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PODCAST

New Books in Politics and Polemics

Interviews with Authors of Politics and Polemics about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

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All Episodes

54:12

Carl Rhodes, "Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/07/11

Billionaires are an ultra-elite social class whose numbers are growing alongside their obscene wealth while others struggle, suffer or even die.They represent a scourge of economic inequality, but how do they get away with it? A set of dangerous and deceptive inter-connected myths portrays them as a ‘force for good’: -the ‘heroic billionaire’ asserts they are gallant protagonists of the American Dream gone global -the ‘generous billionaire’ pretends that their philanthropic efforts and

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73:15

Joseph Darda, "Gift and Grit: Race, Sports, and the...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/07/07

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. 'If you've got a special gift,' the president said of athletes, 'you owe more back.' Gift and Grit shows how the sports industry has incubated racial ideas about advantage and social debt since the civil rights era by sorting athletes into two broad categories. The gifted athlete received something for nothing, we're told, and owes the team, the fan, the city, God, nation. The gritty athlete received nothing and owes no one. The

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49:48

Paul Tucker, "Global Discord: Values and Power in a...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/07/04

How to sustain an international system of cooperation in the midst of geopolitical struggle? Can the international economic and legal system survive today’s fractured geopolitics? Democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states that is entangling much of public policy with global security issues. In Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order (Princeton University Press, 2024), Paul Tucker lays out principles for a sustainable system of international cooperation,

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55:10

Didi Kuo, "The Great Retreat: How Political Parties...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/07/04

As the crisis of democratic capitalism sweeps the globe, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press, 2025) makes the controversial argument that what democracies require most are stronger political parties that serve as intermediaries between citizens and governments.Once a centralizing force of the democratic process, political parties have eroded over the past fifty years. Parties now rank among the most unpopular institutions in

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39:01

The attack on democracy in the United States, and the...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/07/03

The attack in democracy under President Donald Trump in the United States is both broader and deeper than you think. In this timely conversation with Carl LeVan, Professor and Chair of Politics, Governance, and Economics at American University – but speaking only in his personal capacity – we hear about the way that the government has attempted to silence critical voices by intimidating a remarkably wide range of institutions from law firms to universities and on to civil society groups and the

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55:04

Angela Katrina Lewis-Maddox, "Disrupting Political...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/07/03

Political Scientist Angela K. Lewis-Maddox has pulled together an important and useful edited volume focusing on black women political scientists and their experiences in the discipline itself and in studying topics that include race and gender. Political Science, as a discipline, is a bit more than 100 years old, and studies politics, power, institutions, policy, methodology, and theory. These are the over-arching umbrellas within the discipline and many of the specific areas within Political

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58:29

Bryan D. Jones, The Southern Fault Line: How Race,...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/27

The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History (Oxford University Press, 2025) explores the under-appreciated division in the South between the oligarchic rule of plantation owners and industrialists on the one hand, and the more democratic mindset of the mountain-dwelling small farmers on the other. These two mindsets were in continual tension from the 1800s to the 1960s, when the adherents of the more democratic side of the struggle capitulated to the oligarchical

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34:47

Nubar Hovsepian, "Edward Said: The Politics of an...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/26

Edward Said was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. A literary scholar with an aesthete’s temperament, he did not experience his political awakening until the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, which transformed his thinking and led him to forge ties with political groups and like-minded scholars. Said’s subsequent writings, which cast light on the interplay between cultural representation and the exercise of Western political power, caused a seismic shift in scholarly circles

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57:39

David Zweig, "An Abundance of Caution: American...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/23

An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions (MIT Press, 2025) is a devastating account of the decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century—the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. In fascinating and meticulously reported detail, David Zweig shows how some of the most trusted members of society—from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists to eminent health officials—repeatedly made fundamental errors in

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36:52

The Truth About Bullshit: Celebrating the 20th...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/23

Today I’m thrilled to launch a brand new series for the Princeton UP Ideas Podcast. 20 years ago, Princeton University Press published a short volume with an excellent title: On Bullshit (Princeton UP, 2025). Written by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit was adapted from an essay that explored the meaning, uses, and consequences of bullshit.At just 80 pages, On Bullshit became a favorite of readers, selling over 1 million copies and spending 27 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list

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44:47

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, "Misbehaving at the...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/20

