New Books in African American Studies

Mariana CandidoView on AmazonMariana Candido's book An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World. Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge University Press, 2013) is a powerful and moving exploration of the history and development of the port of Benguela. Founded by the Portuguese in the early seventeenth century, Benguela, located on the central coast of present-day Angola, was the third largest port of slave embarkation on the coast of Africa. In discussing the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on African societies, Candido looks at the formation of new elites, the collapse of old states, and the emergence of new ones. Her book offers a new perspective on the importance of the South Atlantic as a space for the circulation of people, ideas, and crops. But what makes this book truly distinctive is how Candido digs beneath the surface of her evidence to give readers a sense of the lived experiences and feelings of all involved in the trade: the unfortunate victims and those who benefited from the violent capture and selling of human beings. As historian John Thornton observes, Candido's book "will be a starting point for studies of the region for years to come."

View on AmazonThe Nation magazine is one of America's most distinguished journalistic enterprises featuring the writing and work of such notable people as Albert Einstein, Emma Goldman, Molly Ivins, I.F. Stone and Hunter S. Thompson. The Nation was founded 150 years ago this July. It's America's oldest weekly magazine. To mark its 15oth anniversary, it's publishing a daily blog called The Almanac compiled by the magazine's archivist, Richard Kreitner. The Almanac looks at significant historical events that took place on each day of the year and how The Nation covered them. In this New Books Network podcast, you'll hear Richard Kreitner talk about The Nation's critical coverage of events from April 26 to May 2. Everything from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl to the death of J. Edgar Hoover.

Kathryn Cramer BrownellView on AmazonWe are all aware how important professional movie makers are to modern campaigns. Many trace this importance to John F. Kennedy's presidential victory in 1960. Yet, as Kathryn Cramer Brownell shows in her new book Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), Tinseltown was a major influence on political races almost since the beginning of the motion picture industry. Her book wonderfully the history of how show business and politics are intertwined.

Kimberly Phillips-FeinView on Amazon[