"How Film Became History"

New from Columbia University Press: How Film Became History: The Rise of the Archival Documentary in 1930s America by Thomas Doherty.

About the book, from the publisher:

By the 1930s, filmmakers had access to a backlog of footage from nearly forty years of motion pictures, allowing them to create a new kind of film stitched together from the raw material of older films. At around the same time, the transition to synchronous sound added a transformative new element to the grammar of cinema: the voiceover narration. Together, the film inventory and offscreen commentary gave rise to the archival documentary, the motion picture genre that preserves and rewinds history.

Thomas Doherty tells the story of the archival documentary, spotlighting the first films that set out deliberately to preserve history on screen. He shows how newsreels and documentaries challenged the era’s restrictive censorship and how film began to engage with the great political issues of the day. Doherty considers a range of films―some well-known, others obscure―including J. Stuart Blackton’s The Film Parade (1933), Laurence Stallings and Truman Talley’s The First World War (1934), Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.’s Hitler’s Reign of Terror (1934), Max Eastman and Herbert Axelbank’s Tsar to Lenin (1937), and the March of Time screen magazine. Tracing the creation of the archival documentary, How Film Became History illuminates how motion pictures have come to shape our vision of the past.

The Page 99 Test: Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939.

The Page 99 Test: Show Trial.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Criminal State"

New from Princeton University Press: The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice by Lawrence Douglas.

About the book, from the publisher:

A sweeping history of the struggle to hold states to account for their gravest crimes

The Criminal State offers a gripping account of how law has confronted the most radical forms of state violence. Beautifully written, broad in scope, and bracingly original, it weaves history with political thought to trace the shifting legal response to state aggression and atrocities, from Leopold’s rule over the Congo to Putin’s war in Ukraine.

At its heart is Lawrence Douglas’s fresh interpretation of the law’s reckoning with Nazi aggression and atrocity. He shows how the Nuremberg trials challenged centuries of thought—rooted in Hobbes and other canonical thinkers—that shielded sovereigns from legal scrutiny. Yet Nuremberg’s bid to frame aggression as the cornerstone of a new order of international criminal law largely failed, giving way to a system now centrally concerned with crimes against humanity and genocide—while leaving unresolved the legality and effectiveness of using force to stop the worst violations of human rights.

Providing rare historical perspective on the dilemmas facing international courts, The Criminal State is a sweeping, provocative history of the struggle to bring perpetrators of state violence to justice.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Walmart: Made in China"

New from Stanford University Press: Walmart: Made in China by Eileen Otis.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book tells the story of Walmart's expansion in China, making the case that it is the story of a major shift in the structure of global capitalism. Walmart, argues Eileen Otis, is a leading actor in the rise of merchant capitalism, wherein the role of the merchant has changed from operating at the whim of industrialists, to leveraging control over large consumer markets. As Walmart's retail business grew at unprecedented rates across the globe, so too did this business model. Walmart: Made in China documents the business's expansion into China not as a tale of seamless market entry, but as a case of frictions, improvisations, and labor struggles that reveal deeper transformations in global economic power. Drawing on years of fieldwork in Walmart stores across China, Otis traces an internal supply chain—from warehouse to checkout—where workers stock, promote, explain, and process goods under varying regimes of control. These labor regimes, structured by gender, migration, surveillance, and corporate rules and culture, as well as managerial oversight, reveal how capitalist value is realized, and how it can be contested. At the heart of her analysis is the rise of a new system — merchant capitalism — in which control over consumer markets, rather than production, drives profit. Thus, Walmart: Made in China offers a compelling account of this shift in global capitalism, as it gets made and remade, on the retail floor.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Assembling an Imperial Machine"

New from Oxford University Press: Assembling an Imperial Machine: Spanish Commercial Reform in the Age of Enlightenment by Fidel J. Tavárez.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the eighteenth century, Spanish statesmen pursued a set of ambitious imperial reforms that thoroughly remade conceptualizations of empire. They compared well-ordered empires to harmonious machines and devised a comprehensive plan to liberalize and integrate the imperial economy. The main initiative to emerge from this economic plan was a commercial policy that contemporaries called comercio libre, which entailed replacing the traditional fleets and galleons with a new system of free trade within the empire. The men who designed this new imperial vision became convinced that the pursuit of markets, rather than military power alone, was the key to succeeding in a modern commercial society. Unlike their European counterparts, who remained keenly interested in international trade, Spanish ministers focused on integrating Spain's vast imperial economy. In their minds, the Hispanic world could become an integrated and self-sufficient microcosm of the global economy, which would enable the empire to partake in the world's trade without the rivalry and warfare that came from international commerce.

Moving seamlessly between developments in Spain and Spanish America, Fidel J. Tavárez demonstrates how the imperial machine was projected to reap the benefits of economic growth by synergizing millions of people across Spain's dominions, including Indigenous and Afro-descendant colonial subjects. He traces the evolution of the empire's economy from extractive measures intended to drain colonial possessions of their resources for the metropole's gain to notions of a mutually beneficial and equal conglomeration of transoceanic territories. By bringing this effort to light, Tavárez shows that, rather than a mercantilist throwback, the Hispanic world's commercial reforms represented a genuine attempt to solve the dilemmas of early modern globalization, an endeavor that, in turn, inaugurated the enduring fascination with erecting trade blocs in Latin America.

Combining economic, intellectual, and political history, Assembling an Imperial Machine provides an innovative interpretation of this momentous period in the history of the Hispanic world.

Visit Fidel J. Tavárez's website.

-Marshal Zeringue

"Neighborhoods Matter"

New from NYU Press: Neighborhoods Matter: How Place and People Affect Political Participation by Carrie LeVan.

About the book, from the publisher:

The unexpected impact of neighborhood design on civic engagement

Participation in official governmental institutions and activities has declined dramatically. Americans are less inclined to express trust in, or cooperate with, political leaders and each other to address society's most pressing problems. In Neighborhoods Matter, Carrie LeVan explores this growing crisis in civic engagement, arguing that where we live –and the people who live around us– may be to blame.

Drawing on national surveys, census data, and spatial analysis, LeVan demonstrates how neighborhood design can dramatically impact political participation, including people's desire and ability to vote in local, state, and national elections. She argues that the suburbs, which isolate residents, require driving, and are zoned for single-use, do not provide an effective infrastructure for civic engagement. However, cities, which are often designed to be walkable, more interactive, and are zoned for mixed-use, provide a supportive environment where people and politics can thrive.

Ultimately, LeVan underscores how neighborhoods that support interaction, competition, collective action—and even conflict—can support greater civic engagement and political participation. Neighborhoods Matter highlights the connection between politics, people, and place, calling for good suburban and urban design that can support a vibrant and engaging civic life.

Visit Carrie LeVan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Great Repair"

New from Cornell University Press: The Great Repair: Emotions, Memory, and the German–Jewish Settlement after the Holocaust by Gideon Reuveni.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Great Repair explores how Jews and Germans began reparations discussions fewer than seven years after the Holocaust―a momentous achievement relegated to the margins of Holocaust scholarship and memory―and the complexities that emerged from the resulting settlement.

Gideon Reuveni illuminates the swift transition and extraordinary chapter in postwar history from the horrors of the Holocaust to a negotiating table where Germans and Jews discussed reparations. Both sides faced the monumental challenge of addressing the injustices of National Socialism through complex deliberations on compensation for collective and individual losses, restitution of property, support for survivors, and formal acknowledgment of Nazi crimes. These negotiations marked a crucial step toward acknowledging historical responsibility and pursuing meaningful redress.

The Great Repair reveals the events, actors, and decisions that led to the signing of the agreement on September 10, 1952, by West Germany, Israel, and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Ultimately, the enactment of this settlement set a global precedent that genocide cannot go unpunished and moral debts must be paid. It was a historic undertaking of immense scope―unmatched in the history of international relations, just as the extermination of the Jewish people was unprecedented in human history.

The Page 99 Test: Consumer Culture and the Making of Modern Jewish Identity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When the Declaration of Independence Was News"

New from Oxford University Press: When the Declaration of Independence Was News by Emily Sneff.

About the book, from the publisher:

Tracing the moments after its creation, this groundbreaking book follows how news of the Declaration of Independence spread to people throughout the thirteen United States and the Atlantic world.

In 1776 people could hear the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in public squares and could read it in the pages of their local newspapers. Stories of the Declaration typically recount the work that took place inside the Continental Congress, focusing on the men tasked with drafting the text. Although Congress declared independence, the work of spreading the news involved printers, post riders, ship captains, civic leaders, soldiers, clerks, orators, preachers, diplomats, and translators.

When the Declaration of Independence Was News reveals the stories behind how the Declaration was communicated in the United States and around the Atlantic. Tracing the travels of the founding document of the United States from Philadelphia to New York, Boston, Charleston, London, Leiden, Paris, and beyond, Emily Sneff shows how people both celebrated the Declaration and critiqued it. In the weeks after the document was penned, it was printed in the columns of newspapers, translated into German and French, and shared with Native American allies. The document induced some people to make public their privately held beliefs about whether they wanted the United States to be independent or to reconcile with King George III. The Declaration was met with unique circumstances everywhere it went, and people modified the text along the way. The questions of who experienced the news of independence, when, and how reveal an expansive and complex history of a critical moment in the American Revolution.

Published for the 250th anniversary of American independence, When the Declaration of Independence Was News returns to a time before the legacy of these words and the outcome of the war against Great Britain were known to reconsider what the founding of the United States meant to the people who were living through it.

Visit Emily Sneff's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Stewards of the Land"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Stewards of the Land: Race and Reclaiming Environmental Labor in the American West by Stevie Ruiz.

About the book, from the publisher:

The history of the environmental movement—from environmentalism of the nineteenth century to the environmental justice struggles of the late twentieth century—has often been portrayed as a series of efforts led by white environmentalists. In Stewards of the Land, Stevie Ruiz reassesses the movement and reveals that it has always been a multiracial endeavor. From Southern California berry fields to Japanese American concentration camps, from Chinese cooks in national parks to Chicano Civilian Conservation Corps workers, Ruiz traces how the racialized labor and environmental knowledge of Asian migrants and Chicana/o communities built the material foundations of modern environmentalism.

Stewards of the Land argues that environmental justice was never just a reaction to pollution in the 1970s but has a much longer history tied to land theft, labor exploitation, and the everyday struggles of frontline communities to live and work with dignity. Drawing from comparative ethnic studies and archival research and with a commitment to decolonial praxis, Ruiz recovers the stories of those who labored—often invisibly—to build, maintain, and reimagine environmental spaces in the American West.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The First Pariah State"

New from Princeton University Press: The First Pariah State: How the Proslavery Confederacy Menaced the World by Robert E. Bonner.

About the book, from the publisher:

The often-forgotten global story of how the Confederacy lost its bid for sovereign nationhood

In 1861, proslavery secessionists severed ties with the United States, launched the Confederacy, and readied their new government to join the international community as a sovereign nation. In The First Pariah State, Robert Bonner tells the story of how a transatlantic publicity campaign dashed Confederate hopes by ostracizing its rebellion as an immoral, global menace.

The international anti-Confederate campaign built on existing antislavery themes but moved far beyond them. Improvised indictments circulated secessionists’ most incendiary words across the world. The Union and its foreign allies condemned the marauding Southern navy for disrupting high-seas commerce, violating civilized norms, and preparing for the resumption of the African slave trade. Abraham Lincoln and Senator Charles Sumner sought to convert rhetorical barbs and maritime anxieties into novel doctrines of international law designed to counter rogue regimes. And Union opinion-makers, including Black abolitionists, worked with European supporters to stymie the South’s naval expansion, war finances, and diplomatic efforts to gain formal recognition.

