Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

The American victory at Saratoga has been the subject of literally dozens of books. Dean Snow's 1777 is among the best. Snow (emer., anthropology, Penn State), a past president of the Society for American Archaeology and the author of Archaeology of Native North America (2009), spent four decades studying the battlefields at Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights and poring over letters, journals, and memoirs of participants. The result is a detailed, often hour-by-hour account of the 33-day campaign. Snow's nuanced assessments of Horatio Gates, John Burgoyne, Friedrich Riedesal, and Benedict Arnold are compelling, and his depiction of their subordinate officers and enlisted men enlivens the narrative. Snow captures the interest of readers as he describes the campaign from both the British and the American perspectives and that of commanders, soldiers, and camp followers. This breadth of coverage will make 1777 replace Richard M. Ketchum's Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War (1997) as the standard work on the campaign that laid the basis for American victory in its war for independence.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Gonzaga religious studies scholar Clark has written one of the year's most original works of religious history. A Luminous Brotherhood examines the New Orleans Cercle Harmonique, a group of Afro-Creole men who gathered to practice spiritualism from the Civil War to the end of Reconstruction. As Clark transcribed and translated the group's seance records, she found a remarkable record of members' conversations with a host of dead thinkers and activists, including Abraham Lincoln, Francois Rabelais, and Toussaint Louverture. In the fraught moment of opportunity afforded by Reconstruction but limited by resurgent white supremacy, the Cercle envisioned itself at the center of revolutionary struggle. The book's ingenious structure follows that of the Cercle, each chapter examining one of the widening concentric circles with which members identified: New Orleans, the Catholic Church, the postwar US, and the Atlantic age of revolutions--particularly the French Revolution. Thus, readers learn the ways that local politics circumscribed the Cercle's activism, as well as how a group of New Orleanians envisioned their own place in the nation and the world, and as participants in the Enlightenment. A smart, creative, fun, thought-provoking read.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.

Taylor's sequel to his sweeping, continentally focused American Colonies (CH, Jun'02, 39-6024) is a masterful and important reconceiving of the American Revolutionary era. As this book's subtitle indicates, Taylor employs continental history to situate the American Revolution in a wider temporal and geographic context than this period's typical narrative. The result is a synthesis that gives depth, nuance, and a global perspective to the seemingly familiar story of independence and the launching of the "republican experiment." Here, readers see the impact of other European colonial powers, particularly France and Spain, in the North American struggle for empire that produced the initial stirrings of the British colonies' revolt. Native American and enslaved peoples are actual agents, as opposed to tacked-on supplements to the "real" narrative. Taylor presents the Revolutionary War as the global struggle it actually was, with pivotal moments in India, Canada, and the Caribbean. Many historical syntheses strive to balance a large scope with narrative coherence. Few succeed, but Taylor's is one that does. Gracefully written and informed by the latest scholarship, this accessible yet comprehensive study is one that scholars and students of the American Revolution must read.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Wagner (senior writer and editor, Library of Congress Publishing Office) has produced a superb introduction to the US role in WW I. Benefiting by readings from leading experts such as Over Here (CH, Feb'81) author David M. Kennedy and Christopher Capozzola, author of Uncle Sam Wants You (CH, Jun'09, 46-5795), the narrative begins in the summer of 1912 and ends with the Versailles Treaty of June 1919. The book, aimed at general readers, offers an excellent combination of political, social, and military history. The style is superb, the abundant illustrations (many in color) well chosen, the observations both pointed and balanced. In addition to covering standard diplomacy and major battles, Wagner covers repression of civil liberties, the woman suffrage movement, the role of African American divisions and regiments, and the role played by Czarist and Bolshevik Russia. Particularly fascinating are portrayals of the conflict as seen by wealthy activist Florence Harriman and journalist John Callan O'Laughlin. Direct sources include seven Library of Congress manuscript collections (though the bibliography lists 71), scholarly and contemporary books and articles, recently created websites, and an abundance of newspapers ranging from Arizona to Boston.Summing Up: Essential. Public, general, and undergraduate collections.

