Weekly Book List, May 25, 2018

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

James Baldwin and the 1980s: Witnessing the Reagan Era by Joseph Vogel (University of Illinois Press; 208 pages; $99 hardcover, $22.95 paperback). Focuses on Baldwin’s life, work, and thought during his final decade, which included publication of his polemic The Evidence of Things Unseen.

Reimagining the Middle Passage: Black Resistance in Literature, Television, and Song by Tara T. Green (Ohio State University Press; 210 pages; $129.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Includes analyses of works by such writers as Alex Haley, Jesmyn Ward, Paule Marshall, and Richard Wright.

AMERICAN STUDIES

Redrawing the Historical Past: History, Memory, and Multiethnic Graphic Novels edited by Martha J. Cutter and Cathy J. Schlund-Vials (University of Georgia Press; 368 pages; $92.95 hardcover, $36.95 paperback). Essays on such works as Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece’s Incognegro, Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints, GB Tran’s Vietnamerica, Scott McCloud’s The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln, and G. Neri and Randy DuBurke’s Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty.

ANTHROPOLOGY

Food Sovereignty the Navajo Way: Cooking with Tall Woman by Charlotte J. Frisbie (University of New Mexico Press; 384 pages; $34.95). Explores nearly a century of shifting Navajo foodways through the changes experienced by Asdzaan Neez (Tall Woman), who was also known as Rose Mitchell (1874-1977).

Life in Oil: Cofan Survival in the Petroleum Fields of Amazonia by Michael L. Cepek (University of Texas Press; 280 pages; $90 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Documents the struggles of the Cofan people as they deal with the health, environmental, and other consequences of petroleum extraction in their region of Ecuador.

A Nation on the Line: Call Centers as Postcolonial Predicaments in the Philippines by Jan M. Padios (Duke University Press; 232 pages; $94.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Draws on a concept of “Filipino/American relatability” in an ethnographic study of call-center workers in the Philippines and the way the burgeoning industry is revising narratives of empire and nation.

Religious, Feminist, Activist: Cosmologies of Interconnection by Laurel Zwissler (University of Nebraska Press; 324 pages; $65 hardcover, $30 paperback). Focuses on feminist Catholics, Pagans, and United Church Protestants in a study of women who see their activism as religiously motivated.

ARCHAEOLOGY

The Caddos and Their Ancestors: Archaeology and the Native People of Northwest Louisiana by Jeffrey S. Girard (Louisiana State University Press; 160 pages; $29.95). Discusses the indigenous culture of what became northwest Louisiana from the 10th century BC to the early 19th century.

Clovis Mammoth Butchery: The Lange/Ferguson Site and Associated Bone Tool Technology by L. Adrien Hannus and others (Texas A&M University Press; 262 pages; $60). Discusses tools, faunal remains, and other data from the South Dakota site of a mammoth butchering from the Clovis period.

The Lives of Stone Tools: Crafting the Status, Skill, and Identity of Flintknappers by Kathryn Weedman Arthur (University of Arizona Press; 328 pages; $65). An ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological study of lithic technology among the Gamo of southern Ethiopia.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

Harald Szeemann: Selected Writings edited by Doris Chon, Glenn Phillips, and Pietro Rigolo, translated by Jonathan Blower and Elizabeth Tucker (Getty Research Institute; 424 pages; $49.95). Translation from German and French of writings by the acclaimed Swiss-born curator, artist, and art historian (1933-2005).

Hidden Tapestry: Jan Yoors, His Two Wives, and the War That Made Them One by Debra Dean (Northwestern University Press; 312 pages; $19.95). A study of the Flemish artist and Resistance fighter (1922-77) and the two women, Annabert van Wettum and Marianne Citroen, who lived with him and wove his tapestries in a polygamous household in postwar Greenwich Village, New York.

