New Books in Sociology

What does the history of Liverpool tell us about the future of Britain? In Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain (Bloomsbury, 2025), Sam Wetherall, a Senior Lecturer in the History of Britain and the World at the University of York, tells the story of the city through the lens of ‘obsolesce’. This powerful framework structures a narrative that sees the story of Liverpool as both one of state ineffectiveness, indifference, and brutality, and one of solidarity and alternative forms of community and organising. The analysis is rich with details, ranging widely across the city’s rich social, cultural and economic story. Offering Liverpool as a blueprint for pessimism and optimism, the book is essential reading across the humanities, social scientists, and anyone interested in politics, culture and society today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World (Verso, 2024), Ståle Holgersen develops a conceptualization of 'crisis' that moves beyond simplistic understandings of societal turbulence or even disaster, arguing that crises have come to mean something very specific. Where previous analyses have treated economic and ecological crises as separate phenomena, Holgersen reveals their profound interconnection within capitalism's contradictions. Central to the book is the idea that both economic and climate crises are crises of capitalism specifically, and the powers that be are not willing to acknowledge it. Holgersen delves into today’s economic and ecological crises to demonstrate that they are not exceptions to an otherwise functioning system but integral to its operation. It is naive to see these upheavals as opportunities for reform or revolution. They are the bedrock of the status quo. Fortunately, the vicious circle sustaining capitalism is not founded on an iron law. Our historical mission in the face of the climate crisis is to create a historical exception to the rule. It is time for ecosocialism against crisis. About the Author: Ståle Holgersen is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Stockholm University, Sweden. He is a member of two research collectives: the Zetkin Collective (ecosocialist group working on political ecologies of the far right) published White Skin, Black Fuel on Verso in 2021 and Fundament (a housing research collective) published Kris i Bostadsfrågan on Daidalos in 2023. This is his first monograph in English. About the Host: Stuti Roy has recently graduated with an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford. She has a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In the contemporary world, ruins, rubble, and decaying material have become increasingly iconic landscapes. They can foster a more layered theory of time, change and memory. The seven ethnographic case studies in Haunting Ruins (Berghahn Books, 2025) trace human engagements with the temporal forces of ruins, which can trace the past and transform the present. Conjuring environmental humanities, the anthropology of history, memory studies, and archaeology, this fascinating new edited volume delves into the complex influence of the past on the present and the future and urges scholars to consider ruins as things to think with. Valentina Gamberi is a MSCA-CZ Postdoctoral Fellow at the Palacký University Olomouc. She is an anthropologist focusing on material culture studies, museum and heritage studies, with a foundation in religious studies and material religion. She has conducted fieldwork in several European museums and, since 2017, in Taiwan. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0857-2233 Email: [email protected] Chiara Calzana is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Turin and an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Her research interests lie in the fields of historical anthropology and memory studies. She conducted ethnographic fieldwork and historical research in the Vajont disaster area (Italian Alps), focusing on memorialization and monumentalization practices. Since 2023, she has been a member of the research team of the ERC Project ‘The World Behind a Word. An Anthropological Exploration of Fascist Practices and Meanings among European Youth (F-WORD)’. E-mail: [email protected] Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, medical anthropology, hope studies, and the anthropology of borders and frontiers. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Although the history of Indonesian music has received much attention from ethnomusicologists and Western composers alike, almost nothing has been written on the interaction of missionaries with local culture. Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago (U California Press, 2025) represents the first attempt to concentrate on the musical dimension of missionary activities in Indonesia. In fourteen essays, a group of distinguished scholars show the complexity of the topic: while some missionaries did important scholarship on local music, making recordings and attempting to use local music in services, others tried to suppress whatever they found. Many were collaborating closely with anthropologists who admitted freely that they could not have done their work without them. And both parties brought colonial biases into their work. By grappling with these realities and records, this book is a collective effort to decolonize the project of making music histories. Byung Ho Choi is a Ph.D. candidate in the History and Ecumenics program at Princeton Theological Seminary, concentrating in World Christianity and history of religions. His research focuses on the indigenous expressions of Christianities found in Southeast Asia, particularly Christianity that is practiced in the Muslim-dominant archipelagic nation of Indonesia. More broadly, he is interested in history and the anthropology of Christianity, complexities of religious conversion and social identity, inter-religious dialogue, ecumenism, and World Christianity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Political rumors and misinformation pollute the political landscape. This is not a recent phenomenon; before the currently rampant and unfounded rumors about a stolen election and vote-rigging, there were other rumors that continued to spread even after they were thoroughly debunked, including doubts about 9/11 (an “inside job”) and the furor over President Obama’s birthplace and birth certificate. If misinformation crowds out the truth, how can Americans communicate with one another about important issues? In Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It (Princeton UP, 2023), Adam Berinsky examines why political rumors exist and persist despite their unsubstantiated and refuted claims, who is most likely to believe them, and how to combat them. Drawing on original survey and experimental data, Berinsky shows that a tendency toward conspiratorial thinking and vehement partisan attachment fuel belief in rumors. Yet the reach of rumors is wide, and Berinsky argues that in fighting misinformation, it is as important to target the undecided and the uncertain as it is the true believers. We’re all vulnerable to misinformation, and public skepticism about the veracity of political facts is damaging to democracy. Moreover, in a world where most people simply don’t pay attention to politics, political leaders are often guilty of disseminating false information—and failing to correct it when it is proven wrong. Berinsky suggests that we should focus on the messenger as much as the message of rumors. Just as important as how misinformation is debunked is who does the debunking. Adam J. Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and the founding director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab. A specialist in the fields of political behavior and public opinion, he is the author of Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America (Princeton) and In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

On the podcast today I am joined by socio-cultural anthropologist, Tuomas Tammisto, who is an academy research fellow in Social Anthropology at Tampere University. Tuomas is joining me to talk about his recently published book, Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier (Helsinki UP, 2024) Hard Work examines human-environmental relations, value production, natural resource extraction, and state formation within the context of the Mengen people of Papua New Guinea. It provides elaborate, rich ethnography to make sense of how the Mengen engage with their land and outside actors like companies, NGOs, and the state through agriculture, logging, plantation labor, and environmental conservation. These practices have shaped the Mengen’s lived environment, while also sparking debates on what is considered valuable and how value is created. The book is the result of hard work: for years Tuomas Tammisto has gained rich empirical research to detail how indigenous Mengen people perceive and live with the threats of logging. The chapters are not only rich in ethnography and theory, but they are also interlaced with beautiful photos and poetic song lyrics both in the original and translated languages, to provide an eye-opening window into Mengen perceptions of their complex lived environment. The book is Open Access and available to read for free here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

