New Books In Intellectual History

For more than two centuries, economists and researchers have struggled with the conundrum of reconciling Adam Smith’s views on economics and ethics. While some held that Smith’s capitalism and free markets institutionalized selfishness, greed, inequality and injustice, others focused on his theory of the moral nature of all human persons and the application of conscience and self-restraint in capitalist activities. Adam Smith and Modern Economics: Reclaiming the Moral High Ground (de Gruyter, 2026) suggests that neither of these two conventional understandings alone is accurate and conducive to human flourishing. Smith put markets in the context of morality, observing that markets serve best when our moral sentiments are followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Stephen Sims’ New Atlantis essay examines how emerging technologies are reshaping the structure and authority of the modern nation-state. He argues that innovations such as artificial intelligence, drones, and networked warfare are weakening the traditional link between territorial control and the projection of power, enabling smaller actors to operate with unprecedented reach. At the same time, advanced states are enhancing their internal capabilities through data-driven governance and automation, increasing their ability to monitor and manage populations. This dynamic creates a paradox in which states grow more powerful domestically while becoming more vulnerable externally. Sims contends that sovereignty is fragmenting, with authority dispersing both to non-state actors and to transnational technological systems. The result is not the end of the nation-state, but its evolution into a more contested, uneven, and technologically mediated form. Stephen Sims is associate professor of political science at the

The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Tiffany Jo Werth explores how stones, rocks, and the broader mineral realm play a vital role in early modern England's religious and cultural systems, a role that, in turn, informs the period's poetic and visual imagination. The scale of the human lifespan and the gyre-like turns of England's long Reformation provide a conceptual framework for the various stony textual and visual archives this book studies. The texts and images participate in specifically English histories (literary, artistic, political, religious) although Continental influences are frequently in dialogue. The religious orbit encompasses the Christian rivalry with Jewish culture, touches on Christianity's tension with Islam, but most intently centers on the antagonism between Catholic and variants of Protestant and Reformed belief.The volume features canonical writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Wroth, Herbert, Milton and Pulter, but puts them in compa

John Gerard’s natural history of plants, The Herball (1597), is considered a failure in the history of science. Despite this reputation, it has endured as an aesthetic resource. Its illustrations were used as needlework patterns, and strewn across its pages are extracts of classical poetry, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses, that delight and instruct. It is little wonder that early modern poets, like Shakespeare and Milton, gathered inspiration from this storehouse of plants. In Marvellous Vegetables in the English Renaissance, Vin Nardizzi offers a reparative reading of Gerard’s “failed” text, particularly its chapters on leeks, laurels, tulips, and potatoes. Through a series of experiments in speculative natural history, which require an analysis of both word and image, Nardizzi distills The Herball’s logic and poetics, its distinctions and infelicities, and demonstrates the entanglements of humans and plants at the core of Shakespeare’s plays. Exploring these “cross-kingdom” encounters, Nardizzi contributes

The story behind the mythical figure of "the Wandering Jew" is one of the most fascinating tales in European history. In I, Wandering Jew, National Jewish Book Award-winning historian Yair Mintzker traces the tale back to its source, follows its many metamorphoses through five centuries, and relates it to the fraught present moment. According to a mysterious pamphlet published in 1602, the Wandering Jew was a real person, named Ahasversus, who was cursed by Jesus to eternal wandering after refusing to help him as he was led to his crucifixion. For more than four hundred years, many otherwise reliable witnesses have claimed to have seen the Wandering Jew. Moving in reverse chronological order, I, Wandering Jew explores crucial episodes in the story of this figure. We meet an unforgettable, Wandering Jew-like character who appeared out of nowhere in Israel in the 1950s; a nineteenth-century novelist who was the first Jew to favorably describe the Wandering Jew; an eighteenth-century German scholar who saw the

In this sixth episode of Season 5, I interview Mr. Chris Griswold. An alum of Wheaton College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he was formerly a senior advisor to then Senator Marco Rubio, and is currently the Policy Director for American Compass—a leading center-right public policy think-tank. Recently, he contributed to the book, The New Conservatives (2025), an anthology edited by his colleague, Oren Cass, that re-articulates a conservative economic vision for the country. Drawing on it, we discuss the crisis of America’s political economy, from questions surrounding current AI, automation, and the end of free trade; political instability and populism; how economic policy can best serve American workers and families; and what makes us hopeful for the country’s future during its 250th anniversary. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on our new Substack p

Humanities Theory (Oxford UP, 2026) pioneers a new topic: the theory of the humanities. It is an urgent topic right now because the humanities face a suite of forceful new challenges and are in a period of significant change. For these reasons, it has become important to analyse and understand what the humanities are as a whole, beyond disciplinary divisions and yet without resorting to simplistic notions of their worth. Remarkably little attention has been paid to this topic. Most discussions of the humanities have been polemical if not defensive. This book argues that there exists a global humanities world which not only transcends disciplinary divisions but joins the professional academic humanities to a thriving amateur public humanities. This world has no essence, it is plural. Nevertheless, powerful, if contested, ethical orientations run through it and help shape it, including a will to truthfulness, a will to openness and generosity, a will to examine values.In their essays Simon During and Amanda An

Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a rationalist and philosopher who was wholly detached from the worldly concerns of his fellow men. Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant (Princeton UP, 2026) provides a groundbreaking reassessment of Leibniz, telling the story of his trials and tribulations as an aspiring scientist and courtier navigating the learned and courtly circles of early modern Europe and the Republic of Letters.Drawing on extensive correspondence by Leibniz and many leading figures of the age, Audrey Borowski paints a nuanced portrait of Leibniz in the 1670s, during his “Paris sojourn” as a young diplomat and in Germany at the court of Duke Johann Friedrich of Hanover. She challenges the image of Leibniz as an isolated genius, revealing instead a man of multiple identities whose thought was shaped by a deep engagement with the social and intellectual milieus of his time. Borowski shows

Scholars have long viewed intelligence as the preserve of nation states. Where the term ‘private sector intelligence’ is used, the focus has been overwhelmingly on government contractors. As such, a crucial aspect of intelligence power has been overlooked: the use of intelligence by corporations to navigate and influence the world. Where there has been academic scrutiny of the field, it is seen as a post-9/11 phenomenon, and that a state monopoly of intelligence has been eroded. Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector (Edinburgh UP, 2024) by Dr. Lewis Sage-Passant demonstrates - through original research - that such a monopoly never existed. Private sector intelligence is at least as old as the organised intelligence activities of the nation state. Beyond States and Spies offers a comparative examination of private and public intelligence, and makes a compelling case for understanding the dangers posed by unregulated intelligence in private hands. Overall, this casts

In his debut work, Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism: The Contribution of al-Sulami (I.B. Tauris, 2024), Jason Welle sheds a new light on al-Sulami, an influential Sufi master during Sufism's formative era, by examine his work on suhba (companionship). Welle provides a historical reconstruction of Sufi companionship in Khurasan in the period, arguing that al-Sulami's concept of suhba, specifically among and between young disciples, envisioned the transformation of society as whole, not just the master-disciple relationship. Bringing debates in contemporary virtue ethics to bear on al-Sulami's spiritual method, the book offers an original analysis of the latter's thought that will be of interest to scholars of early Islam and classical Sufism as well as moral theologians interested in virtue ethics, character and friendship. Jason Welle is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Boston College, where he teach courses on Christian-Muslim Relations and Islamic Mysticism. Saman Nasser holds an

Daniel A. Bell joins the podcast to discuss his new book, Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future (Princeton UP, 2026). This isn't your standard, dusty history — it’s a series of modernized dialogues that grew out of Bell’s own classroom at the University of Hong Kong. In this episode, Daniel tells us about the time he spent as an academic Dean at Shandong University, and where he saw firsthand how ancient Legalist ideas about strict punishment were making everyday life, and even faculty meals, feel rigid and 'joyless'. We talk about why he chose to write the book as a 'heavyweight match' between the descendants of thinkers like Confucius and Zhuangzi, and why he believes the ancient concept of 'harmony' is actually about celebrating differences rather than enforcing sameness. Whether we're talking about the 'fire exit' of modern divorce laws or the high stakes of corruption in Beijing, Daniel shows why these ancient voices are still the most relevan

Decolonization has long been debated across the social sciences, but the economics discipline has so far avoided such critical engagement. Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction (Polity, 2024) provides a much-needed intervention.Dutt, Alves, Kesar, and Kvangraven uncover the deeply Eurocentric foundations that shape how economists study the world today. These have rendered the discipline ill-equipped to tackle critical questions, such as structural racism, uneven development, the climate crisis, labour relations, and how structural power shapes economic outcomes. Decolonizing economics entails challenging the norms of neutrality and objectivity that economists claim to speak from, while fostering alternative ways of understanding the economy that take seriously structural power relations and contemporary processes of economic development. Readers will come to understand the political stakes of decolonization and the wide range of scholarship that already exists that can help us grasp economics from non-Euro

Revolutions: A New History (Verso Books, 2025) is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in terms of fleeting events, such as the fall of the Bastille or the storming of the Winter Palace. In reality, they take decades to burn out, if they ever do.Historian Donald Sassoon takes the long view of some of the most famous upheavals: the English Civil War, the American War of Independence, the national uprisings that unified Italy and Germany, and the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions. This is a history rich in irony and surprises. As Sassoon shows in this tour de force account, revolutions usually catch revolutionaries themselves by surprise, and the consequences are difficult to fathom at any remove. Revolutions will change how you think about the transformative moments in history, both big and small. Revolutions is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in terms of fleeting events, such as the fall o

How might a twenty-first-century revolution against class society succeed? Communism comes from the future, but its hopes haunt our past. Reading revolutionary history from the Paris Commune to the George Floyd Uprising by the light of communist theory, from Marx to C. L. R. James, The Future of Revolution: Communist Prospects from the Paris Commune to the George Floyd Uprising (Verso Books, 2025) illuminates the possibilities for overcoming class society in the twenty-first century.When Marx wrote that the Paris Commune of 1871 showed that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes,” he identified a principle that will remain true as long as capitalism and its class antagonism persist. Historical revolutions reveal essential features of our communist horizon, which would-be revolutionaries, then as now, must negotiate one way or another. In chapters that move from a critical history of the workers’ council to a reading of Marx’s theory o

As Melissa Butcher puts it in her book The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future (Manchester UP, 2026) when asked to rank the importance of freedom to them most Americans would put it as an 11 out of 10. So, what happens when the idea of freedom becomes not something that unites Americans but rather, through its different interpretations, ideals and priorities becomes something that polarises Americans? Based upon extensive fieldwork and interviews with Americans across the states, Butcher is able to explore not just the different conceptions of freedom of America across realms such as justice, COVID, the rural/urban divide and religion, but also gives us an insight into how Americans think about America and how, especially at the local level, there are areas of hope which confound the claims we hear at the national level. In our conversation we discuss issues such as how she identified her places to visit and people to speak to, the daily experiences of crossing the US/Mexico border at El Pa

Amir Saemi’s exciting book Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil (Oxford UP, 2024) is a fascinating and deeply thought-provoking study that challenges how we think about scripture, morality, and divine authority. Saemi tackles what he calls the “New Problem of Evil,” a divinely prescribed problem of evil, which is the tension between the commands found in sacred texts, our own moral judgments, and the belief in a morally perfect God. Saemi demonstrates the limits of scripture-first approaches, which is to say that scripture is given precedence over our independent moral judgments in cases where the two conflict. He explores ethics-first solutions that allow the believer to take moral reasoning seriously, while also showing that scripture’s injunctions can be understood as legal or social mandates. By tracing the arguments of Ashʿarites, Mu’tazilites, and other medieval Islamic thinkers, and developing alternative solutions, Saemi offers a methodical and historically grou

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism―his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving―that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization. In Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver (Yale UP, 2026), award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the reader to look beyond the image of Benjamin as a tragic figure of German-Jewish history and portraying him as a complex personality of unique and multifaceted gifts. Tracing Benjamin’s life from his Berlin childhood to his Parisian exile. Abe Silberstein is a Ph.D. student in the joint program in History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intelle

John is joined by the brilliant and affable Paul Kramer of Vanderbilt (The Blood of Government) to discuss Capitalism: A Global History (Penguin, 2025) by Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University. With Christine A. Desan (Recall This Book adores her) he is the co-director of the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard University. This builds on his marvelous previous work about the global cotton trade. John wants to know about the importance of the state as money-maker and underpinner of markets. Paul asks about the key historical ruptures; the conversation goes back a millennium to traders in Aden and in China. Together Paul and Sven speculate on the role violence plays inside the “free” market that capitalist exchange established and now somewhat remarkably sustains. The singular turning-point of the late 19th century (which Sven decided to present in three interwoven chapters) comes in for sustained attention. Mentioned in the Episode Christine Desan, Making Money: Co

The African Gold Coast writer and statesman J. E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) was a key figure in liberal anticolonial thought as well as African and British imperial literary and intellectual history. In The Letter of the Law in J. E. Casely Hayford's West Africa (Princeton UP, 2026) Jeanne-Marie Jackson positions his career as an intriguing case study of anticolonial literature and politics. Jackson maps the contours of Casely Hayford’s thought through sustained attention to his written work within its Gold Coast and British imperial contexts, demonstrating the far-reaching conceptual and aesthetic resources of his elite legal background.Treating Casely Hayford’s 1911 novel, Ethiopia Unbound, as a constitutional document and his legal writings as literary exemplars, Jackson breaks down artificial divisions between African textual traditions. The law, for Casely Hayford and his Fante nationalist peers, was intimately bound to the virtues they attached to textuality: clear-headedness, moderation, restraint, a

Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom by Mark Pennington This highly original and innovative book is the first to comprehensively engage the ideas of the French social theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault from within the tradition of liberal political economy. Divided into two parts the book commences by demonstrating important commonalities between Foucault's ideas and those of a neglected 'post-modern' stream in liberal political and economic thought. These ideas draw on a social theory emphasising a culturally situated individualism; a philosophy of science highly critical of socio-economic 'scientism' and 'expert rule'; and an understanding of freedom as an open-ended process of 'self-creation' in the face of cultural power relations—a freedom threatened by alignments between state power and more decentred manifestations of power.Part two combines the tools of Foucault's critical social theory with those of a post-modern liberalism to problematise four separate though