New Books in Ancient History

New Books in Ancient History is part of the massive New Books Network, which runs over 150 channels and 28,000+ episodes across every academic field imaginable. This particular channel focuses on ancient history scholarship, and the format is simple but effective: an expert in the field interviews an author about their recently published book. Episodes run 45 to 80 minutes, and the interviewer-author dynamic means you get both a summary of the book's argument and a critical engagement with it. The roster of interviewers rotates, bringing in different scholarly perspectives rather than filtering everything through a single host. With 684 episodes, the catalog functions almost like an audio library of contemporary ancient history scholarship. Topics span Roman emperors, Buddhist history, late antiquity, early civilizations, and archaeology, so the range is genuinely broad. The trade-off for this academic depth is that the show is not designed for casual listening -- these are scholarly conversations that assume some baseline interest in the subject matter. The 3.9 star rating from 18 reviews is lower than many shows on this list, but that likely reflects the niche academic format rather than quality problems. The show also maintains a Substack newsletter and social media presence for keeping up with new episodes. If you want to stay current with what historians are actually publishing and arguing about right now, this is the most efficient way to do it in audio form.