New Books in Early Modern History

About New Books in Early Modern History

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

Publisher

New Books Network

Category

history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

14 Mar 2008

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1,438 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   First Among Equals: Visions of Equality Before Egalitarianism with Teresa M. Bejan (Harvard UP, 2026)

   Today, political theorists and philosophers treat as axiomatic the claim that all persons are equal. Dig deeper, however, and what we mean by equality—and what it demands from us, politically and otherwise—is far from obvious. Does it mean that we are all the same, and so the same standards should apply indifferently to everyone? Or does it mean that we are all different in ways similarly deserving of respect? These questions, and many more, reflect the profound ambiguities and contradictions that have riddled the history of the idea of equality. First Among Equals: Visions of Equality Before Egalitarianism (Harvard UP, 2026) by Professor Teresa Bejan examines a radical turning point in that history. Since antiquity, influential legal and philosophical traditions have held that all humans are fundamentally equal. Yet these claims proved surprisingly at home in a world defined by social hierarchy, political exclusion, and enslavement. In seventeenth-century England, the meaning—and practical circumstances—of equality began to change. Political philosopher Dr. Bejan traces this transformation, revealing how equality finally became a concrete and actionable political ideal. Crucially, Professor Bejan shows that influential early modern theorists of equality—chief among them Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and the early feminist Mary Astell—were responding to the increasingly radical visions proffered by contemporary social movements like the Levellers, Diggers, and Quakers. Inspired by the Leveller leader John Lilburne, these movements insisted that equality must be a basis on which ordinary men and women could demand to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with elites. These early modern activists and philosophers can still enchant us today, Dr. Bejan argues, while also helping us to restore the power of equality as a political ideal. 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 Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

2. 

   18 Oct 2026

   Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent with John William Nelson (UNC Press, 2023)

   Edward Blum interviews John William Nelson, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent (UNC Press, 2023) In early North America, carrying watercraft—usually canoes—and supplies across paths connecting one body of water to another was essential in the establishment of both Indigenous and European mobility in the continent’s interior. The Chicago portage, a network of overland canoe routes that connected the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds, grew into a crossroads of interaction as Indigenous and European people vied for its control during early contact and colonization. John William Nelson charts the many peoples that traversed and sought power along Chicago’s portage paths from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, including Indigenous Illinois traders, French explorers, Jesuit missionaries, Meskwaki warriors, British officers, Anishinaabe headmen, and American settlers. Nelson compellingly demonstrates that even deep within the interior, power relations fluctuated based on the control of waterways and local environmental knowledge. Pushing beyond political and cultural explanations for Indigenous-European relations in the borderlands of North America, Nelson places environmental and geographic realities at the center of the history of Indigenous Chicago, offering a new explanation for how the United States gained control of the North American interior through a two-pronged subjugation of both the landscapes and peoples of the continent.

3. 

   18 Oct 2026

   Islamic Ethics and Spiritual Sovereignty: Genres of Tradition in Muslim South Asia with Ali Altaf Mian (U Notre Dame Press, 2026)

   Islamic Ethics and Spiritual Sovereignty: Genres of Tradition in Muslim South Asia (U Notre Dame 2026) explores the rich vast textual archive of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanavi, a South Asian Muslim theologian and Sufi.

Who has been a guest on New Books in Early Modern History

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Violet Moller
• Alice Hunt
• Andreas Beyer
• Mark Somos
• Matthew Cleary

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

243

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.7 / 5

6 ratings

Spotify

4.5 / 5

13 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 81 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

98

Social presence

0

YouTube

72

Engagement

90

Contact New Books in Early Modern History

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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