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New Books in Intellectual History

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

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46:23

Tiffany Jo Werth, "The Lithic Imagination from More...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/25

The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Tiffany Jo Werth explores how stones, rocks, and the broader mineral realm play a vital role in early modern England's religious and cultural systems, a role that, in turn, informs the period's poetic and visual imagination. The scale of the human lifespan and the gyre-like turns of England's long Reformation provide a conceptual framework for the various stony textual and visual archives this book studies. The texts

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102:27

Vin Nardizzi, "Marvellous Vegetables in the English...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/24

John Gerard’s natural history of plants, The Herball (1597), is considered a failure in the history of science. Despite this reputation, it has endured as an aesthetic resource. Its illustrations were used as needlework patterns, and strewn across its pages are extracts of classical poetry, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses, that delight and instruct. It is little wonder that early modern poets, like Shakespeare and Milton, gathered inspiration from this storehouse of plants.In Marvellous Vegetables

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42:12

Yair Mintzker, "I, Wandering Jew: A Five-Century...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/23

The story behind the mythical figure of "the Wandering Jew" is one of the most fascinating tales in European history. In I, Wandering Jew, National Jewish Book Award-winning historian Yair Mintzker traces the tale back to its source, follows its many metamorphoses through five centuries, and relates it to the fraught present moment.According to a mysterious pamphlet published in 1602, the Wandering Jew was a real person, named Ahasversus, who was cursed by Jesus to eternal wandering after refusing

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74:23

The Crisis of American Political Economy: On the New...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/22

In this sixth episode of Season 5, I interview Mr. Chris Griswold. An alum of Wheaton College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he was formerly a senior advisor to then Senator Marco Rubio, and is currently the Policy Director for American Compass—a leading center-right public policy think-tank.Recently, he contributed to the book, The New Conservatives (2025), an anthology edited by his colleague, Oren Cass, that re-articulates a conservative economic vision for the country. Drawing on it, we

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68:26

Amanda Anderson and Simon During, "Humanities Theory"...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/18

Humanities Theory (Oxford UP, 2026) pioneers a new topic: the theory of the humanities. It is an urgent topic right now because the humanities face a suite of forceful new challenges and are in a period of significant change. For these reasons, it has become important to analyse and understand what the humanities are as a whole, beyond disciplinary divisions and yet without resorting to simplistic notions of their worth. Remarkably little attention has been paid to this topic. Most discussions of

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61:11

Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/17

Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a rationalist and philosopher who was wholly detached from the worldly concerns of his fellow men. Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant (Princeton UP, 2026) provides a groundbreaking reassessment of Leibniz, telling the story of his trials and tribulations as an aspiring scientist and courtier navigating the learned and courtly circles of early modern

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62:24

Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/17

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

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69:15

Jason Welle, "Companionship and Virtue in Classical...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/16

In his debut work, Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism: The Contribution of al-Sulami (I.B. Tauris, 2024), Jason Welle sheds a new light on al-Sulami, an influential Sufi master during Sufism's formative era, by examine his work on suhba (companionship). Welle provides a historical reconstruction of Sufi companionship in Khurasan in the period, arguing that al-Sulami's concept of suhba, specifically among and between young disciples, envisioned the transformation of society as whole, not

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65:24

Daniel A. Bell, "Why Ancient Chinese Political...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/15

Daniel A. Bell joins the podcast to discuss his new book, Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future (Princeton UP, 2026). This isn't your standard, dusty history — it’s a series of modernized dialogues that grew out of Bell’s own classroom at the University of Hong Kong. In this episode, Daniel tells us about the time he spent as an academic Dean at Shandong University, and where he saw firsthand how ancient Legalist ideas about strict

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55:57

Donald Sassoon, "Revolutions: A New History" (Verso...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/14

Revolutions: A New History (Verso Books, 2025) is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in terms of fleeting events, such as the fall of the Bastille or the storming of the Winter Palace. In reality, they take decades to burn out, if they ever do.Historian Donald Sassoon takes the long view of some of the most famous upheavals: the English Civil War, the American War of Independence, the national uprisings that unified Italy and Germany, and the

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68:43

Devika Dutt et al., "Decolonizing Economics: An...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/14

Decolonization has long been debated across the social sciences, but the economics discipline has so far avoided such critical engagement. Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction (Polity, 2024) provides a much-needed intervention.Dutt, Alves, Kesar, and Kvangraven uncover the deeply Eurocentric foundations that shape how economists study the world today. These have rendered the discipline ill-equipped to tackle critical questions, such as structural racism, uneven development, the climate crisis,

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79:54

Jasper Bernes, "The Future of Revolution: Communist...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/12

How might a twenty-first-century revolution against class society succeed?Communism comes from the future, but its hopes haunt our past. Reading revolutionary history from the Paris Commune to the George Floyd Uprising by the light of communist theory, from Marx to C. L. R. James, The Future of Revolution: Communist Prospects from the Paris Commune to the George Floyd Uprising (Verso Books, 2025) illuminates the possibilities for overcoming class society in the twenty-first century.When Marx

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74:00

Melissa Butcher, "The Trouble with Freedom: Love,...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/07

As Melissa Butcher puts it in her book The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future (Manchester UP, 2026) when asked to rank the importance of freedom to them most Americans would put it as an 11 out of 10. So, what happens when the idea of freedom becomes not something that unites Americans but rather, through its different interpretations, ideals and priorities becomes something that polarises Americans? Based upon extensive fieldwork and interviews with Americans across the states,

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89:31

Amir Saemi, "Morality and Revelation in Islamic...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/04

Amir Saemi’s exciting book Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil (Oxford UP, 2024) is a fascinating and deeply thought-provoking study that challenges how we think about scripture, morality, and divine authority. Saemi tackles what he calls the “New Problem of Evil,” a divinely prescribed problem of evil, which is the tension between the commands found in sacred texts, our own moral judgments, and the belief in a morally perfect God. Saemi demonstrates the

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52:37

Peter E. Gordon, "Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver"...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/03

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism―his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving―that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization.In Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver (Yale UP, 2026), award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the

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43:10

What's Global about Sven Beckert's Capitalism (Paul...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/04/02

John is joined by the brilliant and affable Paul Kramer of Vanderbilt (The Blood of Government) to discuss Capitalism: A Global History (Penguin, 2025) by Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University. With Christine A. Desan (Recall This Book adores her) he is the co-director of the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard University. This builds on his marvelous previous work about the global cotton trade. John wants to know about the importance of the state as

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69:47

Jeanne-Marie Jackson, "The Letter of the Law in J. E....

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/03/31

The African Gold Coast writer and statesman J. E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) was a key figure in liberal anticolonial thought as well as African and British imperial literary and intellectual history. In The Letter of the Law in J. E. Casely Hayford's West Africa (Princeton UP, 2026) Jeanne-Marie Jackson positions his career as an intriguing case study of anticolonial literature and politics. Jackson maps the contours of Casely Hayford’s thought through sustained attention to his written work

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58:30

Mark Pennington, "Foucault and Liberal Political...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/03/30

Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom by Mark PenningtonThis highly original and innovative book is the first to comprehensively engage the ideas of the French social theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault from within the tradition of liberal political economy. Divided into two parts the book commences by demonstrating important commonalities between Foucault's ideas and those of a neglected 'post-modern' stream in liberal political and economic thought. These

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91:31

Emmanuel Ofuasia, "Ìwà: the Process-Relational...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/03/29

Correction: In the interview, the host mistakenly mentioned that Prof. Ofuasia is teaching the University of Pretoria. In reality, Prof Ofuasia is currently a decoloniality research associate at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Previously, he has taught at the National Open University of Nigeria, FCT Abuja. Ìwà: the Process-Relational Dimension to African Metaphysics (Springer, 2024) approaches the subject of African metaphysics historically as it connects Ancient Egypt to Yorùbá. It

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62:02

Ainehi Edoro, "Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels...

New Books in Intellectual History ·

2026/03/29

Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the forest to experiment with worldbuilding and to imagine new futures. This groundbreaking book explores the life of the forest in African fiction, showing how writers have used it to reinvent the novel’s formal, aesthetic, and political possibilities.Ainehi Edoro argues in Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think (Columbia UP, 2026) that forests

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