"Gifted Children in Britain and the World"

New from Oxford University Press: Gifted Children in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 by Jennifer Crane.

About the book, from the publisher:

The idea that a child is intellectually 'gifted' has a social and cultural history. This book analyses that social history at multiple scales, and makes the 'voices' of the 'gifted' young themselves central through examination of their poetry, letters, and life-writing. In daily encounters, those labelled 'gifted' sometimes loved this label, and felt special in comparison to peers at school and siblings at home.

For others, 'gifted' was a silly or embarrassing label, and many questioned the idea of separating off young people in terms of intelligence, as well as the specific forms of testing being used. Ideas of the 'gifted' child also reshaped family lives -- parents dedicated time to providing special leisure spaces for those thought of as 'gifted', running them in their own homes and taking their children significant distances to spend time with others that were also 'gifted'.

Voluntary organisations were critical here, as the network through which young people and adults encountered the term, 'gifted', and lived and created it relationally, through interactions with one another. Voluntary organisations, looking to gain attention and visibility, also critically shaped the idea that the 'gifted' young were elites of 'the future', central to answering challenges of economic decline, global warfare, or humanitarian aid. The hopes placed on 'gifted' children between the 1960s and the 1990s were often sky high -- yet many 'gifted' young still felt that the community 'wasted' their talents, and did not support them. This book, then, provides new perspectives on the tensions between elitism and equality in modern Britain. It also offers vivid stories of optimism, hope, disappointment, and criticism, in which young people themselves play a central role.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Anatomy of Boredom"

New from Oxford University Press: The Anatomy of Boredom by Andreas Elpidorou.

About the book, from the publisher:

Boredom is a common human experience. It may strike us as straightforward―a mere absence or lack, an emotional emptiness of sorts―yet it is anything but simple. It is complicated: personal and social, biological and cultural, both ever-changing and constant. It can spur action, both productive and harmful. It affects us differently based on our social identity and standing. Boredom is both a mirror of the complexities of human existence and a cause of them.

In The Anatomy of Boredom, Andreas Elpidorou offers a groundbreaking examination of this ubiquitous yet enigmatic dimension of human existence, illuminating its profound influence on our personal and social lives. Through interdisciplinary analysis, careful argumentation, and captivating insights, Elpidorou presents a functional theory of boredom, which understands and individuates boredom in terms of its role in our mental, behavioral, and social existence. This theory provides a compelling synthesis of existing research, connects the present of boredom to its history, and allows us to apply our knowledge of boredom to relatively unexplored domains, such as its relationship to the good life, self-regulation and self-control, poverty and capitalism, advancements in AI, animal emotions, and even aesthetics and art appreciation. Ultimately, the study of boredom is revealed to be more than just an analysis of an intricate and important affective experience; it is also shown to be an insightful investigation into the complexities of human (and even non-human) existence.

Visit Andreas Elpidorou's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Life at a Distance"

New from Cornell University Press: Life at a Distance: Medicine and Nationalism in India's Pan-African e-Network by Vincent Duclos.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Life at a Distance, Vincent Duclos recounts the story of the Pan-African e-Network. Branded as "India's gift to the world," and as a "shining example of South-South cooperation," the Pan-African e-Network was an exceptionally ambitious project. Between 2009 and 2017 the network used satellite technology to connect hospitals across Africa with hospitals in India, providing medical education and delivering health care for patients at a distance. Duclos shows how, by accelerating the flow of expertise across continents, the network also created connected enclaves, at once commercial, infrastructural, and medical. Life at a Distance is the story of a project that, Duclos suggests, acted as a medium for speculation about the future―about medical markets, the nation, South-South relations, and a new world order beyond Western-centric scripts.

Vincent Duclos is Associate Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His ethnographic research focuses on global capitalism, digital technology, and medicine, and the many ways they are entangled.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Omnivore’s Deception"

New from NYU Press: The Omnivore’s Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and Ourselves by John Sanbonmatsu.

About the book, from the publisher:

Offers the most powerful case yet for ending our exploitation of animals for food

Millions of Americans see themselves as "conflicted omnivores," worrying about the ethical and environmental implications of their choice to eat animals. Yet their attempts to justify their choices only obscure the truth of the matter: in John Sanbonmatsu’s view, killing and eating animals is unethical, regardless of whether they are "free range" or factory farmed. Shattering the conventional wisdom around the meat economy, he reframes the question of animal agriculture from one of "sustainability" to one of existential and moral purpose, presenting a powerful case for the total abolition of the animal economy. In a rejoinder to Michael Pollan and other critics who have told us that we can have our meat and our consciences, too, he shows why "humane meat" is always a contradiction in terms.

The Omnivore’s Deception provides a deeply observed philosophical meditation on the nature of our relationship with animals. Peeling back the myriad layers of myth, falsehoods, and bad faith that keep us eating meat, the book offers a novel perspective on our troubled relations with animals in the food economy. The problem with raising and killing animals for food isn't just that it's "bad for the environment,” but the wrong way to live a human life.

A tour de force of moral philosophy and cultural critique, The Omnivore's Deception will change the way we think about meat, animals, and human purpose.

Visit John Sanbonmatsu's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Happy Meat"

New from Stanford University Press: Happy Meat: The Sadness and Joy of a Paradoxical Idea by Josée Johnston, Shyon Baumann, Emily Huddart, and Merin Oleschuk.

About the book, from the publisher:

North Americans love eating meat. Despite the increased awareness of the meat industry's harms–violence against animals, health problems, and associations with environmental degradation–the rate of meat eating hasn't changed significantly in recent years. Instead, what has emerged is an uncomfortable paradox: a need to square one's values with the behaviors that contradict those values. Using a large-scale, multidimensional, and original dataset, Happy Meat explores the thoughts and emotions that underpin our moral decision-making in this meat paradox. Conscientious meat-eaters turn to the notion of "happy meat" to make sense of their behaviors by consuming meat they see as more healthy, ethical, and sustainable. Happy meat might be labeled grass fed, free-range, antibiotic free, naturally raised, or humane. The people who produce and consume it, together, make up the complex landscape of conscientious meat-eating in modern Western societies. The discourse of happy meat ultimately may not be a sufficient response to all the critiques of meat eating, rife as it is with contradictions. However, it offers a powerful case for understanding how moral boundaries and notions of the 'good eater' are constructed through negotiations of values, identity, and status.

Josée Johnston is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on food, gender, culture, and politics. She is the co-author, with Shyon Baumann, of Foodies (2015) and, with Kate Cairns, of Food and Femininity (2015). Shyon Baumann is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. His work addresses questions of evaluation, legitimacy, status, classification, and inequality. Past book projects include Hollywood Highbrow (2007). Emily Huddart is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She is an environmental sociologist with a focus on consumer attitudes and behaviors. She is the author of Eco-Types (2022). Merin Oleschuk is Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Mouse in a Cage"

New from NYU Press: A Mouse in a Cage: Rethinking Humanitarianism and the Rights of Lab Animals by Carrie Friese.

About the book, from the publisher:

Questions the treatment of laboratory animals in biomedical research

Laboratory animals are often used to develop medical treatments: vaccines, antibiotics, and organ transplants have all relied upon animal testing to ensure safety and success for human benefit. Yet the relationship between the scientific community's dependence on laboratory animals and the recognition of the need to treat these animals with respect and compassion has given rise to a profound tension.

As animals are increasingly understood to have rights and autonomy, Carrie Friese posits that, while care and compassion for a distant other who suffers are central to humanitarianism, the idea of a distant other itself, which has shaped work with laboratory animals both historically and today, has enacted forms of highly problematic paternalism, creating a double bind. Focusing on the lives of laboratory mice and rats in the United Kingdom, and on the people who take care of, and often kill, these animals, Friese gives the name of “more-than-human humanitarianism” to contradictory practices of suffering and compassion, killing and sacrifice, and compassion and consent that she witnessed in a variety of animal facilities and laboratories.

Friese proposes a new approach to the treatment of laboratory animals that recognizes the interconnectedness of all species and how human actions impact the welfare of other species and the planet as a whole. A Mouse in a Cage is an essential contribution to the ongoing conversation about the ethical treatment of animals.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Protestant Relics in Early America"

New from Oxford University Press: Protestant Relics in Early America by Jamie L. Brummitt.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Protestant Relics in Early America, Jamie L. Brummitt upends long-held assumptions about religion and material culture in the early United States. Brummitt chronicles how American Protestants cultivated a lively relic culture centered around collecting supernatural memory objects associated with dead Christian leaders, family members, and friends. These objects materialized the real physical presences of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and souls of the dead on earth.

As Brummitt demonstrates, people of nearly all Protestant denominations and walks of life--including members of Congress, college presidents, ministers, mothers, free Black activists, schoolchildren, and enslaved people--sought embodied and supernatural sense experiences with relics. They collected relics from deathbeds, stole relics from tombs, made relics in schools, visited relics at pilgrimage sites like George Washington's Mount Vernon, purchased relics in the marketplace, and carried relics into the American Revolution and the Civil War. Locks of hair, blood, bones, portraits, daguerreotypes, post-mortem photographs, memoirs, deathbed letters, Bibles, clothes, embroidered and painted mourning pieces, and a plethora of other objects that had been touched, used, or owned by the dead became Protestant relics. These relic practices were so pervasive that they shaped systems of earthly and heavenly power, from young women's education to national elections to Protestant-Catholic relations to the structure of freedom and families in the afterlife.

In recovering the forgotten history and presence of Protestant relics in early America, Brummitt demonstrates how material practices of religion defined early American politics and how the Enlightenment enhanced rather than diminished embodied presence. Moreover, Brummitt reveals how the secular historical method has obscured the supernatural significance of relics for the Protestants who made, collected, exchanged, treasured, and passed them down. This book will be an essential resource for scholars and students of early American history, religion, politics, art, and popular culture.

Visit Jamie L. Brummitt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Maccabee"

New from Princeton University Press: American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews by Andrew Porwancher.

About the book, from the publisher:

A major biography of a mesmerizing statesman whose complex bond with the Jewish people forever shaped their lives—and his legacy

A scion of the Protestant elite, Theodore Roosevelt was an unlikely ally of the waves of impoverished Jewish newcomers who crowded the docks at Ellis Island. Yet from his earliest years he forged ties with Jews never before witnessed in a president. American Maccabee traces Roosevelt’s deep connection with the Jewish people at every step of his dazzling ascent. But it also reveals a man of contradictions whose checkered approach to Jewish issues was no less conflicted than the nation he led.

As a rising political figure in New York, Roosevelt barnstormed the Lower East Side, giving speeches to packed halls of Jewish immigrants. He rallied for reform of the sweatshops where Jewish laborers toiled for pitiful wages in perilous conditions. And Roosevelt repeatedly venerated the heroism of the Maccabee warriors, upholding those storied rebels as a model for the American Jewish community. Yet little could have prepared him for the blood-soaked persecution of Eastern European Jews that brought a deluge of refugees to American shores during his presidency. Andrew Porwancher uncovers the vexing challenges for Roosevelt as he confronted Jewish suffering abroad and antisemitic xenophobia at home.

Drawing on new archival research to paint a richly nuanced portrait of an iconic figure, American Maccabee chronicles the complicated relationship between the leader of a youthful nation and the people of an ancient faith.

Visit Andrew Porwancher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Devotion in Motion"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Devotion in Motion: Pilgrimage in Modern Mexico by Edward Wright-Ríos.

About the book, from the publisher:

A study of contemporary pilgrimage through the elastic history of a shrine in Oaxaca, Mexico.

For many, pilgrimage conjures ideas about ancient traditions and somber journeys of self-discovery—an escape from modern life. In Devotion in Motion, Edward Wright-Ríos argues that we misunderstand pilgrimage (past and present) if we ignore its dynamic relationship with the rhythms of daily life and community.

Through the story of a centuries-old, ever-changing Catholic shrine to Our Lady of Juquila in Oaxaca, Mexico, Wright-Ríos reveals how tradition, innovation, marketing, and devotion coexist and interact in pilgrimage. Devotees, he shows, are not dissuaded by the embeddedness of the sacred site in the complexities, hierarchies, or conflicts of their lives. In fact, the truckers, accountants, and health-care workers we meet in this book actively seek new resources (including social media) to aid and share their devotion. Part microhistory, part ethnography, Devotion in Motion is a celebration of pilgrimage as a living experience in every generation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Rebuilding New Orleans"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Rebuilding New Orleans: Immigrant Laborers and Street Food Vendors in the Post-Katrina Era by Sarah Fouts.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Central American and Mexican immigrants arrived in New Orleans to help clean up and rebuild. When federal relief services overlooked the needs of immigrant-led construction and cleanup crews as part of post-Katrina mass feeding strategies, street food stands and taco trucks stepped in to ensure food security for these workers. Many of these food vendors settled in the city over the next decade, opening restaurants and other businesses. Yet, in a city experiencing whitewashed redevelopment, new immigrants were frequently pitted against Black poor and working-class New Orleanians for access to housing and other resources.

During Fouts’s five years as a volunteer with the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, she came to know and interview the day laborers, food workers, culture producers, and community organizers whose stories shape this book. Her work reveals how, after the storm, immigrant communities have culturally and politically reshaped New Orleans and its suburbs. Fouts also highlights how immigrants forged multiracial solidarities to foster inclusive change at the local level. By connecting migration, labor, and food, Rebuilding New Orleans centers human experiences to illustrate how immigrant and established communities of color resisted criminalization and racial capitalism to create a more just New Orleans.

Visit Susan Fouts's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Absolute Ethical Life"

New from Stanford University Press: Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx by Michael Lazarus.

About the book, from the publisher:

Karl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how freedom and rational agency are impacted by a social world formed by value under capitalism, with consequences for philosophy today. Michael Lazarus situates Marx within a shared tradition of ethical inquiry, placing him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. Lazarus traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx's work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, two of the most profound critics of modern politics and ethics. Ultimately, the book claims that Marx's value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement. In this normative interpretation of Marx, Lazarus integrates recent moral philosophy with a historically specific analysis of capitalism as a social form of life. He challenges contemporary political and economic theory to insist that any conception of modern life needs to account for capitalism. With a robust critique of capitalism derived from the determinations of what Marx calls the "form of value," Lazarus argues for an ethical life beyond capital.

Visit Michael Lazarus's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What Does It Mean to Be Kazakhstani?"

New from Oxford University Press: What Does It Mean to Be Kazakhstani?: Power, Identity and Nation-Building by Diana T. Kudaibergen.

About the book, from the publisher:

In early 2022, protests rocked Kazakhstan. Initially peaceful demonstrations soon turned violent after brutal government crackdowns, leaving at least 238 dead during "Bloody January". But despite fears that Kazakhstan might split along ethno-linguistic lines, ethnicity played little role in the unrest: deep socio- economic problems and anti-regime grievances pushed protestors onto the streets.

More than thirty years since declaring independence, multi-ethnic Kazakhstan is still grappling with its nationhood. While secessionist movements provoked ethnic conflicts, territorial disputes and civil wars across the former USSR, Kazakhstan developed a relatively stable inter-ethnic policy, and predicted Russo-Kazakh tensions largely failed to materialize. Analyzing the multiple narratives, actors and often contradictory feelings of national belonging in post-1991 Kazakhstan, Diana T. Kudaibergen investigates why Kazakhstani nation-building is so unusual. Has Kazakh society found a solution to divisive ethno-nationalism? How have ordinary citizens shaped their identities? And how will Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which has led to widespread Russian immigration into Kazakhstan, impact inter-ethnic dynamics?

Kudaibergen builds on unpublished archival materials and hundreds of interviews to explore the "hybrid" nature of nation-building in this complex country. While regime elites promote a top-down civic identity, domestic unrest and pluralistic opposition movements are once again transforming the category "Kazakhstani".

--Marshal Zeringue

"Performing Desire"

New from Cornell University Press: Performing Desire: Knowledge, Self, and Other in Richard de Fournival's "Bestiaire d'amours" by Elizabeth Eva Leach and Jonathan Morton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Performing Desire examines the intellectual and philosophical complexity of a monument of medieval literature: the mid-thirteenth-century Bestiaire d'amours of Richard de Fournival. Although the Bestiaire was recognized in its time as significant, as evinced by numerous surviving manuscript copies and its influence on other literary works, modern scholarship has tended to neglect it. Performing Desire remedies this omission by detailing the contributions of the Bestiaire to medieval literature and thought.

Attending to the phenomenology, psychology, and philosophy of Fournival's Bestiaire, Elizabeth Eva Leach and Jonathan Morton reconsider the work as a literary experiment that explores erotic desire and the construction of a self. Leach and Morton further show that the Bestiaire is as much a meditation on sound and performance as it is a study of desire. Synthesizing methods from musicology, literary studies, and manuscript studies, Leach and Morton consider the complex and hybridized workings of text, image, sound, and cues for performance in the surviving manuscripts of the Bestiaire.

Through their analysis, Leach and Morton find that the distinctive aspect of the Bestiaire's philosophical method is its self-conscious status as a performance between the oral and the literary, the voice and the page. It is this aspect, they contend, that left such a mark on the medieval European tradition of philosophical fiction. In Performing Desire, Richard de Fournival's hybrid text emerges as one of the most philosophically sophisticated and important works of medieval literature not only in French but in any language.

The Page 99 Test: Medieval Sex Lives: The Sounds of Courtly Intimacy on the Francophone Borders by Elizabeth Eva Leach.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fascism: The History of a Word"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Fascism: The History of a Word by Federico Marcon.

About the book, from the publisher:

A wide-ranging history of the term “fascism,” what it has meant, and what it means today.

The rise and popular support for authoritarianism around the world and within traditional democracies have spurred debates over the meaning of the term “fascist” and when and whether it is appropriate to use it. The landmark study Fascism: The History of a Word takes this debate further by tackling its most fundamental questions: How did the terms “fascism” and “fascist” come to be in the first place? How and in what circumstances have they been used? How can they be understood today? And what are the advantages (or disadvantages) of using “fascism” to make sense of interwar authoritarianism as well as contemporary politics?

Exploring the writings and deeds of political leaders, activists, artists, authors, and philosophers, Federico Marcon traces the history of the term’s use (and usefulness) in relation to Mussolini’s political regime, antifascist resistance, and the quest of postwar historians to develop a definition of a “fascist minimum.” This investigation of the semiotics of “fascism” also aims to inquire about people’s voluntary renunciation of the modern emancipatory ideals of freedom, equality, and solidarity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Human Toll"

New from NYU Press: The Human Toll: Taxation and Slavery in Colonial America by Anthony C. Infanti.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the thirteen colonies deployed the power of taxation to support, promote, and perpetuate the institution of slavery

The Human Toll documents how the American colonies used tax law to dehumanize enslaved persons, taxing them alongside valuable commodities upon their forced arrival and then as wealth-generating assets in the hands of slaveholders. Anthony C. Infanti examines how taxation also proved to be an important component for subjugating and controlling enslaved persons, both through its shaping of the composition of new arrivals to the colonies and through its funding of financial compensation to slaveholders for the destruction of their “property” to ensure their cooperation in the administration of capital punishment. The variety of tax mechanisms chosen to fund slaveholder compensation payments conveyed messages about who was thought to benefit from―and, therefore, who should shoulder the burden of―slaveholder compensation while opening a revealing window into these colonial societies.

While the story of colonial tax law is intrinsically linked to advancing slavery and racism, Infanti reveals how several colonies used the power of taxation as a means of curtailing the slave trade. Though often self-interested, these efforts show how taxation can be used not only in the service of evil but also to correct societal injustices. Providing a fascinating account of slavery’s economic entrenchment through the history of American tax law, The Human Toll urges us to consider the lessons that fiscal history holds for those working in the reparations movement today.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Taxation and Resentment"

New from Princeton University Press: Taxation and Resentment: Race, Party, and Class in American Tax Attitudes by Andrea Louise Campbell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why Americans favor progressive taxation in principle but not in practice

Most Americans support progressive taxation in principle, and want the rich to pay more. But the specific tax policies that most favor are more regressive than progressive. What is behind such a disconnect? In this book, Andrea Louise Campbell examines public opinion on taxation, exploring why what Americans favor in principle differs from what they accept in practice. Campbell shows that since the federal income tax began a century ago, the rich have fought for lower taxes through reduced rates and a complicated system of tax breaks. The resulting complexity leaves the public confused about who benefits from the convoluted tax code, and leads to tax preferences that are driven by factors other than principles or interests.

Campbell argues that tax attitudes vary little by income, or by party, as some Democrats, more Republicans, and even more independents want most taxes decreased. Instead, white opinion on nearly every tax is racialized. Many do not realize the rich benefit the most from tax breaks, attitudes toward which are racialized, too. And among Black and Hispanic Americans, long subject to government coercion, greater support for government spending is not matched by greater support for taxation. Everyone has a reason to dislike taxes, which helps antitax Republicans win votes—and helps the rich in their long campaign to get their own taxes reduced and undermine progressivity.

Visit Andrea Louise Campbell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Spy and the State"

New from Oxford University Press: The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence by Jeffrey P. Rogg.

About the book, from the publisher:

A novel and comprehensive narrative of American intelligence from the Revolutionary War to the present day.

Intelligence is all around us. We read about it in the news, wonder who is spying on us through our phones or computers, and want to know what is happening in the shadows. The US Intelligence Community or IC, as insiders call it, is more powerful than ever, but also more vulnerable than it has been in decades. It is facing the threat of rival intelligence services from countries like Russia and China while fighting to keep up with new technology and the private sector. Still, the IC's greatest struggle is always with the American people, who expect it to keep them safe but not at the cost of their liberty and principles. This foundational problem is at the center of The Spy and the State.

Based on original research and a new interpretation of US history, this masterful book offers a complete history of American intelligence from the Revolutionary War to the present day. Jeffrey Rogg explores the origins and evolution of intelligence in America, including its overlooked role in some of the key events that shaped the nation and the historical underpinnings of intelligence controversies that have shaken the country to its constitutional core. With the American public in mind, he introduces the concept of US civil-intelligence relations to explain the interaction between intelligence and the society it serves.

While answering questions from the past, The Spy and the State poses new questions for the future that the United States must confront as intelligence gains ever greater importance in the twenty-first century.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dignity in America"

New from Stanford University Press: Dignity in America: Transforming Social Conflicts by Erin Daly.

About the book, from the publisher:

How a focus on dignity transforms, and resolves, some of the country's most pressing social problems.

Dignity represents the inherent and equal worth of each one of us. It is how we think about the value of our lives. It is how we think about justice, and about the injustices that cause people to struggle and suffer. In Dignity in America, Erin Daly explores how we can resolve the social conflicts that divide us as a nation by transforming them under the lens of human dignity.

It may apply differently in different cultural settings, but the core meaning of dignity is both intuitive and universal. It stands for a set of interlocking ideas that focus on each person's need to freely develop their full personality and identity. Using the language of dignity that has already taken root in international law and courts all around the world, Daly shows us how to think about controversies, ranging from affirmative action to abortion to climate justice to democracy, with a view toward enhancing our ability to live with dignity.

Daly presents dignity as a universal value that transcends partisan debates and, in many cases, presents a clear path to the most just solutions to the conflicts that divide us as a nation. She introduces the American voting public to the idea of dignity by posing and wrestling with a series of questions: How can we insist on a politics that really protects human dignity? How can we use the idea of dignity to guide us toward solutions that allow more people to live each day with more of it?

If we pay attention to the core needs of people in society, we can make political choices that better protect us all, allowing us to flourish as individuals while living in communities based on justice for all.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Spirit of Socialism"

New from Cornell University Press: The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse by Joseph Kellner.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Spirit of Socialism is a cultural history of the Soviet collapse. It examines the millions of Soviet people who, during the cascading crises of the collapse and the post-Soviet transition, embarked on a spirited and highly visible search for new meaning. Amid profound disorientation, these seekers found direction in their horoscopes, or behind gurus in saffron robes or apocalyptic preachers, or by turning from the most basic premises of official science and history to orient themselves anew. The beliefs they seized on and, even more, the questions that guided their search reveal the essence of late-Soviet culture and its legacy in post-Soviet Russia.

To skeptical outsiders, the seekers appeared eccentric, deviant, and above all un-Soviet. Yet they came to their ideas by Soviet sources and Soviet premises. As Joseph Kellner demonstrates, their motley beliefs reflect modern values that formed the spiritual core of Soviet ideology, among them a high regard for science, an informed and generous internationalism, and a confidence in humanity to chart its own course. Soviet ideology failed, however, to unite these values in an overarching vision that could withstand historical change.

And so, as The Spirit of Socialism shows, the seekers asked questions raised but not resolved by the Russian Revolution and subsequent Soviet order―questions of epistemic authority, of cultural identity, and of history's ultimate meaning. Although the Soviet collapse was not the end of history, it was a rupture of epochal significance, whose fissures extend into our own uncertain era.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Power to the Partners"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Power to the Partners: Organizational Coalitions in Social Justice Advocacy by Maraam A. Dwidar.

About the book, from the publisher:

A vital examination of how social and economic justice organizations overcome resource disadvantages and build political power.

Why do some coalitions triumph while others fall short? In Power to the Partners, Maraam A. Dwidar documents the vital role of social and economic justice organizations in American politics and explores the process by which they strategically build partnerships to advance more effective and equitable advocacy. Using original data tracking the collaboration patterns of more than twenty thousand nationally active advocacy organizations, Dwidar evaluates the micro- and macro-level conditions surrounding these groups’ successful efforts to collectively shape public policy.

Power to the Partners reveals that while organizational advocates for social and economic justice are at a disadvantage in the American lobbying landscape—financially, tactically, and politically—coalition work can help ameliorate these disparities. By building and sustaining coalitions with structures and memberships that facilitate clarity, learning, and diverse perspectives, these advocates can successfully—and uniquely—make their mark on American public policy. Dwidar’s work offers critical insights for scholars and practitioners alike, from groundbreaking academic findings to evidence-based lessons for political organizers.

Visit Maraam A. Dwidar's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"By the Power Vested in Me"

New from Columbia University Press: By the Power Vested in Me: How Experts Shape Same-Sex Marriage Debates by Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer.

About the book, from the publisher:

In both the United States and France, each side of the legal battle over same-sex marriage and parenthood relied heavily on experts. Despite the similarity of issues, however, lawmakers in each country turned to different sets of authorities: from economists and psychoanalysts to priests and ordinary people. They even prized different types of expertise―empirical research in the United States versus abstract theory in France.

Exploring the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States and France, this book sheds new light on the power of experts to influence high-stakes democratic debates. Drawing on extensive interviews and ethnographic observation, Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer traces the divergences between the two countries, showing why some experts are ubiquitous in one but absent in the other. He argues that lawmakers, judges, lawyers, journalists, and activists covet something only experts can provide: the credibility and aura of authority, or “expert capital,” which they deploy to advance their agendas. Expert capital is not derived from scientific or technical merit alone but is produced through cultural norms, material resources, and social relationships, which vary greatly across national contexts.

Through the story of the fight over gay rights, By the Power Vested in Me reveals how and why certain experts―but not others―obtain the authority to shape public opinion and policy. At a time of soaring public distrust in experts, this book offers new ways to understand the contested political role of expertise and its consequences.

Visit Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Work of Empire"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines by Justin F. Jackson.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the US Army seemed minuscule and ill-equipped for global conflict. Yet over the next fifteen years, its soldiers defeated Spain and pacified nationalist insurgencies in both Cuba and the Philippines. Despite their lack of experience in colonial administration, American troops also ruled and transformed the daily lives of the 8 million people who inhabited these tropical islands. How was this relatively small and inexperienced army able to wage wars in Cuba and the Philippines and occupy them? American soldiers depended on tens of thousands of Cubans and Filipinos, both for military operations and civil government. Whether compelled to labor for free or voluntarily working for wages, Cubans and Filipinos, suspended between civilian and soldier status, enabled the making of a new US overseas empire by interpreting, guiding, building, selling sex, and many other kinds of work for American troops. In The Work of Empire, Justin Jackson reveals how their labor forged the politics, economics, and culture of American colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines and left an enduring imprint on these islands and the US Army itself. Jackson offers new ways to understand the rise of American military might and how it influenced a globalizing imperial world.

Visit Justin F. Jackson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Growing Up Godless"

New from Princeton University Press: Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England by Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe.

About the book, from the publisher:

How children’s non-belief and non-religion are formed in everyday life

The number of those identifying as “non-religious” has risen rapidly in Britain and many other parts of Europe and North America. Although non-religion and non-belief are especially prevalent among younger people, we know little about the experience of children who are growing up without religion. In Growing Up Godless, Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe fill this scholarly gap, examining how, when, where, and with whom children in England learn to be non-religious and non-believing. Drawing on in-depth interviews and extensive ethnographic fieldwork with children, their parents, and teachers, Strhan and Shillitoe offer a pioneering account of what these children believe in and care about and how they navigate a social landscape of growing religious diversity.

Moving beyond the conventional understanding of non-religion as merely the absence of religion, Strhan and Shillitoe show how children’s non-religion and non-belief emerge in relation to a pervasive humanism—centering the agency, significance, and achievements of humans and values of equality and respect—interwoven in their homes, schools, media, and culture. Their findings offer important new insight into the rise and formation of non-religious identities and, more broadly, the ways that children’s beliefs and values are shaped in contemporary society.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The View from Everywhere"

New from Oxford University Press: The View from Everywhere: Realist Idealism without God by Helen Yetter-Chappell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Few contemporary philosophers take idealism seriously. The View from Everywhere aims to change this, developing a new quasi-Berkeleyan realist idealism, which does not depend upon God to do the metaphysical heavy lifting. This non-theistic idealism requires a fresh approach to the persistence and stability of the physical world. The resulting theory offers unique accounts of the nature of perception and the relationship between our minds and our bodies.

When we peel away all the attributes of God that aren't essential for ensuring the stability of the world, we're left with a simpler and more intelligible metaphysical picture. On the resulting view, reality is a vast unity of consciousness that binds together experiences as-of every object from every perspective: a "tapestry" woven out of experiential "threads."

Helen Yetter-Chappell seeks to fully flesh out this idealist metaphysics in a way that lets us make sense of the structure of reality and the deliverances of scientific inquiry, to consider the relationship between our minds and reality within an idealist framework, and to show that there are distinctive benefits to embracing idealism - benefits that should lead us to reassess our commitment to the materialist orthodoxy.

Visit Helen Yetter-Chappell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Stuck at Home"

New from Stanford University Press: Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in the Nation of Emigration by Yasmin Y. Ortiga.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Philippines is among the most successful migrant-sending nations in the world, both lauded and critiqued for exporting its own citizens to a global labor market. Yasmin Y. Ortiga brings readers beyond this popular image to explore questions often overlooked: What happens when workers who were encouraged to emigrate are suddenly unable to leave? Stuck at Home examines how the Philippine state and its aspiring migrants negotiated the meaning of immobility amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In this pioneering book, Ortiga studies the narratives that emerged around two groups of Filipino workers: nurses banned from leaving the country and cruise workers who returned home after COVID-19 shut down the travel industry. Ortiga emphasizes the high stakes in telling the "right" story of immobility to a nation built around emigration—one that provides a compelling rationale for who deserves to move and who can be forced to stay. A gripping account of political interests, frustrated dreams, and an unprecedented crisis, Stuck at Home reveals how migration governance is not only about regulating people's movement, but also defining the meaning and implications of remaining in place.

Yasmin Y. Ortiga is Associate Professor of Sociology at Singapore Management University. She is the author of Emigration, Employability, and Higher Education in the Philippines (2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Irrational Together"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Irrational Together: The Social Forces That Invisibly Shape Our Economic Behavior by Adam S. Hayes.

About the book, from the publisher:

A must-read that reshapes how we think about the social underpinnings of our financial choices.

In Irrational Together, economic sociologist Adam S. Hayes takes readers on a fascinating journey to uncover the often-unseen social forces that shape our financial behavior. Drawing on original research and engaging real-world examples, Hayes challenges not only the notion that economic decisions are purely rational but also the prevailing behavioral economics view that irrational choices stem primarily from individual beliefs. Instead, he argues that our economic choices and actions are deeply embedded in our social and cultural contexts and that understanding these influences is crucial to fully grasp the complexities of financial decision-making.

From the impact of social class and cultural capital on risk-taking and the role of social networks and group identities in shaping consumer choices to the gendered dimensions of financial advice and literacy, this book weaves together insights from sociology, behavioral economics, and cultural studies to paint a nuanced picture of how we navigate the economic landscape as inherently social beings. Why, for example, would someone choose to continue paying 20% interest on a large credit card debt rather than taking out a low-interest mortgage on their home to pay off the card? As Hayes makes clear through rigorous analysis, cultural values—like those related to home ownership—hold as much or more sway over us than financial best practices.

Bridging the gap between behavioral economics and sociology, this groundbreaking work paves the way for a more holistic understanding of the social and cultural influences on economic behavior. Hayes also looks to the future and argues that to correct major disparities in our social understanding of wealth and money, we need to construct financial systems that consider a diversity of social backgrounds.

With its accessible language and thought-provoking insights, Irrational Together is an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand the intersection of money, society, and human behavior.

Visit Adam S. Hayes's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Gardens of Hope"

New from NYU Press: Gardens of Hope: Cultivating Food and the Future in a Post-Disaster City by Yuki Kato.

About the book, from the publisher:

Social changes through urban gardening and farming

Gardens are often spaces of hope, expected to solve many problems in a city including food insecurity and climate resilience. In fact, there has been a historical trend of urban gardening gaining popularity during times of crisis. Gardens of Hope is the story of urban gardening in New Orleans in the decade after Hurricane Katrina. Yuki Kato highlights the impact urban gardens have on communities after disasters and the efforts of well-intended individuals envisioning alternative futures in the form of urban farming.

Drawing on repeated interviews with residents who began cultivation projects in New Orleans between 2005 and 2015, Kato explains how good intentions and grit were not enough to implement or sustain urban gardeners’ visions for the post-disaster city’s future. Coining the term “prefigurative urbanism,” Kato illustrates how individuals tried to realize alternative ways of living and working in the city through pragmatism and innovation. Gardens of Hope asks key questions about what inspires and enables individuals to pursue prefigurative urbanism and about the potential and limitations of this form of civic engagement to bring about short- and long-term changes in cities undergoing transformation, from gentrification, post-pandemic recovery, to climate change.

Visit Yuki Kato's faculty website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fortress Farming"

New from Cornell University Press: Fortress Farming: Agrarian Transitions, Livelihoods, and Coffee Value Chains in Indonesia by Jeff Neilson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Fortress Farming identifies in Indonesia's rural coffee-growing regions an alternative livelihood strategy that is reshaping relationships with land and informing Indonesia's agrarian transition. Jeff Neilson presents "fortress farming" households as ones that are reluctant to embrace productivity-maximizing agriculture, even as they interact with commodity markets and powerful downstream companies. Rather, these households tenaciously maintain access to land as a last defense against insecurity in a precarious global economy, all the while actively tapping into off-farm income sources. Fortress farming confounds assumptions that the development process entails an inevitable transition away from the land and into city-based manufacturing.

Shifting away from production to take a fuller view of rural Indonesian coffee-growing communities, Fortress Farming explores how and why defensive farming strategies have emerged, and what these tendencies mean for our understanding of agrarian transition in late-industrializing countries in the early twenty-first century. Neilson posits that late-industrializing countries may never undergo a full agrarian transition: In the alternative livelihood practice of fortress farming, we see a way that local social institutions can resist, or at least modify, the productive forces of capitalist agriculture.

Jeff Neilson is Associate Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Sydney. He is the coauthor of Value Chain Struggles and the coeditor of Global Value Chains and Global Production Networks.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Seven Challenges for the Science of Animal Minds"

New from Oxford University Press: Seven Challenges for the Science of Animal Minds by Mike Dacey.

About the book, from the publisher:

The scientific study of animal minds is difficult. This book examines the most significant reasons this is so: seven challenges for the science to overcome. Researchers are aware of these challenges, but few take any of them head-on, and none address them collectively. Despite this focus on challenges, the book's attitude is optimistic rather than critical; these are challenges for the science, not challenges to the science. Researchers have made substantial progress as things are. But taking the challenges head-on can help build an even stronger, more vibrant science. The seven challenges are: 1) underdetermination of theory by data, 2) anthropomorphic bias, 3) the difficulty of modeling cognitive processes, 4) integrating across disciplines, 5) ecological validity, 6) small sample sizes, and 7) measuring consciousness. For each, the book suggests rethinking the challenge and reorienting our attempts to address it. These approaches are novel, general ways of thinking that will help researchers work through the challenges, and perhaps find solutions appropriate to their own research. Each of the main chapters takes on one challenge. Each also includes an empirical case study, from social reasoning in chimpanzees, to foraging in honeybees, to consciousness in octopuses. Along the way, a big-picture framework emerges for drawing conclusions about animal minds based on experimental evidence. In this framework, the role of any individual piece of the science is limited: any individual experiment, model, claim, or argument can only tell us so much. When we are appropriately modest about each piece, conclusions about animal minds must be arrived at by holistically considering all the evidence we can get. This is a work in the philosophy of science, but it is written to be accessible to any philosopher interested in empirical issues relating to the mind, researchers in any of the related sciences, including psychology, neuroscience, ethology, and evolutionary biology, as well as intermediate to advanced students.

Visit Mike Dacey's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The American Mirage"

New from Princeton University Press: The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy by Eunji Kim.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the entertainment narrative of upward mobility distorts the harsh economic realities in America

In an age of growing wealth disparities, politicians on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about the fading American Dream. Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, many still view the United States as the land of opportunity. The American Mirage addresses this puzzle by exposing the stark reality of today’s media landscape, revealing how popular entertainment media shapes politics and public opinion in an increasingly news-avoiding nation.

Drawing on an eclectic array of original data, Eunji Kim demonstrates how, amid a dazzling array of media choices, many Americans simply are not consuming the news. Instead, millions flock to entertainment programs that showcase real-life success stories, such as American Idol, Shark Tank, and MasterChef. Kim examines how shows like these leave viewers confoundingly optimistic about the prospects of upward mobility, promoting a false narrative of rugged individualism and meritocracy that contradicts what is being reported in the news.

By taking seriously what people casually watch every day, The American Mirage shows how rags-to-riches programs perpetuate the myth of the American Dream, glorifying the economic winners, fostering tolerance for income inequality, and dampening support for redistributive policies that could improve people’s lives.

Visit Eunji Kim's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Symphony Concert in Nazi Germany"

New from the University of Chicago Press: The Symphony Concert in Nazi Germany by Neil Gregor.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new history of how the musical worlds of German towns and cities were transformed during the Nazi era.

In the years after the Nazis came to power in January 1933 and through the war years all aspects of life in Germany changed. However, despite the social and political upheaval, gentile citizens were able to continue leisure activities such as attending concerts. In this book, historian Neil Gregor surveys the classical concert scene in Nazi Germany from the perspective of the audience, rather than institutions or performers. Gregor delves into the cultural lives of ordinary Germans under conditions of dictatorship. Did the ways in which Germans heard music in the period change? Did a Nazi way of listening emerge?

For audiences, Gregor shows, changes to the concert experience were small and often took place around the edges. This, combined with the preserved idea of the concert hall as a space of imagined civility and cultivation, led many concertgoers and music lovers to claim after the war that their field and their practice had been innocent—a place to retreat from the vicious violence and racism of the Nazi regime. Drawing on untapped archival sources, The Symphony Concert in Nazi Germany reveals that the true history was one of disruption but also of near effortless adaptation. Through countless small acts, the symphony concert was reframed within the languages of strident nationalism, racism, and militarism to ensure its place inside the cultural cosmos of National Socialist Germany.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Closed Seasons"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: Closed Seasons: The Transformation of Hunting in the Modern South by Julia Brock.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a unique and personal exploration of the game and fish laws in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi from the Progressive Era to the 1930s, Julia Brock offers an innovative history of hunting in the New South. The implementation of conservation laws made significant strides in protecting endangered wildlife species, but it also disrupted traditional hunting practices and livelihoods, particularly among African Americans and poor whites.

Closed Seasons highlights how hunting and fishing regulations were relatively rare in the nineteenth century, but the emerging conservation movement and the rise of a regional “sportsman” identity at the turn of the twentieth century eventually led to the adoption of state-level laws. Once passed, however, these laws, were plagued by obstacles, including insufficient funding and enforcement. Brock traces the dizzying array of factors—propaganda, racial tensions, organizational activism, and federal involvement—that led to effective game and fish laws in the South.

Visit Julia Brock's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Assembling Religion"

New from NYU Press: Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America by Kati Curts.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Henry Ford institutionalized a social gospel

Henry Ford did not just mass produce cars. As a member of the Episcopal Church, reader of New Thought texts, believer in the “gospel of reincarnation,” mass marketer of antisemitic material, and employer who institutionalized a social gospel, Henry Ford’s contributions to American models of business were informed by and produced for an America he understood to be broadly Christian. Though Ford’s efforts at the head of the Ford Motor Company have commonly been understood as secular, Ford himself was explicit that his work in engineering and auto production was prophetic and meant to remake the world.

This religious history of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company repositions them within critical studies of religion, examining how Ford transformed American religious practice in the twentieth century. Drawing directly on documents from Ford’s archive, it examines Ford’s mass production methods and bureaucratic reforms as examples of prosperity gospel traditions, illuminating the ways manufacturing and technology intersect with American religious practice. Bridging American religious and industrial history, Assembling Religion offers a new and surprising way to understand Ford’s impact on culture, commerce, and the technology of labor.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making the Invisible Real"

New from Oxford University Press: Making the Invisible Real: Practices of Seeing in Tibetan Pilgrimage by Catherine Hartmann.

About the book, from the publisher:

How can a person learn to see a mountain as a divine mandala, especially when, to the ordinary eye, the mountain looks like a pile of rocks and snow? This is the challenge that the Tibetan pilgrimage tradition poses to pilgrims, who are told to overcome their ordinary perception to see the hidden reality of the holy mountain.

Drawing on multiple genres of Tibetan literature from the 13th to 20th centuries--including foundational narratives of holy places, polemical debates about the value of pilgrimage, written guides to holy sites, advice texts, and personal diaries--this book investigates how the pilgrimage tradition tries to transform pilgrims' perception so that they might experience the wondrous sacred landscape as real and materially present. Catherine Anne Hartmann argues that the pilgrimage tradition does not simply assume that pilgrims experience this sacred landscape as real, but instead leads pilgrims to adopt deliberate practices of seeing: ways of looking at and interacting with the world that shape their experience of the holy mountain.

Making the Invisible Real explores two ways of seeing: the pilgrim's ordinary perception of the world, and the fantastic vision believed to lie beyond this ordinary perception. As pilgrims move through the holy place, they move back and forth between these two ways of seeing, weaving the ordinary perceived world and extraordinary imagined world together into a single experience. Hartmann shows us how seemingly fantastical religious worldviews are not simply believed or taken for granted, but actively constructed and reconstructed for new generations of practitioners.

Visit Kate Hartmann's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mirages of Reform"

New from Cornell University Press: Mirages of Reform: The Politics of Elite Protectionism in the Arab World by Steve L. Monroe.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Mirages of Reform, Steve L. Monroe argues that geopolitics and social connections between state and capital underpin the Arab world's uneven trade policies. Despite decades of international pressure, neoliberal trade policy reform in the Arab world has been varied, selective, and often ineffective. Neoliberal trade policies have not deepened international trade in many of the region's markets. This book explains why.

When the region's regimes have strong support from global powers and strong social connections to the industrial elite, they engage in extensive but deceptive trade policy reform. Behind an edifice of neoliberal trade policies, neopatrimonial forms of protectionism like tax evasion and noncompetitive procurement shield the socially connected from international competition and obstruct actual trade liberalization. Industrialists are less trustful of regime promises of neopatrimonial protectionism after reform when they have weak social connections to their regime and their regime has low support from global powers. They are more likely to defend existing protectionist policies under these conditions, resulting in less trade policy reform.

Drawing on interviews, firm- and industry-level data, and evidence from Jordan to Morocco, Mirages of Reform reveals how international and domestic factors interact to shape the Arab world's rugged trade policy terrain. Insightful and well researched, this book imparts important lessons and warnings about the repercussions of economic reform in the region.

Visit Steve L. Monroe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Harvests of Liberation"

New from Stanford University Press: Harvests of Liberation: Cotton, Capitalism, and the End of Empire in Egypt by Ahmad Shokr.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the first half of the twentieth century, a major change occurred in Egyptian nationalist understandings of imperialism and economic sovereignty. Where once the volatilities of foreign markets and capital were seen as the main threat, over time large landowners and their imperial allies were targeted as the principal obstacles to the country's industrial progress. The perceived locus of imperial domination shifted from the realm of circulation to the realm of production. Harvests of Liberation situates this transformation in the midcentury dynamics of agrarian capitalism in Egypt. Ahmad Shokr tells a story of decolonization through the lens of cotton, Egypt's prized export. He follows a range of actors—colonial advisors, nationalist leaders, agrarian reformers, merchant-financiers, landowners, and rural workers—whose interactions moved the levers of the cotton trade from institutions that facilitated accumulation on an imperial scale to new sites of control within the nation-state. Amidst depression and war, the transformation of Egypt's cotton economy prompted nationalists to embrace policies of land reform and industrialization and adopt a new conception of history. Ultimately, Shokr argues, these efforts set the stage for the construction of a postcolonial republic under Gamal Abdel Nasser, where national liberation became equated with national development.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Freedom Enterprise"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: Freedom Enterprise: Black Entrepreneurship and Racial Capitalism in Detroit by Kendra D. Boyd.

About the book, from the publisher:

Traces the rise and fall of the historic Black business community in Detroit

The Great Migration saw more than six million African Americans leave the US South between 1910 and 1970. Though the experiences of migrant laborers are well-known, countless African Americans also left the South to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities and viewed business as key to Black liberation. Detroit’s status as a mecca for Black entrepreneurship illuminates this overlooked aspect of the Great Migration story. In Freedom Enterprise, Kendra D. Boyd uses “migrant entrepreneurship” as a lens through which to understand the entwined histories of Black-owned business, racial capitalism, and urban space.

Freedom Enterprise follows Black Southerners’ journeys to Detroit during the initial wave of migration in the 1910s and 1920s, through their efforts to build a prosperous Black business community in the 1930s and 1940s, to the destruction of that community through urban renewal projects and freeway construction in the 1950s and 1960s. Combining business and social history methods to analyze an eclectic archive, Boyd chronicles migrant entrepreneurs’ experiences, highlighting tales of racial and economic violence, Black women’s business organizing, illegal business, communist entrepreneurs, and cooperative economics.

Boyd uses the framework of racial capitalism to examine migrant entrepreneurs’ experiences in twentieth-century America. In the Jim Crow South, African Americans worried about white mobs taking away their property, wealth, and lives. Though they sought refuge in Detroit, migrant entrepreneurs subsequently faced the loss of their livelihoods and the businesses they had spent decades building to the bulldozers of state-sponsored urban redevelopment initiatives. Southern migrants’ “freedom enterprise”—their undertaking of attaining freedom through business—was curtailed by the reality of operating within the confines of US racial capitalism.

In tracing Black entrepreneurs across the Great Migration, Freedom Enterprise provides important insights into African Americans’ activism for racial and economic justice and continued racialized wealth disparities.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Karl Marx in America"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Karl Marx in America by Andrew Hartman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The vital and untold story of Karl Marx’s stamp on American life.

To read Karl Marx is to contemplate a world created by capitalism. People have long viewed the United States as the quintessential anti-Marxist nation, but Marx’s ideas have inspired a wide range of people to formulate a more precise sense of the stakes of the American project. Historians have highlighted the imprint made on the United States by Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and Thomas Paine, but Marx is rarely considered alongside these figures. Yet his ideas are the most relevant today because of capitalism’s centrality to American life.

In Karl Marx in America, historian Andrew Hartman argues that even though Karl Marx never visited America, the country has been infused, shaped, and transformed by him. Since the beginning of the Civil War, Marx has been a specter in the American machine. During the Gilded Age, socialists read Marx as an antidote to the unchecked power of corporations. In the Great Depression, communists turned to Marx in hopes of transcending the destructive capitalist economy. The young activists of the 1960s were inspired by Marx as they gathered to protest an overseas war. Marx’s influence today is evident, too, as Americans have become increasingly attuned to issues of inequality, labor, and power.

After decades of being pushed to the far-left corner of intellectual thought, Marx’s ideologies have crossed over into the mainstream and are more alive than ever. Working-class consciousness is on the rise, and, as Marx argued, the future of a capitalist society rests in the hands of the people who work at the point of production. A valuable resource for anyone interested in Marx’s influence on American political discourse, Karl Marx in America is a thought-provoking account of the past, present, and future of his philosophies in American society.

The Page 99 Test: A War for the Soul of America.

--Marshal Zeringue