Rohit Khanna, "Misunderstanding Health: Making Sense of America's Broken Health Care System" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
With technological advances and information sharing so prevalent, health care should be more transparent and easier to access than ever before. So why does it seem like everything about it―from pricin...
24 Aug 202134min
LaFleur Stephens-Dougan, "Race to the Bottom: How Racial Appeals Work in American Politics" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
In Race to the Bottom: How Racial Appeals Work in American Politics (U Chicago Press, 2020), LaFleur Stephens-Dougan argues that we focus on the use of negative racial appeals by the Republican Party,...
23 Aug 202150min
Michael Dennis, "The Full Employment Horizon in 20th-Century America: The Movement for Economic Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
One of the unfulfilled goals of the American left during the 1930s was that of an economy in which every American would enjoy the opportunity for gainful employment. In The Full Employment Horizon in ...
23 Aug 202151min
Tom Mould, "Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America" (Indiana UP, 2020)
It is a familiar story: A recipient of public assistance funds is caught buying expensive steaks, seafood, or other luxury foods with food stamps at the grocery store. Or they wear designer clothes an...
20 Aug 20211h 18min
Justin Marceau, "Beyond Cages: Animal Law and Criminal Punishment" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
For all the diversity of views within the animal protection movement, there is a surprising consensus about the need for more severe criminal justice interventions against animal abusers. More prosecu...
18 Aug 20211h 5min
Amy J. Rutenberg, "Rough Draft: Cold War Military Manpower Policy and the Origins of Vietnam-Era Draft Resistance" (Cornell UP, 2019)
Rough Draft: Cold War Military Manpower Policy and the Origins of Vietnam-Era Draft Resistance (Cornell University Press, 2019) draws the curtain on the race and class inequities of the Selective Serv...
18 Aug 202153min
David E Campbell et al., "Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics" (Cambridge UP. 2020)
American society is rapidly secularizing – a radical departure from its historically high level of religiosity–and politics is a big part of the reason. Just as, forty years ago, the Religious Right a...
18 Aug 20211h 2min
Lee McIntyre, "How to Talk to a Science Denier" (MIT Press, 2021)
Climate change is a hoax--and so is coronavirus. Vaccines are bad for you. These days, many of our fellow citizens reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. They are not merely uninfor...
17 Aug 20211h 10min
