Penn Press Log

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.

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.

The Surprising Roots of Women's History in the United States

On International Women's Day in this Women's History Month, let's not forget that field of writing women's history has its own turbulent and surprising past. In an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Citizenship and the Origins of Women's History in the United States, Teresa Anne Murphy reveals that some of the earliest writers of American women's history were men, and that the first women behind advancement in the field were more celebrated as poets and keepers of domestic traditions than as serious scholars. Texts written by the editor of Godey's Lady's Book or the author of The Practical Housekeeper may not qualify as works of history by today's standards, yet these writers laid the groundwork for women with broader political and historical agendas. (All the links in the excerpt were added by the editor of this blog.)

Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote to Caroline Dall in the spring of 1854 to let her know he was bowled over by her biographical sketches in The Una, which he collectively labeled "Essays toward the History of Woman." The questions that were being raised by the woman's rights movement, questions inspiring Dall's writing, were the most revolutionary ones of their generation, Higginson claimed. Encouraging Dall to continue her historical writing, Higginson argued that the challenges posed by woman's rights would force the wide-scale revision of all history and all scholarship. "On Slavery or Temperance, for instance, nothing new can be said. But in regard to Woman about all that is true is new. For instance, all statistics must be compiled over—& all history re-written." Given the rather modest nature of some of Dall's historical sketches, Higginson's praise might seem a bit hyperbolic. But Higginson was right. The demands for full citizenship that permeated the movement for woman's rights in the 1850s required a wide ranging reevaluation of social relations. And social relations, in order to be legitimate, needed a history. . . .

Jet Sex Author Victoria Vantoch Shares Stewardess History on Tumblr

Victoria Vantoch, historian and author of The Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon, has just launched a tumblr site devoted to the history of flight attendants during the golden age of air travel.

This month, Vantoch focuses on African American women who broke the color barrier as well as the sound barrier by applying to become flight attendants during the civil rights era. One of these pioneering women was Patricia Banks. "In 1956, when Patricia Banks applied, no U.S. airline had ever hired a black stewardess," writes Vantoch.

For more high flying history, visit The Jet Sex Diaries. The book is scheduled for release in March.

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.

Medieval Monday: Five Myths about Medieval Women and Power

Guest blogger Janna Bianchini, Assistant Professor of history at the University of Maryland and author of The Queen's Hand: Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of Castile, busts some common misconceptions about women in the Middle Ages.

When I mentioned to a friend that my new book was called The Queen’s Hand, his eyes got wide. “You mean like in Game of Thrones?” he said. Sadly for my hopes of record-breaking sales, no. But this is one of those cases where reality is cooler than fiction. In George R. R. Martin’s epic, the King’s (or Queen’s) Hand is an official who handles the dull administrative work of ruling so that the monarch can feast and joust and hold court. In thirteenth-century Iberia (the peninsula now occupied by Spain and Portugal), the queen’s hand was literally that—her hand, the symbol of her authority. She didn’t delegate her power to someone else; she used it herself.

The Middle Ages isn’t generally thought of as a period friendly to women at all, much less to powerful ones. Still, we’re all familiar with a handful of medieval and early modern women who had extraordinary influence: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of Castile, Elizabeth I of England. The subject of my book, Berenguela of Castile, is one of their lesser-known peers. But the focus on women like Berenguela as “exceptions to the rule” has the strange effect of reinforcing old myths about medieval women. Were these women exceptional? Oh, yes. But they didn’t come from nowhere, and their success depended on navigating a society that was much more complex than these myths assume.

Paul's Pick: a Free Article on Working Women from the Journal of the Early Republic

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 August is "Women on the Edge: Life at Street Level in the Early Republic" by Gloria L. Main, Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"Historians are taking a fresh look at life and work in early American cities," writes Main. "They have long appreciated the vital economic and cultural roles played by cities through the ages. It is only recently, however, that they have discovered that we cannot understand how those cities actually functioned without taking into account the economic contributions of ordinary women and children, bound and free."

Main's article will appear in the upcoming Fall issue of the Journal of the Early Republic. Here's an excerpt from the abstract:

Women performed critical functions in the economies of early American cities, but female members of all classes found themselves disadvantaged by both the law and the market, where coverture, marginal jobs, and low wages forced their dependency on men. Yet, even when fully employed, men of the “working poor” did not earn enough to support their families.  As a result, most poor families relied on the earnings of mothers and children to get by.

Click here to download this free article and learn more about the Journal of the Early Republic.

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

This Week's New Books: Building Fortress Europe and American Marriage

Building Fortress Europe: The Polish-Ukrainian Frontier
Karolina S. Follis
288 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4428-1 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series

Building Fortress Europe is an ethnographic examination of the human, social, and political consequences of developing a specialized, targeted, and legally advanced border regime in the enlarged European Union, exploring the intersection between border policing and the lives of migrants, framed by the contradictions of European integration.

Read more . . .

 

American Marriage: A Political Institution
Priscilla Yamin
224 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4424-3 | $59.95 | £39.00
A volume in the American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law series

"A splendid contribution to the scholarship of politics and marriage. . . . An exemplary work in a neglected field."--Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania

In American Marriage, Priscilla Yamin argues that marriage is a political institution to which actors turn either to stave off or to promote change over issues of race, gender, class, or sexuality. In the political struggle, certain marriages are pushed as necessary for the good of society, while others are contested or prevented.

Read more . . .

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

Medieval Monday: Ruth Mazo Karras on a Case of Medieval Unmarriage

Ruth Mazo Karras, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval Studies at the University of Minnesota, discusses the case of an unmarried couple in fifteenth-century Paris. The incident is one of many in her latest Penn Press book, Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages. The legal and religious details of this extramarital union are particular to the Middle Ages, yet the likely motivations of the people involved seem timeless.

Those in search of simple, old fashioned models of love and marriage might be disappointed by some of the realities of medieval coupling. "Tradition is always invented," says Karras, who reminds us that the traditional marriage that people in the twenty-first century have invented for themselves is not really that similar to the state of matrimony in the Middle Ages.

Karras is the author of several books, including From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe and coeditor of Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe. She is also coeditor of the journal Gender & History and Series Editor for The Middle Ages Series published by Penn Press.

Elizabeth Paterson Bonaparte: Nineteenth-Century Fabulous

In this guest blog post, historian Charlene M. Boyer Lewis talks about celebrity past and present and the public career of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, the Baltimore native who became Napoleon's sister-in-law.

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte in a miniature by Augustin, ca. 1814

Americans love their celebrities. To keep up with the on-and-off-again romances, extravagant fashions, and titillating scandals of the Kardashians, Lady Gaga, TomKat, J Lo, and all the others, we rely on television shows, internet sites, magazines, and tabloid newspapers. Unlike mass and social media, this obsession is not a recent phenomenon. Celebrities have captivated Americans since the beginning of the new nation, and one of the earliest in America–Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte–was a truly fabulous one.

In the early 1800s, when young Elizabeth Patterson, the daughter of a wealthy Baltimore merchant, met and married Jerome Bonaparte, the youngest brother of the powerful Napoleon, her celebrity was assured. For decades, even after her scandalous divorce, she skillfully cultivated her image–on both sides of the Atlantic–with great success. Today’s fleeting celebrities would envy Elizabeth’s ability to maintain an enormously popular persona for so long.