New Books in History

How the rise of the culture wars afflicts the politics of education.  On August 9, 2022, the Denton Independent School District held a meeting to address complaints about its libraries. Like so many districts in Texas and across the country, Denton had been responding to accusations that children had access to inappropriate books at school. During the public comment session, a local man stood up to the podium and read a sexually explicit passage from a book that he wanted removed from Denton’s school libraries. But beguiled by the prospect of securing a political win, he had confused the title of the lurid psychological thriller he read aloud with a young adult fiction series about mermaids. While his attempt to ban a book that was never in Denton’s school libraries in the first place received a few laughs, it also reflects a deeply serious and troubling culture of conflict that has taken over the politics of education and now divides people so completely as to make public education as a shared endeavor seem impossible.  In Willing Warriors, Mark Hlavacik shows how the culture wars have redefined the politics of US schooling from the 1970s to the present through vivid accounts of public controversies featuring Allan Bloom, Oprah Winfrey, Lynne Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Betsy DeVos, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others. Beginning in the 1970s, Hlavacik shows, efforts at innovation in schooling have increasingly been met by attempts to discredit them through exposé. As the culture wars have accelerated and exploded, this cycle of innovation and exposé has embroiled public schools in increasingly heated debates. He explains the dynamics that make curriculum controversies so intractable and confronts the delicate question of whether raucous public arguments are bad for education. With clarity and insight, Hlavacik reveals why bitter contests between educational ideologies not only add another burden for the schools, but also for the people—the willing warriors—who devote their lives to fighting for their betterment. Mark Hlavacik is assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform. Laura Beth Kelly is an associate professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Cathryn J. Prince, adjunct journalism professor and biographer, discusses Pauline Newman, a pioneering labor organizer who rose from immigrant sweatshops to shape the ILGWU. The conversation covers Newman's early immigrant struggles, youth organizing and the 1909 garment strike, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire's impact, her role as a rare woman organizer, lifelong partnership with Frida Miller, and her influence on labor policy and worker health.

Alan McDougall, Professor of History at the University of Guelph and lifelong Liverpool supporter, explains his people-centered history of Liverpool F.C. He discusses Anfield and the Kop as cultural anchors. He tackles difficult moments like Heysel and Hillsborough, examines race, gender, and ownership critiques, and compares Shankly’s local politics with Klopp’s global charisma.

Tom Wells, historian and author of The Kissinger Tapes, reveals how he assembled and edited secretly recorded Kissinger phone transcripts. He walks through the selection challenges and the tapes’ portraits of Kissinger’s character, his relationship with Nixon, and the secrecy culture that shaped Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Watergate. Short, revealing stories and archival detective work drive the conversation.

Satya Shikha Chakraborty, Associate Professor of History who studies gendered domestic labor, race, caste, and empire. She traces the ayah archetype as a desexualized caregiver that bolstered imperial moral claims. Short sections cover ayahs in imperial imagination, legal and visual archives, journeys to Britain, caste and colonial medicine, and links to contemporary domestic labor.

James Lin, historian and author of The Global Vanguard, explores Taiwan’s agrarian transformation and its export as a “Taiwan model.” He traces South-to-South missions to Vietnam and Africa. He discusses land reform, agricultural science, diplomatic aims, and how development served domestic politics. The conversation highlights archival research and oral histories revealing how technical projects became political.

Nana Osei-Opare, historian of Ghana and Black internationalisms at Rice University, discusses his book on Ghana’s 1957 independence and Black socialist experiments. He traces Ghana–Soviet entanglements, everyday racism in the Eastern Bloc, and how ordinary Ghanaians shaped diplomacy. Short, vivid stories reveal contested transnational spaces, wartime legacies, and grassroots claims on state power.

Katharine Gerbner, Associate Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota, explores how Obeah was framed and criminalized in eighteenth-century Jamaica. She traces Moravian missionary archives, explains her method of identifying archival “irruptions,” and recounts fieldwork with Maroon communities. The conversation centers on archival discovery, methodological innovation, and the colonial making of religion.

Andrew I. Port, Professor of German history and author of Germany (Polity, 2025), traces Germany’s dramatic postwar transformation. He contrasts East and West developments, explains how division was imposed, and examines reunification’s promises and disappointments. He also discusses the long 1950s, the rise of the far right, and changing expectations about German responsibility and identity.

Antony Polonsky, distinguished historian of modern Jewish life in Eastern Europe and author of a three-volume history, traces Jewish settlement from medieval towns to modern transformations. He discusses Hasidism, the Haskalah, urbanization, pogroms and mass emigration, wartime choices and comparative Holocaust responses, Stalinist repression, and post-1989 efforts to revive memory and culture.