In 2013, two young Hindu cousins killed a Muslim man in a rural part of Uttar Pradesh, India. What followed was a series of alternating violence in the region between Hindus and Muslims. Renowned comic journalist Joe Sacco's new book, The Once And Future Riot, investigates that conflict and the stories people tell themselves about what happened. In today’s episode, Sacco speaks with NPR’s Andrew Limbong about illustrating violence and the “she-said, he-said” nature of this story.
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PBS News Hour - Art Beat - Documentary ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ explores industry built around school security
A new documentary on HBO Max looks at how gun violence has led to lockdown drills in schools becoming a universal part of childhood in America. Those drills and the creation of active shooter preparedness products, now a $3 billion industry, are the focus of “Thoughts and Prayers.” Amna Nawaz discussed more with filmmakers Zackary Canepari and Jessica Dimmock. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy
PBS News Hour - Art Beat - Remembering the life and influential career of reggae icon Jimmy Cliff
Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff has died. His family said it was from a “seizure followed by pneumonia.” The native son of Jamaica, two-time Grammy winner and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame helped turn his country's signature sound into a global phenomenon. Geoff Bennett reports. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy
NBN Book of the Day - Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff, “HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company” (HBR Press, 2017)
Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: You can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small company offers significant financial rewards--as well as personal and professional fulfillment. Leading a firm means you can be your own boss, put your executive skills to work, fashion a company environment that meets your own needs, and profit directly from your success.
But finding the right business to buy and closing the deal isn't always easy. In the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017), Harvard Business School professors Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff help you:
- Determine if this path is right for you
- Raise capital for your acquisition
- Find and evaluate the right prospects
- Avoid the pitfalls that could derail your search
- Understand why a "dull" business might be the best investment
- Negotiate a potential deal with the seller
- Avoid deals that fall through at the last minute
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
Listen to the Think Big, Buy Small podcast.
Richard S. Ruback is the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance at Harvard Business School.
Royce Yudkoff is a Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School. Yudkoff cofounded and served for over 20 years as Managing Partner of ABRY Partners, a leading private equity investment firm.
Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.
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NPR's Book of the Day - Justinian Huang’s new novel follows a Taiwanese-American family intent on a male heir
Justinian Huang’s new novel Lucky Seed is about a single, gay son pressured by his Taiwanese-American family to produce a male heir. In an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, Huang tells NPR’s Ailsa Chang that his own family asked him to have a baby boy – or else they would risk punishment in the afterlife. In today’s episode, Huang speaks with Chang about being the “chosen one” in his family, the concept of “hungry ghosts,” and how writing the book changed Huang’s relationship with his mother.
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NBN Book of the Day - Sarah Hoiland, “Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women’s Motorcycle Club” (Temple UP, 2025)
A righteous sister identifies herself as a biker. She might wrench, or maintain, her own bike, and she prefers to ride with other righteous sisters. Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club (Temple UP, 2025) is Dr. Sarah Hoiland’s insightful ethnography about an all-women motorcycle club (MC). She recounts stories of women bikers for whom riding in an MC is “an act of rebellion” and “liberating” even as it constrains—a reactionary populist version of the American Dream dipped in “girl power.”
Granted unprecedented access to the MC’s initiation rituals, annual ceremonies, and the extensive socialization process, Dr. Hoiland investigates this fascinating subculture, why women choose to join, and why, in some cases, they exit or become exiled.
Righteous Sisterhood also reveals complex and contradictory gender and political dynamics within the club and within the larger subculture. The MC provides a unique, liberatory, womanist space within the larger male-dominated MC social world, but these women remain outsiders, with political voices that are lost in the misogyny of alt-right spaces. As Dr. Hoiland emphasizes, the quest for righteous sisterhood is about finding individual excellence and camaraderie while seeking recognition and immortality within the MC.
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.
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NBN Book of the Day - Faisal Devji, “Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam” (Yale UP, 2025)
Faisal Devji's Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam (Yale UP, 2025) is a compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actor. Until the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began to see their faith as an historical actor on the world stage, they needed to narrate Islam's birth anew as well as to imagine its possible death. Faisal Devji argues that this change, sparked by the crisis of Muslim sovereignty in the age of European empire, provided a way of thinking about agency in a global context: an Islam liberated from the authority of kings and clerics had the potential to represent the human race itself as a newly empirical reality. Ordinary Muslims, now recognized as the privileged representatives of Islam, were freed from traditional forms of Islamic authority. However, their conception of Islam as an impersonal actor in history meant that it could not be defined in either religious or political terms. Its existence as a civilizational and later ideological subject also deprived figures like God and the Prophet of their theological subjectivities while robbing the Muslim community of its political agency. Devji illuminates this history and explores its ramifications for the contemporary Muslim world.
Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the historical categories of caste, religion, ecology, and sovereignties in South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific interests, his disciplinary interests revolve around public history, anthropology, literary studies, the digital humanities, and more recently, the history and politics of Artificial Intelligence.
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NPR's Book of the Day - Revisiting ‘Gone Girl’
Amy and Nick Dunn have the perfect life and are the perfect couple until they reach a breaking point, revealing their true selves. The book that spawned dozens of imitators but few peers, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is this week’s read on the latest Books We’ve Loved. Andrew Limbong and B. A. Parker are joined by Greta Johnsen to divulge how this suspense thriller continuously brings fans back to this story. Special guest, Andrea Bartz, shares how being from the Midwest, like Flynn, is your best tool to write a mystery.
Greta’s Recommendation: ‘Fates and Furies’ by Lauren Groff
Parker’s Recommendation: ‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Andrew’s Recommendation: ‘Liars’ by Sarah Manguso
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Greta’s Recommendation: ‘Fates and Furies’ by Lauren Groff
Parker’s Recommendation: ‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Andrew’s Recommendation: ‘Liars’ by Sarah Manguso
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PBS News Hour - Art Beat - Clyburn spotlights trailblazing Black members of Congress in ‘The First Eight’
Congressman James Clyburn has spent more than three decades in Congress. In his new book, he turns his attention to the trailblazing Black men who were the first to walk those halls. Geoff Bennett sat down with Rep. Clyburn to discuss "The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation." PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy
NBN Book of the Day - Yanqiu Zheng, “In Search of Admiration and Respect: Chinese Cultural Diplomacy in the United States, 1875–1974” (U Michigan Press, 2024)
What does it mean for a country to seek admiration — and what kinds of institutions try to make that admiration possible?
Yanqiu Zheng’s In Search of Admiration and Respect: Chinese Cultural Diplomacy in the United States, 1875–1974 (U Michigan Press, 2024) traces how China attempted to reshape its international image across a century marked by imperialism, political upheaval, civil war, and Cold War realignments. Beginning in the late Qing, when China’s reputation was battered by foreign domination, Yanqiu examines the painstaking emergence of cultural diplomacy as a long-term pedagogical project, one that sought to teach America about China through art, opera, exhibitions, lectures, and even reconstructed rickshaws. Drawing on archives in the United States, Taiwan, and mainland China, Zheng reconstructs how institutions such as the China Institution navigated competing agendas, the often-chaotic world of philanthropy, and geopolitical crises to present China on a global stage.
Throughout, In Search of Admiration and Respect asks questions that are still relevant today: How do countries cultivate cultural authority? What happens when narratives of refinement collide with Orientalist imaginaries? And how to institutions such as government ministries, nonprofits, and museums shape the ways nations hope to be seen?
This book will interest readers of modern Chinese history, U.S.–China relations, museum and exhibition history, and anyone curious about how culture intertwines with politics of the global stage.
Listeners of the episode might also want to check out an article that Yanqiu mentions over the course of our conversation: "Chinese Tofu in Cold War Taiwan: Gendered Cosmopolitanism and Contested Chineseness," available here.
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