New Books in American Studies

In Dr. Susan A. Brewer's fascinating The Best Land: Four Hundred Years of Love and Betrayal on Oneida Territory (Cornell University Press, 2024), she recounts the story of the parcel of central New York land on which she grew up. Brewer and her family had worked and lived on this land for generations when the Oneida Indians claimed that it rightfully belonged to them. Why, she wondered, did she not know what had happened to this place her grandfather called the best land. Here, she tells its story, tracing over the past four hundred years the two families—her own European settler family and the Oneida/Mohawk family of Polly Denny—who called the best land home.Situated on the passageway to the west, the ancestral land of the Oneidas was coveted by European colonizers and the founders of the Empire State. The Brewer and Denny families took part in imperial wars, the American Revolution, broken treaties, the building of the Erie Canal, Native removal, the rise and decline of family farms, bitter land claims controversies, and the revival of the Oneida Indian Nation. As Dr. Brewer makes clear in The Best Land, through centuries of violence, bravery, greed, generosity, racism, and love, the lives of the Brewer and Denny families were profoundly intertwined. The story of this homeland, she discovers, unsettles the history she thought she knew.With clear determination to tell history as it was, without sugarcoating or ignoring the pain and suffering of both families, Dr. Brewer navigates the interconnected stories with grace, humility, and a deep love for the land. The Best Land is a beautiful homage to the people, the place, and the environment itself.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In the second edition of Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford UP, 2024), Jorge Duany unravels the fascinating and turbulent past and present of an island that is politically and economically tied to the United States, yet culturally distinct.Acquired by the United States from Spain in 1898, Puerto Rico has a peculiar status among Latin American and Caribbean countries. As a US Commonwealth, the island enjoys limited autonomy over local matters, but the US has dominated it militarily, politically, and economically for much of its recent history. Though they are US citizens, Puerto Ricans do not have their own voting representatives in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections (although they are able to participate in the primaries). In recent years, Puerto Rico's colossal public debt sparked an economic crisis that catapulted it onto the national stage and intensified the exodus to the US, bringing to the fore many of the unresolved remnants of its colonial history.In the second edition of Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Jorge Duany provides a succinct, authoritative introduction to the island's rich history, culture, politics, and economy, as well as its diaspora. Beginning with a historical overview of Puerto Rico, Duany covers the Spanish colonial period (1493-1898) and the first five decades of the US colonial regime. He then delves into the demographic, economic, political, and cultural features of contemporary Puerto Rico--the inner workings of the Commonwealth government and the island's relationship to the United States. Moreover, the book explores the massive population displacement that has characterized Puerto Rico since the mid-twentieth century. New material examines the multiple issues affecting Puerto Rico in the last decade, including a prolonged recession, the devastating impact of two hurricanes, and the largest migrant wave ever recorded from Puerto Rico.While a popular tourist destination, few beyond Puerto Rico's shores are familiar with its complex history and diverse culture. Duany takes on the task of educating readers on the most important facets of the unique, troubled, but much beloved isla del encanto.Jorge Duany is the recently retired Professor of Global and Sociocultural Studies and Director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.Katie Coldiron is the Outreach Program Manager for the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) and PhD student in History at Florida International University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Jennifer Greenburg reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality.Dr. Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

