logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2021
1h 3m

Robert Launay, "Savages, Romans, and Des...

NEW BOOKS NETWORK
About this episode
Take a look at a globe. Europe is there in big letters, and, to us, this hardly merits a passing thought. But Europe is a concept, a construct, an idea. So too is modernity. These categories have rich and contested histories.  It is to their lineage that Robert Launay looks in Savages, Romans, and Despots: Thinking about Others from Montaigne to Herder (Univ ... Show More
Up next
Sep 15
Catherine A John, "Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice (Duke University Press, 2026), Catherine A. John addresses the underbelly of spiritual resilience shaping a range of African diasporic institutions, traditions, and practices. John argues that repressed forms of indi ... Show More
42m 4s
Sep 12
Han Hsien Liew, "Preaching Pious Rulership in Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Jawzi's Political Thought" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)
Han Hsien Liew’s fascinating and insightful new book, Preaching Pious Rulership in Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Jawzi’s Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2026) offers a new way of understanding the political thought of one of medieval Islam’s most influential preachers, Ib ... Show More
1h 26m
Sep 10
A Nation Wrestles With God: American Prophets, Philosophers, and Firebrands
Spanning more than 400 years of spiritual transformation and imagination, A Nation Wrestles With God (Restless Books, 2026) collects diverse writers—poets, novelists, theologians, scientists, musicians, politicians, comedians, artists, mavericks, naturalists, futurists, and more ... Show More
1h 15m
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2022
A Short History of The World
<p>How can you condense the history of the world into a book? Well-celebrated historian Simon Sebag Montefiore does just that in his new epic. He takes Dan on an exhilarating journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mug ... Show More
28m 57s
Nov 2023
Musab Younis, "On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought" (U California Press, 2022)
On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought (U California Press, 2022) examines the reverberations of anticolonial ideas that spread across the Atlantic between the two world wars. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Black intellectuals in Europe, Africa, and ... Show More
52m 21s
May 2024
586. How Does the Lost World of Vienna Still Shape Our Lives?
<p>From politics and economics to psychology and the arts, many of the modern ideas we take for granted emerged a century ago from a single European capital. In this episode of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the historian Richard Cockett explores all those ideas — and how the ... Show More
57m 19s
Jul 2021
Germán Campos Muñoz, "The Classics in South America: Five Case Studies" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
Germán Campos Muñoz, The Classics in South America: Five Case Studies (Bloomsbury, 2021) examines the long and complex history of the Greco-Roman tradition in South America, arguing that the Classics have played a crucial, though often overlooked, role in the self-definition in t ... Show More
1h 37m
Nov 2023
Montaigne: Philosopher of the French Renaissance
<p>Centuries before Proust's <em>Remembrance of Things Past </em>took us on a tour of memory and James Joyce played with stream of consciousness, a 16th century nobleman - Michel de Montaigne - developed a wholly new style of reflective prose that examined his place in the world. ... Show More
44m 18s
Jan 2024
Past the Medieval Horizon — with Ian Mortimer and Lydia WIlson
<p>Ian Mortimer is frustrated. The historian and author of “Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter” says the problem is that most people seem to think they don’t. </p> <p> </p> <p>“You realize how little people know about the world around them,” Mortimer tells New Lines ma ... Show More
40m 14s