Check out our latest batch of new titles below, including a crucial new study of gender and slavery, an exploration of how voting rights figure into Native Americans’ fight for self-determination, a look at how the subscription model changed British and Irish theater circa the turn of the century, and much more!
Jump to: Featured Titles | American History | Ancient Studies | Anthropology | Atlantic History | Jewish Studies | Literature and Culture | Medieval and Renaissance Studies | Political Science and Human Rights
To receive email announcements about new books—which include a 30% discount on all titles—sign up here.
FEATURED TITLES
Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World “Wicked Flesh is a powerful book that will set the standard for studies of gender and slavery to follow. It exemplifies the generative quality of a grounded engagement of the archives of slavery through contemporary theoretical work on race and the notion of Diaspora.”—Jennifer Morgan, author of Laboring Women: Gender and Reproduction in the Making of New World Slavery Unearthing personal stories from the archive, Wicked Flesh shows how black women, from Senegambia in West Africa to the Caribbean to New Orleans, used intimacy and kinship to redefine freedom in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Their practices laid the groundwork for the emancipation struggles of the nineteenth century. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 360 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus. |
Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution “Eighteenth-century cities were exciting places, and the drama only increased when British soldiers and sailors arrived in force. Donald F. Johnson is the first historian to take a broad view of the occupied cities of the American Revolution and uncover their surprises. Original, attractive, and full of rich portraits of life under British occupation, Johnson has produced an essential book.”—Benjamin Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America In Occupied America, Donald F. Johnson chronicles the everyday lives of ordinary people living under British military occupation during the American Revolution. Focusing on port cities, Johnson recovers how Americans navigated dire hardships, balanced competing attempts to secure their loyalty, and in the end rejected restored royal rule. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 304 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus. |
Voting in Indian Country: The View from the Trenches “As a North Dakota State Representative, I have dealt with voting rights issues involving barriers towards our Tribal Nations and its members, and I can personally relate to Voting in Indian Country. Although this book covers and explains scientific data, it also brings in the importance of grassroots Native organizations pursuing equality at the ballot box. I highly recommend reading the book. It will open your eyes to our efforts here and now on the obstacles we face and what we are doing to correct the wrongs.”—Representative Ruth Buffalo, North Dakota House of Representatives Voting in Indian Country uses conflicts over voting rights to understand the centuries-long fight for Native self-determination, using ethnographic data and weaving together history, politics, and law to provide a robust view of this often-ignored struggle for social justice. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 tables |
Nuclear Country: The Origins of the Rural New Right “Catherine McNicol Stock’s compelling new book Nuclear Country extends the history of the right back in time, opening in the late 1800s, to ask how a region that had once embraced radicalism gradually moved to the right. Nuclear Country will not only speak to scholars but also appeal to readers deeply engaged with our current political moment.”—Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age In Nuclear Country, Catherine McNicol Stock explores the question of why, between 1968 and 1992, most voters in the Dakotas abandoned their distinctive ideological heritage and came to embrace the New Right. Stock focuses on how this transformation coincided with the coming of the military and national security states to the countryside. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 14 illus. |
AMERICAN HISTORY
Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border “Bootlegged Aliens helps us rethink how boundaries of citizenship shifted as the welfare state expanded. Ashley Johnson Bavery challenges the common conception that the nativism of the 1920s was largely an outgrowth of right-wing reactionary politics and demonstrates how left-wing politics of the 1920s and 1930s likewise helped build the foundation for nativist sentiments.”—Holly M. Karibo, author of Sin City North: Sex, Drugs, and Citizenship in the Detroit-Windsor Borderland Bootlegged Aliens explores the history of illegal immigration, migrant labor, and the early formation of U.S. immigration policy along the country’s northern border, demonstrating how this often-overlooked region influenced the practices and experiences surrounding illegal immigration in early twentieth-century industrial America. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. |
Revolutions and Reconstructions: Black Politics in the Long Nineteenth Century “Revolutions and Reconstructions brilliantly reimagines the black political landscape before 1900. Each chapter is based on cutting edge work and the whole volume convincingly shows how African American political actors, whether at the local or national level, played pivotal roles on a number of civic and institutional fronts. It’s an essential volume.”—Richard Newman, Rochester Institute of Technology Revolutions and Reconstructions gathers historians of the early republic, the Civil War era, and African American and political history to consider not whether African Americans participated in the politics of the long nineteenth century but how, when, and with what lasting effects. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 384 pages | 6 x 9 |
NOW IN PAPERBACK “Force and Freedom provides a compelling intervention in studies of slavery, abolitionism, and allyship. Though many Americans envision abolitionism as a movement led by pacifistic white ministers, Carter Jackson’s work overturns this limited conception of antislavery resistance. By centering black voices in this antebellum campaign, the author unveils the philosophical complexities that permeated the abolitionist movement.”—The Journal of African American History In Force and Freedom, Kellie Carter Jackson provides the first historical analysis exclusively focused on the tactical use of violence among antebellum black activists. Through tactical violence, argues Carter Jackson, abolitionist leaders created the conditions that necessitated the Civil War. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 224 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. |
NOW IN PAPERBACK “Pan American Women is more than a look back at a distant past. In the best tradition of historical writing, it contributes to our understanding of both the pitfalls and the possibilities of today’s women’s internationalism.” – Women’s Review of Books Pan American Women examines U.S. women activists’ attempts to advance inter-American cooperation among women and further hemispheric peace between the World Wars. Threlkeld argues that diplomatic tensions in Mexico and the ongoing Revolution complicated these efforts, as Mexican women embraced a more nationalist political identity. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 264 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus. |
ANCIENT STUDIES
From Trophy Towns to City-States: Urban Civilization and Cultural Identities in Roman Pontus Bringing together a wide range of literary, historical, and political sources, Jesper Majbom Madsen examines how Pompey’s cities in Roman Pontus were initially organized, how they developed over time, and how inhabitants in this part of the Roman Empire defined themselves culturally and politically. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 280 pages | 6 x 9 | 9 illus. |
ANTHROPOLOGY
Restitching Identities in Rural Sri Lanka: Gender, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Contentment “What happens when women free-trade-zone factory workers retire and return to rural villages? Restitching Identities in Rural Sri Lanka provides one of the first studies to address this timely question as it offers a fascinating account of women’s navigation of the competing gender cultural norms of factory and village.”—Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, author of Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work Continuing her earlier work on women free-trade-zone factory workers in Sri Lanka, Sandya Hewamanne here explores the ways in which these women negotiate their social and economic lives once back in their villages and highlights the complex effects of globalization and transnational production on communities in the Global South. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 224 pages | 6 x 9 |
ATLANTIC HISTORY
Rogue Revolutionaries: The Fight for Legitimacy in the Greater Caribbean “By focusing on the lives of adventurers who wandered through the Greater Caribbean during the Age of Revolutions, Vanessa Mongey’s excellent book offers an interpretation of the transition from empires to nations that can help us rethink the presumed inevitability of this transition. Her analysis of these failed revolutionary adventurers makes it possible to imagine an alternative political map of the Americas, in which small republics that ended up being ephemeral could have coexisted with the national states of our own present.”—Ernesto Bassi, Cornell University In Rogue Revolutionaries, Vanessa Mongey revives a lost and fleeting world of cosmopolitan radicalism through the stories of “foreigners of desperate fortune” who sought to ignite revolutions and create their own independent states. Their quest for recognition clashed with the growing power of nation-states and a new international order. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 288 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. |
NOW IN PAPERBACK “In Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic, Peter Mancall offers a brief, elegant account of the environmental understandings of both the Europeans who came to settle and exploit the resources of North America and the Caribbean, and the native groups who were already doing those things. . . . The book features illustrations large enough to reward examination, underlining their role as integral components of the argument.”—Times Literary Supplement Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic reveals how Europeans and Native Americans devised ways to understand the environment. Drawing on paintings, oral history, early printed books, and other cultural artifacts, Peter C. Mancall argues that human understanding of nature played a central role in the emergence of the modern world. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 212 pages | 7 x 10 | 12 color, 51 b/w illus. |
JEWISH STUDIES
The Patrons and Their Poor: Jewish Community and Public Charity in Early Modern Germany “The Patrons and Their Poor is a truly outstanding work of meticulous scholarship. Analyzing the range of communal policies pertaining to poor relief and the norms of charitable giving at the individual level, Debra Kaplan presents an excellent, comprehensive history of charity as practiced in early modern Germany.”—Jay R. Berkovitz, University of Massachusetts Amherst Debra Kaplan offers the first extensive analysis of Jewish poor relief in early modern German cities and towns, exploring the intersections between various sectors of the populations—from wealthy patrons to the homeless and stateless poor—providing an intimate portrait of the early modern Ashkenazic community. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 288 pages | 6 x 9 | 20 illus. |
LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Subscription Theater: Democracy and Drama in Britain and Ireland, 1880-1939 “Matthew Franks convincingly argues that subscription underlay the development of theater audience and repertoire in the modern period. His conclusions are original and make a substantial contribution to both theater history and print culture studies.”—Elizabeth Carolyn Miller, University of California, Davis Subscription Theater asks why turn-of-the-century British and Irish citizens spent so much time, money, and effort joining subscription lists. Matthew Franks argues that subscribers have been responsible for how we value audience and repertoire today, offering a new account of the relationship between ephemera, drama, and democracy. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus. |
MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES
NOW IN PAPERBACK “A dazzling book . . . As Elliott persuasively argues, the seeming elevation of the religious woman as a bride of Christ also raised the specter of her potential faithlessness: the bride was held to be permanently at risk of falling into the arms of the wrong lover, whether human or, worse, demonic. By the later Middle Ages, the bride of Christ was on a downward trajectory . . . As Elliott so convincingly shows, the virgin bride was a dangerous identification for women from the very outset: the virgin, seemingly elevated as Christ’s bride, had nowhere to go but down.”—Church History Following a long trajectory from late antiquity to the high Middle Ages, Dyan Elliott offers a provocative analysis of the changing religious, emotional, and sexual meanings of the metaphor of the sponsa Christi and of the increasing anxiety surrounding the somatization of female spirituality. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 480 pages | 6 x 9 |
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Modern Constitutions The world has seen many new constitutions promising social rights and adopting innovative representative institutions. This book presents examples from the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia that show these constitutions face many challenges, especially the rise of authoritarian regimes that endanger the rule of law. Full Description, Table of Contents, and More 360 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus. |
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.
Educators: To request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.
*Enter “PE14” in the promo code field on the shopping cart page. The email subscriber discount cannot be applied to the purchase of desk or exam copies.