New Books in the American West

Feb 03 2025 478 ep. 58 mins 457

New Books in the American West Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of the American West about their New Books

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Society & Culture History

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William A. Selby, "The California Sky Watcher: Understanding Weather Patterns and What Comes Next" (Heyday Books, 2024)

Feb 03 2025 50 mins

Often stereotyped as the land of unflaggingly perfect weather, California has a world-renowned reputation for sunny blue skies and infinitely even-keeled temperatures. But the real story of the Golden State's weather is vastly more complex. From the scorching heat of Death Valley to the coastal redwoods' dripping in dew, California is home to a dizzying array of landscapes and besp

Ryan Tan Wander, "Settler Tenses: Queer Time and Literatures of the American West" (Texas Tech UP, 2024)

Jan 23 2025 70 mins

In today’s cultural and political climate of relative LGBTQ+ inclusion, Settler Tenses: Queer Time and Literatures of the American West (Texas Tech University Press, 2024) by Dr. Ryan Tan Wander provides a literary history that rewrites our understanding of when and how queerness began to align with US nationalism and settler colonialism, tracing the discursive production of masc

James Michael Buckley, "City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Jan 18 2025 45 mins

California’s 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the “instant city” of San Francisco as a to base exploit the rich natural resources of the American West. City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry (University of Texas Press, 2024) examines how capitalists and workers logged the state’s vast redwood forests to create the financial capit

Victor M. Valle, "The Poetics of Fire: Metaphors of Chile Eating in the Borderlands" (U New Mexico Press, 2023)

Jan 17 2025 81 mins

Chile is more than just spice, writes Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Cal Poly Ethnic Studies professor Victor Valle in The Poetics of Fire: Metaphors of Chile Eating in the Borderlands (U New Mexico Press, 2023). By tracing the meaning of chile as a plant and chile eating as an act. Valle shows how Indigenous cultivation and culinary practices troubled colonizers, sustained

Robert Wright, "Indigenous Autonomy at La Junta de Los Rios: Traders, Allies, and Migrants on New Spain's Northern Frontier" (Texas Tech UP, 2023)

Jan 12 2025 51 mins

Today I talked to Robert Wright about Indigenous Autonomy at La Junta de Los Rios: Traders, Allies, and Migrants on New Spain's Northern Frontier (Texas Tech UP, 2023). The Indigenous nations of the valley of the Rio Grande that is now centered upon Ojinaga, Chihuahua, and Presidio, Texas―the La Junta valley in colonial times―had a long and unique history with Hispanics during

Adrian de Leon, "Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America" (UNC Press, 2023)

Jan 11 2025 75 mins

In a book that pulls together both sides of the Pacific, Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America (UNC Press, 2023) asks the question: what if we look at Filipino history not from the cities or the imperial metropoles, but from the mountains and the countryside? Or put another way, from the "bundok," the Tagalog word for "mountain" which American soliders in the late 19th c

Farina King, "Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century" (UP of Kansas, 2023)

Dec 26 2024 54 mins

In this deeply personal account, University of Oklahoma associate professor of Native American Studies Dr. Farina King describes the history and present of Diné dóó Gáamalii, Navajo people who, in her words, "walk a Latter-day Saints pathway." The book, Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century (UP of Kansas, 2023), uses her family's hi

Linda M. Clemmons, "Unrepentant Dakota Woman: Angelique Renville & the Struggle for Indigenous Identity, 1845-1876" (SDHS Press, 2023)

Dec 22 2024 57 mins

For much of her life, Angelique Renville had decisions made for her. Where to live, who to live with, where to attend school, what to do with her land. That changed in 1863 when she made a plan and successfully hatched her plan to escape, living the end of her life on her own terms. This is the story Dr. Linda Clemmons tells in Unrepentant Dakota Woman: Angelique Renville & the Str

Scott Huver, "Beverly Hills Noir: Crime, Sin, & Scandal in 90210" (Post Hill Press, 2024)

Dec 22 2024 52 mins

Beverly Hills Noir: Crime, Sin, & Scandal in 90210 (Post Hill Press, 2024) explores the city’s true crime history, delving deep inside cases that made headlines, scandals that engulfed Hollywood legends, and more strange-but-true tales that could only happen in the 90210. Beverly Hills Noir chronicles an assortment of jaw-dropping true crime stories spanning the legendary city’

Justin Tse, "Sheets of Scattered Sand: Cantonese Protestants and the Secular Dream of the Pacific Rim" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

Dec 18 2024 95 mins

Justin K.H. Tse captures the voices of Cantonese Protestant Christians from the San Francisco, Vancouver, and Hong Kong metropolitan areas as they reflect on their efforts to adapt to secular communities while retaining their identity and beliefs. In the context of the transpacific region between Asia and the Americas, the “Pacific Rim” refers to a window of time in which predo