The Great Women of History
Celebrating Women's History Month, Fast 5 with Timothy P. Barnard, Book Spotlight, and Meet a Host
“In 1931, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend’s flight lesson. It changed her life, and she went on to become the first Asian American to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots.”
In this week’s newsletter…
Women’s History Month Picks
Fast 5 with Timothy P. Barnard
Book Spotlight: The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider's Guide to Changing the World
Meet a Host: Susan Liebell
Women’s History Month Picks
Every March the United States celebrates Women’s History Month. This commemoration originated in 1980 after the National Women’s History Project (now The National Women’s History Alliance) lobbied for national recognition. President Jimmy Carter issued a statement recognizing March 2-8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week. Then in 1987, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9, which designated the month of March 1987 as "Women's History Month." Now, every March we celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields. This year’s theme is “Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations”
We have chosen five recent interviews with scholars who examine women’s lives and contributions to society. And be sure to subscribe to New Books in Women’s History to listen to great interviews year-round!
In 1931, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend’s flight lesson. It changed her life, and she went on to become the first Asian American to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. American Flygirl (Citadel Press, 2024) is the untold account of a spirited fighter and an indomitable hidden figure in American history. Listen to Susan Tate Ankeny discuss her book about the life of this remarkable woman who challenged social restrictions to succeed.
In Pink Cars and Pocketbooks: How American Women Bought Their Way into the Driver's Seat (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025), Dr. Jessica Brockmole examines the evolution of women's automotive participation and the cultural shifts that have redefined their roles as drivers, mechanics, and consumers. Through analysis of market research studies, advertising archives, trade journals, women's magazines, newspapers, driving handbooks, and repair manuals, Brockmole demonstrates how women bought their way into the automobile and masculine car culture. She also illustrates how the auto industry evolved—as well as how it chose not to evolve—in response.
Check out Caroline Dunn’s interview with Jana Byars about her new book, Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England (Cambridge UP, 2025), which examines female attendants who served queens and aristocratic women during the late medieval period. Caroline uses a unique set of primary source–based statistics to reveal ladies-in-waiting as sophisticated players who earned significant rewards as they used their employment to advance their family and personal interests. She uncovers how these women worked within gendered spaces, building female-dominated social networks, while also operating within a masculine milieu that offered courtiers of both sexes access to power.
Tune in to Mary Frances Phillips as she immerses readers in the life and legacy of Ericka Huggins, a Black Panther Party member, as well as a mother, widow, educator, poet, and former prisoner. Drawing on never-before-seen archival sources, Phillips foregrounds the paramount role of self-care and community care in Huggins's political journey, shedding light on Ericka's use of spiritual wellness practices she developed during her incarceration. Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins (NYU Press, 2025) offers an innovative analysis of Black political life at the intersections of gender, motherhood, and mass incarceration.
In Women’s Transborder Cinema: Authorship, Stardom, and Filmic Labor in South Asia (University of Illinois Press, 2024), Esha Niyogi De asks: Can we write women’s authorial roles into the history of industrial cinema in South Asia? How can we understand women’s creative authority and access to the film business infrastructure in this postcolonial region? Tune in to learn about her exploration of these questions and her analysis of rare archival and oral sources. She also highlights analysis women holding influential positions as stars, directors, and producers across the film industries in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Fast Five: Timothy P. Barnard
This week Timothy P. Barnard shares his top 5 reads from his personal library. He is an Associate Professor of History at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include the environmental and cultural history of Southeast Asia. He is the author of Nature’s Colony: Empire, Nation and Environment in the Singapore Botanic Gardens (NUS Press, 2016) and Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819–1942 (NUS Press, 2019) as well as the editor of Singaporean Creatures: Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City (NUS Press, 2024).
The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton — This book introduced me to the possibilities of studying societies through the use of unusual sources and perspectives. Darnton takes the reader on a journey through the daily lives of peasants, nobles and intellectuals in pre-Revolutionary France through a consideration of a wide range of writings and how they were understood at the time. This is the work that convinced me to become a historian, and I return to it every few years as a reminder of the influence it had on me.
