New Books In Diplomatic History podcast

#Books #Politics #Arts #News #History #New Books Network

42:14

Episode Description: Jessica B. Harris may have been born and raised in New York City, but she has Tennessee roots through her father and has spent much of her life split between homes in the Northeast and the South – specifically New Orleans. For more than fifty years, she has been a college professor, a writer, and a lecturer, and her many books have earned her a reputation as an authority on food of the African Diaspora, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the James Beard Foundation. A few years back, Netflix adapted her book, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America , into a 4 part docuseries. And I’m very proud to say that she’s a longtime contributor to Southern Living with a regular column called The Welcome Table. This episode was recorded in the Southern Living Birmingham studios, and Sid and Jessica talked about her mother’s signature mac and cheese, the cast-iron skillet she’d be sure to save if ever her house were on fire, and her dear friend, the late New Orleans chef Leah Chase. For more info visit: southernliving.com/biscuitsandjam Biscuits & Jam is produced by : Sid Evans - Editor-in-Chief, Southern Living Krissy Tiglias - GM, Southern Living Lottie Leymarie - Executive Producer Michael Onufrak - Audio Engineer/Producer Jeremiah McVay - Producer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

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Interviews with scholars of diplomacy, international relations, and geopolitics about their new books.

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New Books in Diplomatic History

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updated 7 днів тому

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Interviews with scholars of diplomacy, international relations, and geopolitics about their new books.

981 епізодів

#Books #Politics #Arts #News #History #New Books Network

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New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Stephan Kieninger, "Dynamic Détente: The United States and Europe, 1964-1975" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) 45:11

7 днів тому45:11

45:11

This book examines the dynamic evolution of Western détente policies which sought to transform Europe and overcome its Cold War division through more communication and engagement. Kieninger challenges the traditional Cold War narrative that détente prolonged the division of Europe and precipitated America’s decline in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Rather, he argues that policymakers in the U.S. Department of State and in Western Europe envisaged the stability enabled by détente as a precondition for change, as Communist regimes saw a sense of security as a prerequisite for opening up their societies to Western influence over time. Kieninger identifies the Helsinki Accords, Lyndon Johnson’s bridge building, and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik as efforts aimed at constructive changes in Eastern Europe through a multiplication of contacts, communication, and cooperation on all societal levels. This study also illuminates the longevity of America’s policy of peaceful change against the background of the nuclear stalemate and the military status quo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
NATO, the Indo-Pacific, and the Future of Burden-Sharing: A Conversation with Brian Blankenship 47:31

7 днів тому47:31

47:31

Professor Brian Blankenship comes back to the New Books Network to talk about what his book, The Burden-Sharing Dilemma: Coercive Diplomacy in US Alliance Politics (Cornell University Press, 2023), might be able to tell us about the quickly changing nature of US military alliances across the globe. We discuss the implications of Europe's burgeoning rearmament, the prospect of a collective defense pact in the Indo-Pacific, and how changing technologies and threats might affect burden-sharing in future alliances. Brian D. Blankenship is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Geoffrey Wawro, "The Vietnam War: A Military History" (Basic Books, 2024) 1:12:52

8 днів тому1:12:52

1:12:52

The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosion of US influence around the world. Long after the last helicopter evacuated Saigon, Americans have continued to battle over whether it was ever a winnable war. Based on thousands of pages of military, diplomatic, and intelligence documents, Geoffrey Wawro's The Vietnam War offers a definitive account of a war of choice that was doomed from its inception. In devastating detail, Wawro narrates campaigns where US troops struggled even to find the enemy in the South Vietnamese wilderness, let alone kill sufficient numbers to turn the tide in their favor. Yet the war dragged on, prolonged by presidents and military leaders who feared the political consequences of accepting defeat. In the end, no number of young lives lost or bombs dropped could prevent America's ally, the corrupt South Vietnamese regime, from collapsing the moment US troops retreated. Broad, definitive, and illuminating, The Vietnam War: A Military History offers an unsettling, resonant story of the limitations of American power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Jill Kastner and William C. Wohlforth, "A Measure Short of War: A Brief History of Great Power Subversion" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:02:53

8 днів тому1:02:53

1:02:53

In 2016 the United States was stunned by evidence of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election. But it shouldn’t have been. Subversion—domestic interference to undermine or manipulate a rival—is as old as statecraft itself. In A Measure Short of War: A Brief History of Great Power Subversion (Oxford UP, 2025) Jill Kastner and William C. Wohlforth provide a compelling ride through the history of subversion. They examine subversion’s allure, its operational possibilities, and argue that, in our high stakes, changing technological landscape, a clear-eyed understanding of the history and parameters of subversion can help polities defend against it. Jill Kastner is a scholar in the Department of War Studies at Kings College London. She has a doctorate in History from Harvard University. She specializes in Cold War crises in Berlin and the Middle East. Her work has appeared in The Nation and Foreign Affairs . William C Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. His most recent books are America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century (2018), Written with Stephen G Brooks, and The History of International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy in the 20th century (2020), co edited with Anatoly V. Torkunov and Boris F Martynov. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Vappala Balachandran, "India and China at Odds in the Asian Century: A Diplomatic and Strategic History" (Hurst, 2025) 43:34

9 днів тому43:34

43:34

China and India have had a tense relationship, disagreeing over territory, support for each other’s rivals, and even, at times, leadership of the “Global South.” But there were periods where things seemed a bit rosier. For about a decade, between 1988 and 1998, relations between India and China thawed—and prompted heady predictions of an Asian century. Vappala Balachandran, who was part of those off-line discussions with China, writes about the ups and downs of China-India relations in his latest book India and China at Odds in the Asian Century: A Diplomatic and Strategic History (Hurst: 2025) Vappala Balachandran is a columnist, former special secretary for the Indian Cabinet Secretariat, and author of four books on Indian security, strategy and intelligence. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books , including its review of India and China at Odds in the Asian Century . Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia . Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Lost Souls: Soviet Displaced Persons and the Birth of the Cold War" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:06:26

10 днів тому1:06:26

1:06:26

When World War II ended, about one million people whom the Soviet Union claimed as its citizens were outside the borders of the USSR, mostly in the Western-occupied zones of Germany and Austria. These “displaced persons,” or DPs—Russians, prewar Soviet citizens, and people from West Ukraine and the Baltic states forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939—refused to repatriate to the Soviet Union despite its demands. Thus began one of the first big conflicts of the Cold War. In Lost Souls , Sheila Fitzpatrick draws on new archival research, including Soviet interviews with hundreds of DPs, to offer a vivid account of this crisis, from the competitive maneuverings of politicians and diplomats to the everyday lives of DPs. American enthusiasm for funding the refugee organizations taking care of DPs quickly waned after the war. It was only after DPs were redefined—from “victims of war and Nazism” to “victims of Communism”—in 1947 that a solution was found: the United States would pay for the mass resettlement of DPs in America, Australia, and other countries outside Europe. The Soviet Union protested this “theft” of its citizens. But it was a coup for the United States. The choice of DPs to live a free life in the West, and the West’s welcome of them, became an important theme in America’s Cold War propaganda battle with the Soviet Union. A compelling story of the early Cold War, Lost Souls: Soviet Displaced Persons and the Birth of the Cold War (Princeton UP, 2024)is also a rare chronicle of a refugee crisis that was solved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Talin Suciyan, "Armenians in Turkey after the Second World War: An Archival Reader of USSR Consular Documents" (I. B. Tauris & Company, 2025) 50:03

10 днів тому50:03

50:03

This reader brings to light newly discovered archival material compiled by the Soviet Consulate in Istanbul. The book reveals the lives and experience of Armenians in Turkey in the 1940s, with a particular focus on the process of emigration to Soviet Armenia. The accounts, translated for the first time into English, are comprised of Soviet officials' reports and first-hand testimony by survivors of their lives during the post-genocide period, making this an invaluable new contribution to the existing collections of Armenian survival testimonies. Placing the archival records on emigration in the context of both life in post-genocide Turkey and the 'repatriation' (nergakht) project in the Armenian Diaspora, this book, which also includes the original Russian documents, will be a useful resource for researchers and students of Armenian and Turkish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

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Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, "The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq" (Stanford UP, 2021) 1:25:09

11 днів тому1:25:09

1:25:09

A new history of Middle East oil and the deep roots of American violence in Iraq. Iraq has been the site of some of the United States' longest and most sustained military campaigns since the Vietnam War. Yet the origins of US involvement in the country remain deeply obscured--cloaked behind platitudes about advancing democracy or vague notions of American national interests. Historian Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt's work, The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2021) exposes the origins and deep history of U.S. intervention in Iraq. The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy weaves together histories of Arab nationalists, US diplomats, and Western oil execs to tell the parallel stories of the Iraq Petroleum Company and the resilience of Iraqi society. Drawing on new evidence--the private records of the IPC, interviews with key figures in Arab oil politics, and recently declassified US government documents--Wolfe-Hunnicutt covers the arc of the 20th century, from the pre-WWI origins of the IPC consortium and decline of British Empire, to the beginnings of covert US action in the region, and ultimately the nationalization of the Iraqi oil industry and perils of postcolonial politics. American policymakers of the Cold War-era inherited the imperial anxieties of their British forebears and inflated concerns about access to and potential scarcity of oil, giving rise to a "paranoid style" in US foreign policy. Wolfe-Hunnicutt deconstructs these policy practices to reveal how they fueled decades of American interventions in the region and shines a light on those places that America's covert empire-builders might prefer we not look. Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt is Associate Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History and American Foreign policy at California State University, Stanislaus. Saman Nasser holds an M.A. in World History from James Madison University, where he currently works as an administrative staff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

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Helen Thompson on Disorder and the Analysis of Contemporary Geopolitics 1:16:20

25 днів тому1:16:20

1:16:20

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University and co-host of the great podcast, These Times, about her approach to geopolitical analysis and the centrality of energy geopolitics in that approach. The pair start by talking about Thompson’s book, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century (Cambridge UP, 2023), her background and training, and how she came to develop the distinctive style of geopolitical analysis she deploys, including on episodes of These Times. Vinsel and Thompson also discuss a number of topics, including military conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and the global energy geopolitics of Net Zero, as a way of exploring Thompson’s way of thinking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:21:01

26 днів тому1:21:01

1:21:01

Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. Alan Strathern set out a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between religion and political authority based on a distinction between two kinds of religion - immanentism and transcendentalism - and the different ways they made monarchy sacred. Please listen to his interview on that book on the New Books Network! This ambitious and innovative companion volume Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450–1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2024) tests and substantiates this approach using case studies from Kongo (1480–1530), Japan (1560–1614), Ayutthaya (Thailand, 1660–1690) and Hawaii (1800–1830). Through in-depth analysis of key turning points in the careers of warlords, chiefs and kings, a tapestry of unique characters and stories is brought to light. However, these examples ultimately demonstrate that global patterns of conversion can be established to illuminate the religious geography of the world today. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Dennis Ross, "Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Survive in a Multipolar World" (Oxford UP, 2025) 54:54

27 днів тому54:54

54:54

In a multipolar world where America wields less relative power, the United States can no longer get away with poor statecraft. To understand how the US can approach future national security challenges, I spoke with Dennis Ross, a senior US diplomat and the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His new book, Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Lead in a Multipolar World (Oxford University Press, 2025) offers a revised toolkit for US foreign policy and global leadership. The United States may still be the world's strongest country, but it now faces real challenges at both a global and regional level. The unipolar world which was dominated by America after the Cold War is gone. Unlike the Soviet Union, China is both a military and economic competitor and it is actively challenging the norms and institutions that the US used to shape an international order during and after the Cold War. Directly and indirectly, it has partners trying to undo the American-dominated order, with Russia seeking to extinguish Ukraine, and Iran trying to undermine American presence, influence, and any set of rules for the Middle East that it does not dominate. The failures of American policy in Afghanistan and Iraq have weakened the domestic consensus for a US leadership role internationally. Traditions in US foreign policy, especially the American sense of exceptionalism, have at different points justified both withdrawal and international activism. Iraq and Afghanistan fed the instinct to withdraw and to end the “forever wars.” But the folly of these US interventions did not necessarily mean that all use of force to back diplomacy or specific political ends was wrong; rather it meant in these cases, the Bush Administration failed in the most basic task of good statecraft: namely, marrying objectives and means. Nothing more clearly defines effective statecraft than identifying well-considered goals and then knowing how to use all the tools of statecraft—diplomatic, economic, military, intelligence, information, cyber, scientific, education—to achieve them. But all too often American presidents have adopted goals that were poorly defined and not thought through. In Statecraft 2.0 , Dennis Ross explains why failing to marry objectives and means has happened so often in American foreign policy. He uses historical examples to illustrate the factors that account for this, including political pressures, weak understanding of the countries where the US has intervened, changing objectives before achieving those that have been established, relying too much on ourselves and too little on allies and partners. To be fair, there have not only been failures, there have been successes as well. Ross uses case studies to look more closely at the circumstances in which Administrations have succeeded and failed in marrying objectives and means. He distills the lessons from good cases of statecraft—German unification in NATO, the first Gulf War, the surge in Iraq 2007-8—and bad cases of statecraft—going to war in Iraq 2003, and the Obama policy toward Syria. Based on those lessons, he develops a framework for applying today a statecraft approach to our policy toward China, Iran, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The book concludes with how a smart statecraft approach would shape policy toward the new national security challenges of climate, pandemics, and cyber. Dr. Andrew O. Pace is a historian of the US in the world who specializes in the moral fog of war. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Lines of Control: India’s Foreign Policy and China 38:11

