New Books in Western European Studies
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New Books in Western European Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000...
Recent Episodes
2429 episodes
Sara Petrosillo, "Hawking Women: Falconry, Gender, and Control in Medieval Literary Culture" (Ohio State UP, 2023)
Fantastic and informative talk with Sara Petrosillo of the University of Evansville about her new book, Hawking Women: Falconry, Gender, and Control i...
Jamie Kreiner, "The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction" (Liveright, 2023)
The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction (Liveright, 2023) by Dr. Jamie Kreiner presents a revelatory account of how Christia...
Jorge Marco and Gutmaro Gomez Bravo, "The Fabric of Fear: Building Franco's New Society in Spain, 1936-1950" (Liverpool UP, 2023)
Jorge Marco and Gutmaro Gomez Bravo's book The Fabric of Fear: Building Franco's New Society in Spain, 1936-1950 (Liverpool UP, 2023) deals comprehen...
Elwin Hofman et al. eds., "The Business of Pleasure: A History of Paid Sex in the Heart of Europe" (Leuven UP, 2022)
Elwin Hofman joins Jana Byars to talk about the volume he edited with Magaly Rodríguez García & Pieter Vanhees, The Business of Pleasure: A History of...
Anna Sergi, "How to Recognize the Mafia Abroad: Critical Notes on ‘ndrangheta Mobility" (Policy Press, 2025)
The influence and spread of clans and families within the ‘ndrangheta - the Calabrian mafia - is international yet recognising their activities is not...
Sheiba Kian Kaufman, "Persian Paradigms in Early Modern English Drama" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Persian Paradigms in Early Modern English Drama examines the concept of early modern globality and the development of European toleration discourse th...
Rachel Midura, "Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Rachel Midura joins Jana Byars to talk about Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell UP,...
Amitav Acharya, "The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West" (Hachette UK, 2025)
Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the West has been in crisis. Social unrest, political polarization, and the rise of other great powers—esp...
Jürgen Zimmerer, "Memory Wars: New German Historical Consciousness" (Reclam Verlag, 2023)
Erinnerungskämpfe: Neues deutsches Geschichtsbewusstsein (Ditzingen: Reclam, 2023) is a new, provocative volume on German memory cultures and politics...
Moritz Föllmer, "The Quest for Individual Freedom: A Twentieth-Century European History" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
What does it mean to see oneself as free? And how can this freedom be attained in times of conflict and social upheaval? In this ambitious study, Mori...
John Samuel Harpham, "Intellectual Origins of American Slavery: English Ideas in the Early Modern Atlantic World" (Harvard UP, 2025)
The period from 1550 to 1700 was critical in the development of slavery across the English Atlantic world. During this time, English discourse about s...
Stuart Carroll, "Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Stuart Carroll's Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2023) transforms our understanding of Europe between 1500 and...
Jessica Kelly and Neal Shasore, "Reconstruction: Architecture, Society and the Aftermath of the First World War" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Reconstruction explores the impact of the First World War on the built environment - examining the immediate effects and aftermath of the Great War on...
Matt Dawson, "The Political Durkheim: Sociology, Socialism, Legacies" (Routledge, 2023)
Matt Dawson's The Political Durkheim: Sociology, Socialism, Legacies (Routledge, 2023) presents Durkheim as an important political sociologist, inspir...
D. J. Taylor, "Orwell: The New Life" (Pegasus Books, 2023)
A fascinating exploration of George Orwell--and his body of work--by an award-winning Orwellian biographer and scholar, presenting the author anew to...
Andrew S. Curran, "Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson" (Other Press, 2026)
An engaging investigation of how 13 key Enlightenment figures shaped the concept of race, from the acclaimed author of Diderot and the Art of Thinking...
Susan McCready, "Commemorative Acts: French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
Drawing on memory studies and theatrical history, Commemorative Acts: French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War (University of Toronto Press, 202...
Richard Wolin, "Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology" (Yale UP, 2023)
What does it mean when a radical understanding of National Socialism is inextricably embedded in the work of the twentieth century's most important ph...
Hans Kundnani, "Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project" (Oxford UP, 2023)
"Today’s 'pro-Europeans' would be horrified at the suggestion that their idea of Europe had anything to do with whiteness. In fact, many would find th...
