Spring, long-awaited, is here. And April, as well as showers, brought books! Read on for all the new books released by Penn Press last month.
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MEDIEVAL STUDIES
The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims: A Medieval Woman Between Demons and Saints
Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski
"The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims tells the story of an ordinary French peasant, a widow whose harrowing tale illumines many hot-button issues of the late Middle Ages—the Papal Schism, the history of witchcraft, the discernment of spirits, the social construction of mental illness. A near-contemporary of Joan of Arc, Ermine emerges from Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski's pages as a haunting figure that no reader will soon forget."—Barbara Newman, Northwestern University
In 1395, a poor and illiterate French woman began to experience nightly visions of devils and angels. Was she a saint, a witch, an impostor, or a madwoman? Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski looks for answers in the historical and theological context of this troubled woman's life and times.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
248 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4715-2 | $55.00s | £36.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9133-9 | $55.00s | £36.00
A volume in the Middle Ages Series
Enemies in the Plaza: Urban Spectacle and the End of Spanish Frontier Culture, 1460-1492
Thomas Devaney
"Thomas Devaney offers an engaging and accomplished analysis of public theater and spectacle on the frontier of fifteenth-century Castile, with richly textured descriptions of individual theatrical performances and judicious discussions of medieval culture wars."—Simon Doubleday, Hofstra University
Enemies in the Plaza examines medieval personalities, cities, and pageants at the border of Castile and Grenada, illuminating how public spectacle reflected and altered attitudes towards Jews, Muslims, and converts. Although it once helped to dissipate anxieties, pageantry ultimately contributed to the rejection of religious minorities.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
256 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4713-8 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9134-6 | $59.95s | £39.00
A volume in the Middle Ages Series
POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
NOW IN PAPERBACK
The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s
Jan Eckel and Samuel Moyn, Editors
"A fascinating collection of essays . . . an eclectic set of readings bringing in perspectives from around the globe on human rights developments during the 1970s."—Human Rights Quarterly
"Editors Moyn and Eckel present an impressive European-American research effort to understand the efflorescence of human rights organizations and activity over the past century. . . . the superb essays in this collection make a well-documented and well-argued case."—Stanley N. Katz, CHOICE
The Breakthrough is the first collection to examine key developments in both Western and non-Western engagement with human rights in the period between the 1960s and the 1980s.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
352 pages | 6 x 9 | 1 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4550-9 | $79.95s | £52.00
Paperback | ISBN 978-0-8122-2331-6 | $26.50t | £17.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0871-9 | $26.50t | £17.50
A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series
Citizens of an Empty Nation: Youth and State-Making in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina
Azra Hromadžić
"An intimate and compellingly written ethnography of the lives of youth in postconflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, illuminating the depth and complexity of state politics as manifested and refracted in youths' lives."—Kimberley Coles, author of Democratic Designs: International Intervention and Electoral Practice in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina
"International politicians sound great when they talk about 'multiculturalism' and 'integration,' but Azra Hromadžić takes them to school—specifically, to the Mostar Gymnasium, where the tensions, temptations, and limitations of an ethnically divided state are felt, around the tables, in the hallways, in the shared bathroom. This book combines critical insight and humane sensitivity in equal measures. It is a model for how postconflict ethnography should be performed."—Eric Gordy, author of Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial: The Past at Stake in Post-Milošević Serbia
Building on long-term ethnographic research at the first integrated school of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Citizens of an Empty Nation offers a ground-level view of how reunification processes are negotiated by Bosnian youth, shedding light on the larger projects of humanitarian intervention, social cohesion, and citizenship.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
248 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4700-8 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9122-3 | $59.95s | £39.00
A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series
NOW IN PAPERBACK
Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism
Glenda Sluga
"Sluga's definition of internationalism allows her to highlight the scope of the phenomenon: a vast and diverse array of people and groups strove to make the world a better place. . . . She has written a stimulating [book] that prods its readers to think hard."—American Historical Review
