"A Proxy Africa"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: A Proxy Africa: Guyana, African Americans, and the Radical 1970s by Russell Rickford.

About the book, from the publisher:

Nestled between Brazil, Venezuela, and Suriname, Guyana is the third-smallest sovereign state in mainland South America, and one of its youngest. Originally a Dutch colony, Guyana remained under British rule from the late eighteenth century until gaining independence in 1966 and becoming a republic in 1970. Apart from the 1978 mass murder-suicide of cult leader Jim Jones’s followers in Jonestown, Guyana has been mostly peripheral to mainstream geopolitics. Yet for a generation of Black revolutionaries from around the world, Guyana was a vibrant site of pan-African activism. The country was particularly attractive to veterans of the US civil rights movement who sought alternative places to construct flourishing postcolonial, pan-African nation-states.

In this first, comprehensive history of Guyana’s core role in anticolonial, Black internationalist movements in the 1960s and 1970s, historian Russell Rickford traces the history of African Americans who traveled to the country to work with, learn from, and teach Guyanese politicians, activists, and other international figures in the long fight for Black freedom. With encouragement from Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, they eagerly accepted the invitation to move to Guyana to establish new cooperative settlements. Rickford compellingly narrates Guyana’s allure and promise for Black Americans, along with the limitations they faced when ideology clashed with lived realities—especially political ones—once there.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Explaining Famine in the British Empire"

New from Oxford University Press: Explaining Famine in the British Empire: Agricultural Science, Food Security, and the Rise of Statistics by John Lidwell-Durnin.

About the book, from the publisher:

Famine is humanity's oldest fear. Famine memorials and stories are literally carved into the stones that lie on the beds of Europe's rivers. Our science fiction and fantasy literature often begin by evoking a world of hunger and scarcity. Famine shapes our past, it threatens our future, and we struggle to explain how it is tolerated and permitted to unfold in the present. In eighteenth-century Britain, rising food prices provoked a politics of hunger, manifested in food riots, fears of revolution, and political arguments over how to feed a growing population. In the 1790s, fear of famine provoked the state to experiment with something new: funding a voluntary board of experts to compile agricultural data and promote the use of scientific methods in food production. The problem of scarcity and the threat of famine were to be plainly and clearly represented in statistical data, transparent to both the state and the public.

This book is about the famines and food shortages that struck India and Britain at the close of the eighteenth century, and it explores how these crises and episodes of scarcity gave rise to scientific efforts to explain and quantify 'famine.' Focusing on the time period between the Bengal famine of 1770 and the food shortages in Britain in 1800, it explores the development of the concepts of 'artificial scarcity' (and 'artificial famine'), and how statistical science and philosophy played a role in the naturalization of famine. During this time, Britain's first 'Board of Agriculture' was established, creating political opportunities for a rising class of agriculturalists interested in the promotion of their science as a means of confronting and solving the empire's food insecurity during a time of war and upheaval. Following the networks and collaboration between this Board of Agriculture and the East India Company, the book explores the careers and correspondence of agriculturalists, economists, Company officials, scientists, hack writers, and politicians. Explaining Famine in the British Empire shows how these debates over the anthropogenic and natural causes of scarcity and famine shaped the subsequent development of the field of food security and modern concerns over carrying capacity, environment, and population.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Financial Inclusion"

New from Stanford University Press: Financial Inclusion: How an Idea Became a Global Agenda by Tyler Girard.

About the book, from the publisher:

The number of people in the world with a bank account or money service provider increased by 2 billion over the past decade. This phenomenon reflects what Tyler Girard calls the global financial inclusion agenda. This agenda emerged in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and quickly became a prominent feature of global economic governance. The core idea of financial inclusion is that all individuals and businesses should have access to and use formal financial services, including bank accounts, payment services, credit, and insurance. Today, the widespread ability to digitally store and transfer money has impacted every aspect of our lives. What explains the emergence and evolution of the global financial inclusion agenda? And what does the politics of the agenda tell us about the impacts of new technologies on global politics and how ideas become global agendas? Drawing on an original collection of primary documents and interviews with elites from Ghana, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland, this book traces the global financial inclusion agenda over time and interrogates its adaptation in specific contexts and issue areas. Through the concept of participatory ambiguity, Girard offers a novel explanation of the agenda that advances important debates in international relations and international political economy on the distribution of power and authority in global governance.

Visit Tyler Girard's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Agrarian Superpower"

New from Columbia University Press: Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States by Samantha Iyer.

About the book, from the publisher:

The United States’ superpower status is often associated with its industrial, financial, and military might. Yet its global power after the Second World War hinged in part on something often seen as backward: agriculture. In contrast to Britain, the predominant global power of the nineteenth century, which depended on its current and former colonies for food and raw materials, the United States produced vast agricultural surpluses. During the 1950s, an era of decolonization and rising Cold War competition, the United States became the dominant exporter of food staples to industrializing nations in the Third World through its massive food aid program.

Through the lens of food and agriculture, this book offers new ways to understand the roots of the post–Second World War global order and the US position in it. Samantha Iyer traces how two former British territories and agricultural competitors of the United States, India and Egypt, became two of the largest importers of US food aid. She investigates the origins and consequences of the US-centric postwar food regime by examining changes in the production, distribution, and consumption of agricultural surpluses from the late nineteenth century to the early 1970s. Bringing together life in villages, towns, and cities with national, imperial, and international affairs, Iyer demonstrates that food aid was the expression of a changed political, economic, and ecological world that the United States did not create alone. Drawing on sources in Arabic, French, Urdu, and English, Agrarian Superpower is a groundbreaking comparative history of food, agriculture, and development.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Locating Racism in the World"

New from Oxford University Press: Locating Racism in the World by Ainsley LeSure.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Locating Racism in the World, Ainsley LeSure develops a worldly theory of antiblack racism rooted in the analytic promise of phenomenology, a philosophical examination of lived experience, to help explain why and how American democracy is confronting its greatest existential threat since the Civil War on the eve of its 250th anniversary. She argues that racism is best understood as a reality-violating common sense generated and perfected through racist practices that produce a white, antiblack world. This worldly theory of antiblack racism is developed over the course of four chapters that explore how five central texts in political theory and black studies - Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton's Black Power: The Politics of Liberation (1967), Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Hannah Arendt's infamous essay, “Reflections on Little Rock” (1957/1959), Saidiya Hartman's Scenes of Subjection and Hortense Spiller's “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book” - theorize the dilemma of antiblack racism. This worldly understanding avoids the key pitfall of post-Civil Rights theories of racism: the assumption that one needs to account for the emotional and mental states of individuals to validate beyond dispute that certain racial practices and their outcomes are instances of racism. And it also avoids Black studies' recent pessimism by clarifying that the aim of a democratic politics strong enough to combat racial common sense is to make the world appear, that is normatively bound citizens to substantiality of reality, by bolstering plurality and making equality an inspiring source of action in our everyday lives.

Visit Ainsley LeSure's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Anxious Homes"

New from Cornell University Press: Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market by Mengqi Wang.

About the book, from the publisher:

Anxious Homes is a study of the power that shapes the forms of the homes Chinese citizens strive for and the possible paths they may take to realize their home ownership dreams. Mengqi Wang discusses how the Chinese real estate industry functions in the everyday, welding aspirational middle-class families, especially migrant families, to the property-owning class and the urban growth machine. Urban housing was a socialist benefit in China until the market reforms and privatization in the 1990s. Today, most Chinese citizens consider homeownership a necessity rather than an economic privilege. Wang analyzes the making of homeownership ideologies through "inflexible demand" (gangxu)―a concept that real estate brokers, developers, homebuyers, and the government in China use to craft homeownership as indispensable for fulfilling dreams of urban citizenship. The ethnography shows that gangxu helps to articulate diverse attempts to accumulate value through housing at China's urbanizing city periphery, while giving shape to a housing-based, postsocialist right to the city. Anxious Homes argues that homeownership does not necessarily engender independence but suggests further inclusion of citizens within the dominant regime of accumulation.

Mengqi Wang is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Duke Kunshan University. Her research interests include economic anthropology, urban anthropology, political economy, gender studies, and science and technology studies.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Raising the Floor"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Raising the Floor: Federalism and the Politics of US Minimum Wage Policy by Shanna Rose.

About the book, from the publisher:

A rich history of the development of American minimum wage policy with lessons for today.

Despite broad popular support for robust minimum wage policy, the federal minimum wage is now worth less—in real, inflation-adjusted terms—than at any time since 1949. While some state and local governments have stepped in to fill this void, others have declined to set any minimum wage standard at all. Traversing more than 100 years of history, Raising the Floor examines how interest groups have navigated the highly decentralized American political system to shape the development of federal, state, and local minimum wage laws.

In her analysis, Shanna Rose highlights the importance of American federalism. She argues that because federalism creates multiple arenas for policy change, interest groups have sought out the sites most conducive to their goals, shifting their lobbying efforts as new obstacles and opportunities emerge. Federalism has facilitated minimum wage policymaking by fostering policy experimentation, learning, and diffusion across states and by allowing state and local governments to overcome gridlock and status-quo biases at the national level. Yet, federalism has also been an instrument for containment, enabling those opposed to minimum wage increases to litigate and preempt local-level laws.

With rich historical chapters that illuminate different phases in the development of today’s patchwork of wage standards, Raising the Floor is a deep examination of the past, present, and future of American minimum wage law.

--Marshal Zeringue

"States of Solidarity"

New from Oxford University Press: States of Solidarity: How to Build a Society by Barbara Prainsack.

About the book, from the publisher:

States of Solidarity: How to Build a Society makes the urgent case that solidarity is not a relic of the past but a foundational pillar for building just, democratic, and sustainable futures. While contemporary societies have invested heavily in debates about justice and institutional reform, they often overlook the social glue that binds people together in everyday life: solidarity. Without it, democratic legitimacy weakens, trust frays, and the collective capacity to act on shared problems-such as climate change, economic inequality, or the governance of digital technologies-gets lost.

This timely and original monograph reclaims solidarity as a dynamic and generative social force. It explores how practices of mutual support, rooted in shared experiences and goals, can restore trust and cohesion in fragmented societies. Rather than reducing solidarity to charity or moral duty, it understands it as a deeply political practice that empowers people to shape their collective lives.

Bringing conceptual clarity and empirical insight to bear, States of Solidarity addresses three of the defining challenges of our time-environmental crisis, democratic erosion in economic governance, and digital transformations with the proliferation of artificial intelligence-through the lens of solidaristic institutions and relationships. It shows how hegemonic narratives and technocratic complexity often obstruct collective action, but also how grassroots movements and inclusive practices can reinvigorate democratic life.

The book ends with a powerful vision of the 'good state' in the 21st century-one that nurtures solidaristic ties, prioritises care and economic justice, and equips societies to thrive in conditions of uncertainty. States of Solidarity invites readers to engage in a bold reimagining of what our political and economic systems could become, and why we must act together to build them.

Visit Barbara Prainsack's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Born Again Queer"

New from Princeton University Press: Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity by William Stell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A groundbreaking history of evangelicalism and homosexuality in the United States

Evangelicals claim that their opposition to homosexuality is an inherent feature of their faith, rooted in their unchanging beliefs about the Bible. Most scholars, journalists, and observers have accepted this account; in Born Again Queer, William Stell upends it. Arguing that the antigay majority in evangelicalism has been less dominant and more vulnerable than previously thought, Stell describes a network of authors, ministers, and professors—all veterans of major evangelical institutions—who worked in the 1970s and 1980s to persuade Christians that their churches should affirm the relationships and ministries of gay and lesbian members. By the late 1970s, some even thought that these activists might shape the future of evangelicalism.

Of course, that speculation proved mistaken, and the antigay evangelical majority eventually overpowered the gay-affirming minority. Stell’s history of the rise and fall of evangelical gay activism shines a light on this largely forgotten chapter in American evangelicalism. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, Stell documents the work of four prominent activists: the founder of a predominantly LGBTQ+ denomination called the Metropolitan Community Churches, the leader of a gay advocacy organization called Evangelicals Concerned, and the evangelical feminist coauthors of the influential book Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? By recovering the successes of evangelical gay activists and the struggles of their opponents, Stell’s account transforms how we think about evangelicalism, how we talk about the culture wars, and how we approach both religion in queer movements and queer activism in religious movements.

Visit William Stell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Koreatown, NYC"

New from NYU Press: Koreatown, NYC: The Consumption of a Transnational Brand by Jinwon Kim.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Manhattan's Koreatown functions as a new ethnic enclave

In the past decade, Korean entertainment has gained global recognition, with Korean movies and TV shows winning Oscars and Emmys, and K-Pop groups becoming wildly popular. In Manhattan, Koreatown has become a popular destination for both locals and tourists, drawing them in with its bars, restaurants, and day spas. Jinwon Kim argues that Manhattan’s Koreatown has become a new type of ethnic enclave, what she dubs a “transclave.” This commercialized ethnic space exists solely for consumption, leisure, and entertainment, and has been shaped by South Korea's nation-branding strategy, new economic and cultural strategies, patterns in Korean migration, and shifts in tourism and urban policies in New York City.

Kim posits that for many consumers in Koreatown, especially those who are not of Korean descent, the space has become a commercialized place where transnational culture meets the diverse racial and ethnic mosaic of New York City. Kim emphasizes how the space functions to "brand Korea" as a space to "consume ethnicity," reflecting the landscape of South Korea’s consumer culture through the physical appearance of buildings and stores and the inclusion of franchise brands. Ultimately, Koreatown, NYC is a fascinating exploration of the intersection of authenticity, ethnicity, and identity in the heart of New York’s midtown.

--Marshal Zeringue