New Books in Intellectual History Podcast
1) Great Books: Nicholas Johnson on Samuel Beckett
âAnother heavenly dayâ is the opening line of Samuel Beckettâs play Happy Days (1961), where Winnie sits buried to her waist in sand, with her husband Willie stuck a few feet away from her ⊠but langu...Show More
AUDIO REMOVED: The podcast creator has removed the audio for this episode.2) Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sages also took on extensive commentary on another kin...Show More
3) Martin Heidegger, "Being and Time: An Annotated Translation" (Yale UP, 2026)
A full century ago, a young and relatively unknown philosophy instructor in a small town in Germany would publish a book that would be swiftly picked up and radically reshape the intellectual landscap...Show More
4) Mark Thomas Edwards, "Walter Lippmann: American Skeptic, American Pastor" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Walter Lippmann was arguably the most recognized and respected political journalist of the twentieth century. His "Today and Tomorrow" columns attracted a global readership of well over ten million. L...Show More
5) W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines" (MIT Press, 2025)
In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that in order for computers to become ubiquitous, people ...Show More
6) Neilesh Bose, "Chips from a Calcutta Workshop: Comparative Religion in Nineteenth Century India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Chips from a Calcutta Workshop:Â ï»żComparative Religion in Nineteenth Century India (Cambridge University Press, 2025) explores the development and nature of comparative religion in nineteenth-century I...Show More
7) Shelley Puhak, "The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady-a countess, from one of Europe's oldest families-is a vicious killer. Some even say ...Show More
8) Vanessa Rampton, "Making Medical Progress: History of a Contested Idea" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Answers to the question 'what is medical progress?' have always been contested, and any one response is always bound up with contextual ideas of personhood, society, and health. However, the widely he...Show More
9) Laura K. Field, "Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Political Theorist Laura Field has written an insightful and detailed exploration of the people and the ideas that have shaped the second Trump Administration (and some contributed, as well, to the fi...Show More
10) Hang Tu, "Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past" (Harvard UP, 2025)
How does emotion shape the landscape of public intellectual debate? In Sentimental Republic:Â ï»żï»żChinese Intellectuals and the Maoist PastÂ ï»ż(Harvard UP, 2025), Hang Tu proposes emotion as a new critical...Show More