Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

Lee (Univ. of Minnesota) chronicles the history of fear and antagonism toward immigrants in the US from the Colonial era to the present. Although the country is traditionally viewed as a nation of immigrants, the author describes in vivid detail recurring patterns of xenophobia and the political and legal consequences that have ensued over time. She begins with an account of the hostility toward German immigrants in the Pennsylvania colony during the 18th century before proceeding to the 19th century, covering the anti-Catholic, anti-Irish "Know Nothing" movement and the racist and bigoted campaign against Chinese immigrants. The study then turns to the wave of xenophobia in the early to mid-20th century, which targeted immigrants from Mexico and Southern and Eastern Europe and contributed to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW II. Lee concludes by examining the most recent and ongoing episode of xenophobia--the fear, anger, and prejudice directed toward Hispanic and Muslim immigrants. This well-written, well-researched, accessible, engaging, and important book provides insight into an all too often neglected aspect of US history and highlights the ever-changing nature of what it means to be an American.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

While paying homage to African Islam and its role within the experience of enslavement in America, Fraser-Rahim (The Citadel) focuses on creating a more accurate depiction of the establishment of African American Islam. The title conveys the breadth of this exploration, implicitly covering over a century of acculturation attributable in various ways to both Islam and the vagaries of life for black Americans. The author situates early African American Muslim communities as foundational to the continued experience of African American Muslims in the 21st century. These discussions lead to a preliminary investigation of the community of Imam W.D. Muhammad, arguably the leader of the largest single community of African American Muslims until his death in 2008. Imam Muhammad sits firmly on the black American Islamic continuum that the book builds, which reveals a resilient American Islam being challenged by an immigrant Islam seeking its erasure. This domestic community avoids the chaos of the Muslim world, situating itself as Muslim and American. As research on Imam Muhammad is still in its formative stages, this seminal text relaying his impact on American Islam is a must read.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty.

Historically, domesticated animals and humans lived successfully in close proximity until rapid urban growth made conditions unbearable, creating public health issues that resulted in major structural changes to the shape and spatial organization of American cities. As Robichaud (Boston Univ.) details, urban governments clamped down on distilleries that fed swill byproduct to cows used for milking. Cities created separate zones far from residential and business districts for slaughtering and processing meat, anesthetizing the public to animal cruelty while creating the image of a genteel society. Laws, albeit often ineffective, limited overworking horses and dogs. The resulting romanticism of animals, coupled with the expansion of science, led to exotic animals being displayed in natural history museums, circuses, and zoos, while the slaughter and torture necessary to create these exhibits remained hidden. Woven throughout Robichaud's penetrating analysis are intimate portraits of seminal figures such as Charles Willson Peale, Henry Bergh, P. T. Barnum, and Robert Woodward. This is a vital read for all to understand the development of the modern city and new regulatory systems, as well as the human role in the treatment of animals, domesticated for food or work, or the exhibition of exotic species.Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels.

Black American life has largely been dystopian, but black American thought includes a serious and longstanding utopian tradition. In Black Utopia, Zamalin (Univ. of Detroit Mercy) reveals and revisits this tradition and its relationship to the questions of liberation, justice, and freedom that are central to African American political thought. One of the book's major contributions is to introduce readers to important American authors who have mostly been lost to history, such as Martin Delany. Zamalin also resituates more familiar figures, such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Octavia Butler, as part of the black utopian tradition. In doing both, he shows readers a new way to conceive of the contours of black political thought, expanding the sense of its dimensions. The author also argues that in the present moment, with its unarguably dystopian dimensions, black utopian thinking can help guide and invigorate our own political imagination, to untangle current assumptions about the way the world must be. Black Utopia is an instructive guide for all those who are interested in deepening their knowledge of American history and thinking critically about American politics.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

With Bodies in Blue, Handley-Cousins (Univ. at Buffalo) adds a long-overdue chapter to the story of the Civil War North. Though many think that almost all Civil War disabilities were the result of amputations, in fact most were not. Challenging this assumption, the author explores the myriad ways Northern soldiers' bodies--and minds--suffered as a result of their service. She find that illness, not combat, was behind most Civil War deaths, and this holds true for disability as well. This text explores a wide range of conditions that affected soldiers from all classes, from well-known individuals like Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the multiply wounded hero of Gettysburg, to previously unknown men in the ranks. Later chapters explore the multiple meanings of disability in postwar society, and how the reality of disability often clashed with the highly gendered role Union veterans were supposed to play. As veterans' issues loomed larger in American politics, disabled veterans were expected to embody the role of "wounded warriors," a role that many living with disability could not, or chose not to, play. This interplay between reality and expectation underscores an important, underexplored area of Civil War history.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

Eatenonha is Sioui's latest work presenting ideas first outlined in For an Amerindian Autohistory (originally published in French in 1989), which have been refined over time. He challenges Euro-Canadian historical epistemology and its patricentric basis by demonstrating that an indigenous way of looking at the history of the Americas calls for a different social order and governance, one that is more respectful of mother earth (Eatenonha), and women more generally. Sioui (emer., Univ. of Ottawa, Canada) does this by tracing important events in his own journey through life, including the landmark Sioui case (1990), which affected treaty interpretations in Canada, and by relating them to pan-American indigenous ways of understanding history. In this, he seeks to awaken his readership to the need for a matricentric vision to emerge and rekindle unity across the Americas. Sioui, an indigenous Wendat scholar, continues a dialogue with settler scholars that can help open new possibilities and provide a model for further indigenous scholarship. Though challenging in its structure and vision as it aims to unsettle the reader, this timely contribution deserves serious attention from all researchers and educators interested in indigenous-settler relations.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Deconstructing the life, work, and legacy of Paul Robeson (1898-1976) in stark, analytical ways, Redmond (UCLA) crafts a skillful, potent examination of Robeson and his stature as a singer, activist, actor, and a model for Black masculinity during the 20th century. Though Redmond declares early on that this book is not a biography, the biographical impulse that powers this slim yet robust text will never be far from the reader's mind. Robeson's singular vocality and his ability to align himself with any marginalized group regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin grounds Redmond's thesis. Charting Robeson's life through his sonic abilities, Redmond crafts a rare and inspired work, a worthy academic text that demonstrates both the emblematic power of individuals and their ability to foment widespread resistance to oppressors. This book falls under the broad rubric of history, and it will be a valuable resource across a variety of disciplines. It is ideal for those in the fields of music and African American studies, because Redmond provides a unique perspective on the myriad ways African Americans have used music as a tool of protest, a repository of black heritage, and a way to overcome socioeconomic barriers.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

Scholarly interest in the intersection between religion and foreign affairs has grown considerably in recent years, so that analysis of foreign policy decision-making can no longer ignore the influence of faith. Doing so runs the risk of reducing diplomacy to the narrow confines of political and economic filters, ignoring the cultural, social, and religious dimensions that shape worldviews. Edwards (Spring Arbor Univ.) here argues that American diplomacy has been equally secular and religious, a phenomenon he calls "Protestant secularism" (first coined by theologist Paul Tillich), through which religious initiatives are often secularized and secular initiatives are often Christianized. Interestingly, Edwards claims that democracy became less participatory after WW II, opening the door to elitist agendas to create a wider Judeo-Christian consensus, which was in reality a civil religion at best. He further contends that understanding this interrelationship is important, as it allows historians to better understand the complicated web of religion and secularism without seeing the two as polarizing opposites. In doing so, he helps to widen the discussion of American religion and foreign affairs, arguing that they often act as two sides of the same coin.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

On first encountering this book, curious readers may wonder whether another book on Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and George Armstrong Custer is necessary, although a glance at the subtitle may begin to alleviate that concern. Though Lakota America contains plenty of biographical detail on all three prominent figures, it also places them (as well as the Lakota, their allies, and their adversaries) within a rich historical and economic context. The book is comprehensive--its writing vivid, with rare clarity and power--setting a very high standard for any new work in this well-trodden field. Hamalainen (Univ. of Oxford, UK) writes absorbingly, for example, of disease among Native peoples infected with smallpox: "Shattered worlds emerged everywhere in the pandemic's wake. Unburied bodies remained rotting on the ground, ghastly reminders of broken families and lineages.... Despair and sorrow gripped entire communities, spawning apathy or, increasingly, violence to ease the pain" (p. 21). The author's eye for detail also captures readers without fail, e.g., when describing polygamy among the Lakota, noting that some men included "two spirits" (i.e., men who identified as women) among their wives. This is a wonderful, engaging, and sometimes tragic book.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.

The 2015 murders of a dozen African Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina, church motivated Neiman (director of the Einstein Forum; former professor of philosophy, Yale and Univ. of Tel Aviv) to write this book. Her question is a basic one--How can the US openly confront its failure in dealing with racism?--and her title reveals her thesis. In the first third of the book she provides a solid summary of Germany's efforts to gain mastery over the country's recent past. She describes the generational split and political call to accountability after 1968, and spells out the concrete steps in public and private spheres to promote awareness and accountability. For Neiman, enshrined myths of States' Rights and the lost cause represent an American version of Holocaust denial. Neiman (who has lived in Germany for decades) offers numerous suggestions for dealing with the US's legacy of denial. Among them is historic tours of plantations that bring slave conditions to the forefront and thus acknowledge that the suffering of many made possible the great wealth of a few. More controversial is Naiman's proposal of compensation for theft of labor, denial of civil rights, and racially motivated violence. Undoubtedly provocative to many, Neiman's call to action resounds in the present climate of increased acceptance of bigotry.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, general readers.

Berkowitz (emer., George Washington Univ.), an expert on social welfare history, has composed a definitive account of three essential US policy developments during the past half-century: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Medicare, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). To disability advocates, SSDI was an omission in the initial Social Security Act of 1935. Moreover, New Deal veterans and leaders of the labor movement contended that disabled workers should have access to Social Security before age 65 if they had paid into the fund. That provision ultimately prevailed in 1956, despite the Eisenhower administration's opposition. Launched in 1965, Medicare encompassed different components: Part A covered in-patient care, Part B doctor visits. The later addition of Part C as managed care and Part D for prescription drugs further complicated the program, and powerful health care trade association lobbyists scripted reform. In 1996, TANF eclipsed Aid to Families with Dependent Children when President Clinton capitulated to conservatives. TANF provisions--a five-year time limit, devolving the program to states as a block grant, converting family welfare to a discretionary program--fundamentally changed American social welfare. Analyzing the impact of these prominent cases, this volume is required reading for students and scholars of social policy.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

One charter myth of American identity is the Hebraic Indian Theory, whereby 17th-century English Protestant settlers erroneously viewed Native peoples as representatives of the lost tribes of Israel whose conversion would herald the Kingdom of God in the New World. As settlers encountered indigenous peoples, they imagined the manifestation of biblical prophecy. Fenton (Univ. of Vermont) meticulously examines early histories, novels, ethnographies, scientific works, and religious tracts to explore the genealogy of this idea. Chapters present the vicissitudes of the theory from early settlement--Thomas Thorowgood's Jews in America (1650), James Adair's The History of the American Indians (1775), Manuel Mordecai Noah's proposed city of refuge for European Jewry, and the reconversion of Natives in Grand Island, New York--to the 19th-century appropriation of this idea by Elias Boudinot (Cherokee) and William Apess (Pequot). Fenton identifies the trope of Hebraic Indians during Indian Removal in James Fennimore Cooper's The Bee Hunter and Andrew Jackson's second inaugural address. These ideas fell out of favor by the 20th century only to resurface in contemporary DNA testing and the search for human origins. This is an important study of the confluence of science, religion, and racial constructs in search of a sacred truth.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Wonderley, a specialist in Oneida archaeology and folklore, and Sempowski, a specialist in Seneca archaeology, present the evolution of the Iroquois League from two separate directions. Although they date the League's finalization from the mid 16th century to the first years of the 17th century, they insist its formation was a continuing process put in motion long before the European arrival. This innovative study suggests that the League was completed when the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Onondagas defeated the St. Lawrence Iroquois, and after the Senecas consolidated into two major clusters. The authors show how these diverse tribes coalesced, transformed the metaphor of the longhouse into their national symbol of unity, and developed the Condolence Council to foster alliances and promote peace during a violent time. They support their argument with evidence in the form of effigy pipes, marine shells, and pottery, the latter revealing the transfer of Jefferson County Iroquoian motifs to Oneida pottery. The authors recommend that scholars analyze the first recorded texts of Iroquoian epics, rather than rely on recent interpretations. In this way they shatter the assumption that the League was formed following an eclipse.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

In Polygamy: An Early American History, Pearsall (Univ. of Cambridge) investigates the importance of gender roles and sexual relationships in economic, political, and societal interactions in 16th- to 19th-century North America. The book addresses not only forms of plural marriage, but other types of relationships as well, such as adultery and same-sex relations. Pearsall's work also cuts a wide swath in terms of cultural groups, examining such diverse communities as southeastern and northeastern Native peoples, enslaved West Africans, New England Puritans, American revolutionaries, and western Mormons, to name a few. Doing so, the text investigates cultural interactions between disparate groups to illustrate how ideas about marriage, sex, and power shaped intercultural relations. The author frames her book around many well-known historical events, such as Po'pay's Rebellion, King Philip's War, and the growth and migration of the Latter-day Saints, but rather than simply repeating what has already been written about these events, Pearsall adds a valuable new perspective. Thus, Polygamy shows that plural marriage and gender significantly influenced historical human interactions, making this study a valuable addition to the historiography of early America.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

From its origins in 1935, LSU Press has dominated the field of southern history, rightly earning its reputation as the foremost publisher in the field. Over its rich history, the press published two landmark historiographical works, collectively encompassing more than 1,000 pages: Writing Southern History (1965) and Interpreting Southern History (1987). These state-of-the-art works assessed the burgeoning field of southern history and helped shape the research agendas of countless scholars. Reinterpreting Southern Histories surveys the last three decades of historical scholarship in this field and departs geographically, topically, and methodologically in focus and coverage from its predecessors. Its 19 essays abandon regionalism for transnational and global contexts, interdisciplinarity, and basic reassessments of whether a distinctly "southern" history existed following the Civil War. Influenced by postmodernism, the New Southern Studies tends to reject narrative linearity and the belief in liberal progress, favors critiques of capitalism, and incorporates diverse and hitherto ignored voices and sources. The most pathbreaking contributions in this volume treat southern African American, women's, gender, and social justice topics. Most reject ideas of southern exceptionalism but nonetheless identify degrees of regional distinctiveness. All collections.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

In Reproduction on the Reservation, Theobald (Univ. of Rochester) explores reproductive history and politics on the Crow reservation in Montana and in the broader context of American Indian/settler colonial history, from the late 19th century to the present. As the author notes, previous research considered reproductive rights issues and sterilization of American Indians in the mid-1900s, though these policies were not anomalous. Theobald contextualizes these events as part of historical governmental policies designed to control American Indian reproduction as a means of acquiring land. She examines issues of reproductive technologies, access to health care, culturally appropriate understandings of health and reproduction, and government attempts to move treatment away from traditional settings and knowledge. The conclusion focuses on the efforts of American Indian women, specifically the Crow, to reclaim and revitalize traditional reproductive experiences. This book is extremely important for multiple academic disciplines, especially for those interested in American history and reproductive politics, and is essential for those wanting to expand their knowledge of American Indian women's experiences, both historically and currently.Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels.

The story of Rufus, an enslaved man compelled into sexual relations with an enslaved woman, Rose Williams, briefly appears in Williams's ex-slave narrative, illustrating the ubiquitous sexual violence African American women endured during slavery. Recentering the saga to focus on Rufus, Foster (Howard Univ.) offers a compelling contextualization of the myriad ways enslaved men also experienced sexualized violation. While enslaved women remain the central victims of US slavery, Foster delineates five general categories of exploitation enslaved men endured: the objectification of their bodies as symbols of prowess and danger; the loss of agency in developing their own intimate relationships with women; the costs of forced reproduction to individual black males and the enslaved community; the challenging power dynamics of white female attention to black bodies; and the destructive role of the master's power in same-sex relationships. Persistent racism, especially an assumption of black men's hypersexuality, and the self-evident reality that enslaved women endured even greater sexual abuses, have hitherto kept this topic hidden in plain sight. Foster's exploration offers new avenues of further gendered study and augments the history of US slavery as an inherently and completely abusive enterprise rooted in white self-interest and inhumanity.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.

Conventional historical knowledge of the civil rights period holds that black Pentecostal churches largely refrained from political activism. In this well-documented text, Chism (Univ. of Houston-Downtown) ably refutes that interpretation. Taking the Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, as a case study, he details the ways churches linked membership among the elect of God to the secular obligations of citizenship. Chism's study draws from printed sources and a few solid oral histories as much as from primary material to focus on the short Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968), a story that has been hiding in plain sight. One of the book's strengths is the author's ability to meld professional insight with the social insight of being on the inside of the movement as a church member. In the process, he is able to perceive the role of women and avoid the trap of concentrating strictly on the agency of male clergy, while deftly weaving together the religious and social politics of race in Memphis. This volume is essential for any academic collection on modern America or the Civil Rights Movement.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

In 1965 James Baldwin, the "poet of the Civil Rights Movement," and William F. Buckley, the new conservative's cerebral leader, met at Cambridge University to debate the resolution that "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro." Before the largely student audience Baldwin bested Buckley by a margin greater than three to one, as tallied by audience votes. Beginning with Baldwin's impoverished upbringing in Harlem and Buckley's wealthy upbringing in Connecticut, Buccola (Linfield College) provides the back story to this debate, forcefully analyzing the divide in American society. Relative to civil rights, Baldwin clung to the belief that an open society, in which everyone could engage with one another, was needed for all to achieve "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Conversely, Buckley staunchly supported the states' right to resist an increasingly expansive federal government in what he deemed a local issue--race relations. Further, instead of advocating for expanding voter roles, Buckley favored restricting them to only the intellectual elite. Buccola insightfully concludes that the debate was not a divide between liberals (Baldwin) and conservatives (Buckley), but rather a difference of opinion on what represents the soul of America.Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels.

With this book, Moran (Saint Louis Univ.) decentralizes the trope of anti-Catholicism in American history and instead argues that American imperialism has historically looked favorably on Catholic examples of empire. She uses the activity of French Jesuits in the Great Lakes region, Franciscan missionaries on the West Coast, friars in the Philippines, and American responses to these cases to illustrate the centrality of the Catholic contribution to the history of American imperial growth. Moran takes up a task under which other historians of American Catholicism have long labored: turning American historical memory away from East Coast Colonial hegemony and, instead, calling attention to other parts of North America that came to have a formative influence on the American national psyche before and during the American Revolution. She argues that "many American Protestants and Catholics turned to idealized visions of Catholic imperial pasts in order to talk about the past and future of U.S. empire" (p. 20). Succeeding brilliantly in illustrating this sorely needed contribution to the field, Moran's landmark text is a must read for scholarly audiences.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

This book contextualizes the political and personal biography of the late Reies Lopez Tijerina (1926-2015), a major leader of the Chicano/a movement during the 1960s and 1970s. Chicana historian Oropeza (Univ. of California, Davis) organizes the book into 10 major critical chapters, each of which focuses on various topics relating to Tijerina's life journey and his quest for modern social transformations. This scholarship challenges other writings and books on how Tijerina impacted the construction of the Chicano/a movement generation as Oropeza incorporates historical accounts, oral interviews, and primary materials to provide a strong, in-depth review and analysis of the prominent activist's life. This book grew out of Chicano historian Mario T. Garcia's argument that personal testimonies and biography are a new wave that scholars should document to better capture social movements. The outcome of this scholarship will undoubtedly result in major contributions to future research on this critical subject. Every library should obtain a copy of this book for those studying the Chicano/a movement in particular or social movements more broadly.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.

In 1839, James Collins Johnson ran away from his master in Maryland and escaped to Princeton, NJ, where he found work as a merchant for the university and established a new, free life. Several years later, a southern student recognized him. He was arrested and would have been returned to slavery if a Princeton woman had not purchased his freedom at the last minute. Although that seems like a fairy-tale ending, Inniss (Southern Methodist Univ.) offers a provocative, insightful reframing of Johnson's story, one that offers a contrasting commentary on the role of slavery, race relations, and the concept of freedom during the antebellum period. Johnson avoided returning to bondage, but the author argues that he continued to live in a slave-like dynamic even after his freedom was secured. Though Inniss relies on a scant number of primary sources, she presents a compelling narrative, using a small, anecdotal, feel-good story to masterfully analyze the broader racial and socioeconomic issues of the era. This is a must read for any student of 19th-century American history.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

The Rise and Fall of America's Concentration Camp Law is not another history of the forced removal and internment of persons of Japanese ancestry during WW II. Rather, it focuses on an unfortunate byproduct of internment--the creation and passage of the Emergency Detention Act of 1950. By analyzing the "entangled discourses of race, national security, and civil liberties," Izumi (Doshisha Univ., Japan) presents a compelling argument, claiming that US lawmakers, gripped by the fear of a communist (rather than Japanese) incursion, relied on the legal precedents created by the internment to institute America's only preventive detention law--one aimed at potentially subversive individuals or groups. Izumi also illustrates how instrumental the victims of the internment were in securing the repeal of the Emergency Detention Act in 1971. The frequent inclusion of excerpts and illustrations from contemporary sources will help make the text more accessible for some readers. Backed by an extensive bibliography and 48 pages of supporting notes, this is a welcome addition to both American and legal history.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

The November 10, 1898, race riot in Wilmington, North Carolina, underscored the degree to which white North Carolinians were determined to regain hegemony over African Americans at the fin de siecle in what historians term the white supremacy campaign of that year. In August, Alexander Manly, the African American editor of Wilmington's Daily Record, used what whites considered sexually inflammatory language to denounce the lynching of black men for allegedly raping white women. Outraged white Democrats, who had gained political control of the state legislature just days earlier, descended on Wilmington, a Republican bastion thanks to its large black voting population, to settle scores. Hundreds of white vigilantes ransacked and burned Manly's office and then roamed Wilmington's streets, terrorizing and murdering an unknown number of black people. Many fled the city. Alfred M. Waddell, the mob's ringleader, took control of Wilmington's municipal government, ushering in decades of Jim Crow rule that enveloped the state. Zucchino, a journalist, has written the most lucid, fast-paced, and accurate history of the "crushing dislocation and racism stoked by the events of 1898." His book is an essential reminder of the long and bloody history of racial control and violence that has stained the fabric of American history.Summing Up: Essential. All levels.