Amit Varshizky, "The Metaphysics of Race: Science and Faith in the Nazi Worldview" (Taylor & Francis, 2024)
The Metaphysics of Race seeks to reframe debates on the conflicting scientific and spiritual traditions that underpinned the Nazi worldview, showing h...
Alison Stone, "Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Many women wrote philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain, and they wrote across the full range of philosophical topics. Yet these important women thi...
Martin Jay, "Immanent Critiques: The Frankfurt School under Pressure" (Verso, 2023)
The Frankfurt School’s own legacy is best preserved by exercising an immanent critique of its premises and the conclusions to which they often led. By...
Stephanie Barczewski, "How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023)
How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Stephanie Barczewski is an exploration of the evolution of the quintessentially English c...
Lisa Silverman, "The Postwar Antisemite: Culture and Complicity After the Holocaust" (Oxford UP, 2025)
In his influential Anti-Semite and Jew, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre observed "If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him." In...
Douglas Morris, "Legal Sabotage: Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler's Germany" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
During the mid-1930s, Germans opposed to Adolf Hitler had only a limited range of options available to them for resisting the Nazi regime. One of the...
Shlomo Pereira, "Monuments de Papel E Pergaminho: Hebrew Printing in Portugal at the End of the 15th Century" (Chabad Portugal Press, 2025)
Rabbi Professor Shomo Pereira discussed his book "Monuments of Paper and Parchment: Hebrew Printing in Portugal in the Late 15th Century." He explaine...
Andrea Maraschi and Francesca Tasca, "Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages (Amsterdam UP, 2024)
In Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages (Amsterdam UP, 2024) by Dr. Andrea Maraschi & Dr. Francesca Tasca, readers will find stor...
Tracey Norman and Mark Norman, "Devon's Forgotten Witches: 1860–1910" (The History Press, 2025)
Witchcraft and witches throughout history have long captured the imagination, yet hidden away in archives are records of long forgotten cases. Many of...
Maddalena Alvi, "The European Art Market and the First World War: Art, Capital, and the Decline of the Collecting Class, 1910–1925" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
The outbreak of the First World War shattered the established European art market. Amidst fighting, looting, confiscations, expropriation fears and po...
Aubrey Gabel, "The Politics of Play: Oulipo and the Legacy of French Literary Ludics" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
Showing the political importance of play in postwar French literature In postwar France, authors approached writing ludically, placing rules and condi...
Tullia d'Aragona, "The Wretch, Otherwise Known As Guerrino" (Iter Press, 2024)
This is an unabridged bilingual, fully annotated edition of Tullia d’Aragona’s epic poem The Wretch. This mid-century epic reflects the many historica...
Ulinka Rublack, "Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social Recognition" (CEU Press, 2025)
Jana Byars meets one of her academic heroes when Ulinka Rublack joins her to talk about Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social...
Katrina Navickas, "Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England" (Reaktion, 2025)
A radical history of England, Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Katrina Navickas is a grippi...
Colm Murphy, "Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation', the Labour Party, and the British Left, 1973–1997" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism...
Dan Edelstein, "The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Political thinkers from Plato to John Adams saw revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balan...
“Rurality 2.0”: How City Migrants are Reshaping Norway’s Rural Regions with Tom Bratrud
In today’s episode, we talk to Tom Bratrud about his ongoing, long-term work with city-dwellers who migrate to rural parts of Norway. This research fo...
The Library of Lost Maps: An Archive of a World in Progress
At the heart of University College London lies a long-forgotten map library packed with thousands of maps and atlases. Professor James Cheshire stumbl...
Carolyn J. Eichner, "Feminism's Empire" (Cornell UP, 2022)
Feminism's Empire (Cornell UP, 2022) investigates the complex relationships between imperialisms and feminisms in the late nineteenth century and demo...
Patricia Anne Simpson, "Early Modern Women's Work: Kinship, Community, and Social Justice" (Routledge, 2025)
Patricia Anne Simpson joins Jana Byars to talk about Early Modern Women's Work: Kinship, Community, and Social Justice (Routledge, 2025). The book exa...
Jacob Bloomfield, "Drag: A British History" (U California Press, 2023)
Drag: A British History (University of California Press, 2023) is a groundbreaking study of the sustained popularity and changing forms of male drag p...