ANTHROPOLOGY
Indigenous Media in Mexico: Culture, Community, and the State, by Erica Cusi Wortham (Duke University Press; 265 pages; $89.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Examines the use of video by indigenous activists in Chiapas and Oaxaca.
ARCHAEOLOGY
Pinson Mounds: Middle Woodland and Ceremonialism in the Midsouth, by Robert C. Mainfort Jr. (University of Arkansas Press; 288 pages; $59.95). Draws on data from a mounds complex in West Tennessee that was a center for pilgrimage around AD 100.
Re-creating Primordial Time: Foundation Rituals and Mythology in the Postclassic Maya Codices, by Gabrielle Vail and Christine Hernandez (University Press of Colorado; 503 pages; $85). Documents both continuity and change in the creation mythology of the Classic and post-Classic periods.
ART AND ARCHITECTURE
The Letters of Paul Cézanne, edited and translated by Alex Danchev (Getty Research Institute; 392 pages; $39.95). Translation of the French artist’s correspondence that corrects errors and omissions in previous English editions and includes 20 previously unpublished letters.
BUSINESS
Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids, and Free Riding, by Orly Lobel (Yale University Press; 278 pages; $35). Criticizes restrictive strategies in the business world that, it is argued, stifle innovation.
CLASSICAL STUDIES
Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World, by Nathanael J. Andrade (Cambridge University Press; 441 pages; $110). Uses Syria as a case study to challenge previous scholars’ views of Roman imperial Greek identity.
CULTURAL STUDIES
Animals on Display: The Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History, edited by Liv Emma Thorsen, Karen A. Rader, and Adam Dodd (Penn State University Press; 222 pages; $34.95). Essays on the historical representation and display of nonhuman animals; topics include popular entomology and anthropomorphism in the 19th century.
ECONOMICS
The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, by Angus Deaton (Princeton University Press; 360 pages; $29.95). Analyzes patterns of progress and inequality in the world’s societies over the past 250 years.
EDUCATION
Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Jewish Day Schools, by Chaya Rosenfeld Gorsetman and Elana Maryles Sztokman (Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England; 320 pages; $85 hardcover, $40 paperback). A critique of children’s socialization into what are termed unhealthy gender identities.
The Principal’s Office: A Social History of the American School Principal, by Kate Rousmaniere (State University of New York Press; 197 pages; $80). Traces the evolution and great expansion of a role that began as head teacher.
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and the Forces of Capital, by Matthew T. Huber (University of Minnesota Press; 253 pages; $75 hardcover, $25 paperback). Examines “oil addiction” and the everyday practices of consumption in American culture.
Loving Nature, Fearing the State: Environmentalism and Antigovernment Politics Before Reagan, by Brian Allen Drake (University of Washington Press; 245 pages; $34.95). Focuses on Barry Goldwater and Edward Abbey in a study of anti-statist environmentalism.
Seeking the Greatest Good: The Conservation Legacy of Gifford Pinchot, by Char Miller (University of Pittsburgh Press; 220 pages; $24.95). A study of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation Studies, established in 1963 and named to honor the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service (1865-1946).
FILM STUDIES
John Wayne’s World: Transnational Masculinity in the Fifties, by Russell Meeuf (University of Texas Press; 262 pages; $55). Documents the actor’s global appeal and considers how his depiction of masculinity in The Searchers and other 50s films reflected disruptions in world capitalism.
The Ned Kelly Films: A Cultural History of Kelly History, by Stephen Gaunson (Intellect Books, distributed by University of Chicago Press; 166 pages; $25). Traces the many portrayals of the short-lived but famed Australian outlaw (1855-80) since the silent era.
FOLKLORE
Yuchi Folklore: Cultural Expression in a Southeastern Native Anerican Community, by Jason Baird Jackson with contributions by Mary S. Linn (University of Oklahoma Press; 312 pages; $24.95). A study of an American Indian people, without federal recognition, who speak a language unrelated to any other.
GENDER STUDIES
Seriously! Investigating Crashes and Crises as if Women Mattered, by Cynthia Enloe (University of California Press; 242 pages; $70 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Case studies include the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, the banking crash of 2008 and following recession, and the Egyptian revolution.
Geography Map Worlds: A History of Women in Cartography, by Will C. van den Hoonaard (Wilfrid Laurier University Press; 377 pages; US$59.99). Covers the 16th century to the present.
