Although Spain was never a formal ally of the United States during the American Revolution, its entry into the war definitively tipped the balance against Britain. Led by Bernardo de Gálvez, supreme commander of the Spanish forces in North America, their military campaigns against British settlements on the Mississippi River—and later against Mobile and Pensacola—were crucial in preventing Britain from concentrating all its North American military and naval forces on the fight against George Washington’s Continental army. In this first comprehensive biography of Gálvez (1746–86) Bernardo de Gálvez: Spanish Hero of the American Revolution (UNC Press, 2026), Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia assesses the commander’s considerable historical impact and expands our understanding of Spain’s contribution to the war.

A man of both empire and the Enlightenment, as viceroy of New Spain (1785–86), Gálvez was also pivotal in the design and implementation of Spanish colonial reforms, which included the reorganization of Spain’s Northern Frontier that brought peace to the region for the duration of the Spanish presence in North America. Extensively researched through Spanish, Mexican, and US archives, Quintero Saravia’s portrait of Gálvez reveals him as central to the histories of the Revolution and late eighteenth-century America and offers a reinterpretation of the international factors involved in the American War for Independence.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the early twentieth century, most US states established eugenics programs to improve the human race through selective breeding. North Carolina ran one of the nation's most aggressive programs; between 1927 and 1977, at least 5,700 people were sterilized and thousands more were committed to institutions. While sterilizations in the 1950s and 1960s disproportionately targeted Black women receiving public assistance, the program's early focus was on poor white women. These policies were framed as scientific and progressive, yet they were deeply intertwined with racial and class biases, reflecting long-standing social hierarchies in the South. Anna Krome-Lukens examines those early years and reveals how such white reformers as social workers, politicians, and activists promoted the principles of eugenics while shaping the emerging welfare state before and during the New Deal. Tracing this history, the book illuminates how North Carolina's eugenics programs influenced the modern welfare state and how their legacy continues to shape debates over social policy today.

The episode brings the Book Review Managing Editor of the Journal of Women's History, Ariel Schnee (History PhD Candidate, University of Oklahoma), into conversation with the book's author, historian and scholar of public policy Dr. Anna Krome-Lukens (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill). Copies of Strong State, Weak Links: Eugenics and the Southern Politics of Welfare (UNC Press, 2026) can be found at the University of North Carolina Press website. The Journal of Women's History can be found here and online at Project Muse.

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).

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.