New Books in American Studies

The Big Break: The Gamblers, Party Animals, and True Believers Trying to Win in Washington While America Loses Its Mind (Twelve, 2023) investigates how Washington works, and how different kinds of people try to make it work for them. Ben Terris presents an inside history of this crucial moment in Washington, reporting from exclusive parties, poker nights, fundraisers, secluded farms outside town, and the halls of Congress; among the oddballs and opportunists and true believers. This book is about the people who see the current interlude as an opportunity to build something -- for their country, for themselves -- amid the wreckage.Ben Terris is a writer in The Washington Post's Style section with a focus on national politics.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Fifty Years of Polyamory in America: A Guided Tour of a Growing Movement (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) is unique among the many books about polyamory because the scope of this book is the entire history of the polyamory movement. Instead of concentrating on the experiences of a few people exploring alternate lifestyles, it is an exploration of two generations of Americans, the people and the organizations they founded, what they have chosen to do, and how it has changed their lives and affected the culture as a whole.Written in an entertaining and easily accessible style, the authors cover the history of alternative sexual relationship styles starting with a quick peek at colonial times, the Mormon and Oneida movements of the 1840s-70s, and modern day influences starting in the 1950s.Polyamory, literally “many loves,” challenges the relationship norm: monogamy. As its name suggests, polyamory typically refers to emotional/sexual relationships that include multiple partners. Common applications of polyamory include open marriages, triad (three people), two-couple (four people) “marriages,” and larger groups like intimate networks. Swingers are a subset of non-monogamy who often identify as poly.Throughout the course of Fifty Years of Polyamory in America, we explore the history of the polyamory movement: from clinical definitions and attempts at psychiatric treatment, to the advent of advocacy groups in the 1960s and ’70s, to contemporary practitioners and the future of the movement. A wide range of personal stories from advocates and practitioners guides the narrative to the modern day, highlighting the struggles and successes of the movement throughout the years.Glen Olson is an author and historian of the polyamory movement and gives presentations on the history of polyamory and open relationships to interested groups. He is a retired fire captain, paramedic, and technical writer.Terry Lee Brussel-Rogers is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and Life/Business Coach, director of Success Center Inc. since 1969. She has done poly relationship coaching and has taught sensitivity training and jealousy workshops since 1975. She lives in Winnetka California.Frances Sacks is a graduate of Wesleyan University where she studied in the Science and Society Program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In this comprehensive approach to Jewish humor focused on the relationship between humor and American Jewish practice, Jennifer Caplan calls us to adopt a more expansive view of what it means to “do Jewish,” revealing that American Jews have turned, and continue to turn, to humor as a cultural touchstone. Caplan frames Funny, You Don't Look Funny: Judaism and Humor from the Silent Generation to Millennials (Wayne State UP, 2023) around four generations of Jewish Americans from the Silent Generation to Millennials, highlighting a shift from the utilization of Jewish-specific markers to American-specific markers.Jewish humor operates as a system of meaning-making for many Jewish Americans. By mapping humor onto both the generational identity of those making it and the use of Judaism within it, new insights about the development of American Judaism emerge. Caplan’s explication is innovative and insightful, engaging with scholarly discourse across Jewish studies and Jewish American history; it includes the work of Joseph Heller, Larry David, Woody Allen, Seinfeld, the Coen brothers films, and Broad City. This example of well-informed scholarship begins with an explanation of what makes Jewish humor Jewish and why Jewish humor is such a visible phenomenon. Offering ample evidence and examples along the way, Caplan guides readers through a series of phenomenological and ideological changes across generations, concluding with commentary regarding the potential influences on Jewish humor of later Millennials, Gen Z, and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

It has been a momentous few weeks for the Supreme Court. What better time to discuss the Court's history and future? We are therefore launching our "Summer of Law" series to shed light on the legal world .Kicking the series off is John Yoo, the Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has written 8 books and over 100 academic articles, and is a regular contributor at a wide variety of publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and National Review.This episode discusses his latest book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court (Regnery Publishing, 2023). Along the way, it unpacks legal thought on issues such as affirmative action, abortion, court-packing, the administrative state, and the unique position of the Supreme Court as an unelected institution.We have not forgotten, however, that tomorrow is our nation's birthday. At the end of the discussion, our Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar Allen Guelzo will recite Patrick Henry's famous speech "Give Me Liberty."While this episode covers the court more broadly, here are some of Prof. Yoo's recent writings and appearances on these hot-button issues: Newsweek, "Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Was Always a Sham" National Review, "The Supreme Court Corrects a Grievous Error" His interview on Fox News, "Supreme Court says Congress, not the president, controls power of the purse" His interview on Fox Business, "Employers should rethink race-based hiring, programs after SCOTUS affirmative action decision" His interview on Fox News, "The Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution is colorblind" Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In Bridging the Divide: Working-Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society (ILR Press, 2021), Jack Metzgar attempts to determine the differences between working-class and middle-class cultures in the United States. Drawing on a wide range of multidisciplinary sources, Metzgar writes as a now middle-class professional with a working-class upbringing, explaining the various ways the two cultures conflict and complement each other, illustrated by his own lived experiences.Set in a historical framework that reflects on how both class cultures developed, adapted, and survived through decades of historical circumstances, Metzgar challenges professional middle-class views of both the working-class and themselves. In the end, he argues for the creation of a cross-class coalition of what he calls "standard-issue professionals" with both hard-living and settled-living working people and outlines some policies that could help promote such a unification if the two groups had a better understanding of their differences and how to use those differences to their advantage.Bridging the Divide mixes personal stories and theoretical concepts to give us a compelling look inside the current complex position of the working-class in American culture and a view of what it could be in the future.John Lepley is a union activist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and can be reached at jwalterlepley@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."—Ecclesiastes 3:1–2The Appalachian region is deeply rooted in customs that have been handed down for generations. "Planting by the signs," a practice predicated on the belief that moon phases and astrological signs exert a powerful influence on the growth and well-being of crops, is deemed superstitious by some but has been considered essential to gardeners and farmers for centuries and is still in use today.Sown in the Stars: Planting by the Signs (UP of Kentucky, 2023) brings together the collective knowledge of farmers in central and eastern Kentucky about the custom of planting by the signs. Sarah Hall interviews nearly two dozen contemporary Kentuckians who still follow the signs of the moon and stars to guide planting, harvesting, canning and food preservation, butchering, and general farmwork. Hall explores the roots of this system in both astrology and astronomy and the profound connections felt to the stars, moon, planets, and the earth. Revealed in the personal narratives are the diverse interpretations of the practice. Some farmers and gardeners believe that the moon's impact on crop behavior is purely scientific, while others favor a much wider interpretation of the signs and their impact on our lives. Featuring photographs by Meg Wilson, this timely book bridges the past, present, and future by broadening our understanding of this practice and revealing its potential to increase the resiliency of our current agricultural food systems.Sarah L. Hall is associate professor of agriculture and natural resources at Berea College. Her scholarly articles on the restoration of native forests and grasslands in Kentucky have been published in a wide range of journals, including Restoration Ecology and New Forests.Candy Boatwright is currently studying for a M.A. History degree at Clemson University. Her research focus is early South Carolina trade and commerce. She is also interested in material culture and memory. A long-time resident of the upstate she enjoys hiking and exploring the natural beauty as well as the historical places of South Carolina. Her personal website is www.candyrboatwright.net/blog and she is also on Twitter at @CandyBoatwright. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Isaac Murphy, born enslaved in 1861, still reigns as one of the greatest jockeys in American history. Black jockeys like Murphy were at the top of the most popular sport in America at the end of the nineteenth century. They were internationally famous, the first African American superstar athletes—and with wins in three Kentucky Derbies and countless other prestigious races, Murphy was the greatest of them all.At the same time, he lived through the seismic events of Emancipation and Reconstruction and formative conflicts over freedom and equality in the United States. And inevitably he was drawn into those conflicts, with devastating consequences.In Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of a Black Jockey (Yale UP, 2023), Katherine C. Mooney uncovers the history of Murphy’s troubled life, his death in 1896 at age thirty-five, and his afterlife. In recounting Murphy’s personal story, she also tells two of the great stories of change in nineteenth-century America: the debates over what a multiracial democracy might look like and the battles over who was to hold power in an economy that increasingly resembled the corporate, wealth-polarized world we know today.Omari Averette-Phillips is a History Educator and an Independent scholar based in Southern California. He can be reached at omariaverette@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

