In two recent books, Greg Smits offers a history of earthquakes and seismology in Japan that creates a wonderful dialogue between history and the sciences. They’re books for anyone with an interest in the history of disaster, of the context of Fukushima, and of modern Japan, and we talked about both of them here. Continue reading Seismic Japan and When the Earth Roars: An Interview
Bill Connolly’s new book proposes a way to think about the world as a gathering of self-organizing systems or ecologies, and from there explores the ramifications and possibilities of this notion for how we think about and practice work with markets, politics, daily life, and beyond. It is wonderfully inspiring, and you can listen to us talking about it here. Continue reading The Fragility of Things: An Interview
David Livingstone’s new book traces the processes by which communities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that shared the same Scottish Calvinist heritage engaged with Darwin and Darwinians in different local contexts. This wonderful book locates evolutionary debates in particular sites and situations as a way of understanding the history of science in terms of “geographies of reading” and “speech spaces,” and you can listen to our … Continue reading Dealing with Darwin: An Interview
Tine Gammeltoft’s new book explores the process of reproductive decision making in contemporary Hanoi. Haunting Images develops an anthropology of belonging, paying special attention to the ways that women and their communities understand and make decisions based on ultrasound imaging technologies. You can listen to our conversation about the book here. Continue reading Haunting Images: An Interview
Steve Platt’s recent book is a beautifully written and intricately textured account of the Taiping Civil War, the bloodiest civil war of all time. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom situates the story of modern China within a broader, global history of civil war in the US and beyond, and you can listen to our conversation about it here. Continue reading Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: An Interview
Lisa Gitelman’s new book introduces readers to a way of thinking about documents as tools for creating bodily experience, and as material objects situated within hierarchies and relationships of labor. Working beautifully at the intersection of media studies and history, it curates a thoughtful and inspiring collection of moments from the expansion of a modern “scriptural economy.” You can listen to us talk about hit here. Continue reading Paper Knowledge: An Interview
Jay Carter’s new book follows the life of one man as a way of opening a window into the lived history of twentieth-century China, yet it is less a traditional biography than a life of an emergent modern nation as told through the experiences of a single individual whose relationships embodied the history of that nation in flesh, bones, and blood. You can listen to our … Continue reading Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: An Interview
In Omar Nasim’s new book, a series of fascinating characters sketch, paint, and etch their way toward a mapping of the cosmos and the human mind. His book examines the history of observation of celestial nebulae in the nineteenth century, exploring the relationships among the acts of seeing, drawing, and knowing in producing visual knowledge about the heavens and its bodies. We had a chance to talk about … Continue reading Observing by Hand: An Interview
Known primarily as a travel writer thanks to the frequent assignment of her Diary in high school history and literature classes, Nun Abutsu was a thirteenth-century poet, scholar, and teacher, and also a prolific writer. Christina Laffin’s new book explores Abutsu’s life and written works, taking readers in turn through her letters, memoirs, poems, prayers, and travel diary, among others. You can listen to our conversation about it here. Continue reading Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women: An Interview
Craig Martin’s new book carefully traces religious arguments for and against Aristotelianism from the eleventh through the eighteenth centuries. Based on a close reading of a staggering array of primary sources, his book subverts several assumptions about the connection between Aristotelian thought and the emergence of the new sciences in early modernity. You can listen to our conversation about it here. Continue reading Subverting Aristotle: An Interview
Carla Nappi 