Best Fiorello Podcasts (2024)

1
On Fiorello La Guardia and Why He Still Matters: A Discussion with Author Terry Golway 56:26

23m ago56:26

56:26

Has any American mayor ever made a greater stamp on the public consciousness than the Little Flower, Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1945? La Guardia is brought to life in historian Terry Golway’s “I Never Did Like Politics”: How Fiorello La Guardia Became America’s Mayor, and Why He Still Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2024)…

1
A Radical Abolitionist Youth Movement Consumed America in 1860, Elected Lincoln, Then Disappeared Completely 43:49

4m ago43:49

43:49

At the start of the 1860 presidential campaign, a handful of fired-up young Northerners appeared as bodyguards to defend anti-slavery stump speakers from frequent attacks. The group called themselves the Wide Awakes. Soon, hundreds of thousands of young white and black men, and a number of women, were organizing boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing…

1
Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles, "Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York" (U Michigan Press, 2023) 48:25

1h ago48:25

48:25

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is everywhere in the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1921, its portfolio includes airports, marine terminals, bus stations, bridges, tunnels, and real estate. But its history is not widely known and its inner workings are little understood by people who traverse its domain when they fly into John…

1
Jason Bell, "Cracking the Nazi Code: The Untold Story of Canada's Greatest Spy" (Pegasus Books, 2024) 58:21

9h ago58:21

58:21

The thrilling true story of Agent A12, the earliest enemy of the Nazis, and the first spy to crack Hitler's deadliest secret code: the framework of the Final Solution. In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As an MI6 spy--known as secret agent A12--in Berlin in 1919, he evaded gunfire and shook…

1
Michael J. Graetz, "The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:05:05

6m ago1:05:05

1:05:05

The anti-tax movement is "the most important overlooked social and political movement of the last half century", according to our guest Michael J. Graetz. In his book The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America (Princeton UP, 2024), Graetz chronicles the movement from a fringe theory promoted by zealous outsiders using false eco…

1
Danielle Taschereau Mamers, "Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentation, Administration, and the Interventions of Indigenous Art" (Fordham UP, 2023) 48:29

4m ago48:29

48:29

How do bureaucratic documents create and reproduce a state’s capacity to see? What kinds of worlds do documents help create? Further, how might such documentary practices and settler colonial ways of seeing be refused? Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentation, Administration, and the Interventions of Indigenous Art (Fordham University Press, …

1
Gary S. Cross, "Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal" (NYU Press, 2024) 48:37

3h ago48:37

48:37

Free time, one of life’s most precious things, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Today, despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it…

1
Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange, "Pet Revolution: Animals and the Making of Modern British Life" (Reaktion Books, 2023) 50:14

6m ago50:14

50:14

Pet Revolution: Animals and the Making of Modern British Life (Reaktion Books, 2023) tracks the British love affair with pets over the last two centuries, showing how the kinds of pets we keep, as well as how we relate to and care for them, has changed radically. The book describes the growth of pet foods and medicines, the rise of pet shops, and t…

1
Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, "Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State" (Stanford UP, 2024) 1:03:56

4m ago1:03:56

1:03:56

Between the 1850s and World War I, about one million North Caucasian Muslims sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. This resettlement of Muslim refugees from Russia changed the Ottoman state. Circassians, Chechens, Dagestanis, and others established hundreds of refugee villages throughout the Ottoman Balkans, Anatolia, and the Levant. Most villages s…

1
M. A. R. Habib and Bruce B. Lawrence, "The Qur'an: A Verse Translation" (Liveright, 2024) 1:08:32

4m ago1:08:32

1:08:32

In their landmark new translation of the Qur’an, The Qur’an: A Verse Translation (LIveright, 2024), M. A. R. Habib and Bruce B. Lawrence translate the entirety of the Qur’an in a fashion that beautifully and majestically captures the poetic sensibility of the Qur’an for contemporary English speakers and readers. The distinctive feature of this Qur’…

