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In Cormac McCarthy's 1985 Western, Blood Meridian, the story follows infamous scalp hunter John Joel Glanton through the Mexican borderlands in the mid-19th century. How much of this story is myth, and how much history, asks Texas A&M-San Antonio history professor William Kiser. In his new book, The Business of Killing Indians: Scalp Warfare and the Violent Conquest of North America (Yale UP, 2025), Kiser argues that scalp hunting, or scalp warfare as it may more accurately be called, was in many ways more brutal, and more nuanced and complex, than popular imaginings often describe. By following the practice from 17th century New France to colonial and early republic New England, through to the southwestern borderlands and finally the California gold rush in the mid-19th century, Kiser uncovers important differences, as well as throughlines, from time to time and place to place. In doing so, The Business of Killing Indians shows that there is no one story of Native-settler relations, and that while structural forces like markets and colonialism matter a great deal, when it comes to violence, the devil truly lies in the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
In Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 2025), Tim Grady recounts here a detailed history of the fate of combatants who died on enemy soil in England and Germany in World Wars I and II. The books draws on a rich archive of personal family experiences, and describes the often touching acts of kindness and reconciliation with families caring for graves of enemy personnel in churchyards and local cemeteries close to where those deaths took place. Both sides were at pains to photograph tended graves, demonstrating reciprocal respect. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the German equivalent - the VDK - obscured decision-making around repatriation, which led to some family distress. Grady recounts in detail the creation of the German military cemetery at Cannock Chase, which comprised a year-long programme of exhumations across the UK. This book is a highly readable and touching account of the tensions that arose between families and the state in response to military death in the World Wars, offering a unique insight into personal German/English relations during both and after both conflicts. Tim Grady is professor of modern history at the University of Chester. Dr Julie Rugg is a Reader in Social Policy at the University of York, UK. She has an abiding interest in the ways in which societies come to an accommodation with mortality. The Cemetery Research website connects scholars with similar interests and in multiple disciplines from around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 2025), Tim Grady recounts here a detailed history of the fate of combatants who died on enemy soil in England and Germany in World Wars I and II. The books draws on a rich archive of personal family experiences, and describes the often touching acts of kindness and reconciliation with families caring for graves of enemy personnel in churchyards and local cemeteries close to where those deaths took place. Both sides were at pains to photograph tended graves, demonstrating reciprocal respect. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the German equivalent - the VDK - obscured decision-making around repatriation, which led to some family distress. Grady recounts in detail the creation of the German military cemetery at Cannock Chase, which comprised a year-long programme of exhumations across the UK. This book is a highly readable and touching account of the tensions that arose between families and the state in response to military death in the World Wars, offering a unique insight into personal German/English relations during both and after both conflicts. Tim Grady is professor of modern history at the University of Chester. Dr Julie Rugg is a Reader in Social Policy at the University of York, UK. She has an abiding interest in the ways in which societies come to an accommodation with mortality. The Cemetery Research website connects scholars with similar interests and in multiple disciplines from around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
In Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 2025), Tim Grady recounts here a detailed history of the fate of combatants who died on enemy soil in England and Germany in World Wars I and II. The books draws on a rich archive of personal family experiences, and describes the often touching acts of kindness and reconciliation with families caring for graves of enemy personnel in churchyards and local cemeteries close to where those deaths took place. Both sides were at pains to photograph tended graves, demonstrating reciprocal respect. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the German equivalent - the VDK - obscured decision-making around repatriation, which led to some family distress. Grady recounts in detail the creation of the German military cemetery at Cannock Chase, which comprised a year-long programme of exhumations across the UK. This book is a highly readable and touching account of the tensions that arose between families and the state in response to military death in the World Wars, offering a unique insight into personal German/English relations during both and after both conflicts. Tim Grady is professor of modern history at the University of Chester. Dr Julie Rugg is a Reader in Social Policy at the University of York, UK. She has an abiding interest in the ways in which societies come to an accommodation with mortality. The Cemetery Research website connects scholars with similar interests and in multiple disciplines from around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies
In Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 2025), Tim Grady recounts here a detailed history of the fate of combatants who died on enemy soil in England and Germany in World Wars I and II. The books draws on a rich archive of personal family experiences, and describes the often touching acts of kindness and reconciliation with families caring for graves of enemy personnel in churchyards and local cemeteries close to where those deaths took place. Both sides were at pains to photograph tended graves, demonstrating reciprocal respect. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the German equivalent - the VDK - obscured decision-making around repatriation, which led to some family distress. Grady recounts in detail the creation of the German military cemetery at Cannock Chase, which comprised a year-long programme of exhumations across the UK. This book is a highly readable and touching account of the tensions that arose between families and the state in response to military death in the World Wars, offering a unique insight into personal German/English relations during both and after both conflicts. Tim Grady is professor of modern history at the University of Chester. Dr Julie Rugg is a Reader in Social Policy at the University of York, UK. She has an abiding interest in the ways in which societies come to an accommodation with mortality. The Cemetery Research website connects scholars with similar interests and in multiple disciplines from around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
In Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 2025), Tim Grady recounts here a detailed history of the fate of combatants who died on enemy soil in England and Germany in World Wars I and II. The books draws on a rich archive of personal family experiences, and describes the often touching acts of kindness and reconciliation with families caring for graves of enemy personnel in churchyards and local cemeteries close to where those deaths took place. Both sides were at pains to photograph tended graves, demonstrating reciprocal respect. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the German equivalent - the VDK - obscured decision-making around repatriation, which led to some family distress. Grady recounts in detail the creation of the German military cemetery at Cannock Chase, which comprised a year-long programme of exhumations across the UK. This book is a highly readable and touching account of the tensions that arose between families and the state in response to military death in the World Wars, offering a unique insight into personal German/English relations during both and after both conflicts. Tim Grady is professor of modern history at the University of Chester. Dr Julie Rugg is a Reader in Social Policy at the University of York, UK. She has an abiding interest in the ways in which societies come to an accommodation with mortality. The Cemetery Research website connects scholars with similar interests and in multiple disciplines from around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies
In Cormac McCarthy's 1985 Western, Blood Meridian, the story follows infamous scalp hunter John Joel Glanton through the Mexican borderlands in the mid-19th century. How much of this story is myth, and how much history, asks Texas A&M-San Antonio history professor William Kiser. In his new book, The Business of Killing Indians: Scalp Warfare and the Violent Conquest of North America (Yale UP, 2025), Kiser argues that scalp hunting, or scalp warfare as it may more accurately be called, was in many ways more brutal, and more nuanced and complex, than popular imaginings often describe. By following the practice from 17th century New France to colonial and early republic New England, through to the southwestern borderlands and finally the California gold rush in the mid-19th century, Kiser uncovers important differences, as well as throughlines, from time to time and place to place. In doing so, The Business of Killing Indians shows that there is no one story of Native-settler relations, and that while structural forces like markets and colonialism matter a great deal, when it comes to violence, the devil truly lies in the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In Cormac McCarthy's 1985 Western, Blood Meridian, the story follows infamous scalp hunter John Joel Glanton through the Mexican borderlands in the mid-19th century. How much of this story is myth, and how much history, asks Texas A&M-San Antonio history professor William Kiser. In his new book, The Business of Killing Indians: Scalp Warfare and the Violent Conquest of North America (Yale UP, 2025), Kiser argues that scalp hunting, or scalp warfare as it may more accurately be called, was in many ways more brutal, and more nuanced and complex, than popular imaginings often describe. By following the practice from 17th century New France to colonial and early republic New England, through to the southwestern borderlands and finally the California gold rush in the mid-19th century, Kiser uncovers important differences, as well as throughlines, from time to time and place to place. In doing so, The Business of Killing Indians shows that there is no one story of Native-settler relations, and that while structural forces like markets and colonialism matter a great deal, when it comes to violence, the devil truly lies in the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies
In Cormac McCarthy's 1985 Western, Blood Meridian, the story follows infamous scalp hunter John Joel Glanton through the Mexican borderlands in the mid-19th century. How much of this story is myth, and how much history, asks Texas A&M-San Antonio history professor William Kiser. In his new book, The Business of Killing Indians: Scalp Warfare and the Violent Conquest of North America (Yale UP, 2025), Kiser argues that scalp hunting, or scalp warfare as it may more accurately be called, was in many ways more brutal, and more nuanced and complex, than popular imaginings often describe. By following the practice from 17th century New France to colonial and early republic New England, through to the southwestern borderlands and finally the California gold rush in the mid-19th century, Kiser uncovers important differences, as well as throughlines, from time to time and place to place. In doing so, The Business of Killing Indians shows that there is no one story of Native-settler relations, and that while structural forces like markets and colonialism matter a great deal, when it comes to violence, the devil truly lies in the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-west
In Cormac McCarthy's 1985 Western, Blood Meridian, the story follows infamous scalp hunter John Joel Glanton through the Mexican borderlands in the mid-19th century. How much of this story is myth, and how much history, asks Texas A&M-San Antonio history professor William Kiser. In his new book, The Business of Killing Indians: Scalp Warfare and the Violent Conquest of North America (Yale UP, 2025), Kiser argues that scalp hunting, or scalp warfare as it may more accurately be called, was in many ways more brutal, and more nuanced and complex, than popular imaginings often describe. By following the practice from 17th century New France to colonial and early republic New England, through to the southwestern borderlands and finally the California gold rush in the mid-19th century, Kiser uncovers important differences, as well as throughlines, from time to time and place to place. In doing so, The Business of Killing Indians shows that there is no one story of Native-settler relations, and that while structural forces like markets and colonialism matter a great deal, when it comes to violence, the devil truly lies in the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day
Memory and truth are malleable and nowhere more so than in the Soviet Union. To be a writer in that country was to face an ongoing dilemma: conform to State-mandated topics and themes, or consign oneself to obscurity, writing only for “the desk drawer” or “without permission.” Vasily Grossman challenged that binary choice, creating some of the most compelling and uncompromising fiction and journalism of the century, but also enduring heartbreaking censorship. Her excellent new biography, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (Yale University Press, 2019) brings the life and work of this often-overlooked writer into brilliant focus. Biography of a writer — particularly one with Grossman's output — can be tricky to pull off, but Popoff's extensive research is elegantly arranged into a very readable narrative, in which we follow Grossman through the harrowing experiences of witnessing first hand, famine in the 1920s, the Terror of the 1930s, the carnage of World War II, and the dull ache of censorship in the post-war Soviet Union. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography
In this engaging life of the twentieth century's most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books (Yale UP, 2022) explores all aspects of Stalin's tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated, revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin's personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies—the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors—but detested their ideas even more. Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. A leading Soviet history expert, his many books include an award-winning biography of Zhukov, Stalin's General, and the acclaimed Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
Memory and truth are malleable and nowhere more so than in the Soviet Union. To be a writer in that country was to face an ongoing dilemma: conform to State-mandated topics and themes, or consign oneself to obscurity, writing only for “the desk drawer” or “without permission.” Vasily Grossman challenged that binary choice, creating some of the most compelling and uncompromising fiction and journalism of the century, but also enduring heartbreaking censorship. Her excellent new biography, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (Yale University Press, 2019) brings the life and work of this often-overlooked writer into brilliant focus. Biography of a writer — particularly one with Grossman's output — can be tricky to pull off, but Popoff's extensive research is elegantly arranged into a very readable narrative, in which we follow Grossman through the harrowing experiences of witnessing first hand, famine in the 1920s, the Terror of the 1930s, the carnage of World War II, and the dull ache of censorship in the post-war Soviet Union. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Memory and truth are malleable and nowhere more so than in the Soviet Union. To be a writer in that country was to face an ongoing dilemma: conform to State-mandated topics and themes, or consign oneself to obscurity, writing only for “the desk drawer” or “without permission.” Vasily Grossman challenged that binary choice, creating some of the most compelling and uncompromising fiction and journalism of the century, but also enduring heartbreaking censorship. Her excellent new biography, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (Yale University Press, 2019) brings the life and work of this often-overlooked writer into brilliant focus. Biography of a writer — particularly one with Grossman's output — can be tricky to pull off, but Popoff's extensive research is elegantly arranged into a very readable narrative, in which we follow Grossman through the harrowing experiences of witnessing first hand, famine in the 1920s, the Terror of the 1930s, the carnage of World War II, and the dull ache of censorship in the post-war Soviet Union. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Memory and truth are malleable and nowhere more so than in the Soviet Union. To be a writer in that country was to face an ongoing dilemma: conform to State-mandated topics and themes, or consign oneself to obscurity, writing only for “the desk drawer” or “without permission.” Vasily Grossman challenged that binary choice, creating some of the most compelling and uncompromising fiction and journalism of the century, but also enduring heartbreaking censorship. Her excellent new biography, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (Yale University Press, 2019) brings the life and work of this often-overlooked writer into brilliant focus. Biography of a writer — particularly one with Grossman's output — can be tricky to pull off, but Popoff's extensive research is elegantly arranged into a very readable narrative, in which we follow Grossman through the harrowing experiences of witnessing first hand, famine in the 1920s, the Terror of the 1930s, the carnage of World War II, and the dull ache of censorship in the post-war Soviet Union. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
Memory and truth are malleable and nowhere more so than in the Soviet Union. To be a writer in that country was to face an ongoing dilemma: conform to State-mandated topics and themes, or consign oneself to obscurity, writing only for “the desk drawer” or “without permission.” Vasily Grossman challenged that binary choice, creating some of the most compelling and uncompromising fiction and journalism of the century, but also enduring heartbreaking censorship. Her excellent new biography, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (Yale University Press, 2019) brings the life and work of this often-overlooked writer into brilliant focus. Biography of a writer — particularly one with Grossman's output — can be tricky to pull off, but Popoff's extensive research is elegantly arranged into a very readable narrative, in which we follow Grossman through the harrowing experiences of witnessing first hand, famine in the 1920s, the Terror of the 1930s, the carnage of World War II, and the dull ache of censorship in the post-war Soviet Union. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
Memory and truth are malleable and nowhere more so than in the Soviet Union. To be a writer in that country was to face an ongoing dilemma: conform to State-mandated topics and themes, or consign oneself to obscurity, writing only for “the desk drawer” or “without permission.” Vasily Grossman challenged that binary choice, creating some of the most compelling and uncompromising fiction and journalism of the century, but also enduring heartbreaking censorship. Her excellent new biography, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (Yale University Press, 2019) brings the life and work of this often-overlooked writer into brilliant focus. Biography of a writer — particularly one with Grossman's output — can be tricky to pull off, but Popoff's extensive research is elegantly arranged into a very readable narrative, in which we follow Grossman through the harrowing experiences of witnessing first hand, famine in the 1920s, the Terror of the 1930s, the carnage of World War II, and the dull ache of censorship in the post-war Soviet Union. Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England. Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or visit jennifereremeeva.com for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this engaging life of the twentieth century's most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books (Yale UP, 2022) explores all aspects of Stalin's tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated, revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin's personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies—the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors—but detested their ideas even more. Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. A leading Soviet history expert, his many books include an award-winning biography of Zhukov, Stalin's General, and the acclaimed Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In this engaging life of the twentieth century's most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books (Yale UP, 2022) explores all aspects of Stalin's tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated, revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin's personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies—the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors—but detested their ideas even more. Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. A leading Soviet history expert, his many books include an award-winning biography of Zhukov, Stalin's General, and the acclaimed Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
In this engaging life of the twentieth century's most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books (Yale UP, 2022) explores all aspects of Stalin's tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated, revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin's personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies—the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors—but detested their ideas even more. Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. A leading Soviet history expert, his many books include an award-winning biography of Zhukov, Stalin's General, and the acclaimed Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography
In this engaging life of the twentieth century's most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books (Yale UP, 2022) explores all aspects of Stalin's tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated, revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin's personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies—the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors—but detested their ideas even more. Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. A leading Soviet history expert, his many books include an award-winning biography of Zhukov, Stalin's General, and the acclaimed Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America's “hybrid Enlightenment.” James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis (Yale UP, 2024) that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. The destructive logic that has filled the void only makes bridging our differences more challenging. In the end, all political regimes require some level of unity. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed by force. Can America's political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will support liberal democracy in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan's book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America's “hybrid Enlightenment.” James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis (Yale UP, 2024) that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. The destructive logic that has filled the void only makes bridging our differences more challenging. In the end, all political regimes require some level of unity. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed by force. Can America's political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will support liberal democracy in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America's “hybrid Enlightenment.” James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis (Yale UP, 2024) that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. The destructive logic that has filled the void only makes bridging our differences more challenging. In the end, all political regimes require some level of unity. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed by force. Can America's political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will support liberal democracy in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
