Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

Although written in such a way that it can be easily read by undergraduates, this volume merits the attention of advanced students of European history as well. Goldberg (Univ. of the South) pays particular attention to WW II as it was experienced by the peoples of France and the Netherlands in the West, and of Poland and Russia in the East. The author chronicles the suffering and sacrifices of the victims of the war, giving special attention to those who resisted the Nazi oppressors. He also addresses the unbelievable cruelty of genocide and poses essential questions: How could democracy have failed so badly in Weimar Germany, in Britain during the era of appeasement, and in France in 1940? How could the Germans have accepted the inhuman policies of the Third Reich? In no way does this study sacrifice its merit by addressing these vital issues. Goldberg gives his readers an account of WW II that is remarkably coherent and lucid, illustrating his main arguments with a wealth of fascinating details throughout.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Satia (Stanford Univ.) here argues that in focusing on the role of textiles and railroads in catalyzing industrialization, historians have overlooked the role of technical military innovation prior to the 19th century. Thus, she chooses not to commence her investigation with discussions common to industrialization histories, such as those focused on harnessing new forms of energy for production or divisions of labor. Instead, she begins with Britain's colonial and geopolitical projects, which not only prompted massive expenditures for weaponry, creating an armaments industry, but also sustained the state's promotion of technical innovation therein. Such innovation, including the initial work on steam engines, puddling furnaces, and even copper sheeting, in turn facilitated the leap to industrialization in other areas, such as textiles. In the process, the author also documents Britain's weapons culture and the moral questions the existence of an armaments industry raises. Satia does not displace the well-grounded depiction of industrialization based in textiles and railroads; rather, she convincingly supplements it, demonstrating the equal significance of the heretofore overlooked role of the military requirements of empire. This book, written in sparkling prose, is a potentially paradigm-changing work.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

The US armed forces and their associated private military companies have featured prominently in the literature on US foreign wars, especially since 9/11. What has been lacking, until now, was a serious study of the "global army of labor" (p. 9), which numbers in the tens of thousands and provides all manner of basic logistical support to US forces in war zones. In Empire's Labor, Moore (geography, UCLA) delivers an original, comprehensive analysis of this international workforce, which is recruited by big contractors to do the menial tasks of what world-renowned geographer Derek Gregory called "everywhere war" (quoted by Moore, p. 5). Neither Americans nor local nationals, these laborers are categorized as "third country nationals" or "other country nationals." Focusing on such workers from Bosnia and the Philippines, Moore employs spatial and network analysis to map analytically this new geography of empire. He also reveals the human faces of these laborers, devoting three chapters to the work-induced peculiarities of their lives, livelihoods, relationships, and fortunes. In larger perspective, these logistical warriors, like new technologies, are an integral part of the ongoing revolution in military affairs and the contemporary American way of war. An intriguing resource for those interested in international affairs, military and security studies, and labor.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

In this sweeping account of Jewish emancipation, which is both chronologically and geographically expansive, Sorkin (Yale Univ.) builds on his previous research charting new approaches to understanding Jewish legal status and intellectual life in Western and Central Europe. He eschews frameworks that relegate emancipation to the 19th century, as well as those that understand its terminus as the Holocaust or the establishment of a Jewish state. Rather, he begins with the extension of collective and corporate privileges to Jews in the mid-16th century and argues that emancipation is still a defining element of Jewish life today in the US and Israel. Instead of focusing on Jewish emancipation in France and Germany, a view that has dominated previous historiography, Sorkin understands emancipation as developing within three primary geographical "zones": Western Europe, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe, with the Ottoman empire also constituting a unique model. This work is the most extensive treatment of Jewish emancipation to date, one that complicates and expands our conception of the circuitous path to parity that is at the center of the past 500 years of Jewish life.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Defining piracy in the early modern period is frustrating; investigating the lives of early modern pirates is even more maddening. Their humble and diverse social origins, itinerant existences, and illicit activities conspire to obscure them, and what contemporaries thought about them, from our present view. This impressive collection helps shed light on these shadowy historical figures. As piracy was a contested crime in the early modern period, editors Lane (Tulane Univ.) and Bialuschewski (Trent Univ., Canada) note that to "get closer to the truth about piracy, one must examine as many sources as possible" (p. xv). Accordingly, they have scoured the globe for primary sources and truly provide a kaleidoscopic perspective on early modern piracy. In addition to a general introduction, chronology, select bibliography, and glossary, there are eight sections of documents, each concerned with a different period or place in the history of early modern piracy. Most appreciated are the heretofore unknown or untranslated non-English archival sources; their deft juxtaposition with previously published commentaries offers "rare insight into the actions" of early modern pirates (p. xxvii). This is, in sum, an exceptional resource for investigating early modern piracy.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Living up to its title, this volume puts the global economy front and center in a concise history that covers the Neolithic Revolution through the 2008 financial crisis in only a few hundred pages. Editors Colli and Amatori (both, Bocconi Univ., Italy) focus on how goods, services, and resources moved across national boundaries, using the experiences of individual countries in service to the larger theme. Chapters elucidate how these systems evolved in response to flows of goods and resources and in turn shaped them over time, primarily centering on the period since roughly AD 1700, what economic historians have come to call "the Great Divergence." This is when western European (and later North American) incomes per person started growing much more rapidly than in the rest of the world. The book grapples with both the causes of this divergence and the consequences for the global economy. The text's greatest strength is its up-to-date scholarship, bringing the latest findings to bear on classic issues such as late-19th-century globalization and the origins of the Great Depression, making this an excellent addition to any economic historian's or library's collection.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.