book: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each year, police officers kill over 1,000 people they've sworn to protect and serve. While some cases, like George Floyd's and Sandra Bland's, capture national attention, most victims remain nameless, their stories untold. The Coroner's Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence (Beacon Press, 2025) reveals a disturbing truth about these cases: coroners and other death investigators are often complicit in obscuring the violent circumstances of in-custody deaths. Through rigorous research—including critical records analysis, public health studies, and interviews with victims' families—this book unmasks the systemic failures within forensic medicine. Dr. Terence Keel shows how incomplete autopsy reports, mishandled medical documents, and strategically lost evidence effectively shield law enforcement from accountability.The Coroner's Silence uncovers how the current system of death investigation operates as a mechanism of institutional safeguarding. By highlighting the structural powerlessness of coroners and their disconnection from the communities most affected by police violence, Dr. Keel demonstrates how bureaucratic processes can render human suffering invisible. True accountability requires more than procedural reform. It demands a fundamental reimagining of how we investigate, document, and understand deaths at the hands of state institutions. The Coroner's Silence is a crucial intervention that challenges us to confront the deeply ingrained mechanisms that perpetuate systemic violence. Our guest is: Dr. Terence Keel, who is an award-winning scholar, the founding director of the BioCritical Studies Lab, and a professor of human biology, society, and African-American studies at UCLA. He received fellowships from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, and is the author of Divine Variations, and The Coroner's Silence. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: The Criminal Record Complex Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine Carceral Apartheid Stitching Freedom Secrets of the Killing State Freemans Challenge Hands Up Don't Shoot What Might Be The Journal of Higher Education in Prison Education Behind The Wall 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

For this episode, we are joined by Dr Shingisai Chando, a published academic and Research Fellow of the POCHE Indigenous Health Centre at the University of Sydney to unpack the question: what does it mean for healthcare systems to be culturally safe? A big question, but one Shingisai tackles with detail and depth. Dr Chando talks to us about how cultural competence changes in different health contexts and across different communities but emphasises the underlying issues of racism in the workplace, as well as the importance of trust, belonging, and true community engagement to build trust. Produced by: Adubi Plange, Dr Amy McHugh, Sarah Mashman Podcast Artwork: Zein Arif Resources: Below are some of Shingisai's academic works related to this episode of the Cultural Competence Collective: Article: Chando, S., Howell, M., Dickson, M., Jaure, A., Craig, J., Eades, S., Howard, K. (2024). Factors informing funding of health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children: perspectives of decision-makers. Australian Journal of Primary Health, 30(5), PY24054 Article: Chando, S., Dickson, M., Howell, M., Jaure, A., Craig, J., Slater, K., Smith, N., Nixon, J., Eades, S., Howard, K. (2022). Delivering health programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children: Carer and staff views on what's important. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 33(S1), 222-234. Article: Chando, S., Howell, M., Young, C., Craig, J., Eades, S., Dickson, M., Howard, K. (2021). Outcomes reported in evaluations of programs designed to improve health in Indigenous people. Health Services Research, 56(6), 1114-1125 Mental Health Support Services: For University of Sydney staff: CONVERGE Converge offers multiple dedicated helplines for specialist services: All staff: 1300 687 327 First Nations helpline: 1300 287 432 LGBTQIA+ Helpline: 1300 542 874 Domestic and Family Violence Helpline: 1300 338 465 Aged Care Helpline: 1300 035 337 Disability and Carers Helpline: 1300 243 543 Youth and Student Helpline: 1300 687 399 Spiritual and Pastoral Care Helpline: 1300 772 435 www.convergeinternational.com.au Wellmob – social, emotional and cultural wellbeing resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people https://wellmob.org.au/ 24-hour crisis hotlines 13 Yarn Beyond Blue LifeLine: NSW Mental Health Line Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between May 1 and May 22, 1863, Union soldiers marched nearly 200 miles through the hot, humid countryside to assault and capture the fortified city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Upon its arrival, the army laid siege to the city for a grueling forty-seven days. Disease and combat casualties threatened to undermine the army's fighting strength, leaving medical officers to grapple with the battlefield conditions necessary to sustain soldiers' bodies. Medical innovations were vital to the Union victory. When Vicksburg fell on July 4, triumph would have been fleeting if not for the US Army Medical Department and its personnel.By centering soldiers' health and medical care in the Union army's fight to take Vicksburg, in The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War (UNC Press, 2025), Dr. Lindsay Rae Smith Privette offers a fresh perspective on the environmental threats, logistical challenges, and interpersonal conflicts that shaped the campaign and siege. In doing so, Privette shines new light on the development of the army's medical systems as officers learned to adapt to their circumstances and prove themselves responsible stewards of soldiers' bodies. 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

We often think of medieval medicine as strange, unhygienic and unscientific, but The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Katherine Harvey reveals a far richer story. Long before modern wellness trends, people in the Middle Ages were actively thinking about how to live well. They followed detailed health regimens, balanced diet with exercise, considered the effects of emotions and sought to avoid illness through environmental awareness and routine care. This book sheds light on the practical and surprisingly relatable ways medieval individuals cared for body and mind. Drawing from historical sources that echo today's wellness concerns, it offers a fresh, thoughtful view of a misunderstood era. In understanding their world, we might see our own in a new, more connected light. 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

In an era dominated by visual information, what can the sounds of a pandemic reveal about crisis and care? How might attuning to sonic atmospheres uncover new dimensions to states of emergency and their implications for collective life? In Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi (U California Press, 2025), Christina Schwenkel examines the use of sound in COVID-19 response efforts in urban Vietnam. Based on “soundwork” conducted in Hanoi in 2020 during the pandemic's first year, she shows how acoustic technologies played a pivotal yet overlooked role in state efforts to achieve record-low infection rates worldwide. Across lived experiences of quarantine, lockdown, and spatial distancing, Schwenkel explores sound-based interventions to curb virus transmission, and the public's response to these auditory measures. From instant messaging alerts to public health videos and neighborhood loudspeakers, sonic governance sought to transform urban sounds and listening practices to mobilize action, drawing people into networks of care and control. As anthropology stands at a crossroads, Sonic Socialism makes the compelling case for the value of sensory autoethnography in reimagining a more careful and caring ethnographic practice in a post-pandemic world. Christina Schwenkel is Professor of Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She currently serves on the Editorial Committee of University of California Press and is Vice Chair of the AAS Publications Editorial Board. Her research examines the material legacies of infrastructural warfare in urban Vietnam and the Cold War circulations of people, objects, design technologies, and architectural practices among socialist-allied countries in its wake. She is the author of The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation (Indiana UP, 2009) and the award-winning Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam (Duke UP, 2020), which together explore the material practices through which people remember and rebuild in the aftermath of empire. Her most recent book, a sensory autoethnography entitled Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi (UC Press, 2025), extends her work on urban disaster and decay to encompass media infrastructures and the anthropology of sound. Sonic Socialism is available in open-access format via Luminos. She can be reached via her personal website: https://christinaschwenkel.com. Camellia (Linh) Pham is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Her research focuses on modern Vietnamese literature, socialist realism, and literary translation across French, Vietnamese, Chinese, and English. She can be reached at cpham@g.harvard.