Best Verso Books Podcasts (2024)

1
Breanne Fahs, "Burn It Down: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution" (Verso, 2020) 58:02

1h ago58:02

58:02

Burn It Down: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution (Verso, 2020), Breanne Fahs has curated a comprehensive collection of feminist manifestos from the nineteenth century to today. Fahs collected over seventy-five manifestos from around the world, calling on feminists to act, be defiant and show their rage. This thought-provoking and timely collect…

1
Maya Wind, "Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom" (Verso, 2024) 48:30

1d ago48:30

48:30

Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth by documenting how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights. In Towers of Ivory an…

1
Benjamin Nathans, "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:14:35

1h ago1:14:35

1:14:35

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of S…

1
Matthew H. Sommer, "The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China" (Columbia UP, 2024) 1:26:55

4h ago1:26:55

1:26:55

The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China (Columbia University Press, 2024) is a fascinating study of transgender lives and practices in late imperial China. This book takes as its core subject matter six court cases from Qing China that involve people who moved away from the gender they were assigne…

1
David Pozen, "The Constitution of the War on Drugs" (Oxford UP, 2024) 44:22

35m ago44:22

44:22

The U.S. government's decades-long "war on drugs" is increasingly recognized as a moral travesty as well as a policy failure. The criminalization of substances such as marijuana and magic mushrooms offends core tenets of liberalism, from the right to self-rule to protection of privacy to freedom of religion. It contributes to mass incarceration and…

1
Jan Eeckhout, "The Profit Paradox: How Thriving Firms Threaten the Future of Work" (Princeton UP, 2021) 1:10:33

4h ago1:10:33

1:10:33

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as a society we want successful, profitable companies because, as Jan Eeckhout says in The Profit Paradox: How Thriving Firms Threaten the Future of Work (Princeton UP, 2021), “we tend to accept that when firms do well, the economy does well”, even when that's not true. The rising tide, in some cases, doe…

1
Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg and Hélène Tigroudja, "Women’s Human Rights and the Elimination of Discrimination" (Brill/Nijhoff, 2016) 48:17

1h ago48:17

48:17

Despite global undertakings to safeguard the full enjoyment of human rights, culture, traditional practices and religion are widely used to discriminate against women. In Women’s Human Rights and the Elimination of Discrimination (Brill/Nijhoff, 2016), 17 scholars approach women’s human rights globally, regionally and nationally, combining the pers…

1
Kristie Flannery, "Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) 59:13

4h ago59:13

59:13

Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) offers a new interpretation of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippine islands. Drawing on the rich archives of Spain’s Asian empire, Dr. Kristie Patricia Flannery reveals that Spanish colonial officials and Catholic missionaries forged alliances with Indige…

1
Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg and Hélène Tigroudja, "Women’s Human Rights and the Elimination of Discrimination" (Brill/Nijhoff, 2016) 48:17

1h ago48:17

48:17

Despite global undertakings to safeguard the full enjoyment of human rights, culture, traditional practices and religion are widely used to discriminate against women. In Women’s Human Rights and the Elimination of Discrimination (Brill/Nijhoff, 2016), 17 scholars approach women’s human rights globally, regionally and nationally, combining the pers…

1
Musa al-Gharbi, "We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite" (Princeton UP, 2024) 39:54

22m ago39:54

39:54

How a new "woke" elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status--without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged. Society has never been more egalitarian—in theory. Prejudice is taboo, and diversity is strongly valued. At the same time, social and economic inequality have exploded. In We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultura…

1
Musa al-Gharbi, "We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite" (Princeton UP, 2024) 39:54

16m ago39:54

39:54

How a new "woke" elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status--without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged. Society has never been more egalitarian—in theory. Prejudice is taboo, and diversity is strongly valued. At the same time, social and economic inequality have exploded. In We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultura…

1
Laura Yares, "Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth-Century America" (NYU Press, 2023) 1:10:48

32m ago1:10:48

1:10:48

The earliest Jewish Sunday schools were female-led, growing from one school in Philadelphia established by Rebecca Gratz in 1838 to an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish youth across the country. These schools were modeled on Christian approaches to religious education and aimed to protect Jewish children from Protestant missionarie…

1
Justin B. Stein, "Alternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific" (U Hawaii Press, 2023) 56:56

1h ago56:56

56:56

In the second half of the twentieth century, Reiki went from an obscure therapy practiced by a few thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans to a global phenomenon. By the early twenty-first century, people in nearly every corner of the world have undergone the initiations that authorize them to channel a cosmic energy—known as Reiki—to heal body, m…

