New Books with Miranda Melcher

Blue Sea, Black Gold, Red Banner: The South Caucasus and Scandinavia, 1880s–1920s
(Northern Illinois University Press, 2026) tells the story of the
historical connections between two geographically distant and culturally
distinct regions on the edges of Europe: Scandinavia and the South
Caucasus. From the late nineteenth century, maritime trade fostered new
commercial links and consular relations. Scandinavian merchants,
particularly in Batumi and Baku, played key roles. The discovery of oil
along the Caspian Sea shores attracted Scandinavian entrepreneurs,
notably the Swedish Nobel family, helping to develop Baku into a booming
industrial hub.

Tom
Trier focuses on the years of upheaval surrounding World War I and the
collapse of the Russian Empire, when Georgia—along with Armenia and
Azerbaijan—briefly emerged
as an independent republic. The four-decade relationship ended abruptly
during the Bolshevik Red Army's invasion of the South Caucasus from
1920 to 1921. Drawing on both Scandinavian and Georgian perspectives, Blue Sea, Black Gold, Red Banner
examines how Nordic merchants, consuls, and diplomats navigated the
shifting political landscape and how Georgia's social democratic
leadership looked to neutral Scandinavia as a gateway to broader
European political, diplomatic, and economic engagement.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose 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. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After
Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko defected in 1945, Canada was shocked
by the revelation that its own citizens were engaged in espionage for
the Soviet Union. "P.S. Burn after Reading": The Kellock-Taschereau Commission and Soviet Espionage in Canada
(University of Toronto Press, 2026) explores how the Canadian
government used the controversial Kellock-Taschereau
Commission—sometimes judiciously, sometimes not—to uncover and thwart
domestic
spies during the early days of the Cold War.

Drawing
on a wealth of sources, including the Commission’s extensive records,
GRU documents turned over by Gouzenko, American Venona decrypts, Soviet
KGB archives, and newly released British MI5 and MI6 files, authors Dr.
Reinhold Kramer and Dr. Tom Mitchell provide a comprehensive account of
the crisis. They reveal that, despite some civil liberties missteps, the
government’s suspicions were largely justified.

The
book weaves together the evidence against the spies, the tradecraft of
Soviet espionage, complex legal challenges faced by the state, and the
political fallout. With access to hundreds of newly released British
intelligence files, P.S. Burn After Reading
offers both specialists and general readers fresh insights into the
espionage crisis of 1945–46 and the pivotal role it played in exposing
Canada’s postwar security and intelligence vulnerabilities.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose 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. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Savage: The Making of Modern Dogs in British Hong Kong
(Cornell University Press, 2026) explores the dark side of colonial
modernity through canine eyes, showing the many ways that dogs
involuntarily contributed to the modernization of twentieth-century Hong
Kong. Dr. Catherine S. Chan follows the piecemeal transplantation of
British animal humanitarianism as pedigree dogs accompanied hardening
class differences, dogmeat became a contested racial issue, and dogs
were roped into the long list of undesirables fabricated in the
so-called golden era of reforms following the social disturbances of the
1960s.

Dr.
Chan reveals a fragmented civilizing project that constructed dogs as
dangerous, filthy, and unnecessary nuisances in a burgeoning city,
rationalizing the slaughter of tens of thousands of dogs alongside
paradoxical criticism of the native population for perpetrating animal
cruelty and the promotion of British animal humanitarianism. Departing
from anthropocentric perspectives in understanding the use of
Britishness in the molding of modern cities, Savage
restores the presence and agency of dogs to encourage a rethinking of
the patchiness of British colonial governance and the long-lasting
repercussions that modernity can have on our relationship with animals.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose 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. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1990 and 2020, women candidates won only 6% of the world’s presidential races. How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America (Temple University Press, 2026) explains the factors, strategies, and perceptions
that help (or hinder) women to democratically access their country’s
highest political office. Dr. Catherine Reyes-Housholder introduces a
theory of gendered incentives and perceived potential to reveal why a
political party would break with tradition and nominate a woman. She
also shows how citizens respond when women candidates are running in
incumbent parties or competing to displace those in power.

Drawing on comparative research on the presidency and gender, How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America
examines the successful campaigns of Michelle Bachelet in Chile and
Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as why Blanca Ovelar lost her
presidential race in Paraguay. Dr. Reyes-Housholder’s findings indicate
that voter sexism is not a major factor; however, women do not triumph
in these elections in the same ways that men do. Rather, the central
unknown factor behind women’s victories is how they become candidates of
major parties—and gender profoundly influences who parties nominate.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose 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. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In
a matter of decades, a spectacular cold-water paradise thirty million
years in the making is succumbing to warming oceans. Kelp forests are
largely out of sight, hidden under the ocean’s surface, yet they are one
of Earth’s most wondrous and underappreciated marine habitats. It’s
an ethereal light-infused realm of sharks, otters, eels, sea stars,
crabs, rockfish, and myriad other species vital to a functioning ocean
and the countless coastal communities that make their living from the
sea. Unlike coral reefs, whose similar plight plays out in tropical
waters highly visible to vacationing tourists, kelp forests thrive along
cold-water coastlines far from tourist centers. What will it take to
stop the decline before these underwater playgrounds bursting with
colorful life become vast fields of lifeless urchin barrens?

For readers who know kelp only as tangles on the ocean surface or smelly mounds of seaweed littering beaches, Forest of the Sea: The Remarkable Life and Imperiled Future of Kelp (Princeton University Press, 2026) reveals a thriving three-dimensional underwater world of color
and beauty whose loss if allowed to happen will reverberate in
unimaginable ways for both nature and humans. David Helvarg, a veteran
journalist and accomplished scuba diver, takes us on a memorable journey
beneath the waves through kelp’s natural and human history, the
billions of dollars of products and services it contributes to our
global economy, the unwitting human activities that threaten its
survival, and the hopeful movements around the world to restore kelp
habitat. Helvarg introduces us to Indigenous leaders promoting sea otter
reintroduction, out-of-work urchin fisherman,
documentary filmmakers, and ocean scientists all working in an unlikely
collaboration to restore and protect kelp forests while promoting a
growing range of uses for food, medicine, and energy.

Forest
of the Sea is the first book to document what is at stake if we lose
these irreplaceable marine jewels, helping readers to understand how
these natural systems might adapt and survive.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose 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. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices