New Books in American Politics Podcast Por New Books Network arte de portada

New Books in American Politics

New Books in American Politics

De: New Books Network
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Interviews with scholars of American politics about their new booksNew Books Network Arte Ciencia Política Historia y Crítica Literaria Política y Gobierno
Episodios
  • Lucy Caplan, "Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera" (Harvard UP, 2025)

    Lucy Caplan, "Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera" (Harvard UP, 2025)
    Nov 15 2025
    Recently, musicologists and others have started writing about Black participation in opera. Lucy Caplan’s Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera (Harvard UP, 2025) is a major new publication on this topic. Caplan examines what she calls a Black operatic counterculture in the US dating from the performance of H. Lawrence Freeman’s first opera, The Martyr, in 1893 until the 1950s. Rather than centering her analysis on opera as a symbol of uplift or on the ways that the operatic establishment excluded Black participation, Caplan thinks about how opera was part of a project of self-fashioning in Black communities. She argues that opera could be one way to answer the question, in the words of Black librettist Karen Chilton, “How do we become ourselves?” Focusing on institutions and networks, while also not ignoring influential figures, Caplan delves into the rich history of Black opera through numerous points of entry. This is not a strictly chronological retelling of a few, already well-known operatic “firsts.” Instead, Caplan writes about everything from critics to short-lived opera companies, from celebrities to supernumeraries, and recreates this previously untold complex and multifaceted operatic legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h
  • Miranda S. Spivack, "Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back" (The New Press, 2025)

    Miranda S. Spivack, "Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back" (The New Press, 2025)
    Nov 14 2025
    Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Prize A groundbreaking look at how ordinary people are fighting back against their local and state governments to keep their communities safe, by an award-winning journalist Most Americans are likely to encounter the effects of government malfeasance or neglect close to home—from their governors, mayors, town councils, school boards, police, and prosecutors. In fact, deals shrouded in darkness are regularly made at the state and local levels, often the result of closed-door discussions between governments and industry without any scrutiny whatsoever from the public. Too often, as this groundbreaking new work of investigative reporting reveals, residents are intentionally kept on the outside, struggling to get information about significant issues affecting their communities—from car crashes and dirty drinking water, to failing safety gear—until the backroom deals are done and it’s too late to challenge them. A work of riveting narrative nonfiction based on years of original reporting, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back (The New Press, 2025) tells the story of five “accidental activists”—people from across the United States who started questioning why their local and state governments didn’t protect them from issues facing their communities and why there was a frightening lack of transparency surrounding the way these issues were resolved. The secret deals, lies, and corruption they uncover shake their faith in government but move them to action. For readers of Chain of Title and Superman’s Not Coming, Spivack’s revealing take on a hidden dimension of American politics will outrage and educate anyone who cares about the forces shaping their own communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    45 m
  • David T. Beito, "FDR: A New Political Life" (Open Universe, 2025)

    David T. Beito, "FDR: A New Political Life" (Open Universe, 2025)
    Nov 7 2025
    David Beito's new book brings to bear the latest historical scholarship to shed light on the life and achievements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Professor Beito traces the irresistible political rise of Roosevelt, a scion of inherited wealth who never posed as a man of the people but was always perceived as a genial aristocrat. As well as eyebrow-raising disclosures on FDR's private life, Beito's narrative brings out Roosevelt's ruthless opportunism, and his susceptibility to all the prejudicial views fashionable at the time, on race, sex, nationalism, and economics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    32 m
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