As the leaves begin to turn and the air begins to chill, you may find yourself wanting to curl up with a good book. Well, if your tastes lean towards topics Jewish Studies, Archaeology, or Human Rights (to name just a few!), then you can look no further than Penn Press's latest slate of releases. Peruse below!
Jump to: Featured Titles | American History | Anthropology | Medieval and Renaissance Studies | Political Science and Human Rights | Religious and Jewish Studies | University of Pennsylvania Museum Titles
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FEATURED TITLES
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"Lincoln Caplan has written a timely, thoughtful, and elegant book. At a moment in our nation's history when the Supreme Court stands at the epicenter of some of the most contentious issues of our time, Caplan brilliantly captures the challenges facing the institution. His succinct suggestions for addressing these challenges reflect his devotion to the constitutional principles that have long made ours a great nation. Every citizen should read this book."—Margaret H. Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, Massachusetts, 1999-2010 "Lincoln Caplan proves once again why he is one of our most indispensable observers of the Supreme Court. In American Justice 2016, he helps us make sense of one of the most peculiar and pivotal Supreme Court terms in modern history—a term that began with nine justices on the bench, ended with eight, and was embroiled throughout in partisan politics. Caplan, as ever, brings insight and clarity to a complex picture."—Jeff Shesol, author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court "A timely, essential primer on Supreme Court questions both perennial and urgent. Lincoln Caplan nails this deadlocked moment, puts the question of politics and the Court in succinct historical context, draws wicked character sketches, and proposes specific reforms to bolster the Court's legitimacy."—William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Barbarian Days and Cold New World "Lincoln Caplan has an unmatched ability to communicate complicated legal concepts in lucid, engaging, even dazzling prose. Here he incisively analyzes some of today's most contentious constitutional questions, deftly excavating the historical underpinnings of the disputes and distilling how insights from legal academia have transformed our understanding of the modern judiciary. This work is a splendid achievement."—Justin Driver, University of Chicago Law School "This is a lucid, readable and deeply thoughtful book that begins with the widespread recognition that the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court has been increasingly threatened by the Court's politicization. Lincoln Caplan's willingness to explore not only how we got here, but what we should do, guarantees that this book will be the centerpiece of important discussions."—Scott Turow, New York Times-bestselling author "In this masterful analysis of the Supreme Court's 2015 term, Lincoln Caplan persuasively argues that there is no good reason to deny that the Court is a deeply political institution—and that, with the right reforms, there is every reason to celebrate that fact."—Paul Glastris, Washington Monthly Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 188 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 |
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In brilliant artist Cecil Dreeme, narrator Robert Byng finds a friend unlike any he has known before. But is Cecil the man he claims to be, and can their friendship survive the dangers they will soon face together? Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 256 pages | 6 x 9 |
American Justice 2016: The Political Supreme Court
Cecil DreemeAMERICAN HISTORY
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"Policy history with the people left in, Out of the Horrors of War shows that the labor shortage of WWII sparked a drive for disability rights much earlier than generally recounted. Audra Jennings astutely reveals how conflicts within the Truman administration, strong personalities, and contrasting concepts of rehabilitation waylaid the efforts of people with disabilities to obtain full economic citizenship."—Eileen Boris, coauthor, Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State "Audra Jennings is a tenacious and creative researcher who has produced an important contribution to the history of disability and disability rights movements in the United States."—Felicia Kornbluh, University of Vermont "Out of the Horrors of War situates the origins of the disability rights movement squarely in the postwar period and persuasively revises the American narrative of citizenship and rights."—Kim Nielsen, University of Toledo Drawing from extensive archival research, Out of the Horrors of War demonstrates that disabled citizens in the World War II era organized a national movement for economic security and full citizenship, reshaping the U.S. welfare state and laying the foundation for the disability rights movement. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. |
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"Joshua D. Farrington has given scholars, pundits, and the general public the timeliest book yet about how the GOP purged itself of racial minorities and cast its lot with America's declining white majority. A book that is at once complex and clear, Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP is a must read for any student of politics or history interested in how the GOP's failed answers to the race question have pushed a once-great national party to the brink of political self-destruction."—Devin Fergus, The Ohio State University "Drawing impressively on a wide range of primary sources, underpinned by a mastery of the relevant historiography, Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP is full of fascinating detail about how black Republicans worked hard to push their party toward engagement with issues of civil rights."—Robert Mason, University of Edinburgh In his narrative history of black Republicans in the twentieth century, Joshua Farrington reevaluates the relationship between black politicians, activists, and voters and the Republican Party, challenging the assumption that African Americans abandoned the "Party of Lincoln" after 1936. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 328 pages | 6 x 9 | 16 illus. |
