Our new releases this month include a sweeping cultural history of the politics of privacy in 20th-century America, a fascinating biography of a Reformation-era woman alchemist, an edited volume focusing on the importance of international sport in global politics today, and more! See below for the full list.
Jump to: Featured Titles | American History | Economics | Medieval and Renaissance Studies | Political Science and Human Rights
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FEATURED TITLES
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"The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac is a fascinating book that brings together in revelatory ways the political economy of metropolitan development and the history of sexuality, offering new interpretations of postwar political culture. Through a rigorous investigation of housing and neighborhood development, it makes logical what first appears to be a paradox: the triumph of a 'tolerate but not endorse' politics around non-normative sexuality in the second half of the twentieth century. Clayton Howard makes a convincing case for a 'metropolitan' approach to political economy and social life and weighs the implications for sexual politics more thoroughly and creatively than I have seen anywhere else."—Sarah Igo, author of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac chronicles the rise of sexual privacy as a fulcrum of American cultural politics, focusing on the history of gay rights in the San Francisco Bay Area from World War II to the dawn of the culture wars in the 1970s and exploring how government policies shaped the cultural politics of the moderate suburbs. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 392 pages | 6 x 9 | 21 illus. |
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"Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood is as gripping as a good novel, yet so much more than merely an interesting yarn. Tara Nummedal is completely conversant with the milieu in which she locates her story and is very adept in fitting this episode into the broader narratives of sixteenth-century religion, science, and court life."—Philip Soergel, University of Maryland Tara Nummedal reconstructs the extraordinary career and historical afterlife of alchemist, courtier, and prophet Anna Zieglerin. Working in Reformation-era Germany, Zieglerin garnered noteworthy renown for her plan to use the alchemical "lion's blood" to prepare humanity for the impending apocalypse. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 304 pages | 6 x 9 | 17 illus. |
AMERICAN HISTORY
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"Flamm's treatment of the riots is riveting. . . . Scouring government records, press reports, and the papers of public officials and civil rights organizations, Flamm also interviewed surviving participants, including police officers and residents of Harlem and Brooklyn. He thus provides a street-level feel for the events of that feverish time. The result is a much more detailed and textured treatment than previous accounts provide. . . . In the Heat of the Summer is well worth reading. It provides a long-overdue chronicle of that fateful summer and helps us understand a pivotal moment in the tangled history of race and politics in the 1960s."—American Historical Review In Central Harlem, the symbolic and historic heart of black America, the violent unrest of July 1964 highlighted a new dynamic in the racial politics of the nation. The first "long, hot summer" of the Sixties had arrived. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 368 pages | 6 x 9 | 21 illus. |
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"There are a number of things to recommend Gerbner's welcome study. Throughout the text she reminds readers that the English, Dutch, and some French colonists in the Caribbean were arguably shaped more by their Protestantism than any national attachments. That this was especially the case in their engagement with slavery is an important revelation. She is also good at exploring and imagining the response of slaves and free blacks to the evolving theology of slavery that was gradually strengthening slavery's grasp in every corner of the Atlantic world. Perhaps most of all, she shines a light on Christianity's complicity in the development of modern racism."—Journal of Early Modern History Could slaves become Christian? If so, did their conversion lead to freedom? If not, then how could perpetual enslavement be justified? Christian Slavery shows how debates about slavery transformed the practice of Protestantism and the language of race in the early modern Atlantic world. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus. |
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"Howard's book is essential reading. . . . From Main Street to Mall makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of retailing and of business more broadly in the U.S."—American Historical Review Richly illustrated with archival photos, this comprehensive study of the American department store industry traces the changing economic and political contexts that brought about the decline of downtown shopping districts and the rise of big-box stores and suburban malls. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 304 pages | 6 x 9 | 30 illus. |
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"With Capital Gains: Business and Politics in Twentieth-Century America, Richard John and Kim Phillips-Fein have brought together a collection of important essays on the relationship of business and politics in the twentieth century. Moving well beyond portrayals of business leaders as robber barons or industrial statesmen, the chapters, which proceed in chronological fashion, range in focus from local boosterism to military spending to corporate civil rights. . . . Taken as a whole, the authors sound a clarion call for the new kinds of questions scholars are asking about modern political economy."—Business History Review Appealing to historians working in the fields of business history, political history, and the history of capitalism, Capital Gains highlights the causes, character, and consequences of business activism and underscores the centrality of business to any full understanding of the politics of the twentieth century—and today. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 312 pages | 6 x 9 |
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"Jen Manion's Liberty's Prisoners powerfully recaptures the moment of transition between an older penal system based on public pain and shame and an emergent one centered on confinement, surveillance, and hidden humiliation. Focused on Philadelphia's famous Walnut Street Prison, Liberty's Prisoners demonstrates the human costs of the birth of the penitentiary."—William and Mary Quarterly Liberty's Prisoners chronicles how the penitentiary, though initially designed as an alternative to corporal punishment for the most egregious of offenders, quickly became a holding tank for those who attempted to lay claim to the new nation's promise of liberty. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. |
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"Turk explains how sex equality at work came to be defined as women's access to the same jobs as men, with no acknowledgment of differences due to motherhood or consideration of the unpaid labor necessary to care for a family. . . . Turk's innovative and deeply researched book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of women's labor and social policy."—American Historical Review In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act outlawed workplace sex discrimination, but its practical meaning was uncertain. Equality on Trial examines how a generation of workers and feminists fought to infuse the law with broad notions of sex equality, reshaping workplaces, activist channels, state agencies, and courts along the way. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 11 illus. |
ECONOMICS
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"Peter Timmer is one of the world's foremost experts on global food policy. This book draws on his very extensive experience, primarily but not exclusively from Asia, his very impressive research record, his large number of publications and his effective application of economic theory to food policy analysis. . . . In this book, Timmer has once again guided those of us interested in food policy through the complexities of the food sector and its interaction with economics and politics."—-American Journal of Agricultural Economics Ending hunger requires that each society find the right balance of market forces and government interventions to bring even a country's most vulnerable citizens into a sustainable food system. C. Peter Timmer explains how food markets operate and when it is effective for governments to step in. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 232 pages | 6 x 9 | 18 illus. |
MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES
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"Elegantly written and meticulously documented, The Poet and the Antiquaries offers a genuinely new, original, and exciting intervention into the study of the reception, editorial, and reading history of Geoffrey Chaucer."—Siân Echard, University of British Columbia In The Poet and the Antiquaries, Megan L. Cook explores how early modern historians, lexicographers, religious polemicists, and other readers with extra-literary interests in the English past made Chaucer a figure of lasting cultural significance. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 288 pages | 6 x 9 | 12 illus. |
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"Scheherazade's Feast: Foods of the Medieval Arab World is [a] fascinating glimpse into how medieval Arabians ate, and the recipes are as relevant today as they were in the medieval period. Salloum, Salloum, and Elias have managed to preserve the best of Arabian cuisine for generations to come."—Samaya Borom, Parergon Scheherazade's Feasts presents over a hundred recipes for the beverages, meals, and sweets of the medieval Islamic world. Part cookbook and part culinary history, this book contextualizes Arab cuisine in a rich tapestry of trade and conquests, royal tables, and poetic praise of fine food. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 232 pages | 8 1/4 x 9 |
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"Wall brilliantly restores an unfamiliar version of early modern domesticity. [Her] achievement . . . is to light up this earlier period, when England was the most dynamic site of recipe publication in Europe."—London Review of Books Situated at the vital intersection of physiology, gastronomy, decorum, knowledge-production, and labor, recipes from the past allow us to understand the significant ways that kitchen work was an intellectual and creative enterprise. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 328 pages | 6 x 9 | 52 illus. |
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
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"A substantial, unique, and much needed contribution to our understanding of media, politics, and policy. Inspired and comprehensive in its approach, Digital Media and Democratic Futures offers a set of fresh and original questions answered by innovative thinkers."—Zizi Papacharissi, University of Illinois, Chicago The essays in Digital Media and Democratic Futures provide deep insights into the complex and context-dependent relationship between media and democracy and show that there is no single outcome for democracy in the digital age, only possible futures. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 21 illus. |
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"Does international sport actually strengthen international understanding and human rights? Any discussion of the future of the beleaguered modern Olympics and other major events, in the current climate of growing xenophobia in many countries, must critically consider this question. This well researched, insightful collection of historical case studies, ably organized with memorable aphorisms by editor Barbara Keys, does exactly that. It is indispensable reading for scholars, journalists, and policymakers alike."—Bruce Kidd, former Olympian and honorary member of the Canadian Olympic Committee Does international sport make the world a better place? This volume critically examines the claims that global sports events promote peace, mutual understanding, antiracism, and democracy, and exposes repeated shortcomings in human rights protection, from the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games to Brazil's 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 248 pages | 6 x 9 |
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"Human Rights and Participatory Politics in Southeast Asia is a significant and much-needed contribution to the theoretical and comparative literature on regional human rights mechanisms. Catherine Renshaw argues convincingly that regional human rights work and national debates inform and influence each other."—Mark Sidel, University of Wisconsin-Madison In her examination of Southeast Asia, Catherine Renshaw asks how human rights can be implemented in and between ASEAN states that are politically diverse. She concludes that, in the absence of a global legalized human rights order, the most significant advancements in the promotion of human rights have emerged from regional institutions. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 256 pages | 6 x 9 |
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"Bertram offers a compelling account of the politics surrounding the transformation of the welfare state into a 'workfare state' or one that links public assistance to work activity among the poor. . . . A richly detailed analysis of formative moments in welfare policy-making."—Journal of Children and Poverty The Workfare State recounts the history of the evolving social contract for poor families from the New Deal to the present. Challenging conventional accounts, Eva Bertram argues that conservative Southern Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s led the way in developing the modern workfare state, well before Republican campaigns in the 1980s. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 336 pages | 6 x 9 |
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