New Books in American Politics

Samantha Barbas, "Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma" (U California Press, 2026) 15.09.2026 35min

The United States has no hate speech laws; hate speech is generally considered to be free speech under the First Amendment. In Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma (U California Press, 2026), acclaimed legal historian Samantha Barbas chronicles the country’s legal and cultural battles over the regulation of hate speech in the last hundred years. Charting the historical context for current debates, she ultimately argues that, however emotionally appealing they may seem, hate speech laws undermine civil rights and democracy.The American policy on hate speech evolved from influences such as the civil rights movement, which contended that the most effective way to combat hate speech wasn’t through proposed laws. Rather than imposing restrictions, the US has developed an array of mechanisms other than law, including counterspeech and public education, that have been relatively effective at dealing with hate speakers and hate groups. Though not perfect, our method of addressing hate is less dangerous than government censorship and less likely to be weaponized against the powerless.  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.

Jennifer Hoewe, "Enjoyment Is Breaking News: How We Became Less Informed and More Divided (and How to Fix It)" (MIT Press, 2026) 13.09.2026 52min

Why we crave enjoyment from news, how our news use divides us, and what we can do to create better news and more informed citizens. TikTok. Short-form reels. Late-night TV monologues. Podcasts. The way news is delivered has changed dramatically and so has the way we consume it. Now, we no longer look to the news just to learn and be informed; we expect enjoyment as well. In Enjoyment Is Breaking News: How We Became Less Informed and More Divided (and How to Fix It) (MIT Press, 2026), Jennifer Hoewe (Purdue University) explains how and why this shift toward news enjoyment occurred and what we can do to address the information crisis we now face. Evidence shows that enjoyment-driven decisions are leaving us less informed—despite what we might expect—because they lead us to ignore other news that matters. This book explains why we don’t always select the best sources of news, how we respond to the news sources we do select, and how that information impacts our political knowledge and decisions.  Hoewe also offers solutions for how to improve news creation and news use moving forward. Specifically, she shows how news consumers can escape their “self-righteous” consumption cycles; how news and social media companies can play a role in curbing our automatic amplification of enjoyable news; and how we can all do better when it comes to the information we seek and share.

Michael E. Neagle, "Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror" (UNC Press, 2025) 11.09.2026 47min

While the war on terror has been America's largest and most publicized attempt to root out foreign enemies this century, the quest to identify and destroy real or imagined threats to national security has long been a part of US history. Drawing on six case studies, Professor Michael E. Neagle spotlights the commonalities of how the United States has leveraged popular understandings of "bandits" to justify incursions abroad as well as rally popular and political support at home. Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror (UNC Press, 2025) puts recent manhunts for such figures as Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi into deep historical context. For more than a century, Americans have designated some enemies as bandits, but chasing them has yielded mixed results. Dr. Michael Neagle is director of history and political science at Nichols College, where he is also co-chair of the terrorism studies program. Dr. Jacob Hagstrom is an army veteran and author of America's Favorite Warlord (Pen and Sword, 2026).

Christopher Freeburg, "Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life" (Yale UP, 2026) 11.09.2026 46min

Today’s guest, Christopher Freeburg, is the author of Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life (Yale University Press, 2026). This book explores the US history of black cultural life as a history of soul – a spiritual lived practice rooted in communally fostered music, religion, and politics. It makes the case that soul is forged through black community connections and that it’s sustained by moral principles, or pillars, which define how it is lived. The book’s four chapters are organized around four of these pillars: resonance, revelation, resilience, and transcendence. A number of black individuals are foregrounded in these discussions: they include Phillis Wheatley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nina Simone, Jewel Thais-Williams, Barack Obama, and others. By telling their stories, and by honoring the weight of the trauma and violence that has long befallen the black community, Christopher Freeburg’s Soul invites its readers to commune with the soul power of people who brought about transformation in the face of seeming impossibility. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance.