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Nikita Kaur Simpson examines the effects of rapid development in the Himalayas on the minds and bodies of the Gaddi people who inhabit them through attention to the multifaceted state of distress they call “tension.” This “tension” takes many forms: Kamzori, or weakness, in the bodies of elderly women; “Future tension” accumulating in the minds of young girls; or Opara, or black magic, afflicting whole families. Through her long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Dr. Simpson follows the ways in which Gaddi people tie this distress to broader structural changes, such as land dispossession and caste, class, tribal and gender inequality, which are growing alongside modernity and prosperity. In doing so, she shows how “tension” acts as an everyday diagnostic of the problems of cultural, economic and environmental change as they shape intimate life. At once a lived historical account, a cartography of care relations, and a multi-sensory exploration of the intimate experiences of atmosphere and body, Tension puts forth a novel theory of distress, that inequality is often determined by who is made to feel, hold, and absorb distress. 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

Our guest today is Steffan Blayney, the author of Health & Efficiency: Fatigue, the Science of Work, and the Making of the Working-Class Body. In Health & Efficiency, Blayney explores a new model of health that emerged in Britain between 1870 and 1939. Centered on the working body, organized around the concept of efficiency, and grounded in scientific understandings of human labor, scientists, politicians, and capitalists of the era believed that national economic productivity could be maximized by transforming the body of the worker into a machine. At the core of this approach was the conviction that worker productivity was intimately connected to worker health. Under this new "science of work," fatigue was seen as the ultimate pathology of the working-class body, reducing workers' capacity to perform continued physical or mental labor. As Steffan Blayney shows, the equation between health and efficiency did not go unchallenged. While biomedical and psychological experts sought to render the body measurable, governable, and intelligible, ordinary men and women found ways to resist the logics of productivity and efficiency imposed on them, and to articulate alternative perspectives on work, health, and the body. Steffan Blayney is a former Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, where his work focused on the relations between health, the body, and society, and on histories of political activism in modern and contemporary Britain. He has taught at Birkbeck, Kent, and Sussex, was previously a member of the editorial team at History Workshop Online, and was a co-founder and organizer of History Acts - a radical history workshop and network connecting activists and historians. He also authored the book Long Live Southbank, which celebrates the history and culture of the Undercroft area of the South Bank - the oldest recognized and still existing skateboarding space in the world - and the community that has evolved there over the years. Today, he no longer works within the walls of academia; instead, he is out in the field as a labor organizer, utilizing his talents, knowledge, and expertise in his work with EQUITY, a performing arts and entertainment trade union based in London. My co-producer today is Drew Marczewski a student in the MA Program in Communication at Oakland University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A powerful blend of deeply human stories and rigorous research, The Collective Cure: Upstream Solutions for Better Public Health (Beacon Press, 2026) reveals how social and structural factors like income, occupation, race and ethnicity, neighborhood conditions, and social connections, profoundly shape our well-being. Dr. Monica Wang, an award-winning public health researcher, educator, and working mother who came of age as an Asian American bussing student, brings a personal lens to these complex issues and shares a hopeful, action-oriented vision for building healthier communities from the ground up.Through her own personal and professional journey and the lives of 3 extraordinary women across the US, readers are invited to see how health is shaped in everyday spaces: Marielis, a first-generation Latina student navigating financial insecurity in the Bronx; Dorothy, a semi-retired Black community organizer in rural Alabama; and Rosa, an Indigenous clinical social worker preserving ancestral traditions in Texas. With clarity, urgency, and optimism, The Collective Cure bridges powerful storytelling with evidence-based solutions. More than a diagnosis, this book is a call to reimagine what's possible when we invest in people and places. Our guest is: Dr. Monica L. Wang, who is an award-winning public health researcher and educator. She is an associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, an adjunct associate professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and executive editor at Public Health Post. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and developmental editor. She produces and hosts the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Womanist Bioethics The Well-Gardened Mind Community-Building Breaking free from overworking and underliving The Burnout Workbook Reproductive Justice A Meaningful Life Being Well in Academia The Good- Enough Life Gender Bias in the E.R. 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

With fasting at an all-time high in popularity, here is an enlightening exploration into the history, science, and philosophy behind the practice—essential to many religions and wellness routines. Whether for philosophical, political, or health-related reasons, fasting marks a departure from daily routine. Based on extensive historical, scientific, and cultural research and reporting, John Oakes The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and the Promise of Doing Without (Avid Reader Press, 2024) illuminates the numerous facets of this act of self-deprivation. John interviews doctors, spiritual leaders, activists, and others who guide him through this practice—and embarks on fasts of his own—to deliver a book that supplies anyone curious about fasting with profound new understanding, appreciation, and inspiration. In recent years, fasting has become increasingly popular for a variety of reasons—from weight loss to detoxing, to the faithful who fast in prayer, to seekers pursuing mindfulness, to activists using hunger strikes as protest. Notable fasters include Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Gandhi, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Cesar Chavez, and a long list of others who have drawn on its power over the ages and across borders and cultures. The Fast looks at the complex science behind the jaw-dropping biological changes that occur inside the body when we fast. Metabolic