New Books in History

Marshall Poe

Episodes

Mentioned books

undefined
Mar 2, 2026 • 1h 6min

E. T. Dailey, "Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Dr. E. T. Dailey, Associate Professor of Late Antique and Early Medieval History and author of Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen, unpacks Radegund’s dramatic life. Hear about her capture and royal marriage, her bold break to found an innovative convent, the politics around relics, intense ascetic practices, and how hagiography shaped her long medieval legacy.
undefined
Mar 1, 2026 • 1h 1min

Aaron Donaghy, "The Second Cold War: Carter, Reagan, and the Politics of Foreign Policy" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Aaron Donaghy, an Associate Professor of History specializing in U.S. foreign relations and Cold War politics, discusses the tense 1979–1985 surge in U.S.-Soviet rivalry. He covers how domestic politics shaped Carter and Reagan’s risk-taking, the rise of the nuclear freeze movement, the 1983 nuclear scare, and why Reagan later pivoted toward negotiation.
undefined
Mar 1, 2026 • 60min

Christine Loh, "Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2018)

Christine Loh, former Hong Kong legislator and founder of Civic Exchange, digs into the Chinese Communist Party's long game in Hong Kong. She traces early 20th-century activity, covert networks like Xinhua and front organizations, and united front tactics. The conversation covers 1967 unrest, post-1997 outreach, youth sentiment, and the Greater Bay Area's implications.
undefined
Feb 28, 2026 • 42min

Sandra E. Greene, “Slave Owners of West Africa: Decision Making in the Age of Abolition” (Indiana UP, 2017)

Sandra E. Greene, a Cornell professor of African history who studies 18th–19th century Ghana and oral history, discusses biographies of three wealthy men who owned dependents and navigated abolition and colonial rule. The conversation covers research methods, why she turned to slave owners, differing strategies these men used, and sensitivities around studying families with slaveholding pasts.
undefined
Feb 28, 2026 • 56min

Alice Wiemers, "Village Work: Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana" (Ohio UP, 2021)

Alice Wiemers, associate professor of history at Davidson College and author of Village Work, explores rural development and statecraft in northern Ghana. She focuses on everyday labor, village infrastructures, and how chiefs and family networks shaped projects. The conversation highlights the local making of development, the remaking of forced labor into self-help, and the persistence of peripheral statecraft.
undefined
Feb 27, 2026 • 1h 9min

The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow

Samuel Kassow, historian of Eastern European Jewry and YIVO research historian, explores what a shtetl really was. He contrasts nostalgic portrayals with sharp critiques. He traces origins in the Polish Commonwealth, describes communal institutions, markets, and social roles. He follows economic shifts, pressures of the Pale and Tsarist rule, and the modern disruptions that reshaped shtetl life.
undefined
Feb 27, 2026 • 55min

Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)

Sarah Jones Weicksel, historian of material culture who studies clothing and violence in the Civil War era. She discusses how garments shaped loyalties, labor, and identity. Topics include who made and mended uniforms, how clothing signaled rank and masculinity, supply shortages and improvisation, looting and the erasure of bodies, and why people preserved garments as memory.
undefined
Feb 26, 2026 • 56min

Leah Astbury, "Making Babies in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Leah Astbury, Lecturer in health history at the University of Bristol and author of Making Babies in Early Modern England, explores generation in sixteenth and seventeenth-century households. She discusses how families managed fertility, pregnancy detection, and recovery. Topics include men's roles in childbearing, material culture of birth, legitimacy anxieties, wet nursing, and the rise of male practitioners.
undefined
Feb 25, 2026 • 59min

Anna-Luna Post, "Galileo’s Fame: Science, Credibility, and Memory in the Seventeenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)

Anna-Luna Post, historian at Leiden University who studies early modern fame and scientific culture. She traces how networks, brokers, poets, patrons, and institutions made and remade Galileo’s reputation. Short scenes cover contested discoveries, character and regional stereotypes, court strategies, pulpit denunciations, and the fractured public sphere that shaped his memory.
undefined
Feb 24, 2026 • 50min

Andrea Mansker, "Matchmaking and the Marriage Market in Postrevolutionary France" (Cornell UP, 2024)

Andrea Mansker, a historian of French cultural and gender history, discusses professional matchmakers in postrevolutionary France. She traces how revolutionary laws, urban change, and newspapers turned courtship into a commodified market. Short scenes of ads, anonymous letters, theatrical portrayals, fraud fears, and rival matchmaking styles bring the 19th-century marriage trade to life.

The AI-powered Podcast Player

Save insights by tapping your headphones, chat with episodes, discover the best highlights - and more!
App store bannerPlay store banner
 Get the app