New Books in British Studies

By Marshall PoeSociety & Culture History

New Books in British Studies episodes

June 17 Samantha Ellis, "Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture" (Pegasus Books, 2026)
I had the privilege of speaking with writer Samantha Ellis about her deeply moving new book, Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture (Pegasus
Books, 2026). Our discussion explored not only the story of a
disappearing language, but also the broader questions of memory,
identity, and what it means to inherit a fragile cultural legacy.
At the heart of Ellis’s book is Judeo-Iraqi Arabic—also known as
Baghdadi Jewish Arabic or Hakimalna—a language once spoken by the Jews
of Iraq. Rich with layers of Hebrew and Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic, it
reflects over two millennia of Jewish life in the region. Today,
however, it stands on the brink of extinction. As Ellis shared, a
language is considered endangered when it is no longer passed on to
children, and Judeo-Iraqi Arabic may have only about a thousand speakers
remaining worldwide. Within a generation, it could fall silent.
Ellis described a powerful turning point in her own awareness: a
casual question from another parent about why she was not sending her
son to a nursery that spoke “her language.” Her spontaneous response—“my
language is dead”—became the catalyst for the journey that led to this
book. That moment captures the quiet grief of linguistic loss, but also
the urgency of preservation.
Our conversation traced the long arc of Iraqi Jewish history,
beginning with the Babylonian exile in 597 BCE. Iraqi Jews lived in the
region long before the arrival of Arabic, shifting over centuries from
Hebrew to Aramaic and later to Arabic, while preserving distinctive
linguistic features from earlier eras. This layered history lives on in
the language itself. Yet the mass departures of Iraqi Jews in the
mid-20th century—particularly the 1950–51 airlift—fractured this
continuity. Today, only a handful of Jews remain in Iraq.
And yet, as Ellis emphasized, culture does not disappear all at once.
Language may fade, but other forms of transmission endure. Food, in
particular, becomes a powerful vessel of memory. Ellis initially
resisted including recipes in her book, but came to understand that
cooking is itself a kind of language—a sensory bridge to the past. The
image of her mother carrying three rolling pins from Iraq is emblematic
of this continuity: tangible objects that hold intangible heritage. Even
the book’s title gesture—“always carry salt”—evokes protective
practices familiar across Mizrahi communities, small rituals that encode
belief, memory, and identity.
We also discussed the remarkable story of the Iraqi Jewish Archive,
discovered in 2003 in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein’s secret
police headquarters. The archive contains hundreds of thousands of
documents—school records, letters, communal registers—offering an
intimate portrait of everyday Jewish life in Iraq. Today, innovative
projects are using AI to transcribe and translate these materials across
multiple scripts, making them accessible to descendants and scholars
alike. Yet the archive’s ultimate fate remains uncertain, raising
complex questions about ownership, memory, and cultural restitution.
A particularly resonant theme in our conversation was Ellis’s
struggle with authenticity. As a second-generation Iraqi Jew raised in
the UK, she grappled with whether she had the “right” to tell this
story, especially without having visited Iraq herself. Her resolution—to
be “authentic to me”—offers an important model for thinking about
diasporic identity. Preservation, she suggests, does not require perfect
replication. It allows for adaptation, creativity, even reinvention.
One can honor tradition while also “messing with it,” whether by
adjusting a recipe or reimagining inherited practices.
Ellis introduces a beautiful concept she calls “milk language”—the
language absorbed in early childhood, through intimacy and care, even if
it is not the dominant language of one’s environment. This idea invites
us to reconsider how language lives within us, not only as a tool of
communication but as a carrier of emotional and cultural memory.
As an educator, I was especially struck by Ellis’s closing insight
and her implicit call to action: to speak with our elders while we still
can. There is a profound difference between hearing fragments of family
stories in childhood and sitting down, as an adult, to listen fully and
intentionally. These conversations do more than preserve history; they
create connection, continuity, and a deeper sense of self.
Always Carry Salt is not only a memoir. It is an
invitation—to remember, to document, and to carry forward what might
otherwise be lost. In a time when so many cultural threads are at risk
of unraveling, Ellis’s work reminds us that preservation begins with
attention, with curiosity, and with the willingness to listen.
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46 min
June 12 How Does the Second-Hand Book Business Really Work? with WeBuyBooks Co-Founder Mike Lane
Today I’m speaking with Mike Lane, Managing Director and co-founder of WeBuyBooks about the economics of the second-hand book business. WeBuyBooks is one of the UK’s largest second-hand book dealers. Mike talks about how he got his start in the book industry, which books sell and which don't, and what the future holds for the book industry more broadly. Mike also discusses other second-hand business lines in CDs, DVDs, and Legos.
Visit WeBuyBooks.co.uk and use code NBN15 for 15% extra on your first offer.
Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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44 min
June 09 Brexit Britain: 10 Years on from the Referendum
