The World Was in Our Hands
Featuring Jonathan Rauch's reading list
In this week’s newsletter:
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
Cross Purposes with Jonathan Rauch
The World Was in Our Hands with Chitra Nagarajan
Meet a Host: Reighan Gillam
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is this Saturday and Sunday at the University of Southern California. This festival will feature great events including live readings, children’s story times, and a paid ticketed event with the first National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. Read more about this year’s prize winners here so you can add their books to your reading list. Excluding ticketed events, the festival is free to the public so check it out!
Cross Purposes with Jonathan Rauch
Jonathan Rauch is one of America’s most influential journalists. As a writer interested in how social values shape beliefs, Jonathan’s thought-provoking new book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy explores the embittered relationship between Christian conservatism and secular liberalism. American political life appears divided by an uncrossable chasm. With media algorithms eager to feed us content to deepen our disgust and moral outrage, our situation often feels hopeless. We seem to only see the side of our political adversaries that is the most corrupted and least thoughtful.
In Cross Purposes, Jonathan addresses his own mistakes when it comes to understanding those with whom he disagrees. In an illuminating prologue titled “The Dumbest Thing I Ever Wrote,” addressed to his devout Christian college roommate Mark, Jonathan— in his own words: an “unrepentantly atheistic Jewish homosexual”— seeks to understand contemporary American Christianity with thoughtfulness, curiosity, and care. The outcome of his exploration is a meditation on how religion can be a source of democratic renewal. Religion and secular liberalism can coexist and enrich each other through mutual understanding.
Listen to our interview with Jonathan Rauch to learn more about Cross Purposes.
Jonathan has given us permission to reprint his “reading list” that helped him write this book. Check out his sources below:
Liberalism and its critics:
Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory
George F. Will, Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does
William Galston, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State
Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed
Adrian Vermeule, “Beyond Originalism”
Yoram Hazony, Conservatism: A Rediscovery
Matthew Rose, A World After Liberalism: Five Thinkers Who Inspired the Radical Right
Simon McCarthy-Jones, Freethinking: Protecting Freedom of Thought Amidst the New Battle for the Mind
Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and Its Discontents
Peter Berkowitz, “Anti-Liberal Zealotry”
Brink Lindsey’s Substack: Permanent Problem
Michael Walzer, “Notes on a Dangerous Mistake”
David Corey, “Against the Deformations of Liberalism”
Christianity and secularism:
Robert Wright, The Evolution of God
Christian Smith, Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters
Hugh Heclo, Christianity and American Democracy
Robert Tracy McKenzie, We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
Joseph Bottum, An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America
Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World
Religious trends and practices:
Ryan Burge’s Substack: Graphs About Religion
Robert P. Jones, The End of White Christian America
Stephen Bullivant, Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America
Jim Davis and Michael Graham, The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?
Bob Smietana, Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters
Tara Isabella Burton, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World
White evangelicalism in the United States:
Thomas S. Kidd, Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis
Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America
David A. Hollinger, Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular
Kristin Kobe Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
Jon Ward, Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation
Christine Rosen, My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood
Christian nationalism
Tobias Cremer, The Godless Crusade: Religion, Populism and Right-Wing Identity Politics in the West
Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag + the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy
Paul D. Miller, The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong with Christian Nationalism
David P. Gushee, Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Michael J. Lee and R. Jarrod Atchison, We Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776
Matthew J. Grow and R Eric Smith, eds., The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History
Terryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow, eds., Oxford Handbook of Mormonism
Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity
Terryl Givens and Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life
Civic theology
Michael Wear, The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life
Mark Labberton’s Fuller Theological Seminary address, “Beauty in Exile”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
The World Was in Our Hands
In April 2014, the Bring Back Our Girls campaign gained international attention after 276 girls were abducted from boarding school in Chibok, Borno State, Northeast Nigeria by Islamic militants known as Boko Haram. Politicians, activists, and celebrities around the world urged the public to join in demanding their return by using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. In her latest book, The World Was in Our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram Conflict (Cassava Republic Press, 2025) activist, researcher, and writer Chitra Nagarajan quickly points out that “Boko Haram” is a moniker for militants in the region invented by the media, and clarifies that this kidnapping was just one event in a much larger conflict that has continued since 2009.
In this compelling book, Chitra offers readers a more holistic understanding of the Boko Haram conflict by sharing the firsthand experiences and viewpoints of those who are living through it. After familiarizing readers with the historical, political, and social context of the Lake Chad Basin Region, which includes Eastern Nigeria, Southwest Chad, and Far North Cameroon, she draws on over 700 interviews to share the stories and views of a diverse range of people. Each chapter is a glimpse into a different person’s life story including women and men who joined militant groups—either by choice or coercion, soldiers, those who have escaped the conflict, and those who have tried to get by in its midst. Watch the trailer for this book that Chitra has kindly shared, and then listen to our fascinating interview where she discusses the research process, the stories she gathered, and her goal of creating an archive for the future.
Meet a Host: Reighan Gillam
Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research has been published in several journals and examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creations. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press).
Q: Can you briefly introduce yourself?
