An essential—and monumental—member of the Sonoran Desert ecosystem, the saguaro cactus has become the quintessential icon of the American West.
In the Arms of Saguaros: Iconography of the Giant Cactus (U Arizona Press, 2023) shows how, from the botanical explorers of the nineteenth century to the tourism boosters in our own time, saguaros and their images ha ... Show More
Mar 2025
Tom Lynch, "Outback and Out West: The Settler-Colonial Environmental Imaginary" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
People make sense of the world through stories, and stories about places inevitably shape how we treat, live on, and use those places. In Outback and Out West: The Settler Colonial Environmental Imaginary (U Nebraska Press, 2022), emeritus professor of English at the University o ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 22
Becky M. Nicolaides, "The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945" (Oxford UP, 2024)
The adoption of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, triggered a wave of immigration to the U.S. not seen since before the First World War. But these newcomers were now far less likely to have come from Europe than Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. And they were far more likely to s ... Show More
38m 43s
Sep 30
Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Anita Huízar-Hernández eds., "meXicana Roots and Routes: Listening to People, Places, and Pasts" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
Community voices are often an underrepresented aspect of our historical and cultural knowledge of the U.S. Southwest. In this episode, we sit down with Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Anita Huízar-Hernández, editors of meXicana Roots and Routes: Listening to People, Places, and Pasts ... Show More
22 m
Jun 2025
Alan Michelson Talks Dinosaurs, Murderous US Presidents, and Platinum-Gilded Native “Knowledge Keepers”
As a child, Alan Michelson often rode the T past sculptor Cyrus Edward Dallin’s “Appeal to the Great Spirit” (1908) outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). He was riveted by the statue’s grand horse and the powerful yet melancholy figure wearing a striking Plains Indian wa ... Show More
52m 19s
Jul 2020
Emily Wallace, "Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South" (U Texas Press, 2019)
In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Emily Wallace, author and illustrator of the new book Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South (University of Texas Press, 2019).
Road Sides pays homage to popular travel guides with its shor ... Show More
50m 1s
Sep 2024
Ancient India and China: from golden to silk roads
The best-selling historian William Dalrymple presents India as the great superpower of ancient times in The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. He argues that for more than a millennium India art, religions, technology, astronomy, music and mathematics spread fa ... Show More
42m 10s
Jan 2024
Ep411 - George Saunders | The Braindead Megaphone
<p>Acclaimed author George Saunders visits Google to discuss his book "The Braindead Megaphone."</p> <p>"The Braindead Megaphone", George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction, is comprised of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are ... Show More
47m 41s
Nov 2019
John Edmonstone the Former Slave who Taught Darwin
John Edmonstone was born into slavery in the former Dutch colony of Demerara in the late 1700s but died a free man in Scotland having taught one of the greatest men in the history of science, Charles Darwin, the skill of taxidermy. We speak to Dr Angelina Osborne, independent res ... Show More
38m 1s
Feb 2021
Robert L. Stone, "Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus! Photographs from the Sacred Steel Community" (U of Mississippi Press, 2020)
Folklorist Robert L. Stone presents a rare collection of high-quality documentary photos of the sacred steel guitar musical tradition and the community that supports it. The introductory text and extended photo captions in Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus! Photographs from the Sacre ... Show More
1h 1m