Anniversaries provide opportunities to take stock and reflect. It is now ten years since voters in the United Kingdom cast their ballots in a referendum on whether the UK should Leave or Remain in the European Union. The subsequent decade has seen much churn and change in British politics. Join Tim Haughton and guests Maria Sobolewska, Charlotte Galpin and Monika Brusenbauch Meislova for a discussion of the causes, process and consequences of that decision made on 23 June 2016.
Maria Sobolewska is Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester. Among her many publications is the book, Brexitland, co-written with Rob Ford, which won the 2022 WJM Mackenzie Prize for the best book published in political science.
Monika Brusenbauch Meislova is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations and European Studies at Masaryk University in Brno in the Czech Republic. Monika has published extensively on many aspects of Brexit in a host of academic journals including Political Quarterly, British Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, European Security and the Journal of Common Market Studies.
Charlotte Galpin is Associate Professor in German and European Politics at the University of Birmingham. She has published widely on these aspects of Brexit, including in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, the Journal of Common Market Studies, and Social Movement Studies.
Tim Haughton is Professor of Comparative and European Politics and a Deputy Director of CEDAR at the University of Birmingham. He has published articles on David Cameron’s referendum pledge and a review article on Brexit, Ruling Divisions.
The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Transcript here
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54 min
June 08 Stephen C.E. Hopkins, "⁠Translating hell: Vernacular theology and apocrypha in the medieval North Sea"⁠ (Manchester UP, 2026)
In the Middle Ages, hell was useful because it was vaguely defined.
Canonical scriptures scarcely mention hell, leaving much to the imaginations of early Christians, who used it to sort out who belonged within the faith. Translating hell: Vernacular theology and apocrypha in the medieval North Sea (Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Stephen C. E. Hopkins explores how hell became a place for literary experiments with local challenges in theology and identity. Following the reception and transformations of two popular hell apocrypha, it argues that they served as this role because of their liminal textual authority. As noncanonical scriptures, apocrypha afforded medieval writers space to revise their hells (since they were not actually scripture), while also encouraging readers to revere those experiments as valid (since they seemed like scripture). The book brings together adaptations from early medieval England, Iceland, Ireland, and Wales, placing the early vernacular theologies of the North Sea in comparative conversation.
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.
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59 min
June 06 Ashok Malhotra, "Imperial Science, the Organic Movement and the Path to Shangri La, 1900-1969" (UCL Press, 2026)
Imperial Science, the Organic Movement and the Path to Shangri La, 1900-1969 (UCL Press, 2026) is a global history project that examines the diffusion of scientific
and environmental discourses from India to Britain and the US.
Ashok Malhotra examines how imperial agendas and colonial stereotyping shaped
dietary and agricultural research carried out in the 1920s in British
India, from soil protection initiatives to studies of diet and healthy
living. It also discusses how a selective interpretation of this
research, which focused on the supposed vigor of one community, the
Hunzas, influenced the organic and lifestyles movements that later
emerged in Britain and the US from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Ashok Malhotra is a senior lecturer in British imperial history at Queen's University Belfast.
Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.
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38 min
June 05 Radio ReOrient S14:10: Muslims in the Neoliberal Era, with William Barylo, hosted by Salman Sayyid and Amina Easat-Daas
In this episode hosts Salman Sayyid and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by William Barylo to discuss his most recent book ‘Muslims in the Neoliberal Era: Resisting, Healing, and Flourishing in the Metacolonial Era’. The discussion centred on the differing nature of the Muslim experience in France, the UK, and beyond, and the ways in which Muslims find spaces and forms of community resistance in view of the dominant structures. William Barylo is a research fellow in Sociology at the University of Warwick.
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56 min
June 05 Lewis Ryder, "Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain" (Manchester UP, 2026)
⁠Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain⁠
(Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Lewis Ryder examines John
Hilditch (1872-1930), a notorious collector of Chinese art who lied,
hoaxed and manipulated in his struggle against museum experts to become a
cultural authority. Previously overlooked as a pest with a dubious
collection, this book uses Hilditch to interrogate how far the
monumental social, cultural
and political changes of the early twentieth century unsettled social
and cultural hierarchies and how these hierarchies were remade. It shows
how the cultural elites were forced to engage with the public and
re-draw the boundaries of citizenship, expertise and high and low
culture in response to unprecedented social mobility, the
democratisation of culture and politics, as well as the effects of
British imperialism which brought ordinary Britons access to antiquities
as well as confidence to claim expertise over foreign cultures. The
book will interest social and cultural historians of Modern Britain,
museum scholars and art historians.
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.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

