Material culture Books

Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.The electric candle and faux fur, coffee substitutes and meat analogues, Obama impersonators, prosthetics. Imitation this, false that. Humans have been replacing and improving upon the real thing for millennia from wooden toes found on Egyptian mummies to the Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas. So why do people have such disdain for so-called fakes? Kati Stevens''s Fake discusses the strange history of imitations, as well as our ever-changing psychological and socioeconomic relationships with them. After all, fakes aren''t going anywhere; they seem to be going everywhere. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewFake aims to interrogate what it is we think we’re getting from the ‘real’ thing and what we’re searching for either by clamoring for ‘real’ things or by accepting their imitation … If you revel in the critical examination of objects around you and criticism of commonly accepted attitudes, this book will be your new friend. * Seattle Book Review *Fake is fascinating, clever, and utterly perspective-altering. Kati Stevens is the genuine article. * Emily Anthes, author of Frankenstein’s Cat (2013) *Table of Contents1. The Start of Something Fake 2. That Which Is Fake May Never Die 3. Quorn for Lunch; Oreos for Dessert 4. What Was Never Real Can(not) Be Faked 5. Hippopotamus Teeth 6. Davids 7. Ovid and the Real Girl 8. The Start of Something Fake, Part 2 Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisNew Directions in Print Culture Studies features new methods and approaches to cultural and literary history that draw on periodicals, print culture, and material culture, thus revising and rewriting what we think we know about the aesthetic, cultural, and social history of transnational America. The unifying questions posed and answered in this book are methodological: How can we make material, archival objects meaningful? How can we engage and contest dominant conceptions of aesthetic, historical, and literary periods? How can we present archival material in ways that make it accessible to other scholars and students? What theoretical commitments does a focus on material objects entail? New Directions in Print Culture Studies brings together leading scholars to address the methodological, historical, and theoretical commitments that emerge from studying how periodicals, books, images, and ideas circulated from the 19th century to the present. Reaching beyond national boTrade ReviewNew Directions in Print Culture Studies delivers on the promise to make its reader see the field anew. This volume's illuminating case studies are deeply researched and theoretically sophisticated, intellectually honest and, at moments, delightfully weird. A wonderful overview for seasoned and curious scholars alike. * Jordan Alexander Stein, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Fordham University, USA *This rich collection both argues for and amply demonstrates the centrality of print culture to scholarship and pedagogy in the 21st century. In this volume, Schwartz and Worden give us an edgily political, unabashedly nerdy, and theoretically capacious conception of what print culture studies is and can be. The engaging and provocative essays found therein take up objects of inquiry from cartes de visites to bullet journals, from story papers to multimodal websites. They consider capitalism and counterpublics, comics and collections, sound and medium, celebrity and canonicity, multilingualism and hemispheric studies, pedagogy and activism. The clarity and precision of the chapters make this collection classroom-ready. These provocations will also serve as inspirations and entry points for scholars in the field hungry for just such an invitation to connect the print artifacts of the past in all their formal and material specificity to the urgent matters of the present. These “new directions” are awfully fun to explore. * Catherine Keyser, Professor of English, University of South Carolina, USA *An indispensable guide, New Directions in Print Culture Studies gathers 16 case studies that feature inventive enactments of and critical reflections on the methodologies that have enabled this radically interdisciplinary mode of analysis to transform scholarly production across the humanities and social sciences. * Donald E. Pease, Ted & Helen Geisel Professor of the Humanities, Dartmouth College, USA *Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Archives, Materiality, and Modern American Culture (Jesse W. Schwartz, LaGuardia Community College, USA, and Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA) I. Print Culture's Past and Presents 1. Story-Paper Origins in the US: The Unknown Public and The New York Ledger (Ayendy Bonifacio, University of Toledo, USA) 2. “And They Think A Strike Is War”: John Reed, Metropolitan Magazine, and Radical Seriality Against the Editors (Jesse W. Schwartz, LaGuardia Community College, USA) 3. Laying the Type of Revolution: Historicizing US Feminism in and through Print Culture (Agatha Beins, Texas Woman’s University, USA) 4. The Instant Classic in the Age of Digital Print Culture: Claude McKay’s Romance in Marseille (Gary Edward Holcomb, Ohio University, USA) 5. The Real Productivity: Creative Refusal and Cultish Tendencies in Online Print Journal Communities (Michelle Chihara, Whittier College, USA) II. Archives, Exhibits, Images, and Sounds of Print Culture 6. Hold Still: "Redeemed" and Coming Undone (Monica Huerta, Princeton University, USA) 7. Engraving Class: Gender, Race, and the Pictorial Politics of the 1877 General Strike (Justin Rogers-Cooper, LaGuardia Community College, USA) 8. Sounding: Black Print Culture at the Edges of the Black Atlantic (Kristin Moriah, Queen’s University, Canada) 9. “A Traveling Exhibition”: Magazines and the Display and Circulation of Art in the Americas (Lori Cole, New York University, USA) 10. Comics in the Archive: Approaches to the April 1956 Newsstand (Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, and Rebekah Walker) 11. Icons and Archives: James Baldwin and the Practice of Celebrity (Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Harvard University, USA) III. Print Culture Studies in Practice 12. Reimagining Literary History and Why It Matters Now (Kelley Kreitz, Pace University, USA) 13. Anthologizing Alternatives: June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara’s Publishing Pedagogies (Danica Savonick, SUNY Cortland, USA) 14. Hybrid Scholarly Publishing Models in a Digital Age (Krystyna Michael, The CUNY Graduate Center, USA, Jojo Karlin, The CUNY Graduate Center, USA, and Matthew K. Gold, The CUNY Graduate Center, USA) Index

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Our sense of smell is crucial to our survival. We can smell fear, disease, food. Fragrance is also entertainment. We can smell an expensive bottle of perfume at a high-end department store. Perhaps it reminds us of our favorite aunt. A memory in a bottle is a powerful thing. Megan Volpert''s Perfume carefully balances the artistry with the science of perfume. The science takes us into the neurology of scent receptors, how taste is mostly smell, the biology of illnesses that impact scent sense, and the chemistry of making and copying perfume. The artistry of perfume involves the five scent families and symbolism, subjectivity in perfume preference, perfume marketing strategies, iconic scents and perfumers, why the industry is so secretive, and Volpert''s own experiments with making perfume. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic<Trade ReviewFascinating. * Zoomer *Perfume is an enthusiastic exploration worthy of its complex subject, pointing to mysteries related to the art and science of fragrance and welcoming newcomers to revel in them — with the understanding that some may never be solved. * Elizabeth Barrial, Founder and Head Perfumer, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab *A well-researched delight. * Glam Adelaide *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Science 2. Literature 3. Space 4. Time 5. Technology 6. Performance 7. Self 8. Other Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Harry Brown explores the composition, history, kinetic life, and the long deterioration of golf balls, which as it turns out may outlive their hitters by a thousand years, in places far beyond our reach. Golf balls embody our efforts to impose our will on the land, whether the local golf course or the Moon, but their unpredictable spin, bounce, and roll often defy our control. Despite their considerable technical refinements, golf balls reveal the futility of control. They inevitably disappear in plain sight and find their way into hazards. Golf balls play with people. Harry Brown's short treatise on the golf ball serves up surprising lessons about the human desire to tame and control the landscape through technology. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewGolf Ball is a funny, smart, and charming meditation on an unlikely subject. Who knew that the story of this humble little white sphere could tell us so much about our history and culture? Brown weaves cultural history, literary criticism, physics, and philosophy into this wonderful book. His meditation on the golf ball deserves a place on the reading list of the curious golfer and cultural critic alike. * Orin Starn, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, USA, and author of The Passion of Tiger Woods *Brown starts where the curious amongst us always seem to—by taking things apart. Departing from the physical dissection of a single ball, performed as a boy, Brown rollicks through a detailed and highly entertaining exploration of the history of the game of golf. Golf Ball will fill the air of the 19th Hole with questions answered and stories told. * Tom Chiarella, Visiting Writer, Esquire Magazine, and Award-Winning Member of the Golf Writers Association of America *An intriguing mix of history, personal anecdote and cutting-edge philosophy, carrying the reader aloft over a range of courses and discourses past and present … In Golf Ball, Brown has some fun with contemporary thinking whilst never getting too bogged down in the sand trap of theory … leaving us with some intriguing questions to ponder about the objects we use, lose and overlook every day. * Neil Fitzgerald, LapsedHermit.com *Golf Ball… begins with Harry Brown explaining how his object chose him. As an eight-year-old homegrown Heideggerian of a boy, he claims, he sliced a golf ball in two to inquire into its hardness. The book derives from this severing. It inhabits the ‘glimpse of internal structure’ that it offered, unfolding in two parts: ‘Out: Thing,’ and ‘In: Phenomenon.' -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Part One: Out: Thing 1. How I cut a golf ball in half, and found a lot of things inside 2. How the golf ball keeps holy the Lord's day 3. How an empire made the golf ball, and the golf ball made an empire 4. How the golf ball blew up America and made golf more fun 5. How the golf ball went ballistic 6. How the golf ball reached détente 7. How the court decided custody of the golf ball 8. How the golf ball became the #1 ball in golf 9. How the golf ball got so cool Part Two: In: Phenomenon 10. How the golf ball vanishes before your eyes 11. How the golf ball makes us feel fulfilled, for a millisecond 12. How to control the unruly golf ball 13. How to hit the golf ball by not hitting it 14. How the golf ball looks into the abyss, and the abyss looks back 15. How the golf ball won the Golden Fleece 16. How the golf ball went to the moon 17. How the golf ball makes friends with animals 18. How the golf ball prepares for doomsday Notes Index

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The phone booth exists as a fond but distant memory for some people, and as a strange and dysfunctional waste of space for many more. Ariana Kelly approaches the phone booth as an entity that embodies diverse attitudes about privacy, freedom, power, sanctuary, and communication in its various forms all around the world. Through portrayals of phone booths in literature, film, personal narrative, philosophy, and religion, Phone Booth offers a definitive account of an object on the cusp of obsolescence. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewAn entertaining and enlightening exploration of the cultural history of the phone booth and a lament for the loss of these spaces. * WPR: BETA *In this delightful set of mini-essays, Ariana Kelly has created a paen, rather than an elegy, in celebration of the many dimensions of the vanishing phone booth. Her text gleans images and sensations from our collective memory of the once (if briefly) ubiquitous structure. Site of superhero transformations, crimes, communications, quick changes, and other coins of the social realm, the phone booth and the kiosk served as small theaters of intimate activity in full view of the public eye, a curious combination of enclosed and exposed space. She shifts scale from the minutiae of physical observation—hanging wires and scratched glass—to the larger cultural issues of communication and longing, mixing personal experience with historical, literary, and film references throughout. * Johanna Drucker, Professor of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA *Fascinated and attuned, I was cabled into Phone Booth. Ariana Kelly replenishes the work on speculative telephony in an altogether compelling way. * Avital Ronell, University Professor in the Humanities, New York University, USA, and author of The Telephone Book *[Phone Booth] inclines us towards nostalgia, toward urgent questions of what remains when objects disappear, of re-use, and shelter. If phone booths today have receded into the interstices of our built worlds… then that freeing of the object from its use enables Arianna Kelly to tell a different story, a story about what these telephonic leftovers might become, what they now are and what they anchor. -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Table of Contents1. Disconnected 2. Hermit’s Hut 3. Our Speed 4. The Phantom Phone Booth 5. Say Anything 6. Fortress of Solitude 7. Significant Portals 8. A Fine and Private Place 9. Glass Case of Emotion 10. The God Booth 11. Only Connect Acknowledgements Notes Index

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. It may be responsible for a greater improvement in human diet and longevity than any other technology of the last two thousand years—but have you ever thought seriously about your refrigerator? That box humming in the background displays more than you might expect, even who you are and the society in which you live. Jonathan Rees examines the past, present, and future of the household refrigerator with the aim of preventing its users from ever taking it for granted again. No mere container for cold Cokes and celery stalks, the refrigerator acts as a mirror—and what it reflects is chilling indeed. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewDoes life exist without refrigerators? For most of us, the answer is no. How this common kitchen appliance achieved its indispensable status in less than a century is an amazing tale filled with surprising twists and unexpected connections. Refrigerator is a delight to read. Bravo! * Andrew F. Smith, Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America *Allow Jonathan Rees to re-introduce you to the most underappreciated appliance in your kitchen: the refrigerator. Despite its recent and as yet patchy arrival on the world stage, the humble fridge has transformed how and what we eat, for better and for worse. This concise overview should be required reading for the 99.5 percent of Americans who own a refrigerator. * Nicola Twilley, author of Edible Geography and contributing writer at The New Yorker *Jonathan Rees’s Refrigerator offers a meticulously observed history of the ‘cold chain’ of industrialized food webs, explains how refrigeration works; and goes so far as to imagine life with and without it. Beyond this mini-historical account, the real heft to this title lies in the implied ecological impact of what doing without refrigeration might mean for those in the West for whom it has become taken for granted. -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Object Lessons’ describes themselves as ‘short, beautiful books,’ and to that, I'll say, amen. … [I]t is in this simplicity that we find insight and even beauty. … In Refrigerator, historian Jonathan Rees asks us to look again at an object many of us take for granted as it hums away in our kitchens. When's the last time you looked at that thing? Did you contemplate how the refrigerator may have done more to extend the human lifespan than any other piece of technology? … If you read enough ‘Object Lessons’ books, you'll fill your head with plenty of trivia to amaze and annoy your friends and loved ones — caution recommended on pontificating on the objects surrounding you. More importantly, though, in the tradition of McPhee's Oranges, they inspire us to take a second look at parts of the everyday that we've taken for granted. These are not so much lessons about the objects themselves, but opportunities for self-reflection and storytelling. They remind us that we are surrounded by a wondrous world, as long as we care to look. * Chicago Tribune *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: How Refrigerators Work Chapter Two: How to Make Your Refrigerator Stand Out Chapter Three: Are the Benefits of Refrigeration Worth the Costs? Chapter Four: Waste and Wants Chapter Five: Freezing and Freezers Conclusion Notes Index

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. A classic teenage fetish object, the American driver’s license has long symbolized freedom and mobility in a nation whose design assumes car travel and whose vastness rivals continents. It is youth’s pass to regulated vice—cigarettes, bars, tattoo parlors, casinos, strip joints, music venues, guns. In its more recent history, the license has become increasingly associated with freedom’s flipside: screening. The airport’s heightened security checkpoint. Controversial ID voting laws. Federally mandated, anti-terrorist driver’s license re-designs. The driver’s license encapsulates the contradictory values and practices of contemporary American culture—freedom and security, mobility and checkpoints, self-definition and standardization, democracy and exclusion, superficiality and intimacy, the stable self and the self in flux. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewRanging across the 20th century and between continents, Castile teaches a fundamental 'lesson' about the license: what's meant to fix an identity in fact generates competing meanings and values. Freedom and control, security and vulnerability, authenticity and fakery, youth and maturity. The book's Kerouacian opening and mix of pop culture references, personal anecdote, and philosophical musings invite attention to this overlooked but ever-present object. * Heather Houser, Assistant Professor of English, University of Texas at Austin, USA, and author of Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction *In Driver’s License, Meredith Castile… draws six lessons: on national identity, on the culture of faked documents, on design, teen culture, identity, and civics. -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Driver’s License is almost two short books in one. One part contains several personal stories, which evoke the much-mythologized independence of American teenagers now free to drive themselves. The other part becomes, like Hood, a condemnation of racial injustice. This section describes the de facto disenfranchisement of minority groups in the U.S. It explains how this disenfranchisement – not only when it comes to voting, but also for accessing basic social services – depends on the bureaucratic mechanics of the driver’s license and other forms of ID. Being undocumented or unable to afford driving lessons are just two of the obstacles to exercising full citizenship, and Driver’s License takes some interesting left turns to arrive at this message. Verdict: Buy. American culture so heavily fetishizes the car, yet the driver’s license is also hugely important to a sense of identity and possibility. * Book Riot *Table of ContentsAmerica Fake Design Teen Identity Civics

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Book SynopsisIn this intriguing insight into the work and history of a museum, V&A director and historian Dr Tristram Hunt brings together ten renowned V&A curators to tell the stories behind ten of their most treasured objects. 'Tipu's Tiger' (an almost life-size wooden semi-automaton mauling a European soldier), the 'Great Bed of Ware' (an Elizabethan bed for 8 people) and a Shakespeare First Folio are among the featured highlights whose route to the V&A collections are entertainingly revealed. Through these stories, this insightful history of museum curation - a world of careful study and sometimes remarkable fortuity - shows how the priorities of a museum are shaped and change over time. Published to explore in more depth some of the stories featured in the BBC six part series Secrets of the Museum.Trade Review'...full of fascinating, if occasionally tragic and controversial, tales of acquisitions.' Ciara Dossett, Daily Mail, 6th February 2020Table of ContentsThe Lives of the Objects, Tristram Hunt / Copy of Trajan's Column, Rebecca Knott / The Raphael Cartoons, Ana Debenedetti / Tipu's Tiger, Susan Stronge / First Folio, Geoffrey Marsh / The Rodin Gift, Alicia Robinson / The Great Bed of Ware, Nick Humphrey / Fold-up Chair, Johanna Agerman Ross / Evening Ensemble, Sonnett Stanfill / Rangoon: Signal Pagoda, Martin Barnes / Robin Hood Gardens, Christopher Turner

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Book SynopsisTopics covered by the papers include: Aesthetics and politics of the kitchen in fascist Italy, The bamboo tea whisk in Japanese tea culture, Cooking under fire, 1914-1918, Sugar sculpture in Italian court banquets, Mongolian milk spoons, Perfuming the table in old Baghdad.

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Book SynopsisPresents an account of the ways in which ethnic populations are remaking themselves in the image of the corporation - while corporations coopt ethnic practices to open up fresh markets and regimes of consumption.Trade Review"The Comaroffs are among the very finest anthropologists working anywhere in the world today. As genuine leaders of the discipline, every new book they publish is an event and this one is no exception. Ethnicity, Inc. will be a watershed for anyone looking for new ways to explain our neoliberal world. This extraordinarily lucid book is one of the most ambitious, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking pieces of anthropological scholarship written over the last few decades; it sets a standard other scholars can only hope to emulate." - Matti Bunzl, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"

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Book SynopsisThe verb declutter has not yet made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, but its ever-increasing usage suggests that it's only a matter of time. The author finds that both the idea of organization and the role of the clutterologist are deeply ingrained in our culture, and that there is a fine line between clutter and deviance in America.Trade Review"My high expectations were fulfilled and indeed exceeded by Herring's brilliant, groundbreaking, fascinating, and lucid book. In traversing his rich and well-researched archive in the series of case studies that make up the book, Herring examines how and why hoarders have been stigmatized in a number of different contexts through the twentieth century. In doing so, he mounts a sustained and significant challenge to the pathologizing discourses about hoarding." (Jonathan Flatley, Wayne State University)"

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Book SynopsisThrough much of its history, Italy was Europe's heart of the arts, an artistic playground for foreign elites and powers who bought, sold, and sometimes plundered countless artworks and antiquities. This loss of artifacts looted by other nations once put Italy at an economic and political disadvantage compared with northern European states. Now, more than any other country, Italy asserts control over its cultural heritage through a famously effective art-crime squad that has been the inspiration of novels, movies, and tv shows. In its efforts to bring their cultural artifacts home, Italy has entered into legal battles against some of the world's major museums, including the Getty, New York's Metropolitan Museum, and the Louvre. It has turned heritage into patrimony capitala powerful and controversial convergence of art, money, and politics. In 2006, the then-president of Italy declared his country to be the world's greatest cultural power. With Ruling Culture, Fiona Greenland traces Trade Review"The famous Art Squad police unit is pitted against thieves and smugglers in this broad-ranging study, which shows how Italy has transformed its rich heritage into global cultural capital." * Apollo, "Off the shelf" *"In this thought-provoking book, Greenland walks us through a couple of centuries of evolving cultural heritage policy in Italy. . . . The book offers a ground-breaking discussion of developing Italian policy for cultural heritage, ending with the inevitable neo-liberal entanglements of private capital, but it also contains a wealth of raw material and pointers for further research." -- Neil Brodie * Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Reviews *"Fiona Greenland’s Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy is a meticulous and insightful work inviting the reader to look closer at the construction of Italian cultural power . . . This book is a model in terms of methodology and analysis for its depth and kaleidoscopic approach. It can also serve as a way to reflect on western cultural powers and legal systems in place for the preservation of artefacts and archaeological practices." * Cultural Sociology *“In this beautifully written and insightful study of the mutual entanglement between Italy’s national art police squad and the deeply entrenched tradition of tomb robbing, Greenland’s portrayal of the robbers—in whom Italians see heroic tricksters and traitorous villains by turns—is both sharply analytical and descriptively captivating. She deftly articulates historical and legal detail with a rattling good story.” -- Michael Herzfeld, author of Evicted from Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome“Ruling Culture is groundbreaking. Greenland addresses the problem of how culture is used by states and various non-state actors to foster allegiance to nations, investigating culture as a key building block of national identity and making a convincing case for the difference between cultural power and ideological power.” -- Richard Lachmann, author of First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers“Ruling Culture provides a detailed and thought-provoking analysis of the construction of Italian national identity. It promises to be a major contribution to our understanding of Italian national identity, the institutional and legal dimensions of heritage, and the disciplinary history of archaeology. Greenland has written a first-rate piece of work and a valuable scholarly contribution.” -- Joshua Arthurs, author of Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy"Tomb robbing is not the typical sociological fare, and thanks to Fiona Greenland’s expertise and beautiful writing, Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy emerges as a fresh, fascinating work of cultural analysis." * Contemporary Sociology *"[Greenland's] methods and analysis reflect her positionality as a social scientist with a deep appreciation for and understanding of the humanities. Ruling Culture is a model for how to incorporate multiple sources of data within sociological analysis." * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The World’s Greatest Cultural Power 1 Art Squad Agonistes 2 The American Price 3 Distributing Sovereignty: From Fascism to the Art Squad 4 Tomb Robbers and Cultural Power from Below 5 Made in Italy 6 Farewell to the Tomb Robber Acknowledgments Appendix: Methodology Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisLeor Halevi tells the story of the Islamic trials of technological and commercial innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shedding light on culture, commerce, and consumption in Cairo and other colonial cities, Modern Things on Trial is a groundbreaking account of Islam's material transformation in a globalizing era.Trade ReviewLeor Halevi's original study offers important perspectives on turn of the twentieth-century Islamic reformist thought in the context of changing relations between law and material history. He matches up instructive readings in legal opinions delivered in Cairo by Rashid Rida with innovative background research on the new products and technologies that prompted questions to him from around the Muslim world. -- Brinkley Messick, author of Sharīʿa Scripts: A Historical AnthropologyThis nuanced, meticulously researched, yet accessible study illuminates how significant early-twentieth-century debates on Islamic law often revolved around some surprisingly ordinary objects and how local anxieties and input shaped a reformist Islam with transregional appeal. Halevi's focus on the material dimensions of modern Islamic thought adds a very welcome and promising dimension to the scholarship in this field. -- Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of Islam in Pakistan: A HistoryBy tracing the evolution of 'laissez-faire Salafism' in response to consumer concerns about the religious status of new commodities and technologies, Halevi positions Islam's modern reformation as driven more by materialist than ideational forces. This is a highly original rethinking of the old question of religion and modernity by looking at the material transformations—the 'modern things'—that Muslims acquired from the industrializing West. -- Nile Green, Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History, University of California, Los AngelesThis is a remarkable intervention by a pioneering scholar of Islamic law and material culture. Focusing on Rashid Rida, a leading light of modern Islamic reform, it highlights the material entanglements that catalyzed his legal rulings on novel commodities, technologies, and financial instruments. In place of dogmatism and idealism, what emerges is a riveting narrative of pragmatic and materialist accommodations in a period marked by the impact of capitalism, consumerism, and colonialism. This is revisionist history in the best sense. -- Finbarr Barry Flood, director of Silsila: Center for Material Histories, New York UniversityAn outstanding work that sets a new standard for the writing of modern Islamic intellectual history...this book will prove of enduring interest to researchers in Islamic law and modern Islamic thought, historians of the late imperial and early nation-state Muslim worlds, and students of the processes of globalization more generally. * American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences *Halevi sheds light on Islam’s relationship with modernity by offering an account of how Islamic revivalists first responded to modern transformations through religious and legal rulings. * Middle East Journal *This excellent book is paradigm shifting. . . Essential. * Choice *Halevi’s work contributes to the larger understanding of how Islamic reform in this period was often driven through thehistorical narrative of Riḍā as a reformer, illustrating a bottom-up process. * Arab Studies Quarterly *A fresh, lively, and materialist intervention against reductive readings of modern Islam. * Jadaliyya *By rejecting abstractions like “Westernization” and turning instead to how tangible things were weighed on the moral scale of sharia, Leor Halevi presents a bold and lucid new analysis of the making of modern Islam. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Halevi’s book charts the way for other scholars of law and history to write history grounded in an eclectic mix of materials in several languages from various archives around the world. * Law and Social Inquiry *Halevi’s compelling monograph is relevant to a large audience and should interest global historians and historians of empire as much as scholars of modern Islam. * American Historical Review *He not only weaves intellectual and economic history together but comes forth with a contribution that is as ground breaking and original regarding the development of a consumer culture as it is concerning legal reform. * Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies *The writing is clear, engaging, and accessible. In addition to classes on Islam, the arguments advanced heremay be pertinent to courses on theory in religious studies. * International Journal of Middle East Studies *It is a new way of looking at the issue of religion and modernity. Among other things, this book would be an excellent focus for graduates reading law and change in the modern Muslim world. * Technology and Culture *Table of ContentsList of Maps and FiguresAcknowledgmentsPrologue: The Parable of the Montgolfière and the Translation of Haleby’s CorpseIntroduction: Good Things Made Lawful: Euro-Muslim Objects and Laissez-Faire Fatwas1. The Toilet Paper Fatwa: Hygienic Innovation and the Sacred Law in the Late Imperial Era2. Fatwas for the Partners’ Club: A Global Mufti’s Enterprise3. In a Material World: European Expansion from Tripoli to Cairo4. Paper Money and Consummate Men: Capitalism and the Rise of Laissez-Faire Salafism5. The Qurʾan in the Gramophone: Sounds of Islamic Modernity from Cairo to Kazan6. Telegraphs, Photographs, Railways, Law Codes: Tools of Empire, Tools of Islam7. Arabian Slippers: The Turn to Nationalistic Consumption8. Lottery Tickets, Luxury Hotels, and Christian Experts: Economic Liberalism Versus Islamic Exclusivism in a Territorial FrameworkConclusionsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisLeor Halevi tells the story of the Islamic trials of technological and commercial innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shedding light on culture, commerce, and consumption in Cairo and other colonial cities, Modern Things on Trial is a groundbreaking account of Islam’s material transformation in a globalizing era.Trade ReviewLeor Halevi's original study offers important perspectives on turn of the twentieth-century Islamic reformist thought in the context of changing relations between law and material history. He matches up instructive readings in legal opinions delivered in Cairo by Rashid Rida with innovative background research on the new products and technologies that prompted questions to him from around the Muslim world. -- Brinkley Messick, author of Sharīʿa Scripts: A Historical AnthropologyThis nuanced, meticulously researched, yet accessible study illuminates how significant early-twentieth-century debates on Islamic law often revolved around some surprisingly ordinary objects and how local anxieties and input shaped a reformist Islam with transregional appeal. Halevi's focus on the material dimensions of modern Islamic thought adds a very welcome and promising dimension to the scholarship in this field. -- Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of Islam in Pakistan: A HistoryBy tracing the evolution of 'laissez-faire Salafism' in response to consumer concerns about the religious status of new commodities and technologies, Halevi positions Islam's modern reformation as driven more by materialist than ideational forces. This is a highly original rethinking of the old question of religion and modernity by looking at the material transformations—the 'modern things'—that Muslims acquired from the industrializing West. -- Nile Green, Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History, University of California, Los AngelesThis is a remarkable intervention by a pioneering scholar of Islamic law and material culture. Focusing on Rashid Rida, a leading light of modern Islamic reform, it highlights the material entanglements that catalyzed his legal rulings on novel commodities, technologies, and financial instruments. In place of dogmatism and idealism, what emerges is a riveting narrative of pragmatic and materialist accommodations in a period marked by the impact of capitalism, consumerism, and colonialism. This is revisionist history in the best sense. -- Finbarr Barry Flood, director of Silsila: Center for Material Histories, New York UniversityAn outstanding work that sets a new standard for the writing of modern Islamic intellectual history...this book will prove of enduring interest to researchers in Islamic law and modern Islamic thought, historians of the late imperial and early nation-state Muslim worlds, and students of the processes of globalization more generally. * American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences *Halevi sheds light on Islam’s relationship with modernity by offering an account of how Islamic revivalists first responded to modern transformations through religious and legal rulings. * Middle East Journal *This excellent book is paradigm shifting. . . Essential. * Choice *Halevi’s work contributes to the larger understanding of how Islamic reform in this period was often driven through thehistorical narrative of Riḍā as a reformer, illustrating a bottom-up process. * Arab Studies Quarterly *A fresh, lively, and materialist intervention against reductive readings of modern Islam. * Jadaliyya *By rejecting abstractions like “Westernization” and turning instead to how tangible things were weighed on the moral scale of sharia, Leor Halevi presents a bold and lucid new analysis of the making of modern Islam. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Halevi’s book charts the way for other scholars of law and history to write history grounded in an eclectic mix of materials in several languages from various archives around the world. * Law and Social Inquiry *Halevi’s compelling monograph is relevant to a large audience and should interest global historians and historians of empire as much as scholars of modern Islam. * American Historical Review *He not only weaves intellectual and economic history together but comes forth with a contribution that is as ground breaking and original regarding the development of a consumer culture as it is concerning legal reform. * Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies *The writing is clear, engaging, and accessible. In addition to classes on Islam, the arguments advanced heremay be pertinent to courses on theory in religious studies. * International Journal of Middle East Studies *It is a new way of looking at the issue of religion and modernity. Among other things, this book would be an excellent focus for graduates reading law and change in the modern Muslim world. * Technology and Culture *Table of ContentsList of Maps and FiguresAcknowledgmentsPrologue: The Parable of the Montgolfière and the Translation of Haleby’s CorpseIntroduction: Good Things Made Lawful: Euro-Muslim Objects and Laissez-Faire Fatwas1. The Toilet Paper Fatwa: Hygienic Innovation and the Sacred Law in the Late Imperial Era2. Fatwas for the Partners’ Club: A Global Mufti’s Enterprise3. In a Material World: European Expansion from Tripoli to Cairo4. Paper Money and Consummate Men: Capitalism and the Rise of Laissez-Faire Salafism5. The Qurʾan in the Gramophone: Sounds of Islamic Modernity from Cairo to Kazan6. Telegraphs, Photographs, Railways, Law Codes: Tools of Empire, Tools of Islam7. Arabian Slippers: The Turn to Nationalistic Consumption8. Lottery Tickets, Luxury Hotels, and Christian Experts: Economic Liberalism Versus Islamic Exclusivism in a Territorial FrameworkConclusionsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisIn Things with a History, Héctor Hoyos argues that the roles of objects in recent Latin American fiction offer a way to integrate materialisms old and new, transforming our understanding of how things shape social and political relations.Trade ReviewIn this singular book, Hoyos unveils a world of unexplored relations between subjects, objects, materiality, and immateriality. He explores the social pact between words and things. Through the idea of transcultural materialism, Hoyos discusses how contemporary Latin American literature mobilizes cultural meanings to illuminate moments in an exploitative global economy. The book deploys a sophisticated web of literary genealogies, as well as theories of materialism, and engages us in new conversations on literature in the global context. -- Graciela Montaldo, Columbia UniversityThings with a History provides a fresh optic on the new materialisms of our time and on the history of things (rubber, cell phones, corpses) that have shaped the history of our present. Héctor Hoyos engages a wonderful range of contemporary Latin American authors and a powerful tradition attuned to both nonhuman agency and human responsibility, unwilling to unlearn the lessons of historical materialism. Grappling with these regional “literatures of extraction” as a political ecologist, Hoyos contributes to today’s most pressing critical conversations. -- Bill Brown, author of Other ThingsAmbitiously conceptualized and beautifully written, Things with a History takes up the formidable task of connecting the humanities with material science and biology and succeeds in opening up new spaces for critique. Hoyos offers provocative pairings of overconsumption and hunger, abundance and scarcity, overextraction and underutilization. By reading a dazzling array of authors and thinkers from Latin America and beyond, Hoyos demonstrates, with uncommon facility, the urgent need for an engaged world literary politics. -- B. Venkat Mani, author of Recoding World Literature: Libraries, Print Culture, and Germany's Pact with BooksIn a fine-grained textual commentary, Things with a History follows the texts’ meanderings, noting their complexities and avoiding unnecessary reductiveness. Combining critical imagination with theoretical rigor, Hoyos persuasively breathes new life and meaning into “new materialism” and its predecessors. -- Aníbal González-Pérez, Yale UniversityA great example on how to work beyond the false dichotomy of representation and practices and to deeply dissect the benefits and limitations of regional critical takes in the context of a globalized world. -- Valeria Meiller, Georgetown University * ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Tale of Two MaterialismsPart I: Objects1. Raw Stuff Disavowed2. Of Rocks and Particles3. Corpse Narratives as Literary HistoryPart II: Assemblages4. Politics and Praxis of Hyperfetishism5. Digitalia from the MarginsConclusions: Extractivism EstrangedNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisIn Things with a History, Héctor Hoyos argues that the roles of objects in recent Latin American fiction offers a way to integrate materialisms old and new, transforming our understanding of how things shape social and political relations.Trade ReviewIn this singular book, Hoyos unveils a world of unexplored relations between subjects, objects, materiality, and immateriality. He explores the social pact between words and things. Through the idea of transcultural materialism, Hoyos discusses how contemporary Latin American literature mobilizes cultural meanings to illuminate moments in an exploitative global economy. The book deploys a sophisticated web of literary genealogies, as well as theories of materialism, and engages us in new conversations on literature in the global context. -- Graciela Montaldo, Columbia UniversityThings with a History provides a fresh optic on the new materialisms of our time and on the history of things (rubber, cell phones, corpses) that have shaped the history of our present. Héctor Hoyos engages a wonderful range of contemporary Latin American authors and a powerful tradition attuned to both nonhuman agency and human responsibility, unwilling to unlearn the lessons of historical materialism. Grappling with these regional “literatures of extraction” as a political ecologist, Hoyos contributes to today’s most pressing critical conversations. -- Bill Brown, author of Other ThingsAmbitiously conceptualized and beautifully written, Things with a History takes up the formidable task of connecting the humanities with material science and biology and succeeds in opening up new spaces for critique. Hoyos offers provocative pairings of overconsumption and hunger, abundance and scarcity, overextraction and underutilization. By reading a dazzling array of authors and thinkers from Latin America and beyond, Hoyos demonstrates, with uncommon facility, the urgent need for an engaged world literary politics. -- B. Venkat Mani, author of Recoding World Literature: Libraries, Print Culture, and Germany's Pact with BooksIn a fine-grained textual commentary, Things with a History follows the texts’ meanderings, noting their complexities and avoiding unnecessary reductiveness. Combining critical imagination with theoretical rigor, Hoyos persuasively breathes new life and meaning into “new materialism” and its predecessors. -- Aníbal González-Pérez, Yale UniversityA great example on how to work beyond the false dichotomy of representation and practices and to deeply dissect the benefits and limitations of regional critical takes in the context of a globalized world. -- Valeria Meiller, Georgetown University * ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Tale of Two MaterialismsPart I: Objects1. Raw Stuff Disavowed2. Of Rocks and Particles3. Corpse Narratives as Literary HistoryPart II: Assemblages4. Politics and Praxis of Hyperfetishism5. Digitalia from the MarginsConclusions: Extractivism EstrangedNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisDung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a playful and imaginative glimpse into the consumerist dreamscape of late-nineties Hong Kong. First published in 1999, it comprises ninety-nine sketches of life just after the handover of the former British colony to China.Trade ReviewNamed a New York Times Notable Book. * New York Times Book Review *Playful and quirky, the sketches reveal Dung’s eye for this particular moment in history, and his vast imagination . . . Documenting a particular place and time, this vibrant and distinctive collection offers a kaleidoscopic vision of that era. -- Weike Wang * New York Times Book Review *Highly addictive, the equivalent of literary dim sum. * South China Morning Post Magazine *[These tales] are as relevant today as they were when they were first published in 1999 . . . Feed your inner nostalgia monster some of these surrealist pop-culture bites. * Kirkus Reviews *Fascinating and refreshing. * Publishers Weekly *Surreal, comical, and haunting, this short story collection sees magic in everyday items. * Foreword Reviews *Dung Kai-Cheung is Hong Kong’s greatest novelist. * Three Percent *Reading Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is like descending into a beautiful fever dream of Hong Kong in the late ‘90s. The story collection is both a time capsule, capturing Hong Kong through pop culture references like Hello Kitty and Air Jordans, and an incantation, breathing life into a surreal cast of characters who transform themselves, literally and metaphorically, through their pop culture choices. * Necessary Fiction *Longtime urban chronicler Dung has achieved rare distinction as one of very few figures writing about Hong Kong to win recognition in world literature. He has done so by turning mundane, unexamined items in all our lives into haunting, near-Shakespearian spiritual forces. * Nikkei Asia *Dung Kai-cheung’s catalog is a cultural 'thick description' of popular culture filled with dry wit and humor. His sketches are not short stories. He offers flights of fancy. * Asian Review of Books *These half-allegorical sketches by a uniquely gifted Hong Kong writer bring to us a nostalgic mosaic of the sights and sounds of a city whose cosmopolitan splendor is fast fading. It is even more heart-rending to read them in English today than some twenty years ago when these astonishing literary tidbits first appeared in the Chinese original. -- Leo Ou-fan Lee, author of City Between Worlds: My Hong KongDung Kai-cheung is Hong Kong’s greatest living writer, and this translation is a cause for celebration, giving global readers another path into his unique, uncanny Hong Kong. May it help bring him the wider international readership that is long overdue. -- Antony Dapiran, author of City on Fire: The Fight for Hong KongDung Kai-cheung is the most prolific and imaginative Hong Kong writer of the past three decades. His A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On is a fascinating and singular literary meditation on how “objects” and “stuff” affect people’s everyday lives, create meaning, and contribute to cultural identity. -- Michael Berry, editor of The Musha Incident: A Reader on the Indigenous Uprising in Colonial TaiwanI read these ninety-nine sketches with a mixture of dreamy fondness and rueful melancholy. Dung Kai-cheung deftly captures the city at a time of fundamental change in this series of offbeat stories, and one couldn’t ask for better translators than Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson. -- Tammy Lai-Ming Ho, editor in chief of Cha: An Asian Literary JournalModeled on a remembrance of the Song dynasty capital city after it fell to northern invaders in the twelfth century, these vignettes record dreams of a bygone (yet never quite gone) Hong Kong with wistfulness and humor, translated by McDougall and Hansson with accuracy and elegance. -- Lucas Klein, editor and translator of Words as Grain: New and Selected Poems of Duo DuoThis publication represents a milestone in broadening the readership of Dung’s work and in fostering the teaching and research of Hong Kong and Sinophone literature. * Asian Studies Review *Table of ContentsAuthor’s Preface: The MaskTranslators’ Note1. Agnès b.2. Cutie Punk3. Magpaper4. Hello Kitty5. Tank Tops6. Sena’s Piano II7. IXUS8. Girl Specimens9. Che10. Pastéis de Nata11. Photo Stickers12. Football Kits13. Red Wing14. Eat as Much as You Like15. A Bathing Ape16. Hysteric Glamour17. Windows 9818. non-no19. Konjak Jellies20. Mebius21. Combat Trousers22. Puffy23. Sony DV24. Aprons25. Air Jordan26. ICQ27. The Colored Sunglasses28. Seiko Lukia29. My Melody30. Snoopy31. Panatellas32. Secondhand Clothes33. Teletubbies34. Ha Kam Shing35. Nokia 881036. Camouflage37. Le Couple38. Bucket Hats39. iMac40. Rolex Daytona41. Viva Japanese TV Drama42. Polaroids43. Lovegety Station44. Prada45. StarTAC46. Colors47. Beatmania48. Adidas49. Gucci50. Yahoo!51. Fujifilm Digital Camera52. Converse Lo Tec53. Hairpins54. Cut Sleeves55. Scarves56. Animal Prints57. The Pleated Skirt58. Miu Miu Flannel59. Gray60. The Cockroach61. The Cowboy Hat62. Signal Youths63. H2O+64. Depsea Water65. The Patagonia Fleece66. The Duffel Coat67. LV Vernis68. Panasonic DVD69. South Park70. Dreamcast71. Tomb Raider III72. Sharp MiniDisc Player73. Burberrys Blue Label74. MP375. Miffy76. Devon Aoki77. Motorola Dual Band78. Cheesecake79. PalmPilot80. PN Rouge Suplinic81. Final Fantasy VIII82. The Waist Bag83. Twisted Strands84. Sunday85. A Temporary Tattoo86. The Neck Pouch87. Cutie Cute & Horribly Horrid88. 5S89. Drawstrings90. The Three Skewer Brothers91. Khaki92. White Blouses93. Ballet Shoes94. Birkenstock95. Cargo Shorts96. Flip-Flops97. Hiromix98. Chappies99. Made in Hong Kong

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Book SynopsisDung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a playful and imaginative glimpse into the consumerist dreamscape of late-nineties Hong Kong. First published in 1999, it comprises ninety-nine sketches of life just after the handover of the former British colony to China.Trade ReviewNamed a New York Times Notable Book. * New York Times Book Review *Playful and quirky, the sketches reveal Dung’s eye for this particular moment in history, and his vast imagination . . . Documenting a particular place and time, this vibrant and distinctive collection offers a kaleidoscopic vision of that era. -- Weike Wang * New York Times Book Review *Highly addictive, the equivalent of literary dim sum. * South China Morning Post Magazine *[These tales] are as relevant today as they were when they were first published in 1999 . . . Feed your inner nostalgia monster some of these surrealist pop-culture bites. * Kirkus Reviews *Fascinating and refreshing. * Publishers Weekly *Surreal, comical, and haunting, this short story collection sees magic in everyday items. * Foreword Reviews *Dung Kai-Cheung is Hong Kong’s greatest novelist. * Three Percent *Reading Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is like descending into a beautiful fever dream of Hong Kong in the late ‘90s. The story collection is both a time capsule, capturing Hong Kong through pop culture references like Hello Kitty and Air Jordans, and an incantation, breathing life into a surreal cast of characters who transform themselves, literally and metaphorically, through their pop culture choices. * Necessary Fiction *Longtime urban chronicler Dung has achieved rare distinction as one of very few figures writing about Hong Kong to win recognition in world literature. He has done so by turning mundane, unexamined items in all our lives into haunting, near-Shakespearian spiritual forces. * Nikkei Asia *Dung Kai-cheung’s catalog is a cultural 'thick description' of popular culture filled with dry wit and humor. His sketches are not short stories. He offers flights of fancy. * Asian Review of Books *These half-allegorical sketches by a uniquely gifted Hong Kong writer bring to us a nostalgic mosaic of the sights and sounds of a city whose cosmopolitan splendor is fast fading. It is even more heart-rending to read them in English today than some twenty years ago when these astonishing literary tidbits first appeared in the Chinese original. -- Leo Ou-fan Lee, author of City Between Worlds: My Hong KongDung Kai-cheung is Hong Kong’s greatest living writer, and this translation is a cause for celebration, giving global readers another path into his unique, uncanny Hong Kong. May it help bring him the wider international readership that is long overdue. -- Antony Dapiran, author of City on Fire: The Fight for Hong KongDung Kai-cheung is the most prolific and imaginative Hong Kong writer of the past three decades. His A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On is a fascinating and singular literary meditation on how “objects” and “stuff” affect people’s everyday lives, create meaning, and contribute to cultural identity. -- Michael Berry, editor of The Musha Incident: A Reader on the Indigenous Uprising in Colonial TaiwanI read these ninety-nine sketches with a mixture of dreamy fondness and rueful melancholy. Dung Kai-cheung deftly captures the city at a time of fundamental change in this series of offbeat stories, and one couldn’t ask for better translators than Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson. -- Tammy Lai-Ming Ho, editor in chief of Cha: An Asian Literary JournalModeled on a remembrance of the Song dynasty capital city after it fell to northern invaders in the twelfth century, these vignettes record dreams of a bygone (yet never quite gone) Hong Kong with wistfulness and humor, translated by McDougall and Hansson with accuracy and elegance. -- Lucas Klein, editor and translator of Words as Grain: New and Selected Poems of Duo DuoThis publication represents a milestone in broadening the readership of Dung’s work and in fostering the teaching and research of Hong Kong and Sinophone literature. * Asian Studies Review *Table of ContentsAuthor’s Preface: The MaskTranslators’ Note1. Agnès b.2. Cutie Punk3. Magpaper4. Hello Kitty5. Tank Tops6. Sena’s Piano II7. IXUS8. Girl Specimens9. Che10. Pastéis de Nata11. Photo Stickers12. Football Kits13. Red Wing14. Eat as Much as You Like15. A Bathing Ape16. Hysteric Glamour17. Windows 9818. non-no19. Konjak Jellies20. Mebius21. Combat Trousers22. Puffy23. Sony DV24. Aprons25. Air Jordan26. ICQ27. The Colored Sunglasses28. Seiko Lukia29. My Melody30. Snoopy31. Panatellas32. Secondhand Clothes33. Teletubbies34. Ha Kam Shing35. Nokia 881036. Camouflage37. Le Couple38. Bucket Hats39. iMac40. Rolex Daytona41. Viva Japanese TV Drama42. Polaroids43. Lovegety Station44. Prada45. StarTAC46. Colors47. Beatmania48. Adidas49. Gucci50. Yahoo!51. Fujifilm Digital Camera52. Converse Lo Tec53. Hairpins54. Cut Sleeves55. Scarves56. Animal Prints57. The Pleated Skirt58. Miu Miu Flannel59. Gray60. The Cockroach61. The Cowboy Hat62. Signal Youths63. H2O+64. Depsea Water65. The Patagonia Fleece66. The Duffel Coat67. LV Vernis68. Panasonic DVD69. South Park70. Dreamcast71. Tomb Raider III72. Sharp MiniDisc Player73. Burberrys Blue Label74. MP375. Miffy76. Devon Aoki77. Motorola Dual Band78. Cheesecake79. PalmPilot80. PN Rouge Suplinic81. Final Fantasy VIII82. The Waist Bag83. Twisted Strands84. Sunday85. A Temporary Tattoo86. The Neck Pouch87. Cutie Cute & Horribly Horrid88. 5S89. Drawstrings90. The Three Skewer Brothers91. Khaki92. White Blouses93. Ballet Shoes94. Birkenstock95. Cargo Shorts96. Flip-Flops97. Hiromix98. Chappies99. Made in Hong Kong

