Mehmet Çelik, "Empire and Nation in the City: Rusçuk from Ottoman Rule to Bulgarian Statehood" (Syracuse UP, 2026)

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Mehmet Çelik about his new book, Empire and Nation in the City: Rusçuk from Ottoman Rule to Bulgarian Statehood, published by Syracuse University Press in 2026.The book tells the story of Rusçuk — known today as Ruse, in northern Bulgaria — a cosmopolitan port city on the Danube that, within the span of just fifteen years, passed through three entirely different political systems: a modernized Ottoman provincial administration, a Russian military provisional government, and a newly independent Bulgarian national state. Through this one city, Çelik offers a striking new account of how empires end and nations begin — and how much continuity lies beneath the surface of what looks like rupture.At the heart of the book is the Tanzimat reform era, when Governor Midhat Pasha turned Rusçuk into a laboratory of Ottoman modernization. The city became home to the first provincial municipality in Ottoman history, the first agricultural credit cooperatives, a bilingual newspaper, secular mixed schools, and elected councils in which Muslim and Bulgarian Christian representatives sat side by side. Çelik shows that the Ottoman Empire, at its most ambitious, offered Bulgarians a genuine political alternative to nationalism — and that many took it, among them the chorbaci, the Bulgarian Christian notables who invested in and co-governed the Ottoman system, and who have been largely written out of Bulgarian national memory ever since.When Russia invaded in 1877–78, Rusçuk surrendered peacefully — a telling sign of how deeply the city's diverse population had been woven into the Ottoman fabric. What followed was equally surprising: the Russian provisional government preserved the Ottoman institutional framework almost entirely, relabeling its councils and offices rather than dismantling them. The Bulgarian national government that came next did much the same, adopting Ottoman tools of minority management — including the military exemption tax and millet-style community administration — at the very moment it was defining itself in opposition to the Ottoman past.Çelik also uncovers a remarkable story of religious conversion under Bulgarian rule: while some Muslims and Catholics converted pragmatically to Bulgarian Orthodox Christianity to secure the rights of the dominant group, Protestant conversion driven by the long-standing American Methodist Episcopal mission quietly gained new ground. In one of the book's most unexpected findings, a small community of Orthodox Bulgarians, Muslim Turks, Jews, and Armenians formed a lasting bond through their shared Protestant identity.Drawing on Ottoman, Bulgarian, Russian, British, French, and Austrian archives — as well as prison registers, consular reports, missionary records, and the bilingual provincial newspaper Tuna/Dunav — Çelik bridges two historiographies that rarely speak to each other. Ottoman historians tend to stop at 1877; Bulgarian historians tend to start there. Empire and Nation in the City insists on the continuity that both fields have missed. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Los Angeles in the late nineteenth century was bustling with the rise of industrialization, but the growing labor force that propelled it, mostly consisting of Mexican and Chinese men, was met with exclusion policies and deportation campaigns. Nevertheless, Chinese and Mexican women, children, and men built vibrant residential and business districts—until they were all but eradicated in the 1930s. In her compelling and textured history, Urban Borderlands: Multiracial Histories and Gendered Borders in Los Angeles, Dr. Isabela Seong Leong Quintana unearths the entwined stories of Chinatown and Sonoratown through the everyday lives of their residents. In this conversation, we talk about the significance of comparative Latinx and Asian American Studies, the importance of spatial analysis in urban history, and the methodological challenges of locating Mexican and Chinese women and children in the archives.  Dr. Quintana is an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, with affiliations in Culture & Theory and Chicané/Latiné Studies. Her work explores the interconnected histories of Asian Americans and Chicanés/Latinés, centering women and children within U.S. borderlands and recovering unarchived voices. Quintana also co-directs The Five Chinatowns Project at the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, a community-based research initiative documenting Chinese American Los Angeles through oral histories, archival creation, and youth mentorship.  She is the author of Urban Borderlands: Multiracial Histories and Gendered Borders in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2026). 

What would a postcarbon future look like? What would it take to build and maintain a more just, regenerative world? How would it feel to live—and to thrive—in that world? In Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2026), Billy Fleming and a wide set of contributors critically engage with the above questions and more. Around the globe, people are transforming their social, ecological, and economic systems in response to the climate crisis. This book guides readers through 29 of these exemplary works, which span 43 nations and 6 continents. From Cuba to Kiribati, Iceland to the Andes, the prairies of North America to the expanding Gobi Desert, these case studies foreground the tactics and modes of practice being employed, often by marginalized peoples, to create more humane, hospitable places. With dispatches from more than a dozen leading scholars working on the front lines of the climate justice movement, Building Postcarbon Futures is both a celebration of action underway and a clarion call to the planners, designers, policymakers, and activists who are pushing this planet toward a future of collective flourishing. Billy Fleming is a leading voice on the role of design in responding to the climate crisis in our cities, communities, and landscapes. He is founding codirector of the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive think tank focused on climate and political economy, and assistant professor of landscape architecture at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia.  This interview was conducted by Timi Koyejo. He is an urbanist and housing policy researcher at the Climate and Community Institute.

In Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home (Norton, 2026), the architect and urban planner Stefan Al asks–– where is a good place to live? His answer In this succinct and eminently readable survey­­­––almost everywhere and nowhere. He begins by showing homo sapiens and their hominid predecessors on the move, spreading across the globe looking for something to eat and a place to sit down. But only in the past ten thousand years after they learned to domesticate animals, cultivate the soil and store grain, could human beings abandon their migratory ways and settle into what we call villages, towns and cities. The author celebrates the ingenuity which made such settlements possible–– the humble brick of mud and straw, sewer and water systems and in the end, electricity and the engines that allow us to live in towers, suburbia or the great beyond. And thanks to powerful heating and cooling systems we can live comfortably (if we have the money) just about anywhere. But Professor Al also points out that “permanent settlement,” ancient or modern, has often so degraded the necessary resources of field and forest and life-sustaining water and air, that even the comfortably settled sometimes have been forced to move to higher, better or safer ground. In truth, wherever you live, you are likely to some degree degrading the environment. But Professor Al, neither a scold nor doomsayer, concludes that if we attend to the useful lessons of past building practices and town planning while drawing on new technology, we should be able to muddle through–– constructing sustainable communities and places where we may live permanently–– more or less! This episode is hosted by James Wunsch

In Nary a Horse Left Standing: How a Nineteenth-Century Epidemic Transformed Medicine, Animal Welfare, and the Modern City (MIT Press, 2026), Dr. Lee Dugatkin chronicles this little-known crisis, revealing how the epidemic disrupted nearly every aspect of urban life. From coast to coast, livelihoods collapsed as horses lay sick, or worse dying, on stable floors, fires raged unchecked without horse-drawn wagons, and city development stalled for lack of horsepower. Just as the Gilded Age was dawning and industrialists were poised to amass fortunes, the flu slowed progress to a crawl. Yet the tragedy also catalyzed revolutions in medicine, animal rights, and transportation. Veterinary science in the U.S. was still emerging, but detailed medical reports from the epidemic helped validate germ theory and discredit outdated beliefs. The crisis also spotlighted early animal welfare efforts, with fledgling groups like the ASPCA advocating for sick horses forced to work. Finally, the sheer vulnerability of relying on animals for transport spurred a shift toward mechanized systems. As illuminating as it is humbling, the book brings to life a critical account of a crisis that still speaks to the complex public health and transportation challenges we face today. 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.

Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat deep in the Louisiana bayou? Peter Santenello hadn't either, until after years spent traveling through eighty-five countries and living abroad, he realized the most unfamiliar territory was often his own American backyard. And so, with a camera in hand and an open mind, he began visiting communities across the country that most media overlooks or misrepresents, from tiny towns in Appalachia to the streets of East LA. What began as curiosity became--one story at a time--an intimate, revealing portrait of America today. From road trips and chance encounters to dinners shared in locals' homes, Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home (Simon and Schuster, 2026) captures what makes this country so dynamic, so resilient, and most of all, so very human. Because what Peter discovered on his travels wasn't a nation torn in two. He found something more complex and more powerful: people who want to be seen, who are willing to listen, and who still believe we're more alike than we are different. Peter Santenello is an independent journalist and filmmaker with over four million subscribers on YouTube. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Romanticism made Scotland famous. It critically shaped the course of Scottish culture, while impacting on cultures elsewhere and inaugurating the country’s still-flourishing and lucrative tourist industry. This book is about Edinburgh’s most emblematic architecture over the long 19th century: the castellated and stone built cityscape of national revivalist architecture. It reveals why Scotland had by the 1820s become one of Europe’s great centres of Romanticism, due both to the majestic Highlands, and to Edinburgh itself as city of Romanticism. Additionally, Edinburgh developed as the main centre and hub for travellers drawn to Romantic Scotland through the work of James ‘Ossian’ Macpherson and Sir Walter Scott: visitors including Schinkel, Mozart, Verne, Turner, Haydn, amongst innumerable others. Edinburgh: City of Romanticism (Lund Humphries, 2026) by Dr. Aonghus MacKechnie also provides a long-overdue counterbalance to the contrastingly much-examined and much-published topic of Enlightenment Edinburgh, showing how this and Romantic Edinburgh have comfortably co-existed. It examines how Edinburgh’s Romanticism was similarly driven by intellectuals, amongst whom were Enlightenment figures and artistically talented individuals, and it discusses the legacy of those who contributed to the Romantic cityscape of today; an architecture that provides much of the character of the UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site and of the city that countless tourists come daily to see. 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.

While Lexington and Concord claim significance as the sites of the American Revolution’s opening battles, New York City’s geography, population density, and cultural status made it one of the most important theaters of the war. Between 1776 and 1777, numerous battles were fought for control over the Port of New York, including the Battles of Harlem Heights, Pell’s Point, White Plains, Fort Washington, and the largest battle of the entire revolution, the Battle of Long Island/Brooklyn. Recognizing the strategic importance of New York, and forewarned by his experience at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston, Lieutenant-General Sir William Howe and royal governor Lord George Germain recruited Hessian mercenaries and soldiers from across the empire to defend the city from an eventual patriot campaign to claim New York. In 1776, George Washington, as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, began preparations for what we know today as the New York and New Jersey Campaign. Though the campaign failed to fortify New York from Sir William Howe, which remained in British control until the end of the war in 1783, the revolution might have ended altogether on Staten Island when William and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, entered peace negotiations with the Americans. In a September 11, 1776, meeting, the Howes met with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge for an unsuccessful three-hour negotiation. Four days later, Howe, as Commander-in-Chief of British Land Forces in America, landed 12,000 troops in lower Manhattan and quickly claimed the city. Though the British took control of New York Harbor and the surrounding agricultural areas, the areas around New York and New Jersey remained active battlegrounds for the rest of the revolution. When the war ended, it saw some of the last British soldiers evacuate the new United States, including thousands of free and formerly enslaved Africans who had served the empire in the war, documented by The Book of Negroes. Battle in the Margins is a special project of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation in collaboration with Black Gotham Experience, an organization devoted to African Diasporic storytelling, to commemorate the African Diaspora’s impact on the American Revolution. Those listening to this episode in real time in the New York City area can reserve a ticket to the September 19, 2026 Battle in the Margins “Main Event,” a series of original ten-minute plays centering the African Diaspora’s experience, resistance, and role in shaping early American history, shining a light on stories often left out of the nation’s founding narrative. The Battle in the Margins Research Brief is available here. Kamau Ware is a multidisciplinary artist, historian, and walker. Kamau was born and raised in Pittsburgh, where he founded an artist collective called BridgeSpotters in 1996 that took inspiration from the many bridges in the city as analogous to many disciplines making a creative project. Ware moved to New York City in 2006 and applied his work as an artist and curator to develop a unique approach to visual storytelling, coined StoryStyle that softens the threshold between artist and audience. After establishing his visual storytelling lab, Kamau Studios in 2008, he began working on what would become the Studios flagship project – the Black Gotham Experience (BGX). BGX launched the summer of 2010 as a series of walking tours and has expanded to a series of immersive experiences celebrating the impact of the African Diaspora on New York City. Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and 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.

Savage: The Making of Modern Dogs in British Hong Kong (Cornell University Press, 2026) explores the dark side of colonial modernity through canine eyes, showing the many ways that dogs involuntarily contributed to the modernization of twentieth-century Hong Kong. Dr. Catherine S. Chan follows the piecemeal transplantation of British animal humanitarianism as pedigree dogs accompanied hardening class differences, dogmeat became a contested racial issue, and dogs were roped into the long list of undesirables fabricated in the so-called golden era of reforms following the social disturbances of the 1960s. Dr. Chan reveals a fragmented civilizing project that constructed dogs as dangerous, filthy, and unnecessary nuisances in a burgeoning city, rationalizing the slaughter of tens of thousands of dogs alongside paradoxical criticism of the native population for perpetrating animal cruelty and the promotion of British animal humanitarianism. Departing from anthropocentric perspectives in understanding the use of Britishness in the molding of modern cities, Savage restores the presence and agency of dogs to encourage a rethinking of the patchiness of British colonial governance and the long-lasting repercussions that modernity can have on our relationship with animals. 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.

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Ingrid Piller speaks with Yaron Matras about his new book Speech and the City. In this timely book, Yaron shows that cities can provide an important counter-weight to political polarization by forging civic identities that embrace diversity. The book traces the emergence of a city language narrative that embraces and celebrates multilingualism and helps forge a civic identity. He critiques linguaphobic discourses at a national level that regard multilingualism as deficient citizenship. Drawing on his research in Manchester, he examines the 'multilingual utopia', looking at multilingual spaces across sectors in the city that support access, heritage, skills and celebration. The book explores the tensions between decolonial approaches that inspire activism for social justice and equality, and the neoliberal enterprise that appropriates diversity for reputational and profitability purposes, prompting critical reflection on calls for civic university engagement. Beyond telling the story of the Multilingual Manchester project, the book also offers an intriguing glimpse into the author’s distinguished career as a linguist, scholar, and activist. Reference Matras, Y. (2024). Speech and the City: Multilingualism, Decoloniality and the Civic University. Cambridge University Press. For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.