New Books in American Studies

There was nothing inevitable or natural about the rise of US finance capitalism in the early twentieth century. In Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower, Mary Bridges shows how US foreign banking began as a side hustle of Gilded Age tycoons and evolved into a more staid, bureaucratized network for bolstering US influence overseas. The early waves of US bankers built a network of international branch banks that relied on the power of the US government, copied the example of British foreign bankers, and built new alliances with local elites.  Overseas bank branches provided sites for experimentation in how to fuse US political will with local innovations and on-the-ground improvisation. In the process, branch bankers constructed a flexible and durable new infrastructure that supported the growth of US power abroad. Using details from ledger entries and other sources, Bridges shows how these branch bankers divided their local communities into groups of “us” and "them," either as potential clients or local populations. In doing so, they constructed a new architecture of US trade finance that relied on long-standing inequalities and hierarchies of privilege. Thus, ideas developed by wealthy white men became part of the enduring fabric of financial infrastructure. She also shows how bank branches could accommodate these hierarchies to make room for new ideas about serving local markets, in response to financial pressures of the 1920s and after the Great Depression cut off other avenues of growth. Bridges also tells the story of how US bankers created a market based on a new financial asset enabled by the Federal Reserve System called bankers' acceptance and began to collect vast amounts of foreign credit information. Related resources: Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean by Peter James Hudson Infrastructure Is Remaking Geopolitics: How Power Flows from the Systems That Connect the World by Mary Bridges  Author recommended reading:   Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control by Sean H. Vanatta The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives by Ernest Scheyder Hosted by Meghan Cochran  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

What is it about Times Square that has inspired such attention for well over a century? And how is it that, despite its many changes of character, the place has maintained a unique hold on our collective imagination? In Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change (MIT Press, 2023), which comes twenty years after her widely acclaimed Times Square Roulette, Dr. Lynne Sagalyn masterfully tells the story of profound urban change over decades in the symbolic space that is New York City's Times Square. Drawing on the history, sociology, and political economy of the place, Times Square Remade examines how the public-private transformation of 42nd Street at Times Square impacted the entertainment district and adjacent neighbourhoods, particularly Hell's Kitchen.Dr. Sagalyn chronicles the earliest halcyon days of 42nd Street and Times Square as the nexus of speculation and competitive theatre building as well as its darkest days as vice central, and on to the years of aggressive government intervention to cleanse West 42nd Street of pornography and crime. Thematically, the author analyses the three main forces that have shaped and reshaped Times Square—theatre, real estate, and pornography—and explains the politics and economics of what got built and what has been restored or preserved.Accompanied by nearly 160 images, more than half in colour, Times Square Remade is a deftly woven narrative of urban transformation that will appeal as much to the general reader and New York City enthusiast as to urbanists, city planners, architects, urban designers, and policymakers.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

