Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

Burtin (Univ. Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France) has crafted an exciting and informative work in A Nation of Veterans, his first book. Delivering well-researched facts in velvety prose, Burtin obliterates any notion that veteran disability compensation and entitlements were easy to obtain. He cites long-forgotten anti-veteran movements, such as the 1930s Veterans of Future Wars (a satirical take on the Veterans of Foreign Wars) with their "itchy palm" salute, to reflect decades of political and social opposition to veteran support (p. 44). As Burtin shows, the American use of military force has been a double-edged sword. Numerous wars waged within the proximity of generations of soldiers, such as WW I and WW II, have maintained a connection of support and collective memory between fighters. On the one hand, this has helped advance veteran causes, but it also created competition and animosity between those who fought in different wars, as groups did not always receive the same political treatment. This book should become a staple of any military or veteran-related program. It is a page-turner for those interested in this topic and a challenge to put down.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

In this sophisticated study of postwar global cultural exchange, Lebovic (George Mason Univ.) adds complexity to previous analyses that have focused on American domination of the media to explain the pervasive influence of the US on changing global culture. He argues that American support for the free flow of information was a "righteous smokescreen" (p. 5) that provided cover for institutions to use the nation's considerable economic and political power to promote its own values abroad, minimizing input from the Global South and geopolitical rivals. Among his examples, the author examines how the US undercut UNESCO's plans for postwar material reconstruction, limiting its financial support and rejecting a centrally funded international program. Additionally, the US limited its Fulbright exchange program to nations that purchased American wartime surplus material, making it a Eurocentric program. American commitment to freedom of the press thus favored the US with its well-funded networks, projecting American views abroad without a mechanism to receive foreign perspectives at home. Chapters also examine US influence on international travel and immigration. Lebovic's prodigious research and effective argument make this an important study for understanding Cold War-era global culture.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals.

In African Founders, David Hackett Fischer (emer., Brandeis Univ.) reexamines the significance of both free and enslaved Blacks in the founding and development of the United States, conveying the central role they played in establishing the country as a "more perfect union." Americans have traditionally acknowledged the talents and abilities that different European ethnic groups contributed to the thirteen colonies, later the United States, when they voluntarily came here. However, Americans often totally ignore the existence of the distinct African ethnic groups within American society and how they came, involuntarily, to these shores, either directly from various locations along the West African coast or following a sojourn in the Caribbean. If American exceptionalism denotes the nation's strength and resilience, then African Americans deserve equal credit, which this text aims to communicate. This is overall a success story for the individuals highlighted in the many fascinating mini biographies Fischer presents, for all the Black Americans whose impact remains anonymous, and for the nation they helped create. It is especially important today to reclaim and celebrate their contributions, rather than continue to minimize them, as racism, which has been a part of Western society for millennia, seems to be more virulent and divisive than ever. Indeed, Fischer's research confirms that "[a] universal law has often operated through much of American history. When race slavery, or other systems of racial inequality declined, racism tended to increase, and new forms of racial violence were quick to follow" (p. 87).

By the late 1960s, the US Army, sometimes described as the best trained and equipped military force in the world, suffered from the deleterious effects of an increasingly unwinnable war. Alongside an unfair draft system, low troop morale, and an unsupportive population, the Army faced an internal racial crisis that, if left unchecked, would undermine its military readiness. In this book, military historian and 2021 Andrew Carnegie Fellow Bailey (Univ. of Kansas) expertly examines how the Army confronted this dilemma and worked to solve the racial crisis that plagued it during the Vietnam era. Throughout the book, Bailey focuses on the many issues Black soldiers faced; how they manifested, at times violently; and the Army's attempts to correct the problems. This book is an essential addition to the historiography of the Vietnam War era and the US Army, as it relates the racial conflict in the US to the experiences of American soldiers worldwide. Bailey expands the field of military history and is taking the discipline to exciting new places. This book is a must read for all who are interested in the history of race relations in the US, and should be required reading for all military historians.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. General readers.

The Inuit word Atiqput, meaning "our names," is a fitting title for this volume. The beautiful photographs displayed across its pages span many decades and provide a vivid focus for exploring Inuit names and traditional naming practices. The contributing authors include elders, ethnographers, photographers, and historians, and oral testimony from Inuit elders forms the book's intellectual core. A key theme is the importance of traditional naming practices in Inuit culture. Another is the need to correct the historical record by returning authentic names to the people and places captured in vintage photographs of the North American Arctic. Many of the contributors are involved in Project Naming, based in Canada, which endeavors to resurrect submerged elements of Inuit cultural and linguistic heritage and transmit them to future generations. Rich in oral history and full of detailed stories portraying the role of traditional material culture in daily life, the testimonies gathered here are precious to Inuit communities and valuable to the broader scholarly community. With its in-depth reexamination of vintage photographs, this volume is both a work of art and a scientific achievement that speaks to cultural history in the North American Arctic.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

