Penn Press Log

This Week's New Books-- Divided Nations and European Integration and Through the History of the Cold War

Divided Nations and European Integration Edited by Tristan James Mabry, John McGarry, Margaret Moore, and Brendan O'Leary 408 pages | 6 x 9 | 21 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4497-7 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century series Divided Nations and European Integration is a timely and authoritative collection that demonstrates how the expansion of pan-European institutions is affecting nations divided by sovereign borders, affording political opportunities to some but denying the aspirations of others. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan and John Lukacs Edited by John Lukacs 288 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4253-9 | $39.95 | £26.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2271-5 | $29.95 | £19.50 Presented with an introduction by John Lukacs, the letters in this volume reveal new dimensions in George Kennan's thinking about America and its future and illuminate the political—and spiritual—philosophies that both authors shared as they wrote about a world transformed by war and the clash of ideologies that defined the twentieth century. 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--St. Peter, Education, Slavery, Labor, and Textiles in Literature

The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity George E. Demacopoulos 288 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4517-2 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series By emphasizing the ways the Bishops of Rome first leveraged the cult of St. Peter to their advantage, George E. Demacopoulos constructs an alternate account of papal history that challenges the dominant narrative of an inevitable and unbroken rise in papal power from late antiquity through the Middle Ages. Read more . . .

Public Education Under Siege Edited by Michael B. Katz and Mike Rose 256 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4527-1 | $55.00 | £36.00 Public Education Under Siege argues for a democratic and egalitarian alternative to the test-driven, market-oriented core of current education reform. These short, jargon-free essays cover public policy, teacher unions, economic inequality, race, language diversity, parent involvement, and leadership. Read more . . .

A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic Simon P. Newman 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4519-6 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Early Modern Americas series A New World of Labor connects developments in seventeenth-century Britain with the British experience of slavery on the West African coast and with the initial development of African chattel slavery in Barbados, whose labor system played a foundational role in defining how plantation slavery developed throughout British America. Read more . . .

Slavery's Borderland: Freedom and Bondage Along the Ohio River Matthew Salafia 336 pages | 6 x 9 | 12 illus Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4521-9 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series By centering the practical and figurative significance of the Ohio River as a political border, a cultural boundary, and an artery of movement and economy that gave form to the region, Matthew Salafia sheds light on peculiarities of labor and economy along the Ohio River. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Pens and Needles: Women's Textualities in Early Modern England Susan Frye 344 pages | 7 x 10 | 21 color, 31 b/w illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4238-6 | $65.00 | £42.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2252-4 | $27.50 | £18.00 A volume in the Material Texts series "Susan Frye's book is a beautiful and powerful contribution to scholarship on early modern women's material culture. . . . No other book covers such ground; Pens and Needles is an invaluable resource for art historians, social historians, literary critics, and anyone interested in the material world that early modern women made."--American Historical Review Through an examination of the expressive arts of needlework, painting, and writing, Pens and Needles offers insights into women's lives and, in its final chapters, into literary texts such as Shakespeare's Othello and Cymbeline and Mary Sidney Wroth's Urania. 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--Atlantic Slavery, Life in Nepal, The Arab Spring, and Anthropology Paperbacks

A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic Simon P. Newman 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4519-6 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Early Modern Americas series A New World of Labor connects developments in seventeenth-century Britain with the British experience of slavery on the West African coast and with the initial development of African chattel slavery in Barbados, whose labor system played a foundational role in defining how plantation slavery developed throughout British America. Read more . . .

Maoists at the Hearth: Everyday Life in Nepal's Civil War Judith Pettigrew. Foreword by David N. Gellner 192 pages | 6 x 9 | 6 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4492-2 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series Maoists at the Hearth details the ways that inhabitants of a hill village in central Nepal managed their everyday activities following the arrival of Maoist insurgents in the late 1990s, exploring their changing social relationships with fellow villagers and the parties to the conflict both during and after the civil war. Read more . . .

