Penn Press Log

This Week's New Books--Beggar Thy Neighbor and As American as Shoofly Pie

Beggar Thy Neighbor: A History of Usury and Debt Charles R. Geisst 400 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4462-5 | $39.95 | £26.00 From the Roman Empire to the most recent financial crisis, this comprehensive economic history examines humanity's attempts to curb the abuse of debt while reaping the benefits of credit. Read more . .

As American as Shoofly Pie: The Foodlore and Fakelore of Pennsylvania Dutch Cuisine William Woys Weaver 336 pages | 6 x 9 | 59 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4479-3 | $34.95 | £23.00 Not for sale outside North America Celebrated food historian and cookbook writer William Woys Weaver delves deeply into the history of Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine to sort fact from fiction in the foodlore of this unique American 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.

This Week's New Books--Trade, Land, Power: The Struggle for Eastern North America, Plus Three Paperback Releases

Trade, Land, Power: The Struggle for Eastern North America Daniel K. Richter 384 pages | 6 x 9 | 35 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4500-4 | $45.00 | £29.50 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0830-6 | $45.00s | £29.50 In this sweeping collection of essays, one of America's leading colonial historians reexamines struggles between Native peoples and Europeans in early America in terms of how each understood the material basis of power. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road Johan Elverskog 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 48 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4237-9 | $69.95 | £45.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2259-3 | $29.95 | £19.50 EBook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0531-2 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the Encounters with Asia series This groundbreaking work challenges contemporary stereotypes by revealing how both Buddhist and Muslim religious traditions were shaped by a millennium of cross-cultural exchange along the Silk Road from Iran to China. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Empires of God: Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic Edited by Linda Gregerson and Susan Juster 344 pages | 6 x 9 | 6 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4289-8 | $59.95 | £39.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2260-9 | $27.50 | £18.00 Focusing on the formative period of European exploration, settlement, and conquest in the Americas, from roughly 1500 to 1760, Empires of God brings together literary scholars and historians of the English, French, and Spanish Americas to demonstrate the power of religious ideas and narratives to create kingdoms both imagined and real. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Along an African Border: Angolan Refugees and Their Divination Baskets Sónia Silva 188 pages | 6 x 9 | 37 illus. Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4293-5 | $39.95 | £26.00 Paper Apr 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2268-5 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Contemporary Ethnography series Anthropologist Sónia Silva examines how a community of Luvale people, Angolan refugees living in Zambia, use lipele divination baskets to cope with daily life in a new land and maintain connections to their past. 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: Citizenship and the Origins of Women's History in the United States and More

Citizenship and the Origins of Women's History in the United States Teresa Anne Murphy 240 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4489-2 | $42.50 | £28.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Citizenship and the Origins of Women's History in the United States challenges twenty-first-century assumptions of nineteenth-century women's history by tracing the ways women's history was politicized, particularly in light of the growing activism of women and the first woman's rights movement. Read more . . .

Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism Glenda Sluga 224 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4484-7 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Glenda Sluga traces internationalism through its rise before World War I, its mid-century apogee, and its decline after 9/11. Drawing on archival material and contemporary accounts, this innovative history restores internationalism as essential to understanding nationalism in the twentieth century. Read more . . .

Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East Edited by Kamala Visweswaran 320 pages | 6 x 9 | 8 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4487-8 | $75.00 | £49.00 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Everyday Occupations engages visual culture and the ethnography of space, satire and parody, poetry and political critique to examine militarization as it is wielded as a cultural and political tool, and as it is experienced as a material form of violence and symbolic domination. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Human Rights in Our Own Backyard: Injustice and Resistance in the United States Edited by William T. Armaline, Davita Silfen Glasberg, and Bandana Purkayastha 344 pages | 6 x 9 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2257-9 | $27.50 | £18.00 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Human Rights in Our Own Backyard focuses on the state of human rights and responses to human rights issues in the United States, drawing on sociological literature and perspectives to interrogate assumptions of American exceptionalism. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Morality's Muddy Waters: Ethical Quandaries in Modern America George Cotkin 272 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4227-0 | $29.95 | £19.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2249-4 | $24.95 | £16.50 George Cotkin looks at diverse yet central issues such as the problem of evil, moral responsibility, racial identity, and capital punishment, juxtaposed against events such as the bombing of civilians during World War II, the My Lai Massacre, and the invasion of Iraq to demonstrate that moral complexity and confusion can be productive. Read more . .

Now in Paperback The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe Alison Pargeter 256 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2273-9 | $29.95 | £19.50 Not for sale outside North America and the Philippines Alison Pargeter delves into the causes, motivations, and diverse forms of Islamic extremism in Europe. Drawing on original research and interviews conducted with moderates and radicals from across the continent, she shows how the lexicon of the war on terror has succeeded in distorting the complexities and peculiarities of the movement. Read more . . .

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

Medieval Monday: Pope Gregory VIII, the Audita tremendi, and the Third Crusade

This excerpt from Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291, edited by Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters, and James M. Powell, features a translation of the Audita tremendi. This letter, written by Pope Gregory VIII in 1187, was in the words of  Bird, Peters, and Powell "not only the most impassioned plea for a crusade ever issued by a pope until then, but the fullest detailed account of crusaders’ spiritual and temporal rewards and privileges to date."

    The letter circulated widely throughout Europe, inspiring the group of military expeditions that came to be known as the Third Crusade. But the impact of Audita tremendi long outlasted the Third Crusade itself. It inspired a new generation of moral theologians to consider the needs of the Holy Land and to link these to the moral regeneration of Christian Europe, one of the great themes of twelfth and thirteenth-century history. Gregory’s emphasis on the bloody circumstances of the defeat at Hattin, the loss of the True Cross, and the first cities taken by Saladin (the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2, 1187, was not yet known in the West when Audita tremendi was issued) frame his insistence that God’s anger is the result of human sin, that penance is mandatory, not optional, and that a new expedition would be an opportunity for the salvation of Christian warriors. . . .

GREGORY, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all Christ’s faithful who receive this letter, greeting and apostolic benediction.

    When we heard of the severity of the awesome judgment that the hand of God visited on the land of Jerusalem, we and our brothers were disturbed by such a great horror, afflicted by such sorrows, that we scarcely knew what to do or what we should do, save that the psalmist laments and says, ‘‘O God, the gentiles have invaded your inheritance, they have sullied your holy temple, they have laid waste Jerusalem; they have left the dead bodies of your saints as meat for the beasts of the earth and food the birds of the air . . .’’ [Ps 78:1–2]. In fact, because of the conflict which the malice of [Christian] men has recently brought on the land by the inspiration of the devil, Saladin approached those parts with a host of armed troops. They were confronted by the king and the bishops, the Templars and the Hospitallers, the barons and the knights, with the people of the land, and with the Lord’s cross (through which from memory and faith of the suffering of Christ, who hung there and redeemed the human race, was believed to be a sure safeguard and a desired defense against the attacks of the pagans), and after the battle was joined, our side was defeated and the Lord’s cross was captured. The bishops were slaughtered, the king captured, and almost all our men were either put to the sword or taken prisoner. Very few are believed to have escaped. Also, the Templars and Hospitallers were beheaded in his [Saladin’s] presence. With the army defeated, we do not think our letter can explain how they next invaded and seized every place so that only a few remained outside their power. Still, though we use the words of the prophet: ‘‘Who will give me water for my head and a font of tears for my eyes, and I will weep night and day for the death of my people’’ [Jer 9:1], we ought not despair now and decide to mistrust and believe that God is so angry with his people that in his anger with their commission of a multitude of sins he will not quickly pardon when he is pleased by their penance and, after tears and groans, will lead them to exaltation.

This Week's New Books

Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291 Edited by Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters, and James M. Powell 568 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4478-6 | $75.00 | £49.00 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Intended for the undergraduate yet also invaluable for teachers and scholars, this book illustrates how the crusade became crucial for defining and promoting the very concept and boundaries of Latin Christendom. It provides translations of and commentaries on key original sources and an up-to-date bibliography. Read more...

Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas Catherine Cocks 284 pages | 6 x 9 | 9 color, 12 b/w illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4499-1 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Nature and Culture in America series Tropical Whites explains how the tropical beach resort came to symbolize the iconic vacation landscape. Catherine Cocks argues that the tourism industry romanticized and commodified tropical nature in the global South, ultimately legitimizing cultural pluralism and concepts of modern identity. Read more...

Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American Culture Aaron Lecklider 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 21 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4486-1 | $45.00 | £29.50 Throughout the twentieth century, popular songs, magazine articles, plays, posters, and novels alternated between representing intelligence as empowering and as threatening. In Inventing the Egghead, Aaron Lecklider cracks open this paradox by examining representations of intelligence to reveal brainpower's stalwart appeal and influence. Read more...

An Age of Infidels: The Politics of Religious Controversy in the Early United States Eric R. Schlereth 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4493-9 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series Eric R. Schlereth places religious conflicts between deists and their opponents at the center of early American public life. This history recasts the origins of cultural politics in the United States by exploring how everyday Americans navigated questions of religious truth and difference in an age of emerging religious liberty. Read more...

This Week's New Books: Agriculture, Love, and Archaeology

Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia: Progress and Policy Challenges Edited by Paul Dorosh and Shahidur Rashid 376 pages | 6 x 9 | 104 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4529-5 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the International Food Policy Research Institute series In this volume, policy experts provide empirical evidence to shed light on the complexities of agricultural and food policy in today's Ethiopia, highlight major policies and interventions of the past decade, and provide insights into building resilience to natural disasters and food crises.

Empires of Love: Europe, Asia, and the Making of Early Modern Identity Carmen Nocentelli 272 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4483-0 | $55.00 | £36.00 Drawing on a wide range of Dutch, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish sources, Empires of Love shows how the encounter with Asia shaped the way early modern Europeans came to define their racial and sexual identities. al ventures have formed political associations to promote and defend their interests.

The Archaeology of Phrygian Gordion, Royal City of Midas: Gordion Special Studies 7 Edited by C. Brian Rose 360 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | 13 color, 230 b/w illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-1-934536-48-3 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology series This volume covers all aspects of Gordion's Phrygian settlement topography from the arrival of the Phrygians in the tenth century B.C. through the arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 B.C., focusing on the site's changing topography and the consistently fluctuating interaction between the inhabitants and the landscape.

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

Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship Edited by Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Rogers M. Smith 352 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4456-4 | $79.95 | £52.00 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0748-4 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series "Excellent, engaging, and enriching, the essays of Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship pursue a wide spectrum of political and methodological approaches to address the state of the national state in the current globalizing moment."--Linda S. Bosniak, Rutgers School of Law-Camden A broad range of scholars from different disciplines reflect on the likely transformation of the world away from the absolute sovereignty of independent nation-states to the proliferation of varieties of plural citizenship, and on the emergence of possible new forms of allegiance.

Now in Paperback Women Warriors for Allah: An Islamist Network in the Netherlands Janny Groen and Annieke Kranenberg. Translated by Robert Naborn. Foreword by Marc Sageman 280 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4235-5 | $75.00 | £49.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2233-3 | $29.95 | £19.50 Dutch investigative journalists Janny Groen and Annieke Kranenberg offer an indispensable corrective to the conventional view that Muslim women in jihad are either pacifist nurturers who steer their husbands and brothers away from violence or passive bystanders who play a mere supporting role in networks run by domineering men.

Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's Jobs in Metropolitan America Edited by Laura W. Perna 328 pages | 6 x 9 | 14 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4453-3 | $65.00 | £42.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0843-6 | $65.00 | £42.50 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series Written by researchers in education and urban policy, this volume offers useful insights into how to provide urban workers with the educational qualifications they need for real world jobs.

Now in Paperback Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles Marina Peterson 200 pages | 6 x 9 | 14 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4234-8 | $39.95 | £26.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2236-4 | $22.50 | £15.00 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0770-5 | $22.50 | £15.00 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series In Sound, Space, and the City, Marina Peterson explores the processes—from urban renewal to the performance of ethnicity and the experiences of audiences—through which civic space is created at music performances in downtown Los Angeles.

Now in Paperback Asymmetric Autonomy and the Settlement of Ethnic Conflicts Edited by Marc Weller and Katherine Nobbs 360 pages | 6 x 9 | 2 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4230-0 | $59.95 | £39.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2238-8 | $29.95 | £19.50 Ebook 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0575-6 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century series "A useful collection of articles that analyses issues of autonomy and asymmetry from a multi-dimensional perspective."--International Journal on Minority and Group Rights This collection of new case studies assesses the ability of asymmetrical autonomy agreements to resolve violent struggles between central governments and separatist groups within their borders.

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: Animal Encounters, Intimate Enemies, and Next Year in Marienbad

Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain Susan Crane 296 pages | 6 x 9 | 11 illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4458-8 | $59.95 | £39.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0630-2 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Thinking about animals and living with them are vital aspects of medieval experience. Animal Encounters explores saints' lives, hunting treatises, bestiaries, and other genres to discover how various species take part in culture making, revealing that cross-species relationships transform both their animal and their human participants.

Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru Kimberly Theidon 488 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 2 illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4450-2 | $75.00 | £49.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0661-6 | $75.00 | £49.00 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series "A very important work for the fields of anthropology and human rights. . . . Intimate Enemies is a unique, path-breaking ethnography of community responses to situations of extreme violence, of the clash of armed rebels seeking to overthrow the state and counterinsurgency soldiers."--Kay Warren, Brown University Drawing on years of research in the highlands of Ayacucho, Kimberly Theidon explores how Peruvians are rebuilding individual lives and collective existence following twenty years of armed conflict. The micropolitics of reconciliation practiced there complicates the way we understand transitional justice and coexistence in the aftermath of war.

Next Year in Marienbad: The Lost Worlds of Jewish Spa Culture Mirjam Zadoff. Translated by William Templer 320 pages | 6 x 9 | 20 illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4466-3 | $49.95 | £32.50 Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-0755-2 | $49.95 | £32.50 A volume in the Jewish Culture and Contexts series "A charming, highly readable, and scholarly contribution to the cultural history of the Jewish bourgeoisie of central and eastern Europe. With wit and learning Mirjam Zadoff has elevated Marienbad to the rank of a Jewish 'lieu de mémoire.'"--Saul Friedlander, University of California, Los Angeles Next Year in Marienbad draws an engaging portrait of Jewish presence and cultural production in the spa towns of Carlsbad, Marienbad, and Franzensbad, from the last decades of the nineteenth century through the late 1930s.

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 Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis, The Decadent Republic of Letters, Shakespeare's Stationers, and Conversion and Narrative

The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis Naftali S. Cohn 248 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus. Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4457-1 | $69.95 | £45.50 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0746-0 | $69.95 | £45.50 A  volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series Naftali S. Cohn provides an innovative understanding of the rabbinic authors of the Mishnah and their intense focus on the Temple. He contends that the memory of the Temple served a political function for the rabbis, arguing for their own importance within the complex social landscape of Jewish society in Roman Palestine.  "A learned, nuanced, and well-written study of an important theme in a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism. Cohn shows that we must look outside rabbinic literature if we are to place the Mishnah in a meaningful context. Well done."--Shaye J. D. Cohen, Harvard University

The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley Matthew Potolsky 256 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4449-6 | $59.95 | £39.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0733-0 | $59.95 | £39.00 A  volume in the Haney Foundation Series The Decadent Republic of Letters revises the longstanding view of decadence as a movement defined by escapism and sociopolitical withdrawal. The book argues that decadent writers and artists from Charles Baudelaire to Aubrey Beardsley addressed a cosmopolitan audience united by taste rather than language, geography, or national identity.  "Potolsky offers a fresh and original contribution to the study of decadence and succeeds in showing how the movement is not a dusty relic of the nineteenth century, but a provocative and relevant intervention into contemporary issues. In true decadent manner, Potolsky approaches his subject perversely, arguing that we should look not at what decadence rejects but instead at what its proponents valorize. The result is a perspective that emphasizes engagement over withdrawal and renunciation. Decadence emerges from this analysis an exciting, revitalized ideology, one that suggests new ways of approaching contemporary debates."--Melanie Hawthorne, Texas A&M University

Shakespeare's Stationers: Studies in Cultural Bibliography Edited by Marta Straznicky 376 pages | 6 x 9 | 9 illus. Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4454-0 | $75.00 | £49.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0738-5 | $75.00 | £49.00 A volume in the Material Texts series Edited by Marta Straznicky, this seminal collection is the first to explore the multiple and intersecting forms of agency exercised by Shakespeare's stationers in the design, production, marketing, and distribution of his printed works.  "The goal of this collection is nothing short of a fundamental shift in Shakespearean textual criticism, and it achieves this goal with aplomb. The essays are original, substantial, and make a genuine contribution to the field."--Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada

Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic Ryan Szpiech 328 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4471-7 | $59.95 | £39.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0761-3 | $59.95 | £39.00 A  volume in the Middle Ages Series Szpiech draws on medieval Christian, Jewish, and Muslim polemics to investigate the role of narrative in the representation of conversion. By investigating conversion not as individual experience but as expression of communal visions of history, he shows how the narratives dramatize the conflict of ideas in disputational writing.  "This impressive book bridges the fields of religious studies and comparative literature in order to produce close and sophisticated readings of conversion narratives from the later Middle Ages across a broad array of languages (Latin, Castilian/Catalan, Arabic, and Hebrew). Very few scholars can move so gracefully among these languages and areas of scholarship while offering insights from the minutiae of philological analysis to high literary theory, reflections on the nature of religion, and notions of the self."--Jonathan Decter, Brandeis University

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

Beyond "Half the Sky"

Even if you take issue with the celebrity cameos and reporting style in the recent smash PBS documentary, Half the Sky, you can't deny that the program increased the awareness of discrimination against women, one of today's paramount moral challenges. For a deeper understanding of women's human rights, here are some additional resources to help navigate these complex problems:

Women's Human Rights: The International and Comparative Law Casebook by Susan Deller Ross

Women's Human Rights is the first human rights casebook to focus specifically on women's human rights. Rich with interdisciplinary material, the book advances the study of the deprivation and violence women suffer due to discriminatory laws, religions, and customs that deny them their most fundamental freedoms. It also provides present and future lawyers the legal tools for change, demonstrating how human rights treaties can be used to obtain new laws and court decisions that protect women against discrimination with respect to employment, land ownership, inheritance, subordination in marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, polygamy, child marriage, and the denial of reproductive rights.

Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights, edited by Dorothy Hodgson

An interdisciplinary collection, Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights examines the potential and limitations of the "women's rights as human rights" framework as a strategy for seeking gender justice. Drawing on detailed case studies from the United States, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere, contributors to the volume explore the specific social histories, political struggles, cultural assumptions, and gender ideologies that have produced certain rights or reframed long-standing debates in the language of rights. The essays address the gender-specific ways in which rights-based protocols have been analyzed, deployed, and legislated in the past and the present, and the implications for women and men, adults and children in various social and geographical locations. Questions addressed include: What are the gendered assumptions and effects of the dominance of rights-based discourses for claims to social justice? What kinds of opportunities and limitations does such a "culture of rights" provide to seekers of justice, whether individuals or collectives, and how are these gendered? How and why do female bodies often become the site of contention in contexts pitting cultural against juridical perspectives?

Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspective by Rebecca Cook

Rebecca J. Cook and the contributors of Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspective analyze how international human rights law applies specifically to women in various cultures worldwide, and develop strategies to promote equitable application of human rights law at the international, regional, and domestic levels. Their essays present a compelling mixture of reports and case studies from various regions in the world, combined with scholarly assessments of international law as these rights specifically apply to women.

Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives byRebecca J. Cook and Simone Cusack

Drawing on domestic and international law, as well as on judgments given by courts and human rights treaty bodies, Gender Stereotyping offers perspectives on how wrongful gender stereotypes can be effectively eliminated through the transnational legal process in order to ensure women's equality and exercise of their human rights.

On the Move for Love: Migrant Entertainers and the U.S. Military in South Korea by Sealing Cheng 

Are women who travel to work in such clubs victims of trafficking, sex slaves, or simply migrant women? How do these women understand their own experiences? Is antitrafficking activism helpful in protecting them? In On the Move for Love, Sealing Cheng attempts to answer these questions by following the lives of migrant Filipina entertainers working in various gijichon clubs. Focusing on their aspirations for love and a better future, Cheng's ethnography illuminates the complex relationships these women form with their employers, customer-boyfriends, and families. She offers an insightful critique of antitrafficking discourses, pointing to the inadequacy of recognizing women only as victims and ignoring their agency and aspirations. Cheng analyzes the women's experience in South Korea in relation to their subsequent journeys to other countries, providing a diachronic look at the way migrant issues of work, sex, and love fit within the larger context of transnationalism, identity, and global hierarchies of inequality.

Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives, edited by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf

Female Circumcision brings together African activists to examine the issue within its various cultural and historical contexts, the debates on circumcision regarding African refugee and immigrant populations in the U.S. and the human rights efforts to eradicate the practice. This volume does not focus narrowly on female circumcision as a set of ritualized surgeries sanctioned by society. Instead, the contributors explore a chain of connecting issues and processes through which the practice is being transformed in local and transnational contexts. The authors document shifts in local views to highlight processes of change and chronicle the efforts of diverse communities as agents in the process of cultural and social transformation.

A Voice for Human Rights by Mary Robinson, edited by Kevin Boyle

Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, was one of the policy leaders interviewed for Half The Sky. A Voice for Human Rights offers an edited collection of Robinson's public addresses, given between 1997 and 2002, when she served as United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights. The book also provides the first in-depth account of the work of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights. With a foreword by Kofi Annan and an afterword by Louise Arbour, the book will be of interest to all concerned with international human rights, international relations, development, and politics.