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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	2932	Founded	15 years ago
Number of Listeners		Categories	ScienceSocial Sciences

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Latest Episodes

Devin Kennedy, "Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Long before Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, computer technology shaped how people worked, how markets operated,

and how businesses became big. After World War II, military officials

and their partners in industry looked to the newly invented electron... more

Today • 56 min

The Resurgence of War and the Collapse of Arms Control

How the nuclear guardrails were dismantled. What arms control actually did (risk management, predictability, geography), how it unravelled from the 2000s onward, and why its collapse matters more now as we see a resurgence of strategic instability an... more

Today • 34 min

The Long Reach of the Strong Arm: Evolving Forms of Transnational Authoritarianism in Asia and Beyond

How do authoritarian regimes silence critics across borders? And what are the repressive tools and strategies that authoritarian regimes use transnationally? In this episode we are joined by Arild Engelsen Ruud, Mubashar Hasan and Karin Zackari to di... more

Yesterday

Paul Langley and Andrew Leyshon, "Fintech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance" (Princeton UP, 2026)

How is finance changing in the contemporary world? In FinTech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance (Princeton University Press, 2026), Paul Langley, a Professor of Economic Geography at Durham Universityand Andrew Leysho... more

28 Jul 2026 • 51 min

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Recent Guests

Paul Langley

Author of Fintech Capital; discussion partner in the interview

Princeton University Press (authoring team)

Episode: Paul Langley and Andrew Leyshon, "Fintech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Andrew Leyshon

Co-author of Fintech Capital; discussion partner in the interview

Princeton University Press (authoring team)

Episode: Paul Langley and Andrew Leyshon, "Fintech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Lana Swartz

Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

Episode: Lana Swartz on Digital Money and Digital Cultures of Money

Mitra Sharafi

Legal historian focusing on South Asia

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Episode: Mitra Sharafi, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Leopoldo López

Venezuelan democracy activist and co-founder of the World Liberty Congress

World Liberty Congress

Episode: Building A Freedom Infrastructure in the Age of Networked Control

Mark Crinson

Professor of architectural history, retired; author of Aviationland, Heathrow, and the Making of an Airport Landscape

Birkbeck, University of London; University of Manchester

Episode: Mark Crinson, "Aviationland: Heathrow and the Making of an Airport Landscape" (Paul Mellon Centre, 2026)

Daniel Gardner

Author of Thresholds of Digital Gameplay

Robert Gordon University, Scotland

Episode: Daniel L. Gardner, "Thresholds of Digital Gameplay" (MIT Press, 2025)

Stefan Höltgen

Co-editor of C64 or C64, Past, Present, and Future of a Home Computer

University of Bonn

Episode: Stefan Höltgen et al., "Commodore 64: Past, Present, and Future of a Home Computer" (Projekt Verlag, 2026)

Hector Amaya

Professor of Communication, University of Southern California

University of Southern California

Episode: Hector Amaya, "The Economy of Anonymity: Power in the Age of Identification" (Stanford UP 2026)

Host

Miranda Melcher

Host of The New Books Network; focus on history and science/technology topics; affiliated with 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 States5 years ago

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Listeners Say

Key themes from listener reviews, highlighting what works and what could be improved about the show.

Guests are clearly experts and bring depth to debates.

Thoughtful, rigorous conversations with top scholars.

Occasional audio quality issues during intros.

The show combines archival insight with contemporary relevance.

Great for background reading and understanding complex topics.

Chart Rankings

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

Apple Podcasts	#92	United States/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#40	United Kingdom/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#159	Canada/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#232	United Kingdom/Science
Apple Podcasts	#165	Italy/Science/Social Sciences
Apple Podcasts	#167	Germany/Science/Social Sciences

Talking Points

Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.

Mitra Sharafi, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Q: Can you explain the shift from perceiving falsity as a colonial stereotype to seeing it as a signal of complex disputing systems in practice?

The shift lies in analyzing how both British and Indian professionals framed deception, while also showing how local practitioners interpreted and adapted forensic practices, which reveals nuanced interactions between legal and scientific cultures rather than a simple colonial bias.

Mitra Sharafi, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Q: How did you approach reading colonial archives of crime without simply trusting or discarding them, given the biases in official records?

I argue for interrogating the sources by separating the description of falsity from the colonial explanations, recognizing bias but also extracting factual details about the testing methods, cases, and contexts to understand how evidence was produced and interpreted.

Mark Crinson, "Aviationland: Heathrow and the Making of an Airport Landscape" (Paul Mellon Centre, 2026)

Q: Could you start us off, please, by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book and how you've approached the topic?

I'm Mark Crinson, a retired professor of architectural history; I've long studied colonialism and architecture in Britain, and I wrote Aviationland to show Heathrow as a real place with a concrete history, combining walking the site with archival work and interviews to map how decisions about land, landscape, and infrastructure came together. My approach blends practical fieldwork, architectural analysis, and social history to explain how Heathrow's landscape was made and how it continues to matter.

Dallas Liddle, "News Machines: The Systems of Daily Journalism in Britain, 1785–1885" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Q: What do you hope non-specialist readers take away from this history?

He hopes readers learn to think in terms of systems and structures, recognizing that organizational change often arises from complex interactions rather than straightforward breakthroughs, and to apply this mindset to other modern institutions.

Dallas Liddle, "News Machines: The Systems of Daily Journalism in Britain, 1785–1885" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Q: What was it like to uncover surprising details that challenged your initial assumptions, such as the relative role of technology and the pace of production?

He describes a continual process of updating theories in light of new evidence, noting discoveries like the crucial role of distribution changes on reporting practices and how technology often followed market needs rather than driving them.

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Frequently Asked Questions About This Podcast

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

This program features in-depth conversations with scholars who discuss recently published books and research across science, technology, and society. Episodes cover topics like psywar history, language and AI, urban self-provisioning, environmental disasters, peace infrastructures, phrenology's historical impact, AI leadership in GLAM institutions, reparative media, race and genomics, internet history, space policy, and data capitalism in rural contexts. Guests are primarily academics and policy thinkers who illuminate historical debates, technological change, and social implications, often tying scholarly work to contemporary public conversations. The show is notable for integrating archival research with contemporary issues, offering rigo... more

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this podcast launched 15 years ago and published 2932 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. Paul Langley
2. Andrew Leyshon
3. Lana Swartz
4. Mitra Sharafi
5. Leopoldo López
6. Mark Crinson
7. Daniel Gardner
8. Stefan Höltgen

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