New Books Network

In the oceans of ink devoted to the monumental movie star/businesswoman/political activist Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (1932-2011), her beauty and not-so-private life frequently overshadowed her movies. While she knew how to generate publicity like no other, her personal life is set aside in this volume in favor of her professional oeuvre and unique screen dynamism. In On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide (Oxford UP, 2024), her marriages, illnesses, media firestorms, perfume empire, violet eyes, and AIDS advocacy take a back seat to Elizabeth Taylor, the actress. Taylor's big screen credits span over fifty years, from her pre-adolescent debut in There's One Born Every Minute (1942) to her cameo in The Flintstones (1994). She worked steadily in everything from the biggest production in film history (Cleopatra in 1963) to a humble daytime TV soap opera (General Hospital in 1981). Each of her sixty-seven film appearances is recapped here with background on their inception, production, release, and critical and financial outcome. On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide is a cradle-to-grave chronology of Taylor's life, noting key events, achievements, and milestones. This book offers a work-by-work analysis of her entire career told in chronological order, each film headlined with year of release, distributing studio, and director. This in-depth overview provides an invaluable new way of understanding Taylor's full life and work, as well as the history and nuances of the film industry as it existed in the twentieth century. Kennedy engagingly reassesses Taylor's acting and the nuances she brought to the screen - this includes a consideration of her specific art, the development of her voice, her relationship to the camera, and her canny understanding of the effect she had on audiences worldwide. Kennedy also provides an elucidating guide to her entire filmography, one that speaks to the quality of her performances, their contours and shading, and their context within her extraordinary life and career. On Elizabeth Taylor is a beautifully comprehensive overview of a singular actress of the twentieth century, offering new ways to see and appreciate her skill and peerless charisma, in turn placing her among the greatest film stars of all time. Matthew Kennedy is a film historian based in Oakland, California. He is the author of Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s, biographies of actresses Marie Dressler and Joan Blondell, and of director-screenwriter Edmund Goulding. He has introduced film series at the Museum of Modern Art, UCLA Film & Television Archive, and Pacific Film Archive, and written for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Turner Classic Movies, and the National Film Registry. He is currently host and curator of the CinemaLit series at the Mechanics' Institute Library in San Francisco. Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Rick Fröberg was an accomplished artist and musician born in Southern California who spent most of his early creative years in San Diego before moving to New York, and then back to San Diego toward the end of his life. While juggling both of his creative outlets, he established a meaningful, urgent, vital, and powerful platform. Plenty for All: The Art of Rick Fröberg (Akashic Books, 2026) represents the many chapters and layers of his visual art practice. All of the different bodies of work he made are examined in detail—presenting the viewer with a well-rounded survey of his life’s work, mostly in chronological order. One of the most compelling and fascinating aspects of this volume is the physical progression of Fröberg’s line work and brushstroke, and his eventual adaptation to digital means. His artwork was often featured on the record covers of his own bands, as well as other groups he met on the road, and much of his early work also appeared on posters, flyers, ads, skateboard graphics, logos, and T-shirt designs, before eventually progressing to illustrations in magazines, books, and newspapers. Fröberg’s paintings, drawings, etchings, and prints were also shown at art exhibitions throughout his career. Plenty for All is the first look at his visual artwork in book form. It will be of great interest across the globe to his many fans (he played in a range of popular bands, including Pitchfork, Drive like Jehu, Hot Snakes, and Obits). Fröberg’s work has become very influential, and an inspiration to quite a large group of people in both the art and music worlds. He is sadly missed and mourned, but this volume will no doubt further his creative legacy. It includes short essays by curator Rich Jacobs and musician/artist Sohrab Habibion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization (Yale UP, 2023), distinguished economic historian Harold James offers a fresh perspective on the past two centuries of globalization and the pivotal moments that shaped it. James analyzes seven major economic crises that occurred over this period, including the late 1840s, the simultaneous stock market shocks of 1873, the First World War years, the Great Depression era, the 1970s, the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, and most recently the Covid-19 crisis. Through his insightful analysis, he illustrates how some of these crises contributed to increased cross-border integration of labor, goods, and capital markets, while others resulted in significant deglobalization. James classifies the crises into two categories: those caused by shortages and those driven by demand. He explains how shortages have led to greater globalization as markets expanded and producers innovated to increase supply, as evidenced by events such as the First World War and the oil shocks of the 1970s. In contrast, demand-driven crises, such as those that caused the Great Depression and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, have typically led to international trade contraction and decreased globalization, often accompanied by widespread skepticism of governments. To support his findings, James examines the writings of key observers who shaped our understanding of each crisis, including Karl Marx in 1848, Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras, and Carl Menger in the 1870s, German Treasury Secretary Karl Helfferich in the First World War, John Maynard Keynes in the Great Depression, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek in the 1970s, Ben Bernanke in 2008, and Larry Summers and Raj Chetty in 2020. Overall, James' work provides an insightful and thought-provoking analysis of the relationship between economic crises and globalization over the past two centuries, and sheds light on the potential trajectory of future economic developments. Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492 (Harvard University Press, 2024), Dr. Marcy Norton offers a dramatic new interpretation of the encounter between Europe and the Americas that reveals the crucial role of animals in the shaping of the modern world. When the men and women of the island of Guanahani first made contact with Christopher Columbus and his crew on October 12, 1492, the cultural differences between the two groups were vaster than the oceans that had separated them. There is perhaps no better demonstration than the divide in their respective ways of relating to animals. In this book, Dr. Norton tells a new history of the colonisation of the Americas, one that places wildlife and livestock at the centre of the story. She reveals that the encounters between European and Native American beliefs about animal life transformed societies on both sides of the Atlantic. Europeans’ strategies and motives for conquest were inseparable from the horses that carried them in military campaigns and the dogs they deployed to terrorise Native peoples. Even more crucial were the sheep, cattle, pigs, and chickens whose flesh became food and whose skins became valuable commodities. Yet as central as the domestication of animals was to European plans in the Americas, Native peoples’ own practices around animals proved just as crucial in shaping the world after 1492. Cultures throughout the Caribbean, Amazonia, and Mexico were deeply invested in familiarisation: the practice of capturing wild animals—not only parrots and monkeys but even tapir, deer, and manatee—and turning some of them into “companion species.” These taming practices not only influenced the way Indigenous people responded to human and nonhuman intruders but also transformed European culture itself, paving the way for both zoological science and the modern pet. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Clare Griffin's book Mixing Medicines: The Global Drug Trade and Early Modern Russia (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022) introduces the reader to the dynamic and complex world of early modern Russian medical drugs, from the enthusiasm for newly imported American botanicals to the disgust at Western European medicines made from human corpses. Based on a unique set of previously unused sources, this book is the first study of how the Russian Empire took part in the early modern global trade in medical drugs. The extensive and detailed records kept by the Moscow court show how ingredients produced elsewhere and passed through the massive, long-distance trade network of the early modern world were finally consumed. Looking at medicine as materia medica gives us a different perspective than when looking at practitioners, texts, and ideas. Erika Monahan is the author of The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia (Cornell UP, 2016) and a 2023-2024 Alexander von Humboldt Fellow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network