My guest today is Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove. Wilson-Hartgrove is a writer, preacher, and moral activist. He is an assistant director at the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. Wilson-Hartgrove lives with his family at the Rutba House, a house of hospitality in Durham, North Carolina that he founded with H his wife, Leah. Wilson-Hartgrove directs the School for Conversion, a popular education center in Durham committed to "making surprising friendships possible," and is an associate minister at St. John's Missionary Baptist Church. Jonathan is the author or coauthor of more than a dozen books, including Reconstructing the Gospel, The Third Reconstruction, and Strangers at My Door. About White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (Liveright, 2024):One of the most pernicious and persistent myths in the United States is the association of Black skin with poverty. Though there are forty million more poor white people than Black people, most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, continue to think of poverty--along with issues like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps--as solely a Black problem. Why is this so? What are the historical causes? And what are the political consequences that result?These are among the questions that the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, a leading advocate for the rights of the poor and the "closest person we have to Dr. King" (Cornel West), addresses in White Poverty, a groundbreaking work that exposes a legacy of historical myths that continue to define both white and Black people, creating in the process what might seem like an insuperable divide. Analyzing what has changed since the 1930s, when the face of American poverty was white, Barber, along with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, addresses white poverty as a hugely neglected subject that just might provide the key to mitigating racism and bringing together tens of millions of working class and impoverished Americans.Thus challenging the very definition of who is poor in America, Barber writes about the lies that prevent us from seeing the pain of poor white families who have been offered little more than their "whiteness" and angry social media posts to sustain them in an economy where the costs of housing, healthcare, and education have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated for all but the very rich. Asserting in Biblically inspired language that there should never be shame in being poor, White Poverty lifts the hope for a new "moral fusion movement" that seeks to unite people "who have been pitted against one another by politicians (and billionaires) who depend on the poorest of us not being here." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Our book is: Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts To Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany (Citadel Press, 2025)  by Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham, which is an inspiring new narrative of the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet, the longest-serving Labor Secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. In March 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Frances Perkins was appointed Secretary of Labor by FDR. As Hitler rose to power, thousands of German-Jewish refugees and their loved ones reached out to the INS—then part of the Department of Labor—applying for immigration to the United States, writing letters that began “Dear Miss Perkins . . .” Perkins’s early experiences working in Chicago’s famed Hull House and as a firsthand witness to the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist fire shaped her determination to advocate for immigrants and refugees. As Secretary of Labor, she wrestled widespread antisemitism and isolationism, finding creative ways to work around quotas and restrictive immigration laws. Diligent, resilient, empathetic, yet steadfast, she persisted on behalf of the desperate when others refused to act.Our guest is: Dr Rebecca Brenner Graham who is a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University. Previously, she taught at the Madeira School and American University. She has a PhD in history and an MA in public history from American University, and a BA in history and philosophy from Mount Holyoke College. In 2023, she was awarded a Cokie Roberts Fellowship from the National Archives Foundation and a Rubenstein Center Research Fellowship from the White House Historical Association. Her writing has been published in The Washington Post, Time, Slate, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Secret Harvests Who Gets Believed Women's Activism and Sophonisba Breckinridge The House on Henry Street Leading from the Margins Hope for the Humanities PhD Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

How should broadly liberal democratic societies stop illiberal and antidemocratic views from gaining influence while honouring liberal democratic values? This question has become particularly pressing after the recent successes of right-wing populist leaders and parties across Europe, in the US, and beyond. Politicizing Political Liberalism: On the Containment of Illiberal and Antidemocratic Views (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Alasia Nuti and Gabriele Badano develops a normative account of liberal democratic self-defence that denounces the failures of real-world societies without excusing those supporting illiberal and antidemocratic political actors. This account is innovative in focusing not only on the role of the state but also on the duties of nonstate actors including citizens, partisans, and municipalities. Consequently, it also addresses cases where the central government has at least been partly captured by illiberal and antidemocratic agents. Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti's approach builds on John Rawls's treatment of political liberalism and his awareness of the need to 'contain' unreasonable views, that is, views denying that society should treat every person as free and equal through a mutually acceptable system of social cooperation where pluralism is to be expected. The authors offer original solutions to vexed problems within political liberalism by putting forward a new account of the relation between ideal and non-ideal theory, explaining why it is justifiable to exclude unreasonable persons from the constituency of public reason, and showing that the strictures of public reason do not apply to those suffering from severe injustice. In doing so, the book further politicizes political liberalism and turns it into a framework that can insightfully respond to the challenges of real politics.Alasia Nuti is senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of York. Her work is situated at the intersection of analytical political theory, critical theory, gender studies and critical race theoryMorteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

This empowering book blends history, storytelling, and culturally grounded techniques to equip readers with the tools needed to promote self-reflection, personal growth, and diasporic healing. Asian Americans represent the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, yet few books capture how historical events, immigration experiences, cultural values, and unhelpful generational patterns contribute to this group's thoughts, attitudes, and actions in ways that impact relationships, well-being, and psychological health. In Patterns That Remain: A Guide to Healing for Asian Children of Immigrants (Oxford University Press, 2025), Dr. Stacey Diane Arañez Litam empowers readers to heal from diasporic wounds and become people, partners, and parents who embody abundance mentalities grounded in joy, balance, and gratitude. This unique book combines complex and nuanced facets of Asian American history, research, and therapeutic modalities in ways that validate Asian American worldviews and promote a deep sense of universality and community. Each chapter addresses culturally relevant topics among Asian Americans and children of Asian immigrants and is informed by academic research in addition to author-conducted interviews with diverse Asian American community members and thought leaders. The book effortlessly blends history, storytelling, and culturally grounded perspectives to provide an inspirational, validating, and practical framework toward healing. Informed by Litam's lived experiences as a Filipina and Chinese immigrant as well as by her professional identities as a professor, researcher, and mental health clinician, Patterns That Remain provides the foundation for timely conversations and centers the importance of healing, personal growth, and unlocking the power behind our stories.Dr. Stacey Diane Leetam is an Associate Professor of Counselor Education, a licensed professional clinical counselor and supervisor, as well as a diplomate and clinical sexologist with the American Board of Sexology. Dr. Litam is a member of the Forbes Health Advisory Board, an Advisory Council Chair for the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) Minority Fellowship Program, and was named one of Crain’s Cleveland 40 Under 40 in 2023. Dr. Litam has published over 50 academic peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and facilitated hundreds of workshops and trainings. Her work has resulted in a total of 15 national and 12 regional/state awards. She is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on the impact of COVID-19 related discrimination on the mental health and wellbeing of disaggregated AAPI communities and communities of color with 17 publications archived in the World Health Organization’s Global Database on COVID-19 literature.Dr. Litam is a keynote speaker, racial equity strategist, and content expert on topics related to mental health, sexual wellbeing, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), as well as Asian American and Pacific Islander concerns. She regularly serves as a content expert on platforms such as Forbes Health, National Public Radio (NPR), and media outlets. Additionally, she has been featured in the White House, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Forbes Health, National Public Radio (NPR), Discovery Magazine, Dutch BBC, Psychology Today, National Institutes of Health, Mental Health Academy, The Daily Mail, The Filipino Channel, as well as in podcasts, documentaries, and news outlets. Her past partners include Fortune 500 Companies, professional sports teams, and federal level politicians. Dr. Litam is an immigrant and identifies as a Chinese and Filipina American woman.Visit Dr. Litam's website here and find information on her upcoming book tour hereFollow her on Instagram @drstaceyalitamJessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is Assistant Editor at 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

