New Books Network

Thomas C. Schmidt, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and author of Josephus and Jesus, explores the life and world of the historian Josephus. He surveys Josephus’s aristocratic roots, Roman connections, and role in the Galilean revolt. The conversation highlights how Josephus illuminates New Testament context, contested references to Jesus, dating issues, and the political and religious turmoil of first‑century Judea.

Katherine Harvey, medieval historian and author of The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living, explores how people in the Middle Ages practiced preventative care. She discusses medieval regimens on air, diet, exercise, emotions, aging, and care for women and children. The conversation also covers how medical knowledge spread and which old practices to avoid.

Robert Cribb, an Emeritus professor of Asian history specializing in Southeast Asia, and Sandra Wilson, a professor of Japanese history and expert in Japanese sources, discuss thirteen cases of wartime violence. They explore trials, military records, the limits of cultural explanations, wartime pressures and choices, and how individuals came to commit atrocities. The conversation highlights documentation, controversial verdicts, and legal complexities.

Philip Wingai-Orayo, a scholar of missiology and Methodist history, examines John Wesley’s surprising reluctance to send overseas missionaries. He highlights how ordinary laypeople—immigrants, sailors, enslaved and freed persons—carried Methodism globally. The discussion covers Wesley’s Georgia experience, Moravian influences, Thomas Coke’s missionary push, women’s roles, and transatlantic networks like Boston King’s story.

They pit Heat against Collateral and debate which film best captures Michael Mann’s signature traits. Conversation ranges from Heat’s ensemble depth, moral ambiguity, and tragic choices to Collateral’s nocturnal structure, Cruise and Foxx’s performances, and a transformative everyman journey. They close by ranking Mann’s top films and arguing which works feel most quintessentially his.

Lee Ann S. Wang, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and author of The Violence of Protection, blends ethnography and abolition feminist critique. She discusses how U.S. protection laws tie immigrant survivors to policing. Short segments cover fieldwork with advocates, critiques of VAWA/U/T visas, racialized survivor templates, and visions of abolitionist solidarity.

Kristina Jonutytė, social anthropologist and author of Between the Buddha and the New Tsar, studies urban Buddhism and minority politics in Buryatia. She explores temple economies, how city life reshapes Buddhist practice, and the effects of war and conscription on Buryat identity. The conversation highlights russification, transnational ties, infrapolitical rituals, and migration reshaping belonging.

Robert Hall, former British Army officer turned resilience consultant and author of Building Resilient Futures (2023). He explores personal, social, urban, and national resilience. Shortcase studies include COVID, the Winter War, and Ladbroke Grove. Topics include redundancy vs just-in-time systems, community bonds over stockpiles, teaching resilience to youth, and lessons from history like Shackleton and Finnish sisu.

Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup, outlines why companies drift from founders' purpose and how to build institutions that resist that pull. He discusses financial gravity, structural guardrails, mission governance, detecting real values, and whether systems can withstand corrupt leadership. Short, provocative, and focused on practical mechanisms for preserving ethical missions.

Allan Greer, a Canadian historian of early colonial life and author of Canada in the Age of Rum, traces how massive rum imports reshaped work and trade from the 1670s to the 1830s. He explores rum’s role in fisheries and the fur trade, its use to control labour and trade with Indigenous peoples, Indigenous responses and resistance, and why rum’s dominance faded by the 1830s.