New Books in American Studies Podcast
1) Zara Anishanslin, "The Painter's Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution" (Harvard UP, 2025)
The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists armed with paint, canvas, and wax played an integ...Show More
2) Michael Glass, "Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
How debt and speculation financed the suburban American dream and led to today’s inequalities In the popular imagination, the suburbs are synonymous with the “American Dream” of upward mobility and e...Show More
3) Marion Orr, "House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr." (UNC Press, 2025)
At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922-1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1980, Diggs, Michigan's first Black member of Congr...Show More
4) Vartan Matiossian, "The Color of Choice: The Armenians and the Politics of Race in the United States and Germany (1890-1945)" (Brill, 2025)
The extensive research literature on race has paid little attention to Armenians. Between the two world wars, they had to prove that they were free white persons to ensure their naturalization in the...Show More
5) Emma Ashford, "First Among Equals: U. S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World" (Yale UP, 2025)
A fresh, concise roadmap for U.S. grand strategy in a multipolar world For the past thirty years, post-Cold War triumphalism and a desire to reshape the world have defined U.S. foreign policy. But the...Show More
6) Jill Elaine Hasday, "We the Men: How Forgetting Women's Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality" (Oxford UP, 2025)
In a nation whose Constitution purports to speak for "We the People", too many of the stories that powerful Americans tell about law and society include only We the Men. A long line of judges, politic...Show More
7) Raymond J. McKoski, "David Davis, Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Judge" (U Illinois Press, 2025)
One of Abraham Lincoln's staunchest and most effective allies, Judge David Davis masterminded the floor fight that gave Lincoln the presidential nomination at the 1860 Republican National Convention. ...Show More
8) Kathleen B. Casey, "The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Kathleen Casey joins Jana Byars to talk about The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America (Oxford UP, 2025). Purses and bags have always been much more than a fashion accessory....Show More
9) Robert F. Williams, "The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America's Cold War Army" (Cornell UP, 2025)
The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America's Cold War Army (Cornell UP, 2025) explores how a small group of World War II airborne officers took control of the US Army after World War II....Show More
10) Disco Sucks
On July 12, 1979, Chicago’s Comiskey Park erupted into chaos during what was supposed to be a quirky baseball promotion. Shock radio jock Steve Dahl’s “Disco Demolition Night” incentivized listeners t...Show More