Penn Press Log

Bombshell -- Now Available

Bombshell: Women and Terrorism
Mia Bloom
320 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4390-1 | $29.95 | £19.50
Not for sale outside the United States

"Engrossing. . . . This balanced, readable account offers invaluable insights into a hidden and disturbing world."--Publishers Weekly

"Mia Bloom's Bombshell is a genuine contribution to our understanding of women and terrorism. It demystifies the myths about female terrorists, who often form the invisible infrastructure of terrorism."--Marc Sageman, author of Leaderless Jihad and Understanding Terror Networks

From Northern Ireland to Sri Lanka, women have been engaged in all manner of terrorist activities, from generating propaganda to blowing up targets. What drives women to participate in terrorist activities? Bombshell is a groundbreaking book that reveals the inner workings of the shocking, unfamiliar world of female terrorists.

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Demonic Desires--Now Available

Demonic Desires: "Yetzer Hara" and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity
Ishay Rosen-Zvi
280 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4339-0 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series

"Demonic Desires analyzes a crucial element of late antique Jewish religious thought, the concept of the yetzer hara. Rosen-Zvi aims to correct misplaced assumptions about the yetzer, in terms of both anachronistic readings of the rabbinic tradition and misleading comparisons made between the yetzer and other aspects of late antique religious thought in the Hellenistic world. The book is a valuable contribution to an important area of study."--Columba Stewart, Saint John's School of Theology Seminary

This study examines the concept of yetzer hara, or evil inclination. Analyzing the some one hundred and fifty appearances of the yetzer in rabbinic literature, Rosen-Zvi contends that the term should not be read under the traditional rubric of sexual desire, but rather in the context of ancient Jewish demonology.

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

A Feast of Creatures -- Now in Paperback

A Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs
Edited and translated by Craig Williamson
248 pages | 6 x 9
Paper 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-1129-0 | $19.95 | £13.00

"Captivating."--Choice

In A Feast of Creatures, Craig Williamson combines his training as a medievalist, anthropologist, and literary critic with his talent as a translator and poet. Here he recasts nearly 100 Old English riddles of the Exeter Book into a modern verse mode that yokes the cadences of Aelfric with the sprung rhythm of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Law, Language, and Empire in the Roman Tradition -- Now Available

Law, Language, and Empire in the Roman Tradition
Clifford Ando
192 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4354-3 | $49.95 | £32.50
A volume in the Empire and After series

Law, Language, and Empire in the Roman Tradition demonstrates how Roman civil law functioned as an instrument of empire by tracking its application to the challenges of governing diverse and distant people.

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

The Listener's Voice--Now Available

The Listener's Voice: Early Radio and the American Public
Elena Razlogova
224 pages | 6 x 9 | 14 illus.
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4320-8 | $39.95 | £26.00

"In The Listener's Voice, Elena Razlogova organizes a wealth of fascinating data in order to overturn fundamental assumptions about early radio. While many have seen early radio as a top-down enterprise, Razlogova uses the concept of reciprocity to show that listeners supplied producers with the feedback they needed to improve sound quality and develop entertaining programs. This is a truly exciting and engaging book."--Kathy M. Newman, Carnegie Mellon University

This book presents the story of how the listening public—including boxing fans, radio amateurs, down-and-out laborers, small-town housewives, black government clerks in Washington, D.C., and Mexican farmers in Oklahoma—participated in the formation of American radio, its genres, and operations.

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Dangerous Economies -- Now in Paperback

Dangerous Economies: Status and Commerce in Imperial New York
Serena R. Zabin
216 pages | 6 x 9 | 6 illus.
Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4160-0 | $55.00 | £36.00
Paper 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2057-5 | $19.95 | £13.00
A volume in the Early American Studies series

"This is not merely an account of a single city but instead a consideration of culture and commerce shaped by political and economic competition and exchange in the Atlantic world. . . . Zabin paints a portrait of colonial New York City that others working on eighteenth-century urban centers will find useful in analyzing how residents thought about their position within the imperial system and their relationships to others, near and far, throughout the empire."--William and Mary Quarterly

This history of New York culture and commerce in the first two thirds of the eighteenth century tells how the volatile forces of imperial politics and commerce created a fluid society in which establishing one's own status or verifying another's was a challenge. Read more . . .

