Excellent Excerpts: Moments in Compelling Nonfiction: Recent Episodes
Doug Jones
The world is full of great, contemporary nonfiction that non-academics rarely hear about. In this podcast, I read excerpts from contemporary nonfiction works in history, politics, art, literary analysis, theology, philosophy and more in the hope of teasing you into pursuing the whole book.
In this sixth episode, I read excerpts from the following texts:
· How We Got to Now: Six Innovation That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
· Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty by Dan Jones
· Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
· Sitting with Elephants: Lessons in Humility from the African Bush by Ronald Dulek
In the fifth episode, I read excerpts from the following texts:
- The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory by Jesse Walker
- Ironic Life by Richard Bernstein
- How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America by Heather Cox Richardson
- Wrestling with the Divine: A Jewish Response to Suffering by Shmuel Boteach
Episode 4
In the fourth episode, I read excerpts from the following texts:
- Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It, by Ian Leslie – the ground of so much
- Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, by Anne Applebaum – the need for simplicity in a complex world
- Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, by Hampton Sides – hide-out on a New Mexico pillar
- Vodka: A Global History, by Patricia Herlihy – Russian aristocrats using vodka for social control
In the third episode, I read excerpts from the following texts:
- Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse, by Jay Rubenstein – Christians out enemy-ing the enemy
- How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, by Jason Stanley – the need for an epic past
- Art of Voice: Poetic Principles and Practice, by Tony Hoagland and Kay Cosgrove – creating a believable, human voice with the mind in motion
- Strangers from a Different Short: A History of Asian Americans, by Ronald Takaki – Asian moves to Hawaiian plantations
- 1776, by David McCullough – perhaps General Washington’s saddest letter
In the second episode, I read excerpts from the following texts:
- How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt -- here are the key signals for authoritarianism
- Ballpark: Baseball in the American City by Paul Goldberger -- finding space for Yankee Stadium
- Frederick Douglass by David Blight -- at the ten year anniversary of the assassination
- Queen Victoria by Lucy Worsley -- Albert's Christmas trees
- Readings in Moby-Dick -- "Meanings of the Sea" by William Hamilton -- water frees
In this first episode, I read excerpts from the following texts:
- A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro -- secretly setting-up The Globe
- The Wars of Reconstruction by Douglas Egerton -- violent losers
- The Electric Life of Michael Faraday by Alan Hirshfeld -- almost missing the transformer
- Nixonland by Rick Perlstein -- multiple burglaries
- Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder -- taking your head off