In the shadow of the Cold War, whispers from the cosmos fueled an unlikely alliance between the US and USSR. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (or SETI) emerged as a foundational field of radio astronomy characterized by an unusual level of international collaboration—but SETI’s use of signals intelligence technology also served military and governmental purposes.In this captivating new history of the collaboration between American and Soviet radio astronomers as they sought to detect evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, historian Dr. Rebecca Charbonneau reveals the triumphs and challenges they faced amidst a hostile political atmosphere. Shedding light on the untold stories from the Soviet side for the first time, she expertly unravels the complex web of military and political interests entangling radio astronomy and the search for alien intelligence, offering a thought-provoking perspective on the evolving relationship between science and power.Mixed Signals: Alien Communication Across the Iron Curtain (Polity, 2024) is not just a story of radio waves and telescopes; it's a revelation of how scientists on both sides of the Iron Curtain navigated the complexities of the Cold War, blurring the lines between espionage and the quest for cosmic community. Filled with tension, contradiction, and the enduring human desire for connection, this is a history that transcends national boundaries and reaches out to the cosmic unknown, ultimately asking: how can we communicate with extraterrestrials when we struggle to communicate amongst ourselves?This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In his new book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s (Faber, 2020), Simon Hall, a Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds, colorfully details an extraordinary visit by Fidel Castro to New York in the Autumn of 1960 for the opening of the UN General Assembly.Holding court from the iconic Hotel Theresa in Harlem, Castro's riotous stay in New York saw him connect with leaders from within the local African American community, as well as political and cultural luminaries such as Gamal Abdel Nasser, Nikita Khrushchev, Kwame Nkrumah and Allen Ginsberg. Through exploring the local and global impact of these ten days, Hall recovers Castro's visit as a critical turning point in the trajectory of the Cold War and the development of the 'The Sixties.'E. James West is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in American History at Northumbria University. He is the author of Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (Illinois, 2020). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Cities are fraught sites in the national imagination, turned into identity markers when “urban” and “rural” indicate tastes rather than places. Cities bring chaos, draining the lifeblood of the nation like a tick draws blood from its host, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson’s anti-urban polemics, which might have been written during any election year—centuries or months ago. Racism and anti-urbanism were born conjoined during the Revolution. Like their Atlantic coastal counterparts in the US North, Southern cities —similarly polyglot and cosmopolitan—resist the dominant, mutually inclusive prejudices of the nation that fails to contain them on its eroding, flooding coasts.Captive City: Meditations on Slavery in the Urban South (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) explores the paths of slavery in coastal cities, arguing that captivity haunts the “hospitality” cultures of Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, and Baltimore. It is not a history of urban slavery, but a literary reflection that argues for coastal cities as a distinct region that scrambles time, resisting the “post” in postindustrial and the “neo” in neoliberalism. Jennie Lightweis-Goff offers a cultural exploration bound by American literature, especially life-writing by the enslaved, as well as compelling reassessments of works by canonical writers such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Hector St. John de Crevecoeur.Lightweis-Goff reveals how the preserved yet fragile landscapes of these cities are haunted—not simply by the ghost tours that are signature stops for travelers in their historic districts—but by the echoes of slavery in their economies and built environments.Jennie Lightweis-Goff is a scholar, lyric essayist, and, most essentially, a New Orleans flâneur. She is the author of two scholarly books, Blood at the Root and Captive City. Her essays have appeared in the major journals of U.S. literature, including Signs, American Literature, Mississippi Quarterly, minnesota review, and south. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, Liberties, and at her Substack, The Butcher's Darling, where she writes on grief, precarious labor, sobriety, and intellectual work that was "born in the back of the house."Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies