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This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Audrey Truschke, professor of history and Asian Studies director at Rutgers University-Newark, presents her forthcoming book.

About "India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent" (from the publisher):
Much of world history is Indian history. Home today to one in four people, the subcontinent has long been densely populated and deeply connected to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas through migration and trade. In this magisterial history, Audrey Truschke tells the fascinating story of the region historically known as India—which includes today’s India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan—and the people who have lived there.

A sweeping account of five millennia, from the dawn of the Indus Valley Civilization to the twenty-first century, this engaging and richly textured narrative chronicles the most important political, social, religious, intellectual, and cultural events. And throughout, it describes how the region has been continuously reshaped by its astonishing diversity, religious and political innovations, and social stratification.

Here, readers will learn about Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and Sikhism; the Vedas and Mahabharata; Ashoka and the Mauryan Empire; the Silk Road; the Cholas; Indo-Persian rule; the Mughal Empire; European colonialism; national independence movements; the 1947 Partition of India; the recent rise of Hindu nationalism; the challenges of climate change; and much more. Emphasizing the diversity of human experiences on the subcontinent, the book presents a wide range of voices, including those of women, religious minorities, lower classes, and other marginalized groups.

You cannot understand India today without appreciating its deeply contested history, which continues to drive current events and controversies. A comprehensive and innovative book, India is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the past, present, or future of the subcontinent.

About the author:
Audrey Truschke received her Ph.D. in 2012 from Columbia University. Professor Truschke's teaching and research interests focus on the cultural, imperial, and intellectual history of early modern and modern India (c. 1500-present). Her first book, "Culture of Encounters" (2016, Columbia University Press), investigates the literary, social, and political roles of Sanskrit as it thrived in the Persian-speaking, Islamic Mughal courts from 1560 to 1650. Her second book, "Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King" (2017, Stanford University Press), is a historical reassessment of one of the most hated kings in South Asian history (published in "India and Pakistan as Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth"). Her third book, "The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule" (2021, Columbia University Press). More broadly she publishes on cross-cultural exchanges, historical memory, and imperial power.

Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on May 29, 2025.

This recording is presented in partnership by Princeton Public Library, Not In Our Town Princeton, the Morven Museum & Gardens and the Princeton Theological Seminary. Panelists discuss Princeton institutions, which have researched their historic involvement with slavery, discrimination or institutional racism and developed strategic responses.

The library and its partners, present a panel featuring researchers and experts on several Princeton institutions' histories, in order to explore how these institutions have taken on their history of involvement with slavery, discrimination or institutionalized racism by making it a subject of serious research and then weighing different strategies for reparative work, remediation or obligatory action as a response to that institutional history. The discussion on this panel will be moderated by Brandon McKoy, president of the Fund for NJ and introductory remarks will be made by Not In Our Town Princeton board member and historian Shirley Satterfield.

Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on January 30, 2025.

This event is presented by Princeton Public Library and Labyrinth Books. International bestselling author Edward Tenner, joined in conversation by Peter J. Dougherty, presents his book "Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge: Essays in Unintended Consequences."

About the book (from the publisher):
How did the addition of lifeboats after the Titanic shipwreck contribute to another tragedy in Chicago harbor three years later? How efficient are wild animals as investors, and how do dog breeds become national symbols? Why have scientific breakthroughs so often originated in the study of shadows? How did the file card prepare scholarship and commerce for the rise of electronic data processing, and why did the visual metaphor of the tab survive into today’s graphic interfaces? Why have Amish artisans played an important role in manufacturing advanced technology? Why was United Shoe Machinery the Microsoft of the 1890s? Surprises like these, Edward Tenner believes, can help us deal with the technological issues that confront us now.

Since the 1980s, Edward Tenner has contributed essays on technology, design, and culture to leading magazines, newspapers, and professional journals, and has been interviewed on subjects ranging from medical ethics to typography. Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge—named for one of the paradoxes that can result from the inherent contradictions between consumer safety and product marketing—brings many of Tenner’s essays together into one volume for the first time, accompanied by new introductions by the author on the theme of each work. As an independent historian and public speaker, Tenner has spent his career deploying concepts from economics, engineering, psychology, science, and sociology, to explore both the negative and positive surprises of human ingenuity.

In conversation:
Edward Tenner, Princeton '65, is a Distinguished Scholar of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago and has been a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. A former executive editor for physical science and history at Princeton University Press, he has been a visiting lecturer in the Humanities Council and a visitor in the Princeton departments and programs of geosciences, English, sociology (FRS 151, “Understanding Disasters”), and information technology policy, as well as in the Institute for Advanced Study and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is author of “Why Things Bite Back,” “The Efficiency Paradox,” and, most recently, “Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge.” He is a frequent academic and corporate speaker and has given two mainstage TED Talks. He is on the board of directors of the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Peter J. Dougherty is editor-at-large of The American Philosophical Society Press, and Fox Family Pavilion Scholar and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the board of trustees of Ithaka. Following his years in commercial book publishing in New York, he worked as an editor at Princeton University Press, which he directed from 2005 through 2017. He has served as president of the Association of American University Presses, on the board of the American Association of Publishers, and on the faculty of the University of Denver Publishing Institute. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2023.

Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Independent mystery/thriller author Kevin G. Chapman shares experiences and practical advice for self-narrating an audiobook version of your book and conducts a live demonstration of the process.

Author Kevin G. Chapman discusses the advantages of having an audiobook version of your work and the nuts and bolts of setting up a home recording "studio." Kevin will narrate a short segment of text from one of his books and demonstrate live in real time how to record, edit, and master the audio track to meet the standards for publication for Audible and other audiobook retailers. Kevin will share resources and advice to give authors the confidence to try creating an audiobook for their own work.

