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New Books in Finance: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Marshall Poe
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.comSubscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
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- 3 days ago39 min
The Disease of Money: Japan’s Monetization in the Early Middle Ages with Mikael S. Adolphson (U Hawai’i Press, 2026)
The twelfth century was a pivotal time in Japan’s history. It witnessed intense factionalism at the imperial court in Kyoto, Japan’s first national civil war, and above all the rise of warriors to national prominence, culminating with the establishment of Japan’s first warrior government, the Kamakura Shogunate. This dramatic power shift has understandably dominated historical debates. However, focusing almost exclusively on military and political narratives led scholarship to overlook the extraordinary economic transformation that unfolded in parallel.Beginning in the mid-twelfth century, Japan transformed from a rice economy to one based on cash coins imported from China. For the next three centuries, transactions, tax collections, and even fines were expressed in terms of copper coins, which in turn spurred the emergence of trade cities, new classes of merchants and artisans, and the establishment of guilds. And yet not a single coin was issued in Japan. This “minting-less” monetization seemingly stood in sharp contrast to developments in medieval Europe, where monetization went hand in hand with rulers who struck their own coins.In The Disease of Money: Japan’s Monetization in the Early Middle Ages (U Hawai’i Press, 2026), Dr. Mikael Adolphson offers an analysis of this initial import of Chinese coins and its subsequent monetization through three lenses. First, he provides a contextual and macroeconomic explanation by looking at the context of East Asian trade, where the political and economic developments in Song China also played an especially vital role. Second, the matter of agency behind the import of and demand for coins is dealt with in depth, revealing that several groups played key roles, but above all that Chinese merchants were the most influential agents. Finally, in an effort to put Japan’s medieval monetization into a disciplinary perspective, a comparison is made with Scandinavia around the same time. It shows that while Japan took a different route to its monetization, there were also comparable situations in Europe.By moving beyond the warrior-centric view, The Disease of Money uncovers a richer, more complex portrait of medieval Japan—one of innovation, adaptation, and global economic connectivity.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 4 days ago34 min
One from the Many: The Global Economy Since 1850 with Christopher Meissner (Oxford UP, 2024)
We tend to talk about globalisation as if it arrived with container ships, multinationals and the internet. Christopher Meissner’s One from the Many: The Global Economy since 1850 (Oxford UP, 2024) argues that it has a far longer and messier history. In my latest New Books Network interview, I put that history, and some of its biggest open questions, to him.A book for a nervous momentTariffs, industrial policy, “economic security” and the relocation of supply chains have revived the argument that globalisation is going into reverse. Meissner, Professor of Economics at UC Davis and a Research Associate at the NBER, takes the long view. Trade, capital and migration surged between 1850 and 1914, collapsed between the wars, and were rebuilt after 1945. His conclusion is that globalisation is hard to kill, but not guaranteed to survive. That depends on political choices and international cooperation.If you teach economics, history or political science, or simply want to know whether today’s headlines signal the end of globalisation, this book and this conversation are for you. What we talk aboutWhy the first globalisation happened, and what a Briton, an Argentine or an American in 1900 would have made of today’s worldMigration: we have liberalised goods and capital far more than people, so how much does that limit globalisation’s power to reduce inequality?Whether backlash was always built into globalisation, or whether wars and shocks brought it down, and what that means for today’s politicsThe Great Depression and the question of leadership: can the world economy function without a power willing to underwrite it?The paradox of the US dollar, and why capital flows towards the richest economy rather than the poorestWhat evidence would convince Chris that “this time really is different”Writing a first book, and why economics works best inside history rather than bolted on beside it.Some of these questions came from my own students, where the book is now core reading. They like it because it explains long-run change while making formal theory accesible.What other reviewers sayBarry Eichengreen, in Foreign Affairs, praised its clarity and concision across nearly two centuries. In Good Reads, Jason Furman called it a reliable, readable history, well grounded in the research literature. Donald Boudreaux, in The Independent Review, judged it an admirable survey of key events and theories, although he took issue with some analytical choices. That makes it a useful starting point for readers who want to form their own view. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 5 days ago42 min
