New Books in History

New Books in History


Latest Episodes

Randy Olson, “Houston, We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story” (U. Chicago Press, 2015)
February 04, 2017

Randy Olson, author of Houston, We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story (University of Chicago Press, 2015), has an unusual background. He is a Harvard-trained biologist and former tenured professor who resigned from his academic post to earn…

Mitchel Roth, “Convict Cowboys: The Untold History of the Texas Prison Rodeo” (U. North Texas Press, 2016)
February 01, 2017

For more than 50 years, Huntsville prison put on an annual rodeo throughout the month of October to entertain prisoners, locals, and visitors from across the nation. In his new book Convict Cowboys: The Untold History of the Texas …

Robyn C. Spencer, “The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender and the Black Panther Party in Oakland” (Duke UP, 2016)
February 01, 2017

As the first substantive account of the birthplace of the Black Panther Party (BPP), Robyn C. Spencer’s The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (Duke University Press,

Piotr Kosicki, “Vatican II Behind the Iron Curtain” (Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2016)
February 01, 2017

Many historians have documented the Second Vatican Council yet virtually no attention has been devoted to the Catholics who found themselves living behind an iron curtain at the end of the 1940s. Piotr Kosicki’s edited volume, Vatican II Behind the …

Noah Lederman, “A World Erased: A Grandson’s Search for His Family’s Holocaust Secrets” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017)
February 01, 2017

Part detective story, part travelogue, Noah Lederman decided to write A World Erased: A Grandson’s Search for his Family’s Holocaust Secrets (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) to find answers to the questions he had since childhood about his grandparen...

Richard Crockatt, “Einstein and Twentieth-Century Politics: A Salutary Moral Influence,” (Oxford UP, 2016)
February 01, 2017

Richard Crockatt is an Emeritus Professor in the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. His book, Einstein & Twentieth-Century Politics: ‘A Salutary Moral Influence‘ (Oxford University Press, 2016),

Fred Feldman, “Distributive Justice: Getting What We Deserve from Our Country” (Oxford UP, 2016)
February 01, 2017

The philosopher (and 1972 presidential candidate) John Hospers once wrote, “justice is getting what one deserves. What could be simpler?” As it turns out, this seemingly simple idea is in the opinion of many contemporary political philosophers comp...

Steve Tripp, “Ty Cobb, Baseball, and American Manhood” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016)
January 30, 2017

Many scholars of baseball and American sports have focused on Ty Cobb as an integral and controversial character in the history of baseball. However, scholars have ignored the ways in which the story of Ty Cobb intersects with ideas of…

Dave Gosse, “Abolition and Plantation Management in Jamaica, 1807-1838” (U. of the West Indies Press, 2012)
January 30, 2017

Dave Gosse’s recent book Abolition and Plantation Management in Jamaica, 1807-1838 (University of the West Indies Press, 2012), looks at a crucial period in Jamaican history. The time between the abolition of Britain’s slave trade in 1807 and the e...

Justin Parkhurst, “The Politics of Evidence: From Evidence-Based Policy to the Good Governance of Evidence” (Routledge, 2016)
January 30, 2017

What is the role of evidence in the policy process? In The Politics of Evidence: From Evidence-Based Policy to the Good Governance of Evidence (Routledge, 2016), Justin Parkhurst, Associate Professor of Global Health Policy at the London School of …