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Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast

Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast

By: New Books Network
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 Interviews with Cambridge UP authors about their new booksNew Books Network Art Literary History & Criticism Science Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • Verena Halsmayer on Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact

    Verena Halsmayer on Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact
    Nov 24 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, chats with Verena Halsmeyer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna, about her recent, award-winning book, Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact. The book explores the history of the way economists think about growth, including the role of technological change in it. It focuses on the period between the 1930s and 1960s, tracing the development of the famed 'Solow growth model,' one of the central mathematical models in postwar economics. The pair also talk about the intersections between the history of science and the history of economics and how we all can learn to focus on practices - that is, what people do - rather than on ideas alone.
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    1 hr and 22 mins
  • Killian Clarke, "Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Killian Clarke, "Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
    Nov 21 2025
    Why do some revolutions fail and succumb to counterrevolutions, whereas others go on to establish durable rule? Marshalling original data on counterrevolutions worldwide since 1900 and new evidence from the reversal of Egypt's 2011 revolution, in Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed (Cambridge UP, 2025) Dr. Killian Clarke explains both why counterrevolutions emerge and when they are likely to succeed. He forwards a movement-centric argument that emphasizes the strategies revolutionary leaders embrace both during their opposition campaigns and after they seize power. Movements that wage violent resistance and espouse radical ideologies establish regimes that are very difficult to overthrow. By contrast, democratic revolutions like Egypt's are more vulnerable, though Dr. Clarke also identifies a path by which they too can avoid counterrevolution. By preserving their elite coalitions and broad popular support, these movements can return to mass mobilization to thwart counterrevolutionary threats. In an era of resurgent authoritarianism worldwide, Return of Tyranny sheds light on one particularly violent form of reactionary politics. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Thomas Morel, "Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

    Thomas Morel, "Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
    Nov 21 2025
    Thomas Morel joins Jana Byars to tell the story of subterranean geometry, a forgotten discipline that developed in the silver mines of early modern Europe, talking about his book Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge UP, 2022). Mining and metallurgy were of great significance to the rulers of early modern Europe, required for the silver bullion that fuelled warfare and numerous other uses. Through seven lively case studies, he illustrates how geometry was used in metallic mines by practitioners using esoteric manuscripts. He describes how an original culture of accuracy and measurement paved the way for technical and scientific innovations, and fruitfully brought together the world of artisans, scholars and courts. Based on a variety of original manuscripts, maps and archive material, Morel recounts how knowledge was crafted and circulated among practitioners in the Holy Roman Empire and beyond. Specific chapters deal with the material culture of surveying, map-making, expertise and the political uses of quantification. By carefully reconstructing the religious, economic and cultural context of mining cities, Underground Mathematics contextualizes the rise of numbered information, practical mathematics and quantification in the early modern period.
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    46 mins
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