New Books Network

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New Books Network episodes

July 09 Andrew Martin, "Down Time" (FSG, 2026)
Andrew Martin is the author of the novel Early Work, a New York Times Notable book of 2018, and the story collection Cool for America, longlisted for the 2020 Story Prize. His essays and stories have appeared frequently in The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, and Harper's, as well as in The Yale Review, The Atlantic, McSweeney's, The Times Book Review and elsewhere. He lives in New York City with his family.
Recommended Books:
William Demby, Love Story Black
Morgan Meis, The Drunken Silenus
Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers.
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44 min
July 09 Are Capitalism and Democracy Fundamentally Incompatible? A Conversation with Mordecai Kurz
Today I'm speaking with Mordecai Kurz, Joan Kenney Professor of Economics Emeritus at Stanford University. We are discussing his latest book, Private Power and Democracy's Decline: How to Make Capitalism Support Democracy (MIT Press, 2026). After its high-water mark several decades ago, democracy's status continues to slide globally. Capitalism and democracy, which once seemed to complement each other, now appear at odds. Free-market policies and monopolistic technologies have enriched many while driving inequalities that harm workers. Many have opined on how to fix the political and economic problems of our day, from an embrace of radical libertarian policy to socialist ownership of the means of production. Mordecai Kurz's extensive study of capitalism and democracy charts a path for balancing economic and political freedom. Since the days of Adam Smith, technology has changed rapidly, necessitating new formulations that take into account the private power centers that exercise control much like monarchies did in the Age of Enlightenment. Despite the imbalance, capitalism still remains a driver of technological progress and innovation. How can we make both capitalism and democracy work for the good of everyone? I'm happy today to get the chance to speak with such an illustrious scholar and to learn a bit more about how to understand this defining puzzle of our age.
Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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1 hr 4 min
July 09 On “Turtling” Versus Being Primed for Possibilities
Tissa Richards is a leadership expert, keynote speaker, and the award-winning author of No Permission Needed and Rethinking Resilience: Fueling Your Competitive Advantage. Her mission is to help bold, high-capacity leaders become unshakable. A repeat tech founder and CEO who has raised millions in funding, Tissa advises a wide array of companies on innovation and performance.
In an era when trust is eroding, holding back and failing to communicate is a greater failing than ever. Rather than act like a turtle withdrawing into your shell, be bold: that’s the message here. The better route is to be in learning more, applying lessons learned from “failures” so that you can seize on the opportunities ahead. Most of all, remember that resiliency is a team sport; the lone hero won’t cut it in a world where exponential growth happens through the chemistry of a community that provides synergy. Case in point: Tissa mentions her interview with a former Executive at Campbell’s, whose Prickly Pear Council proved to be so successful in airing and resolving conflicts that eventually it no longer needed to exist.
Real Transformations: Business Change That Works from the Inside Out is co-hosted by Julie Anixter and Dan Hill, PhD, entrepreneurs with deep experience as corporate change agents, devoted to helping companies make continuous change work for everyone through clarity and connection. To learn about their keynote talks, workshops and labs, check out Real-Transformation.com.
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32 min
July 09 Gregory Smits, "The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Most people only know one of the Ryukyu Islands: the island of Okinawa, home to sandy beaches and one of the U.S.’s most important bases in Asia. There are lots of myths about this island chain, which stretch from southern Japan down to the island of Taiwan: That it owed loyalty to China, given its place in the imperial tribute trade; that it was a pacifist kingdom; that it was quasi-sovereign even within Japan.
Gregory Smits tackles a lot of these myths in his expansive history of the islands, titled The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present (University of Chicago Press: 2025). His book, and today’s conversation, dives into all the ways that the Ryukyu Islands will frustrate anyone trying to fit this place into an easy historical or political narrative.
Gregory Smits is professor of history and Asian Studies at Penn State University. He is the author of several books, including Early Ryukyuan History: A New Mode (University of Hawaii Press: 2024), Maritime Ryukyu, 1050-1650 (University of Hawaii Press: 2019) and Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics (University of Hawaii Press: 1999)
You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Ryukyu Islands. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.
Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
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1 hr 16 min
July 09 Doubled Up: Shared Households and the Precarious Lives of Families
More than eleven million children in the US live in doubled-up households, sharing space with extended family or friends. These households are even more common among low-income families, families of color, and single-parent families, functioning as a private safety net for many in a country with extremely limited public support for families. Despite their prevalence, we know little about how shared households form and how they shape family life. Doubled Up is an in-depth look at the experiences of families with children living in doubled-up households.
Drawing on extensive interviews with sixty parents living in doubled-up households, Dr. Hope Harvey examines what circumstances and motivations lead families to form doubled-up households, how living in shared households affects daily routines, and how families fare after these arrangements dissolve.
Dr. Harvey shows that although families rely on doubling up to get by in the face of rapidly rising housing costs, precarious labor markets, and unaffordable childcare, these private arrangements are rarely sufficient to overcome such structural barriers. And doubling up incurs its own costs for both host and guest families. For doubled-up families, negotiating household relationships and navigating shared space reshapes family life. Understanding the dynamics of doubled-up households extends scholarship on family life beyond the nuclear family and points the way toward better policies that will serve all families.