The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfiction debut with this personal and thought-provoking work that explores the journeys and possibilities of Black women throughout American history and in contemporary times.Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads. Traditional African/Black American cultures present the crossroads as a place of simultaneous difficulty and possibility. In contemporary

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40:01

A Book Imprint from The Nation Magazine Launches with...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/19

The Nation Magazine, known for its long and storied history as a publisher of in-depth political and cultural analysis, has launched a new book imprint with OR Books. The Nation’s president, Bhaskar Sunkara, and OR Books publisher, Colin Robinson, joined editor Caleb Zakarin to discuss the project and the upcoming slate of books set for publication this year. Among the three forthcoming books are an edited volume of The Nation’s very best reporting on Supreme Court, an investigation into Silicon

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49:01

Elizabeth N. Saunders, "The Insiders' Game: How...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/10

One of the most widely held views of democratic leaders is that they are cautious about using military force because voters can hold them accountable, ultimately making democracies more peaceful. How, then, are leaders able to wage war in the face of popular opposition, or end conflicts when the public still supports them? The Insiders’ Game (Princeton University Press, 2024) sheds light on this enduring puzzle, arguing that the primary constraints on decisions about war and peace come from elites,

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64:22

Kevin B. Anderson, "The Late Marx's Revolutionary...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/09

Kevin Anderson’s The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads: Colonialism, Gender, and Indigenous Communism (Verso, 2025) encourages to look again at the intellectual and political work of a figure some may assume has been exhausted: Karl Marx. Following on from his earlier landmark study Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity and Non-Western Societies (University of Chicago Press, 2016), this volume turns specifically to the ‘late Marx’. In this period (1869-82), Marx spent much of his time

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26:48

Jaime Lee Kucinskas, "The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/06/01

The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy (Columbia University Press, 2025) explores how civil servants navigated competing pressures and duties amid the chaos of the first Trump administration, drawing on in-depth interviews with senior officials in the most contested agencies over the course of a tumultuous term. A revealing investigation that is now more relevant than ever.Jaime Kucinskas is Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology at

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38:53

Peter Allen, "How to Think about Politics: A Guide in...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/05/31

What part should politics play in our everyday lives? In How to Think About Politics: A Guide in Five Parts (Oxford University Press, 2025) Peter Allen, a professor of Politics and Co-Director of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath, explores this question across a range of practical and philosophical examples. The book directly challenges the conventional academic understanding of politics, showing how politics is much more than election polls or parliamentary behaviours

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63:53

Karida L. Brown, "The Battle for the Black Mind"...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/05/30

A gripping chronicle of the relentless fight for Black educational freedom--and the bold strategies to protect, nourish, and empower Black minds. The Battle for the Black Mind (Legacy Lit, 2025) is an explosive historical account of the struggle for educational justice in America. Drawing on over a decade of archival research, personal reflection, and keen sociological insight, this book traces a century of segregated schooling, examining how early efforts to control Black minds through education

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56:52

The Telegraph Takeover: Power, Profit & the Press

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/05/30

In the season finale of Ctrl Alt Deceit, Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones dig into the tangled web of media ownership, foreign influence and the future of free press. With a new UK government potentially greenlighting a UAE-backed bid for a stake in The Daily Telegraph, the hosts ask: does it matter who owns the news anymore? From Silicon Valley billionaires to Gulf state investors, the press is no longer just the fourth estate; it's a business, a weapon and a mirror of global power shifts. Is

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54:35

Amit Ron and Abraham A. Singer, "Everyone's Business:...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/05/29

The ethics of the company in a highly politicized time. Businesses are increasingly social actors. They fund political campaigns, take stances on social issues, and wave the flags of identity groups. As a highly polarized public demands political alignment from the businesses where they spend their money, what's a company to do? Everyone's Business: What Companies Owe Society (University of Chicago Press, 2024) revises our understanding of business ethics in a world of unchecked corporate power

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42:18

Keir Giles, "Who Will Defend Europe?: An Awakened...

New Books in Politics and Polemics ·

2025/05/29

Who will defend Europe? The answer should be obvious: Europe should be able to defend itself. Yet, for decades, most of the continent enjoyed a defence holiday, outsourcing protection to the United States while banking an increasingly illusory ‘peace dividend’. Now, after three decades of reducing armed forces and drawing down defence industries, Europe finds itself close to unprotected—while Russia is intent on continuing its war of expansion, and the US is distracted and divided. In Who Will

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1,397 results

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