1
Gary S. Cross, "Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal" (NYU Press, 2024) 48:37

34m ago48:37

48:37

Free time, one of life’s most precious things, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Today, despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it…

1
Michael Scott and Michael Collins, "Christian Shakespeare?: A Collection of Essays on Shakespeare in His Christian Context" (Vernon Press, 2022) 48:31

4m ago48:31

48:31

The enigma of William Shakespeare's religious beliefs has long tantalized scholars and enthusiasts alike. Vernon Press's latest publication, Christian Shakespeare?: A Collection of Essays on Shakespeare in His Christian Context (Vernon Press, 2022), dives deep into this mystery. The collection of essays, edited by renowned scholars Michael Scott an…

1
Jason Bell, "Cracking the Nazi Code: The Untold Story of Canada's Greatest Spy" (Pegasus Books, 2024) 58:21

6m ago58:21

58:21

The thrilling true story of Agent A12, the earliest enemy of the Nazis, and the first spy to crack Hitler's deadliest secret code: the framework of the Final Solution. In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As an MI6 spy--known as secret agent A12--in Berlin in 1919, he evaded gunfire and shook…

1
Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles, "Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York" (U Michigan Press, 2023) 48:25

6m ago48:25

48:25

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is everywhere in the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1921, its portfolio includes airports, marine terminals, bus stations, bridges, tunnels, and real estate. But its history is not widely known and its inner workings are little understood by people who traverse its domain when they fly into John…

1
Nora E. H. Parr, "Novel Palestine: Nation Through the Works of Ibrahim Nasrallah" (U California Press, 2023) 36:16

6m ago36:16

36:16

Palestinian writing imagines the nation, not as a nation-in-waiting but as a living, changing structure that joins people, place, and time into a distinct set of formations. Novel Palestine examines these imaginative structures so that we might move beyond the idea of an incomplete or fragmented reality and speak frankly about the nation that exist…

1
Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles, "Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York" (U Michigan Press, 2023) 48:25

2h ago48:25

48:25

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is everywhere in the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1921, its portfolio includes airports, marine terminals, bus stations, bridges, tunnels, and real estate. But its history is not widely known and its inner workings are little understood by people who traverse its domain when they fly into John…

1
Gary S. Cross, "Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal" (NYU Press, 2024) 48:37

2h ago48:37

48:37

Free time, one of life’s most precious things, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Today, despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it…

1
Michael J. Graetz, "The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:05:05

34m ago1:05:05

1:05:05

The anti-tax movement is "the most important overlooked social and political movement of the last half century", according to our guest Michael J. Graetz. In his book The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America (Princeton UP, 2024), Graetz chronicles the movement from a fringe theory promoted by zealous outsiders using false eco…

1
Michael J. Graetz, "The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:05:05

2h ago1:05:05

1:05:05

The anti-tax movement is "the most important overlooked social and political movement of the last half century", according to our guest Michael J. Graetz. In his book The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America (Princeton UP, 2024), Graetz chronicles the movement from a fringe theory promoted by zealous outsiders using false eco…

1
Nora E. H. Parr, "Novel Palestine: Nation Through the Works of Ibrahim Nasrallah" (U California Press, 2023) 36:16

14m ago36:16

36:16

Palestinian writing imagines the nation, not as a nation-in-waiting but as a living, changing structure that joins people, place, and time into a distinct set of formations. Novel Palestine examines these imaginative structures so that we might move beyond the idea of an incomplete or fragmented reality and speak frankly about the nation that exist…

1
On the History and Evolution of Zionism 1:32:27

4m ago1:32:27

1:32:27

On today's episode of the New Books Network, we are privileged to have Professor Arie Dubnov joining us for an in-depth discussion on the multifaceted history and evolution of Zionism. Professor Dubnov is the Max Ticktin Chair of Israel Studies at George Washington University and a preeminent scholar on Zionist thought and nationalist movements. Hi…

1
Michael Liu, "Forever Struggle: Activism, Identity, and Survival in Boston's Chinatown, 1880-2018" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020) 47:48