Guest: Dr. Hope Harvey is an assistant professor at the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Kentucky and a research affiliate at the Center for Poverty Research. She is the author of the award-winning book Doubled Up.
Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and host of the Academic Life podcast.
Playlist for listeners:
What's On Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life
The Fight To Save The Town
You're Doing It Wrong
Raising Them
What Do You Want Out Of Life
How Girls Achieve
What Might Be
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!
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57 min
July 09 Paul Helseth and David P. Smith eds., "New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929" (Routledge, 2024)
New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929 (Routledge, 2024) focuses on Princeton
Theological Seminary and the theologians who taught there from the time
of its founding in 1812 to the time of its reorganization in 1929. It
confronts the standard assessment of Old Princeton in the historiography
of North American evangelicalism and sets out why a new paradigm is
needed. The volume critically engages with the 'Ahlstrom thesis' and
other more recent scholarship concerning Old Princeton's relationship to
the Scottish intellectual tradition. The contributions seek to move
beyond Old Princeton's alleged indebtedness to Enlightenment thought and
advance a more constructive reading of the Old Princetonians, their
theology, and their place in the American evangelical experience. The
book offers a fresh and more accurate assessment of the theological and
philosophical assumptions that held sway at Old Princeton and through
the seminary to the American continent and beyond. It will appeal to
scholars interested in theology, religious history and intellectual
history.
Paul K. Helseth (PhD, Marquette University) is associate professor of
Christian thought at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and
the author of Right Reason and the Princeton Mind (2010).
David Smith (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is pastor in
the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and adjunct faculty in
historical theology at Erksine Theological Seminary. He received his
M.Div. from Covenant Seminary (1995) and completed his dissertation,
published as B. B. Warfield’s Scientifically Constructive Theological Scholarship in 2010, under John Woodbridge.
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45 min
July 09 A. G. Hopkins, "The Land Where Nothing Works: How Britain Lost the Plot" (Princeton UP, 2026)
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 distinguished historian A. G. Hopkins
offers an explanation, tracing Britain’s current problems to decisions
made in the 1980s that abandoned its postwar experiment in social
democracy and mimicked policies of deregulation and privatisation
promoted by the United States.
In 1945, the new Labour
government’s development programme aimed at creating a social democracy
that would benefit all members of society. The counterrevolution
launched by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1979, which remains in
force today, promoted individualism and deregulation. The transition
from one programme to another was a response to the growth of finance
and services centred on the City of London, and to decolonisation, which
redirected trade to Europe. The expansion of credit led to the
financial crisis of 2008 and the years of austerity that followed, and
fuelled the populist movement that culminated in Brexit. Hopkins argues
that, instead of following the free-market policies of its mentor, the
United States, Britain should draw on its own history of social
democracy and borrow from its neighbours in Europe, where communitarian
principles continue to be upheld.
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55 min
July 08 Roberta J. Magnusson, "Urban Infrastructure in Medieval England: Sustainability and Resilience" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
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 Warwickshire
town of Atherstone, boldly pursued projects that reshaped their futures.
Grants of tolls and taxes funded paving initiatives, bridge repairs,
and fortified walls, while enterprising lords and abbots sponsored
sluices, conduits, and quays. These efforts were not confined to
England's great cities; small towns with limited means also sought
to enhance their competitive edge, even when such investments strained
their resources. Drawing on royal records, municipal archives, and
archaeological evidence, Dr. Magnusson situates these civic undertakings
in their broader social and environmental contexts. She shows how
townsmen adapted traditional obligations of labor
and charity alongside innovative fiscal tools to sustain projects that
could span generations. Yet the balance was fragile. The crises of the
fourteenth century—famine, plague, and the harsher climate of the Little
Ice Age—undermined local resources, leaving many communities to
struggle with maintenance or watch their infrastructures decline.
At
once a history of engineering, economy, and community, this study
illuminates how medieval people conceived of security, health, and
prosperity through the material fabric of their towns. By tracing the
rise, transformation, and survival of these infrastructures, Dr.
Magnusson demonstrates how urban communities navigated centuries of
change while shaping the very landscapes in which they lived.
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/new-books-network
1 hr 11 min
July 08Metamodern Mysticism with Linda Ceriello
In this episode, host Pierce Salguero sits down with Linda C. Ceriello, a scholar of mysticism and popular culture from Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Linda is one of the foremost scholars of metamodernism, with particular focus on contemporary spirituality and mystical experiences. She talks with us about what this concept of metamodernism means, and how it can open up new kinds of more capacious thinking. I’m sure you will agree that a lot of what we’ve been doing on the Black Beryl podcast over the past 4 years — juxtaposing different perspectives, exposing our full selves, exploring the dark sides of spirituality, leaning into sincerity, etc. — has all embodied a metamodern sensibility. Anyway, I think she’s the perfect guest to talk with as we launch season 4, and I hope you’ll enjoy the show.
If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in multidisciplinary conversations about Asian healing and mystical traditions, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members area on Substack (blackberyl.substack.com), as each episode our guests share downloadable PDFs of articles, book chapters, and other materials for you.
One last thing: we are planning an “Ask Me Anything” episode coming up soon, so reach out via Substack or my website here, and let me know your questions. Ok, on with the show!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
“What is Metamodern?” website