Roots of the Arab Spring: Contested Authority and Political Change in the Middle East Dafna Hochman Rand 176 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4530-1 | $47.50 | £31.00 The first book-length assessment of events whose ramifications are still unfolding, Roots of the Arab Spring is a coherent and incisive account of the factors that gave rise to the Arab Spring. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights Edited by Elizabeth D. Heineman 352 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4318-5 | $59.95 | £39.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2261-6 | $27.50 | £18.00 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series "[Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones] makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the relationship between sexual violence and periods of conflict."--Women's Review of Books Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights Edited by Dorothy L. Hodgson 312 pages | 6 x 9 | 1 illus. Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4328-4 | $47.50 | £31.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2142-8 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series "[This book] provides us fresh material with which to address the issues of culture, gender, and human rights from an anthropological viewpoint. It will prove a valuable resource that has previously been missing from the array of textbooks that could be used in our courses and a book that will be of general interest for those who work in the field. It moves away from the simple dichotomy of human rights versus culture to look at the interaction of localized legalities and cultural practices surrounding gender."--American Ethnologist Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Pigeon Trouble: Bestiary Biopolitics in a Deindustrialized America Hoon Song 272 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4242-3 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2270-8 | $24.95 | £16.50 "Offering a rare and intimate account of anxieties that can proliferate in encounters with animal Others, Pigeon Trouble will certainly become a canonical text in the emergent interdisciplinary tradition of multispecies ethnography."--Cultural Anthropology 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--Locked In, Locked Out, Take Up Your Pen, and More

Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores 232 pages | 6 x 9 | 19 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4513-4 | $65.00 | £42.50 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series In Locked In, Locked Out, Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores examines four communities in Ponce, Puerto Rico, showing how gates—in both physical and symbolic ways—distribute power, reroute movement, sustain social inequalities, and cement boundary lines of class and race. Read more . . .

Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics Graham G. Dodds 304 pages | 6 x 9 | 1 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4511-0 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Graham G. Dodds explores the constitutional and historical development of unilateral presidential directives—the ability of presidents to bypass the legislative process and set public policy via their own executive orders—and how such a practice fits Americans' conception of democracy. Read more . . .

Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria Fabian Klose. Translated by Dona Geyer 448 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4495-3 | $89.95 | £58.50 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Based on previously inaccessible material from international archives, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence examines the relationship between emerging human rights concepts after 1945 and repressive British and French actions against anticolonial movements in Africa. Read more . . .

Bound to Read: Compilations, Collections, and the Making of Renaissance Literature Jeffrey Todd Knight 288 pages | 6 x 9 | 33 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4507-3 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Material Texts series Jeffrey Todd Knight excavates the culture of book collecting and compiling in early modern England, examining how the pervasive practice of mixing texts, authors, and genres into single bindings defined Renaissance ways of thinking and writing. Read more . . .

Multilevel Citizenship Edited by Willem Maas 288 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4515-8 | $65.00 | £42.50 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Multilevel Citizenship challenges the dominant conception of citizenship as legal and political equality within a sovereign state, demonstrates how citizenship is constructed by political and legal practices, and explores alternative forms of membership in substate, suprastate, and nonstate political communities. Read more . . .

Power Sharing in Deeply Divided Places Edited by Joanne McEvoy and Brendan O'Leary 432 pages | 6 x 9 | 25 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4501-1 | $85.00 | £55.50 A volume in the National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century series This volume considers an array of power-sharing systems in divided cities and states, with critical evaluations of their merits and defects as well as explanations of their emergence, maintenance, and failings. 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: Ellis Island Nation, Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power, Dreams, Dreamers, and Visions, How Rivalries End, and More

Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century Robert L. Fleegler 280 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4509-7 | $49.95 | £32.50 A volume in the Haney Foundation Series Examining the shift between American immigrant policy between 1924 and 1964, Ellis Island Nation traces the emergence of "contributionism," the belief that the newcomers from eastern and southern Europe contributed important cultural and economic benefits to American society. Read more . . .

Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power Glenn Mitoma 240 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4506-6 | $55.00 | £36.00 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series Through careful archival research, Glenn Mitoma reveals how the U.S. government, key civil society groups, Cold War politics, and specific individuals led to America's emergence in the twentieth century as an ambivalent yet central player in establishing an international rights ethic. Read more . . .

Dreams, Dreamers, and Visions: The Early Modern Atlantic World Edited by Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle. Foreword by Anthony F. C. Wallace 336 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4504-2 | $65.00 | £42.50 In this volume, scholars from three continents trace the role of dreams in the cultural transitions of the early modern Atlantic world, illustrating how both indigenous and European methods of understanding dream phenomena became central to contests over religious and political power. Read more . . .

How Rivalries End Karen Rasler, William R. Thompson, and Sumit Ganguly 272 pages | 6 x 9 | 4 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4498-4 | $69.95 | £45.50 Examining political hot spots stretching from Egypt and Israel to North and South Korea, How Rivalries End builds an original theory from patterns in successful conflict resolutions and reveals the key factors in reducing tensions and building long-term peace between adversaries. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback "The Farce of the Fart" and Other Ribaldries: Twelve Medieval French Plays in Modern English Edited and translated by Jody Enders 496 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4323-9 | $49.95 | £32.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2251-7 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the Middle Ages Series Theater historian Jody Enders brings a dozen of the funniest French farces to contemporary English speaking audiences for the first time. This performance-friendly collection includes background information about the plays for medievalists, theater practitioners, and classic comedy lovers alike. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies William C. Kashatus 392 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 30 illus. Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2245-6 | $24.95 | £16.50 Almost A Dynasty details the rise and fall of the World Champion 1980 Phillies. Based on personal interviews, newspaper accounts, and the keen insight of a veteran baseball writer, the book convincingly explains how a losing team was finally able to win its first world championship. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor Catherine M. Paden 240 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus. Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4297-3 | $55.00 | £36.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2267-8 | $26.50 | £17.50 A volume in the American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law series In Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor, Catherine M. Paden examines five civil rights organizations and explores why they chose to represent the poor—specifically, low-income African Americans—during six legislative periods considering welfare reform. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback First Lady of Letters: Judith Sargent Murray and the Struggle for Female Independence Sheila L. Skemp 512 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 10 illus. Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4140-2 | $42.50 | £28.00 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2248-7 | $27.50 | £18.00 A volume in the Early American Studies series Thanks to the recent discovery of Judith Sargent Murray's papers—including some 2,500 personal letters—Sheila L. Skemp has documented the compelling story of a talented and most unusual eighteenth-century woman. Read more . . .

Now in Paperback Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs Edited by Rogers M. Smith 504 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4283-6 | $65.00 | £42.50 Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2269-2 | $34.95 | £23.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Edited and with an introduction by political scientist Rogers M. Smith, Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs brings together essays by an international array of leading scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore the economic, cultural, political, and normative aspects of comparative immigration policies. Read more . . .

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

Penn Press Authors on Chechen History and Politics

As the Boston Marathon bombing investigation continues, journalists and a concerned public are turning to historians, political scientists, security researchers, and other scholars for a deeper understanding of the suspects' possible motives. It's no surprise that Penn Press authors like Philip Mudd were among the experts interviewed, but one connection was completely unexpected.

Three years ago Brian Glyn Williams, Professor of Islamic Studies at Univ of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and author of Afghanistan Declassified: A Guide to America's Longest War, received a letter from a high school student named Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “He wanted to know more about his Chechen roots,” said Williams, as quoted in the New York Times. “He wanted to know more about Russia’s genocidal war on the Chechen people.”

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Williams provides historic background in a Huffington Post commentary, "The Missing Chechen Context on the Boston Tragedy". Williams writes:

Most Americans know very little about this small Muslim ethnic group. While nothing can legitimize the despicable act of terrorism perpetrated by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I believe ethnic and historical background might provide some much needed context.

First of all, the Chechens I have met, including the members of the small tight knit community here in Boston, tend to be a rather Sovietized, secularized, moderate Muslims. The ones I know tend to emulate George Washington for freeing the 13 colonies from British oppression. The Chechens dream of the same thing for themselves from their historic nemesis, imperial Russia/Soviet Union/the post-Soviet Russian Federation.

Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad, by James Hughes at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was cited in "Boston Marathon Bombing: What Do Chechens Have Against the U.S.?," a recent post on the Foreign Policy in Focus blog. The post argues that Hughes' work "sheds some light on possible reasons that Chechen separatists might attack the United States."

After an April 19 interview with KCBS radio in San Francisco, Lincoln Mitchell , an Associate Research Scholar at Columbia University's Harriman Institute tweeted "Wrong to assume these were radical Chechnyan terrorists, but also wrong to oppose the notion their background might be relevant." Mitchell is the author of Uncertain Democracy: U.S. Foreign Policy and Georgia's Rose Revolution and The Color Revolutions.