This is an important book. Although many people are familiar with the story lines of the 1960 campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, this book reveals that much of what readers believe to be true of the campaign and the two men is wrong. Previous works approached the study of the campaign from Kennedy's perspective and in the process unfairly portrayed Nixon and deified Kennedy. Gellman convincingly argues that such a one-sided approach affected coverage of the campaign in 1960 and that subsequent studies, some by notable reporters and historians, relied heavily on the accounts of prominent Kennedy supporters and friends who perpetuated the Kennedy myth and painted an inaccurate picture of the campaign and of Kennedy and Nixon. Through extensive research, including the use of sources that have not been tapped before, Gellman debunks conclusions disseminated for decades regarding the role of Kennedy's Catholicism, the debates, and voter fraud, among many other issues. This is a must-read volume: it not only clears up misconceptions of the 1960 campaign but also highlights the importance of research and approaching subjects with a questioning eye.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty.

There is no one lesbian experience, just as there is no one human experience. Mims (Middle Tennessee State Univ.) confronts this challenge head-on in her parallel histories of "women loving women" in Atlanta, GA, and Charlotte, NC (p. 89). The author deftly interweaves preexisting oral histories with her own primary and secondary research in this highly readable and accessible text. The reader may forget that Mims did not personally conduct all the interviews, an indication of her skill in seamlessly incorporating sources. While including asides on topics such as the "pants panic," the Joan Little murder trial, and women's softball leagues, she always returns to the differences between the Atlantan and Charlottean queer women's experiences (pp. 21-22). Using a narrative structure that shifts focus from individual connectedness to municipal institutions, Mims, a self-described "white lesbian," incorporates the experiences of women of color without tokenism or, as she writes, by simply adding a "Black chapter" (p. 160). She also skillfully discusses the role of sexism and gay white privilege. This important work sits at the intersection of race, economics, religion, sectionalism, gender, and sexuality.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

This book examines the experiences of Mexican and Puerto Rican migrants who settled in Grand Rapids, MI, throughout the 20th century. Chicana/o historian Fernandez-Jones (Michigan State Univ.) focuses on the different placemaking practices these populations utilized to develop a Latina/o community in a Midwestern urban center. Born into a MexiRican (i.e., Mexican and Puerto Rican) family herself, the author considers "how a numerical minority [community] with limited resources can transform an indifferent, at times hostile, locale into a setting that meets their material and cultural needs." These strategies included interethnic networks of solidarity and cross-racial alliances, which allowed the Mexican and Puerto Rican communities, for example, to challenge discrimination in housing or hiring practices or to develop their own schools or community centers. Fernandez-Jones draws upon both classic texts of Latina/o history and primary sources to develop this passionate, in-depth historical analysis, which contributes significantly to the scholarly literature on Latino communities in the Midwest and is sure to inspire future research in this area. Anyone interested in Chicana/o or ethnic histories of the US will enjoy this book, which should also become a staple in library collections on Chicana/o studies and ethnic studies.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

In recent years, scholars have turned their attention to the history of sounds, smells, and even feelings. In Mastering Emotions, Dwyer (Oakland Univ.) analyzes racialized emotional differences between slaveholders and the enslaved, mostly in the lower South during the antebellum period. Not surprisingly, Dwyer's thoroughly documented study demonstrates that white southerners often dismissed the emotional capacity of Black people, especially when it came to separating enslaved families by sale. Enslaved parents pushed back against this constant dehumanization, but they had to be very cautious in their approach, as learning how to master their passions from childhood was a basic survival skill. Some parents chose to shield their children from emotional terror by keeping hard truths from them. As Frederick Douglass remembered, his impending separation from his grandmother was kept hidden from him until the last moment. One of the many virtues of this volume is that Dwyer carries her story beyond emancipation into the Jim Crow era. No longer compelled to pretend subservience, freedpeople dropped the mask of obedience. However, given white determination to maintain old racial hierarchies, the legacy of emotional bondage continued well after Appomattox.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

For the past two decades, Curtis (Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis) has been a prolific scholar of the Muslim presence in the US over the centuries. The book under review focuses on Syrian Muslim immigrants (including those from parts of modern-day Lebanon) or second-generation men and women who settled or lived in the Midwest, from the Dakotas to Michigan, down to southern Missouri and locales in between. Many broader studies, such as Curtis's earlier work Muslims in America: A Short History (CH, Jan'10, 47-2760), touch on Muslims in the Midwest. Other books have focused on one city, such as Sally Howell's Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim American Past (CH, Jan'15, 52-2736). However, this book's geographic span and tight focus on a particular immigrant group during the first half of the 20th century make it a unique contribution to the scholarship on Muslim American history. Scrupulously researched and annotated, this book is written with a broad audience in mind despite being published by an academic press. Focusing on the life stories of 15 real men and women, it is a very intimate and easy read.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.

Holloway (president, Rutgers Univ.) is a historian of American social and intellectual history. He previously served as a dean at Yale College and provost of Northwestern University and taught African American history for many years at the University of California, San Diego, and Yale. He is also author of the books Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940 (CH, Mar'14, 51-4040) and Confronting the Veil: Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Fraser, and Ralph Bunche, 1919-1946 (CH, Nov'02, 40-1770). He thus brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the text under review.

In this ambitious case study, urban historian Gillette (Rutgers Univ., Camden) locates the origins of the modern civil rights reckoning within the context of urban crisis and the problems posed by efforts to revitalize postindustrial spaces. He traces the origins of inequality to the economy of racial capitalism begun through urban renewal projects of the 1950s and 1960s, which sent Black families into a spiral of indebtedness and social turmoil. By the 1990s, the structure of cities changed due to the demands of globalization, and city officials placed equal opportunity on the political backburner behind neoliberal policies that rewarded the haves and punished the have-nots. Gillette has selected nine cities consistent as spaces that experienced racial upheaval and population loss due to industrial fallout, which he investigates over three sections. Part 1 ("Captives of the Old Paradigm") considers Baltimore, Detroit, and Camden; part 2 treats Milwaukee, New Haven, and Washington, D.C. as cities that fared better than the first three; and part 3 examines Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Newark as cities that by comparison balanced activist demands with tangible efforts at equity. The Paradox of Urban Revitalization is a critical text for scholars interested in the complex relationship between structural racism and city policies.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

Rector (Univ. of Houston) offers an outstanding book examining multiple issues of environmental justice in Detroit. He begins his introduction by discussing the water shutoffs for roughly 150,000 residents unable to pay water bills, which began in 2014. Rector then outlines other environmental justice concerns and considers why they all should be evaluated in historical context, combining urban history and political economy approaches. In three parts, beginning with "The Making of the Motor City," Rector examines environmental justice issues that emerged over time, showing how industrial growth and environmental decline evolved together in many parts of Detroit. Throughout, he provides examples of governance structures and corporate/industrial goals contributing to the conditions citizens experienced. In part 3 ("Toxic Debt") Rector returns to the water shutoff crisis and though noting that the two are not equivalent, points out why the notorious Flint water crisis can be understood as the result of similar factors discussed here. Alongside the issues, Rector highlights the story of the many people involved in environmental justice activism, critically examining successes and failures in their efforts to bring about change. The final chapter ("Detroit Futures") and epilogue consider environmental justice concerns that remain today, considered in the light of climate change.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Geographers Wood (York Univ., Canada) and Rossiter (Western Washington Univ.) are settler scholars who set out to challenge the received ideas around land claims in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Their argument reverses the burden of proof that Canadian tribunals have set, forcing Indigenous nations to prove their connection to the land through so-called land claims. Instead, the authors insist that the burden of proof is on the Canadian settler governments (federal and provincial) to prove the validity of the Crown's claim to the land. In the process, they find the argument for the Crown title lacking and reaffirm the primacy of Indigenous title to the land, not only in British Columbia but also across Canada. Their work rests on a rich, comprehensive historical, political, geographic, and legal survey that presents a solid argument in favor of redefining the terms of Canada's supposed reconciliation agenda. This book is crucial reading within the growing field of settler studies and should be read parallel with Indigenous authors' examinations of the same issues, most notably Arthur Manuel's The Reconciliation Manifesto (2017). This is critical reading for legal scholars and anyone interested in Indigenous rights.Summing Up: Essential. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals.

We Are Not Animals is a deeply compelling work on the history of Indigenous people in Santa Cruz County, CA. Rather than present a traditional story of Native displacement at the hands of Spanish, Mexican, and American interlopers during the 19th century, Rizzo-Martinez, who received his PhD from UC Santa Cruz and is currently the California state park historian for the Santa Cruz District, takes a deep dive into a small geographic space to tell stories of "survival, resistance, rebellion, and perseverance" from the "perspectives of Indigenous tribes" (p. 3). A brief review will fail to do this fine book justice. Rizzo-Martinez begins with the removal of children by Spanish authorities to Mission Santa Cruz in the 1790s, followed by parents' responses and the diverse social world of the mission community. One of the book's most compelling stories is the murder of the abusive Padre Andres Quintana in 1812, carried out by a diverse band of coconspirators. Later chapters explore new political leadership that came with the increased presence of various regional Native groups, repression under US law and racial politics after the mission system ended, and the late-19th-century fantasy of the "vanishing Indian" (p. 223). This stunning book will appeal to scholars and lay readers alike.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.