William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe, "Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency" (Princeton UP, 2025) 10.09.2026 53min

Political Scientists William Howell and Terry Moe have a new book out that explores how the United States constitutional system has given way to the establishment of a kind of strongman presidency, disconnected in many ways from the constraints designed to keep the American president from becoming autocratic or dictatorial. Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency (Princeton UP, 2025) traces the expansion of the administrative state in the United States, which transpired during much of the 20th century, particularly earlier in the 20th century with the sizeable increase of the Executive branch and development of a more complex governmental bureaucracy. Howell and Moe were drawn to this project because of what they saw as the crisis of democracy in the United States, with the vast extension of presidential power and the rise of the “strongman” presidency. In noting that those who pursue the presidency are by nature power seekers, the argument in Trajectory of Power is not to deny the president’s power, particularly not the powers sketched out within the constitutional structure, but to focus on the ways in which certain presidents have grabbed at more power, and, in a variety of instances, have also broken laws along with having broken norms and traditions. Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency traces the ways in which, over the course of the 20th century, there was a certain symmetry in the ways that both Democratic and Republican presidents operated as the head of the administrative state, facing the same constraints and incentives while in office. But this symmetry starts to diverge in the latter half of the 20th century and has substantially diverged in the 21st century. Part of the historical discussion focuses in on the ways in which the Republican Party became more radical, especially in its opposition to the growth and expansion of the administrative state that had come out of the New Deal and had continued to expand in pursuit and implementation of more progressive ends, like civil rights, environmental regulations, disability rights, and the like. As we discuss in the podcast, a variety of legal and structural theories and frameworks are developed by advocates within the conversative movement during this time, in the 1970s, to provide an avenue for shifts in the way that the president operates within the Executive branch, and the ways that conservative justices can approach court decisions. Thus, the Unitary Executive Theory and Originalism are constructed so as to provide both the Executive and the Court with more power. This concept of the Strongman Presidency evolves from this idea of the unitary executive, who need not be constrained by the legislature nor the courts, and can essentially function freely – or fully unconstrained – as the leader of the Executive branch, which is a vast and complex bureaucracy. This is at odds with the structure that the Framers established in 1787, which put limits on the president’s power. Howell and Moe note that the Republicans who were elected to the presidency needed a theory to promote their political objectives, which was to undermine and dismantle the broader administrative state in the United States. The evolving results of this asymmetrical approach to the powers of the presidency and the Executive branch is that the United States is perilously close to losing its democracy. With ongoing attacks on the rule of law, the undermining of the electoral system, and an unfettered president, the United States is experiencing what is known as democratic backsliding. Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency is a clearly written and important analysis of American democracy, the evolution of the presidency and the Executive Branch, the growth and development of the administrative state in the U.S., and the ways in which the two parties have approached the presidency over the past century. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Saga (University Press of Kansas, 2022), and of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume II: Into the Multiverse (University Press of Kansas, 2025) as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social

Marita Sturken, "Terrorism in American Memory: Memorials, Museums, and Architecture in the Post-9/11 Era" (NYU Press, 2022) 06.09.2026 31min

Terrorism in American Memory argues that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and all that followed in its wake were the primary force shaping United States politics and culture in the post-9/11 era. Marita Sturken maintains that during the past two decades, when the country was subjected to terrorist attacks and promulgated ongoing wars of aggression, we have veered into increasingly polarized factions and been extraordinarily preoccupied with memorialization and the politics of memory. The post-9/11 era began with a hunger for memorialization and it ended with massive protests over police brutality that demanded the destruction of historical monuments honoring racist historical figures. Terrorism in American Memory: Memorials, Museums, and Architecture in the Post-9/11 Era (NYU Press, 2022) sheds light on the struggles over who is memorialized, who is forgotten, and what that politics of memory reveals about the United States as an imaginary and a nation. Marita Sturken is Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, where she teaches courses in visual culture, cultural memory, and consumerism. She is the author of Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering (1997), Thelma & Louise (2000, reissued 2020), Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (with Lisa Cartwright, 4th edition 2025), Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism From Oklahoma City to Ground Zero (2007), and Terrorism in American Memory: Memorials, Museums, and Architecture in the Post-9/11 Era (2022). She is currently working on a project about the history of amateur photography in the American culture from Kodak to Polaroid to the iPhone. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023. Chris Millington is Professor of Modern European History and lead of the Histories and Cultures of Conflict research group at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of eight books including Murder in Marseille: Right-Wing Terrorism in 1930s Europe ((Manchester University Press, 2025), The Invention of Terrorism in France, 1904-1939 (Stanford University press, 2023), and France in the Second World War Collaboration, Resistance, Holocaust, Empire (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).

