New Books in World Affairs
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New Books in World Affairs
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
1953 episodes
Brendan Greeley, "The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money" (Crown, 2026)
America’s money is global money—nearly every nation in the world writes international contracts in dollars, and in 2023, central banks around the worl...
Richard Bell, "The American Revolution and the Fate of the World" (Penguin, 2025)
Matthew Mason (Professor of History at Brigham Young University) chatted with Richard Bell (Professor of History at the University of Maryland) about...
Ambrogio Caiani, "Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation" (Apollo, 2026)
It's a shadowy, ornate world of cover-ups and hidden motives. In Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation (A...
Georgia Holly et al, .eds., "Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond" (U Edinburgh Press, 2025)
Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond (U Edinburgh Press, 2025) outlines the need to embed...
Rory Cormac, "Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line (Oxford UP, 2026) reveals the rise and fall of the mavericks runn...
Massoud Amin, "Both Your Houses: Iran, America, and the Wages of Unchecked Power" (Wisdom Editions, 2026)
In Both Your Houses: Iran, America, and the Wages of Unchecked Power (Wisdom Editions, 2026), Massoud Amin confronts the war between Iran, Israel, a...
Dan Altman, "Taking Territory: The Persistence of Conquest Since 1945" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Taking Territory: The Persistence of Conquest Since 1945 (Cornell University Press, 2026) is an eye-opening account of why territorial conquest persis...
Kit Chapman, "The Age of Alchemy: How Early Innovators Shaped Modern Chemistry" (Profile Books, 2026)
The first chemists were Sri Lankan forgers who crafted
unimaginably strong steel millennia before it should have been
possible. They we...
Aswin Punathambekar, Adrienne Shaw and Jonathan Gray eds., "Planet Digital: A Global Media Cultures Reader" (NYU Press, 2026)
In the three decades since the rise of the global internet,
digitalization has transformed how media are made, circulated, and
consumed,...
Tyler Girard, "Financial Inclusion: How an Idea Became a Global Agenda" (Stanford UP, 2026)
The
number of people in the world with a bank account or money service
provider increased by 2 billion over the past decade. This phenom...
Sadiah Qureshi, "Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction" (Penguin, 2025)
Anyone
alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90% of
species that ever existed are now extinct. How did we come t...
How “They” See “Us” with editor Madeleine Schwartz
The remarkable political ascent of Donald J. Trump and his sustained grip on a certain segment of American society have given fresh life to a question...
250 Years of Special Providence: On American Grand Strategy Since the Declaration with Walter Russell Mead
To celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, Madison’s Notes is having a special Fourth of July episode to close out the season. So in Episode 12 of S...
Daniel Krcmaric, "Above the Law" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
The United States has traditionally been a great promoter of international justice – forging the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals after World War II and...
Infrastructure, Nickel, and the Politics of Polyalignment in Indonesia
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her...
Cyanne E. Loyle, "Escaping Justice: Impunity for State Crimes in the Age of Accountability" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Now more than ever, the international community plays a central role in pressing governments to hold themselves to account. Despite pressure to adhere...
Alena Ledeneva, "Russian Pendulum: Paradoxes, Practices and Patterns" (UCL Press, 2026)
Alena Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at the
University College London and a founder of the Global Informality
Project. He...
AI, Algocracy, and Democracy's Challenging Road Ahead with Andrew Sorota
Like many people, I've been following the developments of AI, testing out new models and following the deluge of news stories about the fight for supr...
Richard Bennet and Alexander Noyes, "War at Arm's Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance" (Yale UP, 2026)
An in-depth examination of how the United States can build more effective partner militaries.
Military assistance has a bad reputation. L...
Brexit Britain: 10 Years on from the Referendum
Anniversaries provide opportunities to take stock and reflect. It is now ten years since voters in the United Kingdom cast their ballots in a referend...
Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)
In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant A...
Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)
In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant A...
Witold J. Henisz, "Geostrategy by Design: How to Manage Geopolitical Risk in The New Era of Globalization" (Disruption Books, 2024)
How should executives position a company for growth when the geopolitical future is so uncertain? Recent events in Ukraine and the Middle East and tig...
Anand Gopal, "Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution" (Viking, 2026)
From Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist Anand Gopal, an epic and enthralling account of six Syrians fighting for a better world, in the traditi...
Homa Katouzian, "Iran and the Revolution: A History" (Yale UP, 2026)
Iran is, once again, in global headlines, following U.S. strikes on the country earlier this year. Operation Epic Fury, as the Department of Defense c...
Lawrence Douglas, "The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice" (Princeton UP, 2026)
The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice (Princeton University Press, 2026) offers a gripping account of how law has...
The Predictable Shock of Brexit: Cultural Dissonance and the Rise of Populism with Iain Quinn
Was Brexit really a sudden, populist shock, or was the writing on the wall for decades? This week on International Horizons, Eli Karetny sits down wit...
India’s 2026 State Elections and Indian Democracy?
This week on Democracy Dialogues, Maya Tudor speaks with two keen observers of Indian politics, Gilles Verniers and Yamini Aiyar, about what India’s...
Timothy Mason Roberts, "After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires" (Cornell UP, 2025)
After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Timothy Mason Roberts explores the connectio...
Patrick Wyman, "Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World" (HarperCollins, 2026)
There’s a familiar story about us humans: we went from hunting and gathering to farming, wandering bands to villages and cities, clans and chieftains...
Jeremy Yellen, "The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War" (Cornell UP, 2019)
Jeremy Yellen’s The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War (Cornell University Press, 2019) is a challenging transnat...
Jeffrey Whyte, "The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Jeffrey Whyte's book The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War (Oxford UP, 2023) explo...
Julia F. Irwin, "Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century" (UNC Press, 2023)
Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century (UNC Press, 2023) offers a sweeping history of US foreign disaster assi...
Nathan K. Finney, "Orchestrating Power: The American Associational State in the First World War" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Orchestrating Power: The American Associational State in the First World War (Cornell University Press, 2025) explores how the expansion of the Ameri...
Brett Neilson, "The Rest and the West: Capital and Power in a Multipolar World" (Verso, 2024)
At the heart of the fiercest international conflicts is the struggle for the future of globalization.
In the wake of a pandemic that tes...
Inken Von Borzyskowski and Felicity Vabulas, "Exit from International Organizations: Costly Negotiation for Institutional Change” (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Why do states exit international organizations (IOs)? How often does exit from IOs – including voluntary withdrawal and forced suspension – occur? Wha...
Beyond Minorities: Power, Identity, and Conflict in the Middle East
Helen Haas speaks with political scientist Sean Lee about the changing relationship between majorities and minorities in the Middle East, the collapse...
T. V. Paul, "The Unfinished Quest: India's Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi" (Oxford UP, 2024)
From a Distinguished International Relations Scholar comes The Unfinished Quest: India's Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi (Oxford UP,...
Photis Lysandrou, "Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It" (Policy Press, 2025)
In a world shaken by crises, why does the dollar continue to dominate? In Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It (P...
Charles L. Glaser, "Retrench, Defend, Compete: Securing America's Future Against a Rising China" (Cornell UP, 2025)
In Retrench, Defend, Compete: Securing America's Future Against a Rising China (Cornell UP, 2025), Charles L. Glaser advances a thought-provoking stra...