Hot Off Penn Press: December’s New Books

We here at Penn Press hope the festive period was both joyful and restful for all of you. Ours certainly was. With the hectic nature of the holidays, though, we delayed announcing all of the great books we published in December! Now safely returned to the workaday rhythms of January, here they are.

Jump to: American History | Art and Landscape Design | Politics and Human Rights | Religious Studies | Urban Studies


AMERICAN HISTORY


The Long Gilded AgeThe Long Gilded Age: American Capitalism and the Lessons of a New World Order
Leon Fink

"Leon Fink shakes up understandings of U.S. history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—his Long Gilded Age—with unique attention to and global perspective on the contradictions of free labor ideology, the resolution of labor disputes in an age of epic strikes, and the youth culture of American socialism. The Long Gilded Age is ready-made for pitched discussion, as it speaks trenchantly to our own times."—Walter Licht, University of Pennsylvania

"A splendid historical analysis of how, in light of what we know about the world in the early twenty-first century, we might reconsider the history of that forty-year era of industrial conflict and tepid reform that the author labels the Long Gilded Age." —Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara

Presenting a new twist on classic themes of American economic and working-class history, The Long Gilded Age considers the interlocking roles of politics, labor, and internationalism in the ideologies and institutions that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

216 pages | 6 x 9
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4688-9 | $45.00s | £29.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9203-9 | $45.00s | £29.50
A volume in the American Business, Politics, and Society series

 

Daughters of the TradeDaughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast
Pernille Ipsen

"In this important and engaging study, Pernille Ipsen brings vividly to life the mixed-race communities that flourished around Danish forts on the West African coast. Her accessible work is full of surprises and adds a human dimension to the often abstract history of the slave trade, and the importance and originality of her research has implications far beyond West Africa. A first-rate achievement."—Randy J. Sparks, author of Where the Negroes Are Masters: An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade

"Daughters of the Trade represents the best of recent work that seeks to problematize the formal conjugal relationships between European men and African and Euro-African women that were such a prominent feature of the trading cities and forts of coastal West Africa during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. In elucidating the centrality of intimate relations in the trade and African colonialism, Ipsen's graceful and intellectually lucid book will almost certainly become the benchmark monograph on the subject."—Emily Clark, author of The Strange History of the American Quadroon

"In this carefully researched and beautifully written study, Pernille Ipsen uses interracial marriages on the West African coast to illustrate the very local construction of race and racial consciousness in the Atlantic world. African women are at the heart of this story—as wives, as traders, as mothers, and as daughters. Women's lives have too often fallen to the margins, and Daughters of the Trade forcefully argues that African women played crucial, if complicated, roles in the development of the Atlantic world."—Jennifer Morgan, New York University

Examining five generations of marriages between African women and European men in a Gold Coast slave trading port, Daughters of the Trade uncovers the vital role interracial relationships played in the production of racial discourse and the increasing stratification of the early modern Atlantic world.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

288 pages | 6 x 9 | 17 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4673-5 | $49.95s | £32.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9197-1 | $49.95s | £32.50
A volume in the Early Modern Americas series

 


ART AND LANDSCAPE DESIGN


The Artist's GardenThe Artist's Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement
Anna O. Marley, Editor

"Here finally is the definitive work tracing the reciprocal influences of artists and the garden movement during the Progressive era in America, just as European impressionism reached our shores. With its extraordinary range of expertise, detailing techniques of artistic expression and developments in landscape architecture and horticulture, the book will enlighten its readers on numerous topics—not the least on the place of Philadelphia and its environs as central to these creative relationships in our cultural and intellectual history."—Paula Deitz, author of the book Of Gardens: Selected Essays

Lavishly illustrated with more than one hundred stunning American impressionist paintings along with gardening manuals and ephemera, The Artist's Garden tells the intertwining stories of American Art and the Progressive Era garden movement, exploring the ways horticultural and artistic practices shaped American identity.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

264 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | 154 color illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4665-0 | $45.00t | £29.50

 


POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS


Standardizing DiversityStandardizing Diversity: The Political Economy of Language Regimes
Amy H. Liu

"A superb book, providing a richly documented, carefully reasoned, and innovative analysis of the economic imperative in the choice of language regimes. Addressing criteria of stability, efficiency, and inclusivity, and focusing especially on Asia, Amy Liu makes a convincing case for the role of lingua francas in power sharing and power neutralizing in multiethnic societies. It is a major contribution to the comparative study of the politics of language."—William Safran, University of Colorado at Boulder

Using a newly assembled dataset and drawing on fieldwork data from Malaysia and Singapore, Liu finds that how linguistic power is distributed—specifically whether a lingua franca is recognized exclusively or above all others—can generate social trust, attract foreign investment, and therefore indirectly promote economic growth.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

264 pages | 6 x 9 | 22 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4672-8 | $69.95s | £45.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9052-3 | $69.95s | £45.50
A volume in the National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century series

 

Displacing DemocracyDisplacing Democracy: Economic Segregation in America
Amy Widestrom

"Displacing Democracy sets out to challenge and complicate a story that is often understood as an easy equation between individual resources and individual political behavior: most rich people vote, most poor people don't. Amy Widestrom's fine book recasts this as a challenge of political engagement under conditions of stark economic segregation. What matters, in the end, is where you live—and the ways in which civic infrastructure and civic resources can sustain (or sap) democratic participation."—Colin Gordon, University of Iowa

Displacing Democracy demonstrates how neighborhoods segregated along economic lines create conditions encouraging high levels of political activity, including civic and political mobilization and voting, among wealthier citizens while simultaneously discouraging and impeding the poor from similar forms of civic engagement.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

264 pages | 6 x 9 | 39 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4659-9 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9035-6 | $59.95s | £39.00
A volume in the American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law series

 


RELIGIOUS STUDIES


Scripture and TraditionScripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash
Azzan Yadin-Israel

"Conceptually sophisticated and wonderfully erudite, Scripture and Tradition touches on the most fundamental questions of the Midrashic project."—Moshe Halbertal, New York University

Analyzing the layers of interpretation in the Sifra and the transformation of Rabbi Akiva's portrayal in rabbinic literature more broadly, Azzan Yadin-Israel traces an ideological shift toward scriptural authority and away from received traditions.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

320 pages | 6 x 9
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4643-8 | $75.00s | £49.00
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-9043-1 | $75.00s | £49.00
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series

 


URBAN STUDIES


The American Mortgage SystemNOW IN PAPERBACK
The American Mortgage System: Crisis and Reform

Susan M. Wachter and Marvin M. Smith, Editors

"The American Mortgage System is an important volume of research and critical writing on the U.S. mortgage crisis and on the future of the U.S. mortgage system. It should be on the bookshelf of those who work in this arena and those who want to understand these issues better."—Journal of Urban Affairs

"Susan Wachter and Marvin M. Smith's book is a welcome addition to the expanding literature on the foreclosure crisis. This edited volume's lineup of well-respected scholars and analysts provides insights into the damaging practices of the industry and offers suggestions for reforming and reorganizing the American mortgage and financial system."—Journal of the American Planning Association

Leading economists and other housing market researchers examine key elements of the mortgage meltdown in this volume of original essays. More than a critique in hindsight, this volume offers pragmatic solutions to the problems facing American home ownership.

Full Description, Table of Contents, and More

400 pages | 6 x 9 | 48 illus.
Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4351-2 | $49.95s | £32.50
Paperback | ISBN 978-0-8122-2327-9 | $29.95s | £19.50
Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0430-8 | $29.95s | £19.50
A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series

 


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