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"This important new work takes what some have called 'the f-word' of American history (frontier) and returns it to polite conversation. Starting with the common-sense idea that we should try to understand what colonists meant when they called themselves 'frontier people,' Patrick Spero suggests how Pennsylvania, 'the Keystone State,' can indeed be a keystone for understanding not only early America but the 'frontier country' that followed after 1776."—James H. Merrell, author of Into the American Woods "Patrick Spero's resuscitation of the concept of the frontier adds considerable analytical power and striking new dimensions to familiar stories of Pennsylvania's founding and early development."—Eric Hinderaker, University of Utah "Historians have puzzled at the paradox of Pennsylvania's frontier, wondering how a seemingly harmonious region devolved into a space of terror by the time of the America Revolution. In this deeply researched and engagingly written new work, Patrick Spero shows that the problem of frontier governance vexed the colony from the start. The result is a marvelous book that deepens our understanding not just of Pennsylvania's history but the of broader history of imperial politics in eighteenth-century British North America."—John Smolenski, University of California Davis "Frontier Country is well-conceived and well-executed, with an original interpretive design that shows how ideas about 'frontier' and 'frontier society' shaped relations within Pennsylvania between colonists and Native Americans and between eastern elites and western settlers."—Timothy Shannon, Gettysburg College Synthesizing the tensions between high and low politics and eastern and western regions in Pennsylvania before the Revolution, Patrick Spero recasts the importance of frontiers, as eighteenth-century Pennsylvanians would have understood them, to the development of colonial America and the origins of American Independence. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 22 illus. |
Out of the Horrors of War: Disability Politics in World War II America
Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP
Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early PennsylvaniaANTHROPOLOGY
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"Based upon a diverse and well-developed social network in a context usually closed to foreign researchers, Sovereignty in Exile is an extraordinary work of ethnographic research. Through detailed empirical analysis and a fresh and informed analytical sensibility, Alice Wilson reopens an important, yet often all too narrow, discussion of what counts as democracy in Africa and other so-called developing regions and states."—Brenda Chalfin, University of Florida "This deeply researched ethnography takes the case of Western Sahara and the fusing of a liberation movement (Polisario) and a partially recognized Sahrawi state to make a major contribution to the anthropology of the state. Looking particularly at transformations in the social relations of sovereignty, Wilson offers a fascinating account of control, compromises, and the sometimes uneasy coexistence of revolutionary politics and tribal affinities."—Ilana Feldman, George Washington University "Sovereignty in Exile is a rich and intriguing ethnography that makes a significant contribution not only to refugee studies but also to the anthropology of sovereignty, state power, and tribal identities."—Dawn Chatty, University of Oxford Tracing social, political, and economic changes among Sahrawi refugees, Sovereignty in Exile reveals the dynamics of a postcolonial liberation movement that has endured for decades in the deserts of North Africa while trying to bring about the revolutionary transformation of a society which identifies with a Bedouin past. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus. |
Sovereignty in Exile: A Saharan Liberation Movement GovernsMEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN STUDIES
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"No other scholar has offered such a thoughtful and substantive treatment of pedagogy as construed imaginatively in the Shakespearean plays and poems. . . . Enterline deeply embeds her analysis of early modern pedagogy and rhetoric in a contemporary psychoanalytic framework . . . intent on destabilizing conventional ideas about the gendering of the early modern pedagogical project."—Renaissance Quarterly "A short, tightly argued and crisply written book that aims to show how the rhetorical and grammatical exercises of Shakespeare's schoolroom might inform our reading of his narrative poems and some of his plays, in particular with regard to his handling of gender."—Review of English Studies "Intertwining a close reading of Shakespearean texts with thorough research into the Tudor grammar school, Enterline focuses not only on the literary exercises of humanism, but also on the material practices of education. It is this attention to affect, bodily gestures, physical violence, and other non-textual aspects of early modern pedagogical practice that makes this book both innovative and inspiring."—Sixteenth Century Journal "Lynn Enterline locates in the schoolroom a complex of formative issues that on the one hand describe broad-based cultural processes in Elizabethan society, and on the other turn up in and illuminate the works of Shakespeare. What is striking and noteworthy is the persuasiveness with which she demonstrates their emergence in a vast body of sixteenth-century pedagogical literature and their aptness to our own contemporary theories of personality and gender formation."—Leonard Barkan, Princeton University Shakespeare's habits of imitation revisit the practices of humanist pedagogy only to reveal significant contradictions at the heart of sixteenth-century masculinity. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 208 pages | 6 x 9 | 3 Illus. |
