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PODCAST

New Books in Biography & Memoir

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

58:06

“Plato and the Tyrant” with author James Romm

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/09/13

In 388 BCE, Plato, at the age of about forty and in the midst of writing The Republic, visited for the first time the then-Greek city state of Syracuse, on the eastern shores of Sicily. Syracuse was ruled by a tyrant, Dionysius, who on death was followed by his son, also a tyrant. Over the course of his three separate visits to Syracuse over the years, encountering both father and son, Plato arrived at the model for tyranny laid out in The Republic. That’s the argument of James Romm’s splendid

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64:41

William Kelleher Storey, "The Colonialist: The Vision...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/09/08

Cecil John Rhodes became one of the most influential people in the history of the British Empire. He made a fortune in South Africa by leading the world's most important diamond mining company, De Beers, as well as a gold-mining concern called Consolidated Gold Fields. While he was a busy entrepreneur, he was also a member of the Cape Colony's legislature and served as prime minister from 1890 to 1896, a key period for the development of racial discrimination. His British South Africa Company was

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39:42

Edward Stanley et. al., "A North American Tour...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/09/06

A North American Tour Journal 1824-1825: The Making of a Prime Minister (Sutton Publishing, 2025) follows Edward Stanley's 1824-25 journey through North America, a formative tour that profoundly shaped his political ideals.In July 1824, Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley arrived in New York City at the end of a month-long voyage from Liverpool. The young MP and future 14th earl of Derby had left England under a cloud. His political career was off to a rough start, and he was in love with a woman he was

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37:26

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, "Claire McCardell: The...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/09/05

Claire McCardell forever changed fashion—and most importantly, the lives of women. She shattered cultural norms around women’s clothes, and today much of what we wear traces back to her ingenious, rebellious mind. McCardell invented ballet flats and mix-and-match separates, and she introduced wrap dresses, hoodies, leggings, denim, and more into womenswear. She tossed out corsets in favor of a comfortably elegant look and insisted on pockets, even as male designers didn’t see a need for them. She

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54:42

Susana M. Morris, "Positive Obsession: The Life and...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/09/02

A magnificent cultural biography, Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler (Amistad, 2025) charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work.As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and

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42:03

Tracy Slater, "Together in Manzanar: The True Story...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/28

On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced Executive Order 9066, which authorized the confinement of tens of thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the Western U.S., sending them to cramped, hastily-constructed camps like Manzanar and Amache. One such Japanese-American was Karl Yoneda, a well-known labor activist–and the husband of Elaine Yoneda, a Jewish-American woman. Elaine soon followed her husband to the Manzanar camp, after authorities threatened to send

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62:42

Micaela Sahhar, "Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/27

"If we were different people, to write down these words might be to leave them behind us. But words are our artifacts, and I am seeding a trail for the journey, home." What does the daughter of a Nakba survivor inherit? It is not property or tangible heirlooms, nor the streets and neighbourhoods of a father’s childhood and the deep roots of family who have lived in one place, Jerusalem, for generation upon generation. Fixing her gaze on moments, places and objects – from the streets of Bethlehem

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42:50

Tom Arnold-Forster, "Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/27

From the years before World War I until the late 1960s, the journalist and political theorist Walter Lippmann was one of the most influential writers in the United States of America. His words and ideas had a powerful impact on American liberalism and his writings on the media are still taught today. Lippmann is now the subject of Tom Arnold-Forster’s Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton UP, 2025). Arnold-Forster explores Lippmann in his evolving historical context, from the

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68:03

LaShawn Harris, "Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs &...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/25

On October 29, 1984, 66-year-old beloved Black disabled grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs was murdered in her own home. A public housing tenant 4 months behind on rent, Ms. Bumpurs was facing eviction when white NYPD officer Stephen Sullivan shot her twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. LaShawn Harris, 10 years old at the time, felt the aftershocks of the tragedy in her community well beyond the four walls of her home across the street.Now an award-winning historian, Harris uses eyewitness accounts, legal

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29:13

Brendan Simms, "Hitler: A Global Biography" (Basic...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/24

Every generation returns to the titanic heroes and villains of the 20th century. And every generation produces a new set of biographies--often immense--in an effort to understand the role of that eras main figures.In the past three years, three important new books have reassessed Hitler's life, beliefs and actions. Two of the authors, Volker Ulrich and Peter Longerich, are historians of Germany who are German. The third, our guest for today's interview, is British. In his new book Hitler: A Global

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57:03

Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr., "Empty...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/23

