AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture by Racquel J. Gates (Duke University Press; 236 pages; $94.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Explores the generative social and political work done by cultural images of African-Americans deemed negative or disreputable; topics include the reality shows Basketball Wives, Love & Hip Hop, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
ANTHROPOLOGY
All My Relatives: Exploring Lakota Ontology, Belief, and Ritual by David C. Posthumus (University of Nebraska Press; 281 pages; $55). Draws on the theories of A. Irving Hallowell and Philippe Descola to examine the animist ontology of the 19th-century Lakota or Western Sioux.
Concrete Boxes: Mizrahi Women on Israel’s Periphery by Pnina Motzafi-Haller (Wayne State University Press; 360 pages; $64.99 hardcover, $36.99 paperback). A feminist ethnography that focuses on the lives of five Mizrahi Jewish women in Yerucham, a marginalized development town in the Israeli Negev.
Desire Work: Ex-Gay and Pentecostal Masculinity in South Africa by Melissa Hackman (Duke University Press; 198 pages; $94.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). A study of men in Cape Town who turned to Pentecostal “ex-gay” ministries in search of a “cure” for their homosexuality; examines their experiences as they attempted to embody a heterosexual masulinity.
The Enigma of Max Gluckman: The Ethnographic Life of a “Luckyman” in Africa by Robert J. Gordon (University of Nebraska Press; 475 pages; $80). A biography of the South African-born British anthropologist (1911-75), founder of what became known as the Manchester school of anthropology; pays particular attention to his work in southern Africa and his life before 1947.
Race Experts: Sculpture, Anthropology, and the American Public in Malvina Hoffman’s “Races of Mankind” by Linda Kim (University of Nebraska Press; 395 pages; $60). Topics include the scientific and popular understandings of race the sculptor brought to her series of 104 bronzes of racial types created for the Chicago Field Museum’s “Races of Mankind” exhibition in 1930.
ARCHAEOLOGY
Baking, Bourbon, and Black Drink: Foodways Archaeology in the American Southeast edited by Tanya M. Peres and Aaron Deter-Wolf (University of Alabama Press; 248 pages; $64.95). Offers archaeological perspectives on foods and foodways in the region.
Edible Insects and Human Evolution by Julie J. Lesnik (University Press of Florida; 192 pages; $79.95). Uses data on the consumption of insects in hunter-gatherer societies and by non-human primates to examine insects as a key food source over the course of human evolution.
Papyri from Karanis: The Granary C123 edited by W. Graham Claytor and Arthur Verhoogt (University of Michigan Press; 216 pages; $95). Edition and study of 37 Greek and Latin documents dating from between the first century BC and the fourth century AD and excavated from a granary at the Egyptian site.
Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology edited by Eleanor Harrison-Buck and Julia A. Hendon (University Press of Colorado; 296 pages; $73). Topics include objects with voices among the ancient Maya, and Torres Strait canoes as social and predatory object-beings.
Water, Cacao, and the Early Maya of Chocola by Jonathan Kaplan and Federico Paredes Umana (University Press of Florida; 494 pages; $125). Discusses the southern Guatemalan site as a center for trade in cacao and trade, drawing on a sophisticated underground water-control system.
ART AND ARCHITECTURE
The End of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century America by Maggie M. Cao (University of California Press; 261 pages; $65). Traces changes in American landscape painting with a focus on the work of Albert Bierstadt, Martin Johnson Heade, Ralph Blakelock, and Abbott Thayer.
CLASSICAL STUDIES
The Early Hellenistic Peloponnese: Politics, Economies, and Networks 338--197 BC by Graham J. Shipley (Cambridge University Press; 384 pages; $120). A study of the peninsula under Macedonian domination; disputes depictions of the region as backward and depressed.
Homer in Performance: Rhapsodes, Narrators, and Characters edited by Jonathan L. Ready and Christos C. Tsaglis (University of Texas Press; 440 pages; $55). Essays on the performance of Homeric poetry from the Archaic to the Roman Imperial eras, including contests of competing rhapsodes.
The Politics of Socratic Humor by John Lombardini (University of California Press; 284 pages; $95). Draws on Aristotle, Xenophon, Aristophanes, and other writers in a study of ancient debates about the nature of Socratic irony.
COMMUNICATION
The Adman’s Dilemma: From Barnum to Trump by Paul Rutherford (University of Toronto Press; 480 pages; US$110 hardcover, US$39.95 paperback). Draws on fiction, film, memoir, television, and other sources in a cultural biography of the advertising man as “licensed deceiver.”
ECONOMICS
Globalization and Inequality by Elhanan Helpman (Harvard University Press; 213 pages; $26.95). Disputes the notion that globalization plays a primary role in rising inequality.
Land of the Fee: Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class by Devin Fergus (Oxford University Press; 243 pages; $27.95). Examines the history of fees since the deregulation era of the 1970s and documents their cumulative effect on inequality.
EDUCATION
Black Boys Apart: Racial Uplift and Respectability in All-Male Public Schools by Freeden Blume Oeur (University of Minnesota Press; 272 pages; $108 hardcover, $26.95 paperback). Links neoliberalism and the “politics of respectability” in a critique of single-sex education for black boys; draws on an ethnographic study of two all-male academies in a large East Coast city, one a combined public middle and high school and one a charter high school.
FILM STUDIES
Cine-Ethiopia: The History and Politics of Film in the Horn of Africa edited by Michael W. Thomas, Alessandro Jedlowski, and Aboneh Ashagrie (Michigan State University Press; 295 pages; $39.95). Writings by Ethiopian and international scholars on filmmaking in Ethiopia and in the Ethiopian diaspora; also includes some discussion of Eritrean and Somali films.
Critical Mass: Social Documentary in France from the Silent Era to the New Wave by Steven Ungar (University of Minnesota Press; 344 pages; $112 hardcover, $28 paperback). Examines links between postwar documentary and such late silent era films as Georges Lacombe’s La Zone and Boris Kaufman’s Les Halles centrales, as well as Jean Vigo’s 1930 call for a social cinema.
HISTORY
Benevolence, Moral Reform, Equality: Women’s Activism in Kansas City, 1870-1940 by K. David Hanzlick (University of Missouri Press; 304 pages; $50). Traces the rise of women’s activism in the Missouri city, beginning with the formation of a relief agency, the Women’s Christian Association, in 1870.
Buying Happiness: The Emergence of Consumer Consciousness in English Canada by Bettina Liverant (University of British Columbia Press; 304 pages; US$89.95). Traces the history of Canadian consumer society as an idea; topics include social scientists, writers, and others in the 1930s who documented a new social structure oriented toward consumption,
The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson by Mark R. Cheathem (Johns Hopkins University Press; 248 pages; $24.95). Examines the transformation of campaigning between 1824 and 1840, with a focus on the latter year’s contest between President Martin Van Buren and war hero William Henry Harrison.
De Gaulle by Julian Jackson (Harvard University Press; 887 pages; $39.95). Draws on newly available archives in a biography of the French general and statesman (1890-1970).
Detain and Punish: Haitian Refugees and the Rise of the World’s Largest Immigration Detention System by Carl Lindskoog (University Press of Florida; 224 pages; $84.95). Documents how the U.S. government’s effort to exclude Haitian asylum seekers in the 1970s set the stage for a later expansion of detention facilities and detention as a centerpiece of immigration policy.
Farming and Famine: Landscape Vulnerability in Northeast Ethiopia, 1889--1991 by Donald Crummey, edited by James C. McCann (University of Wisconsin Press; 312 pages; $79.95). Disputes assumptions about the relationship of farming practices and famine in modern Ethiopia; draws on research in Wallo province, epicenter of major famines in 1973-74 and 1984-85.
Hungarian Religion, Romanian Blood: A Minority’s Struggle for National Belonging, 1920--1945 by R. Chris Davis (University of Wisconsin Press; 272 pages; $79.95). A study of the Moldavian Csangos, a Hungarian- and Romanian-speaking population of Roman Catholics in eastern Romania; describes how faced with the threat of deportation during World War II, the group used an anthropologist’s research and a recasting of history to claim Romanian origins and belonging.
Irish Questions and Jewish Questions: Crossovers in Culture edited by Aidan Beatty and Dan O’Brien (Syracuse University Press; 320 pages; $34.95). Combines essays on Jews in Ireland with writings on the interplay of Irish and Jewish history, including nationalist aspirations, relations to the British empire, and language revivalists.
Mediterranean Encounters: Trade and Pluralism in Early Modern Galata by Fariba Zarinebaf (University of California Press; 384 pages; $85 hardcover, $39.95 paperback). A study of the European port of Galata in Istanbul and its trade in the Black Sea and Mediterranean; examines the Ottoman granting of ahdnames or commercial and diplomatic treaties.
People Must Live by Work: Direct Job Creation in America, From FDR to Reagan by Steven Attewell (University of Pennsylvania Press; 322 pages; $75). Discusses direct job creation as national policy between 1933 and 1943 and the postwar debates that eventually spelled its demise.
Transnational Hispaniola: New Directions in Haitian and Dominican Studies edited by April J. Mayes and Kiran C. Jayaram (University Press of Florida; 272 pages; $89.95). Essays that emphasize transnational ties between the two countries sharing the island of Hispaniola; topics include colonialism, migration, the arts, and sex tourism.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500-1850 by Cameron B. Strang (University of North Carolina Press; 376 pages; $39.95). Uses case studies to document the Gulf South as a source of significant contributions to botanical, cartographic, geological, and other “natural knowledge” as competing imperial interests brought together varied populations.
INFORMATION STUDIES
Weaving the Dark Web: Legitimacy on Freenet, Tor, and I2P by Robert W. Gehl (MIT Press; 276 pages; $30). Uses a study of the three systems to explore issues of legitimacy on the Dark Web---a collection of web sites that require special routing software for access and are designed to provide anonymity for both visitors and publishers of the sites.
LAW
Insider Trading: Law, Ethics, and Reform by John P. Anderson (Cambridge University Press; 272 pages; $110 hardcover, $39.99 paperback). Examines the history of insider trading law in the United States and suggests reforms to the current regime; argues that there are no moral grounds for proscribing one form of the practice---issuer licensed insider trading.
LITERATURE
Imagining Shakespeare’s Wife: The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway by Katherine West Scheil (Cambridge University Press; 272 pages; $89.99 hardcover, $19.95 paperback). Examines representations of Hathaway from the earliest depictions to images in contemporary fiction and biographies of Shakespeare.
James Baldwin and the Heavenly City: Prophecy, Apocalypse, and Doubt by Christopher Z. Hobson (Michigan State University Press; 242 pages; $44.95). Focuses on Baldwin’s six novels in a study of the writer’s use of prophetic and apocalyptic language to describe personal and social transformation; also explores the centrality of gospel music to his fictional imagination.
Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples by Kerry Driscoll (University of California Press; 464 pages; $95). Draws on previously unexamined marginalia and other sources in a study of Twain’s evolving views of indigenous peoples, and his conflicting representations of them in fiction, journalism, and speeches.
That Third Guy: A Comedy from the Stalinist 1930s with Essays on Theater by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, translated by Alisa Ballard Lin (University of Wisconsin Press; 328 pages; $79.95). Translation of the Russian modernist’s 1937 farce, never performed, along with writings on Shakespeare, Pushkin, Shaw, and the philosophy of theater.
MUSIC
Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera by Gundula Kreuzer (University of California Press; 348 pages; $70). A study of how the technologies of the curtain, the gong, and steam figured in the operatic visions of Wagner and his contemporaries.
Waiting for Verdi: Opera and Political Opinion in Nineteenth-Century Italy, 1815-1848 by Mary Ann Smart (University of California Press; 250 pages; $60). Focuses on Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, and Mercadante in a study of how opera figured in the transformational sentiments that spurred the Risorgimento.
PHILOSOPHY
John Locke’s Political Philosophy and the Hebrew Bible by Yechiel J.M. Leiter (Cambridge University Press; 420 pages; $135). Focuses on the Two Treatises of Government in a study of the English philosopher’s tendency to reference the Hebrew Bible, rather than the New Testament, and the significance of this Hebraism in his political theory.
Nietzsche in the Nineteenth Century: Social Questions and Philosophical Interventions by Robert C. Holub (University of Pennsylvania Press; 520 pages; $85). Documents the philosopher’s engagement with the issues and intellectual debates of his era.
Plato and the Body: Reconsidering Socratic Asceticism by Coleen P. Zoller (State University of New York Press; 257 pages; $90). Disputes the notion that Plato neglects the physical body in favor of an otherworldly prioritization of the soul; focuses on Socrates in the Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Republic.
Rawls’s Egalitarianism by Alexander Kaufman (Cambridge University Press; 280 pages; $99.99). A study of the American philosopher’s theory of egalitarian justice that examines various commentators’ misconceptions of his arguments.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
The Cash Ceiling Why Only the Rich Run for Office--and What We Can Do about It by Nicholas Carnes (Princeton University Press; 321 pages; $29.95). Discusses structural barriers to lower-income and working-class Americans’ running for office, and considers ways to increase the economic diversity of governing institutions.
Economic Statecraft: Human Rights, Sanctions, and Conditionality by Cecile Fabre (Harvard University Press; 214 pages; $39.95). Develops a moral justification for using economic sanctions as a tool for the enforcement of human rights.
Indecision in American Legislatures by Jeffrey J. Harden and Justin H. Kirkland (University of Michigan Press; 196 pages; $70). Develops a theory of when and why legislators change their position on legislation, such as waffling by co-sponsoring a bill and then later voting against it; finds that in many cases indecisiveness may be an act of genuine representation.
Labor Politics in Latin America: Democracy and Worker Organization in the Neoliberal Era by Paul W. Posner, Viviana Patroni, and Jean Francois Mayer (University Press of Florida; 253 pages; $80). Documents how “flexibilization” and other labor-market reforms undermined organized labor in Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela.
North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa: Enabling Violence and Instability by Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. (University Press of Kentucky; 272 pages; $80). Presents case studies of the regime’s export of weapons technology and related technical advising to both state and non-state actors and examines the illicit financial networks that conceal such transactions.
Welcoming New Americans? Local Governments and Immigrant Incorporation by Abigail Fisher Williamson (University of Chicago Press; 368 pages; $97.50 hardcover, $32.50 paperback). Combines data from a national survey of local government officials with in-depth case studies of Lewiston, Me., Wausau, Wis., Elgin, Ill., and Yakima, Wash.
RELIGION
Nine Nights of the Goddess: The Navaratri Festival in South Asia edited by Caleb Simmons, Moumita Sen, and Hillary Rodrigues (State University of New York Press; 359 pages; $85). Interdisciplinary essays on the Hindu festival and its varied celebration, including in West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Nepal.
Order and Ardor: The Revival Spirituality of Oliver Hart and the Regular Baptists in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina by Eric C. Smith (University of South Carolina Press; 168 pages; $44.99). Focuses on the Charleston pastor in a study of the role of the Regular Baptists in the creation of the modern Southern Baptist denomination.
The Soul of Judaism: Jews of African Descent in America by Bruce D. Haynes (New York University Press; 272 pages; $39). Discusses black Jews in the Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstruction, and Reform traditions, as well as members of the Hebrew Israelite movement.
Trauma and Transcendence: Suffering and the Limits of Theory edited by Eric Boynton and Peter Capretto (Fordham University Press; 344 pages; $125 hardcover, $35 paperback). Writings by scholars in philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and social theory.
RHETORIC
Inventing Authenticity: How Cookbook Writers Redefine Southern Identity by Carrie Helms Tippen (University of Arkansas Press; 215 pages; $24.95). Explores varied expressions of Southern identity in the storytelling of recipe headnotes and in the “performance” of recipes.
SOCIOLOGY
Retirement and Its Discontents: Why We Won’t Stop Working, Even if We Can by Michelle Pannor Silver (Columbia University Press; 279 pages; $30). Focuses on physicians, CEOs, elite athletes, professors, and homemakers in a study of work, personal identity, and tensions experienced in the transition to retirement.
Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century by Tey Meadow (University of California Press; 300 pages; $85 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). An ethnographic study of trans youth in supportive families.
THEATER
The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil RIghts Era by Jonathan Shandell (University of Iowa Press; 213 pages; $70). Examines the history and lasting influence of the Harlem-based theatrical company, which was founded in 1940 and disbanded in 1949.
Not Bad for Delancey Street: The Rise of Billy Rose by Mark Cohen (Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England; 320 pages; $29.95). A biography of the impresario and lyricist (1899-1966).