28 днів тому38:11

38:11

This podcast episode, hosted by Kikee Doma Bhutia from the University of Tartu, features journalist and analyst Aadil Brar discussing India's foreign policy amidst rising global tensions. The conversation focuses on India’s balancing act between the US, China, and its own strategic autonomy in a contested Indo-Pacific region. Key topics include India’s evolving role as a middle power, responding to China's assertiveness along the India-China border and in the Indo-Pacific, while maintaining its traditional non-alignment stance. India’s foreign policy is at a crossroads, shaped by five tense years since the Galwan Valley clash with China. Despite rounds of talks, the border remains uneasy and trust is scarce. Today, China’s assertiveness drives nearly every major Indian strategic decision-from military deployments and Quad partnerships to concerns over Beijing’s mega-dams on the Brahmaputra. Meanwhile, the US sees India as a key counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific, but Delhi is determined to maintain its independence and avoid being boxed into alliances. As India watches China’s moves from the Himalayas to Taiwan, the question is clear: Are we witnessing a true pivot in Indian foreign policy, or simply a sharp recalibration to meet new realities? The answer will shape Asia’s balance of power for years to come. The podcast was brought to you by host Dr. Kikee Doma Bhutia a Research Fellow and India Coordinator at the Asia Centre, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her current research combines folkloristics, international relations and Asian studies, focusing on the role of religion and culture in times of crisis, national and regional identities, and geopolitics conflict between India and China. The podcast guest speaker Aadil Brar is a journalist and international affairs analyst based in Taipei, currently a Reporter at TaiwanPlus News. His reporting focuses on international security, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian security. Previously, he was a China news reporter for Newsweek and has contributed to the BBC World Service, The Print India, and National Geographic. In 2023, he was a Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Fellow and a visiting scholar at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Brar holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia and an MSc. in International Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

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Stuart Ward, "Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:15:16

29 днів тому1:15:16

1:15:16

How did Britain cease to be global? In Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Professor Stuart Ward tells the panoramic history of the end of Britain, tracing the ways in which Britishness has been imagined, experienced, disputed and ultimately discarded across the globe since the end of the Second World War. From Indian independence, West Indian immigration and African decolonization to the Suez. Crisis and the Falklands War, he uncovers the demise of Britishness as a global civic idea and its impact on communities across the globe. He also shows the consequences of this diminished 'global reach' in Britain itself, from the Troubles in Northern Ireland to resurgent Englishness and the startling success of separatist political agendas in Scotland and Wales. Untied Kingdom puts the contemporary travails of the Union for the first time in their full global perspective as part of the much larger story of the progressive rollback of Britain's imaginative frontiers. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Charlie English, "The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War" (Random House, 2025) 47:32

6 weeks тому47:32

47:32

For nearly five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, forming the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the war was fought psychologically. It was a battle for hearts, minds, and intellects. Few understood this more clearly than George Minden, head of a covert intelligence operation known as the “CIA book program,” which aimed to undermine Soviet censorship and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture. From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s “book club” secretly sent ten million banned titles into the East. Volumes were smuggled aboard trucks and yachts, dropped from balloons, hidden aboard trains, and stowed in travelers’ luggage. Nowhere were the books welcomed more warmly than in Poland, where the texts would circulate covertly among circles of like-minded readers, quietly making the case against Soviet communism. Such was the demand for Minden’s books that dissidents began to reproduce these works in the underground. By the late 1980s, illicit literature was so pervasive in Poland that censorship broke down: the Iron Curtain soon followed. Charlie English narrates this tale of Cold War spycraft, smuggling, and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who fought for intellectual freedom—people like Mirosław Chojecki, who suffered beatings, imprisonment, and exile in pursuit of his clandestine mission. The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War (Random House, 2025) is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

New Books in Diplomatic History

1
Jeremy Black, "British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1727-44" (Routledge, 2014) 35:17

6 weeks тому35:17