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45 min
June 02 Alex Law, "The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process" (Routledge, 2026)
The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment have often been claimed
for sociology. But, what does it mean to say these thinkers were
sociologists, or at the very least precursors to the subject? Does it,
for example, mean that intellectuals of 18th Century Scotland
had the same concerns as we do today? Alternatively, does it mean we
should think of sociology as an elite discipline, developed by men who
were attached to power, albeit with some often critical insights? In
turn, if we accept these thinkers as doing something distinct, how can
this sociologically be explained? These are the questions which animate
Alex Law’s The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process (Routledge, 2026). Structured around two sections, Sociology and the Scottish Enlightenment, as well as Sociology of the
Scottish Enlightenment, Law sees these thinkers as thinking through
what Elias would later call the civilising process. He so doing he
explores how questions of state formation, violence and emerging
commercial society structured their interest and how the particular
position of Scotland, a stateless nation experiencing rebellion,
provided the space for what he calls their ‘pre-sociology’.
In our podcast we discuss how Law’s attempt to see the Scottish
Enlightenment thinks as concerned with the civilising process differs
from other attempts to claim them for sociology, the legacy of the Act
of Union for these writers and how one became a thinker in these times.
We also discuss why Adam Smith is, for Law, an ‘ambivalent’ figure for
sociology and what we can learn from these writers about the scope and
historical insight sociology should have.
Your host, Matt Dawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow and the author of G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and co-editor of The Anthem Companion to Henri Lefebvre (Anthem Press, 2026) along with other texts.
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1 hr 29 min
June 01 The Predictable Shock of Brexit: Cultural Dissonance and the Rise of Populism with Iain Quinn
Was Brexit really a sudden, populist shock, or was the writing on the wall for decades? This week on International Horizons, Eli Karetny sits down with award-winning cultural historian Prof. Iain Quinn to discuss his forthcoming book, Cultural Dissonance: Brexit Reconsidered. Quinn dismantles the narrative that Leave voters were simply misled, arguing instead that the referendum was the inevitable boiling point of a deep, historical distrust in Westminster and the media. From the decline of serious policy debate to the modern reimagining of political parties like the GOP, this episode offers a profound new lens for understanding the ongoing democratic fragmentation in the West.
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31 min
May 29 Gregory Kenicer, "Scottish Plant Names: An A–Z" (Birlinn, 2026)
Names are incredibly powerful things and are a crucial part of the way we see and classify the world around us. Plant names are especially fascinating in this respect. Some are simply descriptive or speak of ancient uses and remedies, whilst others have religious origins or roots in wider folklore, and some are very recent inventions.
Scottish Plant Names: An A–Z (Birlinn, 2026) by Dr. Gregory Kenicer introduces almost 300 plant names to showcase the enormous variety of Scotland’s native species. It includes English, Gaelic and Scots (Including dialect) names, revealing the country’s diverse linguistic history. Short descriptions, together with historical and cultural information in each entry, make this book an ideal companion for all those with an interest in Scotland’s rich botanical tradition.
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.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

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26 min

About New Books in British Studies

From the publisher's feed

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.