New Books with Miranda Melcher

"Honoured Investors,

As Zhongfu Group enters its eighth decade, we are pleased to announce the acquisition of two famous coal mines. These assets further demonstrate our steadfast commitment to promoting the interests of local government and the people of Jingzhou.

While the recent death of a Discipline Inspection Committee member has been regrettable, rest assured that any accusations of accounting irregularities or missing wages are unfounded, used by rumourmongers to incite valued employees to down tools.

To assuage any possibility of misconduct, Qi Ben’an along with his siblings Shi Hongxing and Lin Manjing will be promoted to oversee these new assets with immediate effect. They will ensure the operations are run according to company values without deviation.

Nothing can stop this bright era of unprecedented prosperity. We thank you for your continued support - The Board of Directors, Zhongfu Group.”

Find out more in Property of the People (Sinoist, 2025) by Zhou Meisen, translated by James Trapp.

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.
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Bullet bras, bazookas, bombshells, bikinis. In Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Isabelle Held challenges the usual narratives of how war technologies enter domestic use by following plastics on their journey into women’s bodies. Dr. Held explores the effects of military-industrial science and the emergence of nylon, silicone, and plastic foams on embodied and expressive configurations of gender, sexuality, and race. She focuses on the United States between the late 1930s with the launch of nylon—whose potential was widely celebrated as the world’s first fully synthetic fiber and the ideal replacement for silk stockings—and the late 1970s, when policies began addressing the dangerous health consequences of implantable plastics.

Dr. Held untangles the complex relationships between chemical companies, the US military, the Federal Drug Administration, plastic surgeons, advertising agencies, the Hollywood star system, go-go dancers, drag queens, and fashion and industrial designers. Using feminist, queer, and trans lenses, she shows that there was never just one bombshell identity. In so doing, Dr. Held complicates typical understandings of the shaping and reshaping of gender.

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 the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia (Cornell UP, 2026) by Dr. Kristina Jonutytė is an ethnography of contemporary urban Buddhism in Buryatia, a republic within the Russian Federation. Kristina Jonutytė shows how—in this ethnically and religiously diverse borderland region—Buryat Buddhists are caught between an oppressive, militant Russian regime and the tenacity of local religious and cultural forms. As Dr. Jonutytė narrates, historically Buryat Buddhism has been tightly linked with the Russian state ever since the imperial period, a relationship with mutual interest and benefits. Yet everyday Buddhist practices point to a more complex picture, shedding light on precarity, minoritization, struggles for cultural sovereignty, and infrapolitical religious forms. Between the Buddha and the New Tsar reveals the important ways in which the urban setting is not just a backdrop to Buddhism, but that religion and the city are intertwined and mutually impactful.

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

We often think of medieval medicine as strange, unhygienic and unscientific, but The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Katherine Harvey reveals a far richer story. Long before modern wellness trends, people in the Middle Ages were actively thinking about how to live well. They followed detailed health regimens, balanced diet with exercise, considered the effects of emotions and sought to avoid illness through environmental awareness and routine care. This book sheds light on the practical and surprisingly relatable ways medieval individuals cared for body and mind. Drawing from historical sources that echo today’s wellness concerns, it offers a fresh, thoughtful view of a misunderstood era. In understanding their world, we might see our own in a new, more connected light.

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

The military general who became Emperor Hirohito’s prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan into World War II and—after spectacular losses—was eventually executed as a war criminal. Yet Tojo was far more than his ignominious end. In fact, as Dr. Peter Mauch argues in Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General (Harvard University Press, 2026), he was one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished military statesmen.

Over a career of some forty years, Tojo successfully launched himself into the highest echelons of political power. He was not only a tactical genius, Dr. Mauch shows, but also a savvy administrator, a fierce imperialist, and a deeply loyal advisor to the emperor. Tojo’s career took off with the notorious Kwantung Army in Manchuria, where he played a key role in escalating the Sino-Japanese War during the 1930s. As he rose through the ranks, becoming minister of war and then army chief of staff, he honed the efficiency of the Imperial Army and enhanced its influence within the emperor’s court. All the while, he deftly negotiated the fractious military rivalries that arose wherever he went. Brilliant, ambitious, and often ruthless, Tojo reached political heights that were perhaps matched only by his precipitous fall in the final months of World War II.

Layered and evocative, Tojo is at once a riveting military history of Showa-era Japan and a nuanced portrait of the relentless personality at its center.

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