Episodes

  • Karen Hao, "Empire of AI: Inside the Race for Total Domination" (Allan Lane, 2025)

    Karen Hao, "Empire of AI: Inside the Race for Total Domination" (Allan Lane, 2025)
    Apr 27 2026
    Hello! Thanks for reaching out. I'm glad you're here! Do you have any questions or thoughts about the recent discussion with Karen Hao on AI and its societal impacts?Hello! Thanks for reaching out. I'm glad you're here! Do you have any questions or thoughts about the recent discussion with Karen Hao on AI and its societal impacts? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    39 mins
  • Kaitlin P. Reed, "Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California" (U Washington Press, 2023)

    Kaitlin P. Reed, "Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California" (U Washington Press, 2023)
    Apr 27 2026
    Despite it's centrality to a hippie counterculture which claimed an environmentalist ethos, California's "green rush" of cannabis growing from the mid-twentieth century onwards has been anything but. In Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California, Cal Poly Humboldt Native American Studies professor Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) argues that the state's booming cannabis industry can be situated squarely within other extractive settler colonial enterprises such as gold mining and overfishing. From illegal land use practices to toxic pollutants in rivers, cannabis growing in northern California has been disruptive to Indigenous relations to the land and nonhuman life, and has been for decades - a problem only worsening as the industry grows from an underground enterprise into an economic engine worth billions. Yet, as Reed argues, cannabis-as-colonialism is only part of the story, as the Yurok and other California Native people engage in acts of survivance from the court room to the cannabis field here, fighting and insisting that northern California is still Native land. Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) is assistant professor of Native American Studies at Humboldt State University. Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann has been hosting New Books Network podcasts since 2017. Currently, he is a an assistant professor of American environmental history at Appalachian State University. He can be reached at hausmannsr@appstate.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 24 mins
  • Vanda Krefft, "Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women" (Algonquin Books, 2026)

    Vanda Krefft, "Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women" (Algonquin Books, 2026)
    Apr 24 2026
    It’s a safe bet that most of the secretaries on the TV series Mad Men would have attended the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. The iconic institution was in its heyday in the 1950 and '60s synonymous with supplying secretaries—always properly attired in heels, ladylike hats, and white gloves—to male executives. In Expect Great Things! Vanda Krefft turns the notion of a “Gibbs girl” on its head, showing us that while the school was getting women who could type 90 words per minute into the C-suite, its more subversive mission was to get them out of the secretarial pool to assume positions of power on the other side of the desk. And Gibbs graduates did just that, tackling the sexism of the era and paving the way for 21st-century women to succeed in any profession.Katharine Gibbs was one her own success stories. She started her school when, as a 46-year-old widow, she was left near-broke with two young sons. The school taught typing and stenography but Gibbs also hired accomplished professors from elite colleges to teach academic subjects—it was a well-rounded education that produced early feminists ready to tackle the sexism of their era. "Expect great things!" was her motto and her philosophy. Within a decade she’d opened schools in three elegant locations. With nostalgic period photographs throughout, Expect Great Things! takes us back to Katie Gibbs’s life and tells the stories of the women she influenced. We meet Gibbs graduates who worked for the Walt Disney, Marilyn Monroe, and Robert F. Kennedy. Others forged pathfinding roles as an Emmy-winning television star, a women’s rights advisor to four U.S. presidents, a writer of Wonder Woman comic books, the head of the Women’s Marines, a best-selling young adult author, and a U.S. Ambassador.For readers of The Barbizon and Come Fly the World, Expect Great Things! reveals the seismic impact the Katharine Gibbs school had on the American workplace—and on women’s opportunities today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • Eileen G'Sell, "Lipstick" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

    Eileen G'Sell, "Lipstick" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
    Apr 20 2026
    From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself.Who wears lipstick today – as a matter of routine? And for those who do, is it out of obligation to a strict feminine standard, or some other reason entirely? Lipstick reconsiders the beauty world's most conspicuous – and contentious – tool of artifice. Tossing expired ideas about femininity like so many tubes of melting wax, Lipstick (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Eileen G’Sell, part of the Object Lessons series, explores how self-adornment can be a source of play, pleasure, and transformation, as well as how lipstick can knock gender norms off balance. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    42 mins
  • Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller, "Boom to Bust: How Streaming Broke Hollywood Workers" (U California Press, 2026)

    Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller, "Boom to Bust: How Streaming Broke Hollywood Workers" (U California Press, 2026)
    Apr 19 2026
    Boom to Bust is a timely investigation into the rise of Peak TV and the perfect storm that caused a rapid decline in Hollywood work. When Hollywood writers and actors went on strike in 2023, they drew attention to the rapidly changing nature of film and television production. In Boom to Bust, media industry experts Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller combine economic and cultural analysis and interviews with industry workers to capture the lived experience of Hollywood in crisis. Tracking major disruptions of the preceding decade—including the transformation of streaming services into studios, the overproduction of series during Peak TV, as well as #MeToo and COVID—the authors explain how the conflicting interests of studio executives, creative workers, and workers' unions compelled a renegotiation of the terms of work. Grounding readers in the history of Hollywood labor negotiations, the authors provide a road map to make sense of Hollywood’s present—and what comes next. Miranda Banks is Professor of Film, Television, and Media Studies at Loyola Marymount University, author of The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild, and coeditor of Production Studies. Kate Fortmueller is Associate Professor of Film and Media History at Georgia State University and author of Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production and Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID. Peter C. Kunze is an assistant professor of communication at Tulane University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

    Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
    Apr 17 2026
    Scholars have long viewed intelligence as the preserve of nation states. Where the term ‘private sector intelligence’ is used, the focus has been overwhelmingly on government contractors. As such, a crucial aspect of intelligence power has been overlooked: the use of intelligence by corporations to navigate and influence the world. Where there has been academic scrutiny of the field, it is seen as a post-9/11 phenomenon, and that a state monopoly of intelligence has been eroded. Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector (Edinburgh UP, 2024) by Dr. Lewis Sage-Passant demonstrates - through original research - that such a monopoly never existed. Private sector intelligence is at least as old as the organised intelligence activities of the nation state. Beyond States and Spies offers a comparative examination of private and public intelligence, and makes a compelling case for understanding the dangers posed by unregulated intelligence in private hands. Overall, this casts new light on a hitherto under investigated academic space. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Andrew W. M. Smith, "Make Cheese Not War: Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in Modern France" (Manchester UP, 2026)

    Andrew W. M. Smith, "Make Cheese Not War: Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in Modern France" (Manchester UP, 2026)
    Apr 17 2026
    In 1971, the French government announced a massive extension of its military base on the Larzac plateau in southern France. Land was to be expropriated from 107 farms around the small town of La Cavalerie. Limited resistance was expected, but what happened next exceeded all expectations. Local sheep farmers set up protest camps and occupied the land. They soon attracted an astonishing level of support, pioneering a form of regional radicalism with global implications. Drawing out the international dimensions of the protest, Make cheese not war: Transnational resistance and the Larzac in modern France (Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Andrew Smith explores a transnational resistance movement in the 1970s that challenged dominant visions of modernity and became a wellspring of radical alternatives. Exploring previously unconsulted archives in France and elsewhere, the book offers an in-depth analysis of the decade-long peasant movement and its aftermath. Repositioning the Larzac struggle within a wider network of French and international solidarities, from the US to the UK, Germany, Burkina Faso, New Caledonia and Japan, the book retraces political networks of pacifist activism, as well as environmental movements and anti-nuclear protest. It shows how this French peasant campaign became both a platform and a model for popular engagement. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Security and Risk: Challenges for Economy and Business in the Global 20th Century: A Conversation with Marie Huber, Nina Kleinöder, and Christian Kleinschmidt

    Security and Risk: Challenges for Economy and Business in the Global 20th Century: A Conversation with Marie Huber, Nina Kleinöder, and Christian Kleinschmidt
    Apr 16 2026
    The volume addresses issues of security and risk in economic and business history. A focus lies on the study of security in order to highlight the central role of preventive measures, corresponding corporate strategies, (public) demands for measures to promote security, and the conscious avoidance of actions considered risky. It is less on questions of risk avoidance and more on the analysis of decisions and strategies for creating stability and averting potential threats. The book aims at understanding how these security-oriented interventions and forward-looking approaches have shaped economy and businesses.With contributions by Dolly Afoumba | Anna Corsten | Marie Huber | Nina Kleinöder | Christian Kleinschmidt | Andreas Langenohl | Christian Marx | Cornelia Sahling | Tim Salzer | Tonio SchwertnerThis title is also available as open access. https://www.nomos-shop.de/en/p/security-and-risk-gr-978-3-7560-3577-9 Interview host, Paula de la Cruz-Fernández Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    51 mins