John Kay's The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told about Business Is Wrong (Yale UP, 2025) is an accessible and entertaining reappraisal of what business is for and how it works. Full of history and written in a compelling narrative style, this book describes a shift in the underlying assumptions of the relationship between capital & labor. Kay describes how and why we have come to "love the product" as we also "hate the producer". Kay discusses areas of particular change such as the relationship between business & finance, the concept of the "hollow" corporation, what we mean when we say "growth", and the motivations and standards of industry leaders. Old ideas of owning the means of production are redundant as workers are increasingly the means of production. Capital is now often a disconnected service contracted from a specialized supplier, and businesses are run by professional managers whose main skill is exerting authority. Author recommended reading: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
John Kay's The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told about Business Is Wrong (Yale UP, 2025) is an accessible and entertaining reappraisal of what business is for and how it works. Full of history and written in a compelling narrative style, this book describes a shift in the underlying assumptions of the relationship between capital & labor. Kay describes how and why we have come to "love the product" as we also "hate the producer". Kay discusses areas of particular change such as the relationship between business & finance, the concept of the "hollow" corporation, what we mean when we say "growth", and the motivations and standards of industry leaders. Old ideas of owning the means of production are redundant as workers are increasingly the means of production. Capital is now often a disconnected service contracted from a specialized supplier, and businesses are run by professional managers whose main skill is exerting authority. Author recommended reading: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America's “hybrid Enlightenment.” James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis (Yale UP, 2024) that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. The destructive logic that has filled the void only makes bridging our differences more challenging. In the end, all political regimes require some level of unity. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed by force. Can America's political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will support liberal democracy in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
John Kay's The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told about Business Is Wrong (Yale UP, 2025) is an accessible and entertaining reappraisal of what business is for and how it works. Full of history and written in a compelling narrative style, this book describes a shift in the underlying assumptions of the relationship between capital & labor. Kay describes how and why we have come to "love the product" as we also "hate the producer". Kay discusses areas of particular change such as the relationship between business & finance, the concept of the "hollow" corporation, what we mean when we say "growth", and the motivations and standards of industry leaders. Old ideas of owning the means of production are redundant as workers are increasingly the means of production. Capital is now often a disconnected service contracted from a specialized supplier, and businesses are run by professional managers whose main skill is exerting authority. Author recommended reading: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
John Kay's The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told about Business Is Wrong (Yale UP, 2025) is an accessible and entertaining reappraisal of what business is for and how it works. Full of history and written in a compelling narrative style, this book describes a shift in the underlying assumptions of the relationship between capital & labor. Kay describes how and why we have come to "love the product" as we also "hate the producer". Kay discusses areas of particular change such as the relationship between business & finance, the concept of the "hollow" corporation, what we mean when we say "growth", and the motivations and standards of industry leaders. Old ideas of owning the means of production are redundant as workers are increasingly the means of production. Capital is now often a disconnected service contracted from a specialized supplier, and businesses are run by professional managers whose main skill is exerting authority. Author recommended reading: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America's “hybrid Enlightenment.” James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis (Yale UP, 2024) that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. The destructive logic that has filled the void only makes bridging our differences more challenging. In the end, all political regimes require some level of unity. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed by force. Can America's political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will support liberal democracy in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
John Kay's The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told about Business Is Wrong (Yale UP, 2025) is an accessible and entertaining reappraisal of what business is for and how it works. Full of history and written in a compelling narrative style, this book describes a shift in the underlying assumptions of the relationship between capital & labor. Kay describes how and why we have come to "love the product" as we also "hate the producer". Kay discusses areas of particular change such as the relationship between business & finance, the concept of the "hollow" corporation, what we mean when we say "growth", and the motivations and standards of industry leaders. Old ideas of owning the means of production are redundant as workers are increasingly the means of production. Capital is now often a disconnected service contracted from a specialized supplier, and businesses are run by professional managers whose main skill is exerting authority. Author recommended reading: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America's “hybrid Enlightenment.” James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis (Yale UP, 2024) that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. The destructive logic that has filled the void only makes bridging our differences more challenging. In the end, all political regimes require some level of unity. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed by force. Can America's political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will support liberal democracy in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan's book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan's book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan's book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion
Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan's book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan's book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today I'm speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are discussing his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale UP, 2025). The enmity between secular liberals and religious conservatives is a source of chaos in American democracy. Religious conservatives blame secular liberals for creating a decadent society without traditional norms. Secular liberals accuse religious conservatives of intolerance and hatred. Both sides want to do away with the other, when we actually need to try to understand each other. Jonathan's book offers a powerful critique of our uncompromising ways. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies
There is a pervasive stereotype of tattoo culture as relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors, and ne'er-do-wells, yet it has existed in the West as a professionalized art practice for centuries. Drawing on extensive new research and unprecedented access to largely unpublished private archives of photographs, art, and ephemera, in Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art (Yale University Press, 2024) Dr. Matt Lodder offers a new perspective on the history of commercial tattooing in Europe and the United States, beginning even before it emerged as a recognizable profession in the mid-nineteenth century. In the process, he shows that the art of tattoo has long been both practiced and commissioned by individuals across economic, gender, and class divides; he also examines the stylistic trends that have shaped tattoo's development as an art form over its history. Lodder introduces the many artists and professionals who shaped tattoo history, including early figures like Martin Hildebrandt, the first-known professional tattoo artist in the West; prominent woman artists like Grace Bell and Jessie Knight; mid-twentieth-century icons like Sailor Jerry and Les Skuse and the Bristol Tattoo Club; and contemporary industry stars including Ed Hardy, Davy Jones, and the Leu family. Richly illustrated with rarely published images, this important book is the first to examine the history of tattoo in the west as both a serious profession and an art form. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer (Yale UP, 2024) unsettles everything we thought we knew--and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer (Yale UP, 2024) unsettles everything we thought we knew--and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts
Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer (Yale UP, 2024) unsettles everything we thought we knew--and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography
Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer (Yale UP, 2024) unsettles everything we thought we knew--and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
What is our immune system, and how does it work? A vast array of cells, proteins and chemicals spring into action whenever our bodies are damaged, but immunity is not something you can see, touch, or feel. It can fight off malicious bacteria and viruses, locate cancerous growths, and even rewire our brains--but sometimes our own tissues can get caught in its crossfire, with catastrophic consequences. Humans may be the most disease-ridden animals on the planet. John Trowsdale shows how the immune system protects us, and how our bodies invest huge resources to keep it running. Immunity influences how we age and controls how we learn to fight off recurring diseases, and how our bodies respond to chronic conditions such as heart disease and dementia. But, in the case of allergies and autoimmune conditions, it can also easily get things wrong. What the Body Knows: A Guide to the New Science of Our Immune System (Yale UP, 2024) is a hugely readable account of a fascinating phenomenon--one which, for good or for ill, impacts every aspect of our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
There is a pervasive stereotype of tattoo culture as relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors, and ne'er-do-wells, yet it has existed in the West as a professionalized art practice for centuries. Drawing on extensive new research and unprecedented access to largely unpublished private archives of photographs, art, and ephemera, in Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art (Yale University Press, 2024) Dr. Matt Lodder offers a new perspective on the history of commercial tattooing in Europe and the United States, beginning even before it emerged as a recognizable profession in the mid-nineteenth century. In the process, he shows that the art of tattoo has long been both practiced and commissioned by individuals across economic, gender, and class divides; he also examines the stylistic trends that have shaped tattoo's development as an art form over its history. Lodder introduces the many artists and professionals who shaped tattoo history, including early figures like Martin Hildebrandt, the first-known professional tattoo artist in the West; prominent woman artists like Grace Bell and Jessie Knight; mid-twentieth-century icons like Sailor Jerry and Les Skuse and the Bristol Tattoo Club; and contemporary industry stars including Ed Hardy, Davy Jones, and the Leu family. Richly illustrated with rarely published images, this important book is the first to examine the history of tattoo in the west as both a serious profession and an art form. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
