Christos Lynteris, "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

Today, rats are nearly synonymous with plague, but this association is surprisingly recent. For centuries, plague devastated populations without being linked to animals. So how did the rat become the symbol of one of history's deadliest diseases? In How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Professor Christos Lynteris unravels this story by focusing on the Third Plague Pandemic, a global outbreak that began in China in the 1850s and claimed an estimated 15 million lives by the mid-twentieth century. This was the first major pandemic recognized by scientists as zoonotic—spread from animals to humans—and it marked a turning point in both medical science and global health. Through a gripping historical investigation, Professor Lynteris explores how rats entered the medical imagination of the time. He reveals how scientific thinking about disease vectors evolved in tandem with colonial power structures as plague responses unfolded across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. From laboratory discoveries to imperial interventions, the rat became central not just to understanding plague, but to shaping new forms of epidemiological reasoning. This provocative book shows how zoonosis emerged as a politically charged concept in the context of empire and pandemic crisis. It is a powerful history of how science, society, and colonialism converged around a creature now inseparable from the story of epidemic disease. 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/sociology

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Helen Veit, "Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History" (St Martin's Press, 2026)

Are children naturally picky? It sure seems that way. Yet, amazingly, pickiness used to be almost nonexistent. Well into the 20th century, Americans saw children as joyful omnivores who were naturally...

1 Juni 42min

Chloe Chapin, "Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men" (Oxford UP, 2026)

How did black suits become so ubiquitous? Why has men's business clothing been so plain for the last 250 years? How did a style adopted by the Founding Fathers to differentiate themselves from Europea...

31 Maj 0s

Julie J. Park, "Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era (Harvard Education Press, 2026), Julie J. Park offers deft analysis of the changes to college admissions and campus life since t...

31 Maj 1h 2min

Ashley Rose Young, "Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans" (Oxford UP, 2025)

For much of the Crescent City's history, days began with the cries of roaming street vendors and the percussive thwack of butchers' meat cleavers echoing out from the municipal markets. Generations of...

29 Maj 51min

Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle, "Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors (Rutgers University Press, 2026) examines how personal knowledge about student sexual assault circulates within college campus communiti...

27 Maj 58min

Utku Balaban, "Industrial Islamism: How Authoritarian Movements Mobilize Workers" (U California Press, 2025)

What explains the rise of religious populism in contemporary Turkish politics and society? How does industrialization help to explain change and continuity in social and religious life in Muslim maj...

20 Maj 1h 20min

George Baylon Radics, "Emotional Filipinos: The American Myth of the 'Lazy Native' and Islamic Separatism in the Philippines" (U Georgia Press, 2026)

In the first half of the twentieth century, the United States attempted to build a colony in the Philippines in its own image—one fraught with racist notions of what it means to be civilized, develop...

20 Maj 45min