Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 -

Edited by Long (formerly, Elizabethtown College), this outstanding collection provides a wide-ranging, multifaceted view of the life and experiences of civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. Despite his numerous contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, such as advising Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Montgomery bus boycott and effectively organizing the famed 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Rustin has received relatively scant attention in histories of the movement. In explaining this omission, Long and other contributors point to multiple factors, such as Rustin's association with communism and socialism, his pacifism, and his openness as a gay man. In many of the essays, the authors explore these and other aspects of Rustin's life, highlighting the complexities of his relationships, identities, allegiances, and political priorities. While demonstrating the importance of restoring Rustin's place in historical memory, the authors take great care to avoid uncritically venerating him, and to point out the ways in which his own vision for social change could be limited. Their treatment reveals much about Rustin, the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, and other movements for social justice in the 20th-century US.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.

Before Canada the nation was formed, northern North America was engaged for millennia with continental trade and population movements and for almost a millennium with cross-Atlantic traffic. These well-written essays--pleasures to read--document in detail a series of broad areas of exchange in eastern North America from 12,300 BCE, followed by the movement of Athabascans from the Northwest to the US Southwest, and later European commercial fishers, whalers, and traders interacting with Northeastern First Nations, which comprises the bulk of the book. Competitive and independent, these poorly documented thousands of Europeans are partly known from archaeology; the book weaves artifact and site data with letters and descriptions into rich tapestries. A theme repeats: First Nations had economies with practices as firm as those of Europeans, but not congruent with capitalist debt bookkeeping. The well-documented Hudson's Bay Company used that system; in contrast, the numerous Basques and other mariners onshore every summer traded directly, their goods including hardy small boats integrated into First Nations' lives. With its fully documented sources and endnote clarifications, Before Canada is a must-read volume for everyone teaching Canadian history before Confederation (1871). This is altogether a fascinating read; its breadth and lively details are enthralling.Summing Up: Essential. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals.

In the searing pages of Black Scare / Red Scare, Charisse Burden-Stelly (African American studies, Wayne State Univ.) unravels the sinister threads of racist oppression, capitalist exploitation, and political repression that have been woven into the fabric of U.S. history. From the damning legacy of European colonialism to the blood-soaked trails of U.S. imperialism, the blame for unspeakable atrocities has consistently been shifted onto the victims' shoulders. Resistance through organized self-defense or strategies of self-determination against domination only belie--say the colonizers--the need for even deeper forms of control and subjugation, up to and including vigilante killings, mass imprisonment, legal lynching, military occupation, suppression of civil rights, and even carpet-bombings. Burden-Stelly explores and documents this logic and mythology as it related to the manifold forms of the ideological domination, legal criminalization, and economic subjugation of Black people, roughly between the beginning of World War I and the Korean War.

Hickey (Univ. of Michigan, Dearborn) offers an engaging book for every woman ever ordered to smile by a male stranger. The author of Hope and Danger in the New South City: Working-Class Women and Urban Development in Atlanta, 1890-1940 (2003), she explains the harassment, narratives of danger, and unease that many women experienced in public spaces throughout the 20th century. American women who arrived in cities around 1900 understood that their physical appearance shaped how they would be perceived and treated. However, respectability did not protect them from "mashers": men who engaged in sexual harassment in public. By the 1950s, girl-watching seemingly praised women yet opened the door to the harassment of Black and lesbian women who did not fit a narrow ideal, while encouraging surveillance of white women. As the feminist movement created new opportunities for women, a self-defense narrative emerged to warn them about taking advantage of these choices. Women were less likely than men to experience crime in a public place, yet they became more fearful. Hickey's important new volume is certain to provoke vigorous discussion and further research about the challenges facing women in public spaces.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.

Given the number of enslaved South Carolinians who were liberated by the June 1863 raid on the Combee Ferry, as well as the importance of the expedition to the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment of Black soldiers and to Northern public opinion, it is curious that the upriver incursion has attracted so little scholarly attention. The successful liberation of roughly 727 Carolinians--many of whom then enlisted in the US Army--has been relegated to chapters in biographies of Harriet Tubman, who helped guide the raid, and in works on James Montgomery, the colonel of the regiment. Fields-Black (Carnegie Melon Univ.), an authority on Carolina rice culture, spent more than a decade reading thousands of pages of pension files housed at the National Archives. Because most of the Black soldiers who took part in the raid were themselves recently liberated, Fields-Black convincingly argues that the incursion constituted one of the largest slave rebellions in North American history. Elegantly written, this thick volume is supported by 15 appendixes that include the names of liberated bondmen, the names of Tubman's scouts, military orders, correspondence by both white and Black participants, and 151 pages of endnotes.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

Barbour County, AL, home of former Governor George Wallace, takes center stage in Freedom's Dominion, where a racialized, domineering version of American freedom evolved over 200 years through local battles with federal authorities. Cowie (Vanderbilt Univ.) traces the county's racial history from disputes over Creek Indian lands to white panic over preserving slavery after Lincoln's election, violent efforts to end Reconstruction, race-based lynching, the New Deal's effects on racial and class hierarchies, and white residents' efforts to maintain power during the Civil Rights Movement. White residents frequently complained that the federal government infringed upon their rights, but the freedom they desired was racially exclusive. Although the federal government occasionally intervened to protect minority rights in Barbour--e.g., when federal marshals pushed white squatters off Creek lands--the response was often timid at best. It is unsurprising that political demagogue George Wallace emerged from this context. As Cowie asserts, however, Barbour County was not unique--other counties in the US contended with similar struggles over rights for racial minorities. Although the book's emphasis on race largely misses the economic factor in the fight for freedom--a key motive for white resistance to civil rights for Black Alabamians was the continued desire for low-skilled Black labor--it is a great read informed by mountains of research.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.

Hillbilly Highway tells the story of the routes rural white southerners took to travel to (and from) the industrial Midwest throughout the 20th century. Fraser's smart history tells the story of "the Transappalachian migration's imprint on the social, cultural, and political map of recent American history," and the author is correct to note that the study fills a significant gap in the literature (p. 8). Built on a diversity of sources--from oral histories to country music recordings--Hillbilly Highway documents the industrial development that first forced rural southerners into extractive industries in their own region, and later pushed them to the manufacturing outfits of cities like Akron and Detroit. Fraser (Univ. of Miami) shows that, in spite of the misconceptions of contemporary observers and historians, Appalachian migrants were some of the more militant members of the national labor uprising of the 1930s, and that poor white southern migrants figured prominently, if ambiguously, in the War on Poverty's failed efforts to understand economic insecurity in the 1960s by focusing on the supposed cultural inadequacies of the poor. Given the dearth of scholarly research on the important phenomenon of white southern migration, this excellent book is a critical addition for academic library collections.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

Choquette (Univ. du Quebec en Outaouais, Canada) reframes the history surrounding Canada's Confederation years by centering attempts at the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the legal process of land dispossession that made possible the rapid territorial expansion of the Canadian polity across the continent between 1857 and 1885. She does this by appealing to the concept of liberal state construction and the ideas of (settler) citizenship elaborated by John Stuart Mill and John Locke. This work is unique in that it puts into question the idea of Canada as a "peaceable kingdom" having grown organically, rather than because of the information it contains, which was largely drawn from secondary sources (p. 5). This analysis details the intentional process of Canada's theft of Indigenous lands and genocide against the owners of the land to establish its own dominance. This process reveals how colonialism is an ongoing, violent effort central to Canada's constitution, not simply an act of the past that can easily be reconciled. Any of this book's chapters could become essential reading in undergraduate courses in history and political science. The book as a whole is a model example of settler studies working toward decolonization.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

