Author Archives: stuartelden

Matthew Perkins-McVey, Intoxicated Ways of Knowing: The Untold Story of Intoxicants and the Biological Subject in Nineteenth-Century Germany – University of Chicago Press, February 2026 Argues that intoxication was fundamental to German physiological, psychological, and psychiatric research during the nineteenth century. Intoxicating … Continue reading →

Nick Srnicek, Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI – Polity, October 2025 Since the emergence of ChatGPT, generative AI has been heralded as a technology poised to revolutionize our world. But beyond the hype and hyperbole, who … Continue reading →

Sara B. Pritchard, Transforming Night: The History and Science of Light Pollution – University of Washington Press, July 2026 Darkness has become legible—and contested. Blending archival narrative with on-the-ground ethnography, Sara B. Pritchard traces how four fields—astronomy, remote sensing, conservation science, … Continue reading →

Cambridge Graduate Conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History – 24 June 2026 Download the Call for Papers (PDF) When in danger, humans search for places of refuge — whether in states, homes, or religions. Political communities have their origins … Continue reading →

Roger Luckhurst, Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead – Princeton University Press, October 2025 Why, how, and where do we inter our dead? How have people throughout history responded to the problem of laying their dead to rest? … Continue reading →

Peter Garnsey, Rethinking Capital Punishment: The Pre-History of the Abolition of the Death Penalty – Cambridge University Press, April 2026 The death penalty was accepted almost universally until the eighteenth century, when Giuseppe Pelli of Florence and Cesare Beccaria of Milan produced … Continue reading →

Paul Langley and Andrew Leyshon, Fintech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance – Zone, July 2026 How people pay, make savings and investments, buy insurance, and take on debt is undergoing digital transformation across the globe. This book argues … Continue reading →

Stephen Legg, Spaces of Anticolonialism: Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities – University of Georgia Press, March 2025 I’ve shared news of the book before. There is now a New Books discussion with Saumya Dadoo – thanks to dmf for the link Spaces … Continue reading →