NBN Book of the Day

Does Plato matter? An ancient philosopher whose work has inspired and informed countless thinkers and poets across the centuries, his ideas are no longer taught as widely as they once were. But, as Angie Hobbs argues in this clear-sighted book Why Plato Matters Now (Bloomsbury, 2025), that is a mistake.If we want to understand the world we live in – from democracy, autocracy and fake news to celebrity, cancel culture and what money can and cannot do – there is no better place to start than Plato. Exploring the intersection between the ancient and the modern, Professor Hobbs shows how Plato can help us address key questions concerning the nature of a flourishing life and community, healthcare, love and friendship, heroism, reality, art and myth-making. She also shows us how Plato's adaptation of the Socratic method and dialogue form can enable us to deal with contested issues more constructively.Plato's methodology, arguments, ideas and vivid images are explained with a clarity suitable both for readers familiar with his work and for those approaching Plato for the first time. This book shows why Plato really matters, now more than ever. Angie Hobbs is emerita Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. She gained a degree in Classics and a PhD in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and her chief interests are in ancient philosophy and literature, and ethics and political theory from classical thought to the present, and she has published widely in these areas, including Plato and the Hero. She works in a number of policy sectors, and contributes regularly to media around the world, including many appearances on In Our Time on Radio 4; she has spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Athens Democracy Forum, the Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and Westminster Abbey and been the guest on Desert Island Discs and Private Passions. Website here Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

In Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior (MIT Press, 2025), Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer reveal how scientists studying animal behavior have long projected human norms and values onto animals while seeking to understand them. When scientific studies conclude that these norms and values are natural in animals, it makes it easier to think of them as natural in humans too. And because scientists, historically and to this day, largely belong to elite, powerful segments of society, the norms and values embedded in animal behavior science match those of the already powerful. How can animal behavior science escape this trap of naturalizing dominant culture? Drawing from decades of feminist, antiracist, queer, disability justice, and Marxist contributions—including those of biologists—Kamath and Packer break down persistent assumptions in the status quo of animal behavior science and offer a multitude of alternative approaches. Core concepts in animal behavior science and evolutionary biology—from sex categories and sexual selection to fitness, adaptation, biological determinism, and more—are carefully contextualized and critically reexamined. This unique collaboration between an animal behavior scientist and a feminist science studies scholar is an illuminating and hopeful read for anyone who is curious about how animals behave, and anyone who wants to break free from scientific approaches that perpetuate systems of oppression. Ambika Kamath is trained as a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist. She lives, works, and grows community in Oakland, California, on Ohlone land. Melina Packer is Assistant Professor of Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, on Ho-Chunk Nation land. She is the author of Toxic Sexual Politics: Toxicology, Environmental Poisons, and Queer Feminist Futures (NYU Press, 2025). Kyle Johannsen is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University, on Mississauga Anishnaabeg land. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

Author Noam Sienna unveils a vast Sephardic world created by these books. This literary network transcended geographical boundaries, connecting Jewish communities from Fez and Tunis to Salonica, Jerusalem, and Livorno. By examining cultural centers and tracing the journey of these texts, Sienna provides depth to our understanding of a remarkably global and worldly book culture, and its evolving role in the growth of Jewish modernity.While the content of Jewish books has long fascinated scholars, Jewish Books in North Africa shifts our focus to the physical context. These books were not isolated artifacts; they were embedded in cultural networks during a period of religious, political, and cultural transformation. Sienna's work sheds light on the intricate interplay between books and the dynamic world in which they existed. Noam Sienna is the Jerome and Lorraine Aresty Visiting Scholar in Jewish Book Arts at the Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, Rutgers-New Brunswick. He received his PhD in History and Museum Studies from the University of Minnesota and is also a Senior Fellow with the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography. His monograph received the 2025 Book Award from the Middle East Librarians Association. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

Across the globe, democracy is in crisis - in the UK alone, it has been rocked by Brexit, the pandemic and successive attempts by governments to bypass legal norms. But how did this happen, and where might we go from here? Jonathan Sumption cuts through the political noise with acute analysis of the state of democracy today - from the vulnerabilities of international law to the deepening suppression of democracy activism in Hong Kong, and from the complexities of human rights legislation to the defence of freedom of speech. Timely, incisive and wholly original, Challenges of Democracy: And the Rule of Law (Profile Books, 2026) applies the brilliance of 'the cleverest man in Britain' to the most urgent and far-reaching political issue of our day. Jonathan Sumption is a British judge and historian, who served as a Supreme Court Justice for six years. He is the author of the Sunday Times Bestseller Trials of the State, Law in a Time of Crisis, and Divided Houses, which won the 2009 Wolfson History Prize. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

With rigorous scrutiny and deep care, Robin Hansen's Prison Born: Incarceration and Motherhood in the Colonial Shadow (U Regina Press, 2024) offers crucial insight into the intersections of ongoing colonial harms facing Indigenous mothers in Canada. Building from an unplanned call to Hansen from a pregnant, incarcerated Indigenous woman in 2016, Prison Born highlights how custodial prison sentences cause discriminatory and swift harm—automatically separating mothers from their children, immediately after birth. Using Access to Information requests along with extensive research, Hansen examines the legal rights of these women—the majority of whom are Indigenous—and finds that Jacquie and her son are by no means alone: automatic mother-infant separation without due process remains the norm in most jurisdictions in Canada. Prison Born calls attention to the colonial and gendered assumptions that continue to underpin the legal system—assumptions that so frequently lead to the violation of the rights and denial of personhood for children and their mothers. Robin Hansen is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Saskatoon. Her research focuses on legal personhood; public and private international law; and systems theory of law.Rine Vieth is an FRQ Postdoctoral Fellow at Université Laval. They are currently studying how anti-gender mobilization shapes migration policy, particularly in regards to asylum determinations in the UK and Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day