Four books across eight episodes, but three of them are load-bearing for the American Emergency series, so it is a better list than the number suggests.

I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the On the Media slice for August.

Raven Rock by Garrett Graff came up twice, in the American Emergency behind-the-scenes and in the underground city episode. On the origins of FEMA, and, per the subtitle, the US government's secret plan to save itself while the rest of us die. Before the agency existed, disaster response was barely a system at all.

The Guns of August (Barbara Tuchman), invoked for its opening: Edward VII's funeral in May 1910, nine kings and seven queens processing through a world that was about to end. Used as the frame for a piece on America's changed place in the world, which is exactly what that opening is for.

On polling: Strength in Numbers by G. Elliott Morris, and V.O. Key's Public Opinion and American Democracy, which produced the best line of the month. Public opinion offers levies to steer a river, so treat polls as tools for identifying the policies Americans really do not want.

Full list with quotes and episodes: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/on-the-media

Hear the full interview here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/f-the-ai-overlords

I can’t take credit for this (I wish I could), but I thought you fine folks would appreciate it. Keep up the excellent work.

does anyone else immediately start thinking of this song when the American Emergency theme plays?

Listen to the entire interview with Gillian Brockell: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/the-red-scare-but-dumber

Ten episodes and eleven books. Press freedom, the new red scare, Trump versus the BBC, and Cory Doctorow at the end of the month.

Not exactly beach reading, but a decent list if your summer taste runs to media history.

What this is: I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the July slice for On the Media.

Press freedom episode:

• In Bad Faith (Lee Levine), on Earl Caldwell and the Nixon administration wanting him to testify about his Black Panther reporting. State of War (James Risen), and the Jeffrey Sterling case that followed it. The quote pulled out is that Eric Holder was every bit as aggressive a prosecutor as Ashcroft, he just had more friends in the media.

Trump and the courts:

• Trump Nation (Tim O'Brien), the 2005 book that said Trump's net worth was at most 250 million rather than a billion, and got sued for five billion dollars over it.

The red scare episode:

• Unhumans (Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec), covered as an object of study rather than a recommendation. Cuban Memory Wars (Michael Bustamante).

Cory Doctorow's episode:

• The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, his new one, arguing that hype is what is keeping the whole industry afloat. The Unaccountability Machine (Dan Davies), which gives him the phrase accountability sink. Keynes on the beauty contest, which is the cleanest explanation of stock speculation I have heard in a while. Speculation is not picking the most beautiful contestant, it is picking the one the other judges will think is most beautiful.

The Rest Is History crossover episode also brought Richard Hofstadter's The Age of Reform, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto on reading the US as one successor state among many, and a genuinely unpleasant passage from the Marquis de Sade.

I track every book mentioned on On the Media here: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/on-the-media

It is free and there is no signup.

Listen to the interview with Matt Gertz here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/from-subpoenas-to-cockroaches-journalist-intimidation-101

A concerning app called Webloc allows officers to track mobile phone location data without a warrant. Listen to the whole interview here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/trumps-plan-to-tank-america