Marc Mierowsky, "A Spy Amongst Us: Daniel Defoe's Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence" (Yale UP, 2026)
In 1706, Edinburgh was on the brink of a popular uprising. Men and women took to the streets to protest the planned union with England, fearing the end of Scottish sovereignty. But unbeknownst to the ...
10 Feb 57min
Matti Friedman, "Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai" (Spiegel & Grau, 2022)
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to the chaos and bloodshed of ...
9 Feb 1h 3min
Chris Washburn and Ron Chepesiuk, "Out of Bounds: From Broken NBA Dreams to Redemption" (WildBlue Press, 2025)
Highly promising basketball player Chris Washburn was selected third overall in the 1986 NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors. But a chance encounter with famed basketball player Len Bias introduced...
9 Feb 51min
Joshua D. Zimmerman, "Jozef Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland" (Harvard UP, 2022)
In the 1920s, Józef Piłsudski was a household name not just in Poland, but across Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean as well. Yet this complex and contradictory figure – a socialist and a nationalis...
8 Feb 1h 37min
Garrett Felber, "A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre" (AK Press, 2025)
The first biography of the revolutionary political prisoner who laid the foundation for contemporary abolitionist struggles and Black anarchism. A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Marti...
6 Feb 54min
164 Maurice Samuels: Jewish Assimilation, Integration and the Dreyfus Affair (JP)
When it comes to the condition of Jews in Christian Europe, France was long known as the haven and heartland of integration and of toleration. And yet when things seemed to be going well for Jews in W...
5 Feb 1h
Dianna N. Watkins-Dickerson, "A Black Woman for President: Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, and Kamala Harris" (UP of Mississippi)
Throughout US history, only three Black women—Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, and Kamala Harris—have given successfully recognized bids for the office of president of the United States. In A Bl...
4 Feb 1h
Sunny Dhillon, "Hide and Sikh: Letters from a Life in Brown Skin" (Wolsak and Wynn, 2025)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Sunny Dhillon about his book, Hide & Sikh: Letters from a Life in Brown Skin (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025). In 2018, Sunny Dhillon resigned as a journalist...
3 Feb 32min