How do individuals address serious challenges in a context where organized gatherings are subject to strict government control? This new edited volume brings together a diverse group of scholars to explore the many ways people in China self-organize and create varied forms of coordination to solve important problems. Through compelling, detail-rich case studies, The Extraordinary in the Mundane (Columbia UP, 2024) shows that family structures and networks deeply shape these modes of association. Because the public-private dichotomy does not resonate with many people in China, they rely on informal social ties, not formal organizations or state agencies, to confront personal challenges. Chapters present vivid ethnographic portraits that consider both positive and negative aspects of community formation. A woman with an autistic child creates an organization to advocate for inclusion of neurodivergent children in public schools. A trainee in a psychological counseling course finds mutual support among other participants. A boy is taken by his father to an internet addiction treatment camp that aims to restructure family interactions. A woman in her seventies shows off the burial clothes she prepared for herself, to the admiration of a group of friends. Offering a glimpse into the unofficial realities that often remain off the record, this book provides a wide-ranging and timely examination of the varieties of civic action in contemporary China. Becky Yang Hsu is Associate Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. Her research interests include morality, institutions, and culture, and is currently studying happiness and mourning in China. More details about her research can be found here. Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, medical anthropology, hope studies, and the anthropology of borders and frontiers. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Why does occupation reliably predict political leanings? What is social capitalism, and how does it span income classes? If social capitalists are sincerely committed to equality and “wokeness,” why do they simultaneously benefit from—and perpetuate—the very inequalities they denounce? Join us as we dive into Musa al-Gharbi’s provocative new book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite (Princeton University Press, 2024). We explore al-Gharbi’s central argument: the disconnect between the stated values of the "symbolic capital elite" and the real-world consequences of their actions, despite their genuine intentions. Al-Gharbi draws parallels to past "great awakenings"—periods of profound cultural upheaval and shifting attitudes toward civil rights. We also examine whether defining "wokeness" is essential to his thesis, and al-Gharbi clarifies some of the most frequently misunderstood aspects of his work. Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. A columnist for The Guardian, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other major publications. Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Despite progressive policy strides in health care reform, immigrant communities continue to experience stark disparities across the United States. In Not All In: Race, Immigration, and Health Care Exclusion in the Age of Obamacare (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025), Tiffany D. Joseph exposes the insidious contradiction of Massachusetts' advanced health care system and the exclusionary experiences of its immigrant communities. Joseph illustrates how patients' race, ethnicity, and legal status determine their access to health coverage and care services, revealing a disturbing paradox where policy advances and individual experiences drastically diverge. Examining Boston's Brazilian, Dominican, and Salvadoran communities, this book provides an exhaustive analysis spanning nearly a decade to highlight the profound impacts of the Affordable Care Act and subsequent policy shifts on these marginalized groups. Not All In is a critical examination of the systemic barriers that perpetuate health care disparities. Joseph challenges readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about racialized legal status and its profound implications on health care access. This essential book illuminates the complexities of policy implementation and advocates for more inclusive reforms that genuinely cater to all. Urging policymakers, health care providers, and activists to rethink strategies that bridge the gap between legislation and life, this book reminds us that in the realm of health care, being progressive is not synonymous with inclusivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

