Penn Press Log

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.

Christ Circumcised--Now Available

Christ Circumcised: A Study in Early Christian History and Difference
Andrew S. Jacobs
320 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4397-0 | $75.00 | £49.00
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series

This first full-length study of Jesus' circumcision reimagines the language of difference and identity in early Christianity. From his earliest appearance in the Gospel of Luke to the medieval Feast of the Circumcision, Christ circumcised embodies a new way of imagining Christians and their creation of a new religious 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.

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.

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.

 

Seneca Possessed--Now in Paperback

Seneca Possessed: Indians, Witchcraft, and Power in the Early American Republic
Matthew Dennis
328 pages | 6 x 9 | 16 illus.
Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4226-3 | $45.00 | £29.50
Paper 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2199-2 | $24.95 | £16.50
A volume in the Early American Studies series

"An important book. It significantly revises our understanding of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) history in the Early Republic, sheds new light on the turmoil that afflicted native communities in western New York in the decades following the American Revolution, and allows us to examine in close compass the complexities of culture change generally."--Michael Oberg, author of Uncas: First of the Mohegans

Read more . . .

 

 

 

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

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

Becoming the People of the Talmud to Receive 2011 National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship

The Jewish Book Council has chosen Talya Fishman's Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures to receive a 2011 National Jewish Book Award in the scholarship category. The council will present its Nahum Sarna Memorial Award for Scholarship to Fishman at a ceremony in March.

The National Jewish Book Awards, the longest-running North American program of its kind, recognizes outstanding books of Jewish interest. In Becoming the People of the Talmud, Fishman examines ways in which circumstances of transmission have shaped the cultural meaning of Jewish traditions.

Talya Fishman is  Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Beyond Religious Borders - Now Available

Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World
Edited by David M. Freidenreich and Miriam Goldstein
240 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4374-1 | $55.00 | £36.00
A volume in the Jewish Culture and Contexts series

This collection of sophisticated, innovative essays looks at how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers within the Islamic world drew ideas and inspiration from outside the bounds of their own religious communities. Read more . . .

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

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Medieval Iberia -- Second Edition in Paperback

Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources
Edited by Olivia Remie Constable
Second Edition
624 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 30 illus.
Paper 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2168-8 | $34.95 | £23.00
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

For nearly eight centuries, the Iberian peninsula was remarkable for its religious, cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity. This expanded second edition of Medieval Iberia brings together original sources that testify to its rich and sometimes volatile mix of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Read more . . .

 

 

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

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