1
Miriam Eve Mora, "Carrying a Big Schtick: Jewish Acculturation and Masculinity in the Twentieth Century" (Wayne State UP, 2024) 1:12:20

4h ago1:12:20

1:12:20

For twentieth-century Jewish immigrants and their children attempting to gain full access to American society, performative masculinity was a tool of acculturation. However, as scholar Miriam Eve Mora demonstrates, this performance is consistently challenged by American mainstream society that holds Jewish men outside of the American ideal of mascu…

1
Derek Taira, "Forward without Fear: Native Hawaiians and American Education in Territorial Hawai'i, 1900-1941" (U Nebraska Press, 2024) 52:17

42m ago52:17

52:17

During Hawai‘i’s territorial period (1900–1959), Native Hawaiians resisted assimilation by refusing to replace Native culture, identity, and history with those of the United States. By actively participating in U.S. public schools, Hawaiians resisted the suppression of their language and culture, subjection to a foreign curriculum, and denial of th…

1
Jonathan Branfman, "Millennial Jewish Stars: Navigating Racial Antisemitism, Masculinity, and White Supremacy" (NYU Press, 2024) 58:47

1h ago58:47

58:47

Jewish stars have longed faced pressure to downplay Jewish identity for fear of alienating wider audiences. But unexpectedly, since the 2000s, many millennial Jewish stars have won stellar success while spotlighting (rather than muting) Jewish identity. In Millennial Jewish Stars: Navigating Racial Antisemitism, Masculinity, and White Supremacy (NY…

1
Jonathan Branfman, "Millennial Jewish Stars: Navigating Racial Antisemitism, Masculinity, and White Supremacy" (NYU Press, 2024) 58:47

37m ago58:47

58:47

Jewish stars have longed faced pressure to downplay Jewish identity for fear of alienating wider audiences. But unexpectedly, since the 2000s, many millennial Jewish stars have won stellar success while spotlighting (rather than muting) Jewish identity. In Millennial Jewish Stars: Navigating Racial Antisemitism, Masculinity, and White Supremacy (NY…

1
Daisy Dunn, "The Missing Thread: How Women Shaped the Course of Ancient History" (Viking, 2024) 24:58

2h ago24:58

24:58

Around four thousand years ago, the mysterious Minoans sculpted statues of topless women with snakes slithering on their arms. Over one thousand years later, Sappho wrote great poems of longing and desire. For classicist Daisy Dunn, these women--whether they were simply sitting at their looms at home or participating in the highest echelons of powe…

1
Sonia-Doris Andras, "The Women of 'Little Paris': Women’s Fashion in Interwar Bucharest" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 41:42

3d ago41:42

41:42

Filling a gap in Eastern European fashion studies, this book presents middle-class women consuming fashion in the symbolic 'Little Paris' of interwar Bucharest, and examines how their material and cultural means supported the city's modernisation. Combining archival research with personal archaeology, this interdisciplinary work explores Romania's …

1
Sonia-Doris Andras, "The Women of 'Little Paris': Women’s Fashion in Interwar Bucharest" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 41:42

3d ago41:42

41:42

Filling a gap in Eastern European fashion studies, this book presents middle-class women consuming fashion in the symbolic 'Little Paris' of interwar Bucharest, and examines how their material and cultural means supported the city's modernisation. Combining archival research with personal archaeology, this interdisciplinary work explores Romania's …

1
Postscript: Changing Dynamics in the Presidential Race, 2024 55:25

8h ago55:25

55:25

The Republican Party held its nominating convention a week ago in Milwaukee, formally nominating former President Donald Trump as the standard-bearer for the GOP, and also his vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH). Just before the convention kicked off, Trump was the target of an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The GOP convention…

1
Hannah Freed-Thall, "Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal Commons" (Columbia UP, 2023) 1:04:32

1h ago1:04:32

1:04:32

Departing from the conventional association of modernism with the city, Hannah Freed-Thall's Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal Commons (Columbia University Press, 2023) makes a case for the coastal zone as a surprisingly generative setting for twentieth-century literature and art. An unruly and elusive confluence of human and …

1
Francis X. Clooney, S.J., "Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 1:06:58

1h ago1:06:58

1:06:58

This autobiography--Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story (Bloomsbury, 2024)--traces Francis X. Clooney's intellectual and spiritual journey from middle-class American Catholicism to a lifelong study of Hinduism. Clooney sheds fresh and realistic light on the idea and ideal of scholar-practitioner, since his wide learning, Christian …