For nearly two decades the renowned legal historian G. Edward White has been writing a multi-volume history of law in America. In his third and concluding volume, Law in American History, Volume III: 1930-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2019), he surveys the many developments in American law from the middle of the 20th century to the case of Bush v. Gore. One of the most important of these developments was the emergence of American jurisprudence, a philosophy of how judges should apply the law. As White demonstrates, this new interpretation of judges as individual actors in the shaping of legal interpretation emerged while federal agencies moved toward agency governance, which was underpinned by the notion of a factual, scientific basis towards decision-making. At the same time, lawmakers pursued what White terms the “statutorification” of common law, while all branches wrestled with the need to establish the legal framework for the developments in mass communications that characterized the era. Throughout all of this the Supreme Court played a dominant role in shaping American law and White analyzes their decisions in a half-dozen fields, including the often controversial rulings dealing with the nation’s political process, culminating with their decisive intervention in the presidential election of 2000.William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living (Princeton UP, 2023) invites readers to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard--surveying land, running his family's pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond--and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions. And his ideas about work have much to teach us in an age of remote work and automation, when many people are reconsidering what kind of working lives they want to have.Through Thoreau, readers will discover a philosophy of work in the office, factory, lumber mill, and grocery store, and reflect on the rhythms of the workday, the joys and risks of resigning oneself to work, the dubious promises of labor-saving technology, and that most vital and eternal of philosophical questions, "How much do I get paid?" In ten chapters, including "Manual Work," "Machine Work," and "Meaningless Work," this personal, urgent, practical, and compassionate book introduces readers to their new favorite coworker: Henry David Thoreau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

The recent conclusion to the war in Afghanistan — America’s longest and one of its most frustrating — serves as a vivid reminder of the unpredictability and tragedy of war.In Military History for the Modern Strategist: America's Major Wars Since 1861 (Brookings, 2023), esteemed military expert Michael O’Hanlon examines America’s major conflicts since the mid-1800s: the Civil War, the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. O’Hanlon addresses profound questions. How successful has the United States been when it waged these wars? Were the wars avoidable? Did America’s leaders know what they were getting into when they committed to war? And what lessons does history offer for future leaders contemplating war?—including the prospects for avoiding war in the first place. Certainly, Vladimir Putin should have thought harder about some of these questions before invading Ukraine.O’Hanlon looks for overarching trends and themes, along with the lessons for the military strategists and political leaders of today and tomorrow. His main lessons include the observations that war is usually far more difficult than expected, and that its outcomes are rarely predictable.O’Hanlon’s unique book — combining brevity and clarity with a broad conceptual approach —is an important for students of security studies at universities and war colleges as well as generalists.Michael E. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, and American national security policy. He directs the Strobe Talbott Center on Security, Strategy and Technology, as well as the Defense Industrial Base working group, and is the inaugural holder of the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy. He co-directs the Africa Security Initiative as well. He is an adjunct professor at Columbia, Georgetown, and George Washington universities, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He also serves as a member of the Defense Policy Board at the U.S. Department of Defense.Sam Canter is a policy and strategy analyst, PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations, and Army Reserve intelligence officer. He previously served on active-duty as both an Infantry and Military Intelligence officer, and as a civil-servant at the White House. His views are his own and do not reflect any institution, organization, or entity with which he is affiliated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies