"Governing Animals, Governing Humans"

New from Oxford University Press: Governing Animals, Governing Humans: Animal Protection Politics and the Government of Human―Animal Relations in European and Global Politics by Judith Renner.

About the book, from the publisher:

Governing Animals, Governing Humans explores how the global politics of animal protection works as the government of human-animal relations. Responding to recent calls by scholars coming from post-humanist, new materialist, or post-anthropocentric backgrounds who criticize the discipline's human-centred outlook it suggests a way how animals can be analyzed as targets of government by bringing into conversation Foucauldian scholarship within IR, political science and Critical Animal Studies (CAS).

Empirically, the book is driven by an interest to understand and theorize two contradicting global tendencies in regard to how humans relate to animals: on the one hand, a growing global concern for animals which has led to animal protection and animal welfare turning into issues of international relevance. On the other hand, the growing use and exploitation of animals as means of human convenience which manifests in the increase of the global trade in animal products, in the numbers of animals used worldwide and in the conditions under which these animals are kept. The book argues that whereas these tendencies seem to be conflicting on the first view, they are in fact closely intertwined as animal welfare, which has emerged as the dominant strategy of global animal protection, establishes the intensive production and use of animals along animal welfare standards as the primary practice of animal protection, coopts animals and humans into this strategy as subjects of animal welfare and animal consumption and thus governs human-animal relations along the seemingly contradicting but intertwined tendencies of animal protection and animal use.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Insecurity Politics"

New from Princeton University Press: Insecurity Politics: How Unstable Lives Lead to Populist Support by Lorenza Antonucci.

About the book, from the publisher:

The everyday realities of financial and work insecurity that drive right- and left-wing populism

In Insecurity Politics, Lorenza Antonucci examines the lived, everyday experiences that underpin political disaffection. Countering the reductive portrayals of populist voters as left-behind outsiders, Antonucci focuses on the ordinary, yet increasingly precarious, realities of work and financial instability as key to understanding the surge in populist support in both right- and left-wing politics. Drawing on robust comparative quantitative and qualitative analyses across nine European countries, Insecurity Politics describes the microlevel material and cultural dynamics that drive anti-establishment politics. It finds that dissatisfaction with work and a growing sense of financial insecurity fuel populist sentiments.

Antonucci maps the evolving landscape of insecurity in contemporary Europe, tracing its roots to structural transformations of welfare states and deep-seated cultural shifts. Proposing an original framework that combines cultural and economic explanations, the book shows how economic, social, and political factors shape receptivity to anti-establishment politics. Moving beyond conventional wisdom that attributes today’s populism to cultural backlash or globalization, Antonucci addresses a critical blind spot in current research. But Insecurity Politics offers more than a mere diagnosis; it also argues that a nuanced understanding of populist attitudes could inform a renewed political agenda—one more attuned to the complex realities of people's lives.

Visit Lorenza Antonucci's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Whispers in the Pews"

New from NYU Press: Whispers in the Pews: Evangelical Uniformity in a Divided America by Amy D. McDowell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reveals how mundane social interactions in an evangelical church silence difference and reinforce right-wing conformity

Small talk, whether enjoyed or despised, is often thought of as trivial and largely useless. In certain situations, however, it can be surprisingly powerful. Whispers in the Pews offers a bottom-up explanation of Christian nationalism, revealing how cultural homogeneity within evangelical church communities is upheld by an active, manufactured effort to dodge reflective engagement with topics that could stir up diverging points of view.

Whispers in the Pews exposes how small talk is utilized to construct an appearance of social and political sameness in evangelical church communities. Based on an ethnography of a church that appeals to students, working class residents, and racial minorities alike in a politically divided Southern college town, McDowell showcases how churchgoers avoid consequential issues that could expose disagreements on border control, electoral politics, race and gender.

By confining themselves to blander topics, the church, which prides itself on inclusivity, positions itself as welcoming to all. But by creating an environment in which certain topics are discouraged from discussion, a façade is developed in which everyone is assumed to believe the same things, and any sort of debate is silenced. Whispers in the Pews shows that the presumption that everyone is of the same mind makes it difficult for churchgoers to articulate or contemplate progressive views, and by extension, advances the idea that differences of opinion are un-Christian, and therefore un-American.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Transnational Women's Liberation"

New from Oxford University Press: Transnational Women's Liberation: Feminist Activism in the US, UK, and France, 1967–79 by Tess Little.

About the book, from the publisher:

Across different cities, countries, and continents, the women's liberation movement grew from the grassroots, beginning with small discussion groups in the late 1960s to thousands marching in the streets less than a decade later. Political positions varied and methods of struggle were diverse, from consciousness-raising, street theatre, and squatting, to feminist bookshops, healthcare services, and refuges for women escaping domestic violence. But how did this informal, staunchly leaderless social movement grow across national borders? Did women's liberation activists in different countries see themselves as fighting in the same struggle?

Taking a case study of movements in the US, UK, and France, this history investigates the transnational reach of women's liberation. It brings together analyses of archival sources-from flyers, posters, and activist newsletters to personal correspondence and oral testimony, including interviews recorded by the author, now archived at the British Library. Chapters move from activist awakenings and movement origins in all three countries to different areas of activism: theorising, protest, healthcare, and the establishment of childcare, refuge, and rape crisis services.

Throughout, Tess Little traces the creation and travel of feminist texts, protest tactics, and organisational methods, examining the ways activists adapted ideas to new contexts. How did a sketch drawn by a woman in New York appear on Parisian t-shirts? How did a derelict house in Hounslow lead to the international establishment of refuges? How did a French abortion manifesto inspire women abroad to speak out? And where were connections with other countries not so significant?

This is a history of the movement of feminism between groups, cities, regions, countries, a history of the travel of ideas. But it is also a history of the movement itself: how the women's liberation movement worked, how it operated, where it came from, and what it was. It is, moreover, the history of feminism as movement: a certain kind of feminism which was put into practice through collective action.

Visit Tess Little's website.

Q&A with Tess Little.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Techno-Negative"

New from the University of Minnesota Press: Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine by Thomas Dekeyser.

About the book, from the publisher:

A radical history of technology told through acts of resistance, not progress

The history of technology is often told as a history of progress, moving optimistically and inevitably from one emancipatory invention to the next. Techno-Negative turns this story on its head, taking us on a journey to the critical junctures where people have pointedly rejected and tried to undo, rather than adopt, new technologies. Beginning with Archimedes’s decision to destroy his own war machines, this book explores the will to negate technology as a deep―but persistently condemned―current in history.

As he presents a new theory of technological power, Thomas Dekeyser argues that technologies, never neutral, operate as “ontological policing,” drawing the boundaries of humanness as they are unequally leveraged by select groups. Looking beyond the Luddites to medieval monks banning tools, seventeenth-century loom burners, revolutionary lantern smashers, and computer arsonists, Dekeyser shows how people have long recognized and resisted the machine as a violent, sometimes deadly force implicated in defining who counts as human and whose lives (and ways of life) are worth saving.

Against the ubiquitous demands to reform or accelerate technological “advancement” that have failed to disrupt our present, Dekeyser proposes a spirited alternative: abolition. He challenges us to rethink the terms of our technological present and future. In a time when Big Tech grows increasingly enmeshed with authoritarian control, Techno-Negative is a conceptual declaration, and source of inspiration, for those searching for a new paradigm of technological politics.

Visit Thomas Dekeyser's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Nation Within"

New from Stanford University Press: A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Postimperial Japan by Sayaka Chatani.

About the book, from the publisher:

The presence of hundreds of thousands ethnic Koreans in Japan, or "zainichi Koreans," is one of the visible legacies of Japanese colonialism. A surprising and influential group among zainichi Koreans that persists to this day is Chongryon, the only pro–North Korean diasporic group based in a capitalist society. Chongryon historically represented the central grassroots force seeking to liberate Koreans from Japan's imperial and neo-imperial influences. At the heart of the Chongryon community stands a political organization equipped with a central bureaucracy in Tokyo, with a headquarters in nearly every prefecture. Often called a de facto embassy of North Korea, the Chongryon organization has, in effect, functioned as a state within another state―operating hundreds of schools, banks, hospitals, business associations, publishing houses, and many other institutions across Japan.

Based on extensive archival research and nearly 250 original interviews collected with co-researcher KumHee Cho, who was raised within the Chongryon community, Sayaka Chatani offers a sweeping social history of this secretive, protective community in xenophobic Japanese society. Weaving together personal accounts and situating them in a multi-layered, transnational political context, the book offers a finely textured, intimate narrative of the community's tumultuous history and decolonial praxis. Through the stories of Chongryon, this book provides a bottom-up analysis of power politics among zainichi Koreans and reshapes our understanding of Japanese history, Korean history, and the Cold War in Asia.

Visit Sayaka Chatani's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Betrayal of the Homeland"

New from Columbia University Press: Betrayal of the Homeland: Disloyal Subjects in Wartime Syria by Samer Abboud.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Syrian regime endured the uprisings that began in 2011, aided by Russian military intervention in 2015 that changed the trajectory of the conflict and brought more territory under government control, until its eventual collapse in 2024. Over this period, how did the state attempt to manage the conflict away from the battlefield and reestablish control over the population?

Samer Abboud argues that the Syrian regime sought to entrench its rule during wartime through bifurcating society into “loyal” and “disloyal” subjects―and punishing those it deemed treacherous. The regime framed the conflict as a war on terror, portraying its opponents as traitors to the homeland. In the post-2015 period, it established new laws, courts, and legal categories that targeted “betrayal,” which could include anything from military desertion to absenteeism to critical social media posts. Disloyal subjects were subjected to various forms of punishment and denied reentry into the country if they had been displaced. Bringing together the regime’s narratives and rhetoric with the machinery of bureaucratic practices, Abboud traces how the state sculpted the divide between loyalty and disloyalty. Empirically rich and theoretically informed, Betrayal of the Homeland offers a panoramic view of the politics of punishment during the final decade of the Assad regime, with broader implications for understanding how authoritarian states manage conflicts.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship"

New from Oxford University Press: Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants by Anna O. Law.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since the late nineteenth century, the US federal government has enjoyed exclusive authority to decide whether someone has the ability to enter and stay in US territory. But freedom of movement was not guaranteed in the British colonies or early US. By contrast, voluntary migrants were met with strict laws and policies created by colonies and states, which denied free mobility and settlement in their territories to unwanted populations.

Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship presents a story of constitutional development that traces the confluence of the logics of slavery and settler colonialism in early legal rulings and public policy about migration and citizenship. The book examines the division of labor between the national and state governments that endured for over a century, reasons why that arrangement changed in the late nineteenth century, and what the transformation meant for people subject to those regimes of control. Drawing into one study the migration policy histories of groups of people that are usually studied separately, and combining the methodologies of political science, history, and law, Anna O. Law reveals the unmistakable effects of slavery and Native American dispossession in modern US immigration policy.

Visit Anna O. Law's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"After Liberation"

New from Stanford University Press: After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions by Hilary Matfess.

About the book, from the publisher:

War offers opportunities for women to liberate their communities and build a better life for themselves. When women join rebel groups, they often take on new roles, cultivate new social networks, and develop new skills. These rebel women often gain the respect of rebel leaders, their comrades-in-arms, and the communities they're fighting for. When the guns are silenced, however, women have struggled to maintain the progress and prestige that they gained during war. Hilary Matfess investigates the gendered legacies of conflict and considers why it is so difficult for female veterans to defend the gains they made during war.

This book explores how both individual female veterans and former-rebel political parties balance the incentives to continue their wartime activities or moderate them to succeed in the postwar period. The particular balance struck―by party elites and by female veterans―shapes women's rights and representation after war. Drawing on cross-national statistics and in-depth qualitative case studies of rebel groups―from Ethiopia, Namibia, El Salvador, and Nepal―Matfess advances a theory to explain the postwar legacies of women's participation in rebellion at both the individual and the organizational levels. This book helps us understand why women that were once lauded as the backbone of the revolution are so frequently relegated to the backburner after war.

Visit Hilary Matfess's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bicentennial"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s by Marc Stein.

About the book, from the publisher:

As the United States marks its semiquincentennial in 2026, renowned historian Marc Stein looks back at the politics of another landmark celebration during a time of striking similarities and surprising differences: the US bicentennial in 1976.

In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, the bicentennial sparked an extraordinary national conversation about the country’s past, present, and future. As patriots, planners, profiteers, and protesters argued about how to commemorate the national birthday, they collectively reimagined the promises and perils of democracy during a transformational decade.

From award-winning historian Marc Stein, Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s is an original, illuminating, and insightful study of that era. While focusing on festivities and fights in Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace, the book also explores the many proposed and abandoned celebrations that percolated up around the country. It tells a broadly democratic story of both the “official” bicentennial and counter-bicentennial activism, offering revolutionary perspectives on national politics, social movements, and popular culture. From the queer courtship of President Richard Nixon and Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo to parades and protests with millions of participants, and from a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at Philadelphia’s most prestigious hotel to the establishment of groundbreaking African American, ethnic, and Jewish museums, the bicentennial reveals a kaleidoscope of American peculiarities, problems, and possibilities.

The lasting influence of 1976 on one of the nation’s great urban centers and the United States as a whole is undeniable. As the nation—once again enmeshed in political and social upheaval—marks its two-hundred-fiftieth birthday in 2026, there is no better time to look back at its two-hundredth and marvel at what has changed, and what has not.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Workplace of Their Own"

New from Oxford University Press: A Workplace of Their Own: Rockefeller, Roche, and Labor's Battle Over Industrial Democracy by María E. Montoya.

About the book, from the publisher:

At the turn of the twentieth century Colorado's coalfields were the site of the nation's most violent labor conflicts. The remote mountains were home to mining companies that provided workers and their families with supervised housing, education, health care, and stores. Resisting corporate control, workers deployed armed bands against their employers, leading to a pitched battle between the groups for control over the workplace. Efforts to defuse the situation, including strategies that had worked in other industries, all failed.

In this book, Maria E. Montoya examines two key figures who practiced rival Progressive reforms for resolving these industrial conflicts. John D. Rockefeller Jr. used paternalism and philanthropy to promote the scientific management of his workers' professional and personal lives. Josephine Roche advocated for worker autonomy, collective bargaining, and government-backed labor protections. Both honed their Progressive ideals in New York City and transported these ideas to manage their businesses in Colorado. Their reform efforts played out and eventually failed against the backdrop of the deadliest mining conflicts of the early twentieth century, the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the 1927 Columbine Massacre. Rockefeller's Industrial Relations Plan did not satisfy his workers and could not prevent strikes. Roche's vision of expert-supervised collective bargaining collapsed under the political and economic pressures brought on by the Depression.

Presenting both the capitalists and the men and women who worked and lived in their mining towns, A Workplace of Their Own shows how they grappled with issues around workplace conditions, compensation, benefits, work hours, and corporate decisionmaking-questions that remain as relevant today as they were in the early twentieth century.

Visit María E. Montoya's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Between the Buddha and the New Tsar"

New from Cornell University Press: Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia by Kristina Jonutytė.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between the Buddha and the New Tsar is an ethnography of contemporary urban Buddhism in Buryatia, a republic within the Russian Federation. Kristina Jonutytė shows how—in this ethnically and religiously diverse borderland region—Buryat Buddhists are caught between an oppressive, militant Russian regime and the tenacity of local religious and cultural forms. As Jonutytė narrates, historically Buryat Buddhism has been tightly linked with the Russian state ever since the imperial period, a relationship with mutual interest and benefits. Yet everyday Buddhist practices point to a more complex picture, shedding light on precarity, minoritization, struggles for cultural sovereignty, and infrapolitical religious forms. Between the Buddha and the New Tsar reveals the important ways in which the urban setting is not just a backdrop to Buddhism, but that religion and the city are intertwined and mutually impactful.

Kristina Jonutytė is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University. She is a social anthropologist with research interests in political anthropology, ethnicity and religion.

--Marshal Zeringue

"I Hear Freedom"

New from Columbia University Press: I Hear Freedom: The Great Migration, Free Jazz, and Black Power by Cisco Bradley.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the 1960s, a musical revolution took place in the industrial landscapes of Cleveland and Detroit. Disenchanted with the strictures of bebop, musicians forged a new style―free jazz―that took inspiration from a vast range of sources, including figures such as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and John Coltrane; African and Middle Eastern music; avant-garde modernism; and the politics and aesthetics of Black Power. How did this radical movement come about, and what explains its creativity and vitality?

Based on interviews with dozens of musicians, I Hear Freedom tells the story of free jazz and its connection to the broader Black experience. Cisco Bradley demonstrates that although this part of the free jazz movement arose in the Midwest, it is deeply rooted in the musical traditions and aesthetics that the Great Migration brought from the South. As postwar urban renewal projects fractured Black communities, musicians drew on this heritage to create new forms of expression. Figures such as Albert Ayler, Donald Ayler, Charles Tyler, Frank Wright, Bobby Few, Charles Moore, and Faruq Z. Bey developed distinct artistic visions, often influenced by their involvement in Black liberation movements. I Hear Freedom chronicles the Cleveland and Detroit free jazz scenes, and it follows musicians to New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and beyond. A revelatory oral history, this book shows that free jazz is a uniquely Black style shaped by mobility, community, and the struggle for freedom.

Visit Cisco Bradley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mormon Barrio"

New from NYU Press: Mormon Barrio: Latino Belonging in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Sujey Vega.

About the book, from the publisher:

Illuminates the unique struggles and triumphs of Latino Latter-day Saints, the second largest demographic group in the church

The Mormon community is usually thought of as a homogenous, white-dominant faith. However, Latinos make up the second largest demographic group in the Church, with about 3.3 million practicing members today. Despite their rich history and influence, little research has focused on Latinos within the LDS Church or the push-pull factors that have attracted Spanish-speaking members to Mormonism in record numbers.

Mormon Barrio charts the century-long history of Latino Latter-day Saints, examining their historic and present contributions to the Mormon faith as well as their unique positioning within the religion’s demographic makeup. Early in the Church’s history, founder Joseph Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, denied Black members full participation in the faith. Latino Saints existed somewhere between White and Black members in this system. Since the late 1970s the church has disavowed the belief that people with dark skin are inferior, but the Church is still an overwhelmingly white institution.

Centering the voices of Latino LDS members, the volume explores how Latino Mormons have navigated and established a sense of belonging for themselves within the faith, countering its Whiteness and coming to terms with its racist history. It shows how Latino Mormons have developed ethnoreligious barrios (communities) to function as sacred ethnic collectives where their religious beliefs and cultural practices can intersect. And it pays particular attention to gender, and to the ways in which Latina Mormons engage their faith and feminism to navigate their gendered positions within Mormonism. Mormon Barrio demystifies the lived ethno-religious experiences of Latino Mormons and accentuates their efforts to build a sense of communal belonging within their faith.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spirits of Empire"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: Spirits of Empire: How Settler Colonialism Made American Religion by Tisa Wenger.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Declaration of Independence depicted Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages, and from its founding the United States aimed to expand westward by seizing Indigenous lands. While white settlers saw these conquests as victories for “true religion,” native people invoked the spirits in their own defense. Some claimed the powers of Christianity, while others drew on the English-language concept of religion to redefine their own ancestral traditions. As all sorts of people struggled to make their way within this new empire, a broad variety of new religious movements emerged.

In this groundbreaking book, historian Tisa Wenger shows how the history of American religion unfolded on these settler colonial foundations. The imperatives of US empire, she argues, shaped the category and traditions of what we know as religion. Wenger also introduces the concept of “settler secularism” to explain how white settlers defined and managed religion in their own image, in order to facilitate their own rule. She shows how the concept of “religion”—whether as a special thing that requires protection or a mark of the primitive that must be transcended—has most often served the interests of those in power. Ultimately, settler colonialism organized American religion and created religious hierarchies that still influence the United States today.

Visit Tisa Wenger's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Meaning of It All"

New from Oxford University Press: The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time by Rivka Weinberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

You can stock your life with important work, relationships, activities, and art, and yet, you can still ask: what's the point of it all? Almost every thinking person has had that question―many more than once. Granted, you're more likely to worry about the point of life when things are not going well, but you're also likely to still ask this question when you've finally received that promotion, achieved a goal, or raised your children―exactly when it seems like the question shouldn't arise.

In The Meaning of It All, Rivka Weinberg argues this is because there are different kinds of meaning, and some of them, sadly, are impossible to achieve. She explains what they are, illuminates which types of meaning are possible, which are impossible, and shows us how we might orient our lives in light of these bittersweet truths. Although we all die in the end, Weinberg explains why death doesn't make life more or less meaningful. Instead, it is time that is necessary for meaning, even as it also undermines it by wearing away the fruits of our efforts and commitments. Weinberg shows that most advice on how to reduce the agony of time's erosions cannot work. However, she also shows how we can tease out some insights from failed attempts to escape time's wounds and thereby make progress toward coping with things as they are. A meaningful life is one lived in the fullness of time, accepting suffering, acknowledging our tragic losses and limitations, and making the most of Everyday Meaning.

Visit Rivka Weinberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Servants of God, Slaves of the Church"

New from Cornell University Press: Servants of God, Slaves of the Church: Service as Religious Metaphor and Social Reality in Early Medieval Europe by Lisa Kaaren Bailey.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Servants of God, Slaves of the Church, Lisa Kaaren Bailey uncovers the surprising intimacy between sacred devotion and coerced labor in early medieval Europe. From queens who scrubbed monastery floors to enslaved women forced into lifelong service, acts of humility and acts of subjugation often looked the same and were interpreted through the same religious lens. Drawing from sermons, letters, miracle stories, and hagiographies, Bailey shows how metaphors of service shaped not only elite piety but also the lived experience of those at the very bottom of the social order.

This is a story of lives that were often absent from the historical record: those who lit church lamps, laundered liturgical linens, and sustained Christian worship through their unseen labor. Bailey weaves together theology, cultural history, and feminist historiography to trace how Christian ideas about virtue, sin, and the will both justified unfreedom and offered tools to contest it. Her use of "critical fabulation" animates the archive without fictionalizing it, allowing glimpses of agency in places where it was rarely recorded.

By placing the metaphor of service alongside its social reality, Servants of God, Slaves of the Church reshapes how we think about labor, power, and religious meaning in the centuries after Rome. A deeply informed work of both historical scholarship and moral insight, this book gives voice to the voiceless and demands a reconsideration of what it meant to serve God.

--Marshal Zeringue

"White Care"

New from the University of Chicago Press: White Care: The Impact of Race on American Infrastructure by Cotten Seiler.

About the book, from the publisher:

Framing infrastructure as the expression of a state’s care for its population, White Care explores the crucial role of race in the building, maintenance, scope, and quality of US infrastructure.

Infrastructure delivers to its users a range of benefits, from health, safety, and sanitation to mobility, energy, and education. It is, as Cotten Seiler argues, how modern states show care for their populations. White Care recounts the rise and fall of public infrastructure in the United States, unearthing its origins as an investment in those Americans deemed most highly evolved, showing the political stakes of its desegregation, and accounting for its current state of dilapidation.

From the late nineteenth century through much of the twentieth, government investments in physical (“hard”) and social (“soft”) infrastructure constituted a regime of care that Seiler calls “custodial liberalism.” This regime achieved legitimacy with the New Deal, which conferred upon white citizens a bounty of life-enhancing public works. But custodial liberalism began to unravel in the postwar decades, as Americans of color gained access to public schools, housing, swimming pools, parks, and other sites from which they had long been excluded. As the infrastructural commons were desegregated, white Americans withdrew from the social compact that had empowered them and turned toward neoliberalism, with its program of austerity and privatization. This racialized renunciation has deprived everyone—including themselves—of a cleaner, greener, healthier, safer, more affordable, and more functional environment.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Conserving China's Northwest Frontier"

New from Oxford University Press: Conserving China's Northwest Frontier: Nature, Culture, and Future by You-Tien Hsing.

About the book, from the publisher:

China's immense northwest holds the key to the country's internal geopolitical and socioeconomic restructuring and global soft power today. In addition to hosting mega investments in energy, mining, infrastructure, and urban development, this resource-rich and ethnically diverse, yet under-studied, territory of 3.7 million square kilometres is leading China's rising developmental ethos of conserving nature and culture.

Conserving China's Northwest Frontier offers nuanced accounts of the under-studied and often misunderstood region with fresh perspectives from the ground up. Derived from decade-long ethnography in three sites in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Gansu province of the northwest from 2011 to 2022, this book also offers an unusually expansive coverage on three counts. Topically, it integrates both environmental and heritage conservation. Temporally, it situates the contemporary conservation politics within geopolitical, ethnoterritorial, and environmental histories of the frontier region. Spatially, it connects multiple territorial scales from the global, national, regional, to the grassroots.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Leave If You Can"

New from the University of California Press: Leave If You Can: Migration and Violence in Bordered Worlds by Amelia Frank-Vitale.

About the book, from the publisher:

The consequences of U.S. border policies through the experiences of Honduran migrants.

Hondurans have been at the heart of some of the most visible migration phenomena in the last few years, as well as the direct target of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy. In Leave If You Can, Amelia Frank-Vitale offers a detailed portrait of the Honduran exodus and what it reveals about the broader consequences of changing US border enforcement policies. She highlights the stories of those who are often presented as unsympathetic: deported young men implicitly associated with the very violence they are trying to flee. In the process, she challenges underlying assumptions frequently held by policy makers and humanitarian agencies.

Connecting overlapping regimes of mobility control, from the invisible gangland borders within San Pedro Sula to the growing expansiveness of the U.S. border's reach, this book shows how deportation does not deter migration but, in fact, keeps people moving, and how U.S. policies fuel the migration "crisis" they claim to address. Drawing from her own experiences accompanying migrant caravans over many years, Frank-Vitale also explores how caravans emerge as both protest movement and migration tactic in response to this expanding border regime.

Visit Amelia Frank-Vitale's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The State of Lebanon"

New from Stanford University Press: The State of Lebanon: Popular Politics and Institution Building in the Wake of Independence by Ziad Abu-Rish.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lebanon gained its formal political independence in 1943. During the dozen years that followed, women and men across class, sectarian, geographic, and ideological divides built, challenged, and reformed the institutional arrangements that would shape the country. With this book, Ziad Abu-Rish traces shifting patterns of alliances and conflict that shaped the material and representational production of the Lebanese nation-state. Exploring labor regimes, women's suffrage, the provision of electricity in Beirut, public education, and the armed forces―and the meetings, lectures, pamphlets, delegations, and protests they produced―Abu-Rish demonstrates how elite and popular groups mobilized normative ideas about independence and state power.

The State of Lebanon offers a new social and institutional history of post-colonial Lebanon. Abu-Rish challenges common narratives of an absent, weak, or failed state. Instead, state institutional arrangements emerge as objects and subjects of political mobilization by politicians, bureaucrats, party activists, students, and workers. Rather than read history backward from the present, he approaches the past on its own terms. In so doing, Abu-Rish offers significant insights into politics, social life, and the state in Lebanon―grounded in the early post-independence period yet critical to how we understand Lebanon today.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Designing Global Economic Equality"

New from Oxford University Press: Designing Global Economic Equality: The Making and Unmaking of Global Egalitarian Politics at the United Nations: An Intellectual History by Christian Olaf Christiansen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Designing Global Economic Equality is an intellectual history of global inequality: a story of the rise and fall of ideas for global egalitarian politics, or global equality by design. Tracing the writings of United Nations thinkers and their intellectual environments, it contributes to historiographies on inequality, the UN, development, international relations theory, business in society, and neoliberalism. Drawing on sources from development economics, political science, and international relations to UN reports, newspaper articles, management literature, and interviews with contemporary UN experts, it investigates how vocabularies of global inequality shifted over time.

The book finds that from the 1940s onward, global economic inequality remained a persistent theme. Global egalitarians not only championed equality norms but also concrete instruments-especially development, redistribution, and restructuring-while remaining critical of both global economic hierarchies and the belief that markets alone would ensure equality. The 1970s marked the high point of efforts to design a global equality regime, only to see these hopes dismantled in the early 1980s with the rise of neoliberal globalization.

By the late 1990s, the failure of these policies paved the way for “inclusive capitalism,” a depoliticized approach to inequality. Yet global egalitarian ideas endured, and the UN continued to produce inequality statistics, set global norms, and foster international dialogue. In the wake of the 2007-2008 crises, as inequality debates re-emerged with force, familiar themes and warnings resurfaced. Offering a history of widening gaps and efforts to close them, this book tells a story from which we may still learn.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Modernity in Argentina, 1776–1852"

New from the University of Pittsburgh Press: Modernity in Argentina, 1776–1852 by Adriana Novoa.

About the book, from the publisher:

As rigorous scientific and philosophical discourse circulated during the Enlightenment, aided by the Republic of Letters, a revolutionary understanding of gender emerged that would impact nation building in Europe and the Americas. In From Virile to Sterile, Adriana Novoa analyzes the cosmopolitan citizens of this metaphysical republic―an international community of scholars and literary figures―and the first universal modern male identity it established. By the end of the eighteenth century, she reveals, men’s role in society had fundamentally changed. This “man of letters” possessed a masculinity that was learned and shared―different from the warrior model of the past. The modern man represented a new notion of patriotism linked to knowledge and institutions that promoted intellectual dynamism, change, and self-transformation. For a conservativism that despised radical liberalism and its science, this new masculinity was degenerate and villainous, a sign of extinction and sterility. The virile man was stable and unchanging, his authority rooted in continuity and stability. Novoa explores this complex gendering of science, modernity, and civilization in Argentina during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and how a universal characterization of masculinity shaped the politics of the River Plate Viceroyalty and later the creation of the Argentine Republic.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution"

New from Princeton University Press: The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History by Mark Peterson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A provocative new history of America’s constitution and an urgent call to action for a nation confronted by challenges its founders could never have imagined

The American Revolution occurred at a time when Britain’s constitutional order failed to adapt to the extraordinary growth of its colonies. The framers designed an American constitution to succeed where Britain’s had faltered, planning for continuous population and territorial expansion that would eventually cross the continent. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, it was already ill-suited for an increasingly urban, industrialized society, and the transformations of the twentieth century have pushed it to a breaking point. This book charts the history and aims of the American constitution from its origins in an agrarian past to the grave crisis we face today.

Mark Peterson traces the American constitutional tradition to the control of land in medieval England, showing how the founders incorporated the aspirations of Magna Carta with the administrative principles of the Domesday Book, a meticulous survey and valuation of landed property commissioned by William the Conqueror. This framework encouraged the growth of democratic self-government in a young nation. It also institutionalized the colonization of territory and the expulsion of Indigenous peoples, establishing a legal blueprint for transforming tribal lands into revenue-yielding real estate for settlers. Peterson’s riveting narrative paints an arresting picture of a dynamic republic whose frame of government has changed enormously to meet the challenges of the modern age but whose written constitution has changed very little.

Marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution reveals how this widening disconnect threatens the very existence of our democracy. It calls for a constitution that sustains the ideals developed over the past thousand years while meeting the challenges of the future.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Rogue States"

New from Cornell University Press: Rogue States: The Making of America's Global War on Terror by Matthew A. Frakes.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Rogue States, Matthew A. Frakes reveals the connection between US national security strategy at the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the War on Terror. Throughout a series of crises from 1981 to 1991, the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush recognized that emerging threats to global security―terrorism, regional aggression, weapons of mass destruction, and narcotics trafficking―converged into a single growing phenomenon that they eventually called "rogue states." In confronting Libya, Panama, and Iraq, Reagan and Bush created the strategies that drove US national security after 9/11.

Frakes argues that Reagan and Bush's improvised responses to crises of terrorism, aggression, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction―culminating in the Gulf War of 1991―established a lasting enforcement role for the United States against rogue states in the post–Cold War world. The effort to redefine US national security around this threat created a new framework to guide the country's approach to global security after the Cold War―one that ensured after 9/11 that the War on Terror became a war on rogue states.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Gems and the New Science"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Gems and the New Science: Matter and Value in the Scientific Revolution by Michael Bycroft.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first book-length history of gems in early modern science offers a thought-provoking new take on the Scientific Revolution.

In Gems and the New Science, Michael Bycroft argues that gems were connected to major developments in the “new science” between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. As he explains, precious and semiprecious stones were at the center of dramatic shifts in natural knowledge in early modern Europe. They were used to investigate luminescence, electricity, combustion, chemical composition, and more. They were collected by naturalists; measured by mathematicians; and rubbed, burned, and dissolved by experimental philosophers. This led to the demise of the traditional way of classifying gems—which grouped them by transparency, color, and locality—and the turn to density, refraction, chemistry, and crystallography as more reliable guides for sorting these substances.

The science of gems shows that material evaluation was as important as material production in the history of science. It also shows the value of seeing science as the product of the interaction between different material worlds. The book begins by bringing these insights to bear on five themes of the Scientific Revolution. Each of the subsequent chapters deals with a major episode in early modern science, from the expansion of natural history in the sixteenth century to the emergence of applied science early in the nineteenth century. This important work is not only the first book-length history of the science of gems but also a fresh interpretation of the Scientific Revolution and an argument for using a new form of materialism to understand the evolution of science.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Democratic Falsehoods"

New from Oxford University Press: Democratic Falsehoods: Legitimate Fictions in Public Speech by Maxime Lepoutre.

About the book, from the publisher:

Falsehoods can gravely endanger democratic societies. When disinformation circulates widely, it can alter the outcome of elections, erode trust in democratic institutions, undermine support for critically important policies, or even incite violence. It is therefore natural to conclude that falsehoods should have no place whatsoever in democratic life.

Democratic Falsehoods argues that this conclusion is nevertheless too quick. Although many falsehoods pose a clear and serious democratic threat, other falsehoods are more benign, and others still can play an actively positive role within democratic public discourse. This book explores how falsehoods can contribute to performing key functions of democratic public discourse, such as countering hate speech, mobilising collective action, supporting just wars of self-defence, representing constituents, or even promoting public understanding of pressing scientific matters. Can falsehoods advance, rather than hinder, such goals? Under what conditions are they likely to do so? And when, if ever, is it permissible to deploy such falsehoods in a democratic society?

By investigating these questions, Democratic Falsehoods aims to show that falsehoods can sometimes play a legitimate role in democratic public life. It demonstrates, moreover, that some falsehoods are legitimate, not in spite of, but precisely because of our commitment to democracy. Finally, but crucially, it provides a comprehensive account of how these falsehoods differ from-and, indeed, can help to counteract-the dangerous falsehoods plaguing contemporary democracies.

Visit Maxime Lepoutre's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Answering to Us"

New from Princeton University Press: Answering to Us: Why Democracy Demands Accountability by Minh Ly.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new theory of democracy that emphasizes equal accountability and explains the crisis of democracy and authoritarianism as a misunderstanding of the popular will

Elected authoritarians lead governments that persecute minorities and attack the rule of law—and yet they claim to be democratic, because they hold elections said to represent the will of the people. In this urgent and revelatory book, Minh Ly challenges these authoritarian claims by proposing a new conception of democracy that is based not on a uniform popular will but on equal accountability: the idea that we must be equally empowered to hold our officials democratically accountable. Equal accountability requires the very rights and institutions—from freedom of the press and freedom to protest to independent courts and congressional oversight—that elected authoritarians threaten.

Drawing on political thinkers that include Herodotus, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, John Rawls, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Ly addresses issues that are both piercingly present and historically enduring. He challenges the widespread misconception that democracy is about carrying out the people’s will, as defined by the majority and executed by the president, arguing that this ignores the people’s diversity and enables the stigmatizing of minorities. Ly affirms that we must govern ourselves in a democracy—that we should be the ones ultimately in charge of our government. To be freely self-governing, we must be able to hold our government accountable not only in elections but also in office. Elected authoritarians, Ly contends, actively disempower us by taking away our rights and institutions to hold our government accountable. We must empower citizens with the resources and civic education to demand accountability and to exercise the vital democratic duties of oversight over our officials and solidarity with each other.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beyond the Stadium"

New from Stanford University Press: Beyond the Stadium: How Sports Change the World by Andrew Bertoli.

About the book, from the publisher:

There are two popular and competing viewpoints on sports. Many consider them a mere distraction from important social and political problems. Others champion sports as a powerful force for good: teaching character, promoting peace, and encouraging racial and gender equality. Andrew Bertoli shows that these dominant perspectives underestimate the full extent to which sports impact modern life. Sports can worsen relations between nations, divide countries internally, and disadvantage individuals from underprivileged backgrounds. Sports can also, however, build social capital, make people feel more connected, and provide participants with physical and cognitive benefits. Much depends on how people approach sports, both at the individual and societal levels. This book highlights some of the profound and startling ways that sports and politics have interacted throughout recent history, including: how the Olympic torch relay was started by the Nazis and reflected Hitler's ambition to dominate Europe; the twentieth-century feminist movement to keep women out of the Olympics and the motivations of the female sports leaders who led it; how Michael Jordan's determination to stay out of politics during his career may have made him the most politically impactful athlete in history. Bertoli's insightful analysis challenges many conventional views while also helping readers understand how they can better utilize sports for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Visit Andrew Bertoli's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Limits of Revolution"

New from the University of Texas Press: The Limits of Revolution: Worker Citizens in a Bolivian Mining City by Elena McGrath.

About the book, from the publisher:

The role of Bolivian mining families in revolution and politics.

In 1952, Bolivia’s Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) swept into power, promising collective prosperity through class-based nationalism. The heroic symbol of the movement was the worker citizen—the formerly indigenous miner who would fuel economic development in a nationalized mining economy.

The Limits of Revolution explores this history from the worker barrios of the copper mining city of Corocoro. As the state walked back its promises of worker political power at the national level, mining men and women in Corocoro struggled—through protests, court battles, and barfights—to maintain the benefits of worker citizenship locally. After the MNR fell to a military dictatorship in 1964, however, families retreated to defending the nationalized mining company against an increasingly hostile state. In this battle to keep the revolution alive, the expansive potential of worker citizenship disappeared and old racial exclusions resurfaced. Largely forgotten today, Bolivia’s experience of revolution exposes the contradictions of postcolonial nationalism and sheds light on Latin America’s transition from Cold War–era class politics to twenty-first-century Pink Tide politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"1968: The Year the World Shook"

New from Oxford University Press: 1968: The Year the World Shook by Alexander Bloom.

About the book, from the publisher:

It has been called the year that changed everything, the postwar watershed in which the forces that shaped public and private life erupted, everywhere and all at once--New York, Paris, Prague, Mexico City. Beginning with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in January and continuing through the inauguration of Richard Nixon as president the following January, 1968 witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and the irresistible rise of a rebellious spirit that questioned every form of authority. Each month brought a fresh wave of upheaval with shared undercurrents---deep frustrations, bold aspirations, and a growing conviction that change, whether peaceful and violent, was inevitable. Political unrest, civil rights struggles, anti-war protests, generational shifts: the causes were manifold and complex, yet their convergence was unmistakable.

Alexander Bloom captures the explosive energy of a world in upheaval, illuminating how the events of 1968 were driven by youth movements, inspired by music and the subversive pull of countercultural ideals, all of which transcended borders. In Prague, young people tuned into Western radio, embracing the same sounds and messages reverberating through London and San Francisco. Styles of dress, personal expression, and radical ideals spread rapidly, fueled by an expanding media. The revolution was in fact being televised, making distant struggles immediate and personal, and turning local movements into global moments.

Together, these forces made 1968 a year unlike any before or any since. For many, it felt as if the ground beneath them had shifted. Political and social transformation seemed not just possible but imminent, across the nation and around the world. Not all the promises or expectations of that year bore fruit and the backlash it generated remains with us. Still, it marked an irrevocable turning point in world history. In 1968, the world didn't just change---it shook to its core.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Company Towns"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust by Elizabeth Mitchell Elder.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reveals the deep, historical roots of public distrust in former mining areas in the US, shedding new light on the corrosive feedback loops that persist today.

In Company Towns, Elizabeth Mitchell Elder examines the long-lasting political legacies of mining-company dominance in the Midwest and Appalachia. While the economic consequences of deindustrialization are well-known, Elder shifts the focus to a more insidious problem: the political dysfunction that took root long before the mines shut down.

Drawing on historical and administrative data, Elder shows that the coal industry hindered the growth of local government capacity in the places where it was dominant. Mining companies also engaged in outright corruption to shape local governments, practices which local elites then carried forward. When mining companies withdrew, they left behind not just economic decline, but local governments ill-equipped to govern.

These patterns have had enduring consequences for public life. Elder shows how these historical experiences have fueled a broader cynicism toward government, in which citizens expect little from public institutions and doubt the usefulness of elections. Company Towns underscores the consequences of corporate dominance for state capacity, public opinion, and democratic accountability today.

Visit Elizabeth Mitchell Elder's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"No Restraint"

New from NYU Press: No Restraint: Disabled Children and Institutionalized Violence in America's Schools by Charles Bell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A wake-up call on the use and abuse of restraints against disabled children in public schools

Over 100,000 students are restrained and secluded in locked rooms throughout US public schools; the overwhelming majority are students with disabilities. Despite pleas from parents, disability rights organizations, and at least seventeen state Attorneys General, Congress has refused to pass laws to protect these students from the horrors of harmful restraint and seclusion practices. In No Restraint, Charles Bell argues that seclusion and restraint are so harmful and traumatic that they provoke night terrors, a profound aversion to school, and self-harm in children. Students reported being subjected to aggressive restraint tactics that left bruises on their arms and legs, dragged into seclusion rooms that resemble solitary confinement cells in prisons, and locked inside.

Featuring extensive interviews, ranging across fifteen states, with parents of Black and white children with disabilities as well as university teacher education program directors, Bell explores how parents of children with disabilities perceive the impact of school seclusion and restraint on their families and investigates how the training school officials receive contributes to the misuse of these practices. Among parents, the trauma associated with their child’s restraint and seclusion in school led to physical and mental health challenges, as well as long-term job loss as they advocated for their children. Additionally, as parents challenged harmful restraint and seclusion practices in legal proceedings, school officials often retaliated by filing claims with child protective services, targeting spouses employed within the district, and involving law enforcement.

A deeply moving and timely work, No Restraint exposes how schools function as structurally violent anti-disability institutions. This book will encourage school officials and policymakers to rethink harmful disciplinary strategies and craft stronger policy guidelines that protect children from these practices.

Visit Charles Bell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Political Economy of Security"

New from Princeton University Press: The Political Economy of Security by Stephen G. Brooks.

About the book, from the publisher:

The complex and multifaceted relationship between economic factors and conflict

In this book, Stephen Brooks provides a systematic empirical and theoretical examination of how economic factors influence security affairs. Empirically, he analyzes how economic variables of all kinds affect interstate war, terrorism, and civil war; in total, sixteen pathways are examined. Brooks shows that the relationship between economic factors and conflict is complex and multifaceted; discrete economic factors—such as international trade, economic development, and globalized manufacturing, to name a few—are sometimes helpful for promoting peace and stability, but at other times are detrimental. Brooks also develops a stronger theoretical foundation for guiding future research on the economics-security interaction. Drawing on Adam Smith, he provides a more complete range of answers to the three key conceptual questions analysts must consider: how economic goals relate to security goals; what economic factors to focus on; and how economic actors influence security policies.

Combining an innovative theoretical understanding with empirical rigor, Brooks’s account will reshape our understanding of the political economy of security.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kin Matters"

New from Oxford University Press: Kin Matters: Relational Beings in the Fragile Sciences by Robert A. Wilson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Kin and kinship matter to us. We are social creatures and our kin or relatives are typically high on the list of those most important to us. Kin are those we care for and who care for us. Our family ties provide a sense of where and with whom we belong. Kin matters also impose boundaries on who we relate to and how, including in sexual and other intimate matters. The study of kinship has been a cornerstone of anthropology throughout its history, but kin matters matter beyond the confines of any academic discipline.

Kin Matters: Relational Beings in the Fragile Sciences examines three related themes in the philosophy of anthropology concerning kin matters: the nature of relations, incest and its avoidance, and the study of kinship in cultural anthropology. It develops an integrative framework for thinking about kin matters recognizing that that there should be much more fluidity between the cognitive, biological, and social sciences--the fragile sciences--than one typically finds both in those sciences and in philosophical reflection on them. Along the way, Kin Matters offers a novel account of relations, challenges culture-first explanations of incest avoidance, and advocates for a redirection in the study of kinship.

Kin Matters begins by reflecting on our standing as relational beings. We are creatures who actively relate to one another and our worlds to build social and other relationships. Much of that activity is biologically and psychologically mediated and so there is a ready-made place for each of the cognitive, biological, and social sciences in understanding ourselves as relational beings. We are also relatives: we have parents and often enough we have siblings and children. Kinship is something that changes over the course of our lives, but it is there literally from start to end. No wonder anthropologists early on made kin and the study of kinship pillars of their discipline. Yet current views of kinship in anthropology express a wariness of appeals to biology and psychology, and cultural anthropology has long pursued a separatist research strategy in kin matters. Kin Matters opens the way for a more integrative alternative.

Visit Rob Wilson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Robed Representatives"

New from Stanford University Press: Robed Representatives: How Black Judges Advocate in American Courts by Taneisha Means Davis.

About the book, from the publisher:

The number of Black state and federal judges has grown considerably in the post-Civil Rights Era. They are, in fact, the second most represented group of judges in the state and federal courts. Furthermore, historic appointments of Black men and women to the federal judiciary, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as generally increased calls for the diversification of the courts in recent years, have renewed questions about judicial representation. What does having more Black judges in courthouses and communities mean for the political representation of Black people and Black interests?

In Robed Representatives, Taneisha Means Davis offers new insights into the lives, identity politics, and actions of Black state court judges. The narratives centered in the book reveal an identity-to-politics link that exists among Black judges that lead them to represent their group interests. This link is corroborated with data that highlights numerous previously unidentified manifestations of racial representation in the legal system. Means Davis demonstrates that only through exploration of the lives, identities, and behaviors of historically underrepresented judges will it be possible to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the importance―and limitations―of racial diversity in the courts.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making Movement Modern"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Making Movement Modern: Science, Politics, and the Body in Motion by Whitney E. Laemmli.

About the book, from the publisher:

Explores how researchers used systems for recording human movement to navigate the relationship between mind and body, freedom and control, and the individual and the state.

In the early twentieth century, human bodily movement garnered interest among researchers who were convinced that understanding and controlling it could help govern an increasingly frazzled, fragmented world. Making Movement Modern traces one movement visualization technique, Labanotation, from its origins in expressionist dance, Austro-Hungarian military discipline, and contemporary physiology to its employment in factories and offices a half-century later. Frustrated by societies that seemed plagued by regimentation and alienation, the users of Laban-inspired systems—from artists and scientists to factory owners, politicians, lawyers, anthropologists, psychiatrists, and computer scientists—hoped to provide opportunities for individual expression while simultaneously harnessing movement to serve the needs of larger communities, businesses, and states.

Making Movement Modern reveals how Labanotation’s creator, choreographer Rudolf Laban, and his acolytes offered this system to a surprising variety of individuals and groups. It was a technique that promised liberation through expressive movement; it was also a means of organizing fascist displays of pure “Aryan” culture. The book explores these political ambiguities as Laban-based systems entered postwar society in the United States and the United Kingdom, where they were used to document disappearing folk cultures, treat Holocaust survivors, and make even the dullest, most repetitive work feel spiritually meaningful. Central to these efforts were vast programs to collect and store new kinds of personal movement data, and this history also has much to tell us about mass data collection today. This is a book for anyone interested in the relationship between art, science, data, and the human body across the tumultuous twentieth century.

Visit Whitney E. Laemmli's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blood on the Wind"

New from Oxford University Press: Blood on the Wind: An Uncivil War in the Classic Maya Lowlands by James L. Fitzsimmons.

About the book, from the publisher:

The story most often commonly told about the Maya involves their spectacular collapse at the height of their civilization in the early ninth century CE. Crops died, disease and malnutrition spread, and scorched earth warfare became common. People lost faith in their governments and moved to the Caribbean coast, the mountains of Guatemala, or further afield. But there is another tale that is equally compelling. One hundred years earlier, a group of kings known as the Snakes created a League and were able to force, cajole, or convince their fellow rulers to work towards common causes. In so doing, they took the first small steps towards something that had never existed in the Maya area: an empire.

Blood on the Wind narrates this dramatic episode during the Classic Maya period (250-850 CE). From present-day central Mexico across central America, the League attempted to subdue their enemies and transition to an imperial force. In the heart of the lowlands, they created soaring temples, luxurious palaces, and public spaces that continue to captivate visitors to this region. Despite their achievements, a brutal, now forgotten war ensued, and the imperial experiment failed.

Bringing to light the colorful individuals involved and their ambitions and flaws, Mesoamerican expert James L. Fitzsimmons recovers the world of this embryonic empire. Family rivalry, greed, grievances, and blindly clinging to the past meant that future generations would live in an environment where each kingdom made its own political and economic choices--but without the benefit of a stronger union.

--Marshal Zeringue