"Lively, accessible, and imaginative. Sluga enters the worlds of leading twentieth-century policy-makers, thinkers, and activists in ways that are bound to grip readers interested in the history of the modern world and in debates about the global community of the future."—Patricia Clavin, Oxford University
Glenda Sluga traces internationalism through its rise before World War I, its mid-century apogee, and its decline after 9/11. Drawing on archival material and contemporary accounts, this innovative history restores internationalism as essential to understanding nationalism in the twentieth century.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
224 pages | 6 x 9
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4484-7 | $69.95s | £45.50
Paperback | ISBN 978-0-8122-2332-3 | $24.95t | £16.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0778-1 | $24.95t | £16.50
A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series
Mobility Makes States: Migration and Power in Africa
Darshan Vigneswaran and Joel Quirk, Editors
"With its theoretically compelling frame, this well-integrated, empirically rich set of essays helps us understand that human mobility is (and has been) not just something states must manage and contain but a key force that shapes (and has shaped) states' most central features. Countering the persistent but misleading image of the state as exercising power over a static and stationary population, this book shows how human mobility shapes, among other things, a state's spatial features, its strategies for accumulating power and managing resources, and the kinds of national and international political, social and economic actors with which it allies. In our era of mind-boggling population displacements, this innovative book offers crucial new tools for thinking about the complex phenomenon of human mobility."—Lidwien Kapteijns, Wellesley College
In Mobility Makes States, political scientists, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists examine the role of mobility in shaping how states are formed and how they behave. Focusing on links between power and migration across sub-Saharan Africa, the book explores how and why states have sought to harness movements towards their own ends.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
312 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4711-4 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9129-2 | $59.95s | £39.00
NOW IN PAPERBACK
American Marriage: A Political Institution
Priscilla Yamin
"An invitation to further and deeper conversations among scholars interested in all types of identity-based inequalities about the political institution of marriage and the politics of inclusion."—Politics and Gender
"Because Yamin, a political scientist, so astutely illustrates the hefty political work that marriage does in the face of the widespread belief that it is entirely nonpolitical, she deepens our grasp of its history."—Journal of American History
In American Marriage, Priscilla Yamin argues that marriage is a political institution to which actors turn either to stave off or to promote change over issues of race, gender, class, or sexuality. In the political struggle, certain marriages are pushed as necessary for the good of society, while others are contested or prevented.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
224 pages | 6 x 9
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4424-3 | $59.95s | £39.00
Paperback | ISBN 978-0-8122-2333-0 | $24.95t | £16.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0664-7 | $24.95s | £16.50
A volume in the American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law series
URBAN STUDIES
How Real Estate Developers Think: Design, Profits, and Community
Peter Hendee Brown
"Focusing on imaginative and experienced development professionals working in complex urban settings, Brown usefully problematizes the monolithic idea of the 'greedy developer.' By helping readers to see how these more sophisticated developers think, this engagingly written book can do much to help move real-world situations from hostile standoffs to informed conversations."—Ann Forsyth, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Based on interviews in Portland, Chicago, Miami, and Minneapolis/Saint Paul, How Real Estate Developers Think depicts the entrepreneurial personality of the developer, explores the meaning of "good design," and examines the economic risks and rewards of development.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
336 pages | 6 x 9 | 60 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4705-3 | $79.95s | £52.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9126-1 | $79.95s | £52.00
A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series
Becoming Penn: The Pragmatic American University, 1950-2000
John L. Puckett and Mark Frazier Lloyd
After World War II, the University of Pennsylvania became one of the world's most celebrated research universities. John L. Puckett and Mark Frazier Lloyd trace Penn's rise to eminence amid the postwar social, institutional, moral, and civic contexts that shaped American research universities.
Full Description, Table of Contents, and More
464 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 87 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4680-3 | $49.95s | £32.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9108-7 | $49.95s | £32.50
Book reviewers: To request a press copy of a Penn Press book, send your name, shipping address, and the title of your publication to glamm@upenn.edu.
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