The word Leader often brings to mind the heroic image of a charismatic, confident, and persuasive person who seems to "know" what to do in an instinctual, gut-driven way. In Decision Leadership: Empowering Others to Make Better Choices (Yale UP, 2022), Don A. Moore and Max H. Bazerman offer a well-researched and compelling corrective to this view. They describe organizations as decision factories in which effective leaders are not lone heroes, but decision architects who design situations and policies that enable those around them to make wise, ethical choices that are consistent both with their own interests and the organization's values. Built on a foundation of behavioral economics and decision science research, this book is full of real-life stories and concrete examples of the incentives, structures, and systems that can be used to guide negotiations and decision making. This approach avoids many of the common pit-falls of overconfidence and dependence on a few heroic figures, allowing strong leaders to have positive impact far beyond their limited individual range. Authors recommended reading: Negotiation: The Game Has Changed by Max H. Bazerman Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely by Don A. Moore Also by these authors: Judgment in Managerial Decision Making by Max H. Bazerman and Don A. Moore Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
It is a common assumption that in Israel, Jews have sovereignty, and in most other places where Jews live today, they have religious freedom instead. As Simon Rabinovitch shows in this original work, the situation is much more complicated. Jews today possess different kinds of legal rights in states around the world; some stem from religious freedom protections, and others evolved from a longer history of Jewish autonomy. By comparing conflicts between Jewish collective and individual rights in courts and laws across the globe, from the French Revolution to today, this book provides a nuanced legal history of Jewish sovereignty and religious freedom. Rabinovitch weaves key themes in Jewish legal history with the individual stories of litigants, exploring ideas about citizenship and belonging; who is a Jew; what makes a Jewish family; and how to define Jewish space. He uses recent court cases to explore problems of conflicting rights and then situates each case in a wider historical context. This unique comparative history creates a global picture of modern legal development in which Jews continue to use the law to carve out surprising forms of sovereignty. Simon Rabinovitch is the Stotsky Associate Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies at Northeastern University. He teaches and writes on a range of topics in European, Jewish, Russian, and legal history. Geraldine Gudefin is a French-born modern Jewish historian researching Jewish family life, legal pluralism, and the migration experiences of Jews in France and the United States. She is currently a research fellow at the Hebrew University's Avraham Harman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, and is completing a book titled An Impossible Divorce? East European Jews and the Limits of Legal Pluralism in France, 1900-1939. Mentioned in the podcast: • Simon Rabinovitch, Jewish Rights, National Rites: Nationalism and Autonomy in Late Imperial and Revolutionary Russia (2014) • Maurice Samuels, The Right to Difference: French Universalism and the Jews (2016) • David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (2008) • David Sorkin, Jewish Emancipation: A History across Five Centuries (2019) • Lawrence Rosen, The Rights of Groups: Understanding Community in the Eyes of the Law (2024) • Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Church State Corporation: Construing Religion in US Law (2020) • Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (2022) • David Biale, Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History (1986) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In Well Worth Saving (Yale University Press, 2019), Professor Laurel Leff explores how American universities responded to the sudden and urgent appeals for help from scholars trapped in Nazi-dominated Europe. Although many scholars were welcomed into faculty or research positions in the US, thousands more tried to find a way over and failed. Those who were unable to flee were left to face the horrors of the Holocaust. In this rigorously researched book, Laurel Leff rescues from obscurity scholars who were deemed "not worth saving" and tells the riveting, full story of the hiring decisions universities made during the Nazi era. Laurel Leff is Professor of Journalism and Associate Director of Jewish Studies at Northeastern University. This interview was conducted by Renee Hale, who holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and works in R&D for the food and beverage industry. She is the author of The Nightstorm Files, a voracious reader, and enjoys sharing the joy of discovering new perspectives with listeners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In Well Worth Saving (Yale University Press, 2019), Professor Laurel Leff explores how American universities responded to the sudden and urgent appeals for help from scholars trapped in Nazi-dominated Europe. Although many scholars were welcomed into faculty or research positions in the US, thousands more tried to find a way over and failed. Those who were unable to flee were left to face the horrors of the Holocaust. In this rigorously researched book, Laurel Leff rescues from obscurity scholars who were deemed "not worth saving" and tells the riveting, full story of the hiring decisions universities made during the Nazi era. Laurel Leff is Professor of Journalism and Associate Director of Jewish Studies at Northeastern University. This interview was conducted by Renee Hale, who holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and works in R&D for the food and beverage industry. She is the author of The Nightstorm Files, a voracious reader, and enjoys sharing the joy of discovering new perspectives with listeners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
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