Friday, September 24, 2010

Three issues of New Books In History

The podcast New Books In History is one of my favorite podcasts around. In general I have a great appreciation for interview podcasts - they bring the kind of dynamic that works especially well in audio - but NBIH has my special fondness for being about history and persistently bringing us a new and interesting issue each week. By today there will be yet another new interview, I expect, but here I want to briefly point you to the three last ones.

Thomas Kessner, “The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh & the Rise of American Aviation”
Marshall Poe lets Kessner tell the story of Lindbergh and he does it very well. Asides a suspending narrative we have thoughts about modern day heroism.

Kip Kosek, “Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy”
They seem like a completely insignificant fringe phenomenon: religiously motivated conscientious pacifists. Yet, Kosek comes to argue how influential they have been in American politics. And Marshall Poe takes him also up on discussing the theological foundations of nonviolence.

Elaine Tyler May, “America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation”
The pill changed our world - there seems to be wide consensus about this. Elaine Tyler May's research shows that even if this is the case, it did not work exactly in the way we thought. The pill did less for sexual freedom and more for bringing women into the workplace - to sum it up very short.

More NBIH:
When Akkadian was Lingua Franca,
The 1910 Paris flood,
Stasi agents and informants,
War in Human Civilization,
Always recommended: New Books in History.