The debate about the impact of colonialism on the prospects for democracy and development continues to rage. Was the legacy of colonialism equally destructive everywhere? Or were some forms of colonial rule more likely to give rise to stable and effective democracies? Join Nic Cheeseman as he talks to Alexander Lee and Jack Paine about their important new book, The Colonial Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship (Cambridge UP, 2024), which makes a compelling new contribution to the debate. Find out why countries with lengthy exposure to competitive colonial institutions tended to consolidate democracies after independence, and how regime trajectories shaped by colonial rule persist to the present day. Guest: Alexander Lee is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester. His work has made important contributions to a number of areas, including gender quotas, affirmative action, the political economy of South Asia and the legacy of colonialism. His most recent book, Colonial Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship has been highly praised and is out now with Cambridge University Press. Jack Paine is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at Emory University. He is known for influential research on a range of topics including democratic backsliding, authoritarian power sharing, conflict and the resource curse, and the legacy of colonialism. His most recent book, Colonial Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship has been highly praised and is out now with Oxford University Press. Presenter: Dr Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and Founding Director of CEDAR. The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Join us to better understand the factors that promote and undermine democratic government around the world and follow us on Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India (U California Press, 2024) is an in-depth ethnography of the transformation of Bengaluru/Bangalore from a site of "backend" IT work to an aspirational global city of enterprise and innovation. The book journeys alongside the migrant workers, technologists, and entrepreneurs who shape and survive the dreams of a "Startup India" knitted through office work, at networking meetings and urban festivals, and across sites of leisure in the city. Tracking techno-futures that involve automation and impending precarity, Hemangini Gupta details the everyday forms of experimentation, care, and friendship that sustain and reproduce life and labour in India's current economy. Rituparna Patgiri is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. Her research interests lie in the areas of food, media, gender and public. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology. Patgiri can be reached at @Rituparna37 on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Syaifudin Zuhri’s book Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition (Leiden, 2022) is a detailed examination of the recent emergence of the Wali Pitu (“Seven Saints”) tradition in Bali, Indonesia. The study is a multi-sited ethnography of pilgrimage traditions to the grave sites of the Wali Pitu, which is a part of a larger context of rising interest in saint veneration in Indonesia generally, and Muslim religious tourism on the Hindu-majority island of Bali in particular. Themes of the book include saint veneration in historical and contemporary Indonesia, the relationship between religious invention and religious authenticity in Islamic traditions, religious cultures and the economic imperative of the tourism industry, relationships between Hindus and Muslims sharing religious space, and the diversity of approaches to religion and Islamic experience in Southeast Asia. Zuhri’s work offers important new perspectives on Indonesian Islam by examining the creation, experience, economy, and contestations of popular Muslim practices that are only growing in their significance. Dr. Syaifudin Zuhri is a lecturer at the State Islamic University of Sayyid Ali Rahmatullah Tulungagung (UIN SATU) and a former research fellow at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies. Dr. Jaclyn Michael is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (USA). She is the author of several articles on Muslim cultural representation, performance, and religious belonging in India and in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Period Matters is a groundbreaking anthology edited by Farah Ahamed that explores the cultural, social, and political dimensions of menstruation in South Asia. Through a diverse collection of essays, personal narratives, poetry, and artwork, the book sheds light on the stigma, myths, and challenges surrounding periods. Featuring contributions from writers, activists, academics, and artists, it examines issues such as menstrual health, period poverty, gender inequality, and sustainable solutions. By amplifying voices that are oft excluded mainstream discussions, Period Matters challenges taboos and calls for greater awareness, education, and policy change in the region. Farah Ahamed is the editor of Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia, published by Pan Macmillan India in 2022 (periodmattersbook.com). The book has been described as ‘an essential book about the female body that dispels misconceptions,’ by Book Riot. In 2022, Farah was selected as the Financial Times's Woman of the Year for her work in breaking the stigma around menstruation. Farah and her sisters run a charity in Kenya called Panties with Purpose, which is helping to raise awareness of period poverty, menstrual health, and also supports underprivileged schoolgirls. Since 2011 they have distributed over 70,000 pairs of underpants to more than 16,000 girls across Kenya. Farah is a Kenyan lawyer with a background in human rights. She lives in London. This interview was hosted by Zana Mody, an English DPhil student at the University of Oxford, who works on postcolonial Indian literature and art. X: @mody_zana Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and peacebuilding into dialogue with education, Schooling, Conflict and Peace in the Southwestern Pacific: Becoming Enemy Friends (Bristol University Press, 2024) by Dr. David Oakeshott examines the challenges youth and their teachers face in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands. Youth in these places must reconcile with the violent past of their parents’ generation while also learning how to live with people once on opposing ‘sides'. This book traces how students and their teachers form connections to the past and each other that cut through the forces that might divide them. The findings illustrate novel ways to think about the potential for education to assist post-conflict recovery. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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 episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God’s forgiveness. The sacrament served as a distinctive marker of Catholic identity, shaping parishioners’ views of their relationship to God, their neighbors, and the wider world. But starting in the 1970s, many abandoned confession altogether. Focusing on the experiences of both laypeople and priests, in For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America (Harvard University Press, 2025) Dr. James M. O’Toole reconstructs the history of confession’s steady rise—and dramatic fall—among American Catholics. In the early United States, the Catholic Church grew rapidly—and with it, confession’s centrality. Although the sacrament was practiced unevenly for much of the nineteenth century, frequent confession became common by the early twentieth. Both priests and parishioners understood confession as a ritual crucial for the soul, while on a social level, it established Catholic distinctiveness within a largely Protestant country. Today, however, even faithful Catholics seldom confess. The reasons for this change, Dr. O’Toole reveals, include the emergence of psychology and other forms of counseling; the Church’s stance against contraception, which alienated many parishioners; and a growing sense of confession’s inability to confront social problems like structural racism, poverty, and sexism. Meanwhile, increasing recognition of sexual abuse within the Church further undermined trust in clergy as confessors. Sensitively attuned to the historical importance of confession, For I Have Sinned also suggests that, if the sacrament no longer serves the needs of US Catholics, the Church and its members might find new ways to express their ideals in the twenty-first century. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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 episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Most people think about abortion in the context of the country they live in. In the U.S., abortion fuels debate, elections, and legislation. In China, abortion is often treated as a settled issue. Why and how do abortion attitudes vary across the world? In her new book, Fetal Positions: Understanding Cross-National Public Opinion about Abortion (Oxford UP, 2025), Dr. Amy Adamczyk examines the factors influencing cross-national abortion opinion, rates and individual abortion decisions. She investigates the relationship between attitudes and laws, and explores how personal and national characteristics shape views on abortion. Using large-scale public opinion surveys, interviews from two case study countries, and an analysis of newspaper articles from over 40 countries, she argues that cross-national differences in public opinion can largely be explained based on overall levels of religious belief, economic and educational development, type of government and government history, and gender inequality. The book distinguishes beliefs from behaviors and macro factors from personal characteristics to analyze the forces shaping cross-national abortion rates and personal abortion decisions. Dr. Amy Adamczyk is a sociology professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Her work unravels the religious, cultural and social forces shaping public opinion on controversial issues like abortion, same-sex relations, premarital sex, and marijuana and terrorism. Her many earlier books include, Cross-National Public Opinion about Homosexuality: Examining Attitudes across the Globe (University of California Press 2017). Mentioned: World Values Study (free database) Amy Adamczyk, Brittany Suh, and Lindsay Lerner, “Analysis of the Relationship between Religion, Abortion, and Assisted Reproductive Technology: Insights into Cross-National Public Opinion” (2024) (free access to article) Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values” (2000) (free access to article) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college football players, anthropologist Tracie Canada reveals the ways young athletes strategically resist the exploitative systems that structure their everyday lives. Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football (University of California Press, 2025) shows how college football particularly harms the young Black men who are overrepresented on gridirons across the country. Although coaches and universities constantly invoke the misleading "football family" narrative, this book describes how a brotherhood among Black players operates alongside their caring mothers, who support them on and off the field. With a Black feminist approach—one that highlights often-overlooked voices—Canada exposes how race, gender, kinship, and care shape the lives of the young athletes who shoulder America's favorite game. Tracie Canada is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. Her work has been featured in public venues and outlets such as the Museum of Modern Art, The Guardian, and Scientific American. Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan spoke to Dr Yunis Alam about cars, class and race. They discussed the role that cars play in signifying meaning in terms of status, wealth and taste. These conversations extended to the racialization of car culture in cities like Bradford (UK) and the relationship to criminalization of Muslims. Yunis is Head of Department of Sociology and Criminology, at the University of Bradford. He has particular interests in public sociology, ethnography, ethnic relations, consumption, popular culture and how these relate with and have an impact on identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Boaters of London is an ethnography that delves into the process of becoming a boater, adopting an alternative lifestyle on the water and the political impact that this travelling population has on the state. London and the Southeast of England in general is home to many people and families who live on narrowboats, cruisers and barges, along a network of canals and rivers. Many of these 'boaters' move from place to place every two weeks and form itinerant communities in the heart of some of the UK’s most crowded urban spaces. Boaters of London delves into the process of becoming a boater and the political impact of this travelling population on the state, the volume examines an alternative style of living and the potential of a life spent afloat. Ben Bowles is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. He is also Course Lecturer at Fordham University, London Campus, and Research Fellow at the Open University’s Centre for Policing Research and Learning. His research interests include economic and political anthropology, and the anthropology of the UK. Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, medical anthropology, hope studies, and the anthropology of borders and frontiers. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