The image of the sheriff is deeply embedded in American culture – from pacifist Jimmy Stewart in Destry Rides Again and gun averse Roy Scheider in Jaws to those more comfortable wielding power like Gene Hackman in Unforgiven, Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men, and Gary Cooper in High Noon. In the United States, more than 3,000 sheriffs occupy a unique position in the political and legal systems. Sheriffs oversee more than a third of law enforcement employees and control almost all local jails. They have the power to both set and administer policies, and sheriffs can imprison, harm, and even kill members of their communities. Although sheriffs are elected by voters, these elections are usually noncompetitive and low-visibility. Sheriffs enjoy a degree of autonomy not seen by other political officeholders.In The Power of the Badge: Sheriffs and Inequality in the United States (U Chicago Press, 2024), Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman draw on two original surveys of sheriffs taken nearly a decade apart, as well as election data, case studies, and administrative data to argue that the autonomy and authority granted to sheriffs in the United States create an environment where sheriffs rarely change; elections seldom create meaningful accountability; employees, budgets, and jails can be used for political gains; marginalized populations can be punished; and reforms fail.Drs. Farris and Holman track the increasingly close linkages between sheriffs and right-wing radical groups and demonstrate how sheriffs holding negative views of marginalized groups leads to unequal policing and discriminatory policies that fail to protect marginalized groups – particularly in the areas of intimate partner violence, racial profiling in traffic enforcement, and immigration enforcement. If the sheriff does not like your group, he structures hiring, training, and policy in his office to punish you. Farris and Holman also interrogate the ways in which sheriffs extract resources to maintain and profit from the carceral state. The book contributes to scholarship on local politics, American political development, federalism, political behavior, sociology, criminal justice, public administration and policy, and political extremism.Dr. Emily M. Farris is an associate professor in Political Science and core faculty in Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies at Texas Christian University. Her research focuses on urban and racial and ethnic politics.Dr. Mirya R. Holman is an associate professor at the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. She is an expert on gender and politics, urban politics, and political behavior and has published widely in these areas.Both Emily and Mirya have been cited widely in outlets like the New York Times, The Atlantic, and other important public facing venues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Listener note: This interview contains discussions of suicide. Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: Context, Causes, and Consequences (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) explores the depiction of suicide in American youth films from 1900 to 2019. Anchored in Sociology, this multidisciplinary study investigates the causes and consequences of suicide and uncovers the socio-cultural context for the development of youth, film, and suicide. While such cinematic portrayals seem to privilege external explanations of suicide versus internal or psychological ones, overall they are neither rich nor sensitive. Most are simplistic, limited or at the very least unbalanced. At times, they are flatly controversial. In light of this overall problematic depiction of suicide, this book offers a proactive approach to empower young audiences--a media literacy strategy to embrace while watching these films.A Fulbright grantee and an award-winning artist, Alessandra Seggi (PhD in Sociology and MA in Media Studies) teaches at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA.Ailin Zhou is a PhD student in Film & Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research interests include transnational Chinese cinema, Asian diasporic visual culture, contemporary art, and feminist and queer theories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Enlightenment studies are currently in a state of flux, with unresolved arguments among its adherents about its dates, its locations, and the contents of the 'movement'. This book cuts the Gordian knot. There are many books claiming to explain the Enlightenment, but most assume that it was a thing. J. C. D. Clark shows what it actually was, namely a historiographical concept. Currently 'the Enlightenment' is a term widely accepted across popular culture and in a variety of academic disciplines, notably history, philosophy, political theory, political science, literary studies, and theology; Clark calls for a fundamental reconsideration in each. The Enlightenment: An Idea and Its History (Oxford UP, 2024) provides a critical historical analysis of the Enlightenment in England, Scotland, France, Germany, and the United States from c. 1650 to the present. It argues that the degree of commonality between social and intellectual movements in each--and, more broadly, between the five societies--has been overstated for polemical purposes. Clark shows that the concept of 'the Enlightenment' was not widely adopted in those societies until the mid-twentieth century; indeed, that it was unknown in the eighteenth. Without the concept, people at the time were unable to act in ways that would have created the Enlightenment as a coherent movement. Since the conventional account has held that the Enlightenment was a phenomenon, the idea could be used as a component of what has been called a 'civil religion': a summing up of the myths of origin, aims, and essential values of a society from which dissent is not permitted. An appreciation that it was instead a historiographical concept undermines, in turn, the idea that there was any great transition to what came to be called 'modernity'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Konrad Bercovici's The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years With the Legends Who Lunch (SUNY Press, 2024) is a previously unpublished manuscript exploring the rich history of a New York City landmark. Located in New York's theatre district, the Algonquin Hotel became an artistic hub for the city and a landmark in America's cultural life. It was a meeting place and home away from home for such luminaries as famed wits/authors Alexander Woollcott and Dorothy Parker; Broadway and Hollywood stars, including Tallulah Bankhead and Charles Laughton; popular raconteurs like Robert Benchley; and New York City mayors Jimmy Walker and Fiorello LaGuardia. Observing it all was celebrated author and journalist Konrad Bercovici. Born in Romania, Bercovici settled in New York, where he became known for reporting on its rich cultural life. While digging through an inherited trunk of family papers, his granddaughter, Mirana Comstock, discovered this previously unpublished manuscript on Bercovici's years at the Algonquin Round Table. Lovers of New York lore and fans of American culture will enjoy his vivid, intimate accounts of what it was like to be a member of this distinguished circle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

The campus protests over conflict in Israel and Gaza have engulfed universities, and led to the resignation of several university presidents. In this podcast, recorded live at the New York Institute of the Humanities, Michael S. Roth, the long-time President of Wesleyan College, explains how he navigates sharp disagreements on campus, what he means by “safe enough spaces,” and how to understand what is happening on campus in relation to our democracy.Michael S. Roth is the 16th president of Wesleyan University, since 2007. Formerly president of California College of the Arts (CCA), Roth is known as a historian, curator, author and public advocate for liberal education. His many books include Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (Yale University Press, 2014); Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness (Yale University Press, 2019); and The Student: A Short History (Yale University Press, 2023). This conversation was recorded with a live audience at the New York Institute for the Humanities, which is directed by Eric Banks and hosted by the New York Public Library. I want to thank Eric Banks for the invitation to speak with President Roth, and the fellows of the New York Institute for a lively discussion included here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad.Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade (Verso, 2024) tells the shocking story of the AFL-CIO's global anticommunist crusade--and its devastating consequences for workers around the world.Unions have the power not only to secure pay raises and employee benefits but to bring economies to a screeching halt and overthrow governments. Recognizing this, in the late twentieth century, the US government sought to control labor movements abroad as part of the Cold War contest for worldwide supremacy. In this work, Washington found an enthusiastic partner in the AFL-CIO's anticommunist officials, who, in a shocking betrayal, for decades expended their energies to block revolutionary ideologies and militant class consciousness from taking hold in the workers' movements of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Jacobin, and his scholarship has been published in Diplomatic History and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

It is well-known that the institution of marriage has changed dramatically in the past few decades. However, very little research has focused on the role of religious institutions in helping couples form and maintain their relationships.Guiding God's Marriage: Faith and Social Change in Premarital Counseling (NYU Press, 2024) by Dr. Courtney Irby offers an examination of Christian marriage preparation programs, exploring their efforts to stabilise the institution of marriage and highlighting the tension between individualism and community in people’s relational lives. Marriage preparation programs offer a useful lens through which to trace shifts in both religious and family institutions because they set out clear and intentional articulations of marriage ideologies and gendered relationship scripts by faith communities. By documenting the changes in content and practices of Christian premarital education along with its advice regarding what makes a good marriage, the book charts the ways that religious communities have been transformed by and have helped to contribute to the individualization of faith and relationships.Featuring archival research as well as first hand observations of four marriage preparation courses—two Protestant and two Catholic—along with seventy interviews with participating couples and leaders of these and other programs, the book offers a rare view of visions about how to realise a successful and faith-filled relationship. This examination of marriage classes offers key insight into how religious communities have responded to cultural changes in marriage, gender, sexuality, and intimacy.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

Remember the bleach drinking episode? Remember ‘alternative facts’? Remember ‘I have the best words’? These elements of the Trump presidency spoke to a fundamental part of his politics: truth and science were not prime among his considerations. Given this, one may assume that academics would have been especially unlikely to be drawn to the Trump presidency. Yet, in his fascinating book The Academic Trumpists: Radicals against Liberal Democracy (Routledge, 2024), David Swartz outlines a group of public intellectuals who supported, and largely continue to support, Trump. These 109 Academic Trumpists are not marginal to American academia but rather can be found in middle to high-ranking schools and sometimes have backgrounds in elite institutions. Swartz demonstrates however how they cluster in particular disciplines and institutions and make use of a significant network of populist conservative thinktanks. By comparing these Trumpists with 89 conservative professors who are anti-Trump, Swartz is able to show the distinctive political positions the Trumpists adopt, especially concerning ‘liberal’ campus culture and the appeal of Trump as a ‘wrecking ball’. This populist politics and their distinct networks differ them from their conservative peers who see Trump as a threat and fundamentally not conservative.In our conversation we discuss who these academic Trumpists are, the details of their positioning and why, despite everything, they continue to support Trump. We also consider what possibility there maybe for an allegiance between liberal and anti-Trump conservative professors in the US.Your host Matt Dawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow with research interests in social theory and the history of sociology. He is the author of a number of books, including G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation (2024, Palgrave Macmillan) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies