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About Michael Vann
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
NBN Episodes hosted by Michael:
September 15, 2024
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
As the author of a graphic history, I loved chatting with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Paul Peart-Smith about the graphic interpretation of An Indigenous …
June 9, 2024
Selling French Sex
Selling French Sex: Prostitution, Trafficking, and Global Migrations (Cambridge UP, 2024) is an illuminating account of the cultural, social, and econ…
March 25, 2024
Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953
Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953 (Oxford UP, 2023) evaluates the prevalence of anticommunism among the French population in 194…
March 10, 2024
Blood in the Machine
"Luddite" has become an insult and Brian Merchant wants to change that. Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech (Little, B…
February 6, 2024
Diseased Cinema
As I may be the target audience for Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics and Zombies in American Movies (Edinburgh UP, 2023), I really enjoyed intervie…
December 27, 2023
The Graphic History of Hip Hop
Hip Hop turned 50 this year. It has been five decades since DJ Cool Herc played a party in the Bronx that gave birth to a global cultural revolution. …
December 27, 2023
The Birth of Psychological War
Jeffrey Whyte's book The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War (Oxford UP, 2023) explo…
November 4, 2023
The Great Defiance
The story of the British Empire is a familiar one: Britain came, it saw, it conquered, forging a glorious world empire upon which the sun never set. I…
October 18, 2023
The Faculty Lounge
The life of a scholar is stressful. The best way to muddle through is with a stiff drink. Balancing teaching, research, and service more than merits a…
October 3, 2023
Extremely Online
Acclaimed Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz presents a groundbreaking social history of the internet—revealing how online influence and the creat…
October 3, 2023
A Man of Two Faces
With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023), Viet Thanh…
September 14, 2023
The Golden Voice
The Golden Voice: The Ballad of Cambodian Rock's Lost Queen (Life Drawn, 2023) is very well-researched graphic novel based on the life of beloved Camb…
September 8, 2023
The English GI
Jonathan Sandler’s The English GI: World War II Graphic Memoir of a Yorkshire Schoolboy’s Adventures in the United States and Europe, is an adaptation…
August 13, 2023
Between War and the State
The history of South Vietnam (1954-1975) is in the midst of a major revision. Historians such as Van Nguyen-Marshall are rejecting old clichés of corr…
July 26, 2023
Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War
British Hong Kong was a historical anomaly in the Cold War. It experienced no "hot war" or organized movement for independence, and yet it was a key b…
July 19, 2023
Late-Colonial French Cinema
In Late-Colonial French Cinema: Filming the Algerian War of Independence, Mani Sharpe peploys the term “late-colonial” to describe (mostly) French fil…
May 23, 2023
Postcolonial People
In the space of a few months in 1975, more than 500,000 Portuguese settlers fled their homes in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tomé and Princi…
May 15, 2023
Khmer Nationalist
Khmer Nationalist: Sơn Ngc Thành, the CIA, and the Transformation of Cambodia (Northern Illinois UP, 2023) is a political history of Cambodia from Wor…
May 12, 2023
Contracting Freedom
Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) explores the origins of twentieth-century U.S. guestwork…
April 30, 2023
A History of Plague in Java, 1911-1942
I was very excited to chat with Maurits Bastiaan Meerwijk as we share some obsessions, namely rats and plague in colonial Southeast Asia. His A Histor…
April 13, 2023
Reports from Hell
While now a prominent and controversial surf journalist, Chas Smith started his career as a war correspondent in the Middle East. Obsessed with Joan D…
April 12, 2023
Sinobabble
I got to chat with Dr. Edi Obiakpani-Reid about Sinobabble, her podcast series on 20th century Chinese history. In this series she offers an informed …
March 31, 2023
Under the Banner of King Death
Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic, A Graphic Novel (Beacon Press, 2023) is a comic adaptation of Rediker’s now classic 2004 Vill…
February 4, 2023
Empire and Catastrophe
Spencer Segalla’s Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954 (U Nebraska Pr…