The Routledge Handbook of Urban Cultural Planning (Routledge, 2024) provides a manual for planning for arts and culture in cities, featuring chapters and case studies from Africa, the Americas, Australasia, the Middle East, South and East Asia, and more. The handbook is organized around seven themes: arts and planning for equity and social development; incorporating culture in urban planning; the intersection of creative and cultural industries and tourism planning; financing; public buildings, public space and public art; cultural heritage planning; and culture and the climate crisis. Urban planners are often tasked with preserving and attracting new art and culture to a city, but there are no common rules on how practitioners accomplish this work. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for city planners and designers, cultural workers, elected officials, artists, and social justice workers and advocates seeking to integrate creativity and culture into urban planning. Rana Amirtahmasebi is an economic development and cultural planning strategist and researcher. She is the founder of Eparque Urban Strategies in New York and previously worked at the World Bank, Aga Khan Programme on Islamic Architecture at MIT and several other entities. Jason Schupbach is the dean of the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design at Drexel University. He is a nationally recognized expert on support systems for creatives and the nexus of creativity and equitable community development. This interview was conducted by Timi Koyejo, a graduate student in urban studies at the University of Vienna. He has worked professionally as a researcher at the University of Chicago and as an urban policy advisor to the City of Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Religion in the twenty-first century is alive and well across the world, despite its apparent decline in North America and parts of Europe. Vigorous competition between and within religious movements has led to their accumulating great power and wealth. Religions in many traditions have honed their competitive strategies over thousands of years. Today, they are big business; like businesses, they must recruit, raise funds, disburse budgets, manage facilities, organize transportation, motivate employees, and get their message out. In The Divine Economy (Princeton UP, 2024), economist Paul Seabright argues that religious movements are a special kind of business: they are platforms, bringing together communities of members who seek many different things from one another—spiritual fulfilment, friendship and marriage networks, even business opportunities. Their function as platforms, he contends, is what has allowed religions to consolidate and wield power. This power can be used for good, especially when religious movements provide their members with insurance against the shocks of modern life, and a sense of worth in their communities. It can also be used for harm: political leaders often instrumentalize religious movements for authoritarian ends, and religious leaders can exploit the trust of members to inflict sexual, emotional, financial or physical abuse, or to provoke violence against outsiders. Writing in a nonpartisan spirit, Seabright uses insights from economics to show how religion and secular society can work together in a world where some people feel no need for religion, but many continue to respond with enthusiasm to its call. Paul Seabright teaches economics at the Toulouse School of Economics, and until 2021 was director of the multidisciplinary Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. From 2021 to 2023, he was a Fellow of All Souls College at the University of Oxford. His books include The War of the Sexes: How Conflict and Cooperation Have Shaped Men and Women from Prehistory to the Present and The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (both Princeton). Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

China’s breathtaking economic development has been driven by bureaucrats. Even as the country transitioned away from socialist planning toward a market economy, the economic bureaucracy retained a striking degree of influence and control over crafting and implementing policy. Yet bureaucrats are often dismissed as faceless and inconsequential, their role neglected in favor of party leaders’ top-down rule or bottom-up initiatives.< Markets with Bureaucratic Characteristics (Columbia UP, 2024) offers a new account of economic policy making in China over the past four decades that reveals how bureaucrats have spurred large-scale transformations from within. Yingyao Wang demonstrates how competition among bureaucrats motivated by careerism has led to the emergence of new policy approaches. Second-tier economic bureaucrats instituted distinctive―and often conflicting―“policy paradigms” aimed at securing their standing and rewriting China’s long-term development plans for their own benefit. Emerging from the middle levels of the bureaucracy, these policy paradigms ultimately reorganized the Chinese economy and reshaped state-market relations. Drawing on fine-grained biographical and interview data, Wang traces how officials coalesced around shared career trajectories, generational experiences, and social networks to create new alliances and rivalries. Shedding new light on the making and trajectory of China’s ambitious economic reforms, this book also provides keen sociological insight into the relations among bureaucracy, states, and markets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

