Social and cultural history Books

Book SynopsisPresents a transatlantic history of folk's midcentury resurgence that juxtaposes the related but distinct revivals that took place in the United States and Great Britain.Trade Review"Much has been written about the folk revival, but this book is unusual in examining its progression in both the US and Britain. Folk-music fans might be unaware that there was strong interest in American and British folk music before the highly publicized revival, and Cohen and Donaldson have done that important research. Highly Recommended."--Choice“The hugely engaging tome focuses its attention primarily on 1950 to 1958 or what you can think of as the period between the blacklisting of the Weavers and the rise of the Kingston Trio. . . . What Cohen and Donaldson’s book does so effectively is it maps the development chronologically, so it’s easy to see how we got from the Weavers to skiffle via the ‘Rock Island Line’ and finally to Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village. . . . Roots of the Revival is accessible and, for anyone with even a passing interest in folk music, absolutely fascinating.”— Shire Folk"Roots of the Revival is an indispensable text for scholars interested in the relationship between 'folk' and 'pop' at midcentury. It is more than simply a prehistory of 1960s folk activities, instead demonstrating how musicians, folklorists, and audiences navigated the concerns and events particular to the decade."--Notes"Although there are other books and memoirs about the American folk revival, and some treatment of the revival in England, no one has thought to compare and analyze both of them together."--Richard Weissman, author of Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution: Music and Social Change in America"A detailed account of the revival's factual history and many revealing anecdotes about its participants… Roots of the Revival is a significant addition to the scholarship on the 1950s folk music revival."--Journal of Folklore Research"A solidly researched, well-written account of a significant decade in American and English vernacular music history."--Western Folklore

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewNominee for Edgar® Award, Best Critical/Biographical category, 2015. A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2015. "A thrilling example of the possibilities of renewed scholarly attention to the classic noir period. Its broad range of novel topics and uniformly astute analyses reframe and open up the field of film noir study in provocative and insightful ways that herald a new phase in scholarship not only of the genre but of Classic Hollywood itself."--David Greven, author of Psycho-Sexual: Male Desire in Hitchcock, De Palma, Scorsese, and Friedkin"An invaluable resource for anyone interested in film noir. Essential."-Choice“The essays in Kiss the Blood off My Hands seek fresh angles on a genre that has attracted so much scholarship that the academic field has its own worn tropes: German Expressionism, post-war ambience, gender politics. Several essays in Robert Miklitch’s edited collection advance the study of film noir by attending to previously neglected aspects of style.”--Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisFocusing on dominant tendencies in box office hits and Oscar-recognized classics, the author breaks down the so-called classic period into six distinct phases that follow Hollywood's amazingly diverse offerings from the emancipated females of the "Transition Era" and the traditional men and women of the conservative 1930s.Trade Review“Panoramic overviews alternate with convincing close readings of dozens of well-known films. . . . In confronting and developing these classic film texts, Pravadelli has produced her own outstanding reading of Hollywood classical style. Highly Recommended.”--Choice "Veronica Pravadelli looks back at the classical Hollywood cinema with a powerful magnifying glass. What comes into full view are not only new details, but an entire new geography. Trends, dividing lines, stylistic choices, plots, questions of gender, become much clearer. The result is a cutting edge analysis, surprising and convincing." --Francesco Casetti, author of Eye of the Century: Film, Experience, Modernity"Pravadelli's examination and contextualization of on-screen gender dynamics of the 1930s-1960s makes a valuable contribution to film studies."--Journalism History"Exceptionally well-argued and absorbing." --Screen"[An] exceptionally well-argued and absorbing book." --Screen"Pravadelli has surprising and provocative things to say about genres, and she makes interesting arguments about how certain genres or film cycles can be periodized. Another important aspect of her ambitious book is the feminist perspective she brings to Hollywood history."--James Naremore, author of More than Night: Film Noir and Its Contexts"One of those books that makes big claims that stretch over time. Pravadelli has read and absorbed a huge archive of feminist film theory. The degree of her knowledge of this archive from the 1980s through the millennium is impressive. What she has done, and is also impressive, is to offer a certain slant on this research. Another virtue is the way in which she incorporates interdisciplinary work in feminist studies giving more attention than is often given to changes in women's lives."--E. Ann Kaplan, author of Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewEmily Toth Award for Best Single Work by One or More Authors in Women's Studies, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA), 2016 Finalist, 28th Annual Lambda Literary Awards, LGBT Studies, 2016 Alan Bray Memorial Book Award, GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association, 2016 "Funk the Erotic opens a new avenue in black thought and feeling, one dis/oriented by the sensorium rather than the cerebrum."--Feminist Wire"Funk the Erotic is a groundbreaking work in its scope, its methodological breadth, and the creativity and originality of the ideas in introduces into several discourses. In theorizing funk as a specifically erotic, bodily, and embodiable hermeneutic for understanding sexuality across mediums and genres, Stallings proposes exciting shifts in black feminist, performance studies, sexuality studies, and literary studies methodologies."--American Quarterly "Stallings reframes Black (female) sexualities for us in a fashion that moves us closer to recognizing and thinking it as a form of freedom in its practice."--Rinaldo Walcott, author of Black Like Who?: Writing Black Canada"Where Toni Morrison theorized 'eruptions of funk' in African American literature, this book funks the erotic taking up trans politics, nineteenth-century freaks, funky beats, and other queerly sexed subjects that make up 'profane sites of memory.'"--Jennifer Brody, author of Punctuation: Art, Politics, and Play"Funk the Erotic is a passionately delivered and urgently necessary analysis of black sexuality, literature, and popular culture. By reading the 'funky erotixxx' of black sexual cultures against the dominant trends in black studies, L. H. Stallings offers us an alternative archive of African American literature, one composed of forgotten novels, sex manuals, YouTube videos, adult magazines, and so much more. Funk the Erotic is a bold, brilliant, unapologetically superfreaky text."--Erica R. Edwards, author of Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A wonderful addition to dramatic literature, this important volume brings the talents of these remarkable playwrights to a broader audience. With this anthology of plays we see the larger conversations--loud voices of a new, unsatisfied generation. These women join their foremothers taking on form and content to take on the most pressing issues of our day. They relentlessly ensure that by reading this collection your beliefs will be tested and you will come to a better understanding about the world."--Nadine George-Graves, author of Urban Bush Women: Twenty Years of African American Dance Theater, Community Engagement, and Working It OutA fascinating collection that brings important but rarely presented perspectives on African American life to the stage. I have a hard time imagining aspiring actresses not having a copy of this book on their bookshelves and mining it for audition material.--Harvey Young, author of Theatre and Race"Adell's compendium offers an opportunity for new scholarly inquiries in theatre history and puts, at the fingertips of educators and students, a dramatic sampling of the best and freshest African American women playwrights of the twenty-first century."--Artisia Green, College of William and Mary"Dr. Adell's book is a refreshingly contemporary collection of plays by both newer, and some more prominent, African-American female playwrights. It is an essential anthology for scholars and practitioners interested in reading, discovering, and collecting early twenty-first-century plays by these artists and a great complement to other anthologies that feature the work of African-American female playwrights."--Martine Kei Green-Rogers, University of Utah

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOutstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation, Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA), 2015. Wheatley Book Award for First Nonfiction, Harlem Book Fair and QBR: The Black Book Review, 2015. "[A] much-needed, essential study. By placing Regina Andrews' life and work in historical and familial context, the author provides insight into Andrews' significant contributions to the twentieth century and the Harlem Renaissance."--Verner Mitchell, coauthor of Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and Her Circle, A Biography of the Harlem Renaissance“Andrews was a fascinating librarian. . . . Fans of the Harlem Renaissance will enjoy this book.”--Library Journal"Students of the Harlem Renaissance have long known of Regina Anderson Andrews' significance. What was missing, however, was a book-length study. Ethelene Whitmire has filled that need with her prize-winning biography."--Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society"An essential read for anyone looking to understand the role of public librarianship, library science’s relationship to activism, and diversity within the profession." --BookRiot

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Book SynopsisPosthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007, Richard Durham creatively chronicled and brought to life the significant events of his times. Durham''s trademark narrative style engaged listeners with fascinating characters, compelling details, and sharp images of pivotal moments in American and African American history and culture. In Word Warrior, award-winning radio producer Sonja D. Williams draws on archives and hard-to-access family records, as well as interviews with family and colleagues like Studs Terkel and Toni Morrison, to illuminate Durham''s astounding career. Durham paved the way for black journalists as a dramatist and a star investigative reporter and editor for the pioneering black newspapers the Chicago Defender and Muhammed Speaks. Talented and versatile, he also created the acclaimed radio series Destination Freedom and Here Comes Tomorrow and wrote for popular radio fare like The Lone Ranger. IncrediTrade Review"Sonja Williams has written a book about Durham's life and work, cementing the brilliant journalist and activist's legacy."--Uprising Radio "Thanks to this biography by Sonja D. Williams, a professor of communications at Howard University, Durham's contributions to our country's dramatic arts, journalism, trade unionism and African American political power will begin to earn the appreciation and admiration they deserve."--Against the Current"This admirable and engaging study of Durham's life and work fills a huge gap in American history, and it comes at a time where we are in desperate need of reminders that do more than give us hope, but also provide us with the examples of the ways in which agency can be infused into our racially contentious social landscape."--Radio Journal"In briskly energetic prose, Sonja D. Williams reveals the life of an important, but little-known, figure in twentieth century African American cultural and political history. From the Great Migration to the Black Power Movement, Richard Durham's story illuminates movements and events of momentous scope and significance."--Richard A. Courage, co-author of The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932–1950"Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom is a remarkable contribution to the historical narrative, to our understanding of the long civil rights revolution.--People's World"With this book, Williams . . . rescues a forgotten but important voice in the Civil Rights Movement. [A] well-written analytical profile of this important, versatile writer. Recommended."--Choice"Williams' book is a major contribution to media studies and provides one model for future media-history work grappling with the current dominant paradigms of media industry and production culture studies. . . . Williams' description of multiple social phenomena, packaged as a biography of an important civil rights figure in Chicago, will pack a strong enough punch to set a precedent for similar work."--Journal of Radio & Audio Media"Williams's Word Warrior is an engrossing, at times poetic excavation of one man's dealing with life and learning as an African American man." --H-Net Reviews "The enigmatic life of writer and radio [dramatist] Richard Durham has, for years, cried out for probing and understanding. Sonja D. Williams has answered the call with this fiercely smart and important book. It is an important achievement."--Wil Haygood, author of The Butler: A Witness to History "Sonja Williams' exhaustively researched biography of Richard Durham sheds valuable light on an inexcusably neglected historical figure. Throughout his many lives, including activism, writing, and broadcasting, Durham demonstrated the importance of narrative in the struggle for justice. As Williams proves, the right to tell the story is a critical part of the quest for equality and power--and those who fought for that right should be remembered with gratitude."--Jabari Asim, author of What Obama Means "Sonja Williams artfully links broadcasting pioneer Richard Durham to the key social, cultural, and political movements of mid-Twentieth-century America. In Word Warrior, Durham's fierce spirit, strategic mind, and creative genius leap to life as he navigates the streets, boardrooms, and radio studios of Chicago. Without this book, this very important story surely would have been lost."--A'Lelia Bundles, author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker "Williams' book does smart and invaluable work not only about Durham and his particular talents and contributions, but about the black political and cultural left in Chicago during the span of his career."--Barbara D. Savage, author of Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938–1948

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Music in the Age of Anxiety offers an engaging, lively, and thought-provoking examination of a diverse range of musical styles prevalent in 1950s America. This fascinating book is accessible for students and general readers, even as Wierzbicki offers new insights that will be of interest to specialists as well."--Gayle Sherwood Magee, author of Charles Ives Reconsidered "Provides a fresh view of the socially and politically complex decade of the 1950s. Wierzbicki's sense of humor supplements a concise writing style that is easy to read but authoritative. The quality of research and annotations are remarkable, and his work provides invaluable sources for scholars who would like to dig deeper into the wide range of subjects covered. His breadth of research and topics should be of interest to musicians and non-musicians alike."--Notes "Music in the Age of Anxiety is a book for both general interest and scholarly study."--Journal of American Culture Table of ContentsCoverTitleContentsAcknowledgmentsPrologue1 The Pop Music Mainstream2 Rock 'n' Roll3 Jazz4 Hollywood5 Broadway6 Opera7 The Classical Music Mainstream8 Modernists9 MavericksEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisRadical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism explores the long-overlooked links between black nationalist activism and the renaissance of artistic experimentation emerging from recent African American literature, visual art, and film. GerShun Avilez charts a new genealogy of contemporary African American artistic production that illuminates how questions of gender and sexuality guided artistic experimentation in the Black Arts Movement from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. As Avilez shows, the artistic production of the Black Arts era provides a set of critical methodologies and paradigms rooted in the disidentification with black nationalist discourses. Avilez's close readings study how this emerging subjectivity, termed aesthetic radicalism, critiqued nationalist rhetoric in the past. It also continues to offer novel means for expressing black intimacy and embodiment via experimental works of art and innovative artistic methods. A bold addition to an advancing field, Radical AestheTrade ReviewWilliam Sanders Scarborough Prize, Modern Language Association (MLA), 2017— Modern Language Association (MLA)Table of ContentsCoverTitleContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Art of RevolutionPart I. The Question of "Closing Ranks"1. The Claim of Innocence: Deconstructing the Machinery of Whiteness2. The Suspicion of Kinship: Critiquing the Construct of Black UnityPart II. The Bodily Logic of "Revolutionizing the Mind"3. The Demands on Reproduction: Worrying the Limits of Gender Identity4. The Space of Sex: Reconfiguring the Coordinates of SubjectivityConclusion: Queering RepresentationNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewASFS Book Award, Association for the Study of Food and Society, 2017 "A fascinating archive on how American eating shifted during the years of the Depression. It provides a kind of hidden history of early-twentieth-century eating, documenting the role of different non-white middle class groups in shaping the American palate in ways that continue to resonate." --David E. Sutton, author of The Restaurants Book: Ethnographies of Where We Eat"Who knew that modern food writing originated in the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project? Camille Begin convincingly shows how the FWP ™s sensory concerns linked food to race and place. Her lively account recognizes the importance of food writing in drawing the boundaries that transform modern culinary nationalism, ethnicity and regionalism into 'sensory economies.'"--Donna Gabaccia, author of We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans"Taste of the Nation offers fascinating insights into how regional culinary traditions were incorporated into the New Deal's nation-building project."--Journal of Southern History"Her five chapters do read like a gourmet five course meal within a sensory archive with no detail too small, beginning with her wonderful introductory courses of 'Romance of the Homemade' and 'Tasting Place, Sensing Race' and concluding with a thoughtful and well-placed chapter titled 'A Well-Filled Melting Pot'. Bon Appetit!"--Journal of Contemporary History"Taste of the Nation is a valuable addition to the literature: a sophisticated reading of the sources that shows the importance of race, gender, and ethnicity in shaping our attitudes toward food."--Journal of American History"Recommended."--Choice"An astute sensory history rooted in a firm theoretical base. . . . Bégin's lively account, complemented with striking photographs, captures a moment when the nation pioneered a new understanding of its culinary heritage. Bégin offers scholars and general readers much to savor."--Agricultural History"Taste of the Nation is most useful--and it is very useful--as a model for ways to apply sensory history in the realm of food studies. It offers theoretical ways of bridging ideas and flavors, the work that seems often unfinished in food studies."--H-Net "Gives us the best of both worlds: sharp, scholarly, critique, essential to solid research and good teaching; and rich, sensory, description, conveyed with exquisite writing, where you can smell the acrid smoke from the wood stove, hear the clatter of the cutlery and the screeching of the dining room chairs. It is a text I relished and learned much from, about American gustatory nationalism, and its relationship to race and gender in New Deal food writing."--Krishnendu Ray, author of The Ethnic Restaurateur

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Walker-McWilliam's book is very well researched, clearly written, and extremely well organized. . . . Reverend Addie Wyatt is an important piece of scholarship that will appeal to both scholars and nonscholars interested in social movements in history."--The Journal of Southern History "Walker-McWilliams masterfully weaves the influences of the Great Migration from Mississippi to segregated Chicago, the vibrant religious culture of the Church of God, Chicago's meatpacking industry and labor movements, the emergence of the Civil Rights and women's movements, and her enduring marriage to Rev. Claude Wyatt to create a fascinating portrait of a historical activist icon."--Chicago Review of Books "[A] compelling, well-written, definitive biography. . . . This biography of Addie Wyatt is a valuable treatment of an activist who should be better known and whose life provides an important window into the organized labor, feminist, and civil rights movements."--Indiana Magazine of History "This highly readable biography by historian Marcia Walker-McWilliams gives this influential figure the attention she deserves."--Newcity "Marcia Walker-McWilliams' Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality engages readers in an enlightening examination of Addie Wyatt's professional trials and personal tribulations. . . . Another must read in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in American History series."--Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society "Richly detailed and well-researched. . . . Wyatt's work speaks directly to the ways the social movements of which she was a part unquestionably advanced America's still unfinished struggles for democracy."--Labour/Le Travail Table of ContentsCoverTitleContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Tell the Story1. A Child of the Great Migration2. In Search of Work and Community3. For the Union Makes Us Strong4. Civil Rights and Women’s Rights Unionism5. Challenges in the House of Labor6. A Black Christian FeministIllustrations7. Unfinished RevolutionsEpilogue: All Things Are ConnectedNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Exemplary. Boddice demonstrates that the culture of Victorian science changed irreversibly what sympathy could mean, and how it could be felt. The book will be at the top of my list when people ask, 'What does it look like when you do the history of emotions?' This is what it looks like."--Daniel M. Gross, author of The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science "Stimulating and interesting. Boddice has taken some of the most important topics in nineteenth-century history and made them his own."--Joanna Bourke, author of The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers "A landmark work in the history of science and the emotions."--Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences "Rob Boddice has provided an engaging exploration of three issues that were the source of much debate in the later Victorian period: vivisection, vaccination, and eugenics. . . . The Science of Sympathy is a welcome contribution to this still-emerging body of scholarship that has brought real illumination to the scientific cultures of the nineteenth century in particular."--Annals of Science"Boddice offer[s] challenging departures from Victorian evolutionary thought that reflect in rich and complex ways on the intellectual crosscurrents of Victorian culture and society, as well as the emerging contingencies of modernism." --Isis"The Science of Sympathy is an impressive achievement, stimulating, interesting, and well-written."--British Journal for the History of Science"A well-written and accessible book that clearly explains complex ideas while introducing the reader to the novel insights yielded by the study of the history of emotions . . . challenging and stimulating." --Victorian Studies

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Book SynopsisIn 1907, physician Lawrence A. Nixon fled the racial violence of central Texas to settle in the border town of El Paso. There he became a community and civil rights leader. His victories in two Supreme Court decisions paved the way for dismantling all-white political primaries across the South. Will Guzmán delves into Nixon's lifelong struggle against Jim Crow. Linking Nixon's activism to his independence from the white economy, support from the NAACP, and the man's own indefatigable courage, Guzmán also sheds light on Nixon's presence in symbolic and literal borderlands--as an educated professional in a time when few went to college, as an African American who made waves when most feared violent reprisal, and as someone living on the mythical American frontier as well as an international boundary. A powerful addition to the literature on African Americans in the Southwest, Civil Rights in the Texas Borderlands explores seldom-studied corners of the Black past and the civil rigTrade ReviewC. Calvin Smith Award, Southern Conference on African American Studies (SCAASI), 2016. "Guzmán adroitly opens a window onto the relations between African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Anglos while illuminating the challenges and barriers Dr. Nixon confronted as he labored to keep bodies well and hope alive." --Darlene Clark Hine, author of Black Victory: The Rise and Fall of the Texas White Primary "This book breaks new ground in an area scholars have seldom tackled. Highly recommended."--Choice "An ambitious and courageous professional and activist, Nixon's life and works rightfully deserve scholarly attention. With his exploration of archival and oral history sources, Will Guzman has undertaken an important subject."--Southern Spaces "A much-needed addition to borderlands, U.S. West, and African American scholarship."--West Texas Historical Review"Guzmán's engaging and accessible writing style really brings this story to life, making it a perfect fit for undergraduate and graduate students as well as general audiences. --Civil Rights in the Texas Borderlands is a must read for anyone interested in Texas history, African American history, and the Southwest borderlands." --Western Historical Quarterly"This worthwhile study contributes to borderlands history and the literature on black physicians in the civil rights movement, and it shifts the Jim Crow terrain to the American Southwest."--Journal of Southern History"Will Guzmán has written an excellent, thorough life story of one of the twentieth century's most influential civil rights activists."--Southwestern Historical Quarterly"Guzmán's narrative establishes Nixon's importance for the equal rights campaigns in El Paso and explains convincingly how his actions, decisions, and legal battles influenced the national movement."--Journal of African American History "Will Guzmán's gracefully written biography of Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon is a valuable addition to studies of the borderlands and the political and civil rights struggles of residents in underserved communities. Guzmán adroitly opens a window onto the relations between African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Anglos while illuminating the challenges and barriers Dr. Nixon confronted as he labored to keep bodies well and hope alive."--Darlene Clark Hine, author of Black Victory: The Rise and Fall of the Texas White Primary "Will Guzmán restores Lawrence A. Nixon to his proper place as one of the borderland's leading African American physicians and a pioneering opponent of Jim Crow."--Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History "More than a biography, Will Guzmán's book offers a fresh window onto the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Guzmán skillfully brings together African American history, western history, Chicana/o history, and the history of medicine into a fascinating and lively account of civil rights pioneer Lawrence Nixon."--Pablo Mitchell, author of Coyote Nation: Sexuality, Race, and Conquest in Modernizing New Mexico, 1880–1920 "This well-researched book makes a major contribution to multiple fields including Black studies, Chicano studies, the civil rights movement, and the history of medicine."--Gerald Horne, author of Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920

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Book SynopsisScorned since antiquity as low and animal, the sense of taste is celebrated today as an ally of joy, a source of adventure, and an arena for pursuing sophistication. The French exalted taste as an entrée to ecstasy, and revolutionized their cuisine and language to express this new way of engaging with the world. Viktoria von Hoffmann explores four kinds of early modern texts--culinary, medical, religious, and philosophical--to follow taste's ascent from the sinful to the beautiful. Combining food studies and sensory history, she takes readers on an odyssey that redefined a fundamental human experience. Scholars and cooks rediscovered a vast array of ways to prepare and present foods. Far-sailing fleets returned to Europe bursting with new vegetables, exotic fruits, and pungent spices. Hosts refined notions of hospitality in the home while philosophers pondered the body and its perceptions. As von Hoffmann shows, these labors produced a sea change in perception and thought, one that movTrade Review"[An] engaging history of a neglected sense." --French Studies: A Quarterly Review"Hoffmann's volume takes us on a great journey that, ultimately, explores that which makes us human. An impressive and nuanced study, it is, above all, a worthy addition to the expanding menu of sensory studies."--Social History "Von Hoffman writes with crossdisciplinary dexterity, fusing history, sociology, theology, philosophy, and economics in her scrupulously researched monograph."--Santa Fe New Mexican "A satisfyingly balanced investigation of the evolution of taste between about 1500 and 1800. Hoffmann masterfully synthesizes over two hundred different primary sources to show, rather convincingly, that gastronomy was part and parcel of broader cultural shifts." --Fides Et Historia"Von Hoffmann's study gives a comprehensive overview of writings on early modern taste from the standpoint of cuisine, medicine, religion, and philosophy. Rich and thoroughly researched."--Emma C. Spary, author of Eating the Enlightenment: Food and the Sciences in Paris, 1670–1760"A highly intelligent and well-documented intellectual history of taste in the early modern period. It gave me dozens of topics to consider writing about."--James McWilliams, author of The Pecan: A History of America's Native Nut"A fascinating read. . . . Recommended."--Choice

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Book SynopsisMay Irwin reigned as America's queen of comedy and song from the 1880s through the 1920s. A genuine pop culture phenomenon, Irwin conquered the legitimate stage, composed song lyrics, and parlayed her celebrity into success as a cookbook author, suffragette, and real estate mogul. Sharon Ammen's in-depth study traces Irwin's hurly-burly life. Irwin gained fame when, layering aspects of minstrelsy over ragtime, she popularized a racist Negro song genre. Ammen examines this forgotten music, the society it both reflected and entertained, and the ways white and black audiences received Irwin's performances. She also delves into Irwin's hands-on management of her image and career, revealing how Irwin carefully built a public persona as a nurturing housewife whose maternal skills and performing acumen reinforced one another. Irwin's act, soaked in racist song and humor, built a fortune she never relinquished. Yet her career's legacy led to a posthumous obscurity as the nation that once adoreTrade ReviewThis is a valuable biographical study that assesses May Irwin's contributions to comedy while also forging a path that avoided some of the grotesque and low comic traditions associated with female characters. Ammen reassesses Irwin's work in vaudeville and musical comedy, discussing her in relation to both race and gender, and this is a welcome and much needed work on a remarkable comedienne.--Gillian M. Rodger, author of Champagne Charlie and Pretty Jemima: Variety Theater in the Nineteenth Century"Lovingly rendered and well researched without being simplistic or missing the larger cultural and political context in which May Irwin lived and produced."--Andrew L. Erdman, author of Queen of Vaudeville: The Story of Eva Tanguay

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Book SynopsisSound transformed British life in the age of noise between 1914 and 1945. The sonic maelstrom of mechanized society bred anger and anxiety and even led observers to forecast the end of civilization. The noise was, as James G. Mansell shows, modernity itself, expressed in aural form, with immense implications for the construction of the self. Tracing the ideas, feelings, and representations prompted by life in early twentieth century Britain, Mansell examines how and why sound shaped the self. He works at the crux of cultural and intellectual history, analyzing the meanings that were attached to different types of sound, who created these typologies and why, and how these meanings connected to debates about modernity. From traffic noise to air raids, everyday sounds elicited new ways of thinking about being modern. Each individual negotiated his or her own subjective meanings through hopes or fears for sound. As Mansell considers the different ways Britons heard their world, he reveals Trade Review"In this intriguing study, James Mansell engages with interactions between noise, modernity, and the construction of the self in interwar Britain. . . . It is an exemplary piece of work." --Technology and Culture "James Mansell's remarkably clear, wonderfully detailed, even occasionally droll examination of the sensing self in industrial modernity makes a substantial, important contribution to historical sound studies and British studies."--John M. Picker, author of Victorian Soundscapes "In sum, Mansell's work successfully unlocks the sensory world of the past and demonstrates how one might decode the meanings of sound for those who experienced it."--Fides et HistoriaTable of ContentsCoverTitleCopyrightContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Modernity as Crisis: Noise and “Nerves”2. Re-Enchanting Modernity: Techniques of Magical Sound3. Creating the Sonically Rational: Modern Interventions in Everyday Aurality4. National Acoustics: Total Listening in the Second World WarConclusionNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Possesses the potential to alter the entire field. An unimpeachable reference book to be dipped into at need and taken in toto as a substantial, sustained, and original interpretation of its subject. Miklitsch is profoundly (and charmingly) collegial, but his scrupulous tone should not obscure the challenge to received wisdom his book poses."--Ann Douglas, author of Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s"Miklitsch's extended mediation on 1950s noir will entertain and intrigue both film scholars and movie fans." --Journal of American Culture"An interesting piece of work that highlights a commonly neglected period of American film noir."--Pop Culture Shelf “In this recommended read, [Miklitsch] finds something fresh to say about a familiar film topic.”--Library Journal"Highly Recommended."--Choice"Robert Miklitsch shows once again why he is one of the most interesting and knowledgeable critics of film noir. These readings of key '50s releases sparkle with insight, wit, and the enthusiasm of the committed cinephile."--R. Barton Palmer, author of Hollywood's Dark Cinema: The American Film Noir?

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Civil War transformed the Southern Midwest's cultural and political affinity with the border South into a strong Unionist (but not emancipationist) loyalty that helped the North win the war. As Matthew Stanley makes clear in this intriguing study, however, the Ohio Valley region led the Northern retreat from Reconstruction and the reconciliationist movement of the 1890s that partially restored that antebellum cultural affinity and pushed the historical issues of slavery and abolition into the background."--James M. McPherson"Stanley expertly demonstrates how emancipation and the postwar struggles over the precise meanings of freedom and equality ultimately made white political culture in 'middle America' as anti-Reconstruction and pro-segregation as one might have found in the South."--The Annals of Iowa"Stanley's study serves as a welcome addition to the growing field of borderland studies and the Civil War."--Journal of Southern History"The Loyal West deserves to be required reading for scholars of midwestern history, nineteenth-century politics, and collective memory."--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society"An excellent addition to the ever-growing historiography of the intersection of memory, region, and national politics. . . . Highly Recommended."--Choice"The Loyal West, overall, constitutes an excellent addition to the growing canon of sectional reconciliation studies. . . . Stanley deserves praise for thoughtfully-rendered findings, indicative of a scholar who is deeply engaged with and excited about his work."--Civil War Book Review"[Stanley's] His book is bold and deserves a wide reading among scholars of all American sections and regions." --The Journal of American History"The Loyal West is a smartly written, well-researched monograph, ambitious yet nuanced. Readers will enjoy Stanley's impressive use of language, clipped narrative style, and new approach to a seemingly familiar topic." --Civil War History "Stanley's work is an illuminating addition to the scholarship of the era." --Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society "In a richly detailed and evocative story, Stanley traces the threads of slavery, race, war, and memory in a crucial part of the United States. He shows us that “the North” in the Civil War era struggled to contain enormous differences and tensions, an understanding essential to any full understanding of that conflict.--Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America "Well researched and well argued, The Loyal West offers new insights into the underexplored mind of the Lower Middle West and the Ohio River Valley--and through that into the mind of America. As part of the fresh series of regional studies that go beyond artificial boundaries and look at the mind of a region, The Loyal West provides a broad, readable, and sweeping look at the conflicting identities of a place that at different times saw the river as connector or divider." --James C. Klotter, State Historian of Kentucky

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Book SynopsisSince the 1960s, many historians have condemned Booker T. Washington as a problematic, even negative, influence on African American progress. This attitude dramatically contrasts with the nationwide outpouring of grief and reverence that followed Washington''s death in 1915. Kenneth M. Hamilton describes how, when, where, and why Americans commemorated the life of Booker T. Washington. For months following his death, tens of thousands of Americans, especially blacks, honored his memory. Their memorials revealed that Washington enjoyed widespread national support for his vision of America and the programs that he imparted to achieve his aspirations. Their actions and articulations provide rich insight into how a cross section of Washington''s contemporaries viewed him. From private messages of solace to public pronouncements, countless Americans portrayed him as a revered national icon. Among other characteristics, commemorates voiced their appreciation of his humanitarianism, humiTrade Review"Nationwide memorials to Booker T. Washington added him to the impressive roster of civil saints in American society. Yankee Protestant values energized him with a religious fervor to lift African Americans to economic freedom and self-sufficiency. No wonder the memorials and tributes to the Tuskegeean assumed sacred significance to his mourners. Scholars in history, religion, and related disciplines will find Professor Hamilton's book an indispensable addition to their libraries and syllabi."--Dennis C. Dickerson, Vanderbilt University "Recommended."--Choice "Those particularly intrigued by Washington and the historiography on him will be most interested in Booker T. Washington in American Memory."--History "Hamilton's work is well done and highly readable. . . . Hamilton is most effective in getting readers to appreciate Washington via the lived experiences of the people who witnessed his life and death."--Journal of Southern History "Hamilton's meticulous attention to the public and private memories of Washington offers a fascinating window into his complex life and times." --Journal of American Ethnic History

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Book SynopsisEleanor Ty's bold exploration of literature, plays, and film reveals how young Asian Americans and Asian Canadians have struggled with the ethos of self-sacrifice preached by their parents. This new generation's narratives focus on protagonists disenchanted with their daily lives. Many are depressed. Some are haunted by childhood memories of war, trauma, and refugee camps. Rejecting an obsession with professional status and money, they seek fulfillment by prioritizing relationships, personal growth, and cultural success. As Ty shows, these storytellers have done more than reject a narrowly defined road to happiness. They have rejected neoliberal capitalism itself. In so doing, they demand that the rest of us reconsider our outmoded ideas about the so-called model minority.Trade Review2017- 2018 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature for Adult Non-Fiction from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association "With Asianfail, Eleanor Ty continues her important work in literary studies that invigorates ongoing debates over the meaning of Asian difference in North American culture. Her book is a welcome set of insightful essays illuminating key aspects, contexts, and stakes of contemporary Asian North American cultural politics. By focusing on failure and agency, her work here brings new and needed perspectives on such issues as trauma, depression, and aging."--Victor Bascara, UCLA "Asianfail is an engrossing and timely contribution to the study of contemporary Asian North American culture. . . . What is most illuminating is the interdisciplinary research that Ty brings to the conversation, historically and culturally contextualizing these Asian failures as a result of racial discourses, neoliberal economic policies, globalization, and the traumas of war and dislocation." --Canadian Literature"Offers sharp and insightful close readings in contemporary film and literature. It lays out the challenges that Asian North Americans, particularly those of a younger generation, are facing and the ways that cultural producers are responding."--Christine Kim, author of The Minor Intimacies of Race: Asian Publics in North America "Eleanor Ty's book Asianfail is a valuable and timely contribution to Asian American and Asian Canadian studies, providing a novel way of understanding the new generation of Asian North Americans through their narratives." --Journal of Asian American Studies

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Book SynopsisRemembered as an era of peace and prosperity, turn-of-the-millennium America was also a time of mass protest. But the political demands of the marchers seemed secondary to an urgent desire for renewal and restoration felt by people from all walks of life. Drawing on thousands of personal testimonies, Deborah Gray White explores how Americans sought better ways of living in, and dealing with, a rapidly changing world. From the Million Man, Million Woman, and Million Mom Marches to the Promise Keepers and LGBT protests, White reveals a people lost in their own country. Mass gatherings offered a chance to bond with like-minded others against a relentless tide of loneliness and isolation. By participating, individuals opened a door to self-discovery that energized their quests for order, autonomy, personal meaning, and fellowship in a society that seemed hostile to such deeper human needs. Moving forward in time, White also shows what marchers found out about themselves and those gathTrade Review"A beautiful book and a very important one. By addressing a key dimension of mass protest that has received too little attention from historians, White forces us to shift the questions we ask of protest movements."--Annelise Orleck, author of Rethinking American Women's Activism "Exceedingly well written, nuanced, and refreshing."--The Journal of Southern History "Understanding the relation between the turn-of-the-century public sphere and its contested margins seems more important than ever, and Lost in the USA is an excellent introduction."--Journal of American History "Lost in the USA is a timely and important contribution to the scholarship of social movements and mass marches." --Journal of African American History"White has written a provocative and important book that deserves to be read and discussed. It demonstrates not only exceptional scholarship but also exceptional insight, complexity, and historical acuity. It should be the starting point for the analysis of a period that has profoundly shaped contemporary America." --H-Net Reviews"With Lost in the USA, Deborah Gray White makes an important contribution to the scholarship of the 1990s. Instead of presenting the marches as a string of isolated political issues to be resolved through legislation, White effectively shows their cultural significance to an American public navigating the transition between modernity and postmodernity." --Register of the Kentucky Historical Society"A beautiful book and a very important one. By addressing a key dimension of mass protest that has received too little attention from historians, White forces us to shift the questions we ask of protest movements."--Annelise Orleck, author of Rethinking American Women's Activism

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This book illuminates a rarely seen side of contemporary immigration to the U.S., whose prevailing image is of non-Europeans, coming from Africa, Asia, and Latin America--yet also among the immigrants are hundreds of thousands of Italians. The authors of the volume show how the new immigrants ' presence alters our understanding of the white ethnic story as viewed through the lenses of families, communities, and politics. The book represents an indispensable contribution to ethnic and immigration studies."--Richard Alba, co-author of Strangers No More: The Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe"An exceptionally good volume that is innovative and will change the game in Italian American studies. This magnificent collection has no competition. "--Graziella Parati, author of Migration Italy: The Art of Talking Back in a Destination Culture"New Italian Migrations to the United States, Vol. 1, provides distinctive and significant insights into recent Italian immigrants while also offering instructive comparisons with other migrant populations." --Italian American Review "The innovative and sometimes counterintuitive discussions in New Migrations produce fresh insights."--Brooklyn Rail"Worthwhile reading for anyone interested in learning more about Italian immigration to the U.S. after WWII."--Voce Italiana"New Italian Migrations to the United States contributes to the growth of academic knowledge regarding the general knowledge of Italian-Americans." --i-Italy“By focusing on those who crossed the Atlantic after World War II, scholars from many disciplines expand the customary periodization of the Italian experience in the United States. This important collection fills a major gap in the history of Italian Americans.”--Fraser Ottanelli, co-editor of Italian Workers of the World: Labor Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic States

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMerle Curti Intellectual History Award, Organization of American Historians (OAH), 2018 A Choice Outstanding Title, 2018 One of Zora Magazine's 100 Best Books by African American Women Authors "A work of crucial cultural study. . . . [Beyond Respectability] lays out the complicated history of black woman as intellectual force, making clear how much work she has done simply to bring that category into existence."--NPR "Cooper's study demands that we dive deeper into the intellectual artifacts left by black women thinkers as a means of supporting the evolution of black feminist discourse and political action."--Public Books"Beyond Respectability is an intricate temporal and spatial tapestry that weaves together the development and evolution of black feminist thought. Cooper's sophisticated analysis not only recovers the intellectual proficiency of race women, but also emphasizes the embodied nature of public intellectualism."--Antipode"If black women's history is your thing, Beyond Respectability should definitely be on your reading list."--Bitch"Beyond Respectability is one small part of a much larger picture. This is a valuable contribution to the whole."--Journal of American History"Beyond Respectability is an invigorating testament to the pivotal legacies of changemakers like Pauli Murray, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell and why the intellectual work of black women cannot and will not be forgotten."--Signature"Beyond Respectability is a multifaceted and robust record of women's important work. . . . There's something in Beyond Respectability for every race woman-- and for the activist, the herstorian, the public intellectual, and the student, and all guardians of our nation's honest history."--Women's Review of Books"By moving 'beyond respectability,' Cooper's black feminist thought takes us into the constructive possibility that has marked so many black women's lives."--Christian Century "Beyond Respectability is a memorable narrative of struggle and triumph. Its lasting impact is Brittney C. Cooper's willingness to share how race women intellectuals are the reason why scholars can write of Black women thinkers' contributions today."--Women's History Review "One of the best books written on black women's intellectual traditions thus far. This book is an intellectually stimulating must-read for individuals interested in, but not limited to, black feminism and black intellectual thought. It should be a required text in African American studies, gender studies, feminist philosophy, and literary studies, among others."--Hypatia Reviews "Beyond Respectability can be read as a brilliant critique to academia's superficial engagements with gender and race theory." --Women's Studies International Forum "At the cutting edge of black women's intellectual history, Brittney Cooper weaves together the ideas and lived experiences of women heretofore known as activists rather than thinkers. Through exacting analysis, a feminist lens, and her signature verve, Cooper establishes the centrality of black women's ideas to twentieth century political thought. This is a pathbreaking history of ideas."--Martha S. Jones, author of All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830–1900 "Brittney Cooper's Beyond Respectability. . . .makes an important contribution to a large body of scholarship that analyzes the long history of Black women's intellectual discourse. Focusing on the feminist theorizing of selected 'race women,' especially Fannie Barrier Williams, Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, Pauli Murray, and Toni Cade Bambara, Cooper probes their interior lives in new ways and makes more visible the complexities of their public stances. Her brilliant analysis and queer reading of Murray's life is perhaps its most compelling revisionist intervention."--Beverly Guy-Sheftall, coeditor of Words of Fire: An Anthology of African Feminist Thought

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Black Post-Blackness moves rigorously with and against the grain of the most important work in black studies and performance studies, thereby joining it. In showing how blackness is unexhausted by the question of identity, Margo Natalie Crawford keeps its study on new, constantly renewed, persistently renewable footing."--Fred Moten, author of In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition "An original and very important contribution to African American Studies, American literature, and African American thought. Eloquent, exciting to read, as energetic as its subject matter."--Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II "In our putatively post-racial America, nothing can bring race racing back more quickly than a discussion of post-blackness. 'Your post-black ain't like mine' isn't the title of any song, but perhaps should be. Margo Crawford coins the term, then assays the coinage. With a deep, scholarly assurance, she revisits misunderstood moments of the Black Aesthetic Movement, limning a poetics of anticipation that tells us so much about our present."--Aldon Lynn Nielsen, author of Integral Music: Languages of African American Innovation "Margo Natalie Crawford's titular concept in Black Post-Blackness: The Black Arts Movement and Twenty-First-Century Aesthetics is oceanic: it is multifaceted and much encompassing." --CAA ReviewsTable of ContentsCoverTitleContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1.The Aesthetics of Anticipation2.The Politics of Abstraction3.The Counter-Literacy of Black Mixed Media4.The Local and the Global: BLKARTSOUTH and Callaloo5.The Satire of Black Post-Blackness6.Black Inside/Out: Public Interiority and Black Aesthetics7.Who’s Afraid of the Black Fantastic? The Substance of SurfaceEpilogue: Feeling Black Post-BlackNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisHome to established African American institutions and communities, Washington, D.C., offered women in the New Negro movement a unique setting for the fight against racial and gender oppression. Colored No More traces how African American women of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century made significant strides toward making the nation''s capital a more equal and dynamic urban center. Treva B. Lindsey presents New Negro womanhood as a multidimensional space that included race women, blues women, mothers, white collar professionals, beauticians, fortune tellers, sex workers, same-gender couples, artists, activists, and innovators. Drawing from these differing but interconnected African American women''s spaces, Lindsey excavates a multifaceted urban and cultural history of struggle toward a vision of equality that could emerge and sustain itself. Upward mobility to equal citizenship for African American women encompassed challenging racial, gender, class, Trade ReviewA Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2017 "Treva Lindsey, in Colored No More, is as bold as the women about whom she writes. Fresh research, illuminated by feminist theory, reveals how 'New Negro Womanhood' became a framework through which African American women developed modern identities. The politics of respectability confront the politics of pleasure in this outstanding study."--Martha S. Jones, author of All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900"Colored No More provokes important questions for African American historiography and should inform historians' telling of urban black history after the Civil War. . . . Lindsey is precise and explicit in her interpretation of sources but seems also to recognize the present-day consequences of that interpretation."--H-Net Review [H-SHGAPE]"Lindsey's Colored No More succeeds in changing the way we see African American women in the nation's capital from the 1890s through the 1920s. She innovatively and provocatively brings together histories of black women in higher education, beauty culture, the suffrage movement, and literary salons to prove that Washington was a site of New Negro ideology."--Journal of Southern History"A major contribution to African American women's history that demonstrates urban black women's important political work. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice"Lindsay successfully demonstrates that New Negro womanhood was a complex and capacious category accommodating a range of social, political, and sexual beliefs. . . . Colored No More is essential to the historiography of Washington, D.C."--Washington History"Lindsey’s brilliantly researched book adds to black culture by mapping out the intersections of various identities of African-American women who shaped black life on a local and national scale."--Vibe"Lindsey's book is an ambitious and creative undertaking of documenting African American women's activism in the nation's capital." --Journal of American Ethnic History"An insightful book theoretically framed around ideas of 'Colored' and New Negro Womanhood. Lindsey demonstrates how Black women in Washington, D.C., labored and managed under the strains of Jim and Jane Crow, navigating structural disadvantages and persistent sexist exclusion in the nation's capital. Lindsey makes abundantly clear that the diverse efforts of Black Washingtonian women, from political organizing to cultural productions, pushed the boundaries of culturally accepted norms and laid a foundation for latter liberationist movements led by Black women within their communities both locally and nationally."--Randal Maurice Jelks, author of Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography "A timely and important book that centers black women in the New Negro era--a long overdue addition to the history and historiography."--Danielle L. McGuire, author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power

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Book SynopsisActivist, labor scholar, and organizer Ernesto Galarza (1905–1984) was a leading advocate for Mexican Americans and one of the most important Mexican American scholars and activists after World War II. This volume gathers Galarza''s key writings, reflecting an intellectual rigor, conceptual clarity, and a constructive concern for the working class in the face of America''s growing influence over Mexico''s economic system.Throughout his life, Galarza confronted and analyzed some of the most momentous social transformations of the twentieth century. Inspired by his youthful experience as a farm laborer in Sacramento, he dedicated his life to the struggle for justice for farm workers and urban working-class Latinos and helped build the first multiracial farm workers union, setting the foundation for the emergence of the United Farm Workers Union. He worked to change existing educational philosophies and curricula in schools, and his civil rightsTrade ReviewA Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2013. "Ernesto Galarza was a prescient analyst and powerful writer, a scholar, poet, and social activist whose work has profoundly influenced and interested so many. This book will be of use to activists who interrogate political economy and develop strategies that address inequities in class and race."--Patricia Zavella, author of I'm Neither Here nor There: Mexicans' Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty"This outstanding compilation of the selected writings of Ernesto Galarza features an excellent introduction, despite the fact that relatively little is known about Galarza's private life other than what he reveals in his autobiography. Highly Recommended."--Choice "Ibarra and Torres are to be commended for their efforts to provide students and scholars new access to the writings of Ernesto Galarza. Man on Fire serves as both an effective summation of his work and a starting point for detailed investigation of a scholar-activist whose output and activities have sadly fallen into undeserved obscurity." --Labor

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Along the Streets of Bronzeville is a compelling and comprehensive history of Chicago's Black Renaissance. Along with her solid research and masterful prose, Schlabach shares may illustrations and archival documents to give life to this vibrant history of Bronzeville. All scholars interested in the history of black Chicago, African American cultural history, and literary history at large should read this book."--History: Reviews of New Books"Highly recommended."--Choice "Schlabach strikes a fine balance between acknowledging and illuminating the provocative artistic and political endeavors characteristic of the Chicago Black Renaissance. . . . A rich, artistically oriented micro-history."--Chicago Book Review"An insightful study of Chicago's streets, kitchenettes, numbers games, black counterpolitical culture, and artistic and literary figures of the mid-twentieth century. . . . Along the Streets of Bronzeville accomplishes its primary project of extending our understanding of the rich complexity made possible by racial segregation and black cultural ingenuity in the face of white supremacy. Schlabach convincingly encourages renewed attention to black materiality, and aesthetics."--Journal of American History"A thought-provoking, informative, and unique study. Schlabach offers her own fascinating take on the development of the Black Chicago Renaissance, its creative artists, and most impressively the geographies of the Black Belt as it evolved into Bronzeville and the new black public spaces created by successive waves of black migrants in the first half of the twentieth century."--Robert B. Stepto, author of From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative

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Book SynopsisFrom 2000 to 2010, the Latino population increased by more than 73 percent across eight midwestern states. These interdisciplinary essays explore issues of history, education, literature, art, and politics defining today's Latina/o Midwest. Some contributors delve into the Latina/o revitalization of rural areas, where communities have launched bold experiments in dual-language immersion education while seeing integrated neighborhoods, churches, and sports teams become the norm. Others reveal metro areas as laboratories for emerging Latino subjectivities, places where for some, the term Latina/o itself corresponds to a new type of lived identity as different Latina/o groups interact in shared neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. Eye-opening and provocative, The Latina/o Midwest Reader rewrites the conventional wisdom on today's Latina/o community and how it faces challengesand thrivesin the heartland. Contributors: Aidé Acosta, Frances R. Aparicio, Jay Arduser, Jane Blocker, Trade Review"The Reader offers something for everyone. . . . The research disrupts narratives that remove Latinos from history and from the region. . . . Current activists and allies can look to the volume for a history of resistance and a people's determination to live with dignity." --Middle West Review"This key book expands understanding of Latina/os outside of the traditional areas of the US. . . . A major addition to the histories of Latina/os and future Latina/o studies scholarship on the Midwest. . . . Recommended."--Choice"The Latina/o Midwest Reader certainly contributes to this nascent literature by bringing much needed attention to the struggles and contributions of Latinos in the Midwest."--Journal of Folklore Research"The Latina/o Midwest Reader makes a valuable contribution to Latina/o studies by pushing the field to look beyond the East and West Coast model for the experiences of Latina/o communities. . . . Every educator in the Midwest, from pre-K to college, should read the book in order to understand the region in more of its complexity."--Missouri Historical Review"The Latina/o Midwest Reader is an engaging and much-needed collection of essays that examines historical and contemporary Latina and Latino place-making in the U.S. heartland. Valerio-Jiménez, Vaquera-Vásquez, and Fox have assembled a wide-ranging regional study of the field that is distinct in its cross-disciplinary scope with contributions from the social sciences, the humanities, and interdisciplinary studies. A valuable introduction to the old and new Midwest."—Mérida Rúa, editor of Latino Urban Ethnography and the Work of Elena Padilla"The Latina/o Midwest Reader makes a vital contribution to Latina/o Studies in the United States, not merely by filing a proverbial gap in the literature, but by demonstrating that the multi-layered, multi-textured intersection of diverse historical and socio-political formations of Latinidad in this region supplies some of the necessary conceptual keys for understanding Latino identity, historicity, and place-making anywhere in the United States."—Nicholas De Genova, author of Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and “Illegality” in Mexican Chicago

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewGeorge C. Rogers Jr. Award, South Carolina Historical Society, 2018 "This work is a valuable contribution that expresses how the minute can explain the whole and civil rights began as a grassroots movement, propagated by the influence of African American newspapers, and expanded in several places concomitantly as African Americans began to reclaim the rights that had been denied to them for so long." --Journal of African American History"Newspaper Wars is a timely book that brings traditionally marginal figures to the fore." --American Historical Review "This well-written, deeply contextualized book is as much a political history of South Carolina as it is an examination of race and journalism. . . . A commendable study that advances knowledge of the southern press in the civil rights era."--American Journalism"Sid Bedingfield offers a brilliantly fresh account of the peak decades of the civil rights movement--a time when newspapers shaped the contours of civic discourse and political debate. More than an essential history of the civil rights movement in South Carolina, Newspaper Wars recasts our understanding of the civil rights era and the enduring struggles around race and citizenship."--Patricia Sullivan, author of Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement"The narrative strength of Newspaper Wars rests on Bedingfield's thorough research. . . . The result is a commendable study that advances knowledge of the southern press in the civil rights era."--American Journalism"Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935-1965 not only remedies a lack of scholarship on the press in South Carolina but also shows how newspapers shaped the course of social and political change." --The Journal of Southern History"Newspaper Wars is a timely book that brings traditionally marginal figures to the fore." --American Historical Review"Newspaper Wars is a strong, important study of black journalism, state-level organizing, and the role that journalists play in shaping the assumptions of the public sphere, assumptions that conditioned the discussions that created civil rights success in South Carolina." --The Journal of American History "Very well written and enjoyable to read. Journalists, Sid Bedingfield persuasively demonstrates, did not just document the civil rights movement in South Carolina, but rather they actively influenced its course and outcomes."--Michael Stamm, author of Sound Business: Newspapers, Radio, and the Politics of New Media

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Book SynopsisVietnamese refugees fleeing the fall of South Vietnam faced a paradox. The same guilt-ridden America that only reluctantly accepted them expected, and rewarded, expressions of gratitude for their rescue. Meanwhile, their status as refugeesas opposed to willing immigrantsprofoundly influenced their cultural identity. Phuong Tran Nguyen examines the phenomenon of refugee nationalism among Vietnamese Americans in Southern California. Here, the residents of Little Saigon keep alive nostalgia for the old regime and, by extension, their claim to a lost statehood. Their refugee nationalism is less a refusal to assimilate than a mode of becoming, in essence, a distinct group of refugee Americans. Nguyen examines the factors that encouraged them to adopt this identity. His analysis also moves beyond the familiar rescue narrative to chart the intimate yet contentious relationship these Vietnamese Americans have with their adopted homeland. Nguyen sets their plight within the context of the Cold Trade Review"Nguyen offers a bold yet nuanced analysis of Vietnamese refugee experiences in the US. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice"In Becoming Refugee American Phuong Tran Nguyen offers a timely and critical analysis of the history of Vietnamese refugees in the United States." --H-Asia "Becoming Refugee American is an ideal work to understand both the particular experiences of Vietnamese peoples in the United States and the broader implication of refugeeism." --The Journal of American History "Effectively illustrates the multifaceted challenges confronted by Vietnamese refugees who become part of the politics of rescue." --Western Historical Quarterly"Overall, Becoming Refugee American is an excellent and welcome addition to the growing scholarship on the Vietnamese American experience. The historical research and methodology devoted to writing this text give it a nuanced perspective." --American Historical Review"The book was lucidly written and meticulously documented. For this postwar-born Vietnamese American reviewer, the sensitive portrayal of rescue politics rang true and inspired sympathy for an older generation whose Refugee Americanness reflected grief and need as much as culture or ideology." --International Migration Review"Nguyen develops the concept of refugee nationalism to account for the complex affective lives of diasporic Vietnamese, whose loyalty to their lost nation, the Republic of Vietnam, is entangled in, and yet is also distinct from, their attachment to and gratitude for the US. . . . Becoming Refugee American is a book that shows the necessity of historicizing a fuller range of emotions." --Pacific Affairs"This is the history that Vietnamese Americans and those who study them have been waiting for, a terrific account of how Vietnamese refugees came to the United States and founded their own Little Saigon. Phuong Nguyen's clarifying, enjoyable account provides a persuasive framework of 'refugee nationalism' for understanding how these newcomers turned themselves into Americans."--Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War “The refugee world of Little Saigon now has its historian. Phuong Tran Nguyen’s brave and highly original book tells the intriguing story of how tens of thousands of Vietnamese became American; and anyone interested in the domestic legacy of America’s war in Indochina or its recent wars and military engagements in the Middle East should be listening.”--Lon Kurashige, author of Japanese American Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival, 1934-1990

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Book SynopsisAfrican Americans once passed as whites to escape the pains of racism. Today's neo-passing has pushed the old idea of passing in extraordinary new directions. A white author uses an Asian pen name; heterosexuals live out as gay; and, irony of ironies, whites try to pass as black. Mollie Godfrey and Vershawn Ashanti Young present essays that explore practices, performances, and texts of neo-passing in our supposedly postracial moment. The authors move from the postracial imagery of Angry Black White Boy and the issues of sexual orientation and race in ZZ Packer's short fiction to the politics of Dave Chappelle's skits as a black President George W. Bush. Together, the works reveal that the questions raised by neo-passingquestions about performing and contesting identity in relation to social normsremain as relevant today as in the past. Contributors: Derek Adams, Christopher M. Brown, Martha J. Cutter, Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Michele Elam, Alisha Gaines, Jennifer Glaser, Allyson Hobbs, BTrade Review"The essays offer insight into how the end of de jure segregation shifted the significance of 'cultural authenticity' in a way that values nonwhite racial and ethnic identities as forms of property, and they demonstrate that the black-white boundary has been destabilized (although not destroyed) through continued multi-racial and multi-ethnic identification." --MELUS“Excellently introduced by Mollie Godfrey and Vershawn Ashanti Young, the ten essays collected in this volume offer a wealth of information, from a working bibliography of neo-passing narratives to interpretive overviews of passing, old and new. The essays suggest that despite all historical, legal, and attitudinal changes in the course of the twentieth century, race remains a central obsession in the United States.”--Werner Sollors, author of The Temptation of Despair: Tales of the 1940s"Highly recommended." --Choice

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Anyone interested in college football, the history of intercollegiate athletics, and the attempts at governance, will find this book an important addition to their library and their knowledge.”--Sport Literature"Winton U. Solberg's Creating the Big Ten is a superb work on a significant topic in American social and institutional history." --The Journal of American History"A great resource for scholars and fans wanting an in-depth look at how the conference came together, and almost came apart, and the many different paths it might have taken along the way." --Journal of Sport History"Solberg has written a very useful and timely history. The commercialism of modern big-time intercollegiate sports was clearly a long time coming, as the author of Creating the Big Ten ruefully makes clear." --Middle West Review

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Book SynopsisSpirituals performed by jubilee troupes became a sensation in post-Civil War America. First brought to the stage by choral ensembles like the Fisk Jubilee Singers, spirituals anchored a wide range of late nineteenth-century entertainments, including minstrelsy, variety, and plays by both black and white companies. In the first book-length treatment of postbellum spirituals in theatrical entertainments, Sandra Jean Graham mines a trove of resources to chart the spiritual's journey from the private lives of slaves to the concert stage. Graham navigates the conflicting agendas of those who, in adapting spirituals for their own ends, sold conceptions of racial identity to their patrons. In so doing they lay the foundation for a black entertainment industry whose artistic, financial, and cultural practices extended into the twentieth century. A companion website contains jubilee troupe personnel, recordings, and profiles of 85 jubilee groups. Please go to: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/booTrade ReviewA Choice Outstanding Title, 2018 Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society, 2019 — A Choice Outstanding Title, 2018 A Choice Outstanding Title, 2018 Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society, 2019— American Musicological SocietyTable of ContentsTitle PageCopyrightContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Folk SpiritualPART ONE The Rise of a Jubilee Industry2. The Jubilee Singers of Fisk University3. The Fisk Concert Spiritual4. Innovators, Imitators, and a Jubilee IndustryPART TWO Spirituals for the Masses5. The Minstrel Show Gets Religion6. Commercial Spirituals7. Spirituals in Uncle Tom Shows, Melodramas, and Spectacles8. Blurring Boundaries between Traditional and CommercialConclusion: Lessons and LegaciesNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Among the most valuable contributions of Vogel's book is an entire chapter devoted to Baldwin's as yet unpublished play, The Welcome Table. . . . Vogel's adept interpretation of the play . . . is among the strongest works on late Baldwin now in print." --Journal of American History"Vogel help[s] us to 'catch up' to Baldwin by freeing us from previous misconceptions of the important work he did in his late career." --African American Review "Clearly and concisely written with a snap in his prose. No one has focused on this era and its unique importance in the way Joseph Vogel has done."--Ed Pavlic, author of Who Can Afford to Improvise? James Baldwin and Black Music, the Lyric and the Listeners "In his incisively reasoned and beautifully written volume, James Baldwin and The 1980s: Witnessing the Reagan Era, Joseph Vogel picks up on Baldwin's theme of digging through the rubble and, in doing so, unearths new pieces of Baldwin's late years." --Black Perspectives"A stand-out in recent African American history and literary studies, certainly worth the time of anyone interested in Baldwin or modern America." —Robert Greene II, Society for U.S. Intellectual History Book Review (online)"While scholars have started to chip away at the critical consensus that James Baldwin lost his way as a writer after the mid-1960s, very few critics have paid attention to the last decade of the writer's work. As Vogel argues in this insightful and elegantly written book, Baldwin remained a vital force in American letters."--Douglas Field, author of All Those Strangers: The Art and Lives of James Baldwin

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Book SynopsisIn Search of Belonging explores the ways Latina/o audiences in general, and women in particular, make sense of and engage both mainstream and Spanish-language media. Jillian M. Báez's eye-opening ethnographic analysis draws on the experiences of a diverse group of Latinas in Chicago. In-depth interviews reveal Latinas viewing media images through a lens of citizenship. These women search for nothing less than recognitionand belongingthrough representations of Latinas in films, advertising, telenovelas, and TV shows like Ugly Betty and Modern Family. Báez's personal interactions and research merge to create a fascinating portrait, one that privileges the perspectives of the women themselves as they consume media in complex, unpredictable ways. Innovative and informed by a wealth of new evidence, In Search of Belonging answers important questions about the ways Latinas perform citizenship in today's America.Trade ReviewBonnie Ritter Outstanding Feminist Book Award, Feminist & Women Studies Division of the National Communication Association, 2019 "In Search of Belonging is the first ethnographic project to consider how Latina audiences decide their cultural, social, and economic value to the nation via media representations of the self." --Latino Studies"Báez's timely and pathbreaking book explores the missing link in the literature of Latinx cultural studies, which have focused on matters of production or representation but seldom on Latinx audiences as active agents of their own. Her in-depth ethnography of audiences makes this original work a must-read for scholars working in the fields of Latinx studies, but also media, American Studies, and gender studies more generally."--Arlene Dávila, author of El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America "Báez skillfully explores how audiences who critique stereotyped Latina characters and the whitewashing of celebrities also engage in contemporary practices of femininity that reflect normative social values. . . . This book is well suited for advanced undergraduate or graduate seminars and provides a strong methodological example for emerging ethnographic researchers." --Journal of Cinema and Media Studies"Báez makes a seminal contribution with this smartly researched study. She gives voice to U.S. Latinas as they enact cultural citizenship, offering important insights on how Latinas consume media for a sense of affirmation, belonging, and empowerment."--Mary C. Beltrán, author of Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Rape in Chicago challenges scholars and activities to rethink their assumptions about rape, race, and the law. The work provides essential revisions to our historical understanding of sexual violence and is a much-needed addition to the literature."--Journal of Illinois History "Rape in Chicago contributes new arguments to emerging scholarship on the history of rape. It also provides a detailed analysis of how rape convictions were appealed over time in one major city."--American Historical Review "Rape in Chicago is a very significant book and Flood has done a masterful job of demonstrating how myths, once created, wind their way through history, reshaping themselves--or being reshaped--to conform to different historical exigencies."--H-Net Review / H-Law “With its holistic focus, and thorough analysis, this book has an insightful and novel perspective, and is a beneficial read for anyone attempting to understand the modern underpinnings of rape myths and the potential for the power of the individual agency to create change.”--Contemporary Sociology

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Book SynopsisA host of international organizations promotes the belief that education will empower Kenya's Maasai girls. Yet the ideas that animate their campaigns often arise from presumptions that reduce the girls themselves to helpless victims of gender-related forms of oppression. Heather D. Switzer's interviews with over one hundred Kenyan Maasai schoolgirls challenge the widespread view of education as a silver bullet solution to global poverty. In their own voices, the girls offer incisive insights into their commitments, aspirations, and desires. Switzer weaves this ethnographic material into an astute analysis of historical literature, education and development documents, and theoretical literature. Maasai schoolgirls express a particular knowledge about themselves and provocative hopes for their futures. Yet, as Switzer shows, new opportunities force them to face, and navigate, new vulnerabilities and insecurities within a society that is itself in flux.Trade ReviewSecond runner-up, Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, African Studies Association Women's Caucus, 2019 Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award, Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), 2020 "Switzer's book draws from her empirical research with over 100 Kenyan Maasai schoolgirls. . . .Switzer does a brilliant job of bringing to light the complexities of the context and the paradox of what education promises these girls therein. . . . This book is worth reading." --Feminist Africa"The book both dispels any misapprehensions about the helplessness, and the hopelessness, of Maasai girls and directly refutes the developmentalist discourse that sees girls' empowerment as a panacea for the developing world's problems." --H-Africa"One of the only books that I know which draws on and shares the perspectives and experiences of schoolgirls themselves, thus challenging dominant ideas that they are especially passive, vulnerable, or incapable of articulating their complicated and changing lives. As such, the book directly challenges broad, abstract claims by development donors and other champions of 'the girl effect.'"--Dorothy L. Hodgson, author of Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World"When the Light is Fire is a book that forces you to confront the many contradictions, paradoxes and nuances of 'schoolgirl.' What Valerie Walkerdine set out to explore several decades ago in Schoolgirl Fictions is now taken up by Heather Switzer in relation to contemporary Maasai culture. As central to its obvious contributions to deepening an understanding of girls' education, Switzer’s rich analysis offers a fascinating critique of global policy and neoliberalism. The book is compelling reading for scholars in variety of areas including girlhood studies, feminist research, and development studies."--Claudia Mitchell, coeditor of Girlhood and the Politics of Place"When the Light is Fire captures children and education in Africa . . . the book exhorts us to critically reexamine our perception of education in the twenty-first century, especially in transnational development discourse." --African Studies Review

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Cole does a magnificent job in this book. . . . An excellent study of dockworkers in port cities in California and South Africa, and their respective struggles for social justice." --International Journal of Comparative Sociology"Dockworker Power is the first book that specifically compares South African and American ports as a site of workplace activism. . . . The inspiring story of Dockworker Power provides the optimism needed for contemporary activists to fight and win twenty-first-century battles." --Journal of African American History"Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area is a sparkling exercise in comparative labor history. Informative and informed, morally anchored, and successfully mastering two sets of literature, it is also a pleasure to read." --American Historical Review"Cole's book is a tremendous first step in understanding the parallel struggles of dockworkers in both locations and their ongoing importance in the face of global containerized trade." --African Studies Review"The combination of labour, comparative and global history, framed by the political economy of containerization and technological change, makes this book most timely and worthy of deep reflection. . . . Peter Cole's book will inform and motivate." --Review of African Political Economy"The first three words of this book read: 'Dockworkers have power' (p. 1). They capture the essence of this fascinating and closely researched work by Peter Cole, Professor of History at the Western Illinois University. With this brilliant work on dockworkers' power, Cole implicitly invites other labour, social and economic scholars to pick up from where he leaves off and maybe develop a new analysis of labour strategy for transnational solidarity. Hopefully, scholars will meet this challenge with the same degree of verse and insight as that displayed by Peter Cole." --International Review of Social History"Peter Cole's superb examination of dockworkers in San Francisco and Durban, South Africa, provides an excellent model of how to write comparative labor history, weaving together a compelling tale around issues of racial justice, intentional labor solidarity, and resistance to job-destroying technological change." --H-Net Reviews"A sweeping, panoramic narrative . . . This book with have wide appeal, for historians of South Africa and the US, for those interested in workers struggles in a global context and how technology transforms the lives of working people, and for those looking for evidence that workers maintain power, even in our increasingly connected globalized world." --Reviews in History "Cole's book is a valuable contribution to the relatively thin field of global union comparisons." --In These Times "Dockworker Power is worth the read. It's riveting and distinguishes itself from the mainstream labor and civil rights history we have come to know." --48 Hills "Dockworker Power is highly recommended . . . The book is ambitious in execution and delivers new perspectives through a comparative and transnational approach." --The Northern Mariner "Persuasive and compelling. . . . Dockworker Power makes an important contribution to the development of the interdisciplinary field of working-class studies." --Journal of Working Class Studies "Dockworker Power is a book of vital importance to labor scholars, educators, and activists." --Labor Studies "The fascinating stories [Cole] centers in Dockworker Power capture the dynamics of global social movements, the significance of black internationalism, and the power of grassroots organizing." —Keisha N. Blain, Black Perspectives "Dockworker Power is worth the read. It's riveting and distinguishes itself from the mainstream labor and civil rights history we have come to know." —48 Hills "Compelling." —Salon "Dockworker Power suggests that the rising global white supremacist menace cannot be defeated without a confrontation at today’s docks—the mechanized ports, trucking networks, and warehouses where racial capitalism does its work." —Dissent Magazine "Cole makes a strong case for the importance of studying ports and their workers in global history. His research is meticulous—not a minor feat when you compare two ports in very different contexts. " —Black Perspectives "Peter Cole has done us a great service in his comparative history. He has demonstrated that the social and political context of unions is important in determining their course of struggle, and he has highlighted the great impact that dockers have had on social justice struggles." —Jacobin "Cole’s book shows us the possibilities that anti-racist labor organizing had and has for attacking and analyzing how systems of racial and capital oppressions are intertwined. " —Africa is a Country "The importance of Cole's study and topic are undeniable. " —History: Reviews of New Books "Peter Cole has written a cutting-edge work that combines labor, maritime, comparative, and global history in brilliantly illuminating ways. The edge is the waterfront, whose workers make the world economy go 'round."--Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human History "Peter Cole's study of port labor and capital accumulation is the most useful US-SA comparative analysis I've seen in years. By tracing containerization, the book also clarifies ways that new technology can tear asunder socio-ecological relations, and in turn occasionally be foiled by creative, solidaristic workers—offering vital lessons from courageous dockworkers for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era."--Patrick Bond, University of the Witwatersrand

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOutstanding Book Award, Communication and Sport Division of the National Communication Association, 2019 Best Book Award, American Studies Division of the National Communication Association, 2019 ". . . thoughtful, well-researched analysis. . . . This book makes an important contribution to communication scholarship." --Journal of Communication"An exciting project that promises to impact understandings of Native American mascots in powerful ways. Mascot Nation provides fresh perspectives on the use of American Indian imagery in sport. Rather than restate existing arguments in the ongoing controversy, Billings and Black weave together established understandings and new empirical research to clarify not simply what mascots mean but also how they matter in sport and society. Of particular note, they craft a well-rounded and fully grounded account by engaging with people and perspectives from all sides of the controversy. Mascot Nation will become essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the study and struggle over Native American mascots. It will soon come to be seen as an exemplar for the study of sport communications."--C. Richard King, author of Redskins: Insult and Brand"Valuable . . . Examine[s] all sides of the issue with an objective eye."--Booklist"Mascot Nation is a welcome addition to the literature on the Native American mascot controversy. Well researched and clearly written, this account offers a novel, interdisciplinary, multidimensional approach. Recommended." --Choice"Mascot Nation fills a gap by casting a wide net and offering conclusions backed by the diverse cast of disciplines that are engaged in mascot research." --H-Net Reviews"In Mascot Nation, Andrew Billings and Jason Black have taken on an enduring controversy in the study of sport and culture. Their savvy multi-method study illuminates how embedded representations of Native American mascots have built historical affinities that fans have for sports teams and highlights the important role that media has played in constructing and celebrating problematic understandings of Native Americans and their traditions. Through careful deconstruction of the central tendencies in case studies of media practices and the debates around them, this is a seminal study that will challenge sports fans to reconsider the harms in the legacies that have naturalized misunderstandings of Native American cultures."--Lawrence Wenner, editor-in-chief, Communication & Sport

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewJan Garton Prairie Heritage Book Award, Prairie Heritage, Inc., 2017 A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2016 "Brent M. S. Campney's Hostile Heartland: Racism, Repression, and Resistance in the Midwest is a timely exploration of the role of anti-black violence in the making of the modern Midwest." --Journal of American Ethnic History"A compelling and exhaustive work that examines the long history of anti-black violence and racism in Kansas, as well as the myriad efforts of African Americans to resist white supremacy."--H-Net"A significant contribution to the field of racial violence and the understanding of the history of Kansas in the post–Civil War period…This Is Not Dixie secures the University of Illinois Press’s dominance as a publisher of scholarship on racial violence in the post–Civil War era. Highly recommended.”--Choice"Campney exposes the shameful extent of violence in our past and also highlights the episodes of actions against such violence by law enforcement officers and by the African American community. Others should follow his lead to rediscover the world of law, race, and violence that shaped the past and continues to shape the present."--American Historical Review"A potent portrait of dramatically unequal but also complicated, highly contested, and geographically fragmented racial power relations in one Midwestern state during the rise and consolidation of the Jim Crow era." --Journal of African American History"When discussing lynching, race riots, and other forms of racist violence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the emphasis often turns southward. Brent Campney's This Is Not Dixie builds on current historiography by challenging these assumptions… This work provides timely insights into racist violence in the North."--Civil War Book Review"Campney has written an amazing and profound book that challenges many assumptions regarding racist violence in America, putting both the Midwest and the South in a deeper, richer context. This Is Not Dixie will no doubt inspire similar state-level studies."--Journal of Southern History"Campney's book is an important corrective to the still prevailing belief that racial violence was a uniquely southern problem."--The Annals of Iowa "A groundbreaking book, its extensive Kansas data and its inclusion of "threatened" lynching as a potent factor being important contributions to the study of racist violence in America."--Middle West Review "This book is essential reading for those interested in the history of Kansas or of race relations in the Great Plains, as well as for scholars of racial violence and the black freedom struggle in the United States."--Great Plains Quarterly "Campney has written a persuasive and important book that rewrites the racial narrative of Kansas and challenges the periodization of numerous eras. Additionally he makes a compelling case that a broad paradigm of racial violence is preferable to a narrow focus on lynching." --Reviews in American History "This is Not Dixie exponentially expands our understanding of racist violence in the Midwest and in so doing fills out the national picture and puts the South in greater context. Deeply attentive to African American resistance to white violence, this landmark book is required reading for all interested in the sadly pivotal role of racist violence in America's past."--Michael J. Pfeifer, author of The Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching "Part of a new wave of scholarship that broadens our examination of racial violence. This book is an important contribution to lynching studies and African American history and to the history of the Midwest. The scholarship is top notch."--William D. Carrigan, author of The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas, 1836-1916 "Campney's focus on Kansas provides new and important evidence of the extent of racist violence in a non-Southern state. This is the rare book that does far more than add to the cumulative knowledge in an area of study. It challenges underlying assumptions, takes new perspectives on the material, and opens new lines of inquiry in several areas."--Margaret Vandiver, author of Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Scandinavians in Chicago is clearly a major scholarly work within whiteness studies and the topic of white privilege." --Norwegian-American Studies"It is an understatement to say that Erika Jackson's book fills an urgent void." --Scandinavian Studies"Recommended." --Choice​"Jackson's book makes a very welcome and thought-provoking contribution to the study of both Scandinavian America and the social construction of whiteness." --H-Net Reviews"Erika K. Jackson's study joins and enriches the growing literature employing the revised paradigm proposed by Paul Spickard. Her work provides a welcome and valuable foundation for further investigation of the ays Nordic (hyper)whiteness was a crucial component in development of Scandinavian identity in other locations, including rural areas, and as it intersects with religious communities." --Journal of American History"Jackson's concise monograph opens new ground in the history of whiteness and white privilege. . . .Employing a range of sources, especially the Scandinavian American newspapers of the era, she presents a compelling case for this important but often overlooked group of ethnic Americans." --History: Reviews of New Books"Dobson provides a thought-provoking overview of critical views on digital humanities. He points repeatedly and with vigor at crucial aspects to consider when doing digital humanities in the tradition of literary criticism." --Journal of Literary Theory"Jackson's study is a well-crafted and fascinating look at the Scandinavians' relationship with race in the U.S. It breaks new scholarly ground but has also clear contemporary relevance, as racial nationalism and white supremacy have been making a troubling comeback in the U.S. political mainstream." --American Studies in Scandinavia "It is an understatement to say that Erika Jackson's book fills an urgent void." --Scandinavian Studies "Makes a significant and long overdue contribution to Swedish- and Scandinavian American history by explicitly framing the Chicago experiences in a larger ethno-racial American context. By doing so, Jackson places herself in the forefront of Scandinavian American historiography."--Dag A. Blanck, coeditor of Norwegians and Swedes in the United States: Friends and Neighbors "Erika Jackson's fascinating book is a key and timely contribution to the fields of whiteness studies and Scandinavian studies in America. This lucid study examines Scandinavians in Chicago through a range of interlinked critical approaches. Cultural history at its best."--Arne Lunde, author of Nordic Exposures: Scandinavian Identities in Classical Hollywood Cinema

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"McKee's intersectional feminist perspective on the complexity of transnational adoption is crucial for broadening the practices of kinship so that adoptive families are not predetermined as the better and only future." --Journal of American Ethnic History"In Disrupting Kinship, Kimberly McKee unpacks the macro and micro dimensions of adoption's impact on the lives of Korean adoptees, and charts the development of what she calls the transnational adoption industrial complex. Her book is required reading for its critical interdisciplinary approach to understanding the history of Korean international adoption and its legacy."--Catherine Ceniza Choy, author of Global Families: A History of Asian American Adoption in America​"Disrupting Kinship is a timely book that contextualizes the creation and history of the transnational adoption industrial complex and identifies many of adoption's effects and repercussions, systematically as well as individually. McKee skillfully connects the historical construction of adoption to contemporary issues through diverse interdisciplinary approaches." --Adoption and Culture"McKee challenges the mainstream adoption narrative, which privileges notions of love and family by focusing on the rhetoric of child-saving rescue. . . . A welcome contribution to the study of Korean transnational adoption, especially through its engagement with the concepts of family, kinship, belonging, citizenship, and agency." --H-Net Reviews"Disrupting Kinship is a vital contribution that makes visible the transnational adoption industrial complex as a de factor social welfare option, and a sociopolitical reality that adoptees negotiate in daily life." --Journal of American-East Asian Relations

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"These collected accounts of globetrotting black women transform and expand the concept of black internationalism. Whether traveling for political, leisure, or educational reasons, all of the women whose lives are highlighted here needed to see the world for themselves and to develop their own ideas about their places in it. Their courage and intellectual curiosity drove them to explore the world and make it theirs."--Barbara D. Savage, author of Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion "To Turn the Whole World Over is a brilliant, timely, must read book for the study of black women's internationalism and the unfinished struggle for global black freedom."--Erik S. McDuffie, author of Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism "Thorough, critical, and well-executed." --Ms. MagazineTable of ContentsCoverTitleCopyrightContentsIntroduction: Black Women and the Complexities of Internationalism / Keisha N. Blain and Tiffany M.Part I: Travel and Migrations1. “We Are Negroes!” The Haitian Zambo, Racial Spectacle, and the Performance of Black Women’s Internationalism, 1863-18772. Feminist Networks and Diasporic Practices: Eslanda Robeson’s Travels in Africa3. Black Women’s Internationalism and the Chicago Defender during the “Golden Age of Haitian Tourism”4. “Distant Ties”: May Ayim’s Transnational Solidarity and ActivismPart II: Creating Black Internationalism5. Thyra Edwards’s Spanish Civil War Scrapbook: Black Women’s Internationalist Writing6. “They Will All Be My Color”: Nina Mae McKinney and Black Internationalism in 1930s Australia7. Stitched Networks: Liberian Quilters, Transatlantic Diplomacy, and CommunityPart III: Political Activism and Global Freedom Struggles8. “Confraternity Among All Dark Races”: Mittie Maude Lena Gordon and the Practice of Black (Inter)nationalism in Chicago, 1932-19429. “United, We Build a Free World”: The Internationalism of Mary McLeod Bethune and the National Council of Negro Women10. “What That Meant to Me”: SNCC Women, the 1964 Guinea Trip, and Black Internationalism11. “A Common Rallying Call”: Vicki Garvin in China and the Making of US Third World Solidarity PoliticsAfterword: Quilting the Black-Eyed PeaContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Innovative, creative, and unapologetically spiritual, Building Womanist Coalitions reminds us why womanism is still as relevant today as it was several decades ago when Alice Walker first coined the term."--David Ikard, author of Lovable Racists, Magical Negroes, and White Messiahs"Building Womanist Coalitions is a helplful resource for an instructor interested in better understanding womanist readings and or methodologies into the classroom." --Wabash Center Journal on Teaching

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Fenderson traces the rise and fall of Black Arts Movement through Fuller's professional and personal endeavors and elucidates the larger implications of the movement through the microcosm of Fuller and his environs. Fenderson convincingly contends that Fuller should take his rightful place in the scholarship as a pivotal intellectual architect who helped build the artistic component of the Black power movement." --Journal of American History"Building the Black Arts Movement is both thoroughly researched and beautifully written with a sharp class and gender analysis. As such, it will reshape how historians approach this movement and its historical actors." --Journal of African American History"Fenderson succeeds in challenging readers to rethink Fuller's times by presenting a counternarrative to the oftentimes overly harmonious representation of Black social movements in the United States." --Journal of Folklore Research"Jonathan Fenderson’s book is a masterwork of African American intellectual and cultural history, bringing to light a man whose name should be mentioned more often in the histories of contemporary America." --Society for U.S. Intellectual History"Very powerfully and marvelously written--a page turner. Fenderson's book is bound to reach a wide audience with this mastery of narrative and exposition. Indeed, I don't think that the story of the Black Arts Movement has been told in such a sweeping narrative of that era."--Komozi Woodard, author of A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics​"Jonathan Fenderson's Building the Black Arts Movement is a brilliant study of one of the key figures of the Black Arts and Black Power movements. Fenderson's account of Fuller is also a history of Black Arts and Black Power in Chicago that in turn illuminates the ideological, aesthetic, and institutional development of black political and cultural radicalism in the 1960s and 1970s."--James Smethurst, author of The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewJohn Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize, American Association of Geographers, 2020 "A compelling examination . . . Lemon's work provides a much-needed scholarly overview of the proliferation of food trucks in the 21st century." --Great Plains Research"A fantastic book. I was repeatedly surprised by the numerous ways the author credibly links the act of mobile food vending to some of North America's most poignant contemporary issues of cultural identity. The mix of interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis is a perfect fit for exploring the themes."--Joshua Long, author of Weird City: Sense of Place and Creative Resistance in Austin, Texas"Overall this was truly a fascinating book. . . .Very much recommended reading." --BookAnon.com: Confessions of a Bookaholic"Folklorists interested in culinary tourism will find aspects of this study good food for thought." --Journal of Folklore Research"The Taco Truck: How Mexican Street Food is Transforming the American City (2019) by Robert Lemon is sure to become a formative text in the expanding body of work on the relationship between culinary entrepreneurship and local city ordinances." --H-Environment"Overall this was truly a fascinating book. . . .Very much recommended reading." --BookAnon.com: Confessions of a Bookaholic

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Book SynopsisA massive population shift transformed Los Angeles in the first decades of the twentieth century. Americans from across the country relocated to the city even as an unprecedented transnational migration brought people from Asia, Europe, and Mexico. Together, these newcomers forged a multiethnic alliance of anarchists, labor unions, and leftists dedicated to challenging capitalism, racism, and often the state. David M. Struthers draws on the anarchist concept of affinity to explore the radicalism of Los Angeles''s interracial working class from 1900 to 1930. Uneven economic development created precarious employment and living conditions for laborers. The resulting worker mobility led to coalitions that, inevitably, remained short lived. As Struthers shows, affinity helps us understand how individual cooperative actions shaped and reshaped these alliances. It also reveals social practices of resistance that are often too unstructured or episodic for historians to capture. What emergesTrade ReviewShelley Fisher Fishkin Prize for International Scholarship in Transnational American Studies, International Committee of the American Studies Association (ASA), 2019 "The World in a City is one of the first texts to fully examine the implications of pre-World War II Los Angeles as a hub for industrial and agricultural laborers." --Journal of Urban History"The World in a City is a wonderful resource for historians of California and the borderlands of the United States and Mexico, labor historians, and radical historians." --Western Historical Quarterly"David Struthers makes a fine contribution to the growing body of scholarship examining ethnic interaction among L.A.’s working-class communities." --Southern California Quarterly"David Struthers's fresh and fascinating look at Los Angeles radicalism shows us long-forgotten facets of city history. Dedicated anarchist activists, an alphabet soup of radical organizations, an interracial rank-and-file--all had a profound impact on Los Angeles's transformation into a modern city. Struthers's mix of research and fluid storytelling takes us back to an era of soaring hopes and racial togetherness that, for a time, sustained a grand vision of a Los Angeles that might have been.--Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles"This is an important book, and I hope that we soon see more similarly compelling work on this period that does not separate local interethnic campaigns from the context of global revolution that helped animate them." --Journal of American History

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