The Journals of Captain James Cook — During the lockdown for the global pandemic, I quickly ran through the books stacked at my bedside. This was among the last ones, and it took me on a journey that changed how we understand the world as well as how I saw it. That is the core of a good book. It also made me rethink what I was reading, leading to a decision to focus on books “we’re supposed to have read” outside my interest in Southeast Asia. While they are not necessarily appropriate for the “New” Books Network, as a historian it allows me to explore and understand the foundational texts that have shaped our perspectives while exploring accounts of new worlds, ideas and peoples.
The Persian Expedition (Anabasis) by Xenophon — This was one of the first books from my list of what “we’re supposed to have read.” A fascinating adventure describing Greek troops working their way through enemy territory in 401 BCE. It is filled with tension, action scenes and asides trying to explain how they got into such a mess, and the desire of the soldiers to return home. It has had a range of influences over time, from the tactics of Alexander the Great to the structure of modern literature, including the film The Warriors (1979), and my appreciation of the work grows each time I re-read it.
We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of LA Punk by Marc Spitz and Brendan Mullen — I always enjoy reading oral histories that follow the style of Studs Terkel. This work was published in response to Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, which placed a lot of emphasis on the scene in New York City, provides access to the stories of bands I followed during my teenage years, and allows for the voices of participants to shine. It also highlights the importance of editing the narrative to convey the desired story.
The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng — A novel depicting the modernization of Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s through the eyes of a resident in a coastal village. The author weaves her narrative through historical events in a decolonizing society while also discussing issues about the toil of modernization on the community. Plus, it is well-written and is one that I’ve begun recommending to visitors and residents of the place I call home.
Cover photo of The Great Reclamation
Listen to Timothy’s NBN interview about Singaporean Creatures: Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City to learn more about how Singapore’s creatures have been active participants in the making of Singapore’s urban future.
The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider's Guide to Changing the World
Séverine Autesserre is the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science, specializing in International Relations and African Studies, at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider's Guide to Changing the World was shortlisted for the Conflict Research Society 2022 Book of the Year Prize and is now available in English, French, and Japanese.
In this compelling work, Autesserre asks what strategies have worked to build lasting peace in conflict zones, particularly for ordinary citizens on the ground? And why should other ordinary citizens, thousands of miles away, care? She examines the peace industry, drawing on over 25 years of peacebuilding work, and research in 12 conflict zones across the globe. She shows that contrary to what most politicians preach, building peace doesn’t require billions in aid or massive international interventions. Real, lasting peace requires giving power to local citizens.
The Frontlines of Peace tells the stories of the ordinary yet extraordinary individuals and organizations that are confronting violence in their communities effectively. One thing is clear: Successful examples of peace building around the world, in countries at war or at peace, have involved innovative grassroots initiatives led by local people, at times supported by foreigners, often employing methods shunned by the international elite. By narrating success stories of this kind, Autesserre shows the radical changes we must take in our approach if we hope to build lasting peace around us—whether we live in Congo, the United States, or elsewhere.
Listen to Séverine’s interview with the NBN to hear more about her perspective on the peacebuilding industry and the changes that are necessary to build and sustain peace in conflict zones.
Then check out Susanna P. Campbell’s discussion of her 2018 book Global Governance and Local Peace: Accountability and Performance in International Peacebuilding. Her animating question is similar to Severine’s: why do international peacebuilding organizations sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, even within the same country? Listen to her draw on in-depth studies of organizations operating in Burundi over a 15-year period, combined with fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal, South Sudan, and Sudan as she investigates this question.
Tune into Melissa Johnston’s interview about her book, Building Peace, Rebuilding Patriarchy: The Failure of Gender Interventions in Timor-Leste. In this this book she explains why gender interventions often fail to help those who most need them, using the case of Timor-Leste, a country subjected to high levels of peacebuilding and gender interventions between 1999 and 2017. She analyzes 3 types of gender interventions—gender-responsive budgeting, the law against domestic violence, and microfinance initiatives and argues that these reforms have produced mixed results because they reinscribe entrenched class and gender hierarchies in their implementation.
Meet a Host: Susan Liebell
This week we chatted with Professor Susan Liebell, who frequently collaborates with Lilly Goren and Lamis Abdelaaty on the New Books in Political Science channel. Susan and Lilly also host the special series Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science All episodes are listed on our website here
Susan Liebell grew up in Queens, NY attending public school (including Queens College, CUNY) before her PhD at the University of Chicago. She has taught political science and public law for the last 20 years at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Her scholarship focuses on how old texts help illuminate new problems such as gun violence, reproductive rights, or environmental degradation. Since COVID, she has spoken to journalists in all mediums – and sees this as a way to translate what she learns in her research and NBN interviews.
Q: How did you first hear about the New Books Network?
A: Lilly Goren was hosting New Books in Political Science with Heath Brown, and I frequently listened to their interviews.
Q: What made you want to be a host for the NBN, and what do you enjoy most about it?
A: Honestly? I work in a very small department and my colleagues are very busy. I wanted to engage with some people I did not already know. Heath was leaving and Lilly suggested that I give it a try. Two things I love about the New Books in Political Science are the people that I meet and the books that I read. I don’t have the time to read a book about dark money in politics or the politics of appearance for Black women, but the podcast focuses me to make that time. Then these amazing authors bring the books to life further in the interview. Many of them become colleagues – and I recently contributed a chapter to a book edited by someone that I interviewed.
Q: How did y’all decide to work on the New Books in Political Science channel together?
A: Lilly and I were at a political theory conference in Irvine, California – sitting in a hot tub – and I told her that I wanted to do something outside of my own department. Lilly said Heath was stepping down as her co-host on the NBN, and suggested that I join. I thought she was kidding but Lilly, Heath, and Marshall helped me learn the technology ropes. Then, I interviewed Lamis for her phenomenal first book and I was so taken with Lamis’ conversational style that I asked if she’d like to join and do more of the global politics books.
Q: What do y’all enjoy about working together?
A: We are all so busy that working “together” usually means each of us focusing on our specialities and supporting each other in social media.
Q: What episode has been your favorite to record?
A: My favorite is an early one! I talked to the historian Peniel E. Joseph about his 2020 Basic Books, The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. I was pretty new – and nervous. He wrote me that the interview was among the very best that he had done. Later, I heard Terry Gross interview Peniel about the book on Fresh Air for NPR and it was fascinating to hear how much was the same – but then Terry Gross goes to the personal (like the role of his mom in his life). You can really see how different the NBN is!
Q: Do you have any interviews coming up that our readers should look out for?
A: Yes! I will be interviewing Amy Adamczyk on her Oxford UP book, Fetal Positions: Understanding Cross-National Public Opinion About Abortion.
Q: Outside of the political science realm, what has been your favorite episode (or channel) to listen to?
A: I am a huge fan of Miranda Melcher who is a historian with her own channel. Fabulous interviews and cool books!
Check out Miranda’s NBN Channel here:
Q: If you could record an NBN interview with anyone, who would it be?
A: Anyone ever? I’d interview Ida B. Wells about her book on lynching and the rule of law because it would be relevant to politics around the world today.
For someone who is still with us, I’d interview Barak Obama about his 2020 book Promised Land. I’ve heard a bunch of interviews but none of the people knew their political science – and it would be interesting to ask him some hard questions and find out if his views have changed since 2020.
Q: What advice would you give to anyone interested in becoming a host for NBN?
A: Don’t be afraid of the technology side. The NBN makes this pretty easy. But ask yourself if you have the time to sustain the podcast. You need time to make contact, follow-up, read, record, and send the NBN what they need for the show notes and edits. If you think you can do once a month, make that commitment but don’t overcommit!
Check out the New Books in Political Science to hear more from Susan, Lilly, and Lamis, and stay up-to-date on compelling scholarship in the field!
Is there a host that you’d like to learn more about? Email us or recommend them in the comments! Would you like to become an NBN host yourself? Check out our website here or email us for more information!
https://substack.com/@johnshane1/note/c-98951363