For most of human history, we were rural folk. Our daily lives were bound up with working the land, living within the rhythm of the seasons. We poured our energies into growing food, tending to animals and watching the weather. Family, friends and neighbours were often one and the same. Life revolved around the village and its key spaces and places – the church, the green, the school and the marketplace. And yet rural life is oddly invisible our historical records. The daily routine of the peasant, the farmer or the craftsperson could never compete with the glamour of city life, war and royal drama. Lives went unrecorded, stories untold. There is, though, one way in which we can learn about our rural past. The things we have left behind provide a connection that no document can match; physical artefacts are touchstones that breathe life into its history. From farming tools to children’s toys, domestic objects and strange curios, the everyday items of the past reveal fascinating insights into an often-forgotten way of life. Birth, death, celebration, work, crime, play, medicine, beliefs, diet and our relationship with nature can all be read from these remnants of our past. From ancient artefacts to modern-day memorabilia, A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects (HarperNorth, 2024) by Sally Coulthard weaves a rich tapestry from the fragments of our rural past. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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 episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch (MIT Press, 2025) Dr. Mia Consalvo, Dr. Marc Lajeunesse, and Dr. Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Unlike the esports athletes and streaming superstars who receive the lion's share of journalistic and academic attention, microstreamers are not in it for the money and barely have an audience. In this, the first book dedicated to the latter group, the authors gather interviews from dozens of microstreamers from 2017 to 2019 to discuss their lives, struggles, hopes, and goals. For readers interested in livestreaming, and Twitch in particular, the book rethinks the medium's history through accounts of the everyday uses of webcams, with particular attention to notions of liveness and authenticity. These two concepts have become calling cards for the videogame livestreaming platform and underlie streamer motivations, the construction of their practices (whether casual, serious, or anywhere in between), and the complex “metas” that take shape over time. The book also looks at the authors' own practices of livestreaming, focusing on what can be gained through experiencing the lived reality of the practice. Finally, the authors explain how Twitch's platform (studied from 2017–2023) informs how streamers structure their every day and how corporate ideologies bleed into real-world spaces like TwitchCon. This book is available open-access via the MIT Press website. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Memoirs attract millions of readers with their compelling life stories, vivid details, and often startling revelations. Beyond entertainment value, however, Margaret K. Nelson argues that memoirs hold potential as powerful resources for sociologists to engage with, analyze, and teach. Sociology Meets Memoir is a short and accessible guide to the significance of memoirs for the field of sociology, from their many possible uses to the numerous challenges they pose. This guide enables sociologists to learn about the different ways memoirs have been used as a medium through which to exercise and encourage the "sociological imagination." Nelson offers clear definitions of the various and nuanced terms associated with memoir and examples of how different types of stories have been effectively integrated into scholarly research. Readers will gain an understanding of the immense power of memoirs as sociological resources, offering unique access to voices from the past as well as voices from the present which are traditionally marginalized. Nelson also focuses on the genre's limitations and the difficult methodological questions that accompany their use in scholarly endeavors. Sociology Meets Memoir is a vital tool for all sociologists interested in this growing genre. By reading this guide, students and teachers alike will gain an understanding of how they might approach the current outpouring of memoirs and incorporate them into their teaching, learning, writing, and research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Eco-anxiety. Climate guilt. Pre-traumatic stress disorder. Solastalgia. The study of environmental emotions and related mental health impacts is a rapidly growing field, but most researchers overlook a closely related concern: reproductive anxiety. Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question (U California Press, 2024) is the first comprehensive study of how environmental emotions influence whether, when, and why people today decide to become parents—or not. Jade S. Sasser argues that we can and should continue to create the families we desire, but that doing so equitably will require deep commitments to social, reproductive, and climate justice. Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question presents original research, drawing from in-depth interviews and national survey results that analyze the role of race in environmental emotions and the reproductive plans young people are making as a result. Sasser concludes that climate emotions and climate justice are inseparable, and that culturally appropriate mental and emotional health services are a necessary component to ensure climate justice for vulnerable communities. Books and Resources mentioned in today’s episode: Check out Conceivable Future here Check out Climate Mental Health Network here Check out Climate Psychology Alliance here Check out The Good Grief Network here Find Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for Cultivating Resilience, Taking Action, and Practicing Hope in the Face of Climate Change by Elizabeth Bechard here Find Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety by Britt Wray here Find A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet by Sarah Jaquette Ray here Dr. Jade S. Sasser is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Gender & Sexuality Studies and Society, Environment, and Health Equity at the University of California, Riverside. Her research explores the relationships between reproductive justice, women’s health, and climate change. She is the author of two books, On Infertile Ground: Population Control and Women’s Rights in the Era of Climate Change (2018, NYU Press), which won the Emory Elliott Book Award, and Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future (2024, UC Press). Dr. Sasser has a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from University of California, Berkeley; an MA in Cultural Anthropology from UC Berkeley; and an MPH in Global Health from Boston University. Her podcast Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question can be found here. Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and is an editor at the New Books Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Why have dynamic and shifting hairstyles, from Katniss Everdeen’s Power Plait to JoJo Siwa’s outsize bows, become such a significant part of how girlhood is articulated in contemporary visual cultures? What do they tell us about how girlhood combines the qualities of resilience and sparkle needed to survive and thrive in turbulent post-recessionary times? Drawing together analysis of popular film franchises, Disney animation, ground-breaking TV shows, music videos, girl celebrity personas and global art cinema, Girls' Hairstories: Sparkle and Resilience in Contemporary Screen Cultures (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) by Dr. Fiona Handyside shows how across different cultural levels and aimed at different audiences, girls’ hairstyles provide a complex dynamic site of interpretation and interaction. It documents the careful craft of hair-dressers and software engineers working in the screen industries to style and animate hair, bringing their work to a new visibility. It is in the very everydayness of hairstyling that we come to understand girls as the most resilient and the most sparkly of citizens. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

What is the future of reading? In Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Digital Age (Bloombury, 2024), Karl Berglund, Assistant Professor in Literature at Department of Literature and Rhetoric at Upsala University, examines the rise of audiobooks as a new mode of reading books. The analysis draws on digital humanities methods and a detailed industry case study to show who are the readers of audiobooks, how those readers engage and consume books, what sort of genres are most popular, and crucially how all of this us impacting on the publishing industry. The research also picks up on important themes of continuity and change represented by audiobooks, from ongoing issues of inequalities through to the new forms of writing practice and AI generated narrators. A richly detailed but easily accessible text, the book is essential reading for scholars across academia, as well as anyone interested in reading! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Everyday items found at the sites of atrocities possess a striking emotional force. Victims’ garments, broken glasses, wallets, shoes, and other such personal property that are recovered from places of death including concentration camps, mass graves, and prisons have become staples of memorial museums, exhibited to the public as material testimony in order to evoke sympathy and promote human rights. How do these objects take on such power, and what are the benefits and pitfalls of deploying them for political purposes? A Victim's Shoe, a Broken Watch, and Marbles: Desire Objects and Human Rights (Columbia University Press, 2025) by Dr. Lea David examines how artifacts of atrocities circulate and, in so doing, sheds new light on the institutions and social processes that shape collective memory of human rights abuses. Dr. Lea David traces the journeys of what she terms “desire objects”: their rediscovery at the locations of mass atrocities, their use in forensic and legal procedures, their return to the homes of grieving families, their appearance in public spaces such as museums and exhibitions, and their role in political protests. She critically investigates the logic that shapes why and how desire objects gain symbolic power and political significance, showing when and under what circumstances they are used to promote particular worldviews and narratives. Featuring both novel theoretical methods and keen empirical analysis, this book offers important insights into the shortcomings of common assumptions about human rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Today I’m speaking with Chryl Laird, Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. We are discussing her co-authored book with Ismail White, Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior. Published in 2020, this book remains highly relevant for understanding American political behavior. While Trump did make significant gains among black voters in 2024, particularly male voters, African American voters still overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. Chryl has appeared on the NBN in the past, so while we will discuss the book, we will also discuss it in the context of today. Chryl Laird is Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Mass violence comes not only from states, but also from people. By analyzing mass violence as social interaction through survivor accounts and other sources, Conditions of Violence (de Gruyter, 2024) presents understudied agents, aims and practices of direct violence and ways of action of those under persecution. Sound history – examining the noises of mass violence and persecution – is particularly telling about such practices. This volume shows that violence can become socially hegemonic, and some people claim a freedom to kill as a political right. To scrutinize indirect violence, which is often imperialist in character and claims many victims, the book proposes the concept of conditions of violence. These conditions are produced by definable groups of actors and foreseeably harm definable groups (which differs from the anonymous and static ‘structural violence’). This is exemplified in a case study concerning famines in World War II and another on COVID-19 as mass violence. Less global in character, other case studies in this volume deal with Rwanda, Bangladesh/East Pakistan and the Soviet Union. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Aiming to explore the Sino-Tibetan border region, which is renamed “Shangri-La” by the Chinese government for tourism promotion, Crafting a Tibetan Terroir (U Washington Press, 2025) examines how the deployment of the French notion of terroir creates new forms of ethno-regional identities and village landscapes through the production of Tibetan wine as a commodity. In Shangri-La, a rapidly developing international ethno-travel destination, European histories and global capitalism are being reestablished and reformulated through viticulture, which has altered landscapes and livelihoods. From the introduction of vineyards by nineteenth-century French and Swiss Catholic missionaries to make sacramental wine to twenty-first century commercialization, this ethnography documents the ways Tibetans are indigenizing modernity in the context of economic development on their own terms. It provides timely insight into China's rapid entry into the global wine market, highlighting the localized impacts of this emergent industry, which include transformation from subsistence agriculture to monocropping and intensified agrochemical use. It also addresses larger issues of international trade, suggesting that certain commodities - stimulants and intoxicants in particular - have long connected Europe and the Asia Pacific region, and that these connections are now being reconceived in fashioning new industries and identities. Brendan A. Galipeau is a Lecturer in Binghamton University’s Environmental Studies program. He is the author of Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: Winemaking in Shangri-La (University of Washington Press, 2025). His research and publications broadly focus on environmental and social change and human relations with nature in southwest China and Taiwan. Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, medical anthropology, hope studies, and the anthropology of borders and frontiers. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Not so long ago, comedy and laughter were a shared experience of relief, as Freud famously argued. At their best, ribbing, roasting, piss-taking and insulting were the foundation of a kind of universal culture from which friendship, camaraderie and solidarity could emerge. Now, comedy is characterized by edgy humour and misplaced jokes that provoke personal and social anxiety, causing divisive cultural warfare in the media and among people. Our comedy is fraught with tension like never before, and so too is our social life. We often hear the claim that no one can take a joke anymore. But what if we really can’t take jokes anymore? Post-Comedy (Polity, 2025) argues that the spirit of comedy is the first step in the building of society, but that it has been lost in the era of divisive identity politics. Comedy flares up debates about censorship and cancellation, keeping us divided from one other. This goes against the true universalist spirit of comedy, which is becoming a thing of the past and must be recovered. Alfie Bown is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Kings College London. His research focuses on psychoanalysis, digital media and popular culture. He has also worked as a journalist, writing for The Guardian, Paris Review, New Statesman, Tribune, and others. His books include The Playstation Dreamworld, Post-Memes, and Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships. He is the founder of Everyday Analysis which publishes pamphlets and essay collections with contemporary social and political issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