Bill Dedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and New York Times #1 bestselling author of Empty Mansions, shares the extraordinary story of a reclusive copper heiress, the battle over her fortune, and the HBO series adaptation now in development. As an investigative journalist, Bill Dedman has built his career writing stories that change the way we see the world. It was that reporter’s instinct—paired with relentless curiosity—that led him to one of the most extraordinary tales of

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57:58

Gill Plain, "Agatha Christie: A Very Short...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/22

Agatha Christie is a global bestseller. Her work has been translated into over 100 languages and adapted for stage and screen. Christie's writing life ran from 1920 to the 1970s, and she didn't just write puzzles, she wrote plays, supernatural stories, thrillers, satires, and domestic noir. She also commented obliquely but perceptively on the social and cultural changes of a troubled century. Christie's work tells the story of a changing Britain, but perhaps her greatest achievement is not to be

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74:23

Alexander Kimel and Martin Kimel, "The Pessimists...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/21

The Pessimists Son: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025) is a personal depiction of life in Poland set against the Nazi and Soviet takeovers of Europe and their cataclysmic aftermaths.It is the compelling memoir of Alexander Kimel, taking him from a shtetl to a Nazi ghetto to liberation and the parallel Holocaust story of his beloved wife, written by their son. It is also the harrowing story of his wife, Eva, whose father was murdered in the "Holocaust by Bullets. Learn more

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31:01

Stacia Kalinoski, Racing Uphill: Confronting a Life...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/20

The book, Racing Uphill: Confronting a Life with Epilepsy (U of Minnesota Press, 2025), is a memoir and an educational resource, which tells the story of an Emmy Award-winning TV news Journalist, Stacia Kalinoski. The author's aim is beyond giving an account of her experience of epilepsy, her goal is to sensitize readers and inspire epileptic patients and other people battling with ailments that carry social stigma, emphasizing the importance of taking control of one's health. In the book, Stacia

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62:08

Mark Braude, "The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/17

I must’ve been a kid when I first heard the palindrome “Able I was ere I saw Elba”. Napoleon didn’t mean a lot to me at the time. “Elba” meant even less. Decades later, I had learned a little more about Napoleon and his time there, but not that all that much it turns out. And then came Mark Braude’s The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Empire to Exile (Penguin Press, 2018)…This unexpected and absorbing book delves into the story of Napoleon’s exile on the island of Elba following his

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72:40

Harriet Jacobs, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/16

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the stirring autobiography of Harriet Jacobs, a mother and fugitive, detailing her harrowing escape from enslavement, seven years hiding in an attic crawl space, and the racism she faced in freedom. Forgotten for decades after its original, 19th century publication, Jacobs’ story was so harrowing and so brave it was thought to be fiction. Only through the research of historian Jean Fagan Yellin in the 1980s was it proven, once and for all, to be a brilliant

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45:38

Inna Faliks, "Weight in the Fingertips: A Musical...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/15

Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most communicative, and poetic artists of her generation. She has made a name for herself through commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending, interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with contemporary composers.This season, she gave the world premiere of Clarice Assad’s “Lilith” concerto, composed for her. Ljova’s “Voices” for piano and

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62:20

W. Henry Sledge, "The Old Breed... The Complete Story...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/14

Because events like D-Day and the Battle of Okinawa took place an entire lifetime ago, it is rare to find any new accounts and memories from veterans. Thankfully, forty years after the publication of Eugene Sledge’s famous memoir With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa comes The Old Breed… The Complete Story Revealed (Knox Press, 2025) by Eugene’s son, Henry. Complementing and expanding on his father’s experiences, Henry Sledge’s book adds new material and immeasurable depth to his father’s story

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63:08

Edward Berenson, "Perfect Communities: Levitt,...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/13

The rise and fall of William J. Levitt, the man who made the suburban house a mass commodity.Two material artifacts defined the middle-class American lifestyle in the mid-twentieth century: the automobile, which brought gas stations, highways, commercial strips, and sprawl; and the single-family suburban home, the repository of many families’ long-term wealth. While the man who did the most to make the automobile a mass commodity—Henry Ford—is well known, few know the story of the man who did the

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112:42

Raffale Bedarida, "Corrado Cagli: Transatlantic...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2025/08/13

As a Jewish and openly gay artist, Cagli became the target of virulent attacks, especially after Italy promulgated its racial laws in 1938. In response to these hostile conditions, Cagli chose to leave his homeland and seek refuge in the United States. In America, he became an influential figure within the New York émigré artistic scene. He found camaraderie among the Neo-romantic milieu centered around the Julian Levy Gallery and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Cagli actively participated in the

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