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
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"Timely and significant, Consociation and Voting in Northern Ireland offers a fresh and rigorous analysis of political change in Northern Ireland since the Agreement of 1998. It will likely become the 'go to' reference for discussions of evidence-based research into the Northern Ireland case, as well as more general considerations of the effectiveness of consociational arrangements."—Geoffrey Evans, University of Oxford In Consociation and Voting In Northern Ireland, the first study to address electoral behaviors and opinions in a power-sharing society, John Garry analyzes the democratic efficacy of Northern Ireland's consociational government. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 184 pages | 6 x 9 | 76 illus. |
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"Benevolent Empire is a wonderful and important book that makes original contributions on multiple fronts. Immigration and refugee historians, of course, will have this book on their shelves but so will scholars of American political development, of human rights and humanitarianism, and of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy."—Carl Bon Tempo, State University of New York at Albany Stephen Porter examines political-refugee aid initiatives and related humanitarian endeavors led by American people and institutions from World War I through the Cold War. The supporters of these endeavors presented the United States as a new kind of world power, a Benevolent Empire. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. |
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"A courageous and timely analysis bringing out the testimonies of five unaccompanied migrant youth caught in immigration and child welfare snares. Lauren Heidbrink skillfully critiques the shortcomings of intersecting systems that frequently collide and too often sideswipe best interests of children and families."—Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare "This timely study shows the contradictions and complexities of the way children are treated under both immigration and family law, giving serious attention to their agency, and bringing their voices to life."—Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, University of California, Los Angeles In this ground-breaking ethnography, anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink deconstructs the "problem" of migrant children, examining the historical, political, and institutional roots of contemporary immigration policies and the experiences of the migrant children who navigate this legal and emotional terrain. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 208 pages | 6 x 9 | 4 illus. |
Consociation and Voting in Northern Ireland: Party Competition and Electoral Behavior
Benevolent Empire: U.S. Power, Humanitarianism, and the World's Dispossessed
RELIGIOUS AND JEWISH STUDIES
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"A Historian in Exile is that rare thing, a book by a great historian about a great historian. Solomon ibn Verga is today an obscure figure, but in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this Spanish exile's work The Scepter of Judah was the historical meditation par excellence upon the Jewish condition in the Diaspora. Jeremy Cohen restores to us the history and its author, both of whom seem to have as much to say to us today as they have to so many generations in the past."—David Nirenberg, University of Chicago "This fine book is a fascinating and learned study of the Shevet Yehudah, Solomon ibn Verga's rethinking of the history of the Jews in the wake of the great forced conversions and the massive expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and of the continuing Christian hostility towards Jews. This is the one book that both Hebraists and non-Hebraists will need to have at hand when reading ibn Verga's work."—Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania "A fresh reading and compelling interpretation of Shevet Yehudah that is unprecedented in its profoundness and intellectual depth."—Martin Jacobs, Washington University in St. Louis In A Historian in Exile, Jeremy Cohen shows how Solomon ibn Verga's Shevet Yehudah bridges the divide between the medieval and early modern periods, reflecting a contemporary consciousness that a new order had begun to replace the old. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 256 pages | 6 x 9 |
A Historian in Exile: Solomon ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, and the Jewish-Christian EncounterUNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
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Through a special agreement signed between the Republic of Turkey and the University of Pennsylvania, Turkey has loaned the Penn Museum more than one hundred artifacts gathered from four museums in Turkey (Ankara, Gordion, Istanbul, and Antalya) for an exhibition titled The Golden Age of King Midas. The exhibition features most of the material recovered in Tumulus MM, or the "Midas Mound" (ca. 740 B.C.E.), which was the burial site of King Midas's father, as well as a number of objects found in a series of Lydian tombs. The Turkish loan has made possible a uniquely comprehensive and elaborate exhibition that also features a disparate group of rarely seen objects from the Penn Museum's own collections, particularly from sites in the Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Greece. With the historic King Midas (ca. 740-700 B.C.E.) as its guiding theme, the exhibition illuminates the relationships Phrygia maintained with Lydia, Persia, Assyria, and Greece. The accompanying catalog includes full-color illustrations and essays that expound on the sites and objects of the exhibition. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 208 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | color illus. |
The Golden Age of King Midas: Exhibition CatalogueBook 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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