New Books Network

Sarah James, assistant professor and former K–12 teacher and principal, studies how data and politics shape recognition of policy failure. She traces the book’s origins in education and criminalized truancy. She compares Washington and Texas to show how data choices affect whether failures are visible. She discusses how analysis itself is a political tool and explores reforms and interpretation in policy making.

James McDougall, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Oxford, offers a sweeping global history of Islam from Late Antiquity to the digital age. He traces long arcs of expansion, local diversity, and modern transformations. The conversation highlights biographical storytelling, research methods, and how global scholarship reshapes understanding of Islam’s past and present.

Rachel Rojanski, Brown professor and author of Yiddish in Israel: A History. Sunny Yudkoff, Yiddish literature scholar who rethinks suppression narratives. Shachar Pinsker, scholar linking Yiddish and Hebrew literary worlds. Rachel Brenner, literary scholar on language shift. They debate state influence, Yiddish press and theater, mediating literary figures, and changing attitudes toward Yiddish in Israel.

A lively debate pits two Michael Mann favorites against each other in a tournament-style matchup. Conversation centers on Mann’s shift from mechanical precision to romantic naturalism. They dissect major adaptation choices, altered character dynamics, and how edits affect mythic power. The hosts also weigh visual style, pacing, soundtrack, and the challenges of dramatizing a legendary boxer.

Robert Whiting, author and longtime Japan observer, shares colorful tales of Tokyo outsiders from the 60s and 70s. Stories include a boisterous Australian hostess famed for cutting patrons’ ties, a tattooed female yakuza with a revolver, North Korean drug-smuggling and meth’s rise, and how MK Taxi transformed rude cabs into polished service.

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College and military historian, discusses his Oxford University Press book on the Battle of Manila. He covers Manila’s place in the late Pacific War. He examines MacArthur’s decisions and the strategies behind the Luzon campaign. He explores brutal urban combat, Japanese choices to defend the city, and the devastation and civilian toll.

Maya Kornberg, Senior Fellow at the NYU Brennan Center and author of Stuck, explores why Congress remains immobilized. She traces three freshman reform waves and examines how campaign money, social media incentives, and rising political violence block change. Short takes on relationship-building, institutional staffing, and concrete reforms round out the conversation.

Tulasi Srinivas, an anthropologist of religion and urban life, explores contemporary beauty parlors in Bangalore as sites of social life and meaning. She discusses how salons connect technology, mythology, and gender through stories of goddesses and ethical practice. Conversations cover methods, class and caste dynamics, and how beauty practices shape moral imaginaries.

Erica Morawski, an associate professor at Pratt Institute who studies architecture and design in the Hispanic Caribbean, discusses hotel design as a lens on development and national identity. She examines imperial projects, state modernization plans, economic incentives, and how material choices and aesthetics shaped tourism in San Juan, Ciudad Trujillo, and Havana.

Dr. Melissa Burch, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and director of the Afterlives of Conviction Project, studies how criminal records shape work and exclusion. She traces the history of routine background checks, describes fieldwork with job-seekers and employers in Southern California, and explores how institutions, risk narratives, and logistics sustain barriers to employment.