New Books In Biography

Counterinsurgency doctrine, the Vietnam War, and the vagaries of politics all come together in Max Boot‘s latest work, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (Liveright, 2018). One of the most prolific and iconoclastic commentators on American foreign policy currently active in American letters, Max Boot examines the life and career of General Edward Lansdale, in this detailed and quite personal biography. As he considers the various successes and failures of Lansdale’s professional life, as well as his role as the inspiration for some of the most telling fictional accounts of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, Boot also develops a context for counterinsurgency that positions strategic empathy as the most essential characteristic for its success. Yet the story of Lansdale’s life and career is also a riveting chapter in the great American tragedy that is the Vietnam War, one of which Boot offers an unvarnished and stark assessment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone

Pedagogue, composer, and conductor Nadia Boulanger was a central figure in Igor Stravinsky’s life during the middle part of his career, providing him with support, advice, and a discerning analytical and editorial voice when he was writing some of his most important compositions including the Symphony of Psalms and Persephone. Dr. Kimberly A. Francis has recently published two books related to the complicated and tangled relationship between these two people. The first, released in 2015 by Oxford University Press, is Teaching Stravinsky: Nadia Boulanger and the Consecration of a Modernist Icon. Just last month, Boydell and Brewer published Francis’s edition of their letters in Nadia Boulanger and the Stravinskys: A Selected Correspondence. In other hands, Teaching Stravinsky might have been a simple joint biography, but Francis grounds her work within a theoretical framework that promotes a new approach to musicology and other fields. Building on Pierre Bourdieu’s theories on cultural production, Francis remi

Who was the spymaster of the Third Reich? How did Nazi ideology influence intelligence collection? Katrin Paehler answers these questions with the first analysis of Office VI of the Reich Security Main Office in her new book The Third Reich’s Intelligence Service: The Career of Walter Schellenberg (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Tracing the development of a distinctly and catastrophically ideological approach to intelligence gathering through an institutional biography of the SS security service, its operations in Italy, and clashes with rival agencies inside Germany, Katrin argues that Shellenberg’s ultimate aim was no less than carving out of an independent foreign policy cast in Himmler’s worldview. Katrin Paehler is an associate professor of history at Illinois State University. She was also a member of the Independent Historians’ Commission of the German Foreign Office and Nazism and its Aftermath. Ryan Stackhouse is a historian of Europe specializing in modern Germany and political policing unde

Despite her prominent role in the women’s suffrage movement in Great Britain, Christabel Pankhurst has not received the same degree of attention from scholars that had been given to her mother Emmeline or her sister Sylvia. In Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography (Routledge, 2018), June Purvis offers a thorough accounting of her life, revealing the full extent of her contribution to the campaign to win for women in Britain the right to vote. The eldest daughter of Emmeline and Richard Pankhurst, Christabel grew up in a household in which commitment to social reform was stressed as the highest value. Even before her graduation from university Christabel helped establish the Women’s Social and Political Union, which won national prominence through its pursuit of militant activism. Though Christabel’s activities forced her to move to France in 1912 in order to avoid arrest, she returned soon after the start of the First World War in order to support her nations war effort. Her belief that such support would earn w

Few would dispute that Hitler’s ideas led to war and genocide. Less clear however, is how and when those ideas developed. In his latest book, Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi (Basic Books, 2017), Thomas Weber highlights the years between 1918 and 1926 as the period in which Hitler’s worldview developed. Challenging Hitler’s own narrative, as well as the received wisdom it engendered, Weber puts paid to the idea that the future dictator was radicalized in Vienna or during the First World War. Instead, he portrays Hitler as someone whose ideas were constantly evolving up to and even after he wrote his political testament, Mein Kampf. Using an array of previously untapped sources, Weber offers a nuanced picture of Hitler, presenting him not only as a rabid ideologue, but as a careful and strategic thinker who was prepared to adapt his behavior, even his ideas, should the circumstances require it. Thomas Weber is Professor of History and International Affairs at Aberdeen University. His twitter handle is @T

As a believer in free thought, a campaigner for women’s rights, and as a supporter of abolition, Ernestine Rose had no shortage of causes to advocate. In The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer (Oxford University Press, 2017), Bonnie Anderson explores the life of a remarkable 19th-century activist who dedicated herself to changing society for the better. Even as a young girl growing up in Russian-occupied Poland, Rose questioned the limitations imposed her by the beliefs of her time. As a teenager, she resisted the demands of her community and set out on her own by moving to Berlin. From there she made her way to London, where she encountered Robert Owen and embraced his philosophy. Upon her move to the United States in 1836 she became a public speaker and activist, working alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and others to change public opinion and advance reform. Though Rose saw her efforts to end slavery vindicated with the passage of the T

In today’s podcast we talked to Dr. Sandra Greene about her book Slave Owners of West Africa. Decision Making in the Age of Abolition published in 2017 by Indiana University Press. In this book Dr. Greene presents us with the biographies of three individuals who lived in the southeastern corner of what is today the Republic of Ghana between the mid-nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. These men became wealthy and prominent in their own communities largely through their trading activities. They had multiple wives and dependents many of whom were slaves. By documenting the lives of these three men—Amegashie Afeku of Keta, Nyaho Tamakloe of Anlo, and Noah Yawo of Ho Kpenoe—Dr. Greene examines the different ways in which they confronted the processes of European colonization and the abolition of slavery. As slaveholders, all three had much to lose from these transitions and yet, they all adopted different positions and strategies. What personal, political and economic factors informed t

Abu Nasr Al-Farabi (c. 872 – c. 950) a philosopher who wrote on politics, metaphysics, and logic as well as mathematics, psychology, and music, was known by Jews, Christians, and Muslims as the “second teacher,” second only to Aristotle. Although little of his biography is known, we have many of his works that were instrumental in preserving and adapting the Greek philosophical heritage in an Islamic idiom in the Middle Ages. Until the work of Leo Strauss and his students, Alfarabi was largely a forgotten figure to modern scholars. Today’s podcast is a discussion with Alexander Orwin about his new book Redefining the Muslim Community: Ethnicity, Religion, and Politics in the Thought of Alfarabi (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), a synthetic study across Alfarabi’s disparate oeuvre that weaves a thematic treatment of notions such as language, nationhood, religion, and politics with an analysis of each of his works in turn. Using the term umma (literally “nation,” although inclusive of terms like civili

Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment (Notting Hill Editions, 2017) is a fascinating account by one of the world’s leading and most decorated neurologists of the profound influence of William Burroughs on his medical career. Dr. Andrew Lees relates how Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and troubled drug addict, inspired him to discover a ground-breaking treatment for Parkinson’s Disease, and learns how to use the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes to diagnose patients. Lees follows Burroughs into the rainforest and under the influence of yage (ayahuasca) gains insights that encourage him to pursue new lines of pharmacological research and explore new forms of science. Jeremy Corr is the co-host of the hit Fixing Healthcare podcast along with industry thought leader Dr. Robert Pearl. A University of Iowa history alumnus, Jeremy is curious and passionate about all things healthcare, which means he’s always up for a good discussion! Reach him at jeremyccorr@gmail.com. Learn more about your

When folklorist Jean Freedman first met Peggy Seeger in 1979, Freedman was an undergraduate on her junior year abroad in London, while her American compatriot had been living in the UK for two decades. Their encounter took place in the Singers’ Club, a folk music venue that Seeger and her husband Ewan MacColl founded in the early 1960s and to which Freedman returned many times during her London sojourn. After Freedman returned to the States, the pair kept in touch for a while but their contact became increasingly sporadic. However, it began again in earnest when the folklorist emailed Seeger to check some facts for a writing assignment. During their subsequent exchange, Seeger asked if Freedman might know of anyone who would be interested in writing her biography. Immediately, Freedman volunteered herself. Eight years, many interviews, and much text-based research later, Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love, and Politics (University of Illinois Press, 2017) is the result. As the book’s subtitle suggests, Free

Though he never enjoyed the fame of his contemporaries Mozart and Haydn, Antonio Rosetti was a successful composer whose works received a wide audience. In his book, The Career of an Eighteenth-Century Kapellmeister: The Life and Music of Antonio Rosetti (University of Rochester Press, 2014), Sterling Murray provides readers with both an account of Rosetti’s career and a style study of his compositions. As a young man Rosetti found employment as a double bass player at the southern German court of Kraft Ernst, Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein. There he began composing a wide range of instrumental music for the court, eventually rising to the position of kapellmeister for the courts Hofkapelle. A sojourn in Paris in 1781-82 enhanced Rosetti’s growing reputation by providing opportunities for publishing his music while exposing him to a wider range of styles, an experience which was soon reflected in his compositions. While financial concerns led to his relocation to the court of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1789, hi

Eddie Cantor was once among the most popular performers in the United States. He was influential and innovative on stage, radio, and film from the early twentieth century though the early 1960s. He is not widely known today, however, despite his importance in his time. In a new biography, David Weinstein discusses Cantor, his work, his times, and his politics. The Eddie Cantor Story: A Jewish Life in Performance and Politics (Brandeis University Press, 2017) explains the many ways Cantor’s work was representative of the period, but also the ways he pushed the boundaries of entertainment during his career. Cantor was Jewish and unlike many of his Jewish contemporaries in the business, he did not hide or shy away from his background either in performance or in politics. In this episode of New Books in History, Weinstein discusses his biography of Cantor. He talks about Cantor’s career and his anti-Nazi activism and the importance of his Jewish heritage is shaping his career and political activism. Weinstein al

Benedito/Baruch/Benedict Spinoza (1623-1677) lived at the crossroads of Dutch, scholastic, and Jewish worlds. Excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam at 23, his works would later be put on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books. He was a heretic. And yet, he was and continues to be seen by many as perhaps the hero of the early modern period. A figure alienated by the structures that defined his life, Spinoza has been understood, by Jews and non-Jews alike, to have expressed a powerful self-definition that echoes to the present day, where biographies, plays, “guides”, and academic works continue to abound. In place of a simplistic origin story or master narrative of a modernity that begins with Spinoza, The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image (Princeton University Press, 2012), tells the story of how Spinoza came to be understood as a cultural hero, a reception history of his image at many crucial junctures in Modern Jewish history. Rather than probing his philosophy or

American Cicero: Mario Cuomo and the Defense of American Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2017) is a compelling exploration of the political life of Governor Mario Cuomo as well as the concepts of American liberalism, presidential politics, our understandings of governors in the United States, and the geographic and political shifts that transpired during the latter half of the twentieth century. While Saladin Ambar‘s book focuses specifically on Cuomo’s life, his engagement with Democratic politics, his speeches, it is much broader in scope and in importance as an analysis of the changing dynamics in American politics as the sun set on the New Deal and, in its place, we observed the rise of the Reagan Revolution and the Conservative movement. Ambar examines Cuomo not just as a politician and elected official, but also as theorist about the role of government in the lives of modern Americans. This is why he is dubbed the American version of the Cicero. Ambar’s book would be of interest to those who study

Through his work as a scholar and critic, Alain Locke redefined African American culture and its place in American life. Jeffrey Stewart‘s book The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke (Oxford University Press, 2018) offers a detailed examination of Locke’s life, one that reveals his many achievements and how they changed the nation. Born into a middle-class family in Pennsylvania, his mother worked to ensure that Locke had the best education possible. After graduating from Harvard and spending three years in Europe as the first African American Rhodes Scholar, Locke returned to the United States and took a position at Howard University. In the 1920s he encouraged African Americans to embrace their own cultural past, becoming one of the leading promoters of the Harlem Renaissance then emerging in the country. Though his relationship with its leading figures was often fraught with tension, Locke never gave up his advocacy of Afro-American cultural identity, which he continued for the rest of his life through his

While Stanley Kramer is considered a successful producer and director of many films as Hollywood moved out of the studio era, he also was criticized for his lesser skills as a director, as well as his liberal beliefs that permeated many of his movies. In Producer of Controversy: Stanley Kramer, Hollywood Liberalism and the Cold War (University Press of Kansas, 2017), Jennifer Frost, Associate Professor of History at the University of Auckland presents a new study of Kramer’s films, emphasizing four of his popular message films. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

James Delbourgo‘s new book Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane (Allen Lane, 2017) tells the fascinatingly complex and controversial story of Hans Sloane, the man whose collection and last will laid the foundation for the British Museum, the first national, free, public museum. For Delbourgo, Sloane was for far too long an overlooked figure, who knitted together the interests of a rising empire through methods of botany, natural history and medicine. Overshadowed in part by his counterpart Isaac Newton, Sloane’s life synchronizes with the changes from seventeenth-century England to eighteenth-century Britain. His life and the time are deeply interwoven with slavery and a new world of commerce. It was thanks to this interconnected world and the many intermediaries that Sloane managed to accumulate so many weird and wonderful objects from different places. He collected, catalogued, and exhibited them according to his own belief system, which centered around binaries of enlightenment vers

Described upon his death in 1887 as the ideal diplomatist, Richard Lyons served Great Britain in a variety of roles over the course of a long and distinguished career. In Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), Brian Jenkins describes Lyons’s eventful life and the often subtle impact he made in international relations. The son of an officer in the Royal Navy, Lyons was long drawn to diplomatic service. Sent to Greece as an aide soon after finishing his education, he rose steadily through the ranks over the course of a series of postings in Europe. Named minister to the United States in 1858, Lyons arrived to witness the emergence of secession, and he spent much of his tenure in America grappling with the challenges posed by the war that resulted. His success in such extraordinary circumstances cemented his reputation and led to his appointment as ambassador, first to the Ottoman Empire, then to France, where he served during the fall of Napoleon III’s S

The debate over Margaret Mead’s and Derek Freeman’s conflicting ethnographic reports has gone on for decades. While no longer a hot topic, Mead-Freeman stands as a testament to the power and, sometimes, imprecision of social scientific inquiry. In his new book, Truth’s Fool: Derek Freeman and the War over Cultural Anthropology (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017), Peter Hempenstall (emeritus professor of history at the University of Canterbury and conjoint professor of history at the University of Newcastle) gives an unprecedented look at the life and works of a controversial figure in the making of modern anthropology. In this interview, we discuss how cultural and nationalistic biases played a role in the Mead-Freeman controversy, whether or not Freeman suffered from mental illness, and why the man is often misrepresented in the history of the discipline. Jared Miracle is an anthropologist and folklorist whose research areas include violence, education, and digital culture. He is the author of Now with

It was a year that at times left Lyndon Johnson feeling as though he was living in a continuous nightmare. Yet as Kyle Longley describes in his book LBJ’s 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America’s Year of Upheaval (Cambridge University Press, 2018), it was one in which he continued to engage with the many challenges confronting his presidency as he finished his term in office. That it would be his last year as president was not certain at the beginning of it, as he was expected by everyone to run for another term in the upcoming presidential election. Yet as Longley explains, health concerns and the divisions caused by the Vietnam War led Johnson to contemplate announcing during the State of the Union address that he would not seek another term. Even after he made his decision official in March, he continued to pursue an ambitious agenda that included new Great Society legislation, arms negotiations with the Soviets, and the nomination of his friend Abe Fortas as the next chief justice of the Sup