David Wright Faladé, "Black Cloud Rising" (Grove Press, 2022)
By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways floo...
26 Mar 202354min
Woody Holton, "Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)
A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, ...
21 Mar 202352min
Nadia Abu El-Haj, "Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America" (Verso, 2022)
One of the most recognizable tropes in American society in the past few decades is the scarred war veteran, returning from foreign lands with wounds both visible and invisible. His experiences are inc...
21 Mar 20231h 18min
Cathal J. Nolan, "Mercy: Humanity in War" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Mercy: Humanity in War (Oxford University Press, 2022) gathers and explores acts of singular mercy, giving them form and substance across wars, causes, and opposing uniforms. These acts demand our att...
19 Mar 20231h 13min
Tom Dunkel, "White Knights in the Black Orchestra: The Extraordinary Story of the Germans Who Resisted Hitler" (Hachette Books, 2021)
They were a small group of conspirators who risked their lives by plotting relentlessly to obstruct and destroy the Third Reich from within. The Gestapo nicknamed this shadowy confederation of traitor...
19 Mar 20231h 9min
Ellin Bessner, "Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II" (New Jewish Press, 2018)
Today I talked to Ellin Bessner about her book Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II (New Jewish Press, 2018). "He died so Jewry should suffer no more." These words on a Canadia...
18 Mar 202357min
Simon Parkin, "The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp" (Scribner, 2022)
The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp (Scribner, 2022 is the “riveting…truly shocking” (The New York Times Book Revie...
18 Mar 20231h 6min
Bleddyn E. Bowen, "Original Sin: Power, Technology and War in Outer Space" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Space technology was developed to enhance the killing power of the state. The Moon landings and the launch of the Space Shuttle were mere sideshows, drawing public attention away from the real goal: m...
17 Mar 202346min
