Ranked #1
Daniel Skinner, "Medical Necessity: Health Care Access and the Politics of Decision Making" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)
Daniel Skinner, "Medical Necessity: Health Care Access and the Politics of Decision Making" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)
The definition of medical necessity has morphed over the years, from a singular physician’s determination to a complex a... Read more
24 Feb 2020
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32mins
Ranked #2
Aimi Hamraie, “Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability” (U Minnesota Press, 2017)
Aimi Hamraie, “Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability” (U Minnesota Press, 2017)
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and... Read more
25 Apr 2018
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44mins
Ranked #3
Sarah Reckhow, "Outside Money in School Board Elections: The Nationalization of Education Politics" (Harvard Education Press, 2019)
Sarah Reckhow, "Outside Money in School Board Elections: The Nationalization of Education Politics" (Harvard Education Press, 2019)
Who funds local school board elections? Local residents or major donors living elsewhere? Jeffrey R. Henig, Rebecca Jaco... Read more
5 Apr 2019
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26mins
Ranked #4
Rob Reich, "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can Do Better" (Princeton UP, 2018)
Rob Reich, "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can Do Better" (Princeton UP, 2018)
How political are private foundations? Are they good or bad for democracy? Such are the big questions taken up by Rob Re... Read more
5 Dec 2018
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25mins
Ranked #5
Ruha Benjamin, "Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code" (Polity, 2019)
Ruha Benjamin, "Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code" (Polity, 2019)
From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging techn... Read more
19 Nov 2019
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56mins
Ranked #6
Domingo Morel, “Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy” (Oxford UP, 2018)
Domingo Morel, “Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy” (Oxford UP, 2018)
When the state takes over, can local democracy survive? Over 100 school districts have been taken over by state governme... Read more
21 Mar 2018
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26mins
Ranked #7
Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro, “Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the Humanities” (Princeton UP, 2017)
Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro, “Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the Humanities” (Princeton UP, 2017)
The vast chasm between classical economics and the humanities is widely known and accepted. They are profoundly differen... Read more
2 Nov 2018
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48mins
Ranked #8
Philip M. Napoli, "Social Media and the Public Interest: Media Regulation in the Disinformation Age" (Columbia UP, 2019)
Philip M. Napoli, "Social Media and the Public Interest: Media Regulation in the Disinformation Age" (Columbia UP, 2019)
Philip M. Napoli has been thinking about algorithmic news and social media feed curation for quite some time, as he ackn... Read more
9 Dec 2019
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47mins
Ranked #9
Wendy Brown, "In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West" (Columbia UP, 2019)
Wendy Brown, "In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West" (Columbia UP, 2019)
Neoliberalism is one of those fuzzy words that can mean something different to everyone. Wendy Brown is one of the world... Read more
14 Oct 2019
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42mins
Ranked #10
Adam Tanner, “Our Bodies, Our Data: How Companies Make Billions Selling Our Medical Records” (Beacon Press, 2017)
Adam Tanner, “Our Bodies, Our Data: How Companies Make Billions Selling Our Medical Records” (Beacon Press, 2017)
Personal health information often seems locked-down: protected by patient privacy laws, encased in electronic record sys... Read more
28 Jun 2018
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56mins
Ranked #11
I. Gould Ellen and J. Steil, "The Dream Revisited: Contemporary Debates about Housing, Segregation, and Opportunity" (Columbia UP, 2019)
I. Gould Ellen and J. Steil, "The Dream Revisited: Contemporary Debates about Housing, Segregation, and Opportunity" (Columbia UP, 2019)
Why do people live where they do? What explains the persistence of residential segregation? Why is it complicated to add... Read more
25 Mar 2019
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59mins
Ranked #12
Michael A. McCarthy, “Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal” (Cornell UP, 2017)
Michael A. McCarthy, “Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal” (Cornell UP, 2017)
Over half of Americans approaching retirement age report having no money saved for retirement, but how did we get here a... Read more
7 Apr 2017
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53mins
Ranked #13
Jonathan D. Quick, “The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It” (St. Martin’s Press, 2018)
Jonathan D. Quick, “The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It” (St. Martin’s Press, 2018)
A leading doctor offers answers on the one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we prevent the next global p... Read more
16 Mar 2018
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49mins
Ranked #14
Jennifer Mittelstadt, “The Rise of the Military Welfare State” (Harvard UP, 2015)
Jennifer Mittelstadt, “The Rise of the Military Welfare State” (Harvard UP, 2015)
Have you seen those Facebook memes floating around, arguing that we shouldn’t support a 15-dollar -per-hour minimum wage... Read more
10 Dec 2015
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50mins
Ranked #15
Dave Chase, "The Opioid Crisis Wake Up Call: Health Care is Stealing the American Dream. Here is How We Take It Back" (Health Rosetta Media, 2018)
Dave Chase, "The Opioid Crisis Wake Up Call: Health Care is Stealing the American Dream. Here is How We Take It Back" (Health Rosetta Media, 2018)
The opioid crisis in America is considered by many to be the worst national public health crisis in the last 100 years. ... Read more
22 Jan 2019
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49mins
Ranked #16
Christopher Faricy, “Welfare for the Wealthy: Parties, Social Spending, and Inequality in the United States” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
Christopher Faricy, “Welfare for the Wealthy: Parties, Social Spending, and Inequality in the United States” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
Christopher Faricy makes a return visit to New Books Network for Part II of a conversation about Welfare for the Wealthy... Read more
12 Nov 2016
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54mins
Ranked #17
Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik, “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It” (Penguin, 2018)
Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik, “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It” (Penguin, 2018)
How can we learn from large system failures? In their new book Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About I... Read more
26 Jul 2018
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40mins
Ranked #18
Natasha Zaretsky, “Radiation Nation: Three Mile Island and the Political Transformation of the 1970s” (Columbia UP, 2018)
Natasha Zaretsky, “Radiation Nation: Three Mile Island and the Political Transformation of the 1970s” (Columbia UP, 2018)
What if modern conservatism is less a reaction to environmentalism than a mutation of it? Historian Natasha Zaretsky’s l... Read more
9 Apr 2018
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1hr 1min
Ranked #19
K. Aronoff, et al., "A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal" (Verso, 2019)
K. Aronoff, et al., "A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal" (Verso, 2019)
In early 2019, freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Senator Ed Markey proposed a bold new piece of legis... Read more
14 Apr 2020
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1hr 44mins
Ranked #20
Randy Shaw, “Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America?” (U California Press, 2018)
Randy Shaw, “Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America?” (U California Press, 2018)
Why is housing so expensive in so many cities, and what can be done about it? Join us as we speak with long-time San Fra... Read more
21 Nov 2018
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33mins