In Conversation: An OUP Podcast

In Contested Continent: The Struggle for America, c.1000-1680 (Oxford University Press, 2026), the newest installment of the acclaimed Oxford History of the United States series, Peter C. Mancall
recounts how North America was forged from the experiences of millions
of Indigenous women and men as well as Europeans and Africans. This
history spans the continent from the North Atlantic to the West Indies
and includes the entire Atlantic basin, telling a new story about the
origins of major aspects of American culture. He illuminates the rise of
a booming trans-Atlantic economy based on the extraction of abundant
American natural resources; the central role that European migrants and
their descendants played in the enslavement of Africans and the
displacement of Indigenous peoples; and the spread of self-governing
polities where many enjoyed religious freedom. None of these
developments was inevitable. Conflicts broke out frequently as different
peoples battled over precious resources. Europeans' appetites for
material gain and expanding Christendom brought horrific consequences
for those brutalized, enslaved, and vulnerable to infectious
diseases. This is a sweeping history of developments crucial to the
eventual founding of the United States. Contested Continent underscores
the titanic struggles between the peoples who had populated the
Americas for centuries and the migrants from the Old World who initiated
changes that created a New World that offered boundless opportunities
for some and crushed the aspirations of others.

In early 2022, protests rocked Kazakhstan. Initially peaceful demonstrations turned violent after brutal government crackdowns, leaving at least 238 dead during "Bloody January." Many feared the unrest might fracture the country along ethno-linguistic lines—yet ethnicity played little role. It was deep socio-economic grievances and anti-regime sentiment that brought people onto the streets. In What Does It Mean to Be Kazakhstani?: Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Central Asia (Oxford University Press, 2024), Diana T. Kudaibergen asks why. Building on unpublished archival materials and hundreds of interviews, she examines how Kazakhstan developed a relatively stable inter-ethnic framework where others fractured, how regime elites and ordinary citizens have pulled that identity in different directions, and how Moscow's 2022 invasion of
Ukraine, and the Russian immigration it has prompted, is once again
transforming what it means to call oneself Kazakhstani.

Cholpon Ramizova is a London-based creator and researcher. She holds a Master's in Migration, Mobility and Development from SOAS, University of London. Her thematic interests are in migration, displacement, identity, gender and nationalism—and in the ways these intersect within the Central Asia context.

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick sits down with Dr. Nelson Flores to discuss his 2024 book entitled Becoming the System: A Raciolinguistic Genealogy of Bilingual Education in the Post-Civil Rights Era, published by Oxford University Press.

In his book, Dr. Flores examines the ways that institutionalizing bilingual education in the post-Civil Rights Era in the United States has served to maintain rather than challenge racial hierarchies. He and Brynn discuss the lasting legacies of this institutionalization within neoliberal ideologies for Spanish-English bilingual education in the United States from the post WWII era to today.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new framework for interpreting interactions with classical source material in Macrobius’ Saturnalia. It argues that the Saturnalia, an educational dialogue from the fifth century ce, does not view its Greco-Roman models as hegemonic sources of authority but engages with these texts in dynamic and critical ways. In particular, Macrobius responds to both the literary and ethical agendas of his predecessors, a strategy which is termed ethical allusion. The book explores this intertwining of moral, social, and aesthetic commentary in the Saturnalia’s allusions to authors such as Aulus Gellius, Cicero, Plato, Plutarch, and Virgil. It also examines Macrobius’ ethical allusions alongside the aesthetic practices and moral thought of the late fourth and the fifth centuries, and sheds light on the Saturnalia’s role in pioneering a late antique intellectual culture at once less hierarchical and less engaged with civic life.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Katherine Krauss is Assistant Teaching Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Penn State.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Winston Churchill was born in a palace and was given a funeral worthy
of a king. His family had enjoyed an intimate association with the
British monarchy stretching back centuries. As King Edward VIII said of
him, 'I have never met anyone of royal blood who exemplified in such
high degree the ideal of the 'good king.'

Churchill and the Crown (Oxford University Press, 2026) tells the story of Churchill's relationship with the various kings and
queens he served during his long political career, from young journalist
under Edward VII, through his dramatic fall from grace in the First
World War under George V, the frustrations of appeasement during the
interwar period and his relationship with Edward VIII during the
abdication crisis of 1936, culminating in his Finest Hour in the Second
World War under George VI and the coda of Churchill's public service to
his final monarch: Queen Elizabeth II.

Ted Powell analyses
Churchill's writings on monarchy and his role in preserving and
establishing monarchies outside Britain. At the core of the book is a
series of studies of Churchill's relationships with the monarchs he
served. These studies offer a two-way perspective, examining both
Churchill's view of individual monarchs and their attitudes towards him.
They shed light not only on Churchill's career but also on the changing
role of the monarchy in 20th century Britain.