Silvia Danielak, "Peace Infrastructures: How UN Peace Operations Build Roads, Bridges, and Solar Farms in the Pursuit of Sustainability" (MIT Press, 2026)

Roads, bridges, a renewable power plant, and an electricity grid: UN peacekeepers might be unusual infrastructure builders, but they’re certainly not unambitious. Since the beginning of the UN’s peacekeeping activities after the end of World War II, the Blue Helmets have cemented streets, constructed bridges, and dug wells in conflict zones. But how did the military arm of the world’s primary diplomatic forum become involved in such activities in its quest for peace, and with what consequences? Peace Infrastructures: How UN Peace Operations Build Roads, Bridges, and Solar Farms in the Pursuit of Sustainability (MIT Press, 2026) by Dr. Silvia Danielak analyzes the turn to ever-more-complex infrastructure projects, from early road building via urban community projects to the commissioning of entire renewable power plants, in the context of an evolving understanding of peace “problems” and solutions. Tracing the global travel of policies, technologies, and expertise, Dr. Danielak investigates how the shift toward risk management, legacy, and climate security was driven by, and materialized in, conflict zones, shaping the very idea of peace.The book critically engages with the UN’s ambition to insert itself in the sustainable development of the countries it seeks to assist, arguing that we need to consider peace operations’ spatial, urban, and material ways of engagement—especially in the face of mounting climate risks. Infrastructure is poised to take a more prominent position within peace operations, but a more nuanced understanding that recognizes its opportunities, as well as its potential for violence, is required. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose 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 interviews 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/new-books-network

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Lila Corwin Berman, "Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship" (Princeton UP, 2026)

The history of Jews in the United States is often told as if they immigrated, gained citizenship, and almost immediately achieved full legal rights. Yet this story fundamentally misses how citizensh...

6 Juli 1h 3min

Katherine Krauss, "Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new framework for interpreting interactions with classical source material in Macrobius’ Saturnalia. It argues that the Sat...

6 Juli 1h 8min

Ted Powell, "Churchill and the Crown" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Winston Churchill was born in a palace and was given a funeral worthy of a king. His family had enjoyed an intimate association with the British monarchy stretching back centuries. As King Edward VI...

6 Juli 38min

Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (UNC Press, 2025)

What was it like to live in a city experiencing occupation by a foreign army? What did it mean when a family had to quarter an officer in their home? More specifically, how did military occupation aff...

6 Juli 45min

Meditation Sickness and the Dangers of Buddhist Practice with Pierce Salguero

Pierce Salguero joins us to discuss his new co-edited volume, Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice. While modern mindfulness frames meditation purely as a wellness too...

6 Juli 1h 25min

Alexandre Frenette, "Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking Into the Creative Economy" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Who gets to be a creative worker? In Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking Into the Creative Economy, (Princeton University Press, 2026) Alexandre Frenette, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vande...

6 Juli 43min

Stephen Robertson, "Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935" (Stanford UP, 2024)

The violence that spread across Harlem on the night of March 19, 1935 was the first large-scale racial disorder in the United States in more than a decade and the first occurrence in the nation’s lea...

6 Juli 57min

Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity

Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo and Juliet can atte...

6 Juli 0s