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About Miranda Melcher

I completed my PhD in Defense Studies at King's College London, where I researched how to negotiate and implement peace treaties. My book is forthcoming in 2024 from Bloomsbury: Securing Peace in Angola and Mozambique. Prior to my PhD, I earned an MA in Intelligence and International Security from the Department of War Studies at King's College London and a BA in Political Science from Yale University.

I have had the pleasure of interviewing over 400 authors on the New Books Network, on a range of topics! I tend to interview authors of books that seek to interrogate and subvert preconceptions about elements of history that have either been neglected in scholarship, or authors who are analysing history through a novel lens.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (Ph.D., Defense Studies, Kings College, London) studies post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with deep analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

Miranda's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Miranda:

Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange, "Pet Revolution: Animals and the Making of Modern British Life" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

May 23, 2024

Pet Revolution

Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Pet Revolution: Animals and the Making of Modern British Life (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Jane Hamlett & Dr. Julie-Marie Strange tracks the British love a…

Rob Drew, "Unspooled: How the Cassette Made Music Shareable" (Duke UP, 2023)

May 20, 2024

Unspooled

Rob Drew
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Well into the new millennium, the analog cassette tape continues to claw its way back from obsolescence. New cassette labels emerge from hipster encla…

Kate Morgan, "The Walnut Tree: Women, Violence and the Law – A Hidden History" (Mudlark, 2024)

May 19, 2024

The Walnut Tree

Kate Morgan
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

'A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more they are beaten, the better they’ll be.' So went the proverb quoted by a prominent MP in the Houses of Par…

Anna Brinkman, "Balancing Strategy: Sea Power, Neutrality, and Prize Law in the Seven Years' War" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

May 18, 2024

Balancing Strategy

Anna Brinkman
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

What is the relationship between seapower, law, and strategy? In Balancing Strategy: Seapower, Neutrality, and Prize-Law in the Seven Years' War (Camb…

Mari Takayanagi and Elizabeth Hallam Smith, "Necessary Women: The Untold Story of Parliament's Working Women" (The History Press, 2023)

May 18, 2024

Necessary Women

Mari Takayanagi and Elizabeth Hallam Smith
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

When suffragette Emily Wilding Davison hid overnight in the Houses of Parliament in 1911 to have her name recorded in the census there, she may not ha…

Joan E. Cho, "Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea's Democracy" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

May 17, 2024

Seeds of Mobilization

Joan E. Cho
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

South Korea is sometimes held as a dream case of modernization theory, a testament to how economic development leads to democracy. Seeds of Mobilisati…

Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson, "Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade" (Harvard UP, 2024)

May 16, 2024

Made in China

Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

For centuries, the vastness of the Chinese market tempted foreign companies in search of customers. But in the 1970s, when the United States and China…

Tessa Winkelmann, "Dangerous Intercourse: Gender and Interracial Relations in the American Colonial Philippines, 1898–1946" (Cornell UP, 2023)

May 15, 2024

Dangerous Intercourse

Tessa Winkelmann
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In Dangerous Intercourse: Gender and Interracial Relations in the American Colonial Philippines, 1898–1946 (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. Tessa…

Liliana Doganova, "Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology" (Princeton UP, 2024)

May 14, 2024

Discounting the Future

Liliana Doganova
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Dr. Liliana Doganova’s book Disc…

Siân E. Grønlie, "The Old Testament in Medieval Icelandic Texts: Translation, Exegesis and Storytelling" (Boydell & Brewer, 2024)

May 13, 2024

The Old Testament in Medieval Icelandic Texts

Siân E. Grønlie
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The historical narratives of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible have much in common with Icelandic saga literature: both are invested in origins and genea…

Shelley X. Liu, "Governing After War: Rebel Victories and Post-War Statebuilding" (Oxford UP, 2024)

May 13, 2024

Governing After War

Shelley X. Liu
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Governing After War: Rebel Victories and Post-war Statebuilding (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Shelley X. Liu explores how wartime processes a…

Pamela Aronson and Matthew R. Fleming, "Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life" (Routledge, 2023)

May 12, 2024

Gender Revolution

Pamela Aronson and Matthew R. Fleming
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life (Routledge, 2023) by Dr. Pamela Aronson and Matthew R. Fleming carefu…

Joanne Edge, "Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain: Questioning Life, Predicting Death" (York Medieval Press, 2024)

May 11, 2024

Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain

Joanne Edge
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

When will I die? What is the sex of my unborn child? Which of two rivals will win a duel? As today, people in the later Middle Ages approached their u…

Maggie Messitt, "Newspaper" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

May 9, 2024

Newspaper

Maggie Messitt
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Newspaper (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. Maggie Messitt is about more than news printed on paper. It brings us inside our best and worst selves, from censo…

Julia Havas, "Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television" (Wayne State UP, 2022)

May 8, 2024

Woman Up

Julia Havas
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

While American television has long relied on a strategic foregrounding of feminist politics to promote certain programming's cultural value, Woman Up:…

Kris Butler, "Drink Maps in Victorian Britain" (Bodleian Library, 2024)

May 8, 2024

Drink Maps in Victorian Britain

Kris Butler
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

What is a ‘drink map’? It may sound like a pub guide, yet it actually refers to a type of late nineteenth-century British map designed specifically to…

John Powers, "Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture" (Oxford UP, 2023)

May 4, 2024

Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture

John Powers
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The Bolex camera, 16mm reversal film stocks, commercial film laboratories, and low-budget optical printers were the small-gauge media technologies tha…

Michael Gilson, "Behind the Privet Hedge: Richard Sudell, the Suburban Garden and the Beautification of Britain" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

May 3, 2024

Behind the Privet Hedge

Michael Gilson
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Britain is a nation of gardeners; the suburban garden, with its roses and privet hedges, is widely admired and copied across the world. But it is litt…

Nadine A. Sinno, "A War of Colors: Graffiti and Street Art in Postwar Beirut" (U Texas Press, 2024)

May 2, 2024

A War of Colors

Nadine A. Sinno
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Over the last two decades in Beirut, graffiti makers have engaged in a fierce “war of colors,” seeking to disrupt and transform the city’s physical an…

Hanne Elliot Fønss Nielsen, "Brand Antarctica: How Global Consumer Culture Shapes Our Perceptions of the Ice Continent" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

May 1, 2024

Brand Antarctica

Hanne Elliot Fønss Nielsen
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Antarctica is, and has always been, very much “for sale.” Whales, seals, and ice have all been marketed as valuable commodities, but so have the stori…

Jennifer M. Black, "Branding Trust: Advertising and Trademarks in Nineteenth-Century America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

May 1, 2024

Branding Trust

Jennifer M. Black
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the early nineteenth century, the American commercial marketplace was a chaotic, unregulated environment in which knock-offs and outright frauds th…

Victoria Sparey, "Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture" (Manchester UP, 2024)

April 30, 2024

Shakespeare's Adolescents

Victoria Sparey
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Victoria Sparey…

Adia Harvey Wingfield, "Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It" (Amistad Press, 2023)

April 30, 2024

Gray Areas

Adia Harvey Wingfield
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work—from getting a job to workplace norms to adv…

Jaume Aurell, "What Is a Classic in History?: The Making of a Historical Canon" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

April 30, 2024

What Is a Classic in History?

Jaume Aurell
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

What is a classic in historical writing? How do we explain the continued interest in certain historical texts, even when their accounts and interpreta…