This event was recorded on May 9, 2025.

This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Martha A. Sandweiss, joined in conversation by Esther Schor, presents her new book, "The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West."

About the book (from the publisher):
In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie to document the federal government’s treaty negotiations with the Lakota and other tribes of the northern plains. Gardner, known for his iconic portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his visceral pictures of the Confederate dead at Antietam, posed six federal peace commissioners with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. As "The Girl in the Middle" goes in search of her, it draws readers into the entangled lives of the photographer and his subjects.

Martha A. Sandweiss paints a riveting portrait of the turbulent age of Reconstruction and westward expansion. She follows Gardner from his birthplace in Scotland to the American frontier, as his dreams of a utopian future across the Atlantic fall to pieces. She recounts the lives of William S. Harney, a slave-owning Union general who earned the Lakota name “Woman Killer,” and Samuel F. Tappan, an abolitionist who led the investigation into the Sand Creek massacre. And she identifies Sophie Mousseau, the girl in Gardner’s photograph, whose life swerved in unexpected directions as American settlers pushed into Indian Country and the federal government confined Native peoples to reservations.

Spinning a spellbinding historical tale from a single enigmatic image, "The Girl in the Middle" reveals how the American nation grappled with what kind of country it would be as it expanded westward in the aftermath of the Civil War.

In conversation:
Martha A. Sandweiss is a historian of the United States, with particular interests in the history of the American West, visual culture, and public history. She is the author or editor of numerous books on American history and photography. Her publications include "Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception across the Color Line" (2009), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, and "Print the Legend: Photography and the American West" (2002), winner of the Organization of American Historians’ Ray Allen Billington Award for the best book in American frontier history and the William P. Clements Award. Her other works include "Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace" (1986), winner of the George Wittenborn Award for outstanding art book, and the co-edited volume "The Oxford History of the American West" (1994), winner of the Western Heritage Award and the Caughey Western History Association prize for the outstanding book in western history.

Esther Schor, the John J. F. Sherrerd ’52 University Professor and Professor of English at Princeton, is a scholar, biographer, poet and essayist. Her 2006 biography Emma Lazarus won the National Jewish Book Award. She has published three books of poems, including "The Hills of Holland" and "Strange Nursery: New and Selected Poems;" with poets Meena Alexander and Rita Dove, she is also the co-author of "Poems for Sarra," a bilingual collection about the Venetian intellectual Sarra Copia Sullam. Her scholarship includes "Bearing the Dead: The British Culture of Mourning from the Enlightenment to Victoria" and "The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley." A cultural historian of the Esperanto movement, her most recent book is "Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language." Recently she was awarded an NEH/Center for Jewish History Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship to support her research on a biography of the philosopher Horace M. Kallen. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey and London.

Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on May 14, 2025.

This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Atkin discusses her book "Mightier Than the Sword: How Three Obscure Treaties Sanctioned the Enslavement of Millions and the Exploitation of Continents for More Than 400 Years."

About the book (from the publisher):
How can words on paper be more devastating than war? Why is there persistent inequality—racial, financial, structural? Why are things in our society the way they are? "Mightier Than the Sword: How Three Obscure Treaties Sanctioned the Enslavement of Millions and the Exploitation of Continents for More Than 400 Years" offers a perspective on the roots of the inequality of today. Documents written hundreds of years ago embody the biases and power strategies of their time, but they still have a long reach through history. Atkin examines three treaties—the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Treaties of Nanking, and the Conference of Berlin— that granted permission, or the sanctioned rationale, to decree that annihilation and confiscation of property was legal and just on five continents. Atkin argues these written words continued to achieve their objectives and exercise power by influencing, among other things, the codification of Eurocentric International Law. Enhancing trade was (and remains) the claimed intent but inequality serves this objective. Land dispossession, slavery, and the subjugation of Indigenous peoples are repeated themes in history and are unfortunately still with us today. This book will change how you understand today's events and the continuing influence of historic documents. This fresh perspective offers hope for real change in policy and the societies they shape.

In conversation:
Lorraine Atkin is not just a longtime student of history, law, and politics, but also a former leader in the criminal justice and political fields—all of which inspired her journey of discovery. She wrote "Mightier Than the Sword: How Three Obscure Treaties Sanctioned the Enslavement of Millions and the Exploitation of Continents for More Than 400 Years" with the hope that the reader can draw connections from the atrocities of the past as a result of these three historical documents to the adverse consequences and inequities we live with today. A mother of seven, a grandmother of 12, and a great grandmother, Lorraine Atkin lives in Princeton with her husband.

Stanley Katz is President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies, the national humanities organization in the United States. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1955 with a major in English History and Literature. He was trained in British and American history at Harvard (PhD, 1961), where he also attended Law School in 1969-70. His recent research focuses upon developments in American philanthropy, the relationship of civil society and constitutionalism to democracy, and the relationship of the United States to the international human rights regime. He is the Editor in Chief of the recently published Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History, and the Editor Emeritus of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the United States Supreme Court. He also writes about higher education policy, and has published a blog for the Chronicle of Higher Education. He is the co-founder and editor of the history of philanthropy blog www.histphil.org. Formerly Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University, he is a specialist on American legal and constitutional history, and on philanthropy and non-profit institutions. He received the annual Fellows Award from Phi Beta Kappa in 2010 and the National Humanities Medal (awarded by Pres. Obama) in 2011.

Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on May 13, 2025.