Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

In this book Lorenzini (Univ. of Trento, Italy) presents an in-depth analysis of the process of global development based on national and regional archives and published sources. Her research highlights the different perspectives, tensions, and competing interests between countries of the Global North and the Global South that shaped the idea of "development" throughout the Cold War. Examining how global development underwent multiple transformations through various models, ideologies, policies, and strategies, she focuses on the impact of both the Western development model of modernization and socialist modernity, and the roles of the UN, World Bank, and international NGOs and multinational corporations in contributing to those transformations. This study also explores Third World visions of development, the Chinese development model, the dynamics of international relations between donors and recipients, and the successes and failures of development projects. In the process, Lorenzini offers insights into the nexus between global development and issues such as foreign aid, international trade, peace and security, the environment, and human rights, among others. This well-researched and illuminating book is an essential contribution to the history of postwar global development.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

In this unique contribution to world history, the organizational structure of trade is advanced as an explanation for European expansion in Asia and the Great Divergence. It focuses on comparative histories of business elucidated by "microstudies" to trace the development of the Dutch and English East India companies as an "organizational revolution" (p. 2), which was the turning point for European economic development and the beginning of the modern corporation. Harris (Tel Aviv Univ., Israel) argues that the organizational advantages provided by the joint stock company invented by the Dutch, and perfected by the English, gave the companies space from the state, allowing them to succeed on such a large scale. He purposely ignores military, technological, and other factors that most historians privilege. Some might disagree with many aspects of this argument, but it is nevertheless rich food for thought. The text is written in a clear and comprehensible style, and each step of the argument is outlined with summaries of existing historiography. One does not need any prior knowledge to delve into the topic; provided definitions of a wide variety of premodern business types are especially useful. This is essential reading for business history, trade history, and organizational theory.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

How did one group accomplish so much in so little time and with so few members? That is the question underlying this ambitious history of the Situationist International (SI), the avant-garde revolutionary movement led by subversive French theorist and filmmaker Guy Debord. In just 15 years (1957-72), and with no more than 70 members (often fewer than 10 at any one time), SI fueled the student protests of the 1960s; developed critical anti-art practices such as detournement, derive, psychogeography, and unitary urbanism; and laid the foundation for radical political movements at work today, including Russia's Pussy Riot, France's Yellow Vests, and Black Lives Matter in the US. Trier (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) underscores the often incendiary nature of SI's conferences and interventions. He highlights the contributions of all 70 members, explains the "absolute necessity" of high membership turnover, and summarizes every article published in the SI journal's 12 issues. His main argument, that Debord's masterwork is the SI itself and not his classic book The Society of the Spectacle (1967), is original and compelling. Meticulously researched, this is a perfect companion to Trier's edited volume Detournement as Pedagogical Praxis (2014).Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Hotly debated since Colonial America, human mobility--in all domains of life--has been the subject of innumerable books over the years, but few writers have captured the very essence of immigration. In this timely, powerful, and provoking analysis, Mehta (journalism, NYU), an award-winning writer, vividly details the truths and realities of immigrants. Exposing not only the immigrant story but also the unspoken/underlying forces governing anti-immigrant movements, Mehta masterfully delineates the immigrant journey, struggles, and dreams. Mehta writes from a humanistic standpoint, and he effectively situates immigration within a broader context and reveals contributions of immigrants and their significance to US society. This Land Is Our Land is a must read for all who are interested in better understanding the historical forces shaping immigration law, anti-immigrant movements, and immigrants' contributions to the US. In the face of extreme anti-immigrant hate across the US, from mainstream America to the White House, Mehta offers a picture of unity, positive transformation, and hope for social change, equality, and justice. This book will be a fundamental resource in the areas of sociology, history, immigration studies, ethnic/minority studies, political science, and criminal justice.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Published as part of the "Graphic Medicine" series from Penn State University Press, Uncanny Bodies is a significant and essential contribution to comics studies as well as to the expanding body of research on and interrogation of the depiction of disability in society and culture. Featuring superb bibliographies and notes, this title consists of 11 essays bookended by the editors' introduction and an afterword by noted comics scholar Charles Hatfield. The use of "uncanny" in the title refers to Sigmund Freud's influential essay on the topic, and situates this collection within the practice of intersectional textual analyses. Essays provide a compelling comparative approach to the study of disability in comics, an idea reinforced most clearly in the second cluster of contributions, which presents multiple essays on the evolution of the characters Batgirl and Hawkeye, respectively. Preceding this central section are three essays about revisions of superhero franchises, while the last three essays explore contemporary comics that deepen and broaden depictions of disability in the genre, thus upending traditional prejudices while expanding the lexicon of disability discussion to be more inclusive and complex.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

In this book, Silva (Bucknell Univ.) studies working-class participation in the electoral politics of a Pennsylvania "coal mining" community. None of the interviewees are coal miners, as the industry has all but disappeared there. Instead, Silva engages a multiracial working class fraught with economic anxieties, hatred for the rich and powerful, and support for social democratic policies but divided by racism. Within the past decade, demographic shifts transformed the political landscape as "rising housing costs, poverty, and crime have pushed black and Latino people out of urban economies and into the coal region." As Silva reveals, many white residents (perhaps reluctantly) accepted an exchange of economic insecurity for the psychological comfort of white racial exceptionalism to deal with the changes. In fact, many whites interviewed for this book had constructed a working-class identity that rested primarily on their whiteness, leading one-time Democratic Party loyalists to support Donald Trump. Thus, social class as a political identity is not a "response to sharing the same education level, income bracket, or job." It is a process of constructing, contesting, and remaking a collective identity "through concrete social relationships that generate values, traditions, and shared interests."Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.