There are many books giving advice about research methods on the market, but The Art and Craft of Comparison (Cambridge UP, 2019) is the first monographic marriage of comparative and interpretive methods. In this episode of the special series New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science, two of its authors, John Boswell and Jack Corbett, discuss their confessional tone in the book, the dilemmas of comparative-interpretive research, some of their rules of thumb for starting and finishing political research that aims for creative comparison, and why Chat GPT is no substitute for embodied, immersive interpretation. Embrace the grind! Like this episode? You might also be interested in others in the series with co-authors talking about their work, including Erica Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith, Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely, Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow, and Aarie Glas and Jessica Soedirgo talking about Lee Ann Fujii’s Interviewing in Social Science Research. Looking around for something to read? If so, then John recommends Personalizing the State by Insa Lee Koch, and State of Empowerment by Carolyn Barnes, while Jack recommends Stephanie Lawson’s Regional Politics in Oceania. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Sideways Migration: Being French in London (Routledge, 2025) examines the relationship between migration and socioeconomic status. In particular, it charts a set of middle-class aspirations that lead people to move to a nearby nation that is similar in wealth and social indicators - a type of horizontal relocation that it terms "sideways migration." It chronicles the experiences of a diverse group of French middle-class citizens who moved to London during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Based on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork over a ten-year period, this book engages at length with their strategies of emplacement through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's concept of social space. Against a backdrop of heightened anxieties about immigration, the disruptions of the Brexit process and, more recently, a pandemic, it shows how middle-class migration is affected by processes of dislocation and relocation, settling and unsettling, and the search for belonging. This book points to new directions for understanding transnationalism among middle-class migrants through its consideration of the French emigration apparatus and the role of the multisite French nation in the lives of its citizens living abroad. It will be key reading for scholars and students interested in emigration and migration from anthropology, sociology, geography, political science, history, and international studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Empire of Culture: Neo-Victorian Narratives in the Global Creative Economy (SUNY Press, 2024) by Dr. Waiyee Loh brings together contemporary representations of Victorian Britain to reveal how the nation's imperial past inheres in the ways post-imperial subjects commodify and consume "culture" in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The globalization of English literature, along with British forms of dress, etiquette, and dining, in the nineteenth century presumed and produced the idea that British culture is a universal standard to which everyone should aspire. Examining neo-Victorian texts and practices from Britain, the United States, Japan, and Singapore—from A. S. Byatt's novel Possession and its Hollywood film adaptation to Japanese Lolita fashion and the Lady Victorian manga series—Dr. Loh argues that the British heritage industry thrives on the persistence of this idea. Yet this industry also competes and collaborates with the US and Japanese cultural industries, as they, too, engage with the legacy of British universalism to carve out their own empires in a global creative economy. Unique in its scope, Empire of Culture centers Britain's engagements with the US and East Asia to illuminate fresh axes of influence and appropriation, and further bring Victorian studies into contact with various sites of literary and cultural fandom. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

How to dwell in a forest alongside giants, avoid disturbing a living god, assist an animal with their manners, and help an elephant cross the road. The Presence of Elephants: Sharing Lives and Landscapes in Assam (Routledge, 2024) is an anthropological consideration of coexistence, grounded in people’s everyday interactions with Asian elephants. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Assam, Northeast India, this book examines human-elephant copresence and how minds, tasks, identities, and places are shared between the two species. Sharing lives and landscapes with such formidable beings is a continuously shifting and negotiated exchange inherently composed of tensions, asymmetries, and uncertainties – especially in the Anthropocene when breakdowns in communication increasingly have a violent effect. Developing a multifaceted picture of human-elephant relations in a postcolonial setting, each chapter focuses on a different dimension of encounter, where elephants adapt to human norms, people are subject to elephant projects, and novel interspecies possibilities emerge at the threshold of nature and society. Vulnerability is a common experience intensified in contemporary human-elephant relations, felt through the elephant’s power to disrupt and transform human lives, as well as the risks these endangered animals are exposed to. This book will be of interest to scholars of multispecies ethnography and human-animal relations, environmental humanities, conservation, and South Asian studies. Rituparna Patgiri is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. Her research interests lie in the areas of food, media, gender and public. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology. Patgiri can be reached at @Rituparna37 on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

