Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2022 -

Readers looking for one book illuminating the range and value of African American life writings will find Moody's book ideal. Covering the latest thinking in the field from the 18th century to the present, the volume comprises 23 essays that review earlier scholarship and consider new artifacts, such as cookbooks, scrapbooks, and photo albums. Contributors introduce ways of reading previously overlooked sources, such as personal letters, poetry, celebrity autobiographies, and mixed-race memoirs, bringing attention to the personal and spiritual stories of everyday people who form the African diaspora. Organized into two sections, "Origins and Histories" and "Individuals and Communities," this history is brought to life by veteran scholars such as William Andrews and Francis Smith Foster. Emerging scholars, e.g., Moya Bailey and Anthony Foy, provide new approaches to witnessing the struggles of African Americans who tried to tell their stories beyond their communities. From antebellum slave narratives to the Obamas' bestsellers, African American autobiographies have served as counternarratives to a society founded on racism and dedicated to the proposition that all are not equal. A chronological list (1760-2020) of autobiographies and key social developments provides historical context for these valuable contributions. This collection demonstrates that critical race theory matters now more than ever.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

History written at its best strives to understand people of the past on their own terms. In A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood, Byrd (Vanderbilt Univ. Divinity School) laudably attempts to do just that for Americans of the most fraught period of American history--the Civil War. To this end, he (rightly) chooses to examine the King James Bible, which those generations used to define themselves. This effort to document "how Americans enlisted the Bible in the nation's most bloody and arguably most biblically infused war" (p. 2) is well overdue, so thankfully Byrd has competently stepped into this historiographical breach. Though unable to completely free himself from contemporary obsessions regarding slavery, Byrd nevertheless consistently presents reasonable accounts of how citizens North and South relied on holy scriptures to guide and justify their actions and to understand and interpret the events that swirled around them in the War between the States. Though adequately documented through endnotes, footnotes and a bibliography would have been greatly preferred. Still, this is an eye-opening work for anyone wishing to truly understand the era rather than merely project 21st-century, ahistorical assumptions onto a prior age.Summing Up: Essential. All levels.

A well-known historian of British Columbia, McDonald (formerly, Univ. of British Columbia, Canada) died after a stroke in 2019 while finalizing this book. The result, completed by his colleagues, is based on substantial research, though unfortunately there is no bibliography. Nevertheless, this is the first modern, accessibly written history of a century of British Columbia (B.C.) politics, from entry into the Canadian Confederation (1871) to the election of the social democratic New Democratic Party (1972). Most earlier studies focus on class conflict, but McDonald argues instead that "common sense" liberalism drove politics as politicians tried to make the resource-rich province into a paradise for inhabitants. Party politics did not develop until the beginning of the 20th century, driven by British immigrants and the infusion of national politics. There were also many of what McDonald labels "democratic Marxists," but by the late 1950s, social democracy had gained hold, propelling the New Democrats to power in 1972. For much of its history, B.C. was a "white man's province" and Indigenous and Asian residents faced discrimination, a tension McDonald explores, along with the continuing tussle between urban centers and the rugged, less-populated interior. This book is one of the very best histories of Canadian provincial politics.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty.

Since the publication of Benjamin Heber Johnson's Revolution in Texas (CH, Jun'04, 41-6108), a significant body of work has emerged on the racist violence that targeted Mexican American communities in Texas during the 1910s. Aragon (sociology, Birkbeck, Univ. of London, UK) makes several worthy contributions to this literature. First, she outlines shared connections between Mexican American and African American struggles with vigilante and police violence in Texas during this critical decade. Aragon also incorporates a wider scope by covering nationwide racial discourses fueling an especially wrenching outbreak of racist violence that ravaged the US. She then situates local Black and Tejano resistance within wider anti-racist movements such as the national campaign against lynching. The backdrop of the Mexican Revolution is also essential to this period. In one of the stronger chapters, the book examines the complexities of race in Revolutionary Mexico and contradictory views of Blackness in contested definitions of national identity. The most significant contribution Aragon offers is a study of how masculinity informed both violent oppression and resistance to racial violence. This volume covers complex transnational and intersectional dialogues of race and gender in a concise and accessible manner.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.

Ed. Note: Choice considers racial justice a cornerstone of its mandate to support academic study. Accordingly, Choice is highlighting select racial justice titles through the creation of long-form reviews such as the one featured here. Though the scope of these reviews will be broader than those applied to our standard 190-word reviews, many of the guidelines regarding what to focus on will remain the same, with additional consideration for how the text under review sheds light on racist systems and racial inequities or proposes means of dismantling them. Our intent is to feature important works on racial justice that will be of use to undergraduates and faculty researching racism and racial inequalities from new perspectives.

Dorrien (social ethics, Union Theological Seminary; religion, Columbia Univ.) is known for comprehensive histories of movements in philosophy, theology, and Christian social ethics that often become the definitive histories of the movements they treat. Following his previous book, Social Democracy in the Making (CH, Oct'19, 57-0747), which considers social democracy in Europe, this volume shows how Democratic socialism in the US was shaped by a complex relationship to democratic socialist thinking in Europe. Dorrien chronicles how democratic socialism's interaction with African American struggles with civil rights and feminism gave it a particular shape over time. He traces the long arc of democratic socialism in the US from the early 20th century to its present-day reemergence among American politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This study will surely become required reading for social ethicists and students of American political history and theology. Dorrien is clear that those attempting to make the "radical left" seem like a new phenomenon ignore the tradition's deep, long-standing roots in American history and politics. He reveals how understanding these roots is vital to understanding the present political moment.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

In this marvelous study of the concept of American exceptionalism during the Civil War era, Lang (Mississippi State Univ.) offers a compelling reinterpretation of antebellum political thought. Before the Civil War, Americans viewed the nation as an experiment in liberty, one that could succeed or fail based on their choices and actions. Rooted in the notion of a shared interpretation of liberty, antebellum Americans presupposed that they had at least this much in common, even as politics in the early republic revealed deep fissures over economics, foreign policy, and, most notably, slavery. Historians have long noted the concept of the US as a great experiment in histories of the antebellum era. Lang breaks new ground by arguing against the supposed consensus on the meanings of liberty and nationhood. On the contrary, he says, Americans in the years preceding the Civil War had divergent and even irreconcilable definitions of both liberty and nation, differences that manifested themselves through the war itself and even beyond. This thoughtful, artfully written study of Civil War-era political thought is essential reading for those who study this period.Summing Up: Essential. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals.

This engaging, ambitious, multidisciplinary collection examines the life and career of famous 19th-century American abolitionist and human rights leader Frederick Douglass "in a variety of geographical, political, social, cultural, intellectual, and literary contexts" (p. 4). Thirty-four prominent scholars contribute short, ground-breaking, thought-provoking chapters organized in a "a thematic rather than chronological approach" (p. 3), covering activism, politics, law, abolitionism, women's rights, the Civil War, Reconstruction, education, religion, philosophy, art, literature, science and technology, Douglass's residences, and more. Edited and introduced by Roy (Paris Nanterre Univ., France), this essential volume takes readers deep into Douglass's world and influences. Frederick Douglass in Context is not meant to replace but rather extends the reach of works such as David Blight's brilliant biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (2018), published to commemorate the bicentennial of Douglass's birth. The bicentennial is also the subject of this book's final essay, which ponders why, with so much global celebration of Douglass's life that year, there was very little federal government response. Overall, this collection highlights Douglass's belief in democratic possibilities. It should be required reading for any scholar of African American history.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.