This study is the very model of a modern regimental history. In 1916, the Canadian government authorized raising a battalion of Acadians, French-speaking residents of New Brunswick and eastern Canada. More than a thousand men signed up, but it took a long time before the unit, reduced almost in half, went overseas, only to then be broken up as many units were. The men of the 165th Battalion did not see front line action and were instead transferred to the Canadian Forestry Corps to produce lumber for the front's insatiable needs. Few of the Acadians were lumberjacks but many were laborers, and they did the job. However, there was little action and less glory, something that led to the Acadians' role being largely forgotten. What makes this book particularly valuable is its deliberate use of social history to enhance its utility. Kennedy (Brandon Univ., Canada) has done extraordinary research into military and census records that reveal who enlisted, while soldiers' letters reveal what they thought of the war, their service, their officers, and home. Extensive charts provide data in a way few, if any, regimental histories do. The only minor flaw in this fine study is that the blizzard of names hinders many individual stories from being fleshed out.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Smith (anthropology and sociology, Lafayette College) brings her wide-ranging expertise on the working of historical memory in colonial settings to bear on her local surroundings, eastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, in this impressive new study of the Sullivan-Clinton invasion of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) homelands in 1779. Beginning with the question of how settlers dealt with the knowledge that their presence on particular lands resulted from others' dispossession, Smith examines an array of diverse, often overlooked primary sources and places them into conversation with theoretical studies on memory work and historical consciousness. The result is a much-needed intervention in early American studies. In addition to providing the most comprehensive and nuanced meditation on the Sullivan-Clinton campaign and how its historical meaning has reverberated over time, Smith's painstaking discussion of methodology provides valuable insights for those studying other colonial contexts. As American citizens come to recognize that much of their historical "memoryscape" celebrates white supremacy and contemplate appropriate means of reconciliation, Smith's monograph represents a crucial step toward an improved understanding of how the commemoration of a scorched-earth campaign that wreaked havoc on the Haudenosaunee assumed prominence in New York's public memory of the Revolutionary War.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

In this authoritative study of the life of James Garfield, the second US president to be assassinated, author and historian Goodyear expertly weaves together meticulous source material and deep contextual history into a well-crafted narrative. The author elevates Garfield from the tragic event of his death, illuminating a multifaceted rags-to-riches American dream success story. President Garfield's death, which was not solely the result of an assassin's bullet but also of the naivete (some would argue ineptitude) of his time, has often obscured the strength of this woefully underrated individual. From the tectonic shifts of the post-Reconstruction US through the Gilded Age, Garfield maintained a steadfast thread of reason. From lowly canalman to leading light of the Disciple movement and head of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, moving dexterously through political factionalization and his years in Congress, Garfield made full use of his mediating skills to intelligently engage, and possibly eschew, the crises of a changing nation. He adroitly moved the country toward racial and sectional reconciliation, avoided a government shutdown, established broader educational goals for all, and diligently worked to balance the divergent needs of an industrializing republic. Goodyear's outstandingly erudite presentation fully reveals Garfield's rational engagement throughout Reconstruction.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

An amalgam of historiography, annotated bibliography, and literary and cultural analysis, this work centers on the concept of the usable past, a term first coined by Van Wyck Brooks in 1918. Within this comprehensive, jargon-free study, the extreme poles of the usable past depict John Adams as either completely unworthy of any form of hagiography or at most moderately deserving of being included among the top five Founding Fathers. Adams has for most of American history been the slighted Founder, a trend that started with his own self-assessment as being "obnoxious, suspected and unpopular" in 1776. In 1812, Adams wrote these words regarding American exceptionalism: "There is no Special Providence for Us. We are not a chosen People ..." [sic]. To this day, no monument to Adams exists in Washington, DC, although Bilbao, Spain, erected a fine monument to commemorate his visit there in 1780. Nevertheless, through meticulous and discerning analysis, Holdzkom (Kennesaw State Univ.) clearly charts how Adams's star has gradually and steadily risen, helped along by William Daniels's discerning and memorable depiction of Adams in the film 1776 (1972); David McCullough's book John Adams (2001), the basis for HBO's 2008 miniseries; and the efforts of the National Park Service in Quincy, MA. This study makes for lively reading.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers and advanced undergraduates through faculty.

Completed in 1938, Route 66 ran from Chicago to Los Angeles. It was decommissioned in 1985, replaced by I-40. It quickly reemerged as the mythic representation of a "better but lost authentic America," symbolic of the supposedly idyllic 1950s (p. 218). Through a detailed case study of five communities in northwest Arizona, Milowski (Arizona State Univ.) traces the development and de-development history leading to this myth's emergence. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad (later the Santa Fe) laid out five communities--Williams, Ash Fork, Seligman, Peach Springs, and Kingman--in 1882 to provide infrastructure for steam and later diesel railroads. The Federal Aid Highway Act (1921) created Route 66, which followed the rail line; automobiles, roads, and auto-supported businesses supplemented the towns' economic bases. Following WW II the railroad line and the new I-40 bypassed the towns, producing a crisis that led residents to develop the myth as a means of economic survival through tourism. Many books focus on Route 66 myths; Milowski's study demonstrates the conditions that produced them, reveals their inaccuracies, and documents the extent to which racism underlay life in these communities. Well researched and written, this excellent study has considerable import for American history and related fields.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.

With this study, Swarns (journalism, New York Univ.) makes a significant contribution to the historiography of the Jesuits in the US and of slavery in Maryland. Beginning in the colonial period, she tells of Ann Joice, who arrived in Maryland in the 1670s as a free Black woman only to have her indenture papers burned, leading to her enslavement and that of her descendants. By the early 1800s, these descendants were toiling on Maryland's Jesuit-owned plantations. The priests had hopes of supporting Roman Catholic education in the US through plantation profits, but economic crises, financial mismanagement, and other issues constantly threatened their mission. Eventually, Frs. Thomas F. Mulledy and William McSherry arranged a mass sale of 272 enslaved people to save the struggling Georgetown College, sending some of the enslaved as far away as Louisiana. Swarns addresses modern-day efforts to recognize the sacrifices of the enslaved while also uniting descendants of the 1838 sale. Compellingly written, this story will appeal to casual readers and scholars alike, shedding greater light on the history of the Jesuit mission, the priests who led it, and the enslaved people who gave it their lives.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

Home is an abstract yet powerful concept. This book creatively wrestles with what home meant for enslaved people in the American South. It is a critique of public history and the public interpretation of slavery which seeks to center enslaved people's living spaces beyond the daily routine of labor exploitation. Drawing on documentary sources and archaeological evidence from public heritage sites, Stewart (Univ. of Texas, Dallas) examines how enslaved people made domestic spaces that materially and ideologically fostered hope, stability, community, and security under the coercive structure of slavery. By exploring the public heritage sites of enslaved people from Virginia to Texas, she challenges historical narratives that have erased the process of homemaking among enslaved people. These case studies allow Stewart to bridge temporal and geographic distances and identify common homemaking strategies. For example, in Virginia Stewart uses evidence from James Madison's Montpelier Plantation to show how enslaved people took control of the landscape to create spaces for living distinct from spaces for labor. At Chatham Plantation in Alabama, Stewart examines ancestral rootedness through enslaved burial grounds. This is a must-read volume for public historians of the African diaspora.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.

Wilkinson (formerly, Univ. of Colorado Law School) has long been considered a leader in Native American and Indigenous Law. His final work, Treaty Justice, addresses the monumental case United States v. Washington (1975), which resulted in the Boldt Decision. Wilkinson establishes the tribes in question as largely "Salmon People," whose involvement with the salmon run was more than just economic--they regarded the salmon as central to their existence. Wilkinson's narrative of the Boldt case details the setting, often violent prior to the decision and still contentious afterward. The case involved interpreting the treaties with the Northwestern tribes and carving out fishing and hunting rights. After two decades of contention, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington filed suit against the state of Washington seeking the enjoinment of Washington's curtailment of those guarantees. The District Court judge, George Boldt, found for the federal government and the tribes. The Appellate Court affirmed and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, thus affirming. After the decision, facing intransigence from the state and commercial and sport fishermen sometimes leading to violence, Boldt was compelled to enforce his rulings through federal assets. Wilkinson charts this process through the participants' eyes. An excellent and important final work for an illustrious career.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

This remarkably concise history of family among the enslaved explores diverse family practices from the 17th century through Reconstruction. Its title comes from a Phillis Wheatley poem expressing the trauma of family formations among enslaved persons. Captors set arduous conditions of compulsory labor, torture, sexual violence, and forcible relocation as ongoing structural challenges to family formation and maintenance. This tension between the desires of enslaved persons to create family and the power of captors to exploit and destroy it shapes the book's six splendidly written chapters. Stevenson (Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Univ. of Oxford, UK) exquisitely deploys the biographies of specific enslaved persons to illustrate her deeply researched thesis about family diversity and resilience, reflecting differing cultural legacies imported from the African continent to the differing colonial and antebellum societies in the US. These range from the well-known sagas of Wheatley and Elizabeth Keckley to less familiar stories such as that of Chloe Spear. Splendidly contextualizing her argument within the evolving historiography and the persistent stereotype of the Black family as defective and dysfunctional, Stevenson demonstrates not only the centrality of family in the African American experience but also the resilience and resistance of African American actors across time.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.