 

 

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

A Common Justice -- Now Available

A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews Under Early Islam
Uriel I. Simonsohn
344 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4349-9 | $79.95 | £52.00
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series

"This is a very welcome book. It offers a theoretically informed and up-to-date analysis of the workings of social power within communities that lived side by side, even if they are said to have lived separate lives."--Arietta Papaconstantinou, Université Paris I

 Focusing on the late seventh to early eleventh centuries in the region between Iraq in the east and present-day Tunisia in the west, this study explores the multiplicity of judicial systems that coexisted under early Islam to reveal a complex array of social obligations that connected individuals across confessional boundaries.

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy -- Now Available

The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy
Edited by Joseph R. Hacker and Adam Shear
329 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus.
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4352-9 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the Jewish Culture and Contexts series

"A remarkably valuable contribution to the cultural history of the Jews in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. The essays offer deep insights into methodological issues broadly connected to the larger general context of continuity and change, focusing on the dialogical relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish identities, especially on the constitutive forces ushering in the modern age."--Robert Bonfil, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This volume presents new research by an international group of scholars on the history of Hebrew books in Italy from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth century, focusing on a range of issues related to the production and dissemination of Hebrew books as well as their audiences.

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

The Research Triangle Author William M. Rohe on the Air with North Carolina's D. G. Martin

At first glance, William M. Rohe, bone fide professor and author of The Research Triangle: From Tobacco Road to Global Prominence, doesn' t seem to have much in common with the ersatz Professor Harold Hill of "The Music Man" fame. But both professors have a talent for drumming up interest in civic issues.

Rohe's work is getting a lot of attention in North Carolina, especially from media personality D. G. Martin. Martin  interviewed Rohe for the 1360 WCHL radio program Who's Talking? With D.G. Martin. The interview will air today at 6:15 p.m. Martin also praised The Research Triangle in his column which appeared in North Carolina newspapers such as the Herald-Sun.

"North Carolinians outside the Research Triangle region envy its economic success and cultural assets. But don’t get too jealous," wrote Martin in his article We got trouble right here in River City. "The very success of the Triangle brings challenges that, if unmet, will topple the Triangle’s place as North Carolina’s capstone example of successful economic development. The Triangle’s dilemmas are the focus of The Research Triangle: From Tobacco Road to Global Prominence, a new book by William Rohe, director of the Center for Urban & Regional Studies at UNC Chapel Hill. . . . Rohe enthusiastically catalogues the benefits the Park brought to the region, including the high-value businesses, the high-paying jobs, and the leveraged economic activity that results from them. However, Rohe’s most important message to North Carolinians is like that of Professor Hill in 'The Music Man,' who asserted to complacent townspeople, 'We got trouble right here in River City.' Much of the trouble in the Triangle is a result of the region’s success. The low-density, sprawling housing patterns and crowded traffic routes cannot sustain the projected population growth of the region."

D. G. Martin's column is available at the Herald-Sun website.

 

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The Disaster Experts Author Hits the Air and the Web Today

Scott Gabriel Knowles, author of The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America, hits the public radio airwaves and web sites today to discuss America's emergency preparedness ten years after the September 11th attacks.

Knowles was interviewed for American Public Media Marketplace report on the economic empact of 9/11. Knowles said of 1990s disaster policy:

"There is no such thing as a natural disaster" -- became a kind of phrase used at that time, to say that, disasters are of our own making. We build in a flood plain. We build on a fault line. And that was really gathering steam throughout the 1990s. And so, then, 9/11 happens and it pushes that consensus aside.

Today at noon eastern time, Knowles will be on WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show.

Knowles is Associate Professor of History at Drexel University and the editor of Imagining Philadelphia: Edmund Bacon and the Future of the City.