Conversations about "culture wars" are becoming more commonplace in public and private spaces. In How White Men Won the Culture Wars, Darda (English, Texas Christian Univ.) details how liberals and conservatives used the Vietnam War to present an argument for post-civil rights conversations. To satisfy both sides of the political spectrum, he describes how the culture-war approach has been effective but problematic. Over five chapters, Darda outlines how the Vietnam War was used to define race, particularly whiteness. The first substantive chapter provides a foundation for readers to better understand how nondisabled white men benefited from their association with disabled vets. Readers can quickly see that the culture war approach was used to create a sense of whiteness that presented ideas of race as colorblind and race neutral. Darda explains the long-term impact this has had on American democracy. Simultaneously uplifting and disconcerting, How White Men Won the Culture Wars is recommended for all readers interested in US history, particularly those interested in looking at contemporary commonalities but more specifically the ways race has been used in culture wars. There simply is not another book quite like this, making Darda's work groundbreaking.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Hay (Lakehead Univ., Canada) traces how the production of scientific knowledge and interpretation of public health obscure the impact of settler colonialism on North American Indigenous peoples and erase the violence of Canadian federal Indian policy. Looking specifically at the Sandy Lake First Nation--which has long lacked access to health care, clean water, affordable food, and safe housing but not to well-funded scientists who use the community for medical inquiry--this book explains the foundations on which the science of settler colonialism rests and operates. Analyzing the "thrift gene" hypothesis--built on the assumption that North American Indigenous peoples were genetically predisposed to diabetes and obesity--Hay explains how this hypothesis wrongly emerged from the mythology that pre-contact Indigenous peoples lacked agriculture and were unable to secure steady food supplies because of their nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Geneticist James V. Neel suggested a "thrifty gene" might emerge in hunter-gatherers as an evolutionary response to a feast-or-famine existence. Ultimately debunked in the early 2000s, this hypothesis has long been institutionalized within the Canadian state's settler apparatus, demonstrating that science and settler colonialism worked together to forge the myth that Indigenous peoples are maladapted to Western civilization. Intentionally preoccupied with the present, this occasionally polemical book is an insightful contribution to medical, Canadian, and Indigenous history.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

As far as racial violence goes in US history, nothing quite compares to what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. Hill (Univ. of Oklahoma) does not attempt a comprehensive history of the massacre, although there is a synopsis at the end, but provides a visual documentation interspersed with oral accounts. Oklahoma State Senator Kevin Mathews, who is the founder and chair of the 1921 Race Massacre Centennial Commission, delivers a timely foreword. The photographs are compelling, demonstrating the shocking death and destruction inflicted on the affluent African American Geenwood neighborhood. The oral histories are telling and enhance the visual encounter. Hill's inclusion of African American witness accounts, many of which were conducted in 1999, are brilliant, as are the voices of survivors, along with their photographs, which are included toward the end of the book. This photographic history of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre is a necessary volume for public, school, and college libraries to acquire. As Senator Matthews writes, "Dr. Hill and his work are nothing less than inspiring" (p. xi). This book is not easy to digest, but it is imperative to readers' understanding of race in the American past and present.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.

This popular history is a page-turner with considerable depth and breadth. In the 1840s and 1850s, Auburn, NY, percolated with suffrage and abolition activism largely because of the efforts of close friends Frances Seward, Harriet Tubman, and Martha Coffin Wright, which Wickenden (executive editor, The New Yorker) here recounts. Married to New York politician William Henry Seward, Frances befriended many of the notables of the era, including Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, and Tubman. After decades of service to her husband and his political career, Seward refused to continue hosting pro-slavery politicians in the late 1850s. Returning to her family home in Auburn, she ran a stop on the Underground Railroad and sold some of her Auburn property at a bargain rate to help Tubman return to the US from Canada. Wright, sister of suffragist Lucretia Mott and mother of six children, lobbied for the Married Women's Property Act and organized the 1848 Seneca Falls convention. She often worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize anti-slavery meetings. Tubman left no letters and spent much of this era ferrying slaves to freedom. Overall, this delightful book will engage a broad audience.Summing Up: Essential. All levels.

Walker, the former historian of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and author of Three Mile Island (CH, Jul'04, 41-6504) and Prompt and Utter Destruction (1997), provides one of the first scholarly historical accounts of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Poignantly capturing the immense tragedy of lives lost and potential opportunities missed, Walker unflinchingly pursues accountability, revealing the numerous shortcomings--both individual and bureaucratic--that failed to prevent such a massive catastrophe. The book's six chapters, framed by an introduction and a conclusion, are deeply researched and filled with insightful analysis. As a bonus, Walker provides extensive notes and a valuable essay on sources. To produce this important work, Walker scoured copious archival records, many of them newly available, including those of the 9/11 Commission at the National Archives and the George W. Bush and William J. Clinton Presidential Libraries. The Day That Shook America is a lucid, thorough, succinct telling of a pivotal moment in modern American history. Walker clearly reveals what led up to these horrific attacks, how they unfolded on that fateful September day, and why they left lasting consequences, both for individual Americans and for the US as a nation.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.

Ed. Note: Choice considers racial justice a cornerstone of its mandate to support academic study. Accordingly, Choice highlights select racial justice titles through the creation of long-form reviews such as the one featured here. Though the scope of these reviews is broader than that applied to the standard 190-word reviews, many guidelines regarding what to focus on will remain the same, with additional consideration for how the text under review sheds light on racist systems and racial inequities or proposes means of dismantling them. The intent is to feature important works on racial justice that will be of use to undergraduates and faculty researching racism and racial inequalities from new perspectives.

Ed. Note: Choice considers racial justice a cornerstone of its mandate to support academic study. Accordingly, Choice is highlighting select racial justice titles through the creation of long-form reviews such as the one featured here. Though the scope of these reviews will be broader than those applied to our standard 190-word reviews, many of the guidelines regarding what to focus on will remain the same, with additional consideration for how the text under review sheds light on racist systems and racial inequities or proposes means of dismantling them. Our intent is to feature important works on racial justice that will be useful for undergraduates and faculty researching racism and racial inequalities from new perspectives.

Lvovsky (Harvard Law School) has written an important history of antigay policing in the US between 1930 and 1970. As the author writes, "the persistent intersections between public understandings of queerness and the policing of sexual difference invite us to revisit the legacy of certain familiar moments in the history of gay life in the United States" (p. 262). Lvovsky dives into municipal archives, court records, and psychological literature to interrogate queer tropes, taking care to guide readers through this narrative, "the history of antihomosexual policing," which "illuminates the state's own complex, often-conflicting understandings of gay life in the mid-[20]th century" (p. 263). Lvovsky deftly handles these topics with nuance and compassion. Those studying law, history, gender and sexuality, and political science will benefit from her work in terms of understanding queer life in the 20th century, the professionalization of policing, and how the two intersected to shape (mis)understandings about the other. This is a necessary title for all libraries at all levels.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.

Ed. Note: Choice considers racial justice a cornerstone of its mandate to support academic study. Accordingly, Choice is highlighting select racial justice titles through the creation of long-form reviews such as the one featured here. Though the scope of these reviews will be broader than those applied to our standard 190-word reviews, many of the guidelines regarding what to focus on will remain the same, with additional consideration for how the text under review sheds light on racist systems and racial inequities or proposes means of dismantling them. Our intent is to feature important works on racial justice that will be of use to undergraduates and faculty researching racism and racial inequalities from new perspectives.

Hunt (Univ. of Waterloo, Canada) examines dissent and political culture in the last years of the Cold War. After social upheaval and detente in the 1970s, President Ronald Reagan sparked cultural conflict over how to define American security and its global purpose in the long 1980s. Touching on a variety of media, including film, television, music, stage production, and print, Hunt convincingly demonstrates how culture industries challenged the views anti-Communist hawks expressed on a range of topics: "an idealized, gauzy view of an imagined past" (p. 29); an unapologetic view of the Vietnam War as a noble undertaking; a malignant view of Communism; a policy of nuclear deterrence; support for "freedom fighters" in Central America; and investment in South Africa, among others. Critics, by contrast, challenged Reagan-era policies by expressing dissent on each front: futility in Vietnam, the idealism of radicals, apocalyptic visions of nuclear war, the brutality of insurgent death squads, and the immorality of apartheid. This volume builds on the scholarship of the early Cold War (1940s-1960s), which pioneered the use of popular culture as a way to understand challenges to the Cold War consensus. It is an essential bookend to the history of this dynamic period.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.