Dependency Politics: How Foreign Aid Shapes Electoral Behavior with Ryan Jablonski (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Dependency Politics: How Foreign Aid Shapes Electoral Behaviour (Cambridge UP, 2026), by Ryan Jablonski, examines how democracy operates in countries dependent on foreign aid. Drawing on over six years of fieldwork, the book investigates the relationships between international donors and domestic politicians, exploring how aid dependency shapes policymaking and influences voters’ assessments of political performance. Challenging the assumption that voters simply reward politicians for attracting foreign aid, Jablonski demonstrates that electoral choices depend on citizens’ beliefs about how politicians influence the delivery of aid. This produces a ‘visibility-uncertainty’ paradox, whereby foreign aid can either strengthen or undermine democratic accountability. Combining surveys, interviews, focus groups, and field experiments, the book revisits conventional understandings of foreign aid and political behaviour, showing how aid can sometimes lead citizens to vote against their own interests and benefit opposition candidates over incumbents. By examining the political consequences of aid dependency, Jablonski offers important insights into the trade-offs between aid effectiveness, political capture, and state capacity-building. This research makes an important contribution to the study of comparative politics, democratic accountability, and the political economy of foreign aid. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago49 min
Karmic Winds: Reflections from “The Smartest Guy in Hollywood” with Peter M. Hoffman (Rare Bird Books, 2026)
Karmic Winds: Reflections from “The Smartest Guy in Hollywood” (Rare Bird Books, 2026) is a memoir of power, collapse, and reckoning by Peter M. Hoffman, a Yale-trained lawyer and Hollywood insider who once stood at the center of the independent film boom and later found himself stripped of status, freedom, and certainty. As president of Carolco Pictures, Hoffman helped steer an era-defining slate that included Terminator 2, Basic Instinct, and Rambo, navigating a world of massive egos, creative brilliance, and financial brinkmanship. But ambition has its cost. After the industry turns, legal battles mount, and a federal conviction leads to imprisonment, Hoffman is forced into a confrontation far more exacting than any boardroom negotiation: a reckoning with his own choices, illusions, and moral blind spots. Set partly within the quiet, disorienting confines of Terminal Island federal prison, Karmic Winds traces a journey through humiliation and loss toward clarity and acceptance. Drawing on philosophy, Buddhism, and a lifelong search for meaning, Hoffman examines the nature of justice, the seductions of power, and the invisible forces—personal and systemic—that shape our lives. Neither a tell-all nor a plea for absolution, Karmic Winds is a deeply reflective account of success and failure, told with intellectual rigor and emotional restraint. It is a story of what remains when the titles disappear, the noise falls away, and one is left alone with the self...and the winds that carried them there. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 weeks ago1h 6m
Art for War: Heritage Looting, Blood Antiquities, and the International Fight Against Terrorism Financing with Costanza Musu (Stanford UP, 2026)
Understanding the world of art—particularly antiquities and archaeological artifacts—requires tracing how objects are removed from the ground, displaced by conflict or economic hardship, and ultimately reappear in the international art market. The odyssey of an artifact from its excavation site to an auction house, a private collection, or a museum display case raises a host of pressing concerns about the fragility of cultural heritage but also the global mechanisms that sustain its circulation. In recent years, growing awareness of a possible link between the illegal antiquities trade and terrorist financing has brought new scrutiny to regions marked by war and instability, particularly in the Middle East. In such places, archaeological sites are especially vulnerable to looting and illicit excavation, with the profits from these "blood antiquities" sometimes flowing back to fund further violence.Art for War: Heritage Looting, Blood Antiquities, and the International Fight Against Terrorism Financing (Stanford UP, 2026) by Dr. Costanza Musu examines how this transformation in perception—from an archaeological concern to a matter of international security—reshaped the global response to antiquities trafficking. Viewing the trade through a security lens, the book offers scholars, policymakers, and students of international affairs a new way to understand how the protection of cultural heritage became entangled with the politics of counterterrorism and global security, sparking new debates over art, heritage, and security.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 weeks ago40 min
Forgive Us Our Debts: How Black Churches Use Bankruptcy to Survive with Pamela Foohey (U Chicago Press, 2026)
When American churches face financial difficulties, a disproportionately high number of Black churches reorganize under chapter 11 bankruptcy. There are no easy explanations for this distinction: not location, denomination, leadership structure, or the reasons for the loans. In Forgive Us Our Debts: How Black Churches Use Bankruptcy to Survive (U Chicago Press, 2026), legal scholar Pamela Foohey asks why, then, Black churches account for two-thirds of all congregations that file for chapter 11 bankruptcy every year. Drawing on case studies of six Black churches and one white church, and 150 interviews with church leaders, members, and attorneys, Foohey finds answers in a long history of predatory lending. Unable to negotiate with recalcitrant loan officers, Black churches turn to the legal system to force reasonable concessions from lenders to prevent the stripping of their wealth and the destruction of their communities. While the structural discrimination remains, these churches have found in the bankruptcy system a refuge and some power to fight back.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Oct 2, 202659 min
Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930 with Rebecca Kobrin (Harvard UP, 2026)
From a leading historian, the story of how entrepreneurial Jewish immigrants transformed commercial banking and enabled the economic and social advancement of Jews in America.What are immigrants to do when business opportunities abound in their new home, but banks refuse essential financial support? How could they make the journey in the first place without helping hands? In this lively history, Rebecca Kobrin chronicles the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Jewish immigrants who stepped up by doing the lending themselves. Arriving from the Russian Empire and settling primarily in New York, they made livelihoods by assisting fellow Jews so they could purchase passage to the United States and, after arriving, obtain credit that other lenders would not dare provide.Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930 (Harvard UP, 2026) traces the novel practices of bankers who not only enabled the flourishing of American Jewry but also revolutionized the US financial industry. Drawing on previously unexamined archival materials in Russian, Yiddish, German, and English, Kobrin tells a story that is also crucial to the history of New York, as immigrant bankers’ financing of real estate transformed wide swathes of the city. Lenders drove a boom in the prices of tenement buildings, but heavy speculation eventually precipitated the downfall of immigrant banking. Kobrin notes in particular the case of the Bank of United States—a private lender catering primarily to Jewish businessmen—which the Federal Reserve refused to bail out from bankruptcy in 1930.Immigrants’ grasping for credit, and the rise and fall of immigrant banks, gave way to a contemporary banking industry that, ironically, refuses credit to today’s immigrants. Kobrin reminds us that now, as before, the denial of credit pushes entrepreneurial Americans into unregulated money-lending and the trap of endless debt.Rebecca Kobrin, author of Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora, is Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University, where she codirects the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.Geraldine Gudefin is a modern Jewish historian researching Jewish migrations, family life, and legal pluralism. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore, and is completing a book titled An Impossible Divorce? East European Jews and the Limits of Legal Pluralism in France, 1900-1939.The book can be purchased on the Harvard University Press website: Credit to the Nation. Use code CRE30 to receive a 30% discount. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Sep 3, 202655 min
The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars
The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars (Princeton UP, 2023) is an essential handbook for writing fundable grants. This easy-to-use guide features writing samples, a glossary of important terms, answers common questions, and explains pitfalls to avoid. Dr. Betty Lai focuses on skills that are universal to all grant writers, not just specific skills for one type of grant or funder. She explains how to craft phenomenal pitches and align them with your values, structure timelines and drafts, communicate clearly in prose and images, solicit feedback to strengthen your proposals, and much more. This incisive book walks you through every step along the way, from generating ideas to finding the right funder, determining which grants help you create the career you want, and writing in a way that excites reviewers and funders. This episode explores: how to align your values and interests with a grant opportunity; why most of us will end up needing a grant; things you can learn from a grant proposal that succeeded, and from one that didn’t; what your grant reviewer really needs from you and why; and how to use the funder’s guidelines and terminology to your advantage. Guest: Dr. Betty S. Lai is an associate professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, among others. Her work has been recognized with awards from the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Foundation. Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is the producer of the both Academic Life podcast and the show’s weekly newsletter. She is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics. Listeners to this episode may be interested in: Where Does Research Begin Project Management For Researchers Find Your Argument The Book Proposal Book The Dissertation To Book Workbook The Top Ten Struggles in Writing A Book Manuscript and What To Do About It Make A Meaningful Life Dealing With Rejection Mindfulness Facing Failure Subatomic Writing Becoming The Writer You Already Are Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 325+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! This episode was originally published on Feb 2, 2023.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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About New Books in Finance
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.comSubscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
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