International worries about the Confederate rebellion waned after U.S. victory, and the Southern pariahdom of the 1860s left few enduring traces in international law or overseas remembrances. In fact, over the next century and a half, the pro-Confederate “Lost Cause” mythology proved to be as powerful abroad as it was within the restored United States.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Search for World Democracy"

New from the University of Chicago Press: The Search for World Democracy: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Politics of Space by Adam Dahl.

About the book, from the publisher:

An incisive conceptual history of global democracy in the transnational political thought of W.E.B. Du Bois.

The Search for World Democracy traces the language of “world democracy” in W. E. B. Du Bois’s oeuvre, stretching from his early sociological writings to his later work on world peace and anticolonialism with and against the United Nations. Drawing on original archival research, several lesser-known writings, and most centrally Du Bois’s unpublished 1937 manuscript A World Search for Democracy, Adam Dahl places his unique approach to democratic theory within the transatlantic debates about the transformation of European imperial order in the twentieth century. Dahl shows how Du Bois’s vision of the spatial scale of democracy situated struggles for popular control, decolonization, industrial democracy, and racial enfranchisement in their shifting, multidimensional geographic contexts. Less a specific model of global governance than a radical politics of space and scale, Du Bois’s idea of world democracy challenges the boundaries between domestic and international politics by linking local sites of democratic struggle within and against the global color line. The Search for World Democracy shows how, for Du Bois, the radical transformation of the United States into a multiracial democracy would require an equally dramatic transformation of the imperial lineages of world politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Domesticated"

New from Oxford University Press: Domesticated: How Cultivated Species Altered Ancient Silk Road Societies by Alicia R. Ventresca-Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

Domesticated uses novel archaeological methods to rewrite the narrative of the rise of social complexity in the western and eastern Eurasian steppe. Through the study of ancient proteins, DNA, and isotopes, as well as traditional archaeology, Alicia R. Ventresca-Miller tracks the adoption of domesticated animals and plants to show how cultivated species transformed societies during the eras preceding the Silk Road networks. Economies in this region shifted from hunting and gathering to the use of ruminant livestock, horse dairying and riding, and finally to the cultivation of grains, marking major thresholds in human history. Ventresca-Miller proposes a model for how this happened--from the initial introduction of the animal or plant to their acceptance, solidification, and intensification--and shows how each stage of development impacted the ways local communities interacted, settled in the landscape, and gave rise to new social structures.

The management of domesticated species and the alteration of landscapes allowed communities in north-central Asia to build complex societies and long-distance trading networks, which linked cities and supported Empires. In Domesticated, a nuanced narrative emerges, one that situates north-central Asia as a vital locale for the study of the adoption of domesticated species and underscores how these developments contributed to alternative forms of social complexity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Irreconcilable"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada by Joseph Weiss.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since the early 2000s, the Canadian government has attempted reconciliation with Indigenous Nations through varied efforts: treaty processes, government commissions, rebranding campaigns for settler-owned businesses, workshops for state and local officials, school curriculum changes, and a recently christened national holiday. However, Joseph Weiss argues, these state-driven initiatives reinforce Indigenous subordination to the settler state. This incisive study of the varied responses from both Indigenous Nations and individuals illuminates how reconciliation is implicated in ongoing colonial erasure.

Critically engaging with a variety of fields, including Indigenous studies, anthropology, history, political theory, semiotics, and museum studies, Weiss captures the multiple scales at which these contested dynamics unfold and explores their underlying technologies of erasure. Irreconcilable unpacks how reconciliation offers amends for anti-Indigenous violence while disavowing responsibility for that violence, and argues that settler promises of reconciliation cannot be reconciled to the fact of Indigenous sovereignty. Nevertheless, Weiss illustrates how Indigenous Peoples refuse erasure at every turn, instead building alternate futures and lived worlds that are not always already colonially overdetermined.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Lowest Freedom"

New from Columbia University Press: The Lowest Freedom: Racial Capitalism and Black Thought in the Nineteenth Century by Justin Leroy.

About the book, from the publisher:

Throughout the nineteenth century, Black thinkers grappled with the material limits of freedom. They insisted that emancipation without economic self-determination would reproduce the inequalities of slavery, arguing that true freedom required not only civil rights and suffrage but also defending the rights of workers and curbing the power of capital. They concluded that free Black life could not flourish in conditions of labor exploitation and economic deprivation.

The Lowest Freedom is an intellectual history of how economic dispossession shaped the meaning of freedom in Black thought from antebellum abolitionism to the rise of Jim Crow. Justin Leroy argues that figures such as Frederick Douglass, T. Thomas Fortune, Maria Stewart, David Walker, and Ida B. Wells developed a critique of racial capitalism that remains underappreciated. Their theories spanned the eras of slavery and freedom, connecting the North and the South, by illuminating the political economy of racial domination and the interwoven relationship between race and capitalism. By situating their work within broader debates about land, labor, and capital, Leroy provides a new framework for understanding how freedom was theorized, contested, and ultimately constrained in the aftermath of slavery. Bridging Black studies, intellectual history, and the history of capitalism, The Lowest Freedom offers a reinterpretation of African American political thought that places the struggle for economic justice at its core.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Accelerant"

New from Stanford University Press: Accelerant: Energy Infrastructures and the Natural World in Making Modern Iran by Ciruce A. Movahedi-Lankarani.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between the late 1940s and the end of the twentieth century, natural gas became Iran's bedrock energy source. Billed as a futuristic fuel for a future world power, gas became an avenue for the country's developmentalist ambitions. The ability to build technologically sophisticated infrastructures served as a powerful tool of state legitimation, both before and after the 1979 Revolution, and tied top-down politics of modernization to bottom-up feelings of national belonging.

Accelerant analyzes the interwoven histories of energy, development, and the environment in Iran. Following the movement of natural gas from underground deposits, through infrastructures of refining and distribution, and into everyday life, Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani explores the roles of development planners, oil firms, industrialists, engineers, and consumers―as well as the mountain ranges, sedimentary rock, and natural gas itself―to show how natural gas emerged as a crucial enabler of industrialization and a strong impetus for resource nationalism. Tracing the transformation of gas from a waste product into a vital resource, this book offers a history of anticolonial developmentalism in Iran―revealing a key driver toward intensified energy use that suggests why and how societies in the Global South became voracious consumers of fossil fuel energy.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Contexts of Justice"

New from Oxford University Press: Contexts of Justice: Native Peoples, Political Theory, and Fair Treatment by Burke A. Hendrix.

About the book, from the publisher:

Non-Indigenous citizens of the United States and Canada often argue that it is unfair for Indigenous peoples to have distinctive political and property rights within countries purportedly dedicated to equal treatment. Yet Indigenous nations in the United States and Canada have long made claims for a more contextually rich sense of fairness, and their legal and political successes in these efforts - difficult, uneven, and partial as they has been - have allowed them to continue to exist into the present. Their fairness arguments have thus found traction even in the face of longstanding political animosity.

Situated within debates on ideal and non-ideal theory, this book begins from arguments of this kind, and seeks to show why they are defensible within a contextually-rich theory of political fairness for Indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada. Structured to be accessible to political theorists and their students with little background in Indigenous politics, the book argues that this broader conception of fairness applies in relation to political sovereignty, ownership rights, cultural choices, and - uncomfortably - racially-inflected standards of tribal membership. Seeking to outline parameters for potential future political orders, it argues that such a contextually-rich standard of fairness is likely to be required long into the future as well, given the unavoidably variegated texture of human social order.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Unearthed"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Unearthed: Science and Environment Across Mineral Frontiers by Patrick Anthony.

About the book, from the publisher:

How nineteenth-century environmental sciences laid the groundwork for global mineral extraction.

Unearthed depicts a pivotal moment during the nineteenth century: As European and settler schemes to govern ever larger territories intensified, the earth and atmospheric sciences were also becoming more global in scope, assembling models of the planet while making use of militarized or highly industrialized systems. These efforts were informed by the physique du monde, or global physics, of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a program of vast data collection that spanned four hemispheres that aimed to determine general, scientific laws about the planet and its environments.

Using Humboldt’s itineraries as a frame, Unearthed traces an information order that linked far-flung industrial sites and frontier stations, from Prussian provinces to the Spanish and Russian empires. Humboldt intersected with Saxon miners, Mexican cartographers, and Siberian surveyors, among other itinerant Germans who mobilized the labor and resources of widespread mining operations for global surveys of earth and air. Interweaving the histories of capital and climate, Patrick Anthony takes readers from mines to mountains to show how the sciences of Humboldt’s circuits both measured and made modern natures. These sciences of the mineral frontier, he argues, ultimately laid the groundwork for carbon-intensive economics and a logic of unending extraction. Wide-ranging and ambitious, Unearthed will interest scholars working in the history of science, global history, and the environmental humanities.

Visit Patrick Anthony's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Offshore Oildom"

New from LSU Press: Offshore Oildom: America’s Energy Expansion into the Ocean by Tyler Priest.

About the book, from the publisher:

Offshore Oildom tells the riveting story of the United States’ quest to secure the oil riches of the sea. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, Tyler Priest reveals how the offshore oil industry emerged from an ambitious project to incorporate the ocean’s submerged lands into the territory of the United States. These lands were frontier spaces, beyond traditional jurisdiction and control. Efforts to commandeer them for oil and gas extraction thus required new institutions of governance.

From the titanic struggle over the tidelands starting in the 1930s to Project Independence in the 1970s, the process of establishing an offshore dominion of oil provoked intractable conflicts over money, values, and power. It pitted coastal states against their land-locked counterparts and captains of industry against federal civil servants and coastal communities. It stoked partisan and internecine warfare. It set off an international race to annex offshore territory, complicating U.S. foreign-policy objectives. It weighed on the minds of Supreme Court justices and troubled every occupant of the White House from Franklin Roosevelt forward. The modern environmental movement was born in opposition to offshore oil just as the 1970s energy crisis compelled the acceleration of drilling in the ocean.

Creating and governing an offshore oildom involved nothing less than redrawing the territorial borders of the nation, rebuilding the political foundations of the U.S. energy system, and testing the environmental limits of resource extraction. This history is essential to understanding the tension between energy security and environmental protection in modern America.

Visit Tyler Priest's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blame the Intern"

New from Princeton University Press: Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking into the Creative Economy by Alexandre Frenette.

About the book, from the publisher:

An inside look at the work lives of college interns and their uncertain path to paid employment

While generations of young adults used to spend their summers working as lifeguards or camp counselors, college students today are more likely to seek office experience as interns. Blame the Intern takes readers into the workspaces of the music industry to show how internships, especially unpaid ones, are problematic introductions to the working world that often provide little valuable training and are unlikely to lead to a job.

Since the 1980s, shifts in labor markets and careers have made employers less prone to invest in training entry-level employees who may quickly change jobs anyway. In recent decades, higher education has filled the gap, fueling an explosive growth of internships to facilitate the transition from college to a career. Drawing on in-depth interviews with interns, record label employees, and college personnel, as well as his own experiences as an unpaid intern at two music industry firms in New York City, Alexandre Frenette sheds light on who benefits from the intern economy, who suffers, and why. He finds that internships are rife with ambiguity because employers are neither trained nor greatly rewarded to mentor and colleges are ill-equipped to provide workplace guidance. As a result, there is little consensus about what interns should be doing or what benefits they should be gaining from their experience, which can often lead to inequality, exploitation, and disappointment.

Timely and provocative, Blame the Intern demonstrates how employers and institutions of higher learning are redefining what it means to break in—and reveals what happens when few can.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Governing Islam in Austria and Germany"

New from Oxford University Press: Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present by Farid Hafez.

About the book, from the publisher:

Governing Islam in Austria and Germany argues that the foundations of contemporary policies towards Islam in Austria and Germany are deeply rooted in colonial practices from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author Farid Hafez traces how colonial knowledge and governing techniques vis-à-vis Muslims--acquired during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the German Kaiserreich's rule over Tanzania and parts of Togo and Cameroon--shaped both the Nazi regime's approach to Muslims and postwar European policies. Hafez introduces the theory of Islampolitik, a concept that examines how modern European states regulate and govern their Muslim populations.

Islampolitik is not simply administrative or cultural policy; it is a mode of governance aimed at managing a constructed, racialized version of Muslim identity and Islam. Colonial legacies still inform the racial politics of religion in Europe, positioning Muslim populations as subjects of control. Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present offers a new methodological lens to analyze Austria and Germany's contemporary policies toward Muslims, uncovering the ways in which past imperial logics underpin state administration and religious education. Bridging colonial history, racial politics, and contemporary politics, Hafez shows how Muslim communities were not only managed but strategically incorporated into imperial and national frameworks.

Visit Farid Hafez's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Counterinsurgency Dilemma"

New from Stanford University Press: The Counterinsurgency Dilemma: Foreign Fighter Influence on Insurgencies in Afghanistan and Somalia by Tricia L. Bacon.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the wake of the Taliban's military defeat in 2001, foreign fighters played a critical role in assisting the Taliban to launch an insurgency against Coalition forces. Ten years later, by al-Qaida's own admission, the Taliban "almost didn't need" al-Qaida's non-Afghan fighters. Over time the Taliban grew sufficiently in strength that its need for foreign fighters―and foreign fighters' influence―virtually disappeared. Somalia shows a similar pattern. Foreign fighters initially played a prominent role in al-Shabaab, helping the group to launch an insurgency against Ethiopian forces, but their influence also declined as al-Shabaab became the dominant insurgent organization and built ties within Somali society. This is the first book to examine how foreign fighters gain and lose influence during insurgencies. Understanding foreign fighters' impact on conflicts is of increasing importance as the number of foreign fighters who have mobilized has grown in recent years, both in absolute numbers and in terms of the proportion of conflicts in which they are involved. In examining the conditions that contribute to the changes in their effect over time, Bacon explains how and why foreign fighter influence evolves within a conflict and which factors enable and constrain foreign fighter influence throughout an insurgency. Knowing how foreign fighters are situated vis-à-vis local insurgents, specifically the type of relationships they forge, should shape every aspect of counterinsurgency strategies to avoid counterproductive tactics, more effectively counter insurgent movements, and better protect civilians.

Visit Tricia Bacon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Your Data Will Be Used Against You"

New from NYU Press: Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Interrogates how digital self-surveillance can be turned against us by police, prosecutors, and political whims

For consumers living in a digitally-connected world, smart technologies have built an inescapable trap of digital self-surveillance. Smart cars, smart homes, smart watches, and smart medical devices track our most private activities and intimate patterns. While these devices allow users to receive personal insights by monitoring their every move, that data can be accessed by police and prosecutors looking to find incriminating clues. Digital technology exposes everyone, everywhere, all at once, and we have few laws to regulate it.

In Your Data Will Be Used Against You, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson warns us of how the rise of sensor-driven technology, social media monitoring, and artificial intelligence can be weaponized against democratic values and personal freedoms. At the same time, that data will solve crimes, radically transforming how criminal cases are prosecuted. Ferguson explores how this proliferation of private data in combination with public surveillance networks promises new ways to solve previously unsolvable crimes, but also leaves us vulnerable to governmental overreach and abuse. He argues for legal interventions that address the threat of digital self-surveillance and provides concrete suggestions about how legislators, judges, and communities should respond.

As consumers, citizens, and potential subjects of surveillance, the questions in this book must be confronted now, before the trap of surveillance captures us completely. Providing a stark warning of the dangers of digital self-surveillance, Your Data Will be Used Against You is a defense of civil liberties against the growing threat of data-driven policing.

--Marshal Zeringue

"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