The Scheibers (both law professors affiliated with the Univ. of California Berkeley law school) have produced a truly extraordinary book, as monumental in substance and importance as it is massive in length (about 500 overlarge pages, including 110 pages of endnotes). Clearly a labor of love decades in the making (a preliminary, "short," 170-page version appeared in the 1997 University of Hawai'i Law Review), this massively researched volume is a towering example of outstanding scholarship, yet it is clearly written and organized and easily accessible to all--well, at least all who can spare the well-rewarded week or so required to absorb the inevitably dense subject matter. While length limitations and the topic's complexity make all but the sparest summary impossible, in (very) short, this book clearly demonstrates that WW II martial law in Hawai'i (until this book, virtually entirely forgotten), which lasted about three years (!!), involved completely unnecessary and massive civil liberties violations of all 400,000 civilians living in "paradise," even if such abuses were generally not nearly as intense as those suffered by the 110,000 mainland Japanese Americans who were notoriously and arbitrarily forced to leave their homes and, without any legal procedures or justification beyond blatant racial prejudice, forcibly interned. A truly amazing and outstanding work of scholarship.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Though Benjamin Franklin described himself as a "thorough deist," historian Kidd (Baylor) points out that even to Franklin, deism at different times meant many different things. As such, Kidd's exploration of Franklin's religious life is a needed addition to scholarship on the founding generation. Having already published the excellent biography George Whitefield: America's Spiritual Founding Father (CH, Mar'15, 52-3610), Kidd is particularly well positioned to document Franklin's influential friendship with this essential evangelist and publishing marvel. Kidd's skill is not limited to this one relationship, however, as he deftly portrays many of Franklin's associations, ranging from family members and mistresses to servants, friends, and colleagues. Through each, the author proves Franklin to be, not surprisingly, a complicated spiritual man. Kidd makes a simple or static understanding of Franklin's philosophy, spiritual or otherwise, untenable. The book's chronological prose has a meandering style within chapters, but an effective one. Kidd's research and fairness prove invaluable in providing a nuanced grasp of an essential founding father who, while "well-known," is too often misunderstood. Readers seeking to truly understand Franklin, and particularly his religious commitments and beliefs, should certainly seek out Kidd's work.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Jackson (creative writing, Old Dominion Univ.) has written what might be the definitive biography of the American Indian icon. With vital prose, Jackson brings Black Elk to life. Here is a Lakota man who was present at Custer's Last Stand in 1876 and Wounded Knee in 1890, who danced before Queen Victoria at her Golden Jubilee in 1887, and who told his life story, published as Black Elk Speaks, in 1932. It has sold millions of copies and is still in print. Born in 1863, he died in 1950, having experienced the devastation of his people; however, his words led in part to their cultural resurgence. A great vision he received at age nine became Black Elk's guiding star. He reenacted its imagery in ritual, measured other faiths--including Christianity and the Ghost Dance--according to its spirit, and tried to fulfill its promise as an abiding vocation. Informed by written and oral sources, Jackson tells it all, focusing on Black Elk's struggle to express his native piety as a Catholic catechist, serving Jesuit priests who shaped his calling, then browbeat and disparaged him when his allegiance to his vision was revealed in print.Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries.

The year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the emergence of the Black Power movement and the birth of the Black Panthers for Self Defense (later renamed Black Panther Party). The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library held an exhibit in 2016 to commemorate the movement, and this stunning companion book samples its rich legacy. The book features essays on topics as diverse as black power politics and ideologies; coalitions with the Brown Berets (Chicano), the Young Lords (Puerto Rican), and the American Indian Movement; "education for liberation"; "America means prison"; the Black Arts Movement; international dimensions of black power; and fashion. It also includes riveting, firsthand testimonials by activists such as Emory Douglas, Maulana Karenga, Jose Jimenez, Michael James, Erika Huggins, Muhammad Ahmad, Kathleen Cleaver, and Sami Shalom Chetrit. The Panthers initiated the first free school breakfast program (now a national fixture), and the Black Power movement was a catalyst for welfare rights, tenant rights, student activism, revolutionary unions, anti-poverty efforts, and grassroots organizing nationwide. This impressive book includes incredible photographs and visual memorabilia. Required reading.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Thompson (Univ. of Michigan) has written a powerful, balanced account of the inhuman conditions that sparked the 1971 Attica prison riot, the agonizing days of negotiations when the inmates demanded to be treated as human beings, and the prison's armed retaking by New York State troopers and correction officers--despite both sides' wishes for continuing negotiations. A hail of bullets killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages, and wounded over 100 others. Following the retaking, surviving inmates suffered brutal physical, psychological, and racial abuse from both correctional officers and state police. Thompson's impeccable research and writing repulses and sickens readers as she recounts horrific descriptions of inhumanity. She chronicles the next 30 years as first inmates and then hostages or their families sought legal redress from a broken system. Throughout, New York State has remained steadfast in its refusal to accept responsibility. Whether one believes the inmates got what they deserved or that the armed assault was totally unnecessary, readers will find Thompson's objectivity beyond remarkable. Although conditions at Attica are worse today, the author remains hopeful as prisoners continue to struggle for humane treatment.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Zierden (curator, historical archaeology, Charleston Museum) and Reitz (anthropology, Univ. of Georgia) provide an overview of the historical archaeology of this famous southern city from its founding to the postbellum period. Using an archaeological lens, they discuss the city's establishment, the growth of its economy over the course of the 18th century, colonial conflict with the Spanish and the resulting fortifications, the development of the city's famous townhouses, the destruction wrought by the Civil War, and the rebirth of the city after the war. The authors also describe the history of archaeology in the city and stress its importance as a birthplace of the historic preservation movement in the US. Excellent maps and illustrations, including some in color, enhance the volume. Setting the book apart from other archaeological studies of historic US cities is that Zierden and Reitz highlight zooarchaeology in their analysis of Charleston. Relationships between people and animals take center stage, whether the animals are distinctive regional cattle or passenger pigeons. Both scholarly and accessible, the volume is a model for 21st-century urban historical archaeology.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries, especially in the South.

Many excellent books document the infamous WW II internment of more than 100,000 US citizens of Japanese, German, and Italian descent. But this may be the only book to present a local community's internment history expressly by highlighting a particular archive that is dedicated to documenting its imprisonment. Historians Ivey and Kaatz (both, California State Univ. East Bay) craft this excellent local history by chronicling anti-Asian bigotry in the US, leading up to Executive Order 9066; detailing how the Japanese Americans of Redwood City, California, managed during the "relocation"; illuminating the hard work a banker, J. Elmer Morrish, undertook to serve as the internees' financial, personal, and professional representative; and illustrating how the Morrish Collection at the Redwood City Public Library serves as a crucial lens to learn what these US citizens had to endure. The internees' lives take shape in stories that speak to anyone who has endured injustice. The authors provide, variously, excerpts from letters, transcribed letters, and photocopies of letters that illuminate the internees' subjugation and that likewise feature what this archive has preserved. An extraordinary book whose subject matter speaks for itself.Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries.

Hatter (Washington State Univ.) argues that the 1814 Treaty of Ghent with Britain not only stifled US-Canadian borderlanders' ability to claim US citizenship or British subjecthood at the whims of personal economic convenience (particularly common among Canadian fur traders), but also that the treaty's "imperial logic ... extended the United States' authority over non-citizens and rejected the interference of foreign powers in the American Empire." Despite preexisting ideas about legal naturalization, Jay's Treaty (1794) allowed British subjects in the transnational west to cross the border easily to engage in economic pursuits. No real border yet existed; the challenge facing US officials in settlements like Detroit was one of legal ambiguity as well as defining notions of national belonging. American agents battled with merchants like Canadian fur traders based out of Montreal in an attempt to stifle British activity in the American West and to promote a greater sense of national belonging--as well as economic nationalism itself--in the burgeoning United States. Ultimately, no short review can do this smart and highly interesting book justice. Hatter illuminates deftly and in great detail not only the origins of US nationalism and empire during the early 19th century, but just as importantly, how the US-Canada border transformed from diplomatic abstraction to modern geopolitical reality.Summing Up: Essential. All academic levels/libraries.

Historian Eagles's imaginative recovery of a civil rights moment informs readers about the accomplishment of two courageous professors from Tougaloo and Millsaps Colleges. Sociologist James Loewen and historian Charles Sallis challenged Mississippi's educational and racial norms in seeking a better education for all through an inclusive (white, black, red, and brown experiences) state history textbook. Half the battle was team writing, the other a court struggle for approval. Eagles (Univ. of Mississippi) fully rescues this subtext, filled with grit, drama, and exhaustive labor. Readers who wish insight into Mississippi's resistance to social progress should purchase this, while students of US historiography will benefit from Eagles's model. Indeed, the example shaped by Loewen and Sallis might inspire creative textbooks in other states. If Ohio (this reviewer's state) is a fair representation of current practice, the state's best historians would do well to follow these two authors in working with or around textbook framers toward the goal of a better understanding of the past by all Ohioans. Congratulations to Eagles and the University of North Carolina Press on their splendid achievement in this pathbreaking publication.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Lindsey (Ohio State) offers a fascinating examination of Washingtonian African American women during the late 19th and early 20th century. The nation's capital was a hotbed of political activism, and black women imagined unique opportunities for themselves and black Washingtonians. Lindsey creatively and convincingly illuminates how urban black women educators, playwrights and intellectuals, beauty culturists, and suffragists defined New Negro womanhood while striving for race, gender, and class equality. The author convincingly contends that "New Negro womanhood was a mosaic, authorial, and constitutive individual and collective identity inhabited by African American women seeking to transform themselves and their communities." Viewing themselves as authorial figures in a modern urban world, black women's varying definitions and expressions of New Negro womanhood were articulated in their political speeches, literary texts, and intellectual writings. Their intellectual work and writings were pivotal to how black women like Howard University educator Lucy Diggs Slowe envisioned equality and freedom, and how they performed New Negro womanhood. A major contribution to African American women's history that demonstrates urban black women's important political work.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic levels/libraries.

In this outstanding study of slavery and freedom in Rhode Island, Clark-Pujara (Univ. of Wisconsin) asserts that the institution of slavery shaped the economic history of the state not only through the trade and labor of enslaved persons but also through the production of manufactured goods sold in slave states. Manumission did not offer anything resembling equality but instead was met with violence and legislative efforts to circumscribe African American rights. Local African Americans responded with the creation of voluntary associations designed to support an outcast community. Only in 1866, after years of agitation, did Rhode Island offer a modicum of equality through the integration of the state's public schools. Based on careful scrutiny of manuscript collections, public records, and business and institutional documents, this monograph adds to the understanding of early New England and Rhode Island and, more important, offers a significant contribution to the growing scholarly discussion of the Colonial and antebellum North's complicity in the institution of slavery and the creation of a national ideology of white supremacy. This superb work, the author's first, should be read by anyone interested in early American race relations or New England history.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

This is a great book. Rarely do readers get to experience the unique combination of fascinating history, contemporary relevance, drama, and intrigue in wonk-policy detail in a single, enjoyable work. In some ways, the horror and aftermath of 9/11 made this book much more interesting than it would have been before that seismic event: very few would have guessed that the origins of "homeland security" could be traced as far back as the 1930s and FDR. Nor would many realize what a prominent policy role the First Lady would have had back in that time period. Dallek (GWU) takes readers through all of the touch points, which actually read like modern headlines in The New York Times: government propaganda, militarized civilian life, competing political visions for national defense, and the evolution of national security into the public consciousness. All of these things were the foundation of the myriad problems plaguing the Office of Civilian Defense under FDR in the 30s. This should make all readers wonder just how far the country has progressed and how far it still has to go.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

This concluding volume of Cook's absorbing trilogy (CH, Dec'92, 30-2284) (CH, Dec'99, 37-2340) resonates even more powerfully with present-day concerns than its worthy predecessors. As first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) consistently and eloquently championed social justice and minority rights. A preternatural pacifist, she nonetheless spoke out early and often in support of national preparedness before WW II. She bucked the State Department in advocating European refugees' access to the US, refusing to back down despite periodically annoying her husband. She was a resolute friend of the vulnerable and disadvantaged, though unavailingly so in the case of interned Japanese Americans. Perpetually in motion, ER served as her husband's eyes and ears along many tracks, from meeting with Appalachian coal miners to wounded American GIs recuperating in Australia. Postwar, ER was an effective human rights advocate at the UN. Domestically, she continued to proselytize for a kinder, more expansive democracy. As Cook (John Jay College, CUNY) notes, ER was happiest when busiest, and, one might add, the bigger the challenge, the happier she was. Prodigiously researched and written with verve, this volume felicitously rounds out one of the great US biographies--perhaps the best--published so far in this century.Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries.

This beautifully written book takes a seemingly familiar story and tells it in a different and completely persuasive way. It is one of those books that rewrites history, in the best sense. Historian Warren (Univ. of California, Davis) places the ghost dances of various Native peoples, ranging from the Paiutes in Nevada to the Arapaho in Oklahoma to the Lakotas gunned down at Wounded Knee in 1890, in the context of the wage-work economy in which Natives were compelled to operate. Far from being a desperate attempt to bring back some imagined golden past, the Ghost Dance "helped many believers accept conquest while strengthening their resolve to resist assimilation." Moreover, Warren understands the evolution of the Ghost Dance as parallel to other religious movements that have arisen in times of a brutal capitalist reordering of a traditional economy, from 18th-century Methodists to 19th-century Mormons to 20th-century Pentecostals. The author connects the Dance, as well, to the troubled 1890 census, the same one that Frederick Jackson Turner used for his "frontier thesis." By the end, readers see the Ghost Dance as a "forward-looking, pragmatic religion that had a long life after the notorious atrocity in South Dakota." A marvelous, haunting, compelling book.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Not to be confused with Kelso's previous book, Jamestown: The Buried Truth (CH, Aug'07, 44-7023), this new volume updates all earlier truths with discoveries from recent years, expanding knowledge of the early-17th-century English colony significantly. Excavated since 1994 by the author (head archaeologist, Jamestown Recovery Project), the site has been shown to have remained remarkably intact considering subsequent activities, including erosion by the river and later massive earthmoving during the Civil War. Focusing on the earliest English occupation and the fort, the church, associated burials, and other structures, Kelso interprets the site in light of historical documents, forensic data, genealogical research, and new technologies. Particularly useful are his explanations of how specific conclusions were drawn and the evidence for (and against) them, making this a fine example of archaeological research for public consumption. Expanded excavations now provide a better window into the Jamestown experience in the larger context of English expansion into the Americas. The book itself is very attractively designed, and includes numerous color photos and illustrations. While some of the older information is redundant with previous publications, this volume does an excellent job of reinterpreting earlier data.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Historian Rosenberg (emer., Barnard College, Columbia) offers a thorough account of the life and political activism of Pauli Murray. Drawing from over 100 archival boxes of Murray's poems, sermons, and letters, Rosenberg brilliantly situates Murray at the forefront of post-WW II civil and women's rights movements. Educated at Hunter College in New York City and later at Howard and Yale University law schools, Murray drafted legal writings that were instrumental in overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and influenced the 1970s legal work of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As a human rights activist, Murray challenged racial discrimination on public transportation, founded the National Organization of Women with 1960s feminist Betty Friedan, and coined the term "Jane Crow." This major contribution to African American history and queer studies sheds light on Murray's lifelong struggles with gender identity. The feminist scholar and Episcopal priest identified as a man, established relationships with women, donned men's clothes, and during the 1930s unsuccessfully underwent hormone therapy in order to transition from female to male. A stellar and fascinating monograph that celebrates Murray's lesser-known accomplishments.Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries.