switching can prompt repair and renewal down to the molecular level, providing benefits for those suffering from obesity and diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and more. Longer fasts can both reinvigorate the immune system and protect it against damage. Beyond the physical experience, fasting can be a great collective unifier, and it has been adopted by religions and political movements all over the world for millennia. Fasting is central to holy seasons and days such as Lent (Christianity), Ramadan (Islam), Yom Kippur (Judaism), Uposatha (Buddhism), and Ekadashi (Hinduism). On an individual level, devout ascetics who master self-deprivation to an extreme are believed to be closer to the divine, ascending to enlightenment or even sainthood. Fasting reminds us of the virtues of holding back, of not consuming all that we can. “Broad in scope and rich in insight” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), this book shows us that fasting is about much more than food: it is about taking control of your life in new and empowering ways and reconsidering your place in the world. John Oakes is the publisher of The Evergreen Review and the editor at large of OR Books. The Fast is his first book. Saman Nasser holds an M.A. in World History from James Madison University, where he currently works as an administrative staff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story (Reaktion, 2026) proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Dr. Susannah B. Mintz reframes health anxiety not as a pathology but as a site of creative potential – exploring hypochondria as a form of communication, a reorientation to time, a convergence of personal and communal identity, a declaration of bodymind needs and an embrace of ageing's transformations. Far-ranging in its attention to historical periods, national literatures, philosophical thought and medical discourse, the book challenges the containment of suffering within narratives of professional authority. In doing so, it seeks to dispel shame and stigma, opening space for new forms of connection and understanding through a deeper attentiveness to the experience of illness. 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

In Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 2026), philosopher Jacob Stegenga breaks with the most dominant epistemologies of science to argue that in judging scientific activity, we should focus on its justification, not the achievement of truth or knowledge. Yet, Stegenga argues, the aim of science goes far beyond justification and is, instead, a special kind of truth—common knowledge, a broadly shared and mutually justified scientific finding. Drawing on both historical examples and recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Stegenga outlines his approach before delving into its implications for scientific evaluation, testimony, values, progress, and credit, as well as the nature of science during times of crisis. Truth, he shows, may not be easily identified in the short term. However, an evaluation of scientific justification, grounded in shared standards, is possible. This framework helps us appraise—and appreciate—historical theories that ultimately weren't accurate and offers fresh insights about appropriate science communication and public trust in scientific research. Justification and scientific rigor are not just means to an end, Stegenga writes, but the very heart of good science.Ambitious, authoritative, and accessible, Heart of Science offers a new vision for the philosophy of science. Jacob Stegenga is professor of philosophy in the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of Medical Nihilism and Care and Cure: An Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine 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: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkArtCulture Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Killers of Roe: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights (Legacy Lit, 2026) reporter Amy Littlefield investigates the secret killers and hidden motives behind the death of abortion rights. They are going to kill people, investigative reporter for The Nation Littlefield knew, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a journalist covering abortion for more than a decade, she had already chronicled many near-death experiences caused by anti-abortion policy. After the anti-abortion movement's staggering defeat of Roe, she became fascinated with their victory and why they seemed so much better organized than the pro-choice movement. She set out to investigate the murderers of Roe. Killers of Roe chronicles Littlefield's journey into the unexplored corners of the most successful social movement of our time. As in every good murder mystery, the killers turn out to be the people you least suspect, like a disgraced former Congressman obsessed with offshore tax evasion and an unknown suburban bureaucrat who wrote America's most diabolical anti-abortion policy. She reports from a sweaty presidential tour bus in DC, a chaotic Michigan courtroom where a former fetus thief is on trial, and a Texas town that rejects an abortion travel ban. She encounters surprising characters who shed light on how we got to this moment of authoritarian rule: from the pro-choice superfans she meets at the Reagan library to the Senator who couldn't stop kissing every woman he met. Along the way, Amy draws upon the stories of women who have died from anti-abortion policies and on her own experience as a mother to reveal the life-and-death stakes of America's abortion wars. At once clever and poignant reportage, this abortion whodunnit uncovers the deeper story of how we lost Roe--and how we can win back so much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A hard-hitting exposé of how methadone clinics fail people in recovery—and an urgent, unapologetic case for their abolition.  Methadone is a life-saving medication. But the current system for obtaining it—the opioid treatment program, commonly known as the methadone clinic—is punitive, unjust, and often humiliating. In this eye-opening book Liquid Handcuffs: Policing and Punishment in Methadone Clinics and the Future of Opioid Addiction Treatment (North Atlantic Books, 2026), social worker and journalist Helen Redmond takes readers inside the hidden world of methadone clinics, exposing the “culture of cruelty” that polices, punishes, and profits from those they're meant to serve. Through patient stories and extensive interviews with methadone users and clinic workers, Redmond weaves a compelling argument against the current clinic system. She provides a detailed history of how methadone was first developed and why the current system for dispensing methadone arose in the U.S., tracing its entanglement with the carceral system and the “War on Drugs” as well as private equity firms and tech companies. She details the numerous barriers to enter and remain and treatment, as well as standard practices that shame and discriminate against patients, such as restrictions on take-home doses; daily attendance requirements; regular urine testing; and threats of cutting off medication for any infraction of clinic rules. She also explores the nuances of resistance to methadone clinics within communities of color, unpacking the political, racial, and cultural circumstances behind the opposition to methadone. Redmond persuasively makes the case for removing police agencies like the DEA from clinic administration, and shows how a transition to provider-prescribed pharmacy pickup, along with other tools of harm reduction such as safe-supply and peer-support services, would restore dignity to patients struggling with addiction—and save thousands of lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is cows' milk, which few nonwhite people can digest, promoted as a science-backed dietary necessity in countries where the majority of the population is lactose-intolerant? Why are gigantic new dairy farms permitted to deplete the sparse water resources of desert ecosystems? Why do thousands of U.S. dairy farmers every year give up after struggling to recoup production costs against plummeting wholesale prices? Exploring these questions and many more, Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood (Columbia UP, 2023) is an unflinching and meticulous critique of the glorification of fluid milk and its alleged universal benefits. Anne Mendelson's groundbreaking book chronicles the story of milk from the Stone Age peoples who first domesticated cows, goats, and sheep to today's troubled dairy industry. Spoiled shows that drinking fresh milk was rare until Western scientific experts who were unaware of genetic differences in the ability to digest lactose deemed it superior to traditional fermented dairy products. Their flawed beliefs fueled the growth of a massive and environmentally devastating industry that turned milk into a cheap, ubiquitous commodity. Mendelson's wide-ranging account also examines the consequences of homogenization and refrigeration technologies, the toll that modern farming takes on dairy cows, and changing perceptions of raw milk since the advent of pasteurization. Unraveling the myths and misconceptions that prop up the dairy industry, Spoiled calls for more sustainable, healthful futures in our relationship with milk and the animals that provide it. Melek Firat Altay is a neuroscientist, biologist and musician. Her research focuses on deciphering the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How the war on drugs created the gold standard treatment for addiction--until America's opioid crisis got privatized for profit, to the detriment of patients. Despite epidemic levels of overdoses in the United States, by 2020, only twenty percent of Americans suffering from opioid use disorder (OUD) received medication-assisted treatment (MAT), the gold standard of addiction treatment, which uses methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone to reduce illicit drug use and curb the symptoms of withdrawal. While MAT is the most effective treatment available for OUD, it's also the most controversial, the most expensive, and the most difficult to access. And yet, the medications at the center of this treatment--and the private industries that distribute them--generate roughly sixteen billion dollars each year, on par with national sales of coffee and pet food. In Addiction, Inc: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America's Forgotten War on Drugs, historian Emily Dufton explains how this promising avenue of treatment emerged during President Richard Nixon's war on drugs in 1971 as a radical experiment in public health, when hundreds of federally-funded treatment clinics opened nationwide. Dufton then explores how these nationalized clinics gave way to an immensely profitable private industry that offers poor care at high costs to an insufficient number of people. Drawing on original research and over a hundred interviews with policymakers, medical experts, pharmaceutical lobbyists, and patients and their families, she tells a gripping story of squandered potential and missed opportunities, as MAT transformed from a revolutionary political project launched from the White House itself into a commercial success--and a public health disaster. Urgent, eye-opening, and deeply human, Addiction, Inc. reveals how, over the past fifty years, the United States built an addiction treatment system that made recovery harder instead of easier, and what it will take to change its course. Despite epidemic levels of overdoses in the United States, by 2020, only twenty percent of Americans suffering from opioid use disorder (OUD) received medication-assisted treatment (MAT), the gold standard of addiction treatment, which uses methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone to reduce illicit drug use and curb the symptoms of withdrawal. While MAT is the most effective treatment available for OUD, it's also the most controversial, the most expensive, and the most difficult to access. And yet, the medications at the center of this treatment--and the private industries that distribute them--generate roughly sixteen billion dollars each year, on par with national sales of coffee and pet food. In Addiction, Inc., historian Emily Dufton explains how this promising avenue of treatment emerged during President Richard Nixon's war on drugs in 1971 as a radical experiment in public health, when hundreds of federally-funded treatment clinics opened nationwide. Dufton then explores how these nationalized clinics gave way to an immensely profitable private industry that offers poor care at high costs to an insufficient number of people. Drawing on original research and over a hundred interviews with policymakers, medical experts, pharmaceutical lobbyists, and patients and their families, she tells a gripping story of squandered potential and missed opportunities, as MAT transformed from a revolutionary political project launched from the White House itself into a commercial success--and a public health disaster. Urgent, eye-opening, and deeply human, Addiction, Inc. reveals how, over the past fifty years, the United States built an addiction treatment system that made recovery harder instead of easier, and what it will take to change its course. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Settler Colonialism is the Disaster: A Critique of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina and During the COVID-19 Pandemic (U Illinois Press, 2026) is the new book from Dr. Cassandra Shepard, Assistant Professor in the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana. Published with University of Illinois Press, this encompassing and engrossing book focuses on the crises that have engulfed New Orleans, including the disasters of colonialism, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and COVID-19, taking the reader through their causes and impacts on not only a broad level but through the everyday and often traumatic experiences of the residents of New Orleans. The analysis moves from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, to state-level post-disaster reconstruction contracts, to international forms of colonialism, and even encompasses Beyonce. This book, which is also includes poetry and a recommended playlist, is also very relevant to the current global moment. Shepard analyses the overlapping and intersecting disasters that have affected New Orleans through ideas of disaster capitalism and settler colonialism, demonstrating how Black and Indigenous peoples have been deprived of critical resources. The reconstruction processes following, and during, these crises have often sought to exploit the authentic New Orleans culture and vibrancy to further the consolidation of power, profit, and privilege of white elites, to the detriment of Black and Indigenous peoples. Shepard's book, Settler Colonialism is the Disaster, takes a multi-scalar view of settler colonialism and investigates how it has not only operated historically in New Orleans, but clearly demonstrates that it is a continual process that still determines reconstruction, relief, and other projects today. Shepard connects the ongoing violence and dispossession inherent in settler colonialism within New Orleans, expressed through structural responses to Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, to other settler colonial projects around the world, such as in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia. Cassandra Shepard's new book is an exceptional, theoretically and empirically rich book that offers a new critique into ‘best practice' reconstruction, which demands attention. Settler Colonialism is the Disaster offers an urgent, critical view of the political economy of reconstruction, aid, and government responses; a view which is crucial to take seriously in our world today, plagued as it is by crisis, war, and settler colonialism. Elliot Dolan-Evans is a sessional lecturer in law at Monash University and RMIT. His research investigates the political economy of global capitalism, forms of international governance, and questions of war and peace. His first book, Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF and the Conflict in Ukraine, is now out with Bristol University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Food justice activists have worked to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities of color across the United States. Yet despite their best intentions, they often perpetuate food access inequalities and racial stereotypes. Hanna Garth shows how the movement has been affected by misconceptions and assumptions about residents, as well as by unclear definitions of justice and what it means to be healthy. Focusing on broad structures and microlevel processes, Garth reveals how power dynamics shape social justice movements in particular ways.Drawing on twelve years of ethnographic research, Garth examines what motivates people from more affluent, majority-white areas of the city to intervene in South Central Los Angeles. She argues that the concepts of "food justice" and "healthy food" operate as racially coded language, reinforcing the idea that health problems in low-income Black and Brown communities can be solved through individual behavior rather than structural change. Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement (U California Press, 2026) explores the stakes of social justice and the possibility of multiracial coalitions working toward a better future. Hanna Garth is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, author of Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal, and coeditor of Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice. Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How healthy you are is dependent on where you live. Americans suffer more cancers, heart disease, mental illness, and other chronic diseases than those who live in other wealthy nations, despite having the most expensive healthcare system in the world. Why? Embark on a journey to unravel the profound impact of public policies on American health from before birth in Born Sick in the USA: Improving the Health of a Nation (Cambridge UP, 2026). Delve into the intricate web where economic inequality weaves a tapestry of sickness stemming from a highly stressed society. This compelling read illuminates the need for transformative change in social safety nets and public policies to uplift national health and well-being. Through vivid storytelling, the book unveils the symptoms, diagnosis, and 'medicine' required to steer the nation toward a healthier future. Join the movement for a healthier America by embracing the insightful revelations and empowering calls to action presented within the pages of this eye-opening book. Contact the author at: sabez@uw.edu  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Gleason spent ten years writing the ten essays in his debut collection, Field Guide to Falling Ill (Yale UP, 2026). In them, Gleason braids together strands from a variety of sources – from his experience with a potentially-lethal blood clot, to his imprisoned uncle, to his journey to access medication to prevent HIV – to analyze America's healthcare system and the humiliating, confusing, and depersonalizing effects it can often have. The essays approach medicine from a variety of viewpoints, from Jonathan's perspective as a gay man analyzing the development of HIV medications like AZT and Truvada, to his experience as a Spanish language medical interpreter at a free clinic in Iowa City. But each essay also reminds readers of the importance of understanding the history of our healthcare institutions, and the necessity of feeling less alone when confronted by their myriad failures. Lyrical, poignant, and deeply human, Field Guide to Falling Ill is a poetic approach to understanding medicine in America. For more information on Jonathan and his writing, visit: Jonathan's website: here Jonathan's Substack, Histories of Present Illness: here Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017). Her new book, Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America's Forgotten War on Drugs, will be released in April 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George Fisher, the Judge John Crown Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, just released his new book Beware Euphoria: The Moral Roots and Racial Myths of America's Drug War, with Oxford University Press. George has been teaching and writing in the realms of evidence, prosecution practice, and criminal legal history since 1995. He began practice as a prosecutor in Massachusetts and later taught at the law schools of Boston College, Harvard, and Yale. Beware Euphoria is the most recent among a slew of other books, articles, and essays that he's published over the years, and perhaps the most contrarian. In this interview, George discusses his research methods and how he came to the conclusion that the history of America's drug war, while racially motivated, was not meant to target minorities, but protect the morals and health of America's white youth. Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017). A drug historian and writer, her second book, on the development of the opioid addiction medication industry, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Overturning Roe unleashed a wave of urgent threats to abortion and bodily autonomy, fueled by overt white supremacy, racial and anti-immigrant hatred, and support for traditional gender roles and sexual identities. But the resistance is fierce, led by a new generation of activists of color dedicated to building an inclusive movement. In Abortion and Reproductive Justice: An Essential Guide for Resistance, widely recognized movement leaders Marlene Gerber Fried and Loretta J. Ross provide a history of abortion politics through a reproductive justice framework that centers those most vulnerable.The book emphasizes that the right to have and raise children is as important for reproductive choice as the right not to. This critical approach—originating in Black feminism—provides grounding for radical abortion advocacy. Calling on us to join in, the book highlights abortion stories from individuals and organizations who are putting this analysis into action on the front lines, in the United States and beyond. By linking abortion rights to broader social justice initiatives, including Black Lives Matter, immigrant and refugee rights, disability justice, and LGBTQ+ rights, the authors expand the conversation at a critical moment. Our guest is: Dr. Marlene Gerber Fried, who is professor emerita at Hampshire College. Her scholarship and teaching focuses on abortion rights and access, reproductive and sexual rights and health, and legal theory. Her honors include the Felicia Stewart Advocacy Award, and the Warrior Women Award from SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. Our guest is: Dr. Loretta J. Ross, who is an activist, public intellectual, and Associate Professor of the Study of Women & Gender at Smith College. Her co-authored books include Calling In, Abortion and Reproductive Justice, and Women Who Change the World. She has also published numerous articles and book chapters. Find more here: Loretta Ross Papers. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the creator and producer of the Academic Life podcast, and writes the show's newsletter at ChristinaGessler.Substack.com. Playlist for listeners: The Turnaway Study You're Doing It Wrong Womanist Bioethics How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences How We Show Up Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading and 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

