Weekly Book List, April 1, 2016

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity by Sarah Haley (University of North Carolina Press; 360 pages; $34.95). Draws on black feminist theory in a study of the treatment of black incarcerated women at the local, county, and state levels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

ANTHROPOLOGY

Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, the Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology by David H. Price (Duke University Press; 452 pages; $104.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Draws on CIA, FBI, and military records in a study of the influence of the security state on anthropological research.

Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity in Bangkok by Michael Herzfeld (University of Chicago Press; 267 pages; $90 hardcover, $30 paperback). Explores the impact of “heritage management” in Thailand through a study of the study of squatters resisting displacement in an area of old Bangkok adjacent to the fortress of Pom Mahakan.

ARCHAEOLOGY

The Archaeology of Ancestors: Death, Memory, and Veneration edited by Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman (University Press of Florida; 261 pages; $89.95). Writings on veneration for the dead and why a select group become designated as ancestors; topics include shrines and domestic space among the Kusasi of northern Ghana.

Archaeology of East Asian Shipbuilding by Jun Kimura (University Press of Florida; 299 pages; $79.95). Combines archaeological and historical data in a study of ships from China, Korea, and Japan from the 11th through the 19th centuries.

Voices from Vilcabamba: Accounts Chronicling the Fall of the Inca Empire by Brian S. Bauer, Madeleine Halac-Higashimori, and Gabriel E. Cantarutti (University Press of Colorado; 235 pages; $28.95). Includes English translations of seven documents from the fall of Inca rule in the Peruvian region.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

Ruth Shellhorn by Kelly Comras (University of Georgia Press; 230 pages; $26.95). Focuses on 12 projects in a study of the American landscape architect (1909-2006) and her role in shaping the Southern Californian aesthetic.

Soulmaker: The Times of Lewis Hine by Alexander Nemerov (Princeton University Press; 191 pages; $45). A critical study of the American photographer and sociologist that focuses on images taken of child laborers between 1908 and 1917.

Theories of the Nonobject: Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, 1944-1969 by Monica Amor (University of California Press; 344 pages; $65). Discusses such artists as Lygia Clark, Helio Oiticica, and Gego in relation to the reconceptualization of the art work set forth in Ferreira Gullar’s 1959 essay “Theory of the Nonobject.”

CLASSICAL STUDIES

A History of the Jewish War: AD 66--74 by Steve Mason (Cambridge University Press; 735 pages; $150). Challenges previous accounts of the Roman-Jewish war, which saw the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

Homeric Epic and its Reception: Interpretive Essays by Seth L. Schein (Oxford University Press; 225 pages; $75). Published and previously unpublished writings on the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, as well as the work of the classical scholars Milman Parry and Ioannis Kakridis, and European and American receptions of Homer since the late 19th century.

Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity edited by Karl Galinsky (Oxford University Press; 406 pages; $135). Essays on such topics as Marius, Sulla, and the war over monumental memory and public space.

The Senecan Aesthetic: A Performance History by Helen Slaney (Oxford University Press; 320 pages; $120). Examines the staging and reception of Seneca’s tragedies since the Renaissance and the impact of his work on the development of European drama through Artaud.

Technical Ekphrasis in Greek and Roman Science and Literature: The Written Machine between Alexandria and Rome by Courtney Roby (Cambridge University Press; 334 pages; $120). Examines ekphrasis as used in the work of such technical writers as Philo of Byzantium, Vitruvius, Hero of Alexandria, and Claudius Ptolemy, but also in other genres by Diodorus Siculus, Cicero, Ovid, and Aelius Theon.

Variety: The Life of a Roman Concept by William Fitzgerald (University of Chicago Press; 243 pages; $55). Explores ideas of the meaning and value of varietas as reflected in Latin literature and its historical reception; authors discussed include Horace, Lucretius, and Pliny the Younger.

COMMUNICATION

Restricted Access: Media, Disability, and the Politics of Participation by Elizabeth Ellcessor (New York University Press; 249 pages; $89 hardcover, $28 paperback). Examines barriers to the full use of digital media by people with disabilities.

CRIMINOLOGY

The Crime of All Crimes: Toward a Criminology of Genocide by Nicole Rafter (New York University Press; 297 pages; $35). Examines eight instances of genocide, large-scale and small, through the lens of criminal behavior and social psychology, beginning with Germans against the Herero in colonial Southwest Africa.

CULTURAL STUDIES

The Resonance of Unseen Things: Poetics, Power, Captivity, and UFOs in the American Uncanny by Susan Lepselter (University of Michigan Press; 176 pages; $65 hardcover, $27.95 paperback). Focuses on alleged UFO experiences in a study of the persistence of conspiracy theories and stories among Americans.

ECONOMICS

Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization by Branko Milanovic (Harvard University Press; 320 pages; $29.95). Uses the concept of Kuznets cycles and waves to examine historical and contemporary patterns of global inequality within and between societies.

EDUCATION

Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-Making in America and Abroad edited by A.J. Angulo (Johns Hopkins University Press; 384 pages; $69.95 hardcover, $32.95 paperback). Writings on “intentional ignorance” in realms such as race, sexuality, evolution, and climate change.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Transforming the Fisheries: Neoliberalism, Nature, and the Commons by Patrick Bresnihan (University of Nebraska Press; 225 pages; $45). Draws on fieldwork in a commercial port in Ireland in a study of how responses to the problem of overfishing have changed over the past 20 years.

FILM STUDIES

Ghost Faces: Hollywood and Post-Millennial Masculinity by David Greven (State University of New York Press; 303 pages; $90). Argues that an awareness of queer visibility has shaped the representation of masculinity in 21st-century film; pays particular attention to horror and comedy.

The Screen Is Red: Hollywood, Communism, and the Cold War by Bernard F. Dick (University Press of Mississippi; 282 pages; $65). Explores Hollywood’s ambivalence and shifting lens on the Soviet Union before, during, and after the Cold War.

Trying to Get Over: African American Directors after Blaxploitation, 1977-1986 by Keith Corson (University of Texas Press; 288 pages; $85 hardcover, $27.95 paperback). Examines an overlooked era in black filmmaking through a study of 24 movies made by Michael Schultz, Sidney Poitier, Jamaa Fanaka, Fred Williamson, Gilbert Moses, Stan Lathan, Richard Pryor, and Prince.

GENDER STUDIES

Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory by Qwo-Li Driskill (University of Arizona Press; 210 pages; $29.95). Draws on oral and archival history in a study of asegi udanto or people, among the Cherokee, who fall outside conventional categories of male and female or combine them.

HISTORY

Adele Briscoe Looscan: Daughter of the Republic by Laura Lyons McLemore (Texas Christian University Press, distributed by Texas A&M University Press; 320 pages; $29.95). A biography of the Texas clubwoman (1848-1935), who was the first female president of the Texas State Historical Association, and its longest serving leader, and the daughter of a signer of Texas’ Declaration of Indpendence.

Alben Barkley: A Life in Politics by James K. Libbey (University Press of Kentucky; 347 pages; $39.95). A biography of the Kentucky senator (1877-1956), who served as Truman’s vice president.

Apostles of the Alps: Mountaineering and Nation Building in Germany and Austria, 1860-1939 by Tait Keller (University of North Carolina Press; 304 pages; $29.95). Examines the mountains as a setting for political, cultural, and environmental battles during the period.

Bad Girls at Samarcand: Sexuality and Sterilization in a Southern Juvenile Reformatory by Karin L. Zipf (Louisiana State University Press; 280 pages; $39.95). Discusses the harsh treatment at a North Carolina reformatory for poor white girls suspected of deviant behavior; discusses the forced sterilization of inmates after the 1931 trial of several girls for a fire that destroyed two residence halls.

The Book Worlds of East Asia and Europe, 1450-1850: Connections and Comparisons edited by Joseph P. McDermott and Peter Burke (Hong Kong University Press; 364 pages; $80). Topics include the extent of book distribution and technology transfer between the two regions.

The Collapse of Price’s Raid: The Beginning of the End in Civil War Missouri by Mark A. Lause (University of Missouri Press; 262 pages; $32.95). Discusses the Confederate commander and former Missouri governor Sterling Price and his last ditch effort to retake his state for the Confederacy.

The Devil’s Riches: A Modern History of Greed by Jared Poley (Berghahn Books; 215 pages; $110). Focuses on themes of religion, economics, and health in a study of greed and avarice since the early 15th century.

Eyeing the Red Storm: Eisenhower and the First Attempt to Build a Spy Satellite by Robert M. Dienesch (University of Nebraska Press; 279 pages; $34.95). A study of the WS-117L, a program to build a reconnaissance satellite that was initiated in 1954, and far behind schedule, was cancelled after the Russians sent Sputnik into Earth orbit in 1957.

Financing Poor Relief Through Charitable Collections in Dutch Towns, c.1600-1800 by Danielle Teeuwen (Amsterdam University Press, distributed by University of Chicago Press; 230 pages; $110). Focuses on the towns of Delft, Utrecht, Zwolle, and ’s-Hertogenbosch in a study of authorities’ rhetoric of persuasion for the voluntary contributions and the public’s response.

The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World by Tara Zahra (W.W. Norton & Company; 392 pages; $28.95). Uses individual stories to capture the impact, both positive and negative, of the mass migration that began in the mid-19th century.

Green Victorians: The Simple Life in John Ruskin’s Lake District by Vicky Albritton and Fredrik Albritton Jonsson (University of Chicago Press; 209 pages; $40). Discusses a small group of men and women who, led by the art critic and political economist Ruskin, sought a simpler life and handicraft skills in England’s Lake District.

John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit by James Traub (Basic Books; 592 pages; $35). A biography of the diplomat turned president turned ultimately congressman that describes Adams as the founder of realism in U.S. foreign policy.

Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams by Louisa Thomas (Penguin Press; 500 pages; $30). A biography of the London-born Louisa Catherine Adams (1775-1852), nee Johnson, the first First Lady born outside the United States.

The Man Who Captured Washington: Major General Robert Ross and the War of 1812 by John McCavitt and Christopher T. George (University of Oklahoma Press; 297 pages; $29.95). A biography of the Irish-born officer, who led the 1814 British Army campaign in the Chesapeake that resulted in the burning of the White House and Capitol and an unsuccessful assault on Baltimore.

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 12: 1 September 1817 to 21 April 1818 edited by J. Jefferson Looney and others (Princeton University Press; 728 pages; $145). Documents, among other things, Jefferson’s scientific interests, his work in education for Virginia, and his endorsement of notes that would eventually spell his economic ruin.

Sanctioning Matrimony: Western Expansion and Interethnic Marriage in the Arizona Borderlands by Sal Acosta (University of Arizona Press; 239 pages; $55). A quantitative study of intermarriage in the Tucson area from 1860 to 1930 between Mexicans and non-Mexicans (blacks, whites, and Chinese).

Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka (Verso; 270 pages; $29.95). Draws on more than 120 interviews in a history of the rise of collective Asian-American activism.

Sociable Knowledge: Natural History and the Nation in Early Modern Britain by Elizabeth Yale (University of Pennsylvania Press; 346 pages; $69.95). Traces the construction of a “topographical Britain” through the notes, letters, specimens, drawings, and other materials exchanged by naturalists and antiquaries.

Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture by Simone Natale (Penn State University Press; 235 pages; $79.95). Focuses on Britain and America in a study of spiritualism’s links to an emerging entertainment industry, beginning with the public “performances” of the Fox sisters, sibling mediums.

The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945 by Florian Thomas Rulitz, translated by Andreas Niedermayr (Northern Illinois University Press; 290 pages; $39). Translation of a German book on the killing of thousands of anti-communist Croats and Slovenes by Tito-led partisan units of the Yugoslav army after the end of World War II.

The Uprooted: Race, Children, and Imperialism in French Indochina, 1890-1980 by Christina Elizabeth Firpo (University of Hawai’i Press; 280 pages; $55). Discusses the French colonial practice of taking state custody of children born to Southeast Asian mothers and white, African, or Indian fathers.

Velvet Revolutions: An Oral History of Czech Society by Miroslav Vanek and Pavel Mucke (Oxford University Press; 251 pages; $34.95). Draws on 300 oral history interviews of farmers, workers, soldiers, and other ordinary Czech men and women on their experience of the transition to democracy after the Velvet Revolution of November 1989; also uses opinion-poll data from 1970 to 2013.

