Penn Press Log

Books Without Borders--Now Available

Books Without Borders in Enlightenment Europe: French Cosmopolitanism and German Literary Markets
Jeffrey Freedman
384 pages | 6 x 9 | 21 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4389-5 | $79.95 | £52.00
A volume in the Material Texts series

This book examines one of the most important axes of the book trade in Enlightenment Europe: the circulation of French books between France and German-speaking Europe. The first detailed study of the Franco-German trade, it shows how book dealers mediated the transmission of literature across the frontiers of nation, language, and culture. Read more . . .

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

Shame and Honor--Now Available

Shame and Honor: A Vulgar History of the Order of the Garter
Stephanie Trigg
352 pages | 6 x 9 | 30 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4391-8 | $55.00 | £36.00

Shame and Honor is a cultural history of the Order of the Garter, a medieval institution that persists into the twenty-first century. It explores the changing meaning of medieval culture and ritual practice, and of shame and honor, for early modern, post-medieval, and contemporary culture. 

"It's a nice piece of pageantry. . . . Rationally it's lunatic, but in practice, everyone enjoys it, I think."--HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. 

Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

John Woolman's Path to the Peaceable Kingdom--Now Available

John Woolman's Path to the Peaceable Kingdom: A Quaker in the British Empire
Geoffrey Plank
320 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4405-2 | $39.95 | £26.00
A volume in the Early American Studies series

Drawing on the diaries of contemporaries, personal correspondence, the minutes of Quaker meetings, business and probate records, pamphlets, and other sources, this book shows that Woolman and his neighbors were far more engaged with the problems of inequality, trade, and warfare than previously understood. Read more . . .

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 for May, a Free Article on the Paris Mosque from The Jewish Quarterly Review

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 May is "Did the Paris Mosque Save Jews? A Mystery and Its Memories" by University of Cincinnati historian Ethan Katz. The article appears in the Spring 2012 issue of The Jewish Quarterly Review.

Katz's JQR article offers the first scholarly analysis of the collective memory and the history of the Grand Mosque of Paris as a haven for Jews during the Holocaust. The 2011 French feature film Les Hommes Libres brought unprecedented attention to the mosque’s efforts to save Jews during the Occupation. Many press accounts and even “expert” commentaries on the film conveyed an almost breathless enthusiasm and framed it as an invaluable pedagogical tool, but Katz reminds us of the conflicting historical evidence around this story. Katz sheds new light on how Jews, Muslims, and broader French society seek to confront the shifting stakes of the Holocaust and the Second World War in the twenty-first century.

To download this free article and learn more about The Jewish Quarterly Review, click here.

Check the Penn Press Log on June 15 for Paul's next pick.

Religion in Republic Rome--Now Available

Religion in Republican Rome: Rationalization and Ritual Change
Jörg Rüpke
336 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4394-9 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the Empire and After series

Jörg Rüpke analyzes ritual and intellectual change in the city of Rome from the third to the first centuries B.C.E. The development of rational argument about religion and antiquarian systematization of religious practices is contextualized with respect to Roman expansion and the cultural exchange between Greece and Rome. Read more . . .

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

Unmarriages--Now Available

Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages
Ruth Mazo Karras
304 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4420-5 | $49.95 | £32.50
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

Traditional marriage was not the only option for couples in medieval Europe. Alternative forms of union could make lives precarious but also provided a degree of flexibility. The study draws on a wide geographical and chronological range of examples in order to illustrate local difference while bringing out broad patterns. Read more . . .

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

Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late Medieval Champagne--Now Available

Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late Medieval Champagne
Sara McDougall
240 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4398-7 | $55.00 | £36.00
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

This book investigates the earliest known prosecutions of bigamy. In fifteenth-century Champagne, ordinary Christians valued marriage enough to risk criminal prosecution for illegal remarriage. Meanwhile, Church officials regarded bigamy as a grave threat to Christian identity and subjected male bigamists to harsh punishment. Read more . . .

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

Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages--Now Available

Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages
Sanping Chen
320 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Mar 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4370-3 | $79.95 | £52.00
A volume in the Encounters with Asia series

Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages exposes a number of long-hidden "foreign" elements in Chinese culture that represent the legacy of the Tuoba, a former nomadic group originally from central Asia. 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 Month's Podcast: A Reading from The Satires of Horace

In the April Penn Press podcast, our own Sara Davis reads selections from The Satires of Horace, translated by A.M. Juster. In the Satires, the Roman philosopher and dramatic critic Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-3 B.C.), known as Horace, provides trenchant social commentary on men's perennial enslavement to money, power, fame, and sex. Juster's striking new translation relies on the tools and spirit of the English light verse tradition while taking care to render the original text as accurately as possible.

Davis reads "Satire 1" and an excerpt from "Satire 10."

Visit the Penn Press podcast page to listen.

The Crusades and the Christian World of the East Wins John Nicholas Brown Prize

Congratulations to Christopher MacEvitt, Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Dartmouth College. MacEvitt's The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance received the Medieval Academy of America’s John Nicholas Brown Prize for 2012. The Brown Prize is awarded annually for a first book or monograph on a medieval subject judged by the selection committee to be of outstanding quality. The prize was presented to MacEvitt at this year's annual Medieval Academy meeting in St. Louis, MO.