New Books in American Studies

As the author of a graphic history, I loved chatting with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith about the graphic interpretation of An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2024). An Indigenous Peoples' History of The United States originally came out in 2014 with Beacon Press. In 2019 it was adapted into a Young Peoples version by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese. In 2021 it was one of the three foundational texts for the amazing HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck. The other featured books were two of my all-time favorites Sven Lindqvist’ Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Paul Peart-Smith has adapted what many regard as the first history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples into a stunningly powerful graphic history. Through evocative full color artwork, renowned cartoonist Paul Peart-Smith brings this watershed book to life, centering the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants to trace Indigenous perseverance over four centuries against policies intended to obliterate them.Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a New York Times best-selling author, grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international feminist and Indigenous movements for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. Dunbar-Ortiz is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, and is the author or editor of many books, including An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, a recipient of the 2015 American Book Award. She lives in San Francisco and is a professor emeritus in Ethnic Studies at California State University, East Bay.Paul Peart-Smith is a celebrated cartoonist of over 35 years, with experience in concept art, graphic design, and animation. Having studied to be an illustrator in Cambridge, England, he has worked on comics for 2000 AD, such as Slaughter Bowl . He is the illustrator and adapter of W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation. He lives in Tasmania, Australia and puts out the bi-weekly newsletter InkSkull . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Americans agree that their nation’s origins lie in the Revolution, but they have never agreed on what the Revolution meant. For nearly two hundred and fifty years, politicians, political parties, social movements, and a diverse array of ordinary Americans have constantly reimagined the Revolution to fit the times and suit their own agendas.In The Memory of '76: The Revolution in American History (Yale UP, 2024), Michael D. Hattem reveals how conflicts over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution—including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—have influenced the most important events and tumultuous periods in the nation’s history; how African Americans, women, and other oppressed groups have shaped the popular memory of the Revolution; and how much of our contemporary memory of the Revolution is a product of the Cold War.By exploring the Revolution’s unique role in American history as a national origin myth, Hattem shows how the meaning of the Revolution has never been fixed, how remembering the nation’s founding has often done far more to divide Americans than to unite them, and how revising the past is an important and long‑standing American political tradition.This interview was conducted by Hannah Nolan, a PhD Candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her work focuses upon the intersection of memory, partisanship, and ethnic identity during the early republic to explore the construction of Irish and American identities in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Paul Robeson's Voices (Oxford UP, 2023) is a meditation on Robeson's singing, a study of the artist's life in song. Music historian Grant Olwage examines Robeson's voice as it exists in two broad and intersecting domains: as sound object and sounding gesture, specifically how it was fashioned in the contexts of singing practices, in recital, concert, and recorded performance, and as subject of identification. Olwage asks: how does the voice encapsulate modes of subjectivity, of being?Combining deep archival research with musicological theory, this book is a study of voice as central to Robeson's sense of self and his politics. Paul Robeson's Voices charts the dialectal process of Robeson's vocal and self-discovery, documenting some of the ways Robeson's practice revised the traditions of concert singing in the first half of the twentieth century and how his voice manifested as resistance.”Nathan Smith is a PhD candidate in Music Theory at Yale Universitynathan.smith@yale.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In June, a presidential debated ended the candidacy of incumbent President Joe Biden. On September 10th, Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump debated in Philadelphia and two flash polls done by CNN and YouGov declared Harris the winner. Political scientists know that debate wins don’t necessarily translate into November victories. Barack Obama lost his first debate and Walter Monday won his. To unpack the impact of this usually September debate, we have two presidential politics scholars and friends of the podcast. The spirited conversation highlights baiting techniques used by Harris, the role of the moderators in fact checking, whether a hand shake shook up Trump, the meaning of “she put out,” andDr. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Dr. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University.We mentioned: Trump speaking 43 minutes to Harris’s 37:41 from New York Times Seth Masket’s “Baiting is the Hardest Part” Trump’s belief that shaking hands is barbaric from Washington Post Transcript of the September 10th POTUS debate from ABC News Julia Azari’s Foreign Affairs article Bret Stephen’s New York Times column Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