This Week's New Book: Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights

Now in Paperback Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights Roland Burke 240 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4219-5 | $55.00 | £36.00 EBook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0532-9 | $24.95 | £16.50 Paper | ISBN 978-0-8122-2258-6 | $24.95 | £16.50 A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series This book challenges traditional accounts of the Third World's contribution to international human rights. It demonstrates that diplomats from Third World countries helped both to radicalize the UN human rights agenda in the heyday of decolonization and to undermine that agenda by advancing cultural relativism as an excuse for abuses in the 1970s. 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

Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics Elizabeth Tandy Shermer 416 pages | 6 x 9 | 18 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4470-0 | $49.95 | £32.50 A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series Historian Elizabeth Tandy Shermer examines how Barry Goldwater and elite Phoenix businessmen used policy and federal funds to fashion a postwar "business climate," setting off an interstate competition for investment that transformed American politics.

The Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature Barbara Fuchs 200 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4475-5 | $45.00 | £29.50 A volume in the Haney Foundation Series Amid thorny issues of translation and appropriation, imperial rivalry, the rise of commercial authorship, and anxieties about authenticity, Barbara Fuchs traces how early modern English writers borrowed Spanish literary models, triumphantly reimagining the transnational appropriation as heroic looting.

True Relations: Reading, Literature, and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England Frances E. Dolan 344 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4485-4 | $59.95 | £39.00 Examining seventeenth-century crises of evidence and genres of evidence on which both literary critics and historians now depend, True Relations explores the notion that we apprehend truth through other people's relations of it and that those relations, and our own relation to them, are a function of social relationships in conflict.

Paperclay: Art and Practice Rosette Gault 160 pages | 7 1/2 x 9 3/4 | 150 color illus. Paper 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2241-8 | $28.95 | £19.00 A volume in the New Ceramics series Not for sale outside North America and the Philippines Paperclay is an extremely versatile material for the contemporary potter. Packed with new photographs and clear instructions, Rosette Gault's comprehensive guide is an essential introduction to the medium.

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

MLK Day Reading List for 2013

Many Penn Press publications, from the journal Humanity to our book series Politics and Culture in Modern America and Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights, address the issues that Martin Luther King, Jr. championed in his campaigns for social justice. From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice, by Thomas F. Jackson, speaks directly to King's fight against poverty. Here are some more recent Penn Press books that also relate to King's legacy and ideals.

Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor
Catherine M. Paden
240 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus.
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4297-3 | $55.00 | £36.00
Paper Apr 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2267-8 | $26.50 | £17.50
A volume in the American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law series

In Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor, Catherine M. Paden examines five civil rights organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and explores why they chose to represent the poor—specifically, low-income African Americans—during six legislative periods considering welfare reform.

Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism
Brett Gadsden
352 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4443-4 | $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.

Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America
Victoria W. Wolcott
328 pages | 6 x 9 | 18 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4434-2 | $34.95 | £23.00
A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series

Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters tells the story of the battle for access to leisure space in cities across the United States. This detailed and eloquent history shows how African Americans fought to enter segregated amusement areas not only in pursuit of happiness but in connection to a wider movement for racial equality

Dignity Rights: Courts, Constitutions, and the Worth of the Human Person
Erin Daly. Foreword by Aharon Barak
272 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4440-3 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series

With cases from around the world on a wide range of subjects including prison conditions, employment, sexuality, reputation, and death, this ground-breaking book examines how judicial interpretations of dignity redefine what it means to be human in the modern world.

Paul's Pick: a Free Article from Humanity

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 "Some Rights Are More Equal than Others: The Third World and the Transformation of Economic and Social Rights"  by Roland Burke, author of Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights. The article appears in Winter 2012 issue of Humanity.

  Donofrio writes:

This essay will examine the impact of the Third World on the development and
subsequent reprioritization of economic and social rights. Between the 1940s and the late 1970s, these rights became an established feature of the international human rights order. While the Cold War division on human rights politics was often conceptualized as a struggle over the status of social rights in relation to traditional civil and political freedoms, there was significant support for economic and social rights from the Western democracies.

Click here to download this free article and learn more about Humanity, an international journal of human rights, humanitarianism, and development.

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