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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to ... more

78 ratings

Publishes	Daily	Episodes	2954	Founded	15 years ago
Number of Listeners		Categories	Social SciencesScience

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Latest Episodes

R. Joshua Scannell, "The Carceral Surround" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

As law enforcement agencies deploy increasingly advanced technologies to suppress dissent, hunt migrants, and target marginalized communities, The Carceral Surround (U Minnesota Press, 2026) offers a powerful new theory of police and prison power in ... more

12 Sep 2026 • 36 min • Most popular

Lee Alan Dugatkin, "Nary a Horse Left Standing: How a Nineteenth-Century Epidemic Transformed Medicine, Animal Welfare, and the Modern City" (MIT Press, 2026)

In Nary a Horse Left Standing: How a Nineteenth-Century Epidemic Transformed Medicine, Animal Welfare, and the Modern City (MIT Press, 2026), Dr. Lee Dugatkin chronicles this little-known crisis, revealing how the epidemic disrupted nearly every aspe... more

8 Sep 2026 • 48 min

Chika Watanabe, "Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire" (Stanford UP, 2026)

We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of

natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we

survive the future on such a planet, amid intensifying climate change?

This question is particularly poigna... more

4 Sep 2026 • 55 min • Popular

Marnie Hughes-Warrington, "Artificial Historians" (Routledge, 2025)

I spoke with Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington about her 2026 book Artificial Historians, co-authored with Anne Martin and Lewis Yarlupurka O’Brien. A distinguished historian, philosopher, academic leader, and Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) ... more

3 Sep 2026 • 1 hr 2 min

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Recent Guests

Eran Shalev

Professor and author of The Star-Spangled Republic

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

Steve Feldstein

Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance program

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Episode: Steve Feldstein, "Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare" (St. Martin's Press, 2026)

Sandeep Vaheesan

Legal Director at the Open Markets Institute

Open Markets Institute

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

Jessica Riskin

Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University, author

Stanford University

Episode: Jessica Riskin, "The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck" (Penguin, 2026)

Jeff Jarvis

Author, media scholar

Bloomsbury (book publisher)

Episode: Jeff Jarvis, "Hot Type: The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Stephanie Kim

Head of Signals and Strategy at KPMG

KPMG

Episode: A Succinct View of How AI is Changing Business and Work Right Now

Jehnie Burns

Author of Mixtape Nostalgia, Culture, Memory, and Representation

Author, Mixtape Nostalgia

Episode: Jehnie Burns on Mixtape Culture

Karen M'Closkey

Co-editor of Media Matters in Landscape Architecture

University of Pennsylvania; PEG Office of Landscape and Architecture; Penn's Environmental Modeling Lab (MLab)

Episode: Karen M'Closkey and Keith VanDerSys eds., "Media Matters in Landscape Architecture" (Applied Research & Design, 2025)

Keith VanDerSys

Co-editor of Media Matters in Landscape Architecture

University of Pennsylvania; PEG Office of Landscape and Architecture; Penn's Environmental Modeling Lab (MLab)

Episode: Karen M'Closkey and Keith VanDerSys eds., "Media Matters in Landscape Architecture" (Applied Research & Design, 2025)

Host

Miranda Melcher

Host of The New Books Network

Reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars from 78 ratings

Excellent, but please fix the audio
Excellent content, but the audio of the introductory part is disturbed by static noise. Thankfully the introduction is pretty short. The audio of the interview is much better. I think it would be wise to get a new microphone.
Apple Podcasts
3
Em1975
United States6 years ago

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Listeners Say

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Audio quality could improve for the intro to match the interview.

Some listeners praise content but note audio issues in the intro.

Interviews are generally strong with depth and scholarly rigor.

Chart Rankings

How this podcast ranks in the Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube charts.

Apple Podcasts	#51	United States/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#56	Canada/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#119	United Kingdom/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#49	Germany/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#199	Italy/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#2	Colombia/Science/Social Sciences

Talking Points

Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.

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

Q: I was wondering if you could untangle the relationship between law, state, and enterprise at this early juncture, even though you said this wasn't an antitrust book.

Vaheesan discusses how law enables and structures economic life, arguing that the state shapes economic arrangements rather than existing as a purely free market, and that democratic societies should ensure that law and policy promote broad public interest rather than privileging a concentrated elite.

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

Q: Finally, what have you been up to since completing this project?

Since completing the book, Vaheesan has been advising public power campaigns, writing op-eds and essays, and promoting public and cooperative power as viable models for decarbonization, including public advocacy and technical commentary to help campaigns move from analysis to action.

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

Q: Why did you choose to title it Promise as opposed to Future or Prospect? What were you fundamentally trying to convey in the section?

Vaheesan explains that Promise was chosen for its alliterative fit with Past and Present and to signal a hopeful, future-oriented but attainable ideal for public power, emphasizing that a robust public power system could exist but does not fully today; the section invites readers to imagine and work toward a more democratic energy future.

A Succinct View of How AI is Changing Business and Work Right Now

Q: What about the idea that 'intelligence used to be expensive; now judgment is expensive'—how does context become the moat and who should provide it?

Stephanie explains that organizations must embed context and governance into AI systems, with judgment becoming a critical bottleneck. Rather than trying to hard-stop AI decisions, companies should prepare by defining how human oversight, organizational data, and decision-making processes tie into AI outputs, so AI augments rather than replaces human judgment.

The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine with Jonathan Fuller

Q: How should clinicians interpret population-level risk when applying it to individual patients?

Group-level risk results inform probabilities for individuals but cannot deterministically predict outcomes; clinicians should weigh these results with individual context and consider analogies to lotteries to understand the probabilistic nature of treatment benefits.

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Frequently Asked Questions About This Podcast

What is This Podcast about and what kind of topics does it cover?

Scholarly interviews centered on recently published books and research across science, technology, and society. Episodes frequently pair historians, anthropologists, and other researchers with authors to unpack how technology, governance, memory, and culture intersect in contemporary and historical contexts. Notable threads include AI governance and democratic accountability, the social life of money and digital payments, biopolitics in novel foods, and infrastructure as cultural and political mediators. The show often brings archival and ethnographic methodologies to topics ranging from memory and architecture to aviation landscapes and transnational politics, offering deep dives that appeal to researchers, policy professionals, and intell... more

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1. New Books in Critical Theory
2. What's Left of Philosophy
3. Tech Won't Save Us
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this podcast launched 15 years ago and published 2954 episodes to date. You can find more information about this podcast including rankings, audience demographics and engagement in our podcast database.

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Recent guests on this podcast include:

1. Eran Shalev
2. Steve Feldstein
3. Sandeep Vaheesan
4. Jessica Riskin
5. Jeff Jarvis
6. Stephanie Kim
7. Jehnie Burns
8. Karen M'Closkey

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