Mark Parrino has been involved with the delivery of health care and treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) since 1974. As the president of the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, Inc. (AATOD), he works with treatment providers across the country to develop and improve treatment protocols. In December 2022, AATOD worked with the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) to initiate a first-of-its-kind census of all patients currently receiving treatment from government-certified opioid treatment programs (OTPs). Their findings, based on responses from over 1,500 OTPs nationwide, show the breadth and distribution of addiction treatment in America, and are the product of almost fifty years of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in the United States. I spoke with Mark about his census results, as well as the history of MAT, and specifically methadone, treatment in America. You can see the full report here. Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017). A drug historian and writer, her second book, on the development of the opioid addiction medication industry, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Mask: A History of Breathing Bad Air (Yale UP, 2025) by Dr. Bruno J. Strasser and Dr. Thomas Schlich presents a history of masks protecting against bad air—in cities, factories, hospitals, and war trenches—exploring how our identities and beliefs shape the decision to wear a mask. For centuries, humans have sought to protect themselves from harmful air, whether from smoke, dust, vapors, or germs. This book offers the first history of respiratory masks—ranging from simple pieces of cloth to elaborate gas masks—and explores why they have sparked both hope and fear. Dr. Strasser and Dr. Schlich captivate readers with stories of individuals—from renowned doctors and political leaders to forgotten inventors and anonymous factory workers—who passionately debated the value of masks. In Renaissance Italy and Meiji Japan, in Victorian Britain and Cold War America, the way societies have engaged with face coverings reveals their deepest cultural and political fractures. The Mask challenges us to reconsider how we care for one another and the kind of environment we aspire to inhabit. 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

Cervical cancer kills almost 350,000 women each year. What's more horrifying, is that millions have died of this disease that's nearly 100% preventable. It's no secret that healthcare is full of inequities, with a severe lack of accessible screening programs. But women's health care is also impeded by cultural, gender, and political barriers, issues that have combined to create devastating consequences.  In Enough: Because We Can Stop Cervical Cancer (Cambridge UP, 2024), Dr Linda Eckert takes her years of experience and weaves it together with the voices of the courageous women who use their own experience of cervical cancer to advocate for change. This heart-breaking, yet hopeful, book takes you through the world of cervical cancer with evidence-based information, personal stories and actionable outcomes. Society flourishes when women have access to safe and affordable healthcare. Together we can make this need a reality and eliminate the world's most preventable cancer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The media and creative industries thrive on passion, but that passion often comes at a cost. Behind the glamour of journalism, filmmaking, games, music, advertising, and online content creation lies a growing crisis-one of burnout, anxiety, substance abuse, and exhaustion. Why do so many creative professionals report feeling both deeply fulfilled and profoundly unwell? Mark Deuze investigates the systemic issues that make creative work both exhilarating and unsustainable. Drawing on extensive research and in-depth interviews with media professionals, he notes the hidden downsides of doing what you love and offers a candid analysis of how workplace structures, high workloads, and perceived injustices contribute to mental and physical distress. But this book is not just about what's broken; it's about what can be done. Deuze provides a roadmap for rethinking the culture of creative industries and offers strategies for balancing passion with sustainability. A practical resource for media scholars and those navigating the highs and lows of a creative career, this work challenges us to imagine a healthier future for our labour of love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why Black People Die Sooner is a powerful and rigorous examination of the ways racism shapes health and disease. Joseph L. Graves Jr. demonstrates that the medical profession still fails to grasp basic facts about race, tracing how deep-rooted falsehoods have perpetuated the disparity between Black and white lifespans. He equips readers with the tools to dispel the fallacies and errors of racialized medicine, including an understanding of evolutionary biology and human biological variation. Graves also debunks common misconceptions about race and health on topics such as high blood pressure, sickle cell disease, the microbiome, infectious diseases, and cancer. Why Black People Die Sooner closes by offering a sweeping vision for dismantling medical racism, from professional training to clinical practice through biomedical research. Timely and bracing, this book reveals why medicine keeps misunderstanding race—and how we can make it change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ready to move beyond routine dental checkups and unlock your body's full potential? In The Dental Fitness Advantage: How a Healthy Mouth Enhances Total Body Health and Elevates Performance (Playbook Scholars, 2025), Dr. Camesia O. Matthews, a general and sports dentist, introduces the concept of dental fitness, a breakthrough approach that links oral health to whole-body wellness, athletic performance, and even confidence. With clear science and relatable analogies, Dr. Matthews uncovers surprising connections between the mouth and the body: from how oral bacteria influence heart disease and Alzheimer's to why your “bite” affects sleep quality and body balance, and how wearing a custom-fitted sports mouthguard could even boost athletic performance. The book is built on five practical pillars: Prevention, Posture, Protection, Presentation, and Psychology. It also includes a unique assessment tool, the Dental Fitness Score, which helps you track your progress. Each pillar offers simple, actionable steps to help you: Prevent issues before they start Improve sleep, balance, and even muscle strength Guard against avoidable dental injuries Boost confidence with a healthy smile The Dental Fitness Advantage is an empowering guide for athletes, professionals, and anyone seeking to feel, look, and perform at their best, starting with the mouth. About the author: Dr. Camesia O. Matthews is a Massachusetts-based general and certified sports dentist, author, and community advocate. She is passionate about connecting oral health to total-body wellness and helping people live healthier, stronger lives. A graduate of Howard University College of Dentistry, where she was inducted into the Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honor Society, Dr. Matthews has led and participated in numerous outreach events, including international mission trips. In July 2020, she received the National Dental Association's Special Recognition Award for her research on reducing the spread of COVID-19 in dental clinics. Her expertise has been featured on Boston's WCVB news channel and in Top Doctor magazine, which praised her patient-centered approach to dentistry. Outside of her work, Dr. Matthews enjoys reading, playing piano, exercising, traveling, and cheering for her favorite basketball teams. If you're interested in finding out your dental fitness score, please visit: here More about the host: Kailey Tse-Harlow is a Chinese-Irish writer born and raised in Boston's Chinatown. She earned her BA in Film and Television Production from Emerson College and her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in MIT News, and she is currently at work on her debut novel with support from Tin House. Based in Cambridge, MA, Kailey lives with her partner and two cats. Alongside her writing, she works as a publicist and book marketing manager at Pellien PR, where she helps authors book podcast interviews and plan nationwide book tours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shifting the focus of AIDS history away from the coasts to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, this impressive book uncovers how homonormative political strategies weaponized the AIDS crisis to fuel gentrification. During the height of the epidemic, white gay activists and politicians pursued social acceptance by assimilating to Midwestern cultural values. This approach, Dr. René Esparza argues in From Vice to Nice: Midwestern Politics and the Gentrification of AIDS (UNC Press, 2025), diluted radical facets of LGBTQ activism, rejected a politics of sexual dissidence, severed ties with communities of color, and ushered in the destruction of vibrant queer spaces.Drawing from archival research, oral histories, and urban studies from the 1970s through the 1990s, Dr. Esparza illustrates how the onset of the AIDS epidemic provided a pretext for further criminalization of perceived sexual deviance, targeting sex workers, “promiscuous” gay men, and transgender women. More than the criminalization of people and behaviors, this time period also saw increased targeting of urban venues such as bathhouses, adult bookstores, and public parks where casual, anonymous encounters occurred. Cleansing the city of land uses that undermined gentrification became a protective measure against AIDS, and the most marginalized bore the brunt of the ensuing surveillance and displacement. From Vice to Nice illuminates how, despite purporting seemingly progressive values, LGBTQ Midwestern politics of conformity leveraged the AIDS crisis to further instigate racial and sexual exclusion and fundamentally alter the urban landscape. 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

