"The Retreats of Reconstruction"

New from Fordham University Press: The Retreats of Reconstruction: Race, Leisure, and the Politics of Segregation at the New Jersey Shore, 1865-1920 by David E. Goldberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

Beginning in the 1880s, the economic realities and class dynamics of popular northern resort towns unsettled prevailing assumptions about political economy and threatened segregationist practices. Exploiting early class divisions, black working-class activists staged a series of successful protests that helped make northern leisure spaces a critical battleground in a larger debate about racial equality. While some scholars emphasize the triumph of black consumer activism with defeating segregation, Goldberg argues that the various consumer ideologies that first surfaced in northern leisure spaces during the Reconstruction era contained desegregation
efforts and prolonged Jim Crow.

Combining intellectual, social, and cultural history, The Retreats of Reconstruction examines how these decisions helped popularize the doctrine of "separate but equal" and explains why the politics of consumption is critical to understanding the "long civil rights movement."

--Marshal Zeringue

"Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory"

New from Oxford University Press: Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory by Walter Zev Feldman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory is the first comprehensive study of the musical structure and social history of klezmer music, the music of the Jewish musicians' guild of Eastern Europe. Emerging in 16th century Prague, the klezmer became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times - the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe. Much of the musical and choreographic history of the Ashkenazim is embedded in the klezmer repertoire, which functioned as a kind of non-verbal communal memory. The complex of speech, dance, and musical gesture is deeply rooted in Jewish expressive culture, and reached its highest development in Eastern Europe. Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory reveals the artistic transformations of the liturgy of the Ashkenazic synagogue in klezmer wedding melodies, and presents the most extended study available in any language of the relationship of Jewish dance to the rich and varied klezmer music of Eastern Europe.

Author Walter Zev Feldman expertly examines the major written sources--principally in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Romanian--from the 16th to the 20th centuries. He draws upon the foundational notated collections of the late Tsarist and early Soviet periods, as well as rare cantorial and klezmer manuscripts from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. He has conducted interviews with authoritative European-born klezmorim over a period of more than thirty years, in America, Europe, and Israel. Thus, his analysis reveals both the musical and cultural systems underlying the klezmer music of Eastern Europe.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sentimental Savants"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Sentimental Savants: Philosophical Families in Enlightenment France by Meghan K. Roberts.

About the book, from the publisher:

Though the public may retain a hoary image of the lone scientific or philosophical genius generating insights in isolation, scholars discarded it long ago. In reality, the families of scientists and philosophers in the Enlightenment played a substantial role, not only making space for inquiry within the home but also assisting in observing, translating, calculating, and illustrating.

Sentimental Savants is the first book to explore the place of the family among the savants of the French Enlightenment, a group that openly embraced their families and domestic lives, even going so far as to test out their ideas—from education to inoculation—on their own children. Meghan K. Roberts delves into the lives and work of such major figures as Denis Diderot, Émilie Du Châtelet, the Marquis de Condorcet, Antoine Lavoisier, and Jérôme Lalande to paint a striking portrait of how sentiment and reason interacted in the eighteenth century to produce not only new kinds of knowledge but new kinds of families as well.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Remembering the Reformation"

New from Oxford University Press: Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism by Thomas Albert Howard.

About the book,from the publisher:

The 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 focuses the mind on the history and significance of Protestant forms of Christianity. It also prompts the question of how the Reformation has been commemorated on past anniversary occasions. In an effort to examine various meanings attributed to Protestantism, this book recounts and analyzes major commemorative occasions, including the famous posting of the 95 Theses in 1517 or the birth and death dates of Martin Luther, respectively 1483 and 1546. Beginning with the first centennial jubilee in 1617, Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism makes its way to the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth, internationally marked in 1983. While the book focuses on German-speaking lands, Thomas Albert Howard also looks at Reformation commemorations in other countries, notably in the United States. The central argument is that past commemorations have been heavily shaped by their historical moment, exhibiting confessional, liberal, nationalist, militaristic, Marxist, and ecumenical motifs, among others.

Thomas Albert Howard is Professor of History and the Humanities and holder of the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University. His publications include Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University and God and the Atlantic: America, Europe, and the Religious Divide.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Quotidian Revolution"

New from Columbia University Press: The Quotidian Revolution: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India by Christian Lee Novetzke.

About the book, from the publisher:

In thirteenth-century Maharashtra, a new vernacular literature emerged to challenge the hegemony of Sanskrit, a language largely restricted to men of high caste. In a vivid and accessible idiom, this new Marathi literature inaugurated a public debate over the ethics of social difference grounded in the idiom of everyday life. The arguments of vernacular intellectuals pushed the question of social inclusion into ever-wider social realms, spearheading the development of a nascent premodern public sphere that valorized the quotidian world in sociopolitical terms.

The Quotidian Revolution examines this pivotal moment of vernacularization in Indian literature, religion, and public life by investigating courtly donative Marathi inscriptions alongside the first extant texts of Marathi literature: the Lilacaritra (1278) and the Jñanesvari (1290). Novetzke revisits the influence of Chakradhar (c. 1194), the founder of the Mahanubhav religion, and Jnandev (c. 1271), who became a major figure of the Varkari religion, to observe how these avant-garde and worldly elites pursued a radical intervention into the social questions and ethics of the age. Drawing on political anthropology and contemporary theories of social justice, religion, and the public sphere, The Quotidian Revolution explores the specific circumstances of this new discourse oriented around everyday life and its lasting legacy: widening the space of public debate in a way that presages key aspects of Indian modernity and democracy.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Psychology, Art, and Antifascism"

New from Yale University Press: Psychology, Art, and Antifascism: Ernst Kris, E. H. Gombrich, and the Politics of Caricature by Louis Rose.

About the book, from the publisher:

A vivid portrait of two remarkable twentieth-century thinkers and their landmark collaboration on the use and abuse of caricature and propaganda in the modern world

In 1934, Viennese art historian and psychoanalyst Ernst Kris invited his mentee E. H. Gombrich to collaborate on a project that had implications for psychology and neuroscience, and foreshadowed their contributions to the Allied war effort. Their subject: caricature and its use and abuse in propaganda. Their collaboration was a seminal early effort to integrate science, the humanities, and political awareness. In this fascinating biographical and intellectual study, Louis Rose explores the content of Kris and Gombrich’s project and its legacy.

Louis Rose is professor of history at Otterbein University, executive director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, and editor of the interdisciplinary journal American Imago.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Long Afterlife of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration"

New from Stanford University Press: The Long Afterlife of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration by Karen M. Inouye.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Long Afterlife of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration reexamines the history of imprisonment of U.S. and Canadian citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Karen M. Inouye explores how historical events can linger in individual and collective memory and then crystallize in powerful moments of political engagement. Drawing on interviews and untapped archival materials—regarding politicians Norman Mineta and Warren Furutani, sociologist Tamotsu Shibutani, and Canadian activists Art Miki and Mary Kitagawa, among others—Inouye considers the experiences of former wartime prisoners and their on-going involvement in large-scale educational and legislative efforts.

While many consider wartime imprisonment an isolated historical moment, Inouye shows how imprisonment and the suspension of rights have continued to impact political discourse and public policies in both the United States and Canada long after their supposed political and legal reversal. In particular, she attends to how activist groups can use the persistence of memory to engage empathetically with people across often profound cultural and political divides. This book addresses the mechanisms by which injustice can transform both its victims and its perpetrators, detailing the dangers of suspending rights during times of crisis as well as the opportunities for more empathetic agency.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Free Time"

New from Princeton University Press: Free Time by Julie L. Rose.

About the book, from the publisher:

Recent debates about inequality have focused almost exclusively on the distribution of wealth and disparities in income, but little notice has been paid to the distribution of free time. Free time is commonly assumed to be a matter of personal preference, a good that one chooses to have more or less of. Even if there is unequal access to free time, the cause and solution are presumed to lie with the resources of income and wealth. In Free Time, Julie Rose argues that these views are fundamentally mistaken. First, Rose contends that free time is a resource, like money, that one needs in order to pursue chosen ends. Further, realizing a just distribution of income and wealth is not sufficient to ensure a fair distribution of free time. Because of this, anyone concerned with distributive justice must attend to the distribution of free time.

On the basis of widely held liberal principles, Rose explains why citizens are entitled to free time—time not committed to meeting life’s necessities and instead available for chosen pursuits. The novel argument that the just society must guarantee all citizens their fair share of free time provides principled grounds to address critical policy choices, including work hours regulations, Sunday closing laws, public support for caregiving, and the pursuit of economic growth.

Delving into an original topic that touches everyone, Free Time demonstrates why all citizens have, in the words of early labor reformers, a right to “hours for what we will.”

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bad Moon Rising"

New from Yale University Press: Bad Moon Rising: How the Weather Underground Beat the FBI and Lost the Revolution by Arthur M. Eckstein.

About the book, from the publisher:

A startling history of the forlorn war between the Weather Underground and the FBI, based on interviews and 30,000 pages of previously unreleased FBI documents

In the summer of 1970 and for years after, photos of Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and other members of the Weather Underground were emblazoned on FBI wanted posters. In Bad Moon Rising, Arthur Eckstein details how Weather began to engage in serious, ideologically driven, nationally coordinated political violence and how the FBI attempted to monitor, block, and capture its members—and failed. Eckstein further shows that the FBI ordered its informants inside Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to support the faction that became Weather during the tumultuous June 1969 SDS convention, helping to destroy the organization; and that the FBI first underestimated Weather’s seriousness, then overestimated its effectiveness, and how Weather outwitted them. Eckstein reveals how an obsessed and panicked President Nixon and his inner circle sought to bypass a cautious J. Edgar Hoover, contributing to the creation of the rogue Plumbers Unit that eventually led to Watergate.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Culture of Growth"

New from Princeton University Press: A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy by Joel Mokyr.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the West and not elsewhere, and why did it continue, leading to today’s unprecedented prosperity? In this groundbreaking book, celebrated economic historian Joel Mokyr argues that a culture of growth specific to early modern Europe and the European Enlightenment laid the foundations for the scientific advances and pioneering inventions that would instigate explosive technological and economic development. Bringing together economics, the history of science and technology, and models of cultural evolution, Mokyr demonstrates that culture—the beliefs, values, and preferences in society that are capable of changing behavior—was a deciding factor in societal transformations.

Mokyr looks at the period 1500–1700 to show that a politically fragmented Europe fostered a competitive “market for ideas” and a willingness to investigate the secrets of nature. At the same time, a transnational community of brilliant thinkers known as the “Republic of Letters” freely circulated and distributed ideas and writings. This political fragmentation and the supportive intellectual environment explain how the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe but not China, despite similar levels of technology and intellectual activity. In Europe, heterodox and creative thinkers could find sanctuary in other countries and spread their thinking across borders. In contrast, China’s version of the Enlightenment remained controlled by the ruling elite.

Combining ideas from economics and cultural evolution, A Culture of Growth provides startling reasons for why the foundations of our modern economy were laid in the mere two centuries between Columbus and Newton.

The Page 99 Test: The Enlightened Economy.

--Marshal Zeringue