Leah C. Stokes, "The Carbon Wave: A Story of Democracy, Parenthood, and the Race to Protect Our Planet" (MIT Press, 2026) 06.09.2026 35min

They were perhaps an unlikely trio: professor Leah Stokes, the policy wonk Sonia Aggarwal in the White House, and the DC insider Adrian Deveny in the Senate, but together they crafted the boldest climate legislation of our time. In The Carbon Wave: A Story of Democracy, Parenthood, and the Race to Protect Our Planet (MIT Press, 2026), Stokes chronicles the turbulent path of their climate bill as it veered between breakthrough and collapse—from the hopeful beginnings of the Green New Deal in 2018, to the bill’s near-certain defeat by Senator Joe Manchin in the winter of 2021, to the surprise passage of the landmark legislation in August 2022. During this critical time, the author was pregnant or in the NICU with her premature twins, and Aggarwal and Deveny were new parents too. Interlacing personal narratives with stories from Congress, the White House, and outside activists, Stokes shows how dogged perseverance and collective action can still bend the course of history. The book concludes with an update from the second Trump administration, explaining the parts of the bill that were—and were not—rolled back, and why we should remain hopeful that progress is still being made. Everyone has been told to shrink their carbon footprint and lighten their load on our planet by changing their behavior. But what if instead of making ourselves smaller, we joined with others to maximize our impact? That’s the carbon wave. And this book shows us how to make it.

Robert Shum, "Democracy or Carbon Oligarchy?: Climate and Energy Politics between Crisis and Decarbonization" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) 05.09.2026 24min

Democracy or Carbon Oligarchy?: Climate and Energy Politics between Crisis and Decarbonization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) tackles a critical question. Why has the world struggled so much to coordinate policy to address climate change, despite political and scientific consensus? Despite landmark agreements and expanding knowledge, emissions have fallen unevenly and progress has repeatedly stalled or reversed. Democracy or Carbon Oligarchy? explains that failure by focusing on domestic politics: how institutions distribute power, how interest groups exploit “access points,” and why countries with similar wealth and technology diverge. Moving beyond arguments about mere political will, it situates energy and climate outcomes within the institutional architectures of industrialized oil super-producers: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Norway. Shum advances a neopluralist theory of climate politics, arguing that policy is shaped by the strategic capture of institutional venues by carbon-intensive interests. He shows how separation of powers, federalism, party systems, and electoral rules configure opportunities for a de facto carbon oligarchy. By mapping where binding decisions are made and who can reach them, the book offers a generalizable framework for diagnosing blockages, explaining cross-national variation, and identifying leverage points for sustaining ambitious climate policy over time.

Holly N. S. White, "Constructing American Childhood: Age-Based Laws and the Illusion of Protection in the Early United States" (U Virginia Press, 2026) 03.09.2026 37min

Edward Blum interviews Holly White on her new book Constructing American Childhood: Age-Based Laws and the Illusion of Protection in the Early United States. As of 2025, in the United States an eleven-year-old child can be charged with a federal crime while in many states it’s illegal to leave a twelve-year-old home alone. Twenty-six states allow children younger than sixteen to marry while the legal drinking age remains twenty-one. Are these age-based laws really protecting children, and if not, why do they exist? Holly White uncovers the answers to these questions through a history of America’s first age-based laws. Analyzing trial records, newspapers, personal letters and diaries, as well as legal statutes from the founding era to the Civil War, White shows how restrictive age-based laws were implemented to benefit those who already held power. Over time, these new laws—coming out of child murder and rape trials as well as guardianship and underage marriage disputes—increasingly circumscribed the rights of young Americans in the early republic. As White shows, race, class, status, and gender influenced who came to benefit from the label of “child” in post-revolutionary America. In so doing, Constructing American Childhood explains why Americans continue to be guided by the age-based legal definitions of childhood and adulthood of our past.

The Political Philosophy of Mark Twain: On His Absurd, Noble Americans with Ivan Kenneally 02.09.2026 1h 2min

While many know that Mark Twain created some of the most famous characters in literature—Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Puddn’head Wilson—too few have understood that the Missouri author wasn’t only America’s greatest humorist, but also one of its most subtle political thinkers. But what was the political philosophy of the elusive and ironic Mark Twain for his new democratic America? To help answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest Ivan Kenneally. A contributor to The New Atlantis and First Things, among other publications, he wrote an essay for The Hedgehog Review on modern reactions to Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), titled: “Mark Twain’s Absurd, Noble America,” which we will be discussing today. We also talk about the travels of the two runaways Huck and Jim, along with their many disguises and rouses, how Americans like Tom Sawyer read European literature too dogmatically, the conmen Twain depicts in the Duke and Dauphin, technical versus tacit knowledge in his memoir Life on the Mississippi, contemporary interest in Twain from Ron Chernow and Percival Everett, the nature of irony as well as the poverty of modern comedy, and what philosophers and comedians alike can learn from the Missouri author and philosopher. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison’s Footnotes.

