"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