"Waging Sovereignty"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: Waging Sovereignty: Native Americans and the Transformation of Work in the Twentieth Century by Colleen O’Neill.

About the book, from the publisher:

Wage work was supposed to “kill the Indian and save the man,” or so thought Richard Pratt and other late nineteenth-century policymakers. Nevertheless, even as American Indians entered the workforce, they remained connected to their lands and cultures. In this powerful history of resilience and transformation, Colleen O'Neill uncovers the creative strategies Native workers employed to subvert assimilation and fight for justice in the workplace, their collective strength expanding the very meaning of sovereignty.

Drawing on federal archives, Native memoirs, oral histories, and field research, O'Neill traces a sweeping story that stretches from the era of boarding schools to the contemporary world of high-stakes gaming. For more than a century, federal policymakers tried to reshape Native lives through labor. In some cases, children were sent to pick crops and scrub settlers' homes. In others, families were relocated to distant cities for permanent year-round jobs that were designed to replace traditional seasonal labor and lifestyle patterns. But Native workers persevered. They rebuilt their communities, fought to reclaim control of the reservation workplace, and developed distinctive institutions to defend their cultural, political, and economic sovereignty. As Waging Sovereignty illuminates, wage work was a focal point of assimilationist efforts and, in turn, labor became a key factor in Native workers’ anti-colonial struggle.

Visit Colleen O’Neill's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Afterlife of Utopia"

New from Cornell University Press: The Afterlife of Utopia: Urban Renewal in Germany's Model Socialist City by Samantha Maurer Fox.

About the book, from the publisher:

In The Afterlife of Utopia, Samantha Maurer Fox traces the transformation of Eisenhüttenstadt, East Germany's first planned socialist city, from a Cold War showcase to a paragon of sustainable shrinkage. Founded in 1950 as Stalinstadt, the city was designed to embody socialist ideals. After German reunification, Eisenhüttenstadt lost over half its population, shifting from a model city at the center of the Eastern Bloc to a shrinking city on the nation's periphery.

Fox portrays Eisenhüttenstadt's story as reinvention rather than decline. Today, its restored center is Europe's largest protected historical site, reshaped by extensive demolition and renewal projects. Fox shows how these initiatives revived the city's original collectivist ideals, creatively reclaiming socialist heritage through an urban strategy unmatched in late industrial Europe. The Afterlife of Utopia explores what happens when grand ideological experiments outlive the regimes that built them, challenging assumptions about resilience, progress, and urban futurity.

Visit Samantha Fox's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Praiseworthiness"

New from Oxford University Press: Praiseworthiness: The Lighter Side of Moral Responsibility by Zoë Johnson King.

About the book, from the publisher:

Philosophers have had a lot to say about moral blameworthiness, but much less about moral praiseworthiness. In this book Zoë Johnson King bucks the trend: she offers a conceptual framework with which to theorise about praiseworthiness in its own right, and a comprehensive theory of the types of thing for which we can be praiseworthy and the substantive conditions under which we are praiseworthy for things of each type. Johnson King argues that what we're fundamentally praiseworthy for― what makes us good people, to the extent that we are― are what we care about and what we try to do. She then argues that we can be praiseworthy for what we successfully do and bring about to the extent that our actions are deliberate and are coming from a good place.

In developing this account, Johnson King draws on resources from moral metaphysics, moral epistemology, moral metasemantics, and philosophy of action, as well as from the philosophical literature on moral responsibility. She then uses her account to shed light on some practical issues concerning improving your own praiseworthiness by working on yourself, the prevalence of moral luck, and the impact of oppression and injustice on praiseworthiness. The final chapter turns from praiseworthiness to the ethics of praise: Johnson King takes the backlash against praise of essential workers during the pandemic as a case study that illustrates an array of pitfalls around which we must delicately skirt when attempting to praise the praiseworthy.

Visit Zoë Johnson King's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Advocacy, Inc."

New from Stanford University Press: Advocacy, Inc.: INGOs and the Business of "Modern Slavery" by Stephanie A. Limoncelli.

About the book, from the publisher:

The contemporary movement to fight "modern slavery" has increasingly turned its attention to issues of forced labor, child labor and labor trafficking in a wide variety of industries and supply chains. At the same time, businesses have become more involved with the movement and their leadership has been touted as a better alternative to the assumed inferiority of civil society responses. How has business influence been playing out in the "anti-slavery" movement and what are the implications for international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) fighting these forms of labor exploitation? Based on interviews, online texts, documents, and media content from a variety of INGOs and other organizations in Europe and the United States fighting these problems, Advocacy, Inc. provides a cautionary case study. "Anti-slavery" advocacy has become a new market in which INGOs are pressed to become increasingly like for-profit businesses and the strategies they pursue do not adequately address the driving forces that have created conditions for continued labor exploitation in the global economy. Moreover, some businesses benefit from this scenario, having to do very little to claim 'hero' status in advocacy efforts, while practices that perpetuate labor exploitation continue unabated.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Heart of Science"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry by Jacob Stegenga.

About the book, from the publisher:

A novel epistemology of science contends that good science need not attain its aims, but it must justify its claims.

In Heart of Science, philosopher Jacob Stegenga breaks with the most dominant epistemologies of science to argue that in judging scientific activity, we should focus on its justification, not the achievement of truth or knowledge. Yet, Stegenga argues, the aim of science goes far beyond justification and is, instead, a special kind of truth—common knowledge, a broadly shared and mutually justified scientific finding.

Drawing on both historical examples and recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Stegenga outlines his approach before delving into its implications for scientific evaluation, testimony, values, progress, and credit, as well as the nature of science during times of crisis. Truth, he shows, may not be easily identified in the short term. However, an evaluation of scientific justification, grounded in shared standards, is possible. This framework helps us appraise—and appreciate—historical theories that ultimately weren’t accurate and offers fresh insights about appropriate science communication and public trust in scientific research. Justification and scientific rigor are not just means to an end, Stegenga writes, but the very heart of good science.

Ambitious, authoritative, and accessible, Heart of Science offers a new vision for the philosophy of science.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mediating God"

New from Oxford University Press: Mediating God: Muhammad al-Ghazali and the Politics of Divine Presence in Twentieth-Century Egypt by Arthur Shiwa Zárate.

About the book, from the publisher:

This intellectual biography of the Egyptian Muslim theologian, scholar, and activist, Muhammad al-Ghazali (1917–1996), provides the most comprehensive study to date of one of the most influential Sunni Muslim writers of the twentieth century. Al-Ghazali shaped the views of multiple generations of Muslim activists and was a one-time leading intellectual of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Mediating God charts his rise as a leading theologian in the Brotherhood during the 1940s, his subsequent clash and expulsion from the group in 1953, and his extensive post-Brotherhood career during the Nasser years.

To tell this story, it excavates a massive collection of writings by Brotherhood members and their affiliates, many of which have never before been utilized in secondary scholarship. Through an analysis of this collection, Mediating God provides the first in-depth view at the richly cosmopolitan and eclectic intellectual milieu of the Brotherhood and its affiliates from the 1930s through the 1960s. It focuses particular attention on the underexamined, though voluminous, writings al-Ghazali and his colleagues dedicated to charting God as real and meaningful presence in all arenas of human life, from the mundane realms of daily life to political struggles and scientific enterprises. Ultimately, by highlighting the centrality of God as an inscrutable and incalculable-yet intimately known and felt-presence in al-Ghazali and his colleagues' project of spiritual and social uplift, Mediating God provides a way of understanding modern Islamic politics beyond the scholarly framework of Islamism and attendant claims about the functionalization, objectification, and systemization of Islam in modernity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Abolitionists and the Politics of Correspondence"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: Abolitionists and the Politics of Correspondence by Mary T. Freeman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Argues that letter writing enabled a disparate and politically marginal assortment of abolitionists to take shape as a mass movement

Abolitionists and the Politics of Correspondence examines how opponents of slavery harnessed the power of letter writing to further their political aims, arguing that this practice enabled a disparate and politically marginal assortment of people to take shape as a coherent and powerful movement.

Mary T. Freeman fuses a political and social study of abolitionists with a focus on letter writing and epistolary culture. Through the analysis of correspondence, Freeman portrays abolitionism as a mass movement, made up of participants from a wide range of backgrounds, and she emphasizes the diversity of the movement’s geography, membership, and political activities. The book highlights everyday Americans’ involvement in abolition, shifting focus away from the affluent and publicly prominent white leadership. It pays particular attention to those who used letters to intervene in politics when other avenues were closed to them, especially women and Black Americans.

Freeman expands scholarly understandings of abolitionism by showing how letters enabled activists to transmit information and ideas across long distances in a relatively secure format and how they connected people who otherwise would remain strangers. Correspondence also provided a means of political expression to people on the political fringes and disfranchised persons. Even antislavery leaders and those whose social positions were seemingly secure often used the semi-private medium of correspondence strategically. Letter writers could hone their ideas beyond the purview of public audiences, or, when private letters became public, cultural norms granted their contents a stamp of authenticity and directness. Abolitionists and the Politics of Correspondence concerns not just what people wrote about but also how they wrote about it: how they manipulated, exploited, and subverted cultural conventions to make political statements and claims.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Filthiest Village in Europe"

New from Cornell University Press: The Filthiest Village in Europe: Grassroots Ecology and the Collapse of East Germany by Andrew Demshuk.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Filthiest Village in Europe traces how a community shrouded by "industrial fog," at the brink of gaping coal pits, became a symbol that galvanized grassroots ecology―campaigns by diverse local actors that exposed environmental and economic crises East Germany's political system could not resolve. Notoriously known by the late 1980s as "the filthiest village in Europe," Mölbis suffocated downwind from the massively polluting carbochemical Espenhain plant. Applying a myriad of private collections, interviews, and untapped archival sources, Andrew Demshuk reveals how pastors, parents, officials, inspectors, workers, and spies negotiated ossified party structures whose inability to reform was showcased by ever-worsening environmental conditions.

After peaceful protests a few kilometers north in Leipzig triggered a revolution, pre-1989 grassroots players launched innovative reconstruction programs with financial and organizational expertise from West Germans. Together, they transformed Europe's filthiest village into a healthy place to live and imbued it with new symbolism, turning it into a sign of hope. The political will and social engagement that saved Mölbis and rejuvenated the surrounding wasteland can inform how to revitalize other postindustrial "filthy places" in our world today.

The Page 99 Test: The Lost German East.

The Page 99 Test: Demolition on Karl Marx Square.

The Page 99 Test: Bowling for Communism.

The Page 99 Test: Three Cities After Hitler.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kingdom of Football"

New from Oxford University Press: Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Kingdom of Football explores how and why Saudi Arabia burst onto the landscape of world football in 2023, and examines what the speed and scale of Saudi engagement--as investor, owner, sponsor, host and competitor--might mean for the Kingdom and for football.

Writing as both a football fan and a Gulf specialist, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen offers historical and comparative contexts for Saudi Arabia's startling emergence as a world football hub in the 2020s, exploring both previous Saudi investment in the game, in the 1970s, and national attempts elsewhere to kickstart the sport, as in the United States, Japan and China.

Going beyond popular media labels such as 'sportswashing', this fascinating book examines what drives Saudi policymaking, connecting the move into football with domestic economic and social developments, as well as external and foreign policy considerations. It also examines how Riyadh's foray into world football both builds upon and yet differs from the approaches taken by other Gulf States, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Finally, Coates Ulrichsen assesses the sustainability and durability of the Kingdom's engagement with the sport in the decade-long countdown to the 2034 FIFA World Cup, which Saudi Arabia is set to host.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Themistocles"

New from Yale University Press: Themistocles: The Rise and Fall of Athens’s Naval Mastermind by Michael Scott.

About the book, from the publisher:

A portrait of the Athenian politician and general Themistocles, tracing his political development, his victory at the Battle of Salamis, and his exile in Persia

Themistocles (524–459 BC) came of age just as a newly democratic and empowered Athens was emerging. He would become an instrumental political and military figure, fighting in the Battle of Marathon; persuading Athenians to expand their fleet; and engineering the Athenians’ defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. However, as Michael Scott demonstrates in this biography, Themistocles failed as much as he succeeded.

Scott offers a fully human picture of Themistocles, a man who could be both decisive and heroic as well as uncertain and unprepared. He was loved and hated in Athens, his plans and ideas ignored as often as they were respected. Eventually he was exiled as a traitor, ultimately settling in Persia as an adviser to Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, his foe at Salamis. And yet, in the aftermath of his death, he emerged as one of Greece’s historical heroes.

In this portrait of a man Thucydides deemed one of the most illustrious Greeks of his time, Scott reveals one man’s struggle to navigate the turbulent world of Athenian politics, and the crucial role of historians and biographers in shaping, and distorting, the image of Themistocles that has come down to us through the centuries.

Visit Michael Scott's website.

--Marshal Zeringue