Volunteering for a Cause: Gender, Faith, and Charity in Mexico From the Reform to the Revolution by Silvia Marina Arrom (University of New Mexico Press; 279 pages; $29.95). Compares two Catholic charities---the male Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Ladies of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.

Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation by Matthew F. Delmont (University of California Press; 281 pages; $65 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Focuses on battles in Boston, Chicago, New York, and Pontiac, Michigan.

HISTORY OF MEDICINE

Heightened Expectations: The Rise of the Human Growth Hormone Industry in America by Aimee Medeiros (University of Alabama Press; 244 pages; $39.95). Draws on realms of medicine and popular culture in a study of the stigmatization of short stature in boys and the rise of the HGH industry.

Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s by Maureen K. Lux (University of Toronto Press; 288 pages; US$65 hardcover, US$32.95 paperback). Traces the history of a segregated system of health care initiated to separate First Nations populations with tuberculosis.

HISTORY OF SCIENCE

The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1739-1841 by Stephen Gaukroger (Oxford University Press; 402 pages; $50). Traces the emergence of the empirical human sciences, with a focus on what are termed anthropological medicine, philosophical anthropology, the “natural history of man,” and social arithmetic.

Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation by Timothy J. Jorgensen (Princeton University Press; 456 pages; $35). Examines the history and science of radiation, including its medical benefits and dangers to humanity.

LABOR STUDIES

When Good Jobs Go Bad: Globalization, De-unionization, and Declining Job Quality in the North American Auto Industry by Jeffrey S. Rothstein (Rutgers University Press; 192 pages; $80 hardcover, $26.95 paperback). Examines labor’s lack of bargaining power through a study of three General Motors plants making SUVS in Janesville, Wisc., Arlington, Texas, and Silao, Mexico.

LAW

Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law by David Cole (Basic Books; 307 pages; $27.99). Focuses on the activism of gay marriage advocates, gun-rights supporters, and defenders of civil liberties and human rights in the “war on terror.”

LITERATURE

The Astral H.D.: Occult and Religious Sources and Contexts for H.D.'s Poetry and Prose by Matte Robinson (Bloomsbury Academic; 193 pages; $110). Draws on H.D.'s annotations in texts in a study of the modernist poet’s Gnosticism, her engagement with the “practical Kabbalah,” and other esoteric realms.

Borges’s Poe: The Influence and Reinvention of Edgar Allan Poe in Spanish America by Emron Esplin (University of Georgia Press; 256 pages; $44.95). Draws on previously untapped sources in a study of Poe’s continual presence in the work of the Argentine writer set, among other things, in the context of the Rio de la Plata region.

Casanova the Irresistible by Philippe Sollers, translated by Armine Kotin Mortimer (University of Illinois Press; 168 pages; $36.95). Translation of the French intellectual’s 1998 work on the Italian libertine’s famed memoir.

Charlotte Bronte: A Fiery Heart by Claire Harman (Alfred A. Knopf; 462 pages; $30). Draws on previously unavailable letters in a biography of the Jane Eyre writer that explores how internal torment, including her one-sided passion for Constantin Heger, spurred her ambition.

The Common Lot and Other Stories: The Published Short Fiction, 1908--1921 by Emma Bell Miles, edited by Grace Toney Edwards (Ohio University Press; 240 pages; $59.95 hardcover, $28.95 paperback). Edition of stories by the Appalachian writer (1879-1919).

Cursed Legacy: The Tragic Life of Klaus Mann by Frederic Spotts (Yale University Press; 352 pages; $40). A biography of Thomas Mann’s eldest son, a gifted writer whose most famous work was Mephisto (1936).

The Ethnography of Rhythm: Orality and Its Technologies by Haun Saussy (Fordham University Press; 251 pages; $100 hardcover, $32 paperback). Combines literary, anthropological, and other perspectives in a study of the corporeal basis of oral narrative since ancient times, structured by the materiality of the human body.

Imagining Sovereignty: Self-Determination in American Indian Law and Literature by David J. Carlson (University of Oklahoma Press; 240 pages; $29.95). Analyzes legal and literary texts by such writers as Russel Barsh, D’Arcy McNickle, Vine Deloria, and Craig Womack.

Knowing, Seeing, Being: Jonathan Edwards, Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, and the American Typological Tradition by Jennifer L. Leader (University of Massachusetts Press; 240 pages; $90 hardcover, $28.95 paperback). Argues that the theologian and the two poets share a mode of interpreting scripture and nature in which certain figures or phenomena are read as the fulfillment of prophecy and of God’s work.

Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet edited by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, and Maoz Azaryahu (Ohio State University Press; 254 pages; $99.95). Topics include how stories are told in the exhibition spaces of history museums, with an emphasis on institutions centered on the Holocaust.

Perfumed Sleeves and Tangled Hair: Body, Woman, and Desire in Medieval Japanese Narratives by Rajyashree Pandey (University of Hawai’i Press; 222 pages; $95). Discusses “woman” as a fluid category in Japanese literature.

The Reception of George Eliot in Europe edited by Elinor Shaffer and Catherine Brown (Bloomsbury Academic; 453 pages; $240). Essays on the English writer’s reception in both Western and Eastern Europe, including her influence on female novelists.

Seamus Heaney as Aesthetic Thinker: A Study of the Prose by Eugene O’Brien (Syracuse University Press; 336 pages; $65 hardcover, $39.95 paperback). A study of the Irish poet (1939-2013) that focuses on his essays, lectures, and other prose, considering him in relation to Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, and Adorno.

The Sky of Our Manufacture: The London Fog in British Fiction from Dickens to Woolf by Jesse Oak Taylor (University of Virginia Press; 272 pages; $65 hardcover, $29.50 paperback). Uses depictions of London’s smoke-filled fog in novels, cartoons, scientific writings, and other sources to examine the emergence of anthropogenic climate change.

A Thickness of Particulars: The Poetry of Anthony Hecht by Jonathan F.S. Post (Oxford University Press; 294 pages; $35). Draws extensively on Hecht’s correspondence in a critical study of the American poet (1923-2004).

The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens by Paul Mariani (Simon & Schuster; 481 pages; $30). A biography of the American poet, and long-time insurance executive, that describes his quest for the ineffable in daily life.

Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature by Liu Jianmei (Oxford University Press; 312 pages; $65). A study of the ancient Chinese thinker and his impact on such modern Chinese writers as Guo Moruo, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang, and Fei Ming.

MUSIC

The Banjo: America’s African Instrument by Laurent Dubois (Harvard University Press; 364 pages; $29.95). A “biography” of the instrument from its African inspirations through its invention among slaves in the 17th-century Caribbean and North America to its wider adoption.

PHILOSOPHY

Augustine and Academic Skepticism: A Philosophical Study by Blake D. Dutton (Cornell University Press; 296 pages; $69.95). A study of the theologian’s critique of academic skepticism in Against the Academics and other writings.

Fixing Reference by Imogen Dickie (Oxford University Press; 333 pages; $65). Develops a view of “aboutness-fixing” and “reference-fixing” for how we think and talk about ordinary objects.

Nostalgia: When Are We Ever at Home? by Barbara Cassin, translated by Pascale-Anne Brault (Fordham University Press; 100 pages; $75 hardcover, $19 paperback). Draws on texts from Homer and Virgil to Arendt in a discussion of exile and the desire for a homeland.

Objects: Nothing out of the Ordinary by Daniel Z. Korman (Oxford University Press; 256 pages; $65). Defends ordinary intuitive judgments about material objects.

Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ: German Romanticism between Leibniz and Marx by Leif Weatherby (Fordham University Press; 462 pages; $125 hardcover, $35 paperback). Focuses on Holderlin, Schelling, and Novalis in a combined philosophical and biological discourse here termed “Romantic organology.”

POLITICAL SCIENCE

Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Government Accountability in Japan and South Korea by Celeste L. Arrington (Cornell University Press; 248 pages; $39.95). Compares movements in both countries seeking redress for North Korean abductions, harsh leprosy control policies, and blood products tainted with hepatitis C.

Anarchism and Art: Democracy in the Cracks and on the Margins by Mark Mattern (State University of New York Press; 187 pages; $85). Explores expressions of autonomy, equality, direct action, and other anarchist values in “DIY” punk music, poetry slam, flash mobs, and graffiti and street art.

Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire by Agnia Grigas (Yale University Press; 332 pages; $40). Documents how Vladimir Putin has used Russian compatriots (broadly conceived beyond ethnic Russians) in neighboring nations for his expansionist foreign policy; focuses on actions in Georgia and Ukraine and risks to Moldova, Kazahstan, and elsewhere.

Brand Command: Canadian Politics and Democracy in the Age of Message Control by Alex Marland (University of British Columbia Press; 528 pages; US$43.95). Draws on interviews, internal party documents, and other sources in a study of the rising influence of corporate marketing principles in Canadian politics.

Chinese Economic Statecraft: Commercial Actors, Grand Strategy, and State Control by William J. Norris (Cornell University Press; 320 pages; $39.95). Draws on interviews and field research in China and Taiwan in a study of constraints on the state’s ability to control the behavior of economic actors.

Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans by Sangay K. Mishra (University of Minnesota Press; 276 pages; $94.50 hardcover, $27 paperback). Contrasts how class, religion, and other factors have shaped the politics of Indian-, Pakistani-, and Bangladeshi- Americans.

Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China’s West edited by Ben Hillman and Gray Tuttle (Columbia University Press; 268 pages; $60). Essays on such topics as the Chinese education system as a source of conflict in Tibetan areas, and propaganda and the communication of Chinese state directives on religion and ethnicity to Uyghurs and Tibetans.

Gender Quotas and Democratic Participation: Recruiting Candidates for Elective Offices in Germany by Louisa K. Davidson-Schmich (University of Michigan Press; 301 pages; $95). Uses interview and original-survey data to argue that the participatory and representational benefits of gender quotas have only been partially realized.

Gramsci on Tahrir: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Egypt by Brecht De Smet (Pluto Press, distributed by University of Chicago Press; 264 pages; $115 hardcover, $34 paperback). Applies Antonio Gramsci’s concept of Caesarism and other of the Italian theorist’s ideas to Egypt’s recent politics.

The Heir Apparent Presidency by Donald A. Zinman (University Press of Kansas; 216 pages; $29.95). Examines the challenges facing the successors of transformative presidents, with a focus on James Madison, Martin van Buren, Ulysses S. Grant (described as the Republicans’ true if not immediate heir to Lincoln), Harry S Truman, and George H.W. Bush.

Human Rights Standards: Hegemony, Law, and Politics by Makau Mutua (State University of New York Press; 256 pages; $80). Examines how human-rights standards have been established in the postwar era and offers a critique from the perspective of the Global South.

Mexico’s Illicit Drug Networks and the State Reaction by Nathan P. Jones (Georgetown University Press; 240 pages; $59.95 hardcover, $27.95 paperback). Compares the resilience of two forms of drug network, transactional and territorial, with the latter more likely to receive a strong response from the state.

Queer International Relations by Cynthia Weber (Oxford University Press; 264 pages; $99 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Sets international relations in dialogue with queer studies to explore such issues as the relationship of sexuality and sovereignty; argues that IR scholars have used performativity and other “queer concepts” without noting their source or function.

Russia-Cyprus Relations: A Pragmatic Idealist Perspective by Costa Melakopides (Palgrave Macmillan; 211 pages; $105). Topics include how Russia’s policies toward Cyprus have reflected longstanding affinities with Hellenism.

A Spectre Is Haunting Arabia: How the Germans Brought Their Communism to Yemen by Miriam M. Muller (Transcript Verlag, distributed by Columbia University Press; 440 pages; $40). Documents former East German influence in a study of the new Yemeni secessionist movement Al Hirak and its revival of symbols of South Yemen, the former Marxist state; draws on previously unpublished documents.

POPULAR CULTURE

Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture by Catherine M. Roach (Indiana University Press; 221 pages; $26). Combines the author’s perspectives as both scholar and romance writer in a study of why the genre has such appeal for readers.

RELIGION

C. S. Peirce and Nested Continua Model of Religious Interpretation by Gary Slater (Oxford University Press; 242 pages; $110). Develops a “nesta continua model” for theology that draws on the American pragmatist philosopher’s Existential Graphs; also considers the work of the contemporary scholars Peter Ochs and Robert C. Neville in Peircean philosophical-theological terms.

Discovering the End of Time: Irish Evangelicals in the Age of Daniel O’Connell by Donald Harman Akenson (McGill-Queen’s University Press; 568 pages; US$39.95). Focuses on John Nelson Darby in a study of the Protestant elites who were at the forefront of millennialism in southern Ireland in the 1820s and 30s.

The Gathering of Intentions: A History of a Tibetan Tantra by Jacob P. Dalton (Columbia University Press; 246 pages; $60). A study of the “root tantra” of the Anuyoga class of teachings of the Nyingma school since the ninth century.

Our Divine Double by Charles M. Stang (Harvard University Press; 309 pages; $49.95). Examines an idea that flourished in the second and third centuries that each of us has a divine twin or alter-ego; traces the concept’s decline with Christian orthodoxy, but survival in ideas of both theodicy and the Incarnate Christ.

Readings of the “Vessantara Jataka” edited by Steven Collins (Columbia University Press; 216 pages; $90 hardcover, $30 paperback). Essays on a central text of Theravada Buddhism that tells the story of a prince whose embrace of the Buddhist virtue of generosity leads him to give up his fortune and family and go live in a forest.

Tantric Traditions in Transmission and Translation edited by David B. Gray and Ryan Richard Overbey (Oxford University Press; 375 pages; $99 hardcover, $35 paperback). Essays on the geographic and conceptual movement of Tantric traditions in Buddhism in Asia since the mid-seventh century; topics include goddess cults and Tantras of the yoginis between Buddhism and Saivism, and the Chinese transformation of Vajrayana Buddhism.

The Vision of Didymus the Blind: A Fourth-Century Virtue-Origenism by Grant D. Bayliss (Oxford University Press; 273 pages; $110). A study of the Alexandria-based thinker that focuses on his depiction of virtue, sin, and passion, and draws distinctions between his Origenism and that of such figures as Eusebius of Caesarea and Evagrius of Pontus.

SOCIOLOGY

American Generosity: Who Gives and Why by Patricia Snell Herzog and Heather E. Price (Oxford University Press; 362 pages; $34.95). A study of American charitable giving that draws on survey data from the Science of Generosity Initiative.

Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering by Judith N. Lasker (Cornell University Press; 262 pages; $89.95 hardcover, $19.95 paperback). Draws on interviews and participant-observation in a study evaluating global health volunteering, including claims that it benefits volunteers more than recipients.

Labor of Love: Gestational Surrogacy and the Work of Making Babies by Heather Jacobson (Rutgers University Press; 203 pages; $90 hardcover, $28.95 paperback). Offers an ethnographic perspective on women who gestate and bear children for others for payment; considers why they and others resist calling surrogacy work.

Priced Out: Stuyvesant Town and the Loss of Middle-Class Neighborhoods by Rachael A. Woldoff, Lisa M. Morrison, and Michael R. Glass (New York University Press; 236 pages; $89 hardcover, $28 paperback). Examines tensions among long-term, rent-controlled residents, younger, market-rate tenants, and new owners in an 18-block area of Manhattan’s East Side that was originally planned for middle-class affordable housing.

Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood by Iddo Tavory (University of Chicago Press; 214 pages; $85 hardcover, $27.50 paperback). A study of Orthodox Jews in the Beverly-La Brea neighborhood of Los Angeles.

THEATER

Inventing the Performing Arts: Modernity and Tradition in Colonial Indonesia by Matthew Isaac Cohen (University of Hawai’i Press; 344 pages; $65). Topics include hybrid and reinvented Indonesian traditions as Indonesians encountered outside performance practices in the Dutch colonial era.

URBAN STUDIES

Constructive Feminism: Women’s Spaces and Women’s Rights in the American City by Daphne Spain (Cornell University Press; 280 pages; $89.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Examines changes to the urban environment as a consequence of second-wave feminism.

Planetary Gentrification by Loretta Lees, Hyun Bang Shin, and Ernesto Lopez-Morales (Polity Press; 269 pages; $64.95 hardcover, $22.95 paperback). Offers a comparative perspective on gentrification that goes beyond North American and European cities to examine settings such as Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Shanghai.