Phillips Payson O'Brien, "War and Power: Who Wins Wars--And Why" (PublicAffairs, 2025)
A bold, revisionist study of modern warfare, showing that military victory is rooted not in large armies and decisive battles, but in the full spectrum of economic, political, and social power. For n...
11 Nov 202533min
Wolfgang Wagner, "The Democratic Politics of Military Interventions" (Oxford UP, 2020)
According to a widely shared notion, foreign affairs are exempted from democratic politics, i.e. party-political divisions are overcome-and should be overcome-for the sake of a common national interes...
10 Nov 202537min
Jason A. Higgins, "Prisoners After War: Veterans in the Age of Mass Incarceration" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)
In Prisoners after War: Veterans in the Age of Mass Incarceration (University of Mass. Press, 2024), Dr. Jason Higgins examines the connections between the military and carceral system through the sto...
10 Nov 20251h 2min
E. Alaverdov and M. W. Bari, "Cultural Heritage Protection and Restoration in Conflict and Post-Conflict Zones" (IGI Global, 2025)
The protection and restoration of cultural heritage is essential, especially in conflict and post-conflict zones. Armed conflicts frequently result in the destruction or collateral damage of cultural ...
8 Nov 202538min
Anastasija Ropa, "The Medieval Horse" (Reaktion Books, 2025)
Anastasija Ropa joins Jana Byars to talk about The Medieval Horse (Reaktion, 2025), a book that explores the role of horses across the medieval world, from the Kievan Rus' and Scandinavia to Central E...
5 Nov 202540min
Stephen C. Mercado, "Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito's Scientists and Technicians Served in the Second World War and the Cold War" (Pen & Sword Military, 2025)
War, and the threat of war, spurs governments to invest in secret military technologies and weapons. Imperial Japan, ahead of the Second World War, was no exception. After the First World War, Japan s...
30 Okt 202538min
Robert Jan van Pelt, "The Barrack, 1572-1914: Chapters in the History of Emergency Architecture" (Park Books, 2024)
The Barrack, 1572–1914: Chapters in the History of Emergency Architecture (Park Books, 2024) tells the little-known history of a building type that many people used to register as an alien interloper...
30 Okt 202552min
Kate Epstein on How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
In this episode I sit down with Kate Epstein, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden, as she details her research on the intersection of defense contracting, intellectual prope...
28 Okt 20251h 33min
