Penn Press Log

This Week's New Books--Augustine, Sri Lanka, Landscape Architecture

Augustine's Manichaean Dilemma, Volume 2: Making a "Catholic" Self, 388-401 C.E. Jason David BeDuhn 584 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4494-6 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series Demonstrating that as Augustine defined and became a "Catholic" self, he also intently engaged with his former Manichaean faith, Augustine's Manichaean Dilemma, Volume 2 explores the close interplay of these two processes in Augustine's works up to and including the Confessions.

When Counterinsurgency Wins: Sri Lanka's Defeat of the Tamil Tigers Ahmed S. Hashim 280 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4452-6 | $59.95 | £39.00 When Counterinsurgency Wins is the first book to analyze the final campaign that won the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009. Ahmed Hashim traces the development of the counterinsurgency campaign from the early stages of the war to the later adaptations and military strategy that led to a decisive finish. Read more . . .

Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates Karen M'Closkey 256 pages | 8 x 10 | 125 color, 30 b/w Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4480-9 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture series Unearthed examines how one of America's most significant landscape architecture firms approaches the redesign of public places to meet a range of ecological and social needs. With more than one hundred and fifty color and black-and-white images, this study uncovers the methods behind many canonical works of international landscape design. Read more . . .

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

This Week's New Books: The Gardens of Suzhou and Making New York Dominican

The Gardens of Suzhou Ron Henderson 224 pages | 6 x 9 | 111 illus. Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2214-2 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture series ""Henderson, a talented landscape architect and designer himself, offers a helpful representation and unique tour of this collection of some of China's most famous gardens."--Laurie Olin, University of Pennsylvania Walk with landscape architect and scholar Ron Henderson through seventeen of Suzhou's classical Chinese garden masterpieces. This insightful guide is fully illustrated with newly drawn plans, maps, and original photographs.

Making New York Dominican: Small Business, Politics, and Everyday Life Christian Krohn-Hansen 336 pages | 6 x 9 | 2 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4461-8 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series This volume presents an ethnographic study of Dominicans in New York City through their participation in small businesses. Krohn-Hansen demonstrates how Dominican enterprises work, how people find economic openings, and how Dominicans who own small commercial ventures have formed political associations to promote and defend their interests.

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

Paul's Pick: a Free Article from Change Over Time

Every month, Paul Chase in the Penn Press Journals department invites our blog readers to download a complimentary article from one of our many scholarly journals.

Paul's pick for November is "Preservation by Adaption: Is it Sustainable?"  by Gregory Donofrio at the University of Minnesota. The article appears in the Fall 2012 issue of Change Over Time. Donofrio writes:

Preservation advocates have recently become fond of saying that ‘‘existing buildings
are the greenest ones of all,’’ an expression that begins to reveal the degree to which the natural environment has overshadowed other aspects of sustainability.

 

Click here to download this free article and learn more about Change Over Time, an international journal of conservation and the built environment.

Check the Penn Press Log in January for Paul's next pick.

This Week's New Books: Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians plus 5 paperback releases

Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana Sophie White 384 pages | 6 x 9 | 33 color, 17 b/w Cloth Dec 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4437-3 | $45.00 | £29.50 A volume in the Early American Studies series Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians offers a distinctive and original reading of racialization in early America. Focusing on cultural cross-dressing from a wide range of sources, Sophie White shows that material culture—especially dress—was central to discourses about race, as colonization was built on encounters mediated by appearance.

Now in Paperback The Past in Pieces: Belonging in the New Cyprus Rebecca Bryant 224 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4260-7 | $45.00 | £29.50 Paper Dec 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2231-9 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Contemporary Ethnography series By examining oral history collected during two years of fieldwork, anthropologist Rebecca Bryant investigates why the 2003 opening of the ceasefire line dividing Cyprus has not led the country any closer to reunification, and how in many ways it has driven the two communities of the island farther apart.

Now in Paperback The Modern Moves West: California Artists and Democratic Culture in the Twentieth Century Richard Cándida Smith 264 pages | 6 x 9 | 35 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4188-4 | $39.95 | £26.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2221-0 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America series Exploring the transformation of California into a center for contemporary art through the twentieth century, this book dramatically illustrates the paths California artists took toward a more diverse and inclusive culture.

Now in Paperback Zamumo's Gifts: Indian-European Exchange in the Colonial Southeast Joseph M. Hall, Jr. 248 pages | 6 x 9 | 12 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4179-2 | $37.50 | £24.50 Paper Dec 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2223-4 | $22.50 | £15.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series Zamumo's Gifts traces the evolution of Indian-European exchange, from gift giving as a diplomatic tool to the trade of commodities that bound colonists and Natives in commercial relations.

Now in Paperback Everyday Nationalism: Women of the Hindu Right in India Kalyani Devaki Menon 232 pages | 6 x 9 | 4 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4196-9 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper Jan 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2234-0 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series This ethnography analyzes the popularity of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India through examining the everyday acts of women activists, finding that women's ability to recruit individuals from a variety of backgrounds and the movement's willingness to accommodate a multiplicity of positions are central to understanding its expansionary power.

Now in Paperback El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace: Crime, Uncertainty, and the Transition to Democracy Ellen Moodie 304 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4228-7 | $55.00 | £36.00 Paper Jan 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2235-7 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series After El Salvador's brutal civil war ended in 1992, crime rates shot up. People began to speak of the peace as "worse than the war." This study examines how narratives of post-conflict violence, told by ordinary people, offered ways of coping with uncertainty during a stunted transition to democracy.

Now in Paperback Traitors: Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building Edited by Sharika Thiranagama and Tobias Kelly 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4213-3 | $45.00 | £29.50 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2237-1 | $24.95 | £16.50 Ebook 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0589-3 | $24.95 | £16.50 This volume examines political, ethnic, and personal trust and betrayals in modern times from Mozambique to the Taiwan Straits, from the former Eastern Bloc to the West Bank, revealing that treachery is a constant and essential part of the processes through which social and political order is reproduced.

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

This Week's New Books

Negotiating the Landscape: Environment and Monastic Identity in the Medieval Ardennes Ellen F. Arnold 320 pages | 6 x 9 | 2 maps Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4463-2 | $65.00 | £42.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0752-1 | $65.00 | £42.50 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Ellen Arnold draws upon a rich archive of charters, property and tax records, correspondence, miracle collections and saints' lives to explore the ways in which interaction with the natural world affected the 'environmental imagination' and identity of the Benedictine monks of Stavelot-Malmedy in the medieval Ardennes.

The Pleasure Garden, from Vauxhall to Coney Island Edited by Jonathan Conlin 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 73 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4438-0 | $69.95 | £45.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0732-3 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture series The Pleasure Garden, from Vauxhall to Coney Island draws together the work of musicologists, art historians, and scholars of urban studies and landscape design to explore the attractions and interactions of the pleasure garden, from the opening of Vauxhall in the seventeenth century to the amusement parks of the early twentieth.

Frontier Cities: Encounters at the Crossroads of Empire Edited by Jay Gitlin, Barbara Berglund, and Adam Arenson 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4468-7 | $45.00 | £29.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0757-6 | $45.00 | £29.50 Frontier Cities recovers the history of borderland cities in a range of periods and locations—from eighteenth-century Detroit and nineteenth-century Seattle to twentieth-century Los Angeles. Frontier cities embody the earliest mode of American urban experience and testify to the intersections of colonial, urban, western, and global history.

Now in Paperback Ethnographies of Neoliberalism Edited by Carol J. Greenhouse 376 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4192-1 | $55.00 | £36.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2232-6 | $27.50 | £18.00 Ebook 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0001-0 | $27.50 | £18.00 What happens when citizens are refashioned as consumers? Drawing on diverse disciplines and ethnographies from five continents, this collection considers neoliberal reform from the standpoint of people's self-understandings as social and political actors.

Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991 Lidwien Kapteijns 336 pages | 6 x 9 | 1 map Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4467-0 | $69.95 | £45.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0758-3 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Clan Cleansing in Somalia deals with the transformative violence that helped cause the collapse of the Somali state in 1991. Kapteijns argues that public acknowledgment of the clan cleansing of this period is indispensable to social and moral repair, and to the critical memory work required from Somalis on all sides of this conflict.

Baroque Sovereignty: Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and the Creole Archive of Colonial Mexico Anna More 448 pages | 6 x 9 | 25 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4469-4 | $65.00 | £42.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0655-5 | $65.00 | £42.50 Baroque Sovereignty examines the emergence of a creole archive of artifacts, history, and traditions of colonial Mexico, primarily curated by the polymath Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora. Anna More posits the centrality of this archive for understanding how a local political imaginary emerged from the ruins of Spanish imperialism.

Now in Paperback The Purposes of Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Cuba and Hawai'i Christine Skwiot 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 17 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4244-7 | $39.95 | £26.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2228-9 | $26.50 | £17.50 Ebook 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0003-4 | $26.50 | £17.50 The Purposes of Paradise shows how travel and tourism shaped U.S. imperialism in Cuba and Hawai'i between the 1850s, when expansionists imagined them as twin possessions, and revolution and statehood in 1959. It explores the relationships between imperial fantasies and political practices in Americans' favorite tropical isles.

Now in Paperback Traitors: Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building Edited by Sharika Thiranagama and Tobias Kelly 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4213-3 | $45.00 | £29.50 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2237-1 | $24.95 | £16.50 Ebook 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0589-3 | $24.95 | £16.50 This volume examines political, ethnic, and personal trust and betrayals in modern times from Mozambique to the Taiwan Straits, from the former Eastern Bloc to the West Bank, revealing that treachery is a constant and essential part of the processes through which social and political order is reproduced.

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

This Week's New Books: Between North and South, The Sovereign Citizen, and Capricious Fancy

Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism Brett Gadsden 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4443-4 | $45.00 | £29.50 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0797-2 | $45.00 | £29.50 A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series Between North and South chronicles the three-decades-long struggle over segregated schooling in Delaware, a key border state and important site of civil rights activism and white reaction, that despite concerted white opposition to reforms produced one of the most progressive desegregation remedies in the nation.

The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic Patrick Weil 224 pages | 6 x 9 Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-2212-8 | $34.95 | £23.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0621-0 | $34.95 | £23.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Present-day Americans may feel secure in their citizenship, but there was a time when citizens could be denationalized. Patrick Weil examines the twentieth-century legal procedures, causes, and enforcement of denaturalization to illuminate an important and neglected dimension of American citizenship, sovereignty, and federal authority.

Capricious Fancy: Draping and Curtaining the Historic Interior, 1800-1930 Gail Caskey Winkler. Foreword by Roger Moss 408 pages | 9 1/2 x 11 | 293 color illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4322-2 | $85.00 | £55.50 Capricious Fancy chronicles the changes in American and European curtain and drapery styles from 1800 to 1930 resulting from the Industrial Revolution. This lavishly illustrated book contains 325 rare archival images and historical commentary from a leading historic preservation educator and practitioner.

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

Demolition is Not Enough: Design After Decline Author Brent Ryan on Redevelopment in Philadelphia

In this guest blog post, Design After Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities author Brent D. Ryan asks Philadelphia to consider its demolition patterns and rowhouse legacy.

Demolition Is Not Enough
Distressed cities like Philadelphia need a future vision that is more than just less

The first decade of the twenty-first century brought a rebirth of sorts to Philadelphia. Real estate markets boomed, housing construction flourished, and confidence in the city rebounded. The city’s population even increased slightly from 2000 to 2010, reversing decades of decline. And the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), a demolition scheme that former Mayor John F. Street made the key policy initiative of his administration, removed 8,000 vacant, dilapidated houses from Philadelphia neighborhoods. At least until the 2007-08 housing crash, the city’s future looked brighter than it had for decades.

Today, the future in many Philadelphia’s neighborhoods is far less certain. Lots cleared by NTI continue to sit vacant, with no conceivable reuse in sight. City government faces the repayment of $250 million in debt that NTI incurred. And almost three-fourths of Philadelphia neighborhoods have housing values lower than construction costs--meaning that market-rate construction is unlikely to occur there. With Mayor Michael Nutter beginning his second term, real estate at a slowdown, and a new comprehensive plan for the city (Philadelphia2035) recently completed, the timing is right to reassess the redevelopment strategies for Philadelphia’s troubled neighborhoods.

Design After Decline--Now Available

Design After Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities
Brent D. Ryan
288 pages | 6 x 9 | 57 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4407-6 | $45.00 | £29.50
A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series

"Design After Decline is an important addition to the study of urbanism 'after the fall.' Ryan brings to this surprisingly little-researched topic an impressive expertise in planning as well as a belief in the social impact of good urban design. As he shows, the many failures and few hard-won victories of late twentieth-century urbanism must be understood if we are to recover a genuine American urbanism in the course of the twenty-first century."--Robert Fishman, University of Michigan

In Design After Decline, Brent D. Ryan chronicles the fraught and intermittently successful rebuilding of Detroit and Philadelphia in recent decades, concluding that small-scale strategies must give way to a revived combination of innovative urban design and social planning. Read more . . .

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

Fall 2012 Preview

For a preview of our Fall 2012 books, take a look at the latest catalog in glorious PDF. Our forthcoming books cover an array of subjects, from medieval letters to Miami politics. Here's a sampling of the Press's forthcoming titles.

Lost Letters of Medieval Life: English Society, 1200-1250, edited by Martha Carlin and David Crouch, reveals everyday life in thirteenth-century England through a collection of correspondence from all levels of society. In Miami Transformed, former mayor Manny Diaz recounts his efforts to renew one of America's most fascinating cities. Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's Jobs in Metropolitan America, edited by Penn professor Laura W. Perna, and In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform, by John P. Spencer bring much-needed perspectives to today's urban education policy debates. Christopher McMahon's Public Capitalism: The Political Authority of Corporate Executives explores the philosophical and ethical boundaries of business leadership, while Albert J. Churella's The Pennsylvania Railroad, Volume 1: Building an Empire, 1846-1917 tells the story of one of the largest enterprises in history. The Pleasure Garden, from Vauxhall to Coney Island, edited by Jonathan Conlin, explores the history of public gardens in the West, and Ron Henderson guides readers through classical Chinese landscapes in The Gardens of Suzhou. The Fall 2012 list also includes three new books in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology series.

For a complete listing of Penn Press books, ebooks, and journals, visit www.pennpress.org.

A History of the Gardens of Versailles--Now in Paperback

A History of the Gardens of Versailles
Michel Baridon. Translated by Adrienne Mason
296 pages | 6 x 9 | 42 illus.
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4078-8 | $59.95 | £39.00
Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2207-4 | $26.50 | £17.50
A volume in the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture series

"Known the world over, the gardens of Versailles are often visited hurriedly by crowds of tourists.... In contrast, this book examines the political and cultural intrigues during the era of the gardens' creation. To achieve his masterpiece, Louis XIV mobilized the seventeenth century's artistic and scientific elite. This work enables us to discover this universe."--Jardins, in a review of the French edition

Michel Baridon traces the history of the most famous gardens in the world from their inception through the three centuries of eventful history that they have witnessed. Read more . . .

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