“No man’s land” invokes stretches of barren landscape, twisted barbed wire, desolation, and the devastation of war. But this is not always the reality. According to Noam Leshem in Edges of Care: Living and Dying in No Man's Land (U Chicago Press, 2025), the term also reveals radical abandonment by the state. From the Northern Sahara to the Amazon rainforests, people around the world find themselves in places that have been stripped of sovereign care. Leshem is committed to defining these spaces and providing a more intimate understanding of this urgent political reality. Based on nearly a decade of research in some of the world’s most challenging conflict zones, Edges of Care offers a profound account of abandoned lives and lands, and how they endure and sometimes thrive once left to fend for themselves. Leshem interrogates no man’s land as a site of radical uncaring: abandoned by a sovereign power in a relinquishment of responsibility for the space or anyone inside it. To understand the ramifications of such uncaring, Leshem takes readers through a diverse series of abandoned places, including areas in Palestine, Syria, Colombia, Sudan, and Cyprus. He shows that no man’s land is not empty of life, but almost always inhabited and, in fact, often generative of new modes of being. Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at [email protected]. Blusky and IG: @robbyref Website: www.robertomazza.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Chinatown neighborhoods in the United States are about more than restaurants, shops, and architecture, argues San Jose State urban studies associate professor Laureen Hom in The Power of Chinatown: Searching for Spatial Justice in Los Angeles (California UP, 2024). They're also communities where people live, organize, and argue over politics. Chinatowns are vital political actors, places where culture, history, and community come together to form bulwarks of power as places that have historically had considerable agency in shaping their own destiny. In this close study of Los Angeles' Chinatown neighborhood in the early twenty first century, Hom argues that the neighborhood is a complex places, where urban trends such as gentrification and displacement have been at once both pushed against and, at times, encouraged, both from within and without. The Power of Chinatown puts people at the center of the story, arguing that for all its tourist appeal, it is those who live in this place who care about it the most, and thus are willing to fight the hardest to protect what makes this neighborhood truly a community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In times of extreme violence, what explains peace in some places? This book investigates geographic variation in Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002, an event witnessed closely by the author. Dhattiwala compares peaceful and violent towns, villages, and neighborhoods to study how political violence spreads. A combination of statistical and ethnographic methods unpack the mechanisms of crowd behavior, intergroup relations, and political incentives. She analyzes macro-level risk factors to provide a close understanding of the behavior of people who participated in the violence, were targeted by it and, often, compelled to carry on living alongside their perpetrators. Keeping the Peace systematically demonstrates the implicit political logic of the violence. Most of all, by moving up close to the people caught in the middle of violence, the author highlights the interplay between politics, the spatial environment, and the cognitive decision-making processes of individuals. Raheel Dhattiwala is an independent social scientist based in India (D.Phil. in Sociology; Oxford University) and honorary member of the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg (formerly, Baden-Württemberg Fellow 2023-24). Vatsal Naresh is a Lecturer in Social Studies at Harvard University. His recent publications include co-edited volumes on Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism (OUP 2021) and Constituent Assemblies (CUP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Clean water, paved roads, public transit, electricity and gas, sewers, waste processing, telecommunication, even the Internet – all this infrastructure is what makes cities work and powers our lives, often seamlessly and silently. Virtually everything we do and consume depends on infrastructure. Yet, most people have little to no idea how these systems work. How is water treated? How do cities manage rainwater? Why do traffic jams exist? How is electricity generated and distributed? What happens to trash after it is picked up? How does the Internet work? In The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives (Prometheus Books, 2025), world-renowned urban engineering expert Sybil Derrible reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations of the foundational systems that make our societies function. Visiting sixteen cities around the world and their unique approaches to organizational challenges – from water distribution in Hong Kong to waste management in Tokyo, and from Chicago’s power grid to low Earth orbit satellites in space – this highly readable book uses fascinating case studies and historical detours to show how infrastructure works – and, sometimes, doesn’t. With large-scale infrastructure repairs looming and the need for existing infrastructure to be transformed, the book also shows how infrastructure can be more sustainable and resilient. After reading The Infrastructure Book, readers will never look at a city the same way. Sybil Derrible is a professor of urban engineering and director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is a world-renowned scholar on infrastructure and a lead author on the United Nations Environmental Program’s Seventh Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) report. He received the Walter L. Huber Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers and a CAREER Award from the US National Science Foundation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

As the second Trump administration reshapes the U.S. government and its role in the world, how do technology, media, and political power intersect? In this episode of International Horizons, host John Torpey speaks with Zeynep Tufekci—New York Times columnist, Princeton professor, and author of Twitter and Tear Gas—about the evolving relationship between social media platforms, political movements, and democracy. From the shifting role of the internet in global protests to Elon Musk’s interventions in European politics, Tufekci unpacks the historical patterns shaping today’s political landscape. The conversation also explores the erosion of public trust in institutions, the implications of a weakened federal government, and the risks of unchecked technological influence. Tune in for a deep dive into the forces reshaping democracy at home and abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

How do young people participate in democratic societies? Youth Participation and Democracy: Cultures of Doing Society (Bristol UP, 2024) introduces the concept of ‘doing society’ as a new theory of political action. Focused on Finnish youth, it innovatively blends cutting-edge empirical research with agenda-setting theoretical development. Redefining political action, the authors expand beyond traditional public-sphere, scaling from formal to informal and unconventional modes of engaging. The book captures diverse engagement from memes to social movements, from participatory budgeting to street parties and from sleek politicians to detached people in the margins. In doing so, it provides a holistic view of the ways in which young people participate (or do not participate) in society, and their role in cultural change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

What is the meaning of love in modern Chinese politics? Why has 愛 ai (love) been a crucial political discourse for secular nationalism for generations of political leaders as a powerful instrument to the present day? Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China (Amsterdam University Press, 2025) offers the first systematic examination of the ways in which the notion of love has been introduced, adapted, and engineered as a political discourse for the building and rebuilding of a secular modern nation, all the while appropriating Confucianism, Christianity, popular religion, ghost stories, political religion, and their religious affects. The insights of this exploration expand not only the discussion of the role of emotions in the project of Chinese modernity, but also the study of affective governance and religious nationalisms around the world today. Author Ting Guo is Assistant Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong and book reviewer editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. She co-hosts a podcast called 時差 in-betweenness. The episode is hosted by Ailin Zhou, PhD student in Film & Digital Media at University of California - Santa Cruz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