“What is Metamodern? Conversations” on YouTube

Bloomsbury Press series: Studies in Metamodernism, Theory and Criticism Across the Disciplines

Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism” (2010)

Kersten, Polo, Wilbers, Glocal Metamodernisms: European Fiction After Postmodernism (2026)

Disambiguation video

Recorded lecture: “An Overview of the Academic Research on Metamodernism” (2023)

Recorded panel: “A Bodhisattva Move: Popular Mysticism’s Influence on the Metamodern Turn?” (2021)
Subscribe on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including these PDFs of Linda’s work:
Metamodern Mysticisms (2018)

“Toward a metamodern reading of Spiritual but Not Religious mysticisms” (2018)

“The Metamodern Bend: Theorizations for Religious Studies” (2022)
Black Beryl’s host Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
51 min
July 08 Gregg Andrews, "Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970" (LSU Press, 2026)
In Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970 (LSU Press, 2026), Dr. Gregg Andrews examines the history of factory laborers
in a celebrated Mississippi River town. In the late 1890s, shoe
manufacturing transformed Mark Twain’s boyhood home from a steamboat
village to a factory town. By the mid-1920s, the St. Louis–based
International Shoe Company, the world’s largest shoe manufacturer at the
time, controlled all shoe production in Hannibal and continued to do so
until it shut down production lines in the 1960s. The company kept a
tight grip on the town as it battled to keep out unions and maintain labor
at a low cost and in a malleable state. When Hannibal’s shoe workers
claimed their right to organize under the New Deal during the Great
Depression, the shoe corporation was defiant. The company’s stance
sparked mob violence against outside union organizers, nurtured a
company union, pitted unionists against company loyalists, and badly
divided Hannibal. At the same time, the town was engaged in yearlong
festivities to celebrate the centennial of Mark Twain’s birth and the
opening of a museum named in his honor.
Dr.
Andrews’s study of shoe manufacturing and its production workers is
thick in detail and rich with the human stories of those whose lives
were shaped by the rise and fall of the shoe industry in Hannibal.
Andrews captures the shoe workers—white and Black, men and women—in
their own words as they describe their jobs, family struggles, and
battles to unionize.
Dr. Andrews examines the prevailing conditions that led the company to
close its production facilities in Hannibal, leaving shoe workers and
the town to confront the early shock waves of deindustrialization. His
study of an industry that has virtually disappeared in the United States
leaves a record for the families of thousands of American shoe workers
and the citizens of Hannibal to better understand their history and the
role shoe manufacturing played in it.
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/new-books-network
1 hr 10 min