New Books Network
430 episodes listed below
Careful history from the western archive.
New Books in the American West is a patient academic interview series built around recent historical books. Its conversations move from archives and research origins into larger questions of segregation, colonization, labor, media power, Indigenous survival, and regional identity.
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New Books in the American West is a scholarly interview series organized around recent books and the historical arguments they make. It moves slowly, by design. The show is less interested in quick takeaways than in how a subject came into focus: which archive mattered, which regional assumption needed pressure, and which older story no longer explained the evidence. Its center of gravity is the American West, but the conversations often travel through broader systems of labor, media, state power, race, and cultural survival. A discussion of Orange County, California, becomes a layered account of Mexican American grassroots politics, segregated schools, Mexican neighborhoods, citrus capital, and local institutions. A Hollywood episode follows inequality and abuse into questions of image control, gendered labor, studio hierarchy, publicity, and the public's role in making stars. A conversation on Mexico's long history pauses over independence, bankruptcy, democratic local government, and the social fallout of war with the United States. The Navajo resistance episodes are especially grounded in memory and continuity. They connect a killing and murder trial to colonization, the Long Walk, Fort Sumner, boarding school abuse, language loss, ceremony, songs, and the work of passing stories across generations. Other episodes take up countercultures, cybercultures, Californian and Texan ideologies, public service in suffering cities, and the pioneer Northwest through genocide, complicity, and cover-ups. The format is simple. A host introduces a book, places the author and project in context, then lets the conversation develop through evidence and interpretation. The best moments come when a guest moves from a detail to a structure, showing how schools, growers' associations, studios, courts, governments, or museums shaped ordinary lives. The show assumes that listeners can sit with complexity. It also rewards that patience. Its warmth comes from careful attention rather than chatter, and its seriousness fits the material. This is history as an extended conversation about power, place, and survival.
Made for: For serious readers, history students, scholars, and curious listeners who want author interviews with evidence, context, and regional specificity. It suits people comfortable with long answers and difficult historical subjects.
What sets it apart: The show gives books room to think aloud, following research origins into archives, institutions, and contested memory. It stands apart from lighter history programming by staying close to scholarly method without losing conversational clarity.
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 get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-west
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Author conversations make contested histories of land, power, regional identity, and popular myth accessible without flattening the scholarship.
New Books in the American West turns historical scholarship into patient, question-led conversation. The host asks authors to clarify the machinery behind their stories, from Mexico's local democratic surge after independence and tribal jurisdiction in Rebecca Nagle's account to…
Teddy Roosevelt, tribal jurisdiction, and an outlaw movie star: your Western history syllabus just got stranger.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A close look at how segregation was built into Orange County's institutions, not just its neighborhoods.
David-James Gonzales traces Orange County segregation through its economy and its politics, using the citrus industry, growers' associations, and public institutions to show how segregated neighborhoods, schools, and local government took shape together.
A careful interview about how Hollywood turns women into images, labor, and contested power.
The conversation treats Hollywood as an industry built around control: over images, over labor, and over the power studios try to keep around stars. Karen McNally and Priyam Sinha move from studio hierarchy to publicity and audience response, and the point lands clearly enough.
Mexico's post-independence turmoil is paired with a sharper story of local democratic invention.
Paul Gillingham treats Mexico's years after independence as something more than a simple tale of collapse. He moves through bankruptcy, rapid constitutional turnover, and the usual picture of a weak state, then lands on the quieter fact that villages and small towns were…
A measured book conversation about Navajo resistance, memory, and language preservation.
Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons frame The Sons of Gun Shooter as both a Navajo resistance story and a study of memory, archives, and the damage left by forced assimilation.
An outlaw biography that turns into a sharper look at celebrity and notoriety.
The episode treats Henry Starr less like a lone outlaw and more like a man who got folded into legend. Mark Archuleta and the host track him from bank robber to film-star curiosity, then back to the harder question of what comes after the fame runs out.
A careful interview that uses a murder case to open up Native jurisdiction and the omissions in American history.
Rebecca Nagle's conversation on New Books in the American West treats By the Fire We Carry as both a murder case and a plain-spoken look at Native land, jurisdiction, and the gaps left by American history.