On a fragile planet with spreading food insecurity, food waste is a political and ethical problem. Examining the collaborative, sometimes scrappy institutional and community efforts to recuperate and redistribute food waste in Brussels, Belgium, Kelly Alexander reveals it is also an opportunity for new forms of sociality. Her study plays out across a diverse set of locations—including a food bank with ties to the EU, a social restaurant serving low-cost meals made from supermarket surplus by an emergent immigrant labor force, and a social inclusion program in an urban market with a "zero food waste" pop-up cafe. In Truffles and Trash: Recirculating Food in a Social Welfare State (UNC Press, 2024), Alexander argues that these efforts, in concert with innovative policy, effectively recirculate wasted food to new publics and produce what she terms a "spectrum of edibility." According to Alexander, these models face challenges—including reproducing the very power dynamics across race, class, and citizenship status they seek to circumvent. They also mirror the challenges of the everyday operations of the European social welfare state, which is increasingly reliant on NGOs to meet provisioning promises. Yet she finds that they also move the needle forward to reduce food waste across one city, providing an example for major urban centers around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Erving Goffman has always seen as somewhat of an enigma by sociologists and historians of the discipline. In his provocative new book Erving Goffman and the Cold War (2023, Lexington) Gary Jaworski suggests a ‘marginal man’ trope has grown up around him, whereby Goffman is seen as an outsider, unconnected to broader debates in sociology and to the events happening around him as he wrote. Seeking to overcome this trope, Jaworski presents him instead as a sociologist ‘in, and of’ the cold war. This involves looking anew at Goffman’s work, moving away from the more frequently used concepts and looking at less studied metaphors in his work such as loyalty, provocation and secrecy. Here we see how Goffman was a perceptive sociologist of cold war America and, in so doing, can explore his connections to cold warriors, on both sides of the divide. In our conversation we explore the ways in which looking at Goffman’s work via the cold war allows us to understand some of the underappreciated greatness of his work. Topics discussed include why lesser known texts such as Strategic Interaction and Where the Action Is are so important, the role that spies play in his work and why Goffman was such a fan of post-WWII satire. Your host, Matt Dawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow and the author of G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation (2024, Palgrave Macmillan), along with other texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Audun Kjus joins Jana Byars to talk about Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum (Utah State Press, 2025), eds. Audun Kjus, Jakob Löfgren, Cliona O’Carroll, Simon Poole & Ida Tolgensbakk. Utah State Press, 2025). The junctions between play and ritual are many and complex. Play is for fun and joy, but it also demands a total commitment and serious respect for rules. Rituals involve nearly endless varieties of social arrangements and can truly transform people, but they also include improvisation, testing, and pretending. Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum explores the connectivity between the playful and the ritualized through a fresh theoretical perspective, highlighting the creative messiness and the cultural paradoxes such intersections allow. The chapters span topics such as hen parties, marriage proposals, ash scatterings, extreme sports races, football fans, computer game festivals, celebrations of fandom, migration heritages, and antiracist protests. While the case studies are selected to show a range of diversity with various mergings of play, game, ritual, ceremony, rite, and ritualizing, the introductory and concluding discussions offer sharpened perspectives on common aspects. Following these excursions through the play-ritual continuum will be enjoyable for readers interested in how people make sense of their own existence and profitable for scholars in folklore, anthropology, religion, pedagogy, cultural studies, and social sciences and humanities more generally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Perversions of the Market: Sadism, Masochism, and the Culture of Capitalism (SUNY Press, 2024) argues that capitalism fosters sadism and masochism--not as individual psychological proclivities but as widespread institutionalized patterns of behavior. The book is divided into two parts: one historical and the other theoretical. In the first, Eugene W. Holland shows how, as capital becomes global in scale and drives production and consumption farther and farther apart, it perverts otherwise free markets, transforming sadism and masochism into borderline conditions and various supremacisms. The second part then turns to Deleuze and Guattari's 'schizoanalysis,' explaining how it helpfully embeds Freud's analysis of the family and Lacan's analysis of language within an analysis of the capitalist market and its psycho-dynamics. Drawing on literature and film throughout to illuminate the discontents of modern culture, Holland maintains that the sadistic relations of production and masochistic relations of consumption must be eliminated to prevent capitalism from destroying life as we know it. Nathan Smith is a PhD candidate in Music Theory at Yale University [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

The Hare Krishnas have long been associated with American hippie culture and New Age religious movements. But they have developed deeply rooted communities in India and throughout the world over the past 50 years. Known officially as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), this once-marginal religious community now wields vast economic assets, political influence, and a posh identity endorsed by Indian business tycoons and Bollywood celebrities. Bringing Krishna Back to India (Oxford UP, 2024) examines this globalized religious community in Mumbai, India's business and entertainment capital, where ISKCON draws Indians from diverse backgrounds to adopt a socially conservative Krishna bhakti identity amidst a neoliberal megacity and the city's famed cosmopolitanism. As ISKCON fashions devout religious identities amidst urban spaces, such as college campuses, corporate wellness retreats, and Bollywood celebrity events, it promotes a religious Hindu modernity that reflects elite urban Indian aspirations and aesthetic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Jonathan Haidt, renowned social psychologist and author, dives deep into the impact of digital saturation on today's youth, drawing insights from his latest book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Allen Lane, 2024). The discussion explores how growing up immersed in social media, video games, and smart technology is reshaping young people’s sense of self and influencing their political engagement. Haidt explains how the constant connectivity may be contributing to an increase in anxiety and how it’s altering their approach to both personal identity and societal participation. Haidt also addresses the potential for a "generational war," where differences between older and younger generations are often framed as inherent character flaws. He emphasizes the importance of understanding that many of Gen Z’s choices have been shaped by forces beyond their control, rather than pointing to a moral failing. This leads into a comparison with the themes explored in The Coddling of the American Mind, particularly the societal impact of overprotection and the lack of resilience-building among youth. The conversation then moves into practical territory, with Haidt discussing the importance of activating the brain’s inhibition system to help young people develop resilience and the ability to handle stress, conflict, and complex decision-making. He suggests that cultivating the inhibition system through thoughtful practices is key in fostering more resilient and independent young adults. Finally, Haidt examines the role of tech giants like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg in shaping the digital landscape and their growing political influence. He discusses the challenges of addressing the negative impacts of social media, pondering whether government intervention will result in meaningful change or if the influence of tech leaders will prevent any real reform. This episode provides a compelling exploration of how technology, societal norms, and political dynamics intersect to shape the lives of younger generations and offers valuable insight into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for both youth and society at large. Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology