In Conversation: An OUP Podcast By cover art

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast

By: New Books Network
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  • Summary

  • Interviews with Oxford University Press authors about their books
    New Books Network
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Episodes
  • Cathal J. Nolan, "The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost" (Oxford UP, 2019)

    Cathal J. Nolan, "The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost" (Oxford UP, 2019)
    Jun 2 2024
    History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Marathon, Cannae, Tours, Agincourt, Austerlitz, Sedan, Stalingrad--all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But were they? As Cathal J. Nolan demonstrates in The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford University Press, 2019), victory in major wars usually has been determined in other ways. Even the most legendarily lopsided of battles did not necessarily decide their outcomes. Nolan also challenges the hoary concept of the military "genius," even of the Great Captains--from Alexander to Frederick and Napoleon--mapping instead the decent into total war. The Allure of Battle systematically recreates and analyzes the major campaigns among the Great Powers, from the Middle Ages through the 20th century, from the fall of Byzantium to the defeat of the Axis powers, tracing the illusion of "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and conflict brief. Such as almost never been the case. Even one-sided battles have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating erosion of the other side's defenses, resources, and will.
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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • Ronald R. Sundstrom, "Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Ronald R. Sundstrom, "Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Jun 1 2024
    It is widely acknowledged that the United States is in the grip of an enduring housing crisis. It is less frequently recognized that this crisis amounts to more than there being an insufficient supply of adequate shelter. It rather is tied to a range of other forms of social and economic vulnerability – and many of these forms of vulnerability impede a citizen’s capacity to function as a full member of society. What’s more, the familiar terms we deploy in discussing the housing crisis – gentrification, integration, segregation, and so on – stand in need of philosophical clarification. In Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction (Oxford UP, 2024), Ronald R. Sundstrom draws upon tools derived from moral philosophy, political theory, and urban studies to provide the beginning of a comprehensive analysis of justice in “social-spatial arrangements.” He proposes a liberal-egalitarian and reconstructive, yet pragmatic, approach to addressing the challenges posed by our country’s legacy of unjust housing policies.
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Sohini Pillai, "Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Sohini Pillai, "Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    May 30 2024
    Between 800 and 1700 CE, a plethora of Mahabharatas were created in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, and several other regional South Asian languages. Sohini Pillai's Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative (Oxford UP, 2024) is a comprehensive study of premodern regional Mahabharata retellings. This book argues that Vaishnavas (devotees of the Hindu god Vishnu and his various forms) throughout South Asia turned this epic about an apocalyptic, bloody war into works of ardent bhakti or "devotion" focused on the beloved Hindu deity Krishna.
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    43 mins
Art World Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences Science
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