This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy
Latest episodes
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47 min
Carceral Utopia: A Global History of Model Prisons with Gregory Salle (Polity, 2026)
What underpins the legitimacy of the prison system in the twenty-first century? Despite numerous challenges and setbacks, there is still a widespread belief that prisons can be imp…
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54 min
Outed: LBJ’s Confidant and the Arrest that Transformed a Presidency with Timothy Stewart-Winter (U Chicago Pre…
Timothy Stewart-Winter joins Michael Stauch to discuss the arrest that transformed Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson’s longest-serving and most trusted adviso…
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1 h 00
Offshore Oildom: America’s Energy Expansion into the Ocean with Tyler Priest (LSU Press, 2026)
Offshore Oildom: America’s Energy Expansion into the Ocean (LSU Press, 2026) tells the riveting story of the United States’ quest to secure the oil riches of the sea. Drawing on a…
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53 min
Parties on the Ground: A Study of Nominations for the House of Representatives with Kathleen Bawn and Knox Bro…
Parties on the Ground: A Study of Nominations for the House of Representatives (U Chicago Press, 2026) is a study of political parties and party nominations for the House of Repres…
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50 min
Searching for Jane Crow: Black Women and Mass Incarceration in America from the Auction Block to the Cell Bloc…
In Searching for Jane Crow: Black Women and Mass Incarceration in America from the Auction Block to the Cell Block (Beacon Press, 2022), historian Talitha L. LeFlouria centers Blac…
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54 min
Disability: A History of Resistance with David Turner (Random House, 2026)
Despite there being more than 16 million disabled people in the UK today, disability rarely features in mainstream accounts of our past. That absence is not down to a lack of evide…
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52 min
Skipping School: A History of American Homeschooling and How It Went Mainstream with Dixie Dillon Lane (Eerdma…
Discover the untold story of why homeschooling moved from the margins to the mainstream of American education. In this groundbreaking study Skipping School: A History of American H…
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47 min
Fictions of Freedom: Migration, Modern Slavery and Bureaucracy in India with Pankhuri Agarwal (Cambridge UP, 2…
Fictions of Freedom: Migration, Modern Slavery and Bureaucracy in India (Cambridge UP, 2026) emerges from the fact of anti-trafficking interventions having led to newer forms of o…
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44 min
Governance by Emulation: The Oversight Board, the Digital Services Act, and the Struggle for Platform Accounta…
Social media giants like Meta and transnational regulators such as the European Union are transforming private governance by creatively emulating public law frameworks. Drawing on…
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1 h 00
Hit Doctors: Care, Harm, and the Art of Survival with Sarah Brothers (U California Press, 2026)
As overdose deaths continue to mount and debates rage over harm reduction, drug policy, and homelessness, Hit Doctors: Care, Harm, and the Art of Survival (U California Press, 2026…
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36 min
Civil Societies, Uncivil States: Government Repression of NGOs with Suparna Chaudhry (Cornell UP, 2026)
Why would a government bother to go after groups that carry no weapons and hold no power? Suparna Chaudhry argues that the answer says a lot about where politics is heading. In Civ…
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40 min
The Technocratic International: Experts and the Making of a World from Nowhere with Jan Eijking (Oxford UP, 20…
Most international organisations today-from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the World Health Organisation-present themselves as technical institutions separate fro…
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1 h 50
Immoral Traffic An Ethnography of Law, NGOs, and the Governance of Prostitution in India with Vibhuti Ramachan…
Immoral Traffic: An Ethnography of Law, NGOs, and the Governance of Prostitution in India (Cambridge UP, 2025) delves into the complex intersection of India's anti-prostitution law…
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31 min
A Healthy Union: How States Can Lead on Environmental Health with Susan Kaplan (Island Press, 2025)
In the absence of adequate federal safeguards against pollution and toxic chemicals, state policies are the strongest tools available to create safe, sustainable environments. The…
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44 min
Down and Out in Utopia: Unemployment as Moral Education in Norway with Kelly McKowen (U Toronto Press, 2026)
Imagine that you have just lost your job. You wonder: “Who or what can I depend on now?” The answer, it turns out, varies significantly depending on where you live. In Norway, a sm…
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1 h 16
Will AI Make Human Labor Obsolete? with Garrison Lovely
Today I’m speaking with Garrison Lovely, technology journalist and author of the new book, Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us — and How to Stop It (OR B…
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29 min
The Real Pain of Punishment: Prison, Belonging, and the Quest for Humanized Justice with Federica Coppola (Cam…
The Real Pain of Punishment: Prison, Belonging, and the Quest for Humanized Justice (Cambridge UP, 2026) highlights the concept of 'belonging' as an unprecedented lens for critic…
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54 min
Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing with Rahim Kurwa (U California Press, 2025)
In this episode, Lilyanna D'Amato speaks with Rahim Kurwa about his book Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing (U California Press, 2025), which examines the…
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31 min
India, China, and Climate Change Governance: Leadership and Responsibility in the Asian Global South with Amit…
Can we expect leadership and responsibility from the Asian Global South in climate change governance? India, China, and Climate Change Governance: Leadership and Responsibility in…
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35 min
Climate Hegemony: Confronting the Politics of Environmental Impasse with Laurie Parsons (LSE Press, 2026)
Climate action is at an impasse. Its political opponents are stronger than ever, its advocates powerless. Almost every major government and corporation expresses their commitment…