New Books in Sociology

Class Struggle and the New York Mets: A Conversation with AM Gittlitz

With his riveting chronicle of the New York Mets baseball team, AM Gittlitz is emerging as a rising star in the field of popular social history. Writing with what the Wal

Jim Gaona Ellis, "Educators As Designers: The Hidden Architecture of Learning" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

An invitation to K-12 educators to reimagine their roles through the transformative lens of design In Educators as Designers, Jim Gaona Ellis draws on Universal Design fo

Ming-sho Ho, "Be Water: Collective Improvisation in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Protests" (Temple University Press, 2025)

During the eventful summer of 2019 in Hong Kong, the Be Water Revolution formed to resist the proposed extradition of fugitives to mainland China’s courts. With its name

Billy Fleming, "Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions" (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2026)

What would a postcarbon future look like? What would it take to build and maintain a more just, regenerative world? How would it feel to live—and to thrive—in that world?

Violaine Roussel, "Data-Driven Hollywood: The New Data Professionals in the Age of Streaming" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In Hollywood today, thousands of data specialists work for streaming video platforms, playing a role not just in distribution and marketing but also in decisions about co

Sarah M. Rios, "Diseases Have No Eyes: Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice" (Temple UP, 2026)

Diseases Have No Eyes: Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice (Temple University Press, 2026) investigates how communities in Central Valley, California deal with

María Angélica Thumala Olave, "The Love of Books: Attachment to a Changing Cultural Object" (Manchester UP, 2026)

Why do people read? In The Love of Books: Attachment to a Changing Cultural Object (Manchester University Press, 2026) María Angélica Thumala Olave, a Senior Lecturer in

Bernadette Ludwig, "Unwelcome Shores: Black Refugees in America" (Rutgers UP, 2025)

Unwelcome Shores: Black Refugees in America (Rutgers University Press, 2025) is an ethnographic study of the Liberian refugee community in Staten Island, New York, home

Kanchana N. Ruwanpura and Wilfried Swenden eds., "Protecting Workers? Crisis, COVID-19 and South Asia" (Helsinki UP, 2026)

In our recent conversation about Protecting Workers? Crisis, COVID-19 and South Asia, the editors Kanchana N. Ruwanpura and Wilfried Swenden reflect on the need to move b

Niharika Pandit, "Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Our recent conversation about Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir (Oxford UP, 2026), with author Niharika Pandit, covers the

Samuel Holleran and Max Holleran, "Scattered Steel: The Afterlife of the World Trade Center" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Scattered Steel: The Afterlife of the World Trade Center (Cornell UP, 2026) traces the extraordinary journey of the twisted remnants of the World Trade Center. When the T

Claudia Kreklau, "The Making of Modern Eating: How the German Middle Class Forged the Way We Eat, 1780–1910" (Berghahn, 2026)

Nineteenth-century Germany invented the way we eat. Women experimenting in households, French chefs fleeing guillotines, and one of the most rapidly evolving food indu

A Cure for Loneliness: On Homecoming with Ian Marcus Corbin

Americans are more isolated, polarized, and depressed than ever in recent memory, and yet many citizens share a deep desire for community and friendship across political

Utathya Chattopadhyaya, "Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India" (U California Press, 2026)

Ganja is the popular name in Hindustani, Bengali, and other South Asian languages for intoxicating substances produced from the plant species Cannabis sativa L. Starti

Kiara Wyndham, "Diversityland: Hiding Racial Inequality in an American Suburb" (U California Press, 2026)

Fort Bend County, Texas, looks like the America we claim to want: a suburb where Black, White, Asian, and Latinx families share cul-de-sacs, schools, and celebrations.

Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (1951): A Discussion with Jay Garfinkel

A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, who eventually taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his s

Bordering On Indifference: Immigration Agents Negotiating Race and Morality

Immigration agents have a frontline view of the racial, economic, and legal inequalities that undocumented migration reflects—and yet most agents do not think of the role

Dalit Studies with Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana and Sanal Mohan

This episode featured a conversation with Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana, and Sanal Mohan, three scholars in the burgeoning field of Dalit Studies. We began with the

Margaret E. Farrar and Adam Kaul, "Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest (U Nebraska Press, 2026) centers on the tiny community of Bishop Hill, Illinois, whose mark

The Microbiopolitics of Novel Foods

What role do microbes play in aquaponic farming and cultivated meat production, and how might such novel food technologies impact microbiomes? In this episode, Ishita Dey