Eran A. Zelnik, "American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850" (JHU Press, 2025) 31.08.2026 59min

A joke is never just a joke—not even in the eighteenth century. In American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850 (JHU Press, 2025) Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans. It also defined the borders of who could participate in politics, notably excluding those who were not white men. While this anti-authoritarian humor transformed the early United States into a country that abhorred elitism and class hierarchies, ultimately the story is one of democratization gone awry: this same humor allowed white men to draw the borders of the new nation exclusively around themselves. Zelnik analyzes several distinct forms of humor to make his case: tall tales, "Indian play," Black dialect, riot and revelry, revolutionary protests, and blackface minstrelsy. This provocative study seeks to understand the vexing, contradictory interplay among humor, democracy, and violence at the heart of American history and culture that continues today.

Catherine Reyes-Housholder, "How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America" (Temple UP, 2026) 28.08.2026 1h

Between 1990 and 2020, women candidates won only 6% of the world’s presidential races. How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America (Temple University Press, 2026) explains the factors, strategies, and perceptions that help (or hinder) women to democratically access their country’s highest political office. Dr. Catherine Reyes-Housholder introduces a theory of gendered incentives and perceived potential to reveal why a political party would break with tradition and nominate a woman. She also shows how citizens respond when women candidates are running in incumbent parties or competing to displace those in power. Drawing on comparative research on the presidency and gender, How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America examines the successful campaigns of Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as why Blanca Ovelar lost her presidential race in Paraguay. Dr. Reyes-Housholder’s findings indicate that voter sexism is not a major factor; however, women do not triumph in these elections in the same ways that men do. Rather, the central unknown factor behind women’s victories is how they become candidates of major parties—and gender profoundly influences who parties nominate. 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.

Eran Shalev, "The Star-Spangled Republic: Political Astronomy and the Rise of the American Constellation" (U Virginia Press, 2025) 24.08.2026 34min

Why does the American flag use stars to represent the states? In The Star-Spangled Republic: Political Astronomy and the Rise of the American Constellation (U Virginia Press, 2025), Eran Shalev answers this and many other questions, considering the cosmic imagery—so familiar today but so peculiar on reflection—that suffused the United States’ early political culture. In this comprehensive study, Shalev uncovers how “political astronomy”—the discussion and representation of politics through astronomical models, allusions, and metaphors—reflected and facilitated the emerging worldview that enabled Americans to justify and find meaning in the country’s new democratic modes of governance and its federal system. No other scholar has looked at American political rhetoric through this lens; in so doing, Shalev is able to explain in fascinating detail how Americans turned away from the sun of heliocentric monarchy toward the night sky full of federated constellations, and to discover republicanism imprinted in the firmament.

Sandeep Vaheesan, "Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in the United States" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 22.08.2026 54min

In Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Sandeep Vaheesan recounts the rather overlooked story of how electricity spread across the U.S. economy during the 20th century. This book sheds careful light on the varied institutions and interests mediating the process, including investor-owned utilities and the rural electric cooperative. Vaheesan does not hesitate to critique the successes and failures cropping up along the way; rather, he lays them all bare in service of paving an actionable path toward the decarbonization and democratization of power. Sandeep Vaheesan is the legal director at the Open Markets Institute. He leads their legal research and advocacy, including the amicus program. He has written and spoken widely on antimonopoly law and policy and building a fair economy. Previously, he worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and American Antitrust Institute. Anna Olteanu is a senior in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University, where she focuses on intellectual history. Her interests include political ecology, the history of economic thought, and literary criticism.

Ashanté M. Reese, "Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness" (W. W. Norton, 2026) 21.08.2026 37min

Food justice is defined as the understanding that our food system is unequal and that something needs to be done about it. But how can we create a world where everyone has enough? What does it mean to truly nourish ourselves and our communities? In Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness (Norton, 2026), anthropologist Ashanté M. Reese argues for a vibrant new vision of food justice that places Black communities at the center and offers us a visionary, delicious path forward. Reese reveals that to truly create equity in our food systems, we must embrace the abundance that already exists around us—and recognize that the social body is as important as our individual health Gather presents rich, on-the-ground stories of gathering around food in four spaces—gardens, family reunions, repasts, and protests. Blending rich storytelling with analysis, these chapters argue for the political power of food and invite us to learn from the tactics Black communities have long used to create sustainable, systemic change. There are no simple solutions to the problems of acute need. But by recognizing that food justice is already all around us, we can start working together to create a more nourishing, joyful world. Gather is an intimate and urgent invitation to embrace local power, build better food systems, and nourish ourselves, body and soul. Ashanté M. Reese is a writer, anthropologist, and associate professor of African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Raised in Cooper Settlement, Texas, she lives in Austin and is involved in food justice movements nationwide. Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Her book, Diasporic Connections: How Afro-Brazilians Use African American Culture to Challenge Racial Exceptionalism is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

China Comes to Town: Chinese Investment and Local Politics in the U.S. with Emily Conrad 21.08.2026 50min

Chinese investment in the United States has become an increasingly contentious issue that is much more complicated than headlines suggest. In this episode, we reflect on recent debates in Michigan’s democratic primary and use it as a jumping-off point to examine more than 25 years of Chinese investment in the US and subnational relationships with Chinese business. We’re joined by Emily Conrad, whose research examines Chinese manufacturing investment in the US. We discuss where investment is concentrated and how local governments interact with investments, with attitudes ranging from facilitation to passivity to obstruction. We also discuss how Chinese companies navigate the present environment and varied contexts across the US. As federal scrutiny has intensified and states have introduced new restrictions on foreign land ownership and investment, Chinese firms face mounting political and regulatory headwinds. Yet, investments have not disappeared, and companies are adapting, raising questions about how geopolitics is reshaping investment, manufacturing and subnational policies and politics in the US. Sign up for Emily’s Substack Emily’s book The Faithless?: The Untold Story of the Electoral College Analysis of State Attitudes towards Chinese investments over time from Conrad’s research here Other resources from the episode: Rhodium Group’s China cross-border monitor YouTube podcast with Abdul al-Sayed that mentions some about China: here Wall Street Journal article about the State Armor organization: here NPR podcast with one of the best overviews on Gotion:here More on Gotion: ‘No CCP in USA!’: Inside a Michigan town's unhinged war over a Chinese battery plant A Chinese battery company bet on a small Michigan town for its U.S. expansion Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate primary debate audio used in this episode Tweet on the CCP by Sen. Elissa Slotkin Financial Times article, China’s assault on Europe’s car market has barely begun

Seth Masket, "The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders" (Cambridge UP, 2026) 20.08.2026 47min

Political Scientist Seth Masket’s new book, The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders (Cambridge UP, 2026) is a companion book to his earlier work, Learning from Loss: The Democrats, 2016-2020 (Cambridge University Press, 2020). In researching both these works, Masket spends time with party leaders throughout the United States, discussing the loss at the presidential level (for Democrats in 2016, for Republicans in 2020) and seeking to understand what the lessons might be for each party from their electoral loss. The Elephants in the Room focuses in on the idea and trajectory of nominating Donald Trump for the third time in as many election cycles, as the local party leaders of the Republican Party considered what to do in the lead up to the 2024 election cycle. Masket is able to regularly survey Republican Party chairs (state chairs, local chairs, county chairs) during the period leading to the 2024 nomination cycle. He also interviewed many of these same chairs, especially the ones in New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, and other early primary states. The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders analyzes the thinking among these party leaders—not necessarily at the national level, but certainly long-standing and engaged local-level leaders—and their concern that nominating Trump again would lead to another presidential election loss for the GOP. One of the key points Masket makes both in the book and in our conversation is that these leaders had built, over time, a political party that they could no longer lead. These leaders are also distinct from the voters themselves, who may be adherents to the party, but are not part of the political party in the same way. Thus, the voters were much more interested in and attracted to the populism that has long lurked within American politics, and, of late, Republican politics, while the partisan leaders were not nearly as drawn to this strain of politics. We discuss the recent history of populist politics in the GOP, with Pat Buchanan’s 1992 presidential run and convention speech as a key point within the historical trajectory. Trump, in 2015, entered partisan politics building on this already existing faction within the GOP. This is part of the post-2020 election framing, but Masket makes an important point in how the Republican Party differed from the Democrats in learning from a loss at the presidential level. For the Republicans, it was very difficult to learn much from the results of the 2020 election because so few Republicans were or are willing to acknowledge that Trump actually lost the 2020 election. It is quite difficult to learn a lesson from an event that didn’t happen. Seth Masket, Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020, Cambridge University Press, 2020. The Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, CO has copies of The Elephants in the Room. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Saga (University Press of Kansas, 2022), and of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume II: Into the Multiverse (University Press of Kansas, 2025) as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social

Beronda L. Montgomery, "When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy" (Henry Holt & Co.) 18.08.2026 44min

The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees were both havens and signposts for people trying to escape enslavement; poplar trees are historically associated with lynching; and willow bark has offered the gift of medicine. These trees, and others, testify not only to the complexity of the Black American narrative but also to a heritage of Black botanical expertise that, like Native American traditions, predates the United States entirely.In When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy (Henry Holt & Co.), award-winning plant biologist Dr. Beronda L. Montgomery explores the ways seven trees—as well as the cotton shrub—are intertwined with Black history and culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped America since the very beginning. As Montgomery shows, trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants.Combining the wisdom of science and history with stories from her own path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer. Beronda L. Montgomery, PhD, is a writer, researcher, and scholar who pursues a common theme of understanding how individuals perceive, respond to, and are impacted by the environments in which they exist. Her primary laboratory-based research has been focused on the responses of photosynthetic organisms (i.e., plants and cyanobacteria) to external light cues. Additionally, Beronda pursues this theme in the context of effective mentoring and leadership of individuals, and the role of innovative leaders in supporting success. You can find her at her website. Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Kiara Wyndham, "Diversityland: Hiding Racial Inequality in an American Suburb" (U California Press, 2026) 17.08.2026 42min

Fort Bend County, Texas, looks like the America we claim to want: a suburb where Black, White, Asian, and Latinx families share cul-de-sacs, schools, and celebrations. Residents trade dishes, honor one another's traditions, and take pride in their community's diversity. Yet beneath this harmony lies what sociologist Dr. Kiara Wyndham calls "the diversity contract"—an unspoken agreement that racial diversity may be celebrated, but racial inequality must not be named.  Drawing on two years of ethnographic research and more than 150 interviews, Diversityland: Hiding Racial Inequality in an American Suburb (University of California Press, 2026) reveals how the language of inclusion can obscure enduring racial hierarchy. In Fort Bend and communities like it, White advantage adapts to diversity rather than disappearing. Vivid and deeply researched, Diversityland transforms how we understand suburban life and challenges foundational narratives of what racial progress will look like in 21st century America. 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.

Daniel Byman, "American Pogroms: How Forgotten Massacres Shape America" (Oxford UP, 2026) 14.08.2026 1h 3min

Amidst heightened rhetoric and increasing polarization in the United States, American Pogroms: How Forgotten Massacres Shape America (Oxford University Press, 2026) chronicles the causes and consequences of two centuries of mob violence in American history, highlighting exactly what's at stake when we allow leaders to legitimate violence and the mob to rule. For much of American history, members of the majority population of the United States indiscriminately attacked and terrorized minority communities. In some parts of the country, mob violence seemed a near-constant part of the region's history, while in others it was a brief, horrific spasm that perpetrators--but not victims--quickly forgot. In American Pogroms, terrorism expert Daniel Byman argues that there is a word for this type of communal violence: pogrom. Although pogroms are historically associated with the orchestrated campaigns of anti-Jewish violence in Tsarist Russia, Byman asserts that pogroms have been an all-too-frequent feature of American history. Tracing two centuries of communal violence, Byman recounts cases of attacks against American religious minorities such as Catholics and Mormons, the killing of thousands of ethnic Mexicans in Texas, the murder and wholesale expulsion of Chinese workers from the American West, and the repeated attacks on the Black community that killed thousands and enabled decades of brutal discrimination. In all these cases, pogroms helped cement a system of injustice that left religious, ethnic, and racial minorities politically and economically marginalized. While the idea of mob violence now strikes most Americans as unthinkable, Byman warns that increased polarization and selective news consumption in recent years has coarsened discourse and legitimized violence, raising the risk that at least some violence will return. A broad-ranging synthesis of how and why majorities have so frequently resorted to community-level violence to restore or cement their power, American Pogroms illustrates the outsized role of violence in U.S. history and how it shapes the country today. Daniel Byman is a Professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the Director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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