What role does religion play in migration processes? What is the reason behind migration of religious minorities? Is religious affiliation a deciding factor in choosing emigration? Some of these questions have been the focus of The Untold Journey of the Nazarene Emigration from Yugoslavia to North America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024). As the field of migration history is very broad both chronologically and geographically, Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović focuses on the migration of religious minorities triggered by state repression and the socio-historical context of post-Second World War Yugoslavia. The history and development of the Nazarene communities is analyzed through the lens of religiously motivated persecution and migration from Yugoslavia to North America. The Nazarenes, known as Apostolical Christian Church (Nazarene) in North America, represents a fascinating case study which bring new insights into policies towards minority religions during the communist era, migration patterns, and integration mechanisms in the host country. This book is applicable to contemporary forced migration contexts and to the role of religious communities in supporting the integration of refugees and migrants across the world. The reasons for fleeing, migration paths, and routes, life in the refugee camps and settling into the new society are present in the narratives of present-day refugees and migrants fleeing from conflict or religious intolerance across the globe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Unlike a flood or fire, a the Farming Crisis of the 1980s did not have a set beginning of ending. Rather, it was a rolling, often invisible, disaster that could be easy to ignore if you lived in towns or cities, even within the West and Midwest. Yet, in places like rural Iowa, the impacts of this complex crisis were devastating and indeed, ongoing even today. In When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s (UP of Kansas, 2022), emininet Iowa State historian Pamela Riney-Kehrberg explains the roots, details, and impacts of the farm crisis on 1970s and 1980s Iowa. Riney-Kehrberg focuses in particular on the mental and psychological effects of this slow disaster on family farmers themselves, with an emphasis on the psychic damage caused by farm closure which contributed to a rash of murders, suicides, and mental health crises across the state. Among the first book-length studies of the 1980s Farm Crisis, When a Dream Dies shows how the disconnect between rural and urban America was both caused, and deepened, in the crucible of debt, banking, and bankrupt farms during the Reagan years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

It’s the UConn Popcast, and today we offer a political science / popular culture studies view of Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. We situate Swift’s endorsement within the wider moment of popular culture, and consider her long journey from a self-imposed moratorium on political speech to her current position as the most sought-after endorsement in the election cycle. What does the endorsement mean? Why did she do it? And why did she sign her endorsement as from a “childless cat lady”?Our previous discussion of Taylor Swift and politics is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

The brainchild of an obscure Yugoslav physician, Krebiozen emerged in 1951 as an alleged cancer treatment. Andrew Ivy, a University of Illinois vice president and a famed physiologist dubbed “the conscience of U.S. science,” wholeheartedly embraced Krebiozen. Ivy’s impeccable credentials and reputation made the treatment seem like another midcentury medical miracle. But after years of controversy, the improbable saga ended with Krebiozen proved a sham, its inventor fleeing the country, and Ivy’s reputation and legacy in ruins.Matthew C. Ehrlich’s history of Krebiozen tells a quintessential story of quackery. Though most experts dismissed the treatment, it found passionate public support not only among cancer patients but also people in good health. The treatment’s rise and fall took place against the backdrop of America’s never-ending suspicion of educational, scientific, and medical expertise. In addition, Ehrlich examines why people readily believe misinformation and struggle to maintain hope in the face of grave threats to well-being.A dramatic account of fraud and misplaced trust, The Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug Shook Organized Medicine (U Illinois Press, 2024) shines a light on a forgotten medical scandal and its all-too-familiar relevance in the twenty-first century.Matthew C. Ehrlich is professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Illinois. He has previously published five books including Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK and Kansas City vs. Oakland: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Join us for an in-depth exploration of Professor Cass Sunstein's latest work, Campus Free Speech (Harvard University Press, September 2024). Together, we'll examine the book’s intriguing take on free speech in academic spaces and the broader implications for constitutional interpretation. Professor Sunstein also delves into the exercise of administrative power, with timely discussions on COVID-era authority and the Supreme Court's decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Gain unique insights from Sunstein on how the Constitution remains a guiding force for the American public in navigating modern challenges.Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as Chair of its technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and after that, he served on the President’s Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many nations on issues of law and public policy. He serves as an adviser to the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom.Professor Sunstein is author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), The Ethics of Influence (2015), #Republic (2017), Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide (2017), The Cost-Benefit Revolution (2018), On Freedom (2019), Conformity (2019), How Change Happens (2019), and Too Much Information (2020). He is now working on a variety of projects involving the regulatory state, “sludge” (defined to include paperwork and similar burdens), fake news, and freedom of speech.Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and InstitutionsContributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

School vouchers are often framed as a way to help students and families by providing choice, but evidence shows that vouchers have a negative impact on educational outcomes. In The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (Harvard Education Press, 2024), Josh Cowen describes voucher programs as the product of decades of work by influential conservatives and wealthy activists to support a vision of America where education is privatized and removed from the public sphere.Far from realizing the purported goal of educational equity, Cowen cites multiple research studies that conclude that voucher programs return poor academic outcomes, including lower test scores on state exams, especially among students who are at greater academic risk because of their race, their religion, their gender identity, or their family's income.The books traces the history of vouchers from it's initial proposal as part of conservative economic policy through its adoption as a method for families to resist school desegregation. Since then, the issue of education "freedom" has been a part of an ongoing culture war waged through policymaking, legislation, and litigation. Cowen describes the advocacy network that funds research and promotion of vouchers as a way to attain ideological goals related to conservative social policy, not educational outcomes. Recommended reading:  East of Eden by John Steinbeck Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies