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Between 1990 and 2020, women candidates won only 6% of the worldâs presidential races. How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America (Temple University Press, 2026) explains the factors, strategies, and perceptions
that help (or hinder) women to democratically access their countryâs
highest political office. Dr. Catherine Reyes-Housholder introduces a
theory of gendered incentives and perceived potential to reveal why a
political party would break with tradition and nominate a woman. She
also shows how citizens respond when women candidates are running in
incumbent parties or competing to displace those in power.
ï»żDrawing on comparative research on the presidency and gender, How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America
examines the successful campaigns of Michelle Bachelet in Chile and
Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as why Blanca Ovelar lost her
presidential race in Paraguay. Dr. Reyes-Housholderâs findings indicate
that voter sexism is not a major factor; however, women do not triumph
in these elections in the same ways that men do. Rather, the central
unknown factor behind womenâs victories is how they become candidates of
major partiesâand gender profoundly influences who parties nominate.
ï»żThis interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Mirandaâs interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. ï»ż
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Shelly Lundberg "How Economics Discovered Women: Bringing Gender Economics into the Twenty-First Century" (U California Press, 2026)
In the 1970s, as women started to enter the labor force in unprecedented numbers, economists began to examine their roles as economic actors. The result was the rise of gender economics, now a major subfield with powerful data and new methods comparing the economic lives of men and women. Yet despite decades of progress, many of the most consequential questions about gender inequality remain unresolved.
In How Economics Discovered Women: Bringing Gender Economics into the Twenty-First Century (U California Press, 2026), renowned economist and demographer Dr. Shelly Lundberg argues that the problem is not a lack of evidence but a failure to challenge entrenched economic models and outmoded assumptions about markets and gender that have limited what the field can explain.
Why does occupational segregation persist? Why do "women's jobs" pay less? Why are men falling behind in education? And why do policies like paternity leave fail to change behavior? Drawing on more than five decades in the field and integrating insights from other social sciences, Dr. Lundberg explains signs of recent progress and charts a path toward a more realistic, socially grounded economics capable of meeting the challenges of gender inequality today.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Mirandaâs interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Jane Draycott, "Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome" (Yale UP, 2025)
Fulvia was born into wealth, privilege, and prestige around the year 80 BCE, yet there was nothing inherently special about herâshe was not a saint, an empress, or a queen. But during the years leading up to the fall of the Roman Republic, Fulvia was moving in the most powerful social circles, and by her death in 40 BCE she had amassed a degree of political and military power unprecedented for a woman.
Fulviaâs success came at considerable cost, however. None of her three marriages to politically powerful menâmost famously to Marc Antonyâlasted, and three of her five children died violently. She was repeatedly ridiculed for daring to step outside the confines of the domestic sphere. The deliberate and systematic destruction of her reputation shaped her legacy for two millennia.Ample literary, documentary, and archaeological sources for Fulvia exist, yet most contemporary depictions of her were extremely negative. InÂ ï»żFulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome (Yale UP, 2025) historian Jane Draycott, reading between the lines of the ancient evidence, proposes a more nuanced interpretation. Using Fulvia as a guide, she invites readers to visit an unfamiliar Rome, one in which women played a crucial role during Romeâs violent transition from a republic to the dictatorship of the Roman Empire.
Jane Draycott is a historian and archaeologist, and the author of Cleopatraâs Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow and co-director of the universityâs Games and Gaming Lab.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.
YouTube Channel:Â here
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Rick Ramseyer, "Girl Without a Country: The Untold Story of a Landmark Fight for U.S. Citizenship" (Purdue UP, 2026)
Should willingness to kill be a requirement for U.S. citizenship? Girl Without a Country: The Untold Story of a Landmark Fight for U.S. Citizenship (Purdue University Press, 2026) by Rick Ramseyer tells the compelling, confounding story of Martha Graberâa Mennonite, registered nurse, and conscientious objector who in 1929 was twice denied citizenship because she refused to say she would take up arms to defend the United States. The unexpected denials, which came despite Martha's pledge to give her life for her adopted country, caught the attention of a diverse group of peace advocates, religious leaders, lawyers, and politicians, setting up a climactic third court appearance.
Marthaâs nineteen-month fight for citizenship made national news, featuring dramatic testimony, historical insights, and interesting backstories that stretched from Alsace-Lorraine in western Europe to Americaâs heartland. Elegantly written by Marthaâs maternal grandson with never-before-published details and closely connected with a controversial Supreme Court decision, Girl Without a Country surfaces an array of topical issues, ranging from immigration and naturalization to conscientious objection and patriotism. Perhaps most importantly, Marthaâs story considers what it truly means to be an American.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Mirandaâs interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Younus Y. Mirza, "The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries" (Fortress Press, 2025)
Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been historically revered throughout the Islamic tradition. This began already in the Qur'an, where she is called by the name "Maryam." The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries (Fortress Press, 2025) examines the varied appearances of Maryam in different Islamic cultural and theological contexts. The chapters in this history extend from Maryam's scriptural mentions in the Qur'an and the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, her appearances in medieval debates regarding prophecy, citations of her virtuous model in Sufi discussions of piety, presentations in art and film, through to her role in modern interfaith relations.
Younus Y. Mirza is the Founding Director of the Barzinji Institute for Global Virtual Learning at Shenandoah University. He defended his dissertation in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Georgetown University and has taught at Millsaps and Allegheny Colleges. His research focuses on the relationship between the Bible and the Qurâan and the shared stories between them
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.
YouTube Channel:Â here
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Descended from Mughal nobility, Akhtar al-Nisa Begum Nawab Sarbuland ï»żJung grew up in Hyderabad in southern India, where she lived a quiet, ï»żprivate, and privileged life at the heart of the state's royal court. Inï»ż 1896, at the age of 20, she married Nawab Muhammad Hamidullah Khan ï»żSarbuland Jung, a prominent lawyer and the scion of a leading MuslimÂ ï»żreformist movement. In 1909, the wealthy couple embarked on a four-monthï»ż journey through the Middle East and Europe, performing the hajj in ï»żMecca and sitting for tea with the future king and queen of England.
A Journey to Mecca and Londonï»ż:Â ï»żThe Travels of an Indian Muslim Woman, 1909â1910 (Indiana University Press, 2025) provides
the first full English translation of Begum Sarbuland's Urdu ï»żtravel
diary from this journey, of which only three original copies ï»żremain.
Originally intended for circulation among friends and family andï»ż later
published, her informal entries not only reveal the everyday ï»żpractices
of an Indian woman of her time, but also detail her ï»żimpressions and
reactions as she explored the world alongside her ï»żhusband. As Begum
Sarbuland encountered other women and Muslims during ï»żher travels, those
encounters shaped her reassessment of her own ï»żidentity as a Muslim
woman. Her observations hold continued significanceï»ż for readers
interested in critical questions about gender, Islam, and ï»żidentity.
Daniel Majchrowicz has thoroughly annotated his translation ï»żand paired
it with rich appendices, including a biographical sketch of ï»żBegum
Sarbuland and excerpts from Hamidullah Khan's own accounts of ï»żtheir
journey.
Engagingly written and enriched with years of original research, archival work, and family interviews, A Journey to Mecca and Londonï»ż
restores the nearly forgotten narrative of one of India's first Muslim
ï»żwomen travel writers to its rightful place in Indian and Islamic
ï»żhistory.
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Leopoldina Fortunati, "The Arcana of Reproduction: Housewives, Prostitutes, Workers and Capital" (Verso, 2025)
The definitive feminist analysis of reproductive and âcaringâ labor to emerge from Italian feminism of the 1970s.
Emerging from the great social upheavals that contested the sexual and racial divisions of labor globally in the 1970s, Leopoldina Fortunatiâs classic work expands and transforms how we analyze the sphere of reproduction, redefining the value of the individualâs life and the labor performed in the home.
Released here for the first time in its unabridged form with historical notation and contemporary commentary, The Arcana of Reproduction: Housewives, Prostitutes, Workers and CapitalÂ ï»ż(Verso, 2025) is a foundational text and essential contribution to todayâs discussions of social reproduction and the history of Italian feminism. Fortunatiâs work provides some of the earliest theorizations of âimmaterial,â âaffective,â and âcaringâ labor, and of the role of technology in reproduction, articulated decades before their popular reception in English academic literature. Reading this work some 50 years after its original publication gives us the tools to analyze the contemporary state of capitalist development and of womenâs lives today. The text remains prefigurative and essential in our era of digital labor.
Leopoldina Fortunatiï»żÂ was a core member of Lotta Femminsta and the Wages for Housework Movement internationally. Along with Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Selma James and Silvia Federici, she composed many of the groupâs core theoretical and political texts. Her early work continues to inform movements concerned with struggles over reproduction globally and in subsequent work as a theorist of media and technology, Fortunati has been at the vanguard of contemporary theory addressing the relation between gendered labor and technology.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.
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Valena Beety, "Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity" (New Press, 2026)
A woman miscarriesâand is charged with murder. A new mother tests
positive for a drug her hospital administeredâand loses custody of her
newborn. Four women are convicted of horrific crimes against children
they never touched, based on junk science and homophobiaâand spend
nearly twenty years in prison before being exonerated. A queer teenager
takes a photo of a childâs diaper rash at workâand is sentenced to 126
years. These cases are not aberrations. They are symptoms of a system
that punishes women and queer people not for what they have done, but
for who they are.
In the United States, nearly three-quarters of all wrongly convicted
women were convicted of crimes that never occurred at all. In Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity
(New Press, 2026), Dr. Valena Beety, co-founder of the Indiana Innocence
Project and award-winning legal scholar cited by Justice Sonia
Sotomayor, reveals how ordinary tragediesâa childâs sudden death, a
husband who dies in his sleepâare transformed by prosecutors into
murders that never happened. These âno crimeâ convictions
disproportionately target women and queer people, whose identities are
recast as evidence of guilt through bias, junk science, and entrenched
stereotypes.
ï»żDrawing on devastating real-life cases, Dr. Beety
exposes how prosecutorial overreach, flawed forensic science, and
cultural panic convergeâand how fetal personhood laws, the fall of Roe
v. Wade, and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation have dramatically expanded the
reach of criminal law. What emerges is a chilling portrait of a legal
system that increasingly criminalizes pregnancy outcomes, motherhood,
and queer identity itself.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Mirandaâs interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Steven K. Green, "American Infidelity: The Gilded Age Battle Over Freethought, Free Love, and Feminism" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Today I'm speaking with Steven K. Green, Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History and Religious Studies at Willamette University. We are discussing his book, American Infidelity: The Gilded Age Battle Over Freethought, Free Love, and Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2026). Since the first permanent Protestant settlement in Jamestown in 1607, Protestant Christianity has waxed and waned through a series of revivals, migrations, and challenges from alternative faiths like Catholicism and Mormonism. The Gilded Age, from roughly 1870 to 1900, was a unique period for Protestantism in American history. Most Americans still subscribed to a Protestant faith, though threats began to arise not from other confessions, but rather from philosophical and scientific challengers. The so-called freethinkers represented a broad range of beliefs and ideas, being united by a mutual skepticism of religious conservatism and traditional sexual and gender mores. American Infidelity tells the story of this tug-of-war for the soul of a nation, with Christianity on one side and the legacy of thinkers like Thomas Paine on the other.
Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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