HISTORY
Battleground 1948: Truman, Stevenson, Douglas, and the Most Surprising Election in Illinois History, by Robert E. Hartley (Southern Illinois University Press; 240 pages; $39.50). Traces the tumult of a year in Illinois politics that saw a gubernatorial victory for Adlai Stevenson, a Senate seat for Paul Douglas, and a narrow win for Truman in the presidential contest.
Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth Of Israel’s Liberal Settler State, by Shira Robinson (Stanford University Press; 330 pages; $85 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). A study of the treatment of the Palestinian Arab population within Israel’s 1948 boundaries during the first two decades of the Jewish state.
Constellation Of Genius: 1922: Modernism Year One, by Kevin Jackson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 430 pages; $30). Discusses 1922 as a pivotal year bookended by Ulysses and The Waste Land and filled with innovation in the arts, sciences, intellectual life, and other realms.
A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary, by Todd M. Compton (University of Utah Press; 624 pages; $44.95). A biography of the Mormon missionary, frontiersman, and colonizer (1819-86).
Here on the Edge: How a Small Group of World War II Conscientious Objectors Took Art and Peace from the Margins to the Mainstream, by Steve McQuiddy (Oregon State University Press; 336 pages; $24.95). A history of the Fine Arts Group at Waldport, which began as a CO camp on the Oregon coast during World War II.
Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, by Wendy Lower (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 270 pages; $26). Documents women’s extensive and active participation in mass murder and plunder on the Nazi Eastern Front.
The Krio of West Africa: Islam, Culture, Creolization, and Colonialism in the Nineteenth Century, by Gibril R. Cole (Ohio University Press; 280 pages; $32.95). Discusses freed slaves and their descendants who settled Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Republicans and Race: The Gop’s Frayed Relationship with African Americans, 1945-1974, by Timothy N. Thurber (University Press of Kansas; 500 pages; $39.95). Focuses on how Republicans at the federal level approached integration and other aspects of racial policy and politics during the period.
Revolutionary Iran: a History of the Islamic Republic, by Michael Axworthy (Oxford University Press; 496 pages; $34.95). A study of the origins and events of the 1979 revolution as well as the political history of the Islamic republic since that period.
Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health, by Jeanne E. Abrams (New York University Press; 304 pages; $30). Focuses on the Washingtons, the Adamses, the Madisons, and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin in a study of the links the Founders drew between individual health and the health of the nation.
The Story Of Black, by John Harvey (Reaktion Books, distributed by University of Chicago Press; 336 pages; $39.95). A cultural history of the hue that explores its emotional connotations, use in various subcultures, and embodiment of qualities from glamor to evil.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Arguments That Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012, by Rebecca Slayton (MIT Press; 325 pages; $35). Discusses the responses of physicists and computer scientists to the threat of nuclear-armed intercontinental missiles.
The Why Of Things: Causality in Science, Medicine, and Life, by Peter Rabins (Columbia University Press; 278 pages; $28.95). Develops a three-facet model for investigating questions of causality.
JOURNALISM
The American Revolution and the Press: The Promise of Independence, by Carol Sue Humphrey (Northwestern University Press; 284 pages; $24.95). Documents how the press kept Americans engaged in the struggle for independence even when the fighting was distant.
LITERATURE
Contemporary Comics Storytelling, by Karin Kukkonen (University of Nebraska Press; 231 pages; $55). Focuses on Fables, Tom Strong, and 100 Bullets in a study of the complex thought experiments in comics’ storytelling.
Enlightenment in Ruins: The Geographies of Oliver Goldsmith, by Michael Griffin (Bucknell University Press; 209 pages; $85). Discusses the Irish-born writer in the intellectual and political culture of 18th-century London and explores issues of his nationality and his involvement in Jacobite politics.
The Novel: An Alternative History, 1600-1800, by Steven Moore (Bloomsbury Academic; 1,013 pages; $39.95). Traces the history of both Eastern and Western fiction during the period.
Plotting Apocalypse: Reading, Agency, and Identity in the Left Behind Series, by Jennie Chapman (University Press of Mississippi; 240 pages; $55). Describes a model of “evangelical agency” developed in the novels, which describe the heavenly Rapture of born-again Christians and the sorrows of non-believers “left behind” to suffer under the Antichrist.
Soviet Heroic Poetry in Context: Folklore or Fakelore, by Margaret Ziolkowski (University of Delaware Press; 225 pages; $80). Explores the politics of folklore in the Soviet Union through a study of the noviny or new songs in the 1930s and 40s and their relationship to Russian folkloristics of previous eras.
Subaltern Writings: Readings on Graciliano Ramos’s Novels, by Fernando de Sousa Rocha (Peter Lang Publishing; 175 pages; $77.95). A study of the Brazilian modernist writer (1892-1953) that focuses on Caetes and Angustia.
The Tears of Sovereignty: Perspectives of Power in Renaissance Drama, by Philip Lorenz (Fordham University Press; 379 pages; $45). Compares the problematic portrayal of sovereignty in plays by Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, and Calderón de la Barca.
The Treacherous Imagination: Intimacy, Ethics, and Autobiographical Fiction, by Robert McGill (Ohio State University Press; 186 pages; $54.95). Discusses such authors as Philip Roth and A.S. Byatt in a study of the ethics of fiction that draws on an author’s personal relationships; considers the potential for such fiction to revitalize intimacy, not just betray it.
V.y. Mudimbe: Undisciplined Africanism, by Pierre-Philippe Fraiture (Liverpool University Press, distributed by University of Chicago Press; 260 pages; $99.95). Examines the essays and novels of the Congolese writer and philosopher (b. 1941).
Music Readying Cavalli’s Operas for the Stage: Manuscript, Edition, Production, edited by Ellen Rosand (Ashgate Publishing; 412 pages; $124.95). Essays on a revival of interest in the 17th-century Italian composer.
PHILOSOPHY
The Ethics of Visuality: Levinas and the Contemporary Gaze, by Hagi Kenaan (I.B. Tauris, distributed by Palgrave Macmillan; 154 pages; $85 hardcover, $28 paperback). Uses Levinas’s cryptic statement that “ethics is an optics” as a starting point to explore visuality in the work of the Lithuanian-born French philosopher.
Expressing the Inexpressible in Lyotard and Pseudo Dionysius: Bearing Witness As Spiritual Exercise, by Mélanie V. Walton (Lexington Books; 313 pages; $100). Focuses on the religious faithful in the Christian Neoplatonist’s The Divine Names and the silenced testimony of the Holocaust survivor in the French philosopher’s The Differend.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Eleventh Hour: The Politics of Policy Initiatives in Presidential Transitions, by David M. Shafie (Texas A&M University Press; 227 pages; $40). Examines substantive policy changes rushed through just as five successive presidents, Carter to George W. Bush, were leaving office.
Nation of Devils: Democratic Leadership and the Problem of Obedience, by Stein Ringen (Yale University Press; 250 pages; $35). Focuses on Britain and the United States in a study of how governments get the public to accept their authority.
The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat, by William G. Howell, Saul P. Jackman, and Jon C. Rogowski (University of Chicago Press; 344 pages; $90 hardcover, $30 paperback). Develops a theory of why some wars enhance an American president’s influence in policymaking while others do not.
POPULAR CULTURE
Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls, by Katherine Larsen and Lynn S. Zubernis (University of Iowa Press; 249 pages; $19.95). Combines scholarly and personal perspectives in a study of fan subculture that focuses on the television series Supernatural.
PSYCHOLOGY
Impulse: Why We Do What We Do Without Knowing Why We Do It, by David Lewis (Harvard University Press; 310 pages; $27.95). Draws on neuropsychological research in a study of the nature, dangers, and benefits of snap decisions.
Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, by Matthew D. Lieberman (Crown; 374 pages; $26). Examines the neural mechanisms underlying human beings’ fundamentally social nature.
RELIGION
Icons Of Hope: The “Last Things” in Catholic Imagination, by John E. Thiel (University of Notre Dame Press; 256 pages; $35). Develops a view of death, judgment, heaven, and hell in light of modern theologians’ reticence on such topics.
Qoheleth: The Ironic Wink, by James L. Crenshaw (University of South Carolina Press; 170 pages; $44.95). A study of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes and its enigmatic author, who refers to himself as Qoheleth.
SPORTS STUDIES
The Rise of American High School Sports and The Search for Control, 1880-1930, by Robert Pruter (Syracuse University Press; 417 pages; $49.95). Topics include high-school sports as the setting for wider debates in American society over such issues as race, religion, and immigration.
URBAN STUDIES
Atlanta Unbound: Enabling Sprawl through Policy and Planning, by Carlton Wade Basmajian (Temple University Press; 288 pages; $74.50). A study of the Atlanta Regional Commission that argues that metropolitan planners accelerated the sprawl they were supposed to control.
Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, by Anthony M. Townsend (W.W. Norton & Company; 384 pages; $28.95). Examines how smart-phone “apps” and other technologies are changing urban life and governance.
