New Books in Ancient History Podcast
1) Sarah F. Derbew, "Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Sarah Derbew’s new book Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2022) asks how should articulations of blackness from the fifth century BCE to the twenty-first century be properly read ...Show More
2) Charles Higham, "Early Southeast Asia: From First Humans to First Civilizations" (NUS Press, 2024)
In September 2025 the Dutch government announced that it would return to Indonesia the fossilized remains of the famous ‘Java Man’, the first known example of an early species of human, homo erectus. ...Show More
3) Paulette F. C. Steeves, "The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)
The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere (U Nebraska Press, 2021) is a reclaimed history of the deep past of Indigenous people in North and South America during the Paleolithic. Paulette F...Show More
4) Nayanjot Lahiri, "Searching for Ashoka: Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand" (SUNY Press, 2023)
Blending travelogue, history, and archaeology, Searching for Ashoka: Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand (SUNY Press, 2023) unravels the various avatars of India's most famous emperor,...Show More
5) James Lacey, "Rome: Strategy of Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)
From Octavian's victory at Actium (31 B.C.) to its traditional endpoint in the West (476), the Roman Empire lasted a solid 500 years -- an impressive number by any standard, and fully one-fifth of all...Show More
6) Maia Kotrosits, "After Transformation: Rewriting Time, Christian Late Antiquity, and the Present" (Duke UP, 2025)
In After Transformation, Maia Kotrosits offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Recasting the monumental changes that occurred between the second a...Show More
7) Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025)
From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of the ancient Near East In 1887, an Egyptian woman mad...Show More
8) Ellen Muehlberger, "Things Unseen: Essays on Evidence, Knowledge, and the Late Ancient World" (U California Press, 2025)
How do you know the nature of another person: who she is, or what she is capable of? In four exploratory essays, a seasoned historian examines the mechanisms by which ancient people came to have knowl...Show More
9) Hugo Méndez, "The Gospel of John: A New History" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Throughout the centuries and into the present day, the Gospel of John has indelibly shaped Christian theology and thinkers in significant ways, but major new questions are being raised about the genes...Show More
10) Jeremy Swist, "Julian Augustus: Platonism, Myth and the Refounding of Rome" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The Roman emperor Julian (r. 361-363 CE) was a man of action and of letters, which he employed in an effort to return the Empire to the light of the pagan gods, and reverse the Christianization of the...Show More