In 1975 workers at Life Science Products, a small makeshift pesticide factory in Hopewell, Virginia, became ill after exposure to Kepone, the brand name for the pesticide chlordecone. They made the poison under contract for a much larger Hopewell company, Allied Chemical. Life Science workers had been breathing in the dust for more than a year. Ingestion of the chemical made their bodies seize and shake. News of ill workers eventually led to the discovery of widespread environmental contamination of the nearby James River and the landscape of the small, working-class city. Not only had Life Science dumped the chemical, but so had Allied when the company manufactured it in the 1960s and early 1970s. The resulting toxic impact was not only on the city of Hopewell but also on the faraway fields where Kepone was used as an insecticide.Aspects of this environmental tragedy are all too common: corporate avarice, ignorance, and regulatory failure combined with race and geography to determine toxicity and shape the response. But the Kepone story also contains some surprising medical, legal, and political moments amid the disaster. With Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy (U Georgia Press, 2023) Gregory S. Wilson explores the conditions that put the Kepone factory and the workers there in the first place and the effects of the poison on the people and natural world long after 1975. Although the manufacture and use of Kepone is now banned by the Environmental Protection Agency, organochlorines have long half-lives, and these toxic compounds and their residues still remain in the environment. Matthew Powell is a doctoral student studying history at the University of Georgia. He focuses on the intersection of environmental and labor history, looking at how workers understand the natural world around them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Nursing Clio Reader: Histories of Sex, Reproduction, and Justice (Rutgers UP, 2025) brings together essays that examine reproductive health through historical research and personal experience. Featuring both new and classic pieces from the Nursing Clio blog, leading historians of reproductive health, librarians, archivists, public health professionals and midwives provide insights that connect past struggles with today's ongoing battles over bodies, reproductive rights, and health care. This collection offers intimate, urgent scholarship that speaks to the present moment. In this episode two representatives of the Nursing Clio Editorial Staff and one essay contributor discuss The Nursing Clio Reader. Sarah Handley-Cousins (University of Buffalo), Laura Ansley (American Historical Association), and Ayah Nuriddin (Yale School of Medicine) join Leah Cargin (University of Oklahoma and Journal of Women's History) to talk about the recent publication, the origins of Nursing Clio, writing for public audiences, and the peer support fostered by the Nursing Clio feminist community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The City and the Hospital (Chicago 2023) focuses on an urban paradox: American hospitals are imagined as sites of healing and care, and yet the people who live and work in nearby neighborhoods have some of the worst health outcomes in the nation. One part urban sociology and one part policy analysis, this book reports insights from a collaborative research team that investigated three sites (Hartford, Cleveland, Aurora, CO) and conducted more than two hundred interviews for this study. The book explores how collective memory operates, how “anchor institutions” connect with the people living in their midst, and the very meaning of “community” itself. Theoretically rich and empirically insightful, the book will be of interest to scholars, scientists, advocates, and administrators in medical setting and in any powerful organization (universities, museums) that may inadvertently cause harm to those nearest to them in their efforts to do good. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the Civil War, the utility and widespread availability of opium and morphine made opiates essential to wartime medicine. After the war ended, thousands of ailing soldiers became addicted, or “enslaved,” as nineteenth-century Americans phrased it. Veterans, their families, and communities struggled to cope with addiction's health and social consequences. Medical and government authorities compounded veterans' suffering and imbued the epidemic with cultural meaning by branding addiction as a matter of moral weakness, unmanliness, or mental infirmity. Framing addiction as “opium slavery” limited the efficacy of care and left many veterans to suffer needlessly for decades after the war ended.  Drawing from veterans' firsthand accounts as well as mental asylum and hospital records, government and medical reports, newspaper coverage of addiction, and advertisements, in Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis (UNC Press, 2025) Dr. Jonathan S. Jones unearths the poorly understood stories of opiate-addicted Civil War veterans in unflinching detail, illuminating the war's traumatic legacies. In doing so, Jones provides critical historical context for the modern opioid crisis, which bears tragic resemblance to that of the post–Civil War era. 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

The aging of America will reshape how we live and will transform nearly every aspect of contemporary society. Renowned life course sociologist Deborah Carr provides a lively, nuanced, and timely portrait of aging in the United States. The US population is older than ever before, raising new challenges for families, caregivers, health care systems, and social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Organized in seven chapters, Aging in America (U California Press, 2023) covers these topics: the history of aging and the development of theoretical approaches how cultural changes shape our views on aging the demographic characteristics of older adults today older adults' family lives and social relationships the health of older adults and social disparities in who gets sick how public policies affect the well-being of older adults and their families how baby boomers, Gen Xers, and millennials will experience old age Drawing on state-of-the-art data, current events, and pop culture, this portrait of an aging population challenges outdated myths and vividly shows how future cohorts of older adults will differ from the generations before them. Rachel Pagones is an acupuncturist, educator, and author based in Cambridge, England. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once used extensively in schools, hospitals, and housing, asbestos has taken the lives of millions. Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster (Repeater, 2025) by Tom White traces the international history of the asbestos disaster — from mining operations in apartheid South Africa to the factories and shipyards of the UK – and tells the story of the activists and workers who took on a once indomitable industry. Illegal for the past quarter century, much asbestos still remains in place today, slowly degrading and placing us all at risk. Bad Dust reveals that the asbestos disaster has in fact only just begun, and that far from being a problem solved, the fight urgently needs to be taken up once again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The US has some of the highest rates of STIs and teen pregnancies in the industrialized world. A comprehensive sex education curriculum—which teaches facts on contraception, prophylactics, consent, and STIs—has been available since the 90s. Yet the majority of states require that sex education stress abstinence, and 22 states do not require sex ed in public schools at all. In The Fight for Sex Ed: The Century-Long Battle Between Truth and Doctrine (Beacon Press, 2025), writer, advocate, and historian Margaret Grace Myers shows us how we got here. While the earliest calls for sex ed came from a coalition of religious leaders and doctors at the turn of the century who sought to control the prevalence of STIs, the advent of antibiotics and modern condoms meant that abstinence was no longer good public health policy. The religious right, however, continued to frame it as such, using its impressive machinery to replace scientific facts with conservative Christian values. Because sex ed is not mandated at the federal level, these battles have played out locally throughout the decades: through rigged school boards, administrative oustings, court cases, unjust firings, scare tactics, and threats. Myers also shows how the religious right has worked to narrow the discourse around sex ed, often dictating the terms of debate almost entirely. What we teach young people has serious ramifications for reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ rights, gender equality, and public health. Sex education lies at the intersection of these hugely important cultural forces, yet it has been largely invisible. This book illuminates its potential—and its power. 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

The surprising story of the Army's efforts to combat PTSD and traumatic brain injury The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a tremendous toll on the mental health of our troops. In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama took to the Senate floor to tell his colleagues that "many of our injured soldiers are returning from Iraq with traumatic brain injury," which doctors were calling the "signature wound" of the Iraq War. Alarming stories of veterans taking their own lives raised a host of vital questions: Why hadn't the military been better prepared to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI)? Why were troops being denied care and sent back to Iraq? Why weren't the Army and the VA doing more to address these issues? Drawing on previously unreleased documents and oral histories, David Kieran tells the broad and nuanced story of the Army's efforts to understand and address these issues, challenging the popular media view that the Iraq War was mismanaged by a callous military unwilling to address the human toll of the wars. The story of mental health during this war is the story of how different groups--soldiers, veterans and their families, anti-war politicians, researchers and clinicians, and military leaders--approached these issues from different perspectives and with different agendas. It is the story of how the advancement of medical knowledge moves at a different pace than the needs of an Army at war, and it is the story of how medical conditions intersect with larger political questions about militarism and foreign policy. Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military's Mental Health Crisis (NYU Press, 2019) shows how PTSD, TBI, and suicide became the signature wounds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how they prompted change within the Army itself, and how mental health became a factor in the debates about the impact of these conflicts on US culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There was a time when women's health was marginalized. There was a time when breast cancer wasn't discussed. There was a time when October wasn't pink. But three women--Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, and Evelyn Lauder--refused to be silenced. Their courage ignited a movement that forever changed the way society addresses breast cancer. When these "radical sisters" were diagnosed, they faced a medical world rife with myths, outdated protocols, and a shocking lack of research. Breast cancer awareness was non-existent, and treatment options were limited. Yet, Shirley, Rose, and Evelyn--empowered by their own diagnoses--became trailblazing advocates for breast cancer research, early detection, and women's health. Their efforts broke open the conversation and set the stage for a new era of breast cancer advocacy. Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder, and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement (Mayo Clinic Press, 2025) meticulously researched by award-winning biographer Judith L. Pearson, chronicles their powerful journeys. Taking cues from the women's health and AIDS movements, these inspirational women demanded a shift in how society viewed breast cancer--not as a taboo, but as a cause worthy of public attention and action. Today, more than 300,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. They stand on the shoulders of these courageous pioneers, whose legacy has empowered generations to advocate for better healthcare, increased research, and greater awareness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Rehab: An American Scandal (Simon and Schuster, 2025), Pulitzer finalist Shoshana Walter exposes the country's failed response to the opioid crisis, and the malfeasance, corruption, and snake oil which blight the drug rehabilitation industry. Our country's leaders all seem to agree: People who suffer from addiction need treatment. Today, more people have access to treatment than ever before. So why isn't it working? The answer is that in America—where anyone can get addicted—only certain people get a real chance to recover. Despite record numbers of overdose deaths, our default response is still to punish, while rehabs across the United States fail to incorporate scientifically proven strategies and exploit patients. We've heard a great deal about the opioid crisis foisted on America by Big Pharma, but we've heard too little about the other half of this epidemic—the reason why so many remain mired in addiction. Until now. In this book, you'll find the stories of four people who represent the failures of the rehab-industrial complex, and the ways our treatment system often prevents recovery. April is a black mom in Philadelphia, who witnessed firsthand how the government's punitive response to the crack epidemic impeded her own mother's recovery—and then her own. Chris, a young middle-class white man from Louisiana, received more opportunities in his addiction than April, including the chance to go to treatment instead of prison. Yet the only program the judge permitted was one that forced him to perform unpaid back-breaking labor at for-profit companies. Wendy is a mother from a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles, whose son died in a sober living home. She began investigating for-profit treatment programs—yet law enforcement and regulators routinely ignored her warnings, allowing rehab patients to die, again and again. Larry is a surgeon who himself struggled with addiction, who would eventually become one of the first Suboxone prescribers in the nation, drawing the scrutiny of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Together, these four stories illustrate the pitfalls of a system that not only fails to meet the needs of people with addiction, but actively benefits from maintaining their lower status. They also offer insight into how we might fix that system and save lives. More of Shoshana's work: - Her reporting on hospital drug testing - Her reporting on moms reported to child welfare authorities for taking medication-assisted treatment during pregnancy - The American Rehab podcast Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017). Her new book, Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America's Forgotten War on Drugs, will be released next year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices