We are delighted to present a selection of our newly published November titles from our core subjects of History, Media Studies, Medical Anthropology, Sociology and Urban Studies, along with a selection of our New in Paperback titles.
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U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND THE OTHER
Edited by Michael Patrick Cullinane and David Ryan
John Quincy Adams warned Americans not to search abroad for monsters to destroy, yet such figures have frequently habituated the discourses of U.S. foreign policy. This collection of essays focuses on counter-identities in American consciousness to explain how foreign policies and the discourse surrounding them develop. Whether it is the seemingly ubiquitous evil of Hitler during World War II or the more complicated perceptions of communism throughout the Cold War, these essays illuminate the cultural contexts that constructed rival identities. The authors challenge our understanding of “others,” looking at early applications of the concept in the eighteenth century to recent twenty-first century conflicts, establishing how this phenomenon is central to decision making through centuries of conflict.
RIVERS, MEMORY, AND NATION-BUILDING
A History of the Volga and Mississippi Rivers
Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted
Rivers figure prominently in a nation’s historical memory, and the Volga and Mississippi have special importance in Russian and American cultures. Beginning in the pre-modern world, both rivers served as critical trade routes connecting cultures in an extensive exchange network, while also sustaining populations through their surrounding wetlands and bottomlands. In modern times, “Mother Volga” and the “Father of Waters” became integral parts of national identity, contributing to a sense of Russian and American exceptionalism. Furthermore, both rivers were drafted into service as the means to modernize the nation-state through hydropower and navigation. Despite being forced into submission for modern-day hydrological regimes, the Volga and Mississippi Rivers persist in the collective memory and continue to offer solace, recreation, and sustenance. Through their histories we derive a more nuanced view of human interaction with the environment, which adds another lens to our understanding of the past
PROPERTY IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE
Notions, Institutions, and Practices of Landownership in the Twentieth Century
Edited by Hannes Siegrist and Dietmar Müller
Property is a complex phenomenon comprising cultural, social, and legal rules. During the twentieth century, property rights in land suffered massive interference in Central and Eastern Europe. The promise of universal and formally equal rights of land ownership, ensuring predictability of social processes and individual autonomy, was largely not fulfilled. The national appropriation of property in the interwar period and the communist era represent an onerous legacy for the postcommunist (re)construction of a liberal-individualist property regime. However, as the scholars in this collection show, after the demise of communism in Eastern Europe property is again a major factor in shaping individual identity and in providing the political order and culture with a foundational institution. This volume analyzes both historical and contemporary forms of land ownership in Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia in a multidisciplinary framework including economic history, legal and political studies, and social anthropology.
SHAPING THE TRANSNATIONAL SPHERE
Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s
Edited by Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel
In the second half of the nineteenth century a new kind of social and cultural actor came to the fore: the expert. During this period complex processes of modernization, industrialization, urbanization, and nation-building gained pace, particularly in Western Europe and North America. These processes created new forms of specialized expertise that grew in demand and became indispensible in fields like sanitation, incarceration, urban planning, and education. Often the expertise needed stemmed from problems at a local or regional level, but many transcended nation-state borders. Experts helped shape a new transnational sphere by creating communities that crossed borders and languages, sharing knowledge and resources through those new communities, and by participating in special events such as congresses and world fairs.
MATERNALISM RECONSIDERED
Motherhood, Welfare and Social Policy in the Twentieth Century
Edited by Marian van der Klein, Rebecca Jo Plant, Nichole Sanders and Lori R. Weintrob
Beginning in the late 19th century, competing ideas about motherhood had a profound impact on the development and implementation of social welfare policies. Calls for programmes aimed at assisting and directing mothers emanated from all quarters of the globe, advanced by states and voluntary organizations, liberals and conservatives, feminists and anti-feminists – a phenomenon that scholars have since termed ‘maternalism’. This volume reassesses maternalism by providing critical reflections on prior usages of the concept, and by expanding its meaning to encompass geographical areas, political regimes and cultural concerns that scholars have rarely addressed. From Argentina, Brazil and Mexico City to France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Soviet Ukraine, the United States and Canada, these case studies offer fresh theoretical and historical perspectives within a transnational and comparative framework. As a whole, the volume demonstrates how maternalist ideologies have been employed by state actors, reformers and poor clients, with myriad political and social ramifications.
NAVIGATING COLONIAL ORDERS
Norwegian Entrepreneurship in Africa and Oceania
Edited by Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen
Norwegians in colonial Africa and Oceania had varying aspirations and adapted in different ways to changing social, political and geographical circumstances in foreign, colonial settings. They included Norwegian shipowners, captains, and diplomats; traders and whalers along the African coast and in Antarctica; large-scale plantation owners in Mozambique and Hawai’i; big business men in South Africa; jacks of all trades in the Solomon Islands; timber merchants on Zanzibar’ coffee farmers in Kenya; and King Leopold’s footmen in Congo. This collection reveals narratives of the colonial era that are often ignored or obscured by the national histories of former colonial powers. It charts the entrepreneurial routes chosen by various Norwegians and the places they ventured, while demonstrating the importance of recognizing the complicity of such “non-colonial colonials” for understanding the complexity of colonial history.
MASS COMMUNICATION IN ISRAEL
Nationalism, Globalization, and Segmentation
Oren Soffer
Translated from the Hebrew by Judith Yalon
Mass communication has long been recognized as an important contributor to national identity and nation building. This book examines the relationship between media and nationalism in Israel, arguing that, in comparison to other countries, the Israeli case is unique. It explores the roots and evolution of newspapers, journalism, radio, television, and the debut of the Internet on both the cultural and the institutional levels, and examines milestones in the socio-political development of Hebrew and Israeli mass communication. In evaluating the technological changes in the media, the book shows how such shifts contribute to segmentation and fragmentation in the age of globalization.
THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION
Migration, Health and Family Making
Edited by Maya Unnithan-Kumar and Sunil K. Khanna
Charting the experiences of internally or externally migrant communities, the volume examines social transformation through the dynamic relationship between movement, reproduction, and health. The chapters examine how healthcare experiences of migrants are not only embedded in their own unique health worldviews, but also influenced by the history, policy, and politics of the wider state systems. The research among migrant communities an understanding of how ideas of reproduction and “cultures of health” travel, how healing, birth and care practices become a result of movement, and how health-related perceptions and reproductive experiences can define migrant belonging and identity.
ENHANCING DEMOCRACY
Public Policies and Citizen Participation in Chile
Gonzalo Delamaza
Since the end of the Pinochet regime, Chilean public policy has sought to rebuild democratic governance in the country. This book examines the links between the state and civil society in Chile and the ways social policies have sought to ensure the inclusion of the poor in society and democracy. Although Chile has gained political stability and grown economically, the ability of social policies to expand democratic governance and participation has proved limited, and in fact such policies have become subordinate to an elitist model of democracy and resulted in a restrictive form of citizen participation.
BLOOM AND BUST
Urban Landscapes in the East since German Reunification
Edited by Gwyneth Cliver and Carrie Smith-Prei
More than two decades of deconstruction, renovation, and reconstruction have left the urban environments in the former German Democratic Republic completely transformed. This volume considers the changing urban landscapes in the former East — and how the filling of previous absences and the absence of previous presence — creates the cultural landscape of modern unified Germany. This broadens our understanding of this transformation by examining often-neglected cities, spaces, or structures, and historical narration and preservation.
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New in Paperback:
PERFORMING PLACE, PRACTISING MEMORIES
Aboriginal Australians, Hippies and the State
Rosita Henry
“This powerful and nuanced account of the interaction between the local Aboriginal population, the 1970s hippies who sought an alternative lifestyle and the local state apparatus in the North Queensland town of Kuranda is amongst the best of contemporary ethnographies of a rural Australian town…Henry’s ethnography and analysis is a benchmark work and should attract considerable attention, not only on the Australian stage, but also on the world stage.” · The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
IDENTITY POLITICS AND THE NEW GENETICS
Re/Creating Categories of Difference and Belonging
Edited by Katharina Schramm, David Skinner and Richard Rottenburg
“This wide-ranging, international collection considers many of the practical, ethical and political questions raised by the proliferation of genetic research and testing around the world…Almost all of the chapters deal in a sophisticated way with questions about how ideas of identity, race, and kinship are being shaped by their interaction with genetic technologies and the way those technologies are being interpreted.” · Contemporary Sociology. A Journal of Reviews
ANTHROPOLOGY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
A Convergent Approach
Myron J. Aronoff and Jan Kubik
“Anthropology and Political Science does the important work of demonstrating fruitful openings in two fields of study. Political scientists have the most to gain by becoming aware of the historical specificity of their models, perhaps developing less American and ethnocentric perspectives that can index alternative futures. But anthropologists might also gain from political science approaches by being more precise and rigorous in their formulation of problems and use of concepts. Aronoff and Kubik do a real service by underscoring the importance of such dialogue.” · Perspectives on Politics
THE HOLOCAUST AND HISTORICAL METHODOLOGY
Edited by Dan Stone
“…a very interesting and timely contribution to the study of the Holocaust by a younger generation of historians. Edited by historian Dan Stone, it is a collection of essays focusing on different aspects of the study of the Holocaust. Issues are raised not only in relation to the historiography of the Holocaust but also on the methodologies used by historians to grasp the series of events lumped together under the term Holocaust.” · Historein
CZECHS, GERMANS, JEWS?
National Identity and the Jews of Bohemia
Kateřina Čapková
Translated from the Czech by Derek and Marzia Paton
“In her well-researched volume, Čapková uses a broad range of archival and published sources and shows a mastery of the secondary literature, including theoretical materials… Subtly argued and effectively based in the real-life experience of individuals, this book is a fine contribution to the study and understanding of central European Jewry. Fluidly translated; 20 well-chosen illustrations. Highly recommended.” · Choice