Historian Huebner (Rhodes College) provides a well-written, scholarly synthesis of the US Civil War and Reconstruction eras that uses "constitutionalism" as its interpretive lens. For Huebner, constitutionalism is the ideology that shaped Americans' perceptions of what exactly liberty and constitutional order meant. In this sense, constitutionalism was a complex and conflicted force, leading to wildly divergent attitudes toward issues like slavery and the Union. A strength of Huebner's book is its attention to groups often skipped over in more traditional constitutional histories, most essentially, African Americans. Indeed, Huebner seeks to unite what are often distinct historiographic streams: constitutional, military, and African American history. The book is in large part successful here, and readers will find thoughtful and nuanced treatments of such matters as black constitutionalism, the constitutional dimensions of secessionism, conscription, and the rights of dissenters. Huebner's treatment of the postwar era is particularly well done, synthesizing a complex literature on the constitutional aspects of Reconstruction in an accessible form. An excellent and approachable synthesis of a complex period; one of the best out there.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

This collection of incisive, tightly focused essays appears at a crucial moment in US history. Created in concert with an exhibition organized by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the 19 essays share the common "principles" of inclusivity, polyvocality, and immediacy. Each meditation wraps around the armature of objects gleaned from the museum's collections. Some artifacts--for example, an antebellum storage jar fashioned by enslaved poet-potter David Drake of South Carolina--are canonical; others, a shirt emblazoned front and back with altered images of the Statue of Liberty and abandoned by an unknown immigrant in the death trap of the Sonoran Desert, are unexpected and painful. The book compellingly embraces the very difficult task of summoning forth the humanity in US history in ways that invite reflection without condescension or apology. The success of this enterprise hinges on the exceptional work of the editors, who guide their essayists to open-ended denouements through objects that eschew the silences of closure, creating instead critical spaces for the questions all Americans need to ask themselves. Powerful, timely, important.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Anthropologists, historians, and students of the ancestral Pueblos of the American Southwest have long honed their interpretive skills with Hopi and other Puebloan cultural narratives of migration and resistance. The Hopi of northeastern Arizona have endured the onslaught of European and US intrusions since 1540. Consequently, the cultural history of the Hopi has been subjected to increased scrutiny by those intent on decoding the enigmatic past of this seemingly inscrutable tradition. Such studies ultimately formed the basis for the direct-historical method and, thereby, historically informed archaeology. Despite all revelations to date, the enigmatic past and apocalyptic accounts of the Awat'ovi massacre of 1700 loom large. Through what clearly constitutes one of the most compelling, brilliantly conceived, and deeply revealing works yet advanced to account for the tragedy that befell the people of Awat'ovi, Brooks (history and anthropology, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) establishes himself as one of the preeminent writers and thinkers of this generation. Blending archaeology, sacred landscapes, historical narratives, and witchcraft allegations, Brooks weaves a haunting dialectic of destruction and resurrection borne of cataclysmic cycles of cultural trauma followed by transcendental episodes of social cleansing and redemption.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

This is a thoughtful, wonderfully well-researched, and cogently written study. The author defines modernity and keeps its development and changes always in view, though he provides an abundance of supporting evidence throughout. Major programs, such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), are a prominent part of the story, as are concerns often given less attention, such as women's rights and music and the arts. Bindas (Kent State Univ.) discusses the expositions and world's fairs of this era in a chapter entitled "Salvation Awaits: Expositions, World's Fairs, and Modernity." This brought back to this reviewer, then five years old, a family visit to the New York World's Fair in 1940. The concluding section, "Epilogue: New Directions and Challenges," notes some issues and topics that might be more fully developed in another volume. An excellent, thorough study that merits careful reading.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

This is a sweeping, engaging study of the construction of the disability category over a century. But the author does even more than that. Historian Rose (Univ. of Texas, Arlington) traces the rise of "idiot asylums" and similar reform institutions along with their leading advocates in New York, New England, and the Midwest following the Second Great Awakening and the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization and urbanization caused social changes that created a growing population of those increasingly deemed helpless and non-productive. Rose demonstrates important considerations of class, social status, and economic deprivation in the emergence of institutions intent on reducing "dependency" and establishing the goal of providing the "deserving poor" with "productive labor" as well as exploiting that labor. She tells the story through a thorough combing of institutional archives. Accessible writing and evocative case studies across seven chronologically and thematically arranged chapters reveal the well-intentioned but paternalistic operation of early disability services as they passed over time out of the hands of a generally tolerant rural family environment, itself disappearing and increasingly unable to care for family members newly defined as "disabled." Truly an impressive work in the new but growing field of disabilities scholarship.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Of all the terrible conflicts that men have engaged in, few rival WW I for sheer horror. There are countless volumes on the war from the viewpoint of politicians and generals, such as Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August (1962). Faulkner's groundbreaking, well-written account of the war from the perspective of regular US soldiers tells of their journey from induction, training, voyage to Europe, training in France, and combat to their return home and demobilization. The author relies heavily on primary documents--soldiers' letters and diaries, surveys and memoirs, and numerous period documents produced by agencies of the Expeditionary Forces. This book has no rival in the WW I genre. It can be said that Faulkner (military history, US Army Command and General Staff College) has done for this conflict what Bell Irvin Wiley did for the US Civil War in his two works, The Life of Billy Yank (1952) and The Life of Johnny Reb (1943). The book gives readers a unique insight into the daily lives of the soldiers from beginning to end. As such, this will be a required purchase in all colleges that offer baccalaureate and/or graduate programs in US history and a desirable but not essential acquisition for community college libraries.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Hands down, this is the best history available of Alabama during Reconstruction. Historian Fitzgerald (St. Olaf College) has already written two excellent monographs focused on Alabama during Reconstruction; one dealt with the Union League (CH, Feb'90, 27-3471), and the other concentrated on popular politics in Mobile, AL (CH, May'03, 40-5393). Fitzgerald also wrote a popular history of postwar Reconstruction in the South (CH, Dec'07, 45-2212). State-level histories of Reconstruction often provide greater detail than books that cover regions, and that is most certainly the case with this book. In this nuanced history, Fitzgerald "emphasizes formal politics and the plantation economy, and how they influenced African American choices and possibilities." The introduction situates the book within a larger historiography that goes well beyond Alabama. The book has three main strengths. First, the author reveals the role of geography in shaping politics and economics in Alabama, particularly the distinction between black belt and hill country counties. Second, the study is grounded in substantial archival research and well written. Most important, Fitzgerald offers critical evidence of the ways African Americans in Alabama shaped Reconstruction while resisting extremist white supremacists bent on subjugating them.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

This remarkable addition to scholarship on the Black Panther Party (BPP) consists of nearly 50 interviews with people who were actual members of the Party, exploring their experiences and reasons for joining (and leaving). It offers a unique perspective from the bottom up, from the rank and file. There are also essays from scholars such as Peniel Joseph, Nico Slate, Rhonda Williams, Jama Lazerow, and Alondra Nelson. The topics range from the need for the black community to defend itself against police brutality and abuse, to the experiences of women in the Party, coalition-building, the free school breakfast program, community organizing, and the buses to prison programs (for families to visit inmates). The volume emphasizes the national reach of the BPP and grassroots organizing in response to local conditions. It also further exposes repression and sabotage as part of the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO). The interviewees acknowledge flaws and errors by the BPP, and how imprisonment "compromised" Huey Newton. The authors succeed in their effort to avoid the twin perils of demonization of the Panthers or hero-worship/hagiography. An impressive achievement. Indispensable reading.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Tyson (Univ. of North Carolina) uses thorough research, a gift for storytelling, newly assembled evidence, and a personal commitment and passion to produce a stunning account of the lynching of Emmett Till, one of the most significant events of the 20th-century civil rights movement. He documents how mid-20th-century cultural assumptions justified the violent suppression of African Americans to keep "inferior" citizens in their place. The brutal lynchers later explained that they meant the tortured killing of Till to be a pillar marking the white supremacy social order. Tyson argues that Till's mother's controversial decision to expose her son's abused body in an open casket funeral invigorated the civil rights movement and focused attention on the culture of abuse from that date forward. It was not what the lynchers, acquitted by the Mississippi courts, anticipated. With new evidence that the charges against Till were falsified, Tyson shows that the 1950s national culture accepted the use of violence to suppress minorities. He also shows, however, that seeds of integrity could sprout in churches, labor unions, and some law and judicial offices and is careful to reveal the personal context of the villains, heroines and heroes, and victims of the drama. This is important revisionist history vital to explaining American culture.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Historians interested in the history of animal welfare often choose modest time spans, particular organizations, and discrete geographies. Davis (Univ. of Texas at Austin) embraces an audacious chronological sweep and geographic scope to tell a fresh story of reformers, animal welfare, and modernity. Rooting a cohesive era of humane reform in a gospel of kindness arising from the Second Great Awakening, the author traces the complex influence of this distinct vision of animals and humanity to the eve of WW II, both in the US and where US rule or influence extended itself in the late imperial age. For humane reformers, animal welfare measured domestic civility and inspired civilizing missions. Davis's treatments of opposition to cockfighting and bullfighting are nuanced and deeply satisfying, but her chapter on India and its concurrent roles as an object of reform and an inspiration for reformers is a triumph. Instructors might use Davis's work as a text for examining religion, reform, gender, and race in modern US history surveys, and this pivotal work's examples, anecdotes, and insights will stimulate scholars of human-animal relations.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Addressing the lasting postwar impact of Japanese American internment for both the US and the Canadian Nikkei populations, Inouye (Indiana Univ. Bloomington) states that her monograph "tells a story of perpetuation rather than closure, of self-conscious haunting" that extended far beyond the postwar scattering of that population across the region. Rather, wartime incarceration resulted in victims' development of empathy and political agency and action. For example, Tamotsu Shibutani's experiences working for the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study while interned at Tule Lake were later reflected in his writings as a social scientist. Norman Mineta's experiences at the Heart Mountain internment camp guided his actions later in life as a mayor, congressman, and secretary of transportation. Throughout the book, Inouye successfully links instances of wartime incarceration to later events, such as the US and Canadian push for redress, the establishment of Fred Korematsu Day in California, and the granting of retroactive college diplomas to internees who were forced to abandon their studies. This is a welcome addition, especially considering that this subject has received comparatively little attention compared to writings dealing with the mass evacuation and relocation itself. Thoroughly researched and documented, approachably written, and highly informative.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Wars make cemeteries necessary. Their role as a hollowed resting place for those men and women who have fallen in battle is one that has been honored by all nations for a long time. Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC, has performed that service since its inception during the Civil War as a burial place for those who have died in the country's too-frequent wars. McElya (history, Univ. of Connecticut) has crafted a wonderful history of Arlington National Cemetery, detailing the political and emotional background to this high profile burial ground. The evolution over the years of policies that govern who gets buried at Arlington, regardless of race or gender, is a complicated tale that deserves telling. The construction in 1921 of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier serves as a powerful symbol of the universality of military service in support of democratic ideals. McElya's finely wrought prose brings this story to light, and her book belongs on the shelves of both academic and public libraries.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

This brutally realistic account of the commodification of human beings in the US examines how the bodies of the enslaved were appraised and priced at every stage of their lives, from before birth to after death, as many slave bodies became part of the growing 19th-century trade in cadavers. Berry (history, Univ. of Texas) performed years of primary research in plantation records, slave insurance records, and medical college and university records, as well as using well-known data sets, to produce her analysis. She interweaves her extensive data mining with first-person narratives, brilliantly illustrating the faces, feelings, and humanity of her subjects. The book is organized thematically, with chapters looking at each stage of an individual's life and death. This important contribution to the new economic history of US slavery also provides a clear link with the work of historians Eugene Genovese, Stanley Engerman, and Robert Fogel.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Phillips (Univ. of Cincinnati) has written a masterful study of the "Middle Border" region--the Ohio River Valley and central Mississippi River Valley states that found themselves on opposite sides in the US Civil War. Easy dichotomies about the Civil War era are complicated by Phillips's rich, complex narrative. In addition to "North" versus "South," the 19th-century "West" also played a crucial and complex role in the war and Reconstruction, he argues. In a region where slavery shaped the political economy and large elements of its culture, the traditional free-state/slave-state distinction obscured as much as it revealed, particularly when it came to grappling with freedom and emancipation in the postwar era. If good history complicates and problematizes scholars' received wisdom, then Phillips has produced a good work indeed. Too rich and detailed for a brief review to fully cover, the book challenges the understanding of this complicated region in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Phillips's close examination of the shifting ways in which "union" and "freedom" were understood in this "Middle Border" is indispensable reading for students of the Civil War era.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

This marvelous study combines and interweaves the collapse of the Confederacy with the large number of Union POWs escaping and evading Confederate captivity from September 1864 to the end of the Civil War. Complete with photos of the actors and maps of the western parts of South Carolina and North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, the book shows the routes escapers took on their way to freedom. Most important, Foote (Texas A&M Univ.) points out that without vital help from slaves and friendly white Unionists, there was no way any of these POWs could have made it to Union lines successfully. This is a story of individual determination, commitment, fear, possible death, and retribution on one side and the implosion of the Confederate government at all levels on the other. The author shows not only how determined the escapers were to gain their freedom but also how modern historians have neglected the devolution of the Confederate government late in the war. This outstanding book is thoroughly researched, resulting in an illuminating and powerful study that enhances both Civil War history and POW studies.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Manning (Harvard) examines the overlooked story of Southern slaves' experience fleeing bondage through the means of nearby Union Army camps during the Civil War. Throughout the conflict, nearly one in six bondsmen (approximately 400,000) in the Confederate States escaped their masters and sought refuge behind Federal lines. Manning explores the human side of their story: their perilous flight from their owners, the wretched conditions of the contraband camps, and the struggle to maintain their new freedom and demonstrate value to their liberators. The Northern military was woefully unprepared to logistically handle the number of refugees it inherited, but Manning notes that the army did far more to address their needs than did the national civilian government. Moreover, she elucidates the broader national impact of the refugee experience on the eventual abolition of slavery as well as the wider debate it inspired among Americans about the definition of freedom itself, both legally and culturally. Masterfully written and impeccably researched, this book stands out as one of the new standard-bearer works on the role and impact of African slavery in the US Civil War.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

This work incorporates oral history to share the experiences of more than 20 lawyers who worked on civil rights cases between 1964 and 1980 in the Deep South. All of the essays are written in each contributor's own words, which is important for conveying the true commitment to, and power of, their social justice work. The resulting book is rich in original content--only three of the pieces are reprints from previously published work. The introduction clearly outlines the organization of the content. Editor Spriggs places the essays in one of four parts, discussing how the contributors chose to become civil rights lawyers, providing background on both famous and lesser-known cases that they litigated, sharing the historical impact of those cases, and offering insight on how their work contributed to present day social justice efforts. Each firsthand account paints a vivid portrait of the conditions that each lawyer lived through or worked under, and how those conditions influenced the lawyer's career in civil rights litigation. The lawyers' recollections are equal parts stunning, eye-opening, overwhelming, and, ultimately, very necessary to read and comprehend.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

The essays in this book contextualize the historical and political experience of the Mexican and Latino populations in the US Pacific northwest and midwest regions. Garcia organized his book in three major critical sections, which, in the process, brought together eight scholars to focus on the topics of empire building, border issues, labor production, community settlements, and social movements. This scholarly collection challenges the usual southwest focus on the Mexican and Latino experiences and diverse populations in the US. Garcia's strong introduction provides the general scholarly purpose of the collection and an in-depth review of the published literature on this critical subject. Each contributor's academic findings are based on historical archival and oral interviews, which makes this book original and organic. This is the first book collection that links the various Mexican and Latino social and cultural experiences within the US Pacific northwest and midwest regions. Garcia's leadership in bringing together several scholars will result in major contributions for future research and scholarship on this critical subject matter. Every library should obtain a copy for their ethnic studies and history collections.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

In this award-winning book, Goodfriend (Univ. of Denver) has brilliantly revised the British colonial history of New York City from the bottom up. She emphasizes that the city's history was not simply the story of an elite illustrated in portraitures by John Singleton Copley. To her, the city's elite was not all-powerful, and commoners showed their disdain by challenging its authority. Although English and French were the languages of the privileged, the Dutch language persisted in religious services and in print. George Whitefield's charismatic preaching in the city from 1739-70 set off a major upheaval, and New Yorkers began to shop around for the best preachers in numerous newly established churches of different denominations. Indentured servants brought legal actions and ran away from their contractual obligations. Wives abandoned their husbands in failed marriages. Slaves carved out a world apart from their masters' control, including within the Presbyterian Church and at Methodist Evangelical meetings. Besides using standard sources, the author effectively made use of various religious accounts. These include Moravian journals to illustrate aspects of women's history. Outstanding.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Frazier (history, Rhode Island) offers a fascinating study of the role of women's groups during the Vietnam War. Spearheaded by Women Strike for Peace, women from Vietnam and the US established "people to people" dialogue. Boldly visiting Hanoi, the activists gained access to prisoners of war as well as valued contacts with the Vietnamese communists. The gains made by these activists shed light on the problems of all women, not just Americans. Highly trusted by the North Vietnamese government, the women's groups enjoyed contacts that proved invaluable in plumbing the depths of sexism and resistance in different cultures. Latino and African American activists found a liberating experience in their contacts with the Vietnam Women's Union, consequently developing a "third world feminism." As Elaine Brown, an African American activist, put it, "It was easy to feel at home in Vietnam." The groups provided exposure away from the white-dominated movements in the US. Frazier contributes a superb effort in telling this captivating story.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.