Judith F. Baca by Anna Indych-Lopez (University of Minnesota Press; 200 pages; $60 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Explores Baca’s “public art of contestation” in a study of the Chicana artist, activist, and scholar, who is best known for the Great Wall of Los Angeles, a 7,740-foot mural in Los Angeles that presents an alternative history of California.

The Latino Christ in Art, Literature, and Liberation Theology by Michael R. Candelaria (University of New Mexico Press; 237 pages; $65). Examines Iberian, Latin American, and US-Hispanic representations of Christ; focuses on the work of such figures as Salvador Dali, Jose Clemente Orozco, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel de Unamuno, Leonardo Boff, and Jose Vasconcelos.

Mexican Costumbrismo: Race, Society, and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Art by Mey-Yen Moriuchi (Penn State University Press; 180 pages; $99.95). Explores a genre of art that emerged in the decades following Mexico’s independence from Spain and portrayed the everyday lives of the lower to middle classes.

Paintbrush for Hire: The Travels of James and Emma Cameron, 1840--1900 by Frederick C. Moffatt (University of Tennessee Press; 367 pages; $58). A dual biography of the Scottish-born painter and his American wife, who lived and worked chiefly in Tennessee and elsewhere in the South.

Portraits in the Andes: Photography and Agency, 1900-1950 by Jorge Coronado (University of Pittsburgh Press; 240 pages; $28.95). A study of the making, circulation, and uses of photographs by indigenous and mestizo people in the southern Andes.

The Truth Is Always Grey: A History of Modernist Painting by Frances Guerin (University of Minnesota Press; 352 pages; $120 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Examines grey’s history as a color in art since medieval times, with a focus on its particular role for modernism and abstract painters; figures discussed include Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Agnes Martin, Brice Marden, Mark Rothko, and Gerhard Richter.

CLASSICAL STUDIES

The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and The Holy Goddesses by Aeschylus, translated by David Mulroy (University of Wisconsin Press; 192 pages; $39.95). Scholarly translation of the Greek trilogy on the violent history of the House of Atreus and the goddess Athena’s imposition of the rule of law to take the place of vengeance.

COMMUNICATION

Media, Geopolitics, and Power: A View from the Global South by Herman Wasserman (University of Illinois Press; 217 pages; $99 hardcover, $28 paperback). A study of the media in post-apartheid South Africa.

The Watchdog Still Barks: How Accountability Reporting Evolved for the Digital Age by Beth Knobel (Fordham University Press; 160 pages; $95 hardcover, $25 paperback). Analyzes front pages from nine newspapers across the United States to document the persistence and even expansion of “watchdog reporting” in recent decades, despite shrinking circulation and advertising rates, and pressures to produce “soft news.”

We Now Disrupt This Broadcast: How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All by Amanda D. Lotz (MIT Press; 256 pages; $27.95). Discusses changes in business, technology, and storytelling that have produced a new golden age in television.

Wired into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier by James Schwoch (University of Illinois Press; 264 pages; $99 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Examines the ecological, cultural, and other impacts of the Transcontinental Telegraph, which completed its expansion across the West by 1861.

ECOLOGY

Social Ecology in the Digital Age: Solving Complex Problems in a Globalized World by Daniel Stokols (Academic Press/Elsevier; 406 pages; $79.95). Offers a historical perspective on the theory and methods of social ecology and considers the field’s value in addressing environmental, social, and other problems of the present era.

ECONOMICS

Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State by Paul Tucker (Princeton University Press; 642 pages; $35). Discusses ways to ensure that central bankers, regulators, and other unelected agents of the administrative state act as stewards of the common good.

Voices of Change in Cuba from the Non-State Sector by Carmelo Mesa-Lago (University of Pittsburgh Press; 176 pages; $27.95). Draws on 80 in-depth interviews with micro-entrepreneurs, self-employed workers, and others in Cuba’s emerging private sector.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

With Distance in His Eyes: The Environmental Life and Legacy of Stewart Udall by Scott Raymond Einberger (University of Nevada Press; 292 pages; $34.95). A biography of the Arizona politician (1920-2010) that centers on his environmentalism and his actions as Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969.

FILM STUDIES

Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual by Nathan Abrams (Rutgers University Press; 296 pages; $34.95). Examines the director’s work in the context of his fraught relationship with his cultural background; focuses on such key Kubrick themes as masculinity, ethical responsibility, and the nature of evil.

GEOGRAPHY

Relational Poverty Politics: Forms, Struggles, and Possibilities edited by Victoria Lawson and Sarah Elwood (University of Georgia Press; 264 pages; $84.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Writings on the politics of movements against poverty in Argentina, India, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Singapore, and the United States.

HISTORY

Child Survivors of the Holocaust: The Youngest Remnant and the American Experience by Beth B. Cohen (Rutgers University Press; 230 pages; $99.95 hardcover, $39.95 paperback). Draws on archival sources and testimony in a study of the wartime experiences and postwar fate of youth who were among 150,000 child survivors of the Holocaust, which saw the murder of 1.5 million Jewish children.

Civil Obedience: Complicity and Complacency in Chile Since Pinochet by Michael J. Lazzara (University of Wisconsin Press; 256 pages; $79.95). A study of how Chilean civilians have rationalized their support of the PInochet regime and its legacy since the fall of the dictatorship in 1990.

A Crooked River: Rustlers, Rangers, and Regulars on the Lower Rio Grande, 1861--1877 by Michael L. Collins (University of Oklahoma Press; 360 pages; $29.95). Examines Anglo, Mexican, Indian, African-American, and other perspectives in a study of tensions and violence along the South Texas border during the period.

Deposition 1940-1944: A Secret Diary of Life in Vichy France by Leon Werth, edited and translated by David Ball (Oxford University Press; 368 pages; $34.95). First English publication of the French Jewish writer’s diary under Nazi occupation and Vichy rule, which covers his experiences both in Paris and in hiding in Saint-Amour, a village in the Jura Mountains.

The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism by Wayne A. Wiegand and Shirley A. Wiegand (Louisiana State University Press; 280 pages; $38). Discusses sit ins, lawsuits, and other aspects of a struggle for equal access to public libraries.

George Washington’s Washington: Visions for the National Capital in the Early American Republic by Adam Costanzo (University of Georgia Press; 264 pages; $74.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Examines the competing ideological visions that shaped the development of the capital from the 1790s to the 1840s, beginning with Washington’s ideas for the federal city.

Hip-Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers by Msia Kibona Clark (Ohio University Press; 266 pages; $80 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Examines hip hop as an instrument of social expression, protest, and mobilization in Africa and in diaspora; topics include how female hip-hop artists construct representations of African women.

Imperial Germany and War, 1871-1918 by Daniel J. Hughes and Richard L. DiNardo (University Press of Kansas; 752 pages; $39.95). A history of the imperial German army from its victory in the Franco-Prussian war to its collapse with the end of World War I.

The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America by Sarah E. Igo (Harvard University Press; 592 pages; $35). Traces Americans’ shifting views over the value and nature of privacy over the course of the 20th century.

LBJ’s 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America’s Year of Upheaval by Kyle Longley (Cambridge University Press; 374 pages; $29.99). A biographical study of Lyndon Johnson that examines the president’s perceptions of pivotal events of 1968, including developments in the Vietnam War, the assassinations of King and Kennedy, and the violent Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

The Mentelles: Mary Todd Lincoln, Henry Clay, and the Immigrant Family Who Educated Antebellum Kentucky by Randolph Paul Runyon (University Press of Kentucky; 280 pages; $40). A dual biography of Paris-born Waldemar and Charlotte Mentelle, who ran a school for young ladies in Lexington, Ky., counted Mary Todd as one of their pupils, and were intimates of the Clay family.

The Mexican Revolution in Chicago: Immigration Politics from the Early Twentieth Century to the Cold War by John H. Flores (University of Illinois Press; 264 pages; $99 hardcover, $28 paperback). Examines activism by competing immigrant organizations, inspired by the revolution, in and around Chicago.

Migrant Marketplaces: Food and Italians in North and South America by Elizabeth Zanoni (University of Illinois Press; 290 pages; $99 hardcover, $32 paperback). Focuses on New York and Buenos Aires in a study of Italian immigrants and the marketplace for imported foods from home between 1880 and 1940.

Muncie, India(na): Middletown and Asian America by Himanee Gupta-Carlson (University of Illinois Press; 248 pages; $99 hardcover, $27.95 paperback). Combines scholarly and personal perspectives in a study of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and other South Asians in the Indiana city, made famous as America’s “Middletown” in research since the 1920s.

Operation Don’s Main Attack: The Soviet Southern Front’s Advance on Rostov, January-February 1943 by David M. Glantz (University Press of Kansas; 920 pages; $39.95). Draws on previously unavailable Russian archives in a study of the Red Army offensive.

Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance by Daniel P. Reynolds (New York University Press; 336 pages; $35). Examines the forces that have shaped tourism to former concentration camps and other sites associated with the Holocaust, including museums.

Race and Nation in the Age of Emancipations edited by Whitney Nell Stewart and John Garrison Marks (University of Georgia Press; 248 pages; $86.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Essays on emancipation as both a shared and a local experience for peoples of African descent across the Atlantic world; settings discussed include Canada, Haiti, Liberia, and the United States.

Radical Friend: Amy Kirby Post and Her Activist Worlds by Nancy A. Hewitt (University of North Carolina Press; 424 pages; $39.95). A biography of a radical Quaker abolitionist and feminist (1802-89) in central New York.

Sanctifying Slavery and Politics in South Carolina: The Life of Alexander Garden, 1685--1756 by Fred E. Witzig (University of South Carolina Press; 248 pages; $39.95). A biography of a Scottish minister of the Church of England who arrived in South Carolina in 1720, married into a slaveholding family in Charleston, and became a prominent religious defender of the morality of slavery, while also promoting slave education.

Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist by Thomas Doherty (Columbia University Press; 424 pages; $29.95). A study of the film-industry blacklist and 1947 House hearings involving the “Hollywood Ten.”

Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road by Susan Whitfield (University of California Press; 376 pages; $85 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Uses 10 objects to explore material culture and cultural exchange along the famed trading route.

South Carolina’s Turkish People: A History and Ethnology by Terri Ann Ognibene and Glen Browder (University of South Carolina Press; 248 pages; $49.99). Combines archival and oral-historical sources in a study of South Carolinians who trace their ancestry to an Ottoman immigrant named Joseph Benenhaley said to have served with Gen. Thomas Sumter in the Revolutionary War.

A Spanish Prisoner in the Ruins of Napoleon’s Empire: The Diary of Fernando Blanco White’s Flight to Freedom edited by Christopher Schmidt-Nowara (Louisiana State University Press; 192 pages; $40). Edition of a previously unpublished diary kept by a Spaniard who was taken prisoner by the French in 1809 during the Peninsular War, fled captivity in 1814, and eventually made his way to England.

Storied Ground: Landscape and the Shaping of English National Identity by Paul Readman (Cambridge University Press; 336 pages; $32.99). Examines the nationalistic significance of landscape to English identity and a sense of continuity with the past from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries; landscapes discussed include the Dover Cliffs, the Northumbrian borderland, the Lake District, Manchester, and the Thames and its hinterland.

Two Charlestonians at War: The Civil War Odysseys of a Lowcountry Aristocrat and a Black Abolitionist by Barbara L. Bellows (Louisiana State University Press; 344 pages; $38). Traces what became the intersecting lives of two South Carolinians, born a mile apart---Capt. Thomas Pinckney (1828-1915), a white rice planter, and Sgt. Joseph Humphries Barquet (1823-80), a free black man who became an abolitionist and enlisted at age 40 in the “Glory” regiment of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain: The Story of a Secret Brotherhood in Rural China, 1939-1949 by Di Wang (Stanford University Press; 260 pages; $90 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Examines the structure of local power in rural Sichuan through a study of the Paoge, a secret society; focuses on the filicide committed by a Paoge member, whose execution of his teenage daughter in 1939 was witnessed by villagers and became the subject of a sociologist’s research report in the 1940s.

JOURNALISM

The Struggle for the Soul of Journalism: The Pulpit Versus the Press, 1833-1923 by Ronald R. Rodgers (University of Missouri Press; 366 pages; $40). Examines the historical impact of religion on American journalism, including opposition to the Sunday newspaper, and pressures for the press to become a moral agent.

LAW

Re-Engineering Humanity by Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger (Cambridge University Press; 410 pages; $29.95). Discusses the dangers and trade-offs inherent in our increased reliance on new “smart” technologies.

LITERATURE

The Art of Distances: Ethical Thinking in Twentieth-Century Literature by Corina Stan (Northwestern University Press; 304 pages; $99.95 hardcover, $34.95 paperback). Combines literary and philosophical perspectives to explore a preoccupation with ideal interpersonal distance in the work of George Orwell, Paul Morand, Elias Canetti, Iris Murdoch, Walter Benjamin, Annie Ernaux, Gunter Grass, and Damon Galgut.

The Essentialist Villain: On Leo Bersani by Mikko Tuhkanen (State University of New York Press; 256 pages; $90). Examines the thought and influences of the American literary theorist (b. 1931).

Finance Fictions: Realism and Psychosis in a Time of Economic Crisis by Arne De Boever (Fordham University Press; 256 pages; $95 hardcover, $27 paperback). Pays particular attention to the 2008 crisis and how novels have captured the new highly abstract and speculative nature of contemporary finance.

Globalizing Race: Antisemitism and Empire in French and European Culture by Dorian Bell (Northwestern University Press; 368 pages; $99.95 hardcover, $39.95 paperback). Draws on literary and philosophical realms in a study of the interplay of French colonialism and antisemitism and its impact on European racial thought; discusses such authors as Maupassant and Zola in relation to such thinkers as Marx, Nietzsche, Arendt, Fanon, Horkheimer, and Adorno.

Lydia Sigourney: Critical Essays and Cultural Views edited by Mary Louise Kete and Elizabeth Petrino (University of Massachusetts Press; 267 pages; $90 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Essays on the work of the American poet (1791-1865) as well as on her participation in cultural movements.

The Politics of Love: Queer Heterosexuality in Nineteenth-Century French Literature by Maxime Foerster (University of New Hampshire Press/University Press of New England; 240 pages; $95 hardcover, $45 paperback). A study of “heterosexual trouble” and challenges to convention in French Romantic and Decadent literature.

Post-Borderlandia: Chicana Literature and Gender Variant Critique by T. Jackie Cuevas (Rutgers University Press; 252 pages; $99.95 hardcover, $26.95 paperback). Examines gender variance as a key theme in Chicano and Chicana literature, filmmaking, and performance; topics include figures of the butch woman in writings by Cherrie Moraga and Rocky Gamez.

The Rise of Euroskepticism: Europe and Its Critics in Spanish Culture by Luis Martin-Estudillo (Vanderbilt University Press; 264 pages; $35). Focuses on Spain in a study of literary and artistic expressions of skepticism over European integration; figures discussed range from such writers as Miguel de Unamuno, Jose Ortega y Gasset, and Maria Zambrano to such new media artists as Valeriano Lopez, Carlos Spottorno, and Santiago Sierra.

Stranger America: A Narrative Ethics of Exclusion by Josh Toth (University of Virginia Press; 312 pages; $79.50 hardcover, $39.50 paperback). Includes discussion of works by Melville, Faulkner, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Philip K. Dick, Woody Allen, Larry David, and Bob Dylan.

Sudden Heaven: The Collected Poems of Ruth Pitter, A Critical Edition edited by Don W. King (Kent State University Press; 452 pages; 470). Edition of works by the English poet (1897-1992), including previously unpublished material.

Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific by Christopher B. Patterson (Rutgers University Press; 241 pages; $99.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Explores queer and other challenges to convention in English-language writing from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and diasporic communities in Canada, Hawaii, and the mainland United States.

Veteran Americans: Literature and Citizenship from Revolution to Reconstruction by Benjamin Cooper (University of Massachusetts Press; 223 pages; $90 hardcover, $27.95 paperback). A study of prisoner-of-war narratives, memoirs, fiction, and other writings by veterans of conflicts from the Revolution to the Civil War.

Women Writers of the Beat Era: Autobiography and Intertextuality by Mary Paniccia Carden (University of Virginia Press; 234 pages; $75 hardcover, $29.50 paperback). A study of how female writers of the movement redefine our understanding of Beat; analyzes autobiographical works by such writers as Diane di Prima, ruth weiss, Bonnie Bremser, Hettie Jones, Joyce Johnson, and Joanne Kyger.

MUSIC

The Jazz Bubble: Neoclassical Jazz in Neoliberal Culture by Dale Chapman (University of California Press; 282 pages; $85 hardcover, $34.95 paperback). A study of jazz since the 1980s that links the emergence of the neoclassical aesthetic to wider social trends.

The Tchaikovsky Papers: Unlocking the Family Archive edited by Marina Kostalevsky, translated by Stephen Pearl, adapted from the Russian edition compiled and edited by Polina E. Vaidman (Yale University Press; 320 pages; $45). Includes the first English translations of letters and other archival materials documenting the life and world of the Russian composer.

PHILOSOPHY

Can Different Cultures Think the Same Thoughts? A Comparative Study in Metaphysics and Ethics by Kenneth Dorter (University of Notre Dame Press; 304 pages; $50). Contrasts philosophical traditions of India, China, and the West.

Complaint: Grievance Among Friends by Avital Ronell (University of Illinois Press; 264 pages; $99 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Explores the treatment of complaint and complainers in philosophical and literary realms.

Evolution of Desire: A Life of Rene Girard by Cynthia L. Haven (Michigan State University Press; 346 pages; $29.95). A biography of the French thinker (1923-2015) that sets the evolution of his mimetic theory against the events of his life and times.

The Self-Emptying Subject: Kenosis and Immanence, Medieval to Modern by Alex Dubilet (Fordham University Press; 256 pages; $95 hardcover, $28 paperback). Focuses on Meister Eckhart, Hegel, and Georges Bataille in a discussion of the liberatory potential of self-emptying.

Why Honor Matters by Tamler Sommers (Basic Books; 272 pages; $27). Argues for reclaiming honor as a core value in society and examines the consequences of what is termed its collective rejection in the modern West.

POLITICAL SCIENCE

After Insurgency: Revolution and Electoral Politics in El Salvador by Ralph Sprenkels (University of Notre Dame Press; 484 pages; $50). Draws on interviews with former revolutionaries in a study of the FMLN’s internal politics and the tensions that accompanied its shift from armed insurgent movement to election-oriented party.

China and Russia: The New Rapprochement by Alexander Lukin (Polity Press; 220 pages; $69.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Traces the evolution of a strategic partnership between the two nations since the 1990s.

Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance by Tareq Baconi (Stanford University Press; 336 pages; $29.95). A study of Hamas’s history since 1987 and the development of its governing role in Gaza.

Imaginative Conservatism: The Letters of Russell Kirk edited by James E. Person Jr. (University Press of Kentucky; 432 pages; $39.95). Edition of 190 letters from 1940 to 1994 by the American conservative thinker, author of the influential 1953 work The Conservative Mind.

Patriotic Ayatollahs: Nationalism in Post-Saddam Iraq by Caroleen Marji Sayej (Cornell University Press; 236 pages; $39.95). Focuses on Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani in a study of how Iraq’s four Grand Ayatollahs, or highest ranking Shi’ite clerics, shaped Iraqi state building after the fall of Saddam.

Strategy, Evolution, and War: From Apes to Artificial Intelligence by Kenneth Payne (Georgetown University Press; 272 pages; $98.95 hardcover, $32.95 paperback). Offers a cautionary perspective on how AI will transform war, set against the evolutionary origins and psychology of human strategizing.

Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason (University of Chicago Press; 192 pages; $105 hardcover, $32.50 paperback). Analyzes the impact of Americans’ partisan, religious, racial, and ideological identities on their ability to judge opponents and have a reasoned view of politics.

POPULAR CULTURE

Gaming Masculinity: Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture by Megan Condis (University of Iowa Press; 160 pages; $65). Focuses on “trolling” and “meme making” in a study of performances of exclusionary masculinity in gamer culture.

Working-Class Comic Book Heroes: Class Conflict and Populist Politics in Comics edited by Marc DiPaolo (University Press of Mississippi; 240 pages; $90 hardcover, $30 paperback). Essays on representations of class and working-class heroes---some with super powers, others not---in horror, science-fiction, Marvel, and other comics.

RELIGION

Beyond the Altar: Women Religious, Patriarchal Power, and the Church by Christine L.M. Gervais (Wilfrid Laurier University Press; 270 pages; US$32.99). A study of current and former nuns in Canada and their efforts to effect change in Roman Catholicism.

The Fight for Asian American Civil Rights: Liberal Protestant Activism, 1900-1950 by Sarah M. Griffith (University of Illinois Press; 232 pages; $99 hardcover, $27.95 paperback). Focuses on social and legal activism against white nativism by secretaries of the YMCA or Young Men’s Christian Association.

Morals Not Knowledge: Recasting the Contemporary U.S. Conflict between Religion and Science by John H. Evans (University of California Press; 210 pages; $34.95). Describes tensions between religion and science in terms of differences over morality rather than a rejection of knowledge.

SOCIOLOGY

Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Migration Detention in the United States by Jenna M. Loyd and Alison Mountz (University of California Press; 272 pages; $85 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Examines the history and geography of detention and deterrent systems designed to block migrants from Cuba and Haiti.

Elusive Belonging: Marriage Immigrants and “Multiculturalism” in Rural South Korea by Minjeong Kim (University of Hawai’i Press; 204 pages; $68). Examines the post-migration experiences of Filipina women who married rural Korean men, set in the context of government policies to integrate the newcomers.

The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age by Valerie Francisco-Menchavez (University of Illinois Press; 240 pages; $99 hardcover, $28 paperback). A study of Filipina women working in the United States that explores their use of Skype, Facebook, videos, and other technologies to bridge the distance from their families.

THEATER

Theaters of the Everyday: Aesthetic Democracy on the American Stage by Jacob Gallagher-Ross (Northwestern University Press; 233 pages; $99.95 hardcover, $34.95 paperback). Focuses on Thornton Wilder, Lee Strasberg, Stuart Sherman, and the New York-based Nature Theater of Oklahoma.

WOMEN’S STUDIES

High-Tech Housewives: Indian IT Workers, Gendered Labor, and Transmigration by Amy Bhatt (University of Washington Press; 232 pages; $90 hardcover, $30 paperback). Focuses on women’s experiences as workers and dependent spouses in an ethnographic study of temporary Indian IT workers in the United States.

Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada by Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt (McGill-Queen’s University Press; 304 pages; US$34.95). Discusses the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and its intelligence service’s monitoring and infiltration of the women’s movement in Canada from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s.