4m ago47:48

47:48

Chinatown has a long history in Boston. Though little documented, it represents the city's most sustained neighborhood effort to survive during eras of hostility and urban transformation. It has been wounded and transformed, slowly ceding ground; at the same time, its residents and organizations have gained a more prominent voice over their communi…

1
Chris Webb, "The Sobibor Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance" (Ibidem Verlag, 2017) 1:05:20

4m ago1:05:20

1:05:20

The Sobibor Death Camp was the second extermination camp built by the Nazis as part of the secretive Operation Reinhardt--with intent to carry out the mass murder of Polish Jewry. Following the construction of the extermination camp at Belzec in south-eastern Poland from November 1941 to March 1942, the Nazis planned a second extermination camp at …

1
Michael Liu, "Forever Struggle: Activism, Identity, and Survival in Boston's Chinatown, 1880-2018" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020) 47:48

11h ago47:48

47:48

Chinatown has a long history in Boston. Though little documented, it represents the city's most sustained neighborhood effort to survive during eras of hostility and urban transformation. It has been wounded and transformed, slowly ceding ground; at the same time, its residents and organizations have gained a more prominent voice over their communi…

1
Philipp Demgenski, "Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City" (U Michigan Press, 2024) 1:20:29

4m ago1:20:29

1:20:29

In Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City (U Michigan Press, 2024), Philipp Demgenski examines the complexities and changing sociopolitical dynamics of urban renewal in contemporary China. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in the northeastern Chinese city of Qingdao, the book tells the story of the …

1
Asif Siddiqi on Rockets, Prisons, Pop Songs, and So Much More 1:07:54

4m ago1:07:54

1:07:54

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Asif Siddiqi, Professor of History at Fordham University, about the arc of his career and his wide-ranging interests and work. The pair start by discussing Siddiqi's wonderful book, The Red Rockets' Glare: Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge University Press, 2014), a history o…

1
John Tolan, "England's Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) 58:13

6m ago58:13

58:13

In 1290, Jews were expelled from England and subsequently largely expunged from English historical memory. Yet for two centuries they occupied important roles in mediaeval English society. England’s Jews revisits this neglected chapter of English history—one whose remembrance is more important than ever today, as antisemitism and other forms of rac…

1
Cat People 24:56

4m ago24:56

24:56

“I envy normal women—they’re free,” laments Irina Dubrovna Reed, in Jacques Tourner’s 1942 film, one as noir as Out of the Past which he would direct five years later. Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about a film that explores the same subject as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and has received, justly or not, “The Criterion Treatment.” They also talk…

1
Julie Peakman, "Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis" (Reaktion, 2024) 40:02

4m ago40:02

40:02

Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis (Reaktion, 2024) by Dr. Julie Peakman investigates the sex lives of women from 1680 to 1830, the period known as the long eighteenth century. It uncovers the various experiences of women, whether mistresses, adulteresses or those involved in the sex trade. From renowned courtesans to downtr…

1
Steven Nadler, "Spinoza: A Life" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 35:04

6m ago35:04

35:04

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was one of the most important philosophers of all time; he was also one of the most radical and controversial. The story of Spinoza's life takes the reader into the heart of Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and, with Spinoza's exile from Judaism, into the midst of the tumultuous political, social, intellectual,…

1
Michael Liu, "Forever Struggle: Activism, Identity, and Survival in Boston's Chinatown, 1880-2018" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020) 47:48

1h ago47:48

47:48

Chinatown has a long history in Boston. Though little documented, it represents the city's most sustained neighborhood effort to survive during eras of hostility and urban transformation. It has been wounded and transformed, slowly ceding ground; at the same time, its residents and organizations have gained a more prominent voice over their communi…

1
Steven Nadler, "Spinoza: A Life" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 35:04

1h ago35:04

35:04

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was one of the most important philosophers of all time; he was also one of the most radical and controversial. The story of Spinoza's life takes the reader into the heart of Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and, with Spinoza's exile from Judaism, into the midst of the tumultuous political, social, intellectual,…

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