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PODCAST

New Books in British Studies

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:

society & culture

All Episodes

76:32

Claire Hubbard-Hall, "Her Secret Service: The...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/27

Since the inception of the Secret Service Bureau back in 1909, women have worked at the very heart of British secret intelligence - yet their contributions have been all but written out of history. Now, drawing on private and previously-classified documents, leading historian Claire Hubbard-Hall brings their gripping true stories to life inHer Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024).From encoding orders and decrypting enemy messages to penning

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36:18

Leah Pope Parker, "Light of the Everlasting Life:...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/26

From disability metaphors to narratives structured around bodies presented as aberrant, early medieval English thoughtworlds conveyed the promise of resurrection and the hope of salvation through crip and disabled bodies.Light of the Everlasting Life: Disability and Crip Eschatology in Old English Literature(U Michigan Press, 2025)argues that early medieval Christian eschatology, as manifested in Old English literary texts, was a crip eschatology: a theology of the afterlife that relied upon

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48:24

Patrick Nunn, "Whispers from Celtic Seas: The True...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/26

What if the legends of submerged cities, land-making witches and sea-crossing bishops are not mere inventions but echoes of real events? Whispers from Celtic Seas: The True Meanings of Ancient Stories from Northwest Europe (Reaktion Books, 2026) by Professor Patrick Nunn at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia revisits coastal traditions from the Celtic fringes of northwest Europe, showing how they preserve memories of dramatic environmental change—floods, land loss and shifting

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56:01

Elisabeth van Houts, "Empress Matilda: Queen of the...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/25

Born in 1102, Empress Matilda combined the blood of two dynasties: the house of Wessex and their conquerors, the dukes of Normandy. As a widowed German empress, she was named as heir successor by her father, Henry I. But, after his death in 1135, Matilda’s place on the English throne was usurped by her cousin, Stephen of Blois. Civil war followed, and she ruled the south-west of England in opposition. InEmpress Matilda: Queen of the Romans, Ruler of the English(Yale University Press, 2026),

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57:42

Mitra Sharafi, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/25

Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia (Cornell University Press, 2026) uncovers colonial South Asia's critical role in the development of forensic science. Around 1900, the government of British India created a web of institutions for the scientific detection of crime. Driven by anxieties about "native mendacity," newly minted forensic analysts focused on uncovering faked evidence planted by South Asians. These experts, joining toxicologists known as

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50:26

Eamonn Gearon, "The Arab Bureau: The Story of...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/23

Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War. But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region as Britain fought the Ottoman Empire for control of the Middle East. Chastened by their intelligence failures at Gallipoli and Kut al-Amara, the British tried to do something unthinkable: Actually learn how local

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77:14

Martin Shaw, "The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/22

The Israeli destruction of Gaza has returned the idea of genocide to the center of world politics, with sharp conflicts between the protesters and lawyers who invoke it and the governments and media that deny it.The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges After Gaza (Agenda Publishing, 2025),by the foremost sociological theorist of genocide,Martin Shaw,defends the idea against thinkers who have questioned it, and argues that it is essential to the understanding of mass

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76:09

Mark Crinson, "Aviationland: Heathrow and the Making...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/22

Aviationland: Heathrow and the Making of an Airport Landscape(Paul Mellon Centre, 2026) by Professor Mark Crinson is the first critical study to examine how a major international airport takes shape on the ground, and what that means for the landscape around it. Focused on Heathrow airport, it traces how the area has been formed and reformed by overlapping systems of architecture, infrastructure and enclosure, from the common land of Hounslow Heath in the eighteenth century to the global transport

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67:11

Lucy D. Curzon, "Art and Citizenship in Conflict:...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/20

Art and Citizenship in Conflict: British Women War Artists, 1939-45(Manchester UP, 2026) by Dr. Lucy Curzon examines the work of women war artists in order to highlight the complexity of citizenship and gender in Britain during the Second World War. Evelyn Dunbar, Mary Kessell, Ethel Gabain, Stella Schmolle, and Laura Knight, among others, were commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) to document the millions of women who took up sometimes unconventional roles-in agriculture, the

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0:00

Rory Cormac, "Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/17

Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line(Oxford UP, 2026)reveals the rise and fall of the mavericks running Britain's Cold War forgery empire. Their secret mission was audacious: to disrupt and discredit adversaries across the world using phantom groups, fake sources, and counterfeit documents. The leader was a remarkable character, wrestling with personal and professional dilemmas: Hans Welser. An Austrian refugee and one-time MI5 suspect interned behind

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55:02

Renisa Mawani, "Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/17

In 1914 the British-built and Japanese-owned steamship Komagata Maru left Hong Kong for Vancouver carrying 376 Punjabi migrants. Chartered by railway contractor and purported rubber planter Gurdit Singh, the ship and its passengers were denied entry into Canada and two months later were deported to Calcutta. In Across Oceans of Law:The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire(Duke University Press, 2018)Renisa Mawani retells this well-known story of the Komagata Maru. Drawing on

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37:31

Amélie Junqua and Geoffrey Day, "Too Good to Waste:...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/11

Paper was a precious commodity in the eighteenth century: every sheet was made by hand. There was therefore a significant market in recycling substandard paper from paper mills and discarded proofs and sheets from printers and booksellers for secondary use, alongside a black market in which stealing and receiving stolen paper took place on a vast scale. A single piece of paper could be termed ‘waste’ and yet sold for cash three times in succession, on each occasion performing a useful

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54:20

A. G. Hopkins, "The Land Where Nothing Works: How...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/09

What has happened to Britain? As drivers on its roads can attest, it is the pothole capital of Europe. Once-beautiful towns now feature peeling paint, weeds, and broken railings. Public services are no longer fit for purpose. A malaise seems to infect every aspect of British life: its economy, polity, social order, sense of well-being, domestic regional relationships, and place in the world. In The Land Where Nothing Works: How Britain Lost the Plot (Princeton University Press, 2026), the

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52:35

Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill, "Blow by Blow: The Jeff...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/09

With his shag haircut and white Stratocaster guitar, Jeff Beck was an icon known and loved by millions. Yet somehow, he maintained the ineffable low profile cool of a cult hero as he glided through six decades of musical trends with nary a lapse in taste. Not to say he ever played it safe. What other guitarist can lay claim to performing with opera star Luciano Pavarotti, mainstream television personality Kelly Clarkson, and professional degenerates like Guns N’ Roses with equal grace and

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70:51

Roberta J. Magnusson, "Urban Infrastructure in...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/08

In the bustling market towns and growing cities of medieval England between 1200 and 1600, public works were the lifelines of urban society. In Urban Infrastructure in Medieval England: Sustainability and Resilience (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Dr. Roberta J. Magnusson offers the first comprehensive study of how medieval towns built, financed, and sustained their defenses, bridges, streets, water systems, and harbors. Dr. Magnusson reveals how even modest communities, like the

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38:49

Ted Powell, "Churchill and the Crown" (Oxford UP, 2026)

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/06

Winston Churchill was born in a palace and was given a funeral worthy of a king. His family had enjoyed an intimate association with the British monarchy stretching back centuries. As King Edward VIII said of him, 'I have never met anyone of royal blood who exemplified in such high degree the ideal of the 'good king.' Churchill and the Crown (Oxford University Press, 2026) tells the story of Churchill's relationship with the various kings and queens he served during his long political career,

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0:00

Thomas Paine at the Semiquincentennial: A...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/01

Thomas Paine: Collected Writings (Princeton University Press, 2026) is the first major new edition of Paine’s works, bringing together all his writings in six breathtaking volumes that dramatically revise our previous understanding of his activities as a writer and his importance as a democratic theorist in the age of revolutions. It includes about 180 new letters and some two hundred works newly attributed to Paine, with twenty-nine works previously regarded as Paine’s being deattributed. Drawing

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62:25

Peter Ross, "Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/01

In Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London (Bodleian Library, 2026) by Dr. Peter Ross, step into the kitchens, streets and chop houses of Georgian London—one day, one city, countless appetites. From dawn until past midnight, Londoners dined at taverns, coaching inns, oyster rooms, confectioners, coffee shops, chocolate houses, soup shops and dining rooms. For the poor, the streets bustled with vendors offering early versions of fast food: hot green peas, baked potatoes, suet

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0:00

Good Goy, Bad Goy: The Portrayal of Gentiles in...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/01

Gentiles often appeared in the news sections of the London Yiddish press, and sometimes they also appeared in the regular “feuilleton” section in character sketches and fiction, stories and scenes from immigrant East-End Jewish life. Many of these portrayals were humorous local scenarios and imagined tales. This talk will look at a broad section of how and where Gentile characters appear and their relationship to the Jewish immigrant. Gentiles fix cars and do physical chores for the hapless

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48:01

Kate Bayliss, "Privatising Humanity: How Our...

New Books in British Studies ·

2026/07/01

Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets (Manchester UP, 2026) is the latest book from Dr Kate Bayliss, a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at SOAS, University of London. Dr Bayliss’ excellent title, published with Manchester University Press, is a critical examination of the privatisation paradigm. In the book, Dr Bayliss specifically analyses the history, processes, political economy and outcomes of privatisation policies in Britain across

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623 results

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