1
Postscript: Changing Dynamics in the Presidential Race, 2024 55:25

8h ago55:25

55:25

The Republican Party held its nominating convention a week ago in Milwaukee, formally nominating former President Donald Trump as the standard-bearer for the GOP, and also his vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH). Just before the convention kicked off, Trump was the target of an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The GOP convention…

1
The Dissertation-To-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript (U Chicago Press, 2023) 1:12:08

17m ago1:12:08

1:12:08

How do you turn a dissertation into a book? Today’s book is: The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript (U Chicago Press, 2023), by Dr. Katelyn E. Knox and Dr. Allison Van Deventer, which offers a series of manageable, concrete steps and exercises to help you revise your academic manuscript into a …

1
Alexander Sasha Kondakov, "Violent Affections: Queer Sexuality, Techniques of Power, and Law in Russia" (UCL Press, 2022) 1:03:09

30m ago1:03:09

1:03:09

Violent Affections: Queer Sexuality, Techniques of Power, and Law in Russia (UCL Press, 2022) by Alexander Sasha Kondakov uncovers techniques of power that work to translate emotions into violence against queer people. Based on analysis of over 300 criminal cases of anti-queer violence in Russia before and after the introduction of ‘gay propaganda’…

1
Quantifying the American Mind: George Gallup, and the Promise of Political Polling 1:15:33

2h ago1:15:33

1:15:33

Early pollsters thought they had the psychological tools to quantify American mind, thereby enabling a truly democratic polity that would be governed by a rational public opinion. Today, we malign the misinformed public and dismiss the deluge of frivolous polls. How did the rational public become the phantom public? We tell the story of George Gall…

1
Ben Kaplan and Danny Parkins, "Pipeline to the Pros: How D3 Small-College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA" (Triumph Books, 2024) 56:13

1h ago56:13

56:13

Today I talked to Ben Kaplan about his new book (co-authored with Danny Parkins) Pipeline to the Pros: How D3 Small-College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA (Triumph Books, 2024). Jeff Van Gundy. Brad Stevens. Frank Vogel. Mike Budenholzer. Tom Thibodeau. Sam Presti. Leon Rose. Before you knew his name, before he drafted your favorite player, before h…

1
Suzanne Scanlon, "Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen" (Vintage, 2024) 1:02:34

4h ago1:02:34

1:02:34

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen (Vintage, 2024) is a critical memoir about women, reading, and mental illness. When Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s, grieving the loss of her mother—feeling untethered and swimming through inarticulable pain—she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute.…

1
Suzanne Scanlon, "Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen" (Vintage, 2024) 1:02:34

2h ago1:02:34

1:02:34

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen (Vintage, 2024) is a critical memoir about women, reading, and mental illness. When Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s, grieving the loss of her mother—feeling untethered and swimming through inarticulable pain—she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute.…

1
Anne Applebaum, "Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World" (Doubleday Books, 2024) 45:24

25m ago45:24

45:24

"Everyone assumed that in a more open, interconnected world, democracy and liberal ideas would spread to the autocratic states. Nobody imagined that autocracy and illiberalism would spread to the democratic world instead". So writes Anne Applebaum in Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World (Double Day Books, 2024). Applebaum's new b…

1
Anne Applebaum, "Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World" (Doubleday Books, 2024) 45:24

4m ago45:24

45:24

"Everyone assumed that in a more open, interconnected world, democracy and liberal ideas would spread to the autocratic states. Nobody imagined that autocracy and illiberalism would spread to the democratic world instead". So writes Anne Applebaum in Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World (Double Day Books, 2024). Applebaum's new b…

1
David E. Kaiser, “The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy” (Harvard UP, 2008) 1:19:53

3h ago1:19:53

1:19:53

There are some topics that historians know not to touch. They are just too hot (or too cold). The assassination of JFK is one of them. Most scholars would say either: (a) the topic has been done to death so nothing new can be said or (b) it’s been so thoroughly co-opted by nutty theorists that no sane discussion is possible. Thank goodness David Ka…

1
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward, "Fascism in America: Past and Present" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 38:36

3h ago38:36

38:36

Has fascism arrived in America? In Fascism in America: Past and Present (Cambridge UP, 2023), Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward have gathered experts to survey the history of fascism in the United States. Although the US established a staunch anti-fascist reputation by defeating the Axis powers in World War II, the unsettling truth is that fascis…

1
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward, "Fascism in America: Past and Present" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 38:36

25m ago38:36

38:36

Has fascism arrived in America? In Fascism in America: Past and Present (Cambridge UP, 2023), Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward have gathered experts to survey the history of fascism in the United States. Although the US established a staunch anti-fascist reputation by defeating the Axis powers in World War II, the unsettling truth is that fascis…

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