New Books in History

Manuela Ceballos, "Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean" (U California Press, 2025)

Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Adrian Masters, "The Radical Spanish Empire: How Paperwork Politics Remade the New World" (Harvard UP, 2026)

Jessica Clarke, "A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre" (Liverpool UP, 2025)

A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre challenges the traditional literary-centric view of Roman performance by centering archaeological evidence. Historian and archaeologist Dr. Jessica Clarke demonstrates that theatrical culture in Italy evolved through indigenous "theatre temples" long before Rome established its ow...

Kim Bowes, "Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent" (Princeton UP, 2025)

The economic reality of the 90% of the Roman population often excluded from traditional, elite-focused historical narratives reveals a highly productive, interconnected society. Archaeological evidence, including "everyday writing" like account books and shopping lists, demonstrates that ordinary people engaged in comp...

Michelle Adams, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North" (FSG Press, 2025)

The Augustan Revolution: On Ancient Rome with Reece Edmends

Mike Pitts, "Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Elliot B. Hanowski, "Towards a Godless Dominion: Unbelief in Interwar Canada" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2023)

Daneesh Majid, "The Hyderabadis: From 1947 to the Present Day" (Harper Collins, 2025)

Caroline Sharples, "The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History" (Yale UP, 2026)

The death of Adolf Hitler represents a unique historical case where the absence of a public demise fueled decades of global speculation, rumors, and intense investigative scrutiny. Dr. Caroline Sharples, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Roehampton, examines how the lack of a visible end necessitated Al...

Maud Anne Bracke, "Reproductive Rights in Modern France: Reproductive Rights in Modern France: Feminism, Contraception, and Abortion, 1950-1980 (Oxford UP, 2025)

Karen Dubinsky, "Strangely, Friends: A History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters" (Between the Lines, 2025)

Danielle Wiggins, "Black Excellence: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Black Liberalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

Guoqi Xu, "The Idea of China: A Contested History" (Harvard UP, 2026)

Paul Gillingham, "Mexico: A 500-Year History" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025)

Rebecca Sharpless, "People of the Wheat: Culture and Cultivation in North Texas" (U Texas Press, 2026)

Lucy Lavers et al.," Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain" (Penguin, 2025)

Rachel Walther, "Born to Lose: The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon" (Headpress, 2026)

Daniel Brook, "The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)

Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneering 20th-century sexologist, challenged rigid societal binaries through his theory of sexual relativity, which posited that gender and sexual orientation exist on a vast, diverse spectrum. As an intellectual leader in Weimar Berlin, Hirschfeld established the Institute for Sexual Science, pr...

Amelia Acker, "Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms" (MIT Press, 2025)