In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires and the triumph of an American-led democratic order. In Scorched Earth: A Global History of World War II (Basic Books, 2025), historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin opens a longer and wider aperture on World War II and recasts ... Show More
Aug 7
Eiko Maruko Siniawer, "Ten Moments that Shaped Tokyo" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
How did Tokyo—Japan’s capital, global city, tourist hotspot and financial center—get to where it is today? Tokyo–or then, Edo–had a rather unglamorous start, as a backwater on Japan’s eastern coast before Tokugawa decided to make it his de facto capital. Eiko Maruko Siniawer pick ... Show More
49m 3s
Jul 28
Frank Jacob, "Japanese War Crimes during World War II: Atrocity and the Psychology of Collective Violence" (Praeger, 2018)
When you mention Japanese War crimes in World War Two, you’ll often get different responses from different generations. The oldest among us will talk about the Bataan Death March. Younger people, coming of age in the 1990s, will mention the Rape of Nanking or the comfort women fo ... Show More
1h 6m
Jul 27
Sarah Teasley, "Designing Modern Japan" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
Sarah Teasley's Designing Modern Japan (Reaktion, 2022) unpicks the history of Japanese design from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, focusing on continuities and disruptions within communities and practices of design. Designing Modern Japan explores design ... Show More
1h 43m
Mar 2024
Amy Coddington, "How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race" (U California Press, 2023)
How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race (U California Press, 2023) examines the programming practices at commercial radio stations in the 1980s and early 1990s to uncover how the radio industry facilitated hip hop's introduction into the musical mainstream. Constructed p ... Show More
51m 43s
Dec 2020
Laurent Fintoni, "Bedroom Beats & B-Sides: Instrumental Hip-Hop & Electronic Music at the Turn of the Century" (Velocity Press, 2020)
In Bedroom Beats & B-Sides: Instrumental Hip-Hop & Electronic Music at the Turn of the Century (Velocity Press, 2020), Laurent Fintoni explores the rise of a new generation of bedroom producers at the turn of the century through the stories of various instrumental hip-hop and ele ... Show More
56m 35s
Dec 2024
The Bridge: Slate Music Club 2024
The Slate Music Club is back, in a special edition of Hit Parade – “The Bridge”! Our year-end panel of critics—NPR Music’s Ann Powers, Hearing Things’ Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Slate’s own Carl Wilson and Hit Parade host Chris Molanphy—discuss their favorite albums and singles ... Show More
35m 12s
Dec 2024
The Year in Music
As 2024 comes to a close, critics, reporters and editors at The New York Times are reflecting on the year in arts and culture, including music.
Today, The Times’s pop music critics Jon Pareles, Lindsay Zoladz and Jon Caramanica talk with Melissa Kirsch, the deputy editor of Cultu ... Show More
33m 27s
Jun 2024
The Devil's Music 62: Cynthia B-Girl
Cynthia Ross is a musician, writer, poet and spoken word performer. Better known as her stage name Cynthia B-Girl, she’s a punk rock pioneer and one of the earliest of proponents of the underground scene in Toronto, Canada. In 1977, Cynthia and B-Girls singer Lucasta met at post- ... Show More
1h 8m
Nov 2024
Veronica Keller and Sabrina Mittermeier, "From Broadway to the Bronx: New York City’s History through Song" (Intellect, 2024)
From Broadway to the Bronx: New York City’s History through Song (Intellect, 2024) tells the history of New York City in song across a variety of different genres that the city has been home to and instrumental in developing, covering everything from early twentieth-century sheet ... Show More
56m 40s
Apr 2025
Music's New Success Model
Specialized platforms and social media have empowered musicians to tap into niche audiences, igniting a quiet revolution in the music industry. Despite the dominance of viral hits, a new wave of artists, labels and businesses are redefining success by building dedicated fanbases ... Show More
46m 57s