New Scholarly Books
Compiled by NINA C. AYOUB
For additional books this week,
go to chronicle.com/books
Archaeology
Art and Architecture
Environmental Studies
History
Literature
The following list has been compiled
from information provided by the publishers. Prices and number of pages are sometimes approximate. Some publishers offer
discounts to scholars and to people who
order in bulk.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
JACK JOHNSON, REBEL SOJOURNER: BOXING IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLOBAL
COLOR LINE, by Theresa Runstedtler (
University of California Press; 376 pages; $34.95).
Discusses the first African-American World
Heavyweight Champion and his challenges to
white supremacy at home and abroad.
ANTHROPOLOGY
CULTURE WORKS: SPACE, VALUE, AND
MOBILITY ACROSS THE NEOLIBERAL
AMERICAS, by Arlene Davila (New York University Press; 232 pages; $70 hardcover, $22
paperback). Explores such topics as “tango
tourism” in Buenos Aires, and debates over
the feasibility of creating a Smithsonian Museum of the American Latino.
RICE TALKS: FOOD AND COMMUNIT Y IN A
VIETNAMESE TOWN, by Nir Avieli (Indiana
University Press; 344 pages; $70 hardcover,
$25.95 paperback). Combines scholarly and
personal perspectives in a study of cooking
and eating in the social life of Hoi An, a prosperous market town in central Vietnam.
ARCHAEOLOGY
THE CREATION OF INEQUALITY: HOW
OUR PREHISTORIC ANCESTORS SET THE
STAGE FOR MONARCHY, SLAVERY, AND
EMPIRE, by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus
(Harvard University Press; 631 pages; $39.95).
Blends archaeology and social anthropology
in a study of the origins and evolution of inequality over the past 10,000 years.
EARLY NEW WORLD MONUMEN TALIT Y,
edited by Richard L. Burger and Robert M.
Rosenswig (University Press of Florida; 489
pages; $85). Topics include early Olmec wetland
mounds, shell mounds of the Middle St. Johns
Basin in northeast Florida, and late Archaic platform mounds in the Norte Chico of Peru.
POPULATION CIRCULATION AND THE
TRANSFORMATION OF ANCIENT ZUNI
COMMUNITIES, by Gregson Schachner
(University of Arizona Press; 243 pages; $45).
Traces the demographic and other impacts of
a population shift in the Zuni region of west-central New Mexico in the 13th century AD.
ART AND ARCHITECTURE
THE EARLY RENAISSANCE AND VERNACULAR CULTURE, by Charles Dempsey (
Harvard University Press; 384 pages; $39.95).
Explores the integration of popular culture
in Renaissance art; topics include how Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” reflected fashionable
beauty ideals of the time.
FOUR HISTORICAL DEFINI TIONS OF AR-
CHITECTURE, by Stephen Parcell (
McGill-Queen’s University Press; 344 pages; US$49.95).
Explores notions of architecture as a techne in
ancient Greece, a mechanical art in medieval
Europe, an art of disegno in Renaissance Italy,
and a fine art in 18th-century Europe.
HOW A REVOLUTIONARY ART BECAME
OFFICIAL CULTURE: MURALS, MUSEUMS,
AND THE MEXICAN STATE, by Mary K.
Coffey (Duke University Press; 234 pages;
$89.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Considers the political and aesthetic issues raised by
the incorporation of mural art into Mexico’s
public museums.
CLASSICAL STUDIES
CALLIMACHUS IN CON TEXT: FROM
PLATO TO THE AUGUSTAN POETS, by Benjamin Acosta-Hughes and Susan A. Stephens
(Cambridge University Press; 344 pages;
$99). Contrasts the Greek and Roman reception of the poet.
THE INVEN TION AND GENDERING OF
EPICURUS, by Pamela Gordon (University of
Michigan Press; 232 pages; $70). A study of
ancient anti-Epicurean discourse, including
notions of unmanly men and disreputable
women in the imagined Epicurean Garden.
COMMUNICATION
BRAZILIAN TELENOVELAS AND THE
M YTH OF RACIAL DEMOCRACY, by Samantha Nogueira Joyce (Lexington Books; 127
pages; $60). Explores the role of telenovelas
in social change through a study of Duas
Caras (2007-08) the first of the genre with an
Afro-Brazilian as the central protagonist.
ECONOMICS
IN THE WAKE OF THE CRISIS: LEADING
ECONOMIS TS REASSESS ECONOMIC POLICY, edited by Olivier J. Blanchard and others
(MIT Press; 174 pages; $19.95). Essays on
macroeconomic thinking.
THE POLITICAL ECONOM Y OF PIPELINES: A CEN TURY OF COMPARATIVE
INSTITU TIONAL DEVELOPMEN T, by Jeff
D. Makholm (University of Chicago Press;
270 pages; $60). Applies the new institutional
economics in a study of differences in the
ownership, development, and operation of oil
and gas pipelines.
EDUCATION
OPENING MINDS, IMPROVING LIVES: EDUCATION AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN
HONDURAS, by Erin Murphy-Graham (
Vanderbilt University Press; 217 pages; $59.95
hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Draws on fieldwork in Garifuna villages of north coastal
Honduras in a study of women’s participation
in an educational program known as Sistema
de Aprendizaje Tutorial or SAT.
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE GREAT LAKES
REGION: NAVIGATING AN UNCERTAIN
FUTURE, edited by Thomas Dietz and David
Bidwell (Michigan State University Press; 269
pages; $39.95). Topics include adaptation to
climate change by Ontario cash crop farmers.
OREGON PLANS: THE MAKING OF AN
UNQUIET LAND-USE REVOLU TION, by Sy
Adler (Oregon State University Press; 240
pages; $24.95). Traces the origins and early
history of the state’s well-known land-use
planning program.
GAY AND LESBIAN STUDIES
GAY RIGHTS AT THE BALLOT BOX, by Amy
L. Stone (University of Minnesota Press; 272
pages; $67.50 hardcover, $22.50 paperback).
Examines the evolving tactics of LGBT activists in the face of both failures and success-es in the flight to block anti-gay initiatives.
GEOGRAPHY
THE BLACK BOOK: WOODROW WILSON’S
SECRET PLAN FOR PEACE, by Wesley J.
Reisser (Lexington Books; 204 pages; $60).
Discusses a document prepared for the president by the Inquiry, a group of geographers,
historians, economists, and political scientists
whose work helped shape the borders of the
post-World War I world; considers which
borders prevailed and which did not.
MINING AND NATURAL HAZARD VULNERABILITY IN THE PHILIPPINES: DIGGING TO DEVELOPMEN T OR DIGGING TO
DISASTER? by William N. Holden and R.
Daniel Jacobson (Anthem Press; 286 pages;
$99). Documents the dangers of environmental degradation from mining in an island
system prone to typhoons, earthquakes, and
other natural hazards.
HISTORY
AF TER EMPIRE: THE CONCEPTUAL
TRANSFORMATION OF THE CHINESE
STATE, 1885-1924, by Peter Zarrow (Stanford
University Press; 416 pages; $85 hardcover,
$27.95 paperback). Examines the shift in political culture that marked the end of monarchical rule in China.
ALMOST FREE: A STORY ABOUT FAMILY
AND RACE IN AN TEBELLUM VIRGINIA, by
Eva Sheppard Wolf (University of Georgia
Press; 174 pages; $59.95 hardcover, $19.95
paperback). Discusseses the experiences of
free blacks in the antebellum South through
the life of a man from Warrenton, Va., who
purchased his freedom and attempted to free
his family.
THE CHINA THREAT: MEMORIES, M Y THS,
AND REALITIES IN THE 1950S, by Nancy
Bernkopf Tucker (Columbia University Press;
295 pages; $39.50). Describes a more-nuanced
view of U.S.-Chinese relations behind the
Eisenhower administration’s public rhetoric.
GHOST OF THE OZARKS: MURDER AND
MEMORY IN THE UPLAND SOU TH, by
Brooks Blevins (University of Illinois Press;
296 pages; $29.95). Documents the role of
regional stereotypes in media coverage of a
1929 killing in Stone County, Ark., in which
a drifter was murdered and his teenaged fiancée raped, five men were arrested and tried,
and a man claiming to be the ghost of the
victim appeared to testify.
GIANT IN THE SHADOWS: THE LIFE OF
ROBERT T. LINCOLN, by Jason Emerson
(Southern Illinois University Press; 600
pages; $39.95). Draws on previously untapped
materials in a biography of Abraham and
Mary Lincoln’s oldest and longest surviving
son (1843-1926).
A HARVEST OF RELUCTAN T SOULS: FRAY
ALONSO DE BENAVIDES’S “HISTORY OF
NEW MEXICO,” 1630, translated and edited by
Baker H. Morrow (University of New Mexico
Press; 111 pages; $19.95). Translation of an
official report to the king of Spain written by
a Portuguese Franciscan missionary.
IN TO THE BREACH AT PUSAN: THE 1S T
PROVISIONAL MARINE BRIGADE IN THE
KOREAN WAR, by Kenneth W. Estes (
University of Oklahoma Press; 194 pages; $29.95).
A study of the opening campaign of the Korean War; disputes the notion that the Eighth
Army was saved by the 1st Marine Brigade,
but argues that the former’s suffering would
have been much worse without the latter’s
actions.
THE KEN TUCKY DERBY: HOW THE RUN
FOR THE ROSES BECAME AMERICA’S
PREMIER SPORTING EVEN T, by James C.
Nicholson (University Press of Kentucky;
274 pages; $24.95). Considers how the May
race in Louisville became an internationally
known event.
THE MALTHUSIAN MOMEN T: GLOBAL
POPULATION GROW TH AND THE BIRTH
OF AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM, by
Thomas Robertson (Rutgers University
Press; 291 pages; $72 hardcover, $25.95 paperback). Examines a decades-long wave of concern over population growth that crested in
the 1960s and began to decline in the 1970s.
MOTHERS OF CONSERVATISM: WOMEN
AND THE POS TWAR RIGHT, by Michelle M.
Nickerson (Princeton University Press; 231
pages; $35). Documents the pivotal role of
housewives in a grassroots conservative movement in Southern California in the 1950s.
REBELS ON THE BORDER: CIVIL WAR,
EMANCIPATION, AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF KEN TUCK Y AND MISSOURI, by
Aaron Astor (Louisiana State University
Press; 360 pages; $47.50). Topics include
how wartime Unionists in both states joined
former Confederate guerillas in an effort to
block the political ambitions of newly emancipated blacks.
REPRODUCTION BY DESIGN: SEX, ROBOTS,
TREES, AND TES T-TUBE BABIES IN IN TER-WAR BRITAIN, by Angus McLaren (
University of Chicago Press; 235 pages; $55). Draws
on realms from science to popular culture in
a study of interwoven debates over sexuality,
reproduction, eugenics, and environmentalism in the 1920s and 30s.
SLAVERY BY ANY OTHER NAME: AFRICAN
LIFE UNDER COMPAN Y RULE IN COLONIAL
MOZAMBIQUE, by Eric Allina (University of
THE CHRONICLE REVIEW B21