A calm cultural history that turns Roosevelt-era bear lore into a story about masculinity and myth.
Daniel Horowitz starts with bears, then opens the door to Roosevelt, masculinity, and the making of the Teddy bear legend. Theodore Roosevelt, Holt Collier, the Mississippi hunt, and the tied-up bear all matter here, but the real payoff comes from watching a quick embarrassment…
A clear argument that East and West are matters of perspective, shaped by Chicago, rail, trade, and Robert Park's Chicago School lens.
Flannery Burke's conversation treats Back East as a matter of position, not a fixed map. From the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the West Coast, Chicago becomes the point that gives East and West their meaning.
A host and three academics dissect one topic weekly, from archaea to the Tudors.
Philosophy argued aloud, with dry edges.
New scholarship, patiently brought into focus.
CMU, recorded before it gets polished.
Scholarly conversations across Muslim worlds.
Seminar-room depth on Russia and Eurasia.
David-James Gonzales lays out how segregation took shape in Orange County.
Hollywood cannot fully command its audience.
Mexico's independence comes across as contingent, not prewritten.
This episode features an interview with authors Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons about their book 'The Sons of Gun Shooter: A Navajo Resistance Story,' which examines a historical murder case within the context of colonization and Navajo resistance.
Mary Reynolds speaks with Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons about The Sons of Gun Shooter: A Navajo Resistance Story, published by the University of Arizona Press in March 2026.
This episode features an interview with Fred Turner discussing countercultures, cybercultures, and the ideologies of California and Texas in relation to technology and human life.
This episode features an interview with Josh Seim about his book 'The Welfare Assembly Line: Public Servants in the Suffering City', examining the experiences of public servants in urban welfare systems.
An academic interview with historian Mark James Carpenter about his book on genocide and cover-ups in the pioneer Northwest.
An academic interview discussing a new book about mixed-blood Dakota Indians and race law in the 19th-century Midwest.
An interview with environmental journalist Tara Lohan about her book on dam removal and river restoration.
An academic interview podcast where scholars discuss their recently published research with an expert host.
An academic interview discussing a book on queer places and urban redevelopment in postwar San Francisco.
An interview with Malcolm Harris about his book 'Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World' on the New Books Network.
A host interviews an author about his book on the cultural history of tacos, part of an academic book review series.
An academic interview with historian John Finley discussing his new book on the mobilized American West in 1950.
This episode features an interview with authors Vanessa Diaz and Petra Rivera-Radu discussing their book P.
Host Steve Hausman interviews author Matthew Davis about his new book on the American West.
An academic interview discussing a new book on California's history of slavery.
An academic interview about a book on an Indigenous family's fight to save a river and their way of life in Northern California.
An academic interview discussing Jennifer Ott's book on the history of Seattle's waterfront, covering technology, labor, immigration, and indigenous tribes.
An academic interview with historian Jeff Roche about his new book on the American West.
An academic podcast where scholars discuss their recently published books with an expert host, part of the New Books Network.
This episode features an interview with Dr.
This episode features an interview with historian Erika Pani about her book 'Torn Asunder: Republican Crises and Civil Wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867', exploring comparative borderlands history during this turbulent period.
This episode features an interview with Becky Nicolaides about her book 'The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945', exploring demographic and social transformations in post-war suburban communities.
This episode features an interview with editors Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Anita Huízar-Hernández about their book 'meXicana Roots and Routes', which explores how scholars use personal and scholarly inquiry to discuss belonging, language policies, and cultural identity in the U.S.
This episode is an academic interview podcast where scholars discuss recently published research, part of the New Books Network.
Mark Archuleta discusses The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr, published by University of North Texas Press in 2025, and the long research trail behind it.
Jurisdiction starts on a rural dirt road.
Teddy Roosevelt refuses to kill a tied up bear.
Chicago keeps moving.
An academic interview discussing Wade Davies' book on the history of American Indian basketball from 1895 to 1970.
An academic interview with historian Joshua Specht about his book on the history of beef in America.
This episode is a promotional segment for PayPal and Adobe, followed by a survey request from the New Books Network, before the actual interview content begins.