Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

Apr 10 2025 696 ep. 54 mins 1.1k
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast artwork

A series of interviews with authors of new books from Princeton University Press

  Arts  Education  History
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions

Apr 10 2025 53 mins  
Leaders who introduce anti-racist approaches to their organizations often face backlash. In What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions (Princeton UP, 2025), Susan Sturm explores how to navigate the contradictions built into our racialized history, relationships, and institutions. She offers strategies and stories for confronting racism within predominantly whit

Stephen J. Campbell, "Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Apr 09 2025 46 mins  
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) never signed a painting, and none of his supposed self-portraits can be securely ascribed to his hand. He revealed next to nothing about his life in his extensive writings, yet countless pages have been written about him that assign him an identity: genius, entrepreneur, celebrity artist, outsider. Addressing the ethical stakes involved in studying p

Kathleen Thelen, "Attention, Shoppers!: American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Apr 08 2025 50 mins  
The United States is widely recognized as the quintessential consumer society, one where huge companies like Walmart and Amazon are famous for enticing customers with cheap goods and speedy delivery. Attention, Shoppers!: American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy (Princeton University Press, 2025) traces the origins and evolution of American retail capitalism

Adam J. Berinsky, "Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It" (Princeton UP, 2023)

Apr 06 2025 44 mins  
Political rumors and misinformation pollute the political landscape. This is not a recent phenomenon; before the currently rampant and unfounded rumors about a stolen election and vote-rigging, there were other rumors that continued to spread even after they were thoroughly debunked, including doubts about 9/11 (an “inside job”) and the furor over President Obama’s birthplace

Bruno Leipold, "Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Apr 06 2025 55 mins  
In Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought (Princeton UP, 2024), Bruno Leipold argues that, contrary to certain interpretive commonplaces, Karl Marx’s thinking was deeply informed by republicanism. Marx’s relation to republicanism changed over the course of his life, but its complex influence on his thought cannot be reduced t

Patrick Wallis, "The Market for Skill: Apprenticeship and Economic Growth in Early Modern England" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Apr 05 2025 59 mins  
Apprenticeship dominated training and skill formation in early modern Europe. Years spent learning from a skilled master were a nearly universal experience for young workers in crafts and trade. In England, when apprenticeship reached its peak, as many as a third of all teenage males would serve and learn as apprentices. In The Market for Skill: Apprenticeship and Economic Growth i

Ciara Greene and Gillian Murphy, "Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Apr 03 2025 42 mins  
Today I’m speaking with Ciara Greene, co-author with Gillian Murphy of the new book, Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember (Princeton UP, 2025). Ciara is associate professor in the School of Psychology at University College Dublin, where she leads the Attention and Memory Laboratory. The scientific study of human memory has become even more relevant in an age wher

We Have Never Been Woke: A Conversation with Musa al-Gharbi

Apr 02 2025 43 mins  
Why does occupation reliably predict political leanings? What is social capitalism, and how does it span income classes? If social capitalists are sincerely committed to equality and “wokeness,” why do they simultaneously benefit from—and perpetuate—the very inequalities they denounce? Join us as we dive into Musa al-Gharbi’s provocative new book, We Have Never Been Woke:

Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy, "Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Mar 24 2025 65 mins  
In the decades preceding World War II, professional architecture schools enrolled increasing numbers of women, but career success did not come easily. Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Dr. Mary Anne Hunting and Dr. Kevin D. Murphy tells the stories of the resilient and resourceful women who surmounted barriers of sexism, racis

Managerial Bishops Rule! Peter Brown on Wealth in Early Christianity (JP)

Mar 20 2025 52 mins  
Peter Brown's fascinating Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton UP, 2014) chronicles the changing conceptions of wealth and treasure in late antiquity and the first centuries of Christianity. For our 2020 series in the rise of money (we also spoke to Thomas Piketty and Christine Desan) Brown related