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of the virtues of Whitfield’s approach is that she is able to range far and wide among the various peoples, cultures, and polities of Eurasia and Africa. Though half of her ten chapters deal with objects that were excavated within the present-day boundaries of China—a reflection of the longstanding Sinocentric bias in the field of Silk Road studies—Whitfield goes to great lengths to contextualize these finds within broader Eurasian networks of exchange far outside of China." * Silk Road Journal *"Whitfield certainly seems to have identified a theme worth pursuing: the objects of the Silk Road are fascinating and a single object can encompass within it huge swathes, geographical and chronological, of human history." * Asian Review of Books *"In Silk, Slaves, and Stupas, Susan Whitfield reminds her readers once again why she so thoroughly deserves her reputation as one of the most accomplished of all Silk Road scholars. [The book] demonstrates the author's command of all facets of Silk Road studies, and also her ability to unfold the story of this important period and process in word history by moving seamlessly from the particular to the general, from a single object to an entire field of research." * Central Asian Survey *‘Whitfield’s new book provides us with a brilliant example of how material history should be written.’ * Journal of Asian Studies *"...this is an impressive and comprehensive work, one that can easily be envisaged as a primer for a university course that introduces the principal themes of the Silk Roads. There is much here too, though, for more established scholars working in part or all of this field thanks to Whitfield's research, which is up to date with the latest thinking on manumission of slaves, on the construction of Buddhist stupas, or the techniques of glass making. Susan Whitfield has written a rather wonderful book; it will serve as a gateway that will inspire future generations of scholars to follow in her footsteps." * Journal of Medieval Worlds *"The level of detailed evidence that [Whitfield] unearths . . . is both impressive and enticing." * Journal of World History *"A page-turner comparable to a good detective story." * International Institute for Asian Studies *"All these [Silk Road] objects have intriguing stories to tell, and Susan Whitfield succeeds impressively in giving them a voice." * New Global Studies *"Kaleidoscopic. . . . A pleasure to explore and will delight readers from a wide sphere." * Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology and the Pacific *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration and Names Introduction 1 • A Pair of Steppe Earrings 2 • A Hellenistic Glass Bowl 3 • A Hoard of Kushan Coins 4 • Amluk Dara Stupa 1 5 • A Bactrian Ewer 6 • A Khotanese Plaque 7 • The Blue Qur?an 8 • A Byzantine Hunter Silk 9 • A Chinese Almanac 10 • The Unknown Slave Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"With its copious fine illustrations and lucid exposition, this is an extraordinary resource for the teacher of Greek archaeology."---Robin Osborne, World Archaeology"In this significant reinterpretation, Arrington convincingly maintains that material culture and knowledge did not flow from East to West just through multiethnic elites; it also flowed through the interactions of non-elites."---C. C. Kolb, Choice Reviews"In his wonderfully stimulating book, Nathan Arrington has the people on the margins of 7th-century Attica have their voices roaring back into the debate. . . . [It] should be read by anyone interested in the subaltern perspective, artistry and pottery, as well as the historiography behind many of the discipline’s accepted assumptions."---Roy van Wijk, The Classical Journal"This is an inspiring book. It is not only well researched, nicely illustrated and elegantly written, but it offers a whole range of new perspectives on the Protoattic style and its wider context, with the objects themselves (and their agency) taking center stage."---Maximilian Rönnberg, Bryn Mawr Classical Review"Thought-provoking and ambitious…[t]his unconventional volume – beautifully phrased and engagingly written – is very clear and well structured, with numerous high-quality images helping readers to follow [Arrington’s] descriptions and readings of the vases."---Adriano Orsingher, The Classical Review"[A] beautifully written book, based on substantial and thorough research. . . . Moving away from the “Orientalizing” paradigm, Arrington succeeds in bringing to the forefront artists, immigrants, and multicultural communities, while challenging the elite connotations of the Proto-Attic pottery. This book, well produced and richly illustrated, is a positive contribution to the literature on seventh-century BCE Attica for students and scholars alike."---Vicky Vlachou, American Journal of Archaeology"[F]ascinating and ground-breaking. . . . [Athens at the Margins] is an intelligent, very well written, and well-presented book."---Conor Trainor, Sehepunkte

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Ralph Gomory Prize, Business History Conference""Finalist for the PROSE Award in European History, Association of American Publishers""[A] sweeping economic, social and cultural history of central Europe. . . . unorthodox and engaging."---Marc Levinson, Wall Street Journal"A wide-ranging and thorough study. . . . this is a riveting story, well told . . . by Marchand, who illuminates so much in an original and entertaining way."---Tim Blanning, Literary Review"As Suzanne Marchand shows in her meticulous new book, porcelain has been integral to German life since its reinvention in Saxony in 1708." * The Economist *"As an economic-business history, Marchand's work is a landmark achievement. . . . Porcelain is a monumental achievement in scope and breadth in illuminating porcelain's European beginnings and its increasingly fragile position in the markets of the present."---Megan Brandow-Faller, Central European History"Marchand paints a colourful picture of the day-to-day life of porcelain factories."---Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, Apollo"To weave together cultural, economic, and social history so masterfully takes great historiographical experience and skill. All those who are interested in nineteenth-century German intellectual history admire Suzanne Marchand’s books on the reception of classical antiquity and orientalism. Now she has surprised us with something completely new"---Jürgen Osterhammel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung"Marchand, a specialist in German history, writes with clarity."---Norma Clarke, Times Literary Supplement"The remarkable achievement of Suzanne Marchand’s new book, Porcelain, which focuses especially on Germany, is that she moves beyond the celebrated age of discovery in the eighteenth century...to explore modern manufacture and diffusion across a broader consumer society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries .... While Meissen lies at the center of Marchand’s book, one of its great strengths is the broader survey of German porcelain manufacturing."---Larry Wolff, Journal of Modern History

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Book SynopsisBy tracing the footprint of a unremarkable object across the globe, this book provides new ways of thinking about globalisation.Trade Review'A journey through globalisation's backroads ... Innovative, insightful, and by turns disturbing and inspiring' -- Professor Craig Calhoun, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science'If you are invited to Davos, shiny shoes, high heels or ski boots may be in order. For understanding much of the rest of the world, Caroline Knowles shows, you think better with flip-flops' -- Ulf Hannerz, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, Stockholm UniversityTable of ContentsSeries Preface Acknowledgements Prologue 1. Navigating the Territories of the Trail 2. Oil – Maps beneath the Sand 3. Choreographies of Petrochemistry 4. Plastic City 5. Plastic Village 6. Making Flip-Flops 7. Logistics, Borderlands and Uncertain Landings 8. Markets 9. Urban Navigation in Flip-Flops 10. Rubbish 11. Globalisation Revisited Notes Maps Index

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Book SynopsisBy tracing the footprint of a unremarkable object across the globe, this book provides new ways of thinking about globalisation.Trade Review'A journey through globalisation's backroads ... Innovative, insightful, and by turns disturbing and inspiring' -- Professor Craig Calhoun, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science'If you are invited to Davos, shiny shoes, high heels or ski boots may be in order. For understanding much of the rest of the world, Caroline Knowles shows, you think better with flip-flops' -- Ulf Hannerz, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, Stockholm UniversityTable of ContentsSeries Preface Acknowledgements Prologue 1. Navigating the Territories of the Trail 2. Oil – Maps beneath the Sand 3. Choreographies of Petrochemistry 4. Plastic City 5. Plastic Village 6. Making Flip-Flops 7. Logistics, Borderlands and Uncertain Landings 8. Markets 9. Urban Navigation in Flip-Flops 10. Rubbish 11. Globalisation Revisited Notes Maps Index

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Book SynopsisInvestigates how electronic devices we use affect our consciousness, both as individuals and classes.Trade Review'Our obsession with gadgets is a key token of how deeply computer-based connection is now embedded in everyday life and consciousness. Joss Hands offers a highly thoughtful and theoretically astute reading of the possibilities for human reflexivity and agency that still remain' -- Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics'A Swiss army knife of a book, unfolding tools to convert digital devices from exploitation and isolation to meaning and connection. Joss Hands gives us a handheld manifesto for gadget communism' -- Sean Cubitt, Goldsmiths University of London'Takes the seemingly apolitical and trivial concept of 'the gadget' and transforms it into a fascinating path to explore not only the most recent phase of capitalist techno-fetishism, but also, with exemplary radical experimentalism, the blasphemous idea of 'gadget communism'' -- Nick Dyer-Witheford, University of Western OntarioTable of ContentsSeries Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The Question Concerning Gadgets 2. Gadget Materialism 3. Gadget Brain 4. Gadget Consciousness 5. Gadget Action 6. Gadget Futures Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisUnpacks the political economy of new science and technology projects, and the implications for a utopian futureTrade Review'Disorientates us, showing us how the reality of things is contingent and contestable, never losing sight of what is at stake' -- Sarah Kember, Professor of New Technologies of Communication, Goldsmiths University, Director of Goldsmiths PressTable of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements Series Preface 1. Introduction: Problems With Objects 2. The Shadow of Genomics 3. Biosensory Experiences, Data and the Interfaced Self 4. Smart Grids: Energy Futures, Carbon Capture and Geoengineering 5. Real Fantasies: De-Extinction and In Vitro Meat 6. Unreal Objects and Political Realities Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAn introduction to the sociology of money, foregrounding how money embodies social relationsTrade Review'An extremely knowledgeable account of existing theories of money' -- Jens Beckert, author of Imagined 'Futures: Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics' (Harvard University Press, 2016)'A well-argued exploration of the history and nature of money ... Thorough and comprehensive' -- Mary Mellor, author of Money: Myths, Truths and Alternatives (Policy Press, 2019)Table of ContentsPreface 1. Economic Theories of Money – and Their Critiques 1.1. Barter, Exchange and Money 1.2. Objective versus Subjective Theories of Value 1.3. The Improbability of Exchange 2. Money’s Unlikely Origins 2.1. Gift-exchange and ceremonial monies 2.2. Money and (the End of) Violence 2.3. Economies of Sacrifice 2.4. Secrets of the Coin 3. Money and Finance 3.1. Time and Money 3.2. The Logic of Financial Markets 4. The Politics of Money 4.1. The Foundations and Fundamental Problems of Contemporary Money 4.2. Private Monies (or Bitcoin) 4.3. Sovereign Money 4.4. Central Bank Independence and the Inescapable Politicality of Money 5. Money and Society 5.1. Alienation and Freedom 5.2. Money and Functional Differentiation References Index

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Book SynopsisBy offering behind-the-scenery glimpses of how boosters and builders modified the BC landscape and shaped what drivers and tourists could view from the comfort of their vehicles, this book confounds the idea of “freedom of the road.”Trade ReviewRead British Columbia by the Road backwards. Or forwards. It doesn’t matter. Like the highways themselves, you can drive Ben Bradley’s bright, engaging work on automobility, identity, and landscape in British Columbia’s Interior in different directions. Stop to visit an open-air museum or take a picture of a striking vista. You’ll get to where you’re going. -- Blair Stein, University of Oklahoma * BC Studies, Issue 199, Fall 2018 *Through refreshing and in-depth research, author Ben Bradley … offers up an engaging road trip through time and space, guiding the reader along the twisting, turning, climbing, curated, landscape of the circa 1925 to 1970 British Columbia Interior highway system, where myriad man-made, natural, and historic vistas unfold…. British Columbia by the Road is delightfully interactive, in that the author encourages the reader to slip behind the wheel … [and] an excellent read, [that] serves to shed light on the numerous forces and underpinnings which were at play in the development of the BC Interior highway system. -- David P. Stephens * Material Culture Review *Bradley’s study offers fresh perspectives on tourism promotion, park development, political culture, and public history. Befitting a study focusing on driving’s visual culture, the book has superb maps and photographs … British Columbia by the Road provides a much-needed and sustained analysis of key developments in the province’s interior and is clearly a “must read” for BC historians. For those less engaged and less familiar with the province’s history, it offers valuable and nuanced insights into the political, environmental, and economic history of North America—particularly the regional impact of automobility. -- Michael Dawson, St Thomas University * Histoire Sociale/Social History *[British Columbia by the Road] succeeds admirably in achieving its goals and it will be of interest to a wide variety of scholars far beyond the bounds of British Columbia … the book is a terrific example of detailed, very placeful historical geographical research which succeeds in connecting western Canada’s particular story with a broader argument about how political imperatives, infrastructure investment, and the new technology of the automobile conspired to shape the economic geographies and place identities of many localities across North America and beyond. -- William Wyckoff, Montana State University, USA * Journal of Historical Geography *One of the ways that we experience our past is by driving through it. We hop into our automobiles and motor through the backcountry, stopping along the way at a wide variety of historical markers, parks, and viewpoints to refresh our memories or learn something new. This “public pedagogy” goes a long way to informing the ideas we have about our province’s history and it is the subject of Ben Bradley’s new book … British Columbia by the Road is refreshingly free of jargon and smoothly written; it also presents a thought-provoking new perspective on the history of B.C.’s interior. -- Daniel Francis * BC Booklook *Ben Bradley’s book British Columbia by the Road is a significant contribution to the history of North American automobility … [This] is a highly readable book that can be read not only for its academic merits, but also as a travel book! -- Maude Flamand-Hubert * NiCHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment) *Bradley shows that a regional focus can be an effective way to connect landscape, environmental, tourism, and mobility history. -- Review by Kyle Shelton, Rice University * Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 109, Number 2 *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Automobility and the Making of New Kinds of ExperienceRoute A: A Drive through Nature1 Toward a Park in the Cascade Mountains2 Behind the Scenery in Manning Park3 The Politics of Roads and Parks in the Big Bend Country4 The Failure of Hamber Park and the Big Bend HighwayRoute B: Paths to the Past5 Tracing the Route of the Cariboo Wagon Road6 Changing Times and Crisis amidst Prosperity7 On the Road for the 1958 Centennial8 Mixed Fortunes in the BC Old RushConclusion: Looking Back on British Columbia by the RoadNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisBeads are one of the great New Orleans symbols, as much a signifier of the city as a pot of scarlet crawfish or a jazzman’s trumpet. The first in a new LSU Press series exploring facets of Louisiana’s iconic culture, Mardi Gras Beads delves into the history of this celebrated New Orleans artefact.

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Book SynopsisAt first glance, the Ford Foundation and the black power movement would make an unlikely partnership. After the Second World War, the renowned Foundation was the largest philanthropic organization in the United States and was dedicated to projects of liberal reform. Black power ideology, which promoted self-determination over color-blind assimilation, was often characterized as radical and divisive. But Foundation president McGeorge Bundy chose to engage rather than confront black power''s challenge to racial liberalism through an ambitious, long-term strategy to foster the social development of racial minorities. The Ford Foundation not only bankrolled but originated many of the black power era''s hallmark legacies: community control of public schools, ghetto-based economic development initiatives, and race-specific arts and cultural organizations.In Top Down, Karen Ferguson explores the consequences of this counterintuitive and unequal relationship between the liberalTrade Review"Vigorously argued and thoroughly grounded in research from the extensive Ford Foundation archives, this important book carefully traces the roots of the Foundation's 'developmental separatism' as well as the evolving contours of social and political thought within the black public sphere, effectively putting the two forms of separatism in dialogue with one another." * Alice O'Connor, University of California, Santa Barbara *"Karen Ferguson's Top Down is a provocative and often brilliant history of the single most important philanthropic institution in the long civil rights era. The Ford Foundation and similar philanthropies, she argues compellingly, shaped Black Power and other radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s." * Felicia Kornbluh, University of Vermont *Table of ContentsIntroduction PART I. SIZING UP THE URBAN CRISIS Chapter 1. Modernizing Migrants Chapter 2. The Social Development Solution PART II. TRANSFORMING THE GHETTO Chapter 3. Developmental Separatism and Community Control Chapter 4. Black Power and the End of Community Action PART III. CULTIVATING LEADERSHIP Chapter 5. Multiculturalism from Above Chapter 6. The Best and the Brightest Epilogue. The Diminishing Expectations of Racial Liberalism Notes Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisArgues that the field of rhetoric's recent attention to material objects should go further than simply open a new line of inquiry. To maximize the interdisciplinary turn to things, rhetoricians must seize the opportunity to reimagine and perhaps resolve rhetoric's historically problematic relationship to physical reality and ontology.Trade Review“With this volume, Barnett and Boyle go beyond the reach of the speaker-audience-purpose model of human communication to include material objects. The book comprises four parts: 'The New Ontology of Persuasion,' 'Writing Things,' 'Seeing Things,' and 'Assembling Things.' The contributors—an impressive group of scholars ranging from experts to doctoral candidates—offer essays that explore objects as vibrant agents of persuasion and not just passive nonverbal tools. In a particularly intriguing chapter titled 'The Things They Left Behind: Toward an Object-Oriented History of Composition,' Kevin Rutherford and Jason Palmeri encourage the reader to engage in an empathetic dialogue with nonhuman historical objects: for example, history might be read differently if one examined the writing desks of important figures. This book has deep implications for the present materialist turn in the humanities. Unique for its ontological synthesis of rhetorical theory and nonverbal communication, this volume would be useful as a companion reader to a range of courses in rhetoric—from the basic course to advanced seminars—and it would be excellent complementary reading for courses in nonverbal communication. Summing Up: Highly recommended.” - CHOICE“Many scholars are writing and thinking about rhetoric’s materiality, and this collection’s emphasis on ontology is one of the most popular ways of engaging the subject. The essays in Rhetoric, Through Everyday Things address a notoriously difficult set of theoretical problems in a way that will be approachable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as more advanced scholars in rhetoric. I can imagine it being of great interest to scholars in both communication and English departments.” - Greg Dickinson, coeditor of Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials and author of Suburban Dreams: Imagining and Building the Good Life""This volume is an important and capacious contribution to the arrival of 'thing theory' in rhetorical studies. The tensions across chapters will make this a lively text for discussion. It will be taught and cited for the coming years, and I commend the editors for assembling such a thorough collection of essays."" - Debra Hawhee, author of Moving Bodies: Kenneth Burke at the Edges of Language and Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation

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Book SynopsisA book about ownership. It begins with an essay about being given a man's furniture while he's on trial for murder and follows with essays that question corporeal, familial, and intellectual forms of ownership. Mining her own life and those of others, Sarah Viren considers the contingencies of ownership alongside the realities of loss in this debut essay collection.Trade ReviewWith wonderfully precise and evocative prose, Sarah Viren takes us deeply into her search for her very self. . . . MINE is not only moving, it is instructive and nourishing in a way that only art can deliver. This book is a gem."" - Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog""Sarah Viren is a writer of extraordinary wisdom and grace. . . . I am always taken aback, in the end, when her essays—cunningly, imperceptibly—gather within themselves such stunning emotional power."" - Kerry Howley, author of Thrown""Ultimately a book about belonging, this nimble, beautiful collection helps us better understand ‘what we call ours but is never really ours to begin with."" - Ryan Van Meter, author of If You Knew Then What I Know Now

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Book SynopsisOrigination: The Geographies of Brands and Branding offers innovative theoretical and conceptual frameworks relating to the ways that actors create meaning and value in commodity brands and branding through processes of geographical association. Provides innovative conceptualization and theorization to facilitate an understanding of the geographical dimensions of brands and branding Challenges current interpretations of brands as vehicles of homogenization in globalization Establishes the theoretical and conceptual foundations of a more geographically sensitive approach through rigorous empirical examination of the under-researched geographical differentiation of commodity brands and branding Presents innovative new research and analysis of the socio-spatial biographies of the Newcastle Brown Ale, Burberry and Apple brands Forges strong new connections between political and cultural economy approaches within geography Trade Review“Overall, Origination presents a promising conceptual and research framework capable of revealing the multiple facets of brand geographies.” (Consumption Markets & Culture, 1 December 2015) Table of ContentsSeries Editor Preface viii Acknowledgements ix Permissions x List of Tables xi List of Figures xii 1 Introduction 1 2 The Geographies of Brands and Branding 23 3 Origination 59 4 ‘Local’ Origination … Newcastle Brown Ale 88 5 ‘National’ Origination … Burberry 112 6 ‘Global’ Origination … Apple 139 7 Territorial Development 171 8 Conclusions 194 References 207 Index 224

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Book SynopsisOrigination: The Geographies of Brands and Branding offers innovative theoretical and conceptual frameworks relating to the ways that actors create meaning and value in commodity brands and branding through processes of geographical association. Provides innovative conceptualization and theorization to facilitate an understanding of the geographical dimensions of brands and branding Challenges current interpretations of brands as vehicles of homogenization in globalization Establishes the theoretical and conceptual foundations of a more geographically sensitive approach through rigorous empirical examination of the under-researched geographical differentiation of commodity brands and branding Presents innovative new research and analysis of the socio-spatial biographies of the Newcastle Brown Ale, Burberry and Apple brands Forges strong new connections between political and cultural economy approaches within geography Trade Review“Overall, Origination presents a promising conceptual and research framework capable of revealing the multiple facets of brand geographies.” (Consumption Markets & Culture, 1 December 2015) Table of ContentsSeries Editor Preface viii Acknowledgements ix Permissions x List of Tables xi List of Figures xii 1 Introduction 1 2 The Geographies of Brands and Branding 23 3 Origination 59 4 ‘Local’ Origination … Newcastle Brown Ale 88 5 ‘National’ Origination … Burberry 112 6 ‘Global’ Origination … Apple 139 7 Territorial Development 171 8 Conclusions 194 References 207 Index 224

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Book SynopsisToday Black Studies at the University of Texas boasts approximately 900 objects from sub-Saharan Africa, over 200 contemporary works from African American and Afro-Caribbean artists, and more than 100 pieces jointly held with other collecting entities. This book gathers and presents these holdings.

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Book SynopsisDraws on 12 months of fieldwork with diamond consumers in New York City as well as an analysis of the iconic De Beers campaign that promised romance, status, and glamour to anyone who bought a diamond to show that this thematic pool is just one resource among many that diamond owners draw upon to engage with their own stones.Trade ReviewWere this book simply a portrayal of the diamond business, it would have been outstanding. It is far more. It is an innovative study of a commodity that must be as unique as the relationship it celebrates and memorializes. It challenges many of the basic assumptions of marketing by describing the consumers paradoxical responses to its strategies. A truly remarkable book. -- Vincent Crapanzano,Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Anthropology, CUNY Graduate CenterA fascinating study of the absolutely powerful but ambiguous symbolism attached to diamonds: value, romanticism, permanence, devotion, and shining are part of the instantly recognized language for diamonds, but it is an ambiguous and evocative vocabulary. The ethnographic stories in Falls account emphasize that we have become comfortable with consuming these ambiguous signs. Even people disinterested in diamonds seem persistently curious about and perhaps even silently obedient to a rock cast as a symbol of love, heritage, and permanence. -- Paul R. Mullins,Indiana University-Purdue University, IndianapolisFalls delivers an intriguing and insightful foray into multiple ways in which diamonds acquire and deploy deep, cultural meaning and thus maintain their economic heft. Through social and semiotic analyses of this most sought after gem, Clarity, Cut, and Culture illustrates the interlacing practices and multifaceted interpretations that play out in the arenas of commerce, romance, politics and status. -- Daniel Thomas Cook,author of The Commodification of ChildhoodFall's research indicates the breadth and depth of the penetration of diamonds among American consumers. * Public Books *[The] book tells the story of the remarkable rise of the modern diamond industry, which proceeded via a series of gold-rush-like crazes that began in India, peaking there in the late 1600s before shifting to Brazil. . . . As the titleClarity, Cut, and Culturesuggests, Ms. Falls book spends considerable time on the production and marketing of finished stones, taking readers inside Manhattans famous Diamond Row, on 47thStreet, for example. There, in tightly policed cutting schools, students work in blue-carpeted rooms under special fluorescent lights practicing their craft that is, after providing a credit card to guarantee payment for the loss of any stone they handle. * Wall Street Journal *In Clarity, Cut, and Culture, Susan Falls tackles a critical question about modernity andmeaning: Why, when marketers spend billions of dollars cloaking their products withpositive meanings, do people buy them even when they say they are not influenced bywhat the marketer is trying to do? * American Anthropologist *In this excellent, new contribution to research on the diamond industry, consumer behavior, and the social lives of things, Susan Falls addresses the & many meanings of diamonds While Clarity, Cut, and Culture certainly addresses what diamonds mean to various consumers, its most important contributions lie in its detailed accounting of how people make things like diamonds meaningful. * Anthropological Quarterly *SCAD anthropology professor Dr. Susan Falls has spent the past decade researching these most precious stones and parsing their value. But along with exploring their economic and anecdotal worth in her book,Clarity, Cut and Culture,Falls also examines diamonds through the lens of semiotics, the study of meaning. * Connect Savannah *A prime and important message is how this highly symbolic rock can stand for, contain, and reference diverse, sometimes conflicting, messages. Falls devotes chapters to the history and manufacture of diamonds and the levels of meanings diamonds signify about emotions, love, continuity, relationship, status, and prestige. An absorbing chapter concerns how traditional meanings of diamonds have been riffed on and subverted in bling. Chapters & From Rock to Gem and & Valuing Diamonds stand out as accessible and strong. Summing Up: Recommended. * Choice *[]Clarity, Cut, and Cultureis a helpful and detailed study of & the many meanings of diamonds in the society. It could be useful to scholars of culture studies, American studies, popular culture studies, sociology, and related disciplines, and those interested in the symbolic influence of diamonds and their historical use and meanings. * Journal of Popular Culture *[Falls] interviews experts and ordinary people about their relationships to diamonds, and finds a perfect case of the contradictory and random nature of our preferences. Women who consider expensive rings signs of being 'owned'nevertheless covet them. Men who think mining diamonds in Africa causes unconscionable misery nevertheless want to give them to women. Pretty much everyone seems to understand that the industry is corrupt and that diamonds prices are unrelated to their supposed scarcity, yet they still cherish the stones as heirlooms and tokens of love. * Pacific Standard *Falls discusses how the industry should be talking about its product, why the hip-hop community embraced bling, and why even people who have mixed feelings about diamonds will buy them anyway. * JCK Magazine *Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface: The Emptiness of Diamond Acknowledgments Introduction: Little Rocks 1. From Rock to Gem 2. Valuing Diamonds 3. A Diamond Is Forever 4. Diamonds and Emotions 5. Diamonds and Bling 6. Diamonds and Performance Conclusion: The Fullness of Diamonds Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisThings become meaningful through our interactions with them, but how do people go about making meaning? What can we learn from an ethnography about the production of identity, creation of kinship, and use of diamonds in understanding selves and social relationships? This book deals with these questions.Trade Review"Were this book simply a portrayal of the diamond business, it would have been outstanding. It is far more. It is an innovative study of a commodity that must be as unique as the relationship it celebrates and memorializes. It challenges many of the basic assumptions of marketing by describing the consumers paradoxical responses to its strategies. A truly remarkable book." -- Vincent Crapanzano,Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center"A fascinating study of the absolutely powerful but ambiguous symbolism attached to diamonds: value, romanticism, permanence, devotion, and shining are part of the instantly recognized language for diamonds, but it is an ambiguous and evocative vocabulary. The ethnographic stories in Falls account emphasize that we have become comfortable with consuming these ambiguous signs. Even people disinterested in diamonds seem persistently curious about and perhaps even silently obedient to a rock cast as a symbol of love, heritage, and permanence." -- Paul R. Mullins,Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis"Falls delivers an intriguing and insightful foray into multiple ways in which diamonds acquire and deploy deep, cultural meaning and thus maintain their economic heft. Through social and semiotic analyses of this most sought after gem, Clarity, Cut, and Culture illustrates the interlacing practices and multifaceted interpretations that play out in the arenas of commerce, romance, politics and status." -- Daniel Thomas Cook,author of The Commodification of Childhood"Fall's research indicates the breadth and depth of the penetration of diamonds among American consumers." * Public Books *"[The] book tells the story of the remarkable rise of the modern diamond industry, which proceeded via a series of gold-rush-like crazes that began in India, peaking there in the late 1600s before shifting to Brazil. . . . As the titleClarity, Cut, and Culturesuggests, Ms. Falls book spends considerable time on the production and marketing of finished stones, taking readers inside Manhattans famous Diamond Row, on 47thStreet, for example. There, in tightly policed cutting schools, students work in blue-carpeted rooms under special fluorescent lights practicing their craft that is, after providing a credit card to guarantee payment for the loss of any stone they handle." * Wall Street Journal *"In Clarity, Cut, and Culture, Susan Falls tackles a critical question about modernity andmeaning: Why, when marketers spend billions of dollars cloaking their products withpositive meanings, do people buy them even when they say they are not influenced bywhat the marketer is trying to do?" * American Anthropologist *"In this excellent, new contribution to research on the diamond industry, consumer behavior, and the social lives of things, Susan Falls addresses the & many meanings of diamonds While Clarity, Cut, and Culture certainly addresses what diamonds mean to various consumers, its most important contributions lie in its detailed accounting of how people make things like diamonds meaningful." * Anthropological Quarterly *"SCAD anthropology professor Dr. Susan Falls has spent the past decade researching these most precious stones and parsing their value. But along with exploring their economic and anecdotal worth in her book,Clarity, Cut and Culture,Falls also examines diamonds through the lens of semiotics, the study of meaning." * Connect Savannah *"A prime and important message is how this highly symbolic rock can stand for, contain, and reference diverse, sometimes conflicting, messages. Falls devotes chapters to the history and manufacture of diamonds and the levels of meanings diamonds signify about emotions, love, continuity, relationship, status, and prestige. An absorbing chapter concerns how traditional meanings of diamonds have been riffed on and subverted in bling. Chapters & From Rock to Gem and & Valuing Diamonds stand out as accessible and strong. Summing Up: Recommended." * Choice *"[]Clarity, Cut, and Cultureis a helpful and detailed study of & the many meanings of diamonds in the society. It could be useful to scholars of culture studies, American studies, popular culture studies, sociology, and related disciplines, and those interested in the symbolic influence of diamonds and their historical use and meanings." * Journal of Popular Culture *"[Falls] interviews experts and ordinary people about their relationships to diamonds, and finds a perfect case of the contradictory and random nature of our preferences. Women who consider expensive rings signs of being 'owned'nevertheless covet them. Men who think mining diamonds in Africa causes unconscionable misery nevertheless want to give them to women. Pretty much everyone seems to understand that the industry is corrupt and that diamonds prices are unrelated to their supposed scarcity, yet they still cherish the stones as heirlooms and tokens of love." * Pacific Standard *"Falls discusses how the industry should be talking about its product, why the hip-hop community embraced bling, and why even people who have mixed feelings about diamonds will buy them anyway." * JCK Magazine *Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface: The Emptiness of Diamond Acknowledgments Introduction: Little Rocks 1. From Rock to Gem 2. Valuing Diamonds 3. A Diamond Is Forever 4. Diamonds and Emotions 5. Diamonds and Bling 6. Diamonds and Performance Conclusion: The Fullness of Diamonds Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisOn March 11, 2004, Islamist terrorists carried out a massive bombing on Madrid’s largely working-class commuter trains, leaving 191 people dead and more than 1,500 others wounded. This event, known in Spain as 11-M, was the second of three highly visible jihadist attacks on the West between 2001 and 2005, and the first in Europe, occurring just days before the national elections in Spain. Arguing that 11-M marked a critical turning point in Spanish society, this book reveals how poetry played a unique role and reflected a new political and cultural sensibility defined by informal and non-hierarchical networks of communication and memorialization. After the attacks, poems circulated in public spaces in unexpected ways, creating links and relationships that were binding: they were inscribed on banners and monuments; musicalized in anthems, protest songs, and hip-hop music; reproduced on manifestos and blogs; sent by email and text; scribbled on scraps of paper and postedTable of ContentsIntroduction Part 1: Poetry, Politics, Performance 1. Rhetoric and Ideology in Grassroots Memorials and Official Monuments 2. Circulation and Performance in Memorial and Media Sites 3. Archives and Grassroots Anthologies: Preservation, Social Action, and Affect Part 2: Poets, Cultural Politics, and Crisis 4. Body, Affect, Flesh 5. Pixel, Bar Code, Algorithm Conclusions Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisIn Waste, Eiko Maruko Siniawer innovatively explores the many ways in which the Japanese have thought about waste—in terms of time, stuff, money, possessions, and resources—from the immediate aftermath of World War II to the present. She shows how questions about waste were deeply embedded in the decisions of everyday life, reflecting the...Trade ReviewWaste makes an outsized contribution to the study of postwar Japanese history will be essential reading for students of modern Japan as well as our current era more broadly. * The Journal of Asian Studies *Siniawer's book is a moving and meaningful cultural history relevant to Critical Discard Studies, rooted in the specific time and place of postwar Japan, and extends to the twenty-first century. * Situations *Eiko Maruko Siniawer's study of waste in postwar Japan is history writing at its very best: expansive in scope, richly textured, compellingly narrated, and convincingly argued. This summary hardly does justice to the richness of the material discussed in the book, nor does it fully convey Siniawer's thought-provoking analysis throughout. Thanks to its breadth, the richness of its content, and the sophistication of its analysis, the book will be essential and compelling reading for anyone interested in the postwar history of Japan as well as notions of waste in the contemporary world. * Social Science Japan Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Meaning and Value in the Everyday Part One: Re-Civilization and Re-Enlightenment: Transitions of the Early Postwar Period, 1945-1971 1. The Imperatives of Waste 2. Better Living through Consumption Part Two: Shocks, Shifts, and Safeguards: Defending the Middle-Class Lifestyles, 1971-1981 3. Wars against Waste 4. A Bright Stinginess Part Three: Abundant Dualities: Wealth and its Discontents in the 1980s and Beyond 5. Consuming Desires 6. Living the Good Life? 7. Battling the Time Thieves Part Four: Affluence of the Heart: Identities and Values in the Slow-Growth Era, 1991-Present 8. Greening Consciousness 9. We Are All Waste Conscious Now 10. Sorting Things Out Afterword: Waste and Well-Being Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe Stuff of Soldiers uses everyday objects to tell the story of the Great Patriotic War as never before. Brandon Schechter attends to a diverse array of thingsfrom spoons to tanksto show how a wide array of citizens became soldiers, and how the provisioning of material goods separated soldiers from civilians.Through a fascinating examination...Trade ReviewWith this original approach—in itself an amazing achievement given the immense literature in this historical field—Brandon Schechteruses the material culture of the Red Army to trace the makeover of Soviet life and politics brought about by the war. * Foreign Affairs *The Stuff of Soldiers is a well-written, wide-ranging, novel approach for understanding the social and military history of the Soviet Army. [It] is an excellent addition to the historiography of the Great Patriotic War and to the general study of how material culture can reflect how soldiers and their societies have experienced war throughout time. * Journal of Military History *The Stuff of Soldiers has much to offer those with an affinity for cultural history studied through objects and for others who want a basic introduction to the quotidian of the Red Army during the Second World War... it takes the reader into the daily life of the Soviet soldier during the war in a way that no other work in the field does. * The Russian Review *Few, if any, thinkers have sought to view [the materiality of the human being] through the prism of an army, its weaponry, the environment it shaped and the objects its soldiers used, cherished or robbed. Brandon M. Schechter is the first to embark upon this intellectual adventure. * The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies *This book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of Soviet history and World War II but also to everyone interested in the experience of life during wartime. * Canadian Slavonic Papers *Schechter's ability to analyze the everyday minutiae of soldiers' lives to tell both personal stories of what it meant to be a member of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War with careful attention placed on differing perspectives based on class, gender, and nationality, and a broader narrative of state-directed (if not always followed) social transformation is inspiring. * Region: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia *Given the author's lively and accessible style this is surely a work that will reach an audience outside of academia, while the deeply-researched and insightful content equally makes it an invaluable addition to scholars of both the Soviet Union and those interested more broadly in the history and legacies of the Second World War. * British Journal for Military History *A beautifully written, sweeping and nuanced history of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War through the lens of objects and material culture. The Stuff of Soldiers is not only a major contribution to the history of the war; it is also a stimulating attempt to overcome disciplinary boundaries and long-lasting debates about the Soviet project through an ethnographic focus on objects and practices of everyday life. * Cahiers du monde russe *Schechter elegantly intertwines individual stories, context, and analysis taking the reader to the most intimate parts of soldiers' everyday lives. The interested audience of this work will be very large, spanning individuals interested in military history broadly defined, in the history of the Soviet Union, and in material culture. * Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society (JSPPS) *Brandon Schechter has written a tour-de-force volume that presents an innovative approach to the history of the Second World War in the Soviet Union. [O]ne of the main contributions of this work is Schechter's success in offering a new and fresh analysis of these sources from the perspective of material culture. * English Historical Review *Table of ContentsPrelude: Outgunned and Outmanned Acknowledgments List of Archival Sources and Their Abbreviations Terms and Abbreviations Explanatory Notes Introduction: Government Issue 1. The Soldier's Body: A Little Cog in a Giant War Machine 2. A Personal Banner: Life in Red Army Uniform 3. The State's Pot and the Soldier's Spoon: Rations in the Red Army 4. Cities of Earth, Cities of Rubble: The Spade and Red Army Landscaping 5. "A Weapon Is Your Honor and Conscience": Killing in the Red Army 6. The Thing-Bag: A Public-Private Place 7. Trophies of War: Red Army Soldiers Confront an Alien World of Goods Conclusion: Subjects and Objects Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn this age of globalization, many countries and U.S. states are worried about the tax flight of the rich. As income inequality grows and U.S. states consider raising taxes on their wealthiest residents, there is a palpable concern that these high rollers will board their private jets and fly away, taking their wealth with them. Many assume that the importance of location to a person's success is at an all-time low. Cristobal Young, however, makes the surprising argument that location is very important to the world's richest people. Frequently, he says, place has a great deal to do with how they make their millions. In The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight, Young examines a trove of data on millionaires and billionaires—confidential tax returns, Forbes lists, and census records—and distills down surprising insights. While economic elites have the resources and capacity to flee high-tax places, their actual migration is surprisingly limited. For the rich, ongoing economic potential is tied to the place where they become successful—often where they are powerful insiders—and that success ultimately diminishes both the incentive and desire to migrate. This important book debunks a powerful idea that has driven fiscal policy for years, and in doing so it clears the way for a new era. Millionaire taxes, Young argues, could give states the funds to pay for infrastructure, education, and other social programs to attract a group of people who are much more mobile—the younger generation.Trade Review"Young debunks the widely-held myth that raising taxes on the wealthy inevitably prompts their out-migration and ultimately reduces tax revenue. His sophisticated analysis convincingly demonstrates the opposite. This is a tour-de-force that should be read by policymakers and taxpayers everywhere." -- Douglas S. Massey * Princeton University *"While the rich become richer, state governments strain to fund critical services. Young shows states can tap rich citizens' resources to bolster state government and enhance the common good. With grace, sophistication, and unprecedented data, this important book feeds public debates on inequality, public policy, and the health of American democracy." -- Martin Gilens * author of Affluence and Influence *"Whether taxing millionaires will cause them to flee is an important policy issue dominated by unsupported rhetoric. This clearly written and carefully researched book sheds new light on the question by looking soberly at the facts while exposing popular views as myths." -- Joel Slemrod * University of Michigan *"Young reveals the extent to which much political rhetoric around taxes and the rich rests on unfounded anecdotal assumptions. [The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight] is an important book which contributes much to political and economic sociology, as well as the growing field of fiscal sociology. It is written in a non-technical prose, making it also accessible for policymakers and non-scholarly audiences alike. In a moment of increasing inequality and near permanent austerity, Young's analysis will hopefully inspire more research on the wealthy and taxes." -- Daniel R. Alvord, Social ForcesTable of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Millionaire Taxes in a World with Few Borders chapter abstractThis chapter introduces the central questions of the book. In the age of globalization, what is the connection between the rich and the places where they live? Is place a temporary convenience for the rich and powerful—readily switched out when the tides change? Or is place a deep foundation for their success? Are top income earners mobile millionaires searching for low-tax places to live, or are they embedded elites reluctant to move away from the places where they have become highly successful? This chapter also introduces the main empirical data for the book—big administrative data from the tax returns of U.S. millionaire income earners over more than a decade. Finally, the structure and organization of the book is summarized. 2Do the Rich Flee High Taxes? chapter abstractThis chapter explores the empirical evidence for the mobile millionaires versus embedded elites debate. Drawing on the tax returns of U.S. millionaires, this chapter focuses on these questions: To what extent do top income earners migrate away from places with high income taxes? Are millionaires especially concentrated in low-tax states? Do they tend to move from high-tax to low-tax states? What about along the narrow geographic borders of states? In border county regions, do the rich tend to cluster on the low-tax side of the border? This chapter also moves higher up the food chain to look at the location and migration of the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. Finally, the chapter examines the social demography of the rich: considering how their family and business responsibilities, as well as their age and education levels, can help explain their overall migration patterns. 3Global Billionaires and International Tax Havens chapter abstractThis chapter looks at the global migration of the world's elites, as well as the use of tax havens that allow the rich to move their money abroad. First, the world's billionaires offer an international look at the mobile millionaire thesis. How often do billionaires move to low-tax countries? Are billionaires a transnational capitalist class? Or do they just live in the country where they were born? The analyses here give a clear view into the geographic mobility of the richest people in the world. The second half of the chapter continues the global focus by examining international tax havens. Rather than moving themselves, can the rich achieve tax savings by moving their money into offshore shell companies? The chapter examines how the offshore economy works and what shell companies and tax havens can and cannot do. It also explores which countries are more likely to use offshore accounts. 4Place as a Form of Capital chapter abstractThis chapter explores why place is still important for the rich. The income of the rich depends in part on where they live. Peak performance does not necessarily travel with the individual when the person moves away. Top incomes are sustained not simply through individual brilliance and hard work, but also through collaborative relationships and social networks that depend on being in a shared place. People at the top are deeply embedded insiders who earn economic rewards because their social networks place them close to the action. Top income earners have accumulated much home-field advantage that would be diluted by moving away. It is important to disentangle the idea of travel, which often signifies wealth and status, from the idea of migration, which is often less glamorous—reflecting hardship or entry-level status. The chapter concludes with case studies of open borders in Europe and the United States. 5Millionaires and the Future of Taxation chapter abstractThis chapter revisits the central findings of the book and develops the conceptual and policy implications. How should states set their tax policies? What are the benefits and costs for states that have high income taxes on the rich? The chapter emphasizes that states have little ability to attract the highest income earners, but they can attract a pipeline of future high income earners. These are young professionals—those not yet established in their careers; they are the most mobile individuals, they still have relatively low incomes, and they will not be paying top-bracket tax rates for many years. Progressive taxes are paid by people with late-career success. The revenues pay for education, infrastructure, and services that are most attractive to young, early-career individuals. In this sense, millionaire taxes are an intergenerational transfer.

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