A: I am an anthropologist and ethnographer of Black visual culture. My research examines media produced by Afro-Brazilians in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I argue that their media foments anti-racism in its depictions of Afro-Brazilians and its divergence from mainstream media images of blackness. I follow the ways in which their media challenges Brazilian racial ideologies that tended to downplay and deny the existence of racism and discourage identifying as Black.
Q: What sparked your initial interest in becoming a scholar of Brazil?
A: A particular event indelibly marks my memory as the compass that pointed me to Latin America and its Afro-descendent communities. As an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, I attended a presentation by an Afro-Colombian activist about Black social movements in Colombia. I listened as a Black woman from Colombia informed us of the then current state of racism and anti-racist activism as well as other unrest in the country. After that, I enrolled in classes on Brazil and Race & Ethnicity in Latin America. A class with David Haberly at UVA sparked my interest in Brazil and I became intrigued with its history and culture. These early experiences laid the groundwork for me to apply to graduate school and propose a project on Black life and culture in Brazil. I have not looked back since then.
Q: What channels do you contribute to?
A: My home channel is New Books in Anthropology. My episodes also tend to appear in New Books in African American Studies, Latin American Studies, Caribbean Studies, Gender Studies, American Studies, and Critical Theory.
Q: How did you first hear about the New Books Network?
A: I heard about the New Books Network when my colleague (at the time) Martha Jones shared an interview that she did for her book, Birthright Citizens, with the host Adam McNeil for New Books in African American Studies. She posted the interview to her Facebook page and I listened to it.
Q: What made you want to be a host for NBN?
A: I was looking for a public project that I could get involved with or start on my own. Many of my friends who were in academia had public projects, such as writing op-eds for newspapers, writing publicly for media outlets, delivering public talks and lectures, organizing community outreach projects and disseminating their work online through Twitter and other sites. I was looking for something that worked for me.
After hearing Martha Jones’ interview with Adam McNeil, I liked the idea of the podcast and interviewing scholars about their books. What stood out to me, was that Adam McNeil was a graduate student. Adam had already done a large number of interviews and had honed a unique interview style. I figured that if graduate students were doing these interviews, then the forum was open to other academics. I decided to try podcasting with the New Books Network and if I didn’t like it, I would stop. Clearly, I enjoyed it because I’m still doing interviews six years later.
Q: What do you enjoy most about being an NBN host?
A: I have enjoyed the process of learning to structure interviews and carrying them out, communicating with potential interviewees, reading books with the intent to discuss them, crafting questions that elicit rich answers, and sharing the podcast with others. I am also delighted to create a space that helps to distribute the work of my colleagues to a wider audience. Finally, interviewing guests makes me feel like my own version of someone like Terry Gross on Fresh Air or other more public hosts who interview guests. I like facilitating public conversations and I like hearing people discuss their work.
Q: What episode has been your favorite to record?
A: I have really enjoyed recording all the episodes. I feel like picking a favorite is like a parent picking a favorite child, which I understand is discouraged. I don’t have a favorite but interviewing Tao Leigh Goffe about her book Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis was made memorable by her baby cooing in the background. When I interviewed Eziaku Atuama Nwokocha about her book Vodou en Vogue: Fashioning Black Divinities in Haiti and the United States, she gave me an extensive lesson on how to properly pronounce her name, which I appreciated. Lee D. Baker’s interview about From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954 was my first interview for a book’s anniversary.
Q: What has been your favorite episode or channel to listen to?
A: I listen to a lot of other channels and hosts. When I began interviewing, I found it helpful to listen to other interviews to pick up tips from other hosts’ techniques. I also listen because I’m interested in the books and content. I find myself regularly listening to Christina Gessler and her channel The Academic Life. I recently listened to her episode on The Burnout Workbook: Advice and Exercises to Help You Unlock the Stress Cycle with Amelia Nagoski. I find that her episodes touch on some aspect of academia that I would want to learn more about, and I like her interview style.
Q: If you could record an NBN interview with anyone, who would it be?
A: I would record an interview with Zora Neale Hurston. She was a Black woman anthropologist and writer that was so full of life and energy. She recently had a “new” book released called The Life of Herod the Great. I would interview her about her latest novel, and inquire about how her ethnographic fieldwork informed her fiction writing. While she passed away in 1960, Hurston is timeless as a subject. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharony Green about her book The Chase and the Ruins, which examined Zora Neale Hurston’s time in Honduras. It would be amazing to interview Tracy Heather Strain about her documentary Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming A Space on PBS.
Q: What advice would you give to anyone interested in becoming a host on the NBN?
A: I would encourage anyone to try it out if they are interested. Listen to other interviews to hear how other hosts run their interviews. Begin by interviewing someone you know well so that you have a level of comfort when beginning. Concentrate on developing a system and style that works for you. Read books on podcasting for more information about the podcasting world, equipment, editing, etc. Go to podcasting conferences if you want to connect with other podcasters. I began with the NBN, and tried to develop the style and regular release of my own podcast interviews. However, along the way a world of podcasting opened up for me through books, conferences, online classes, and other venues. Podcasting can be a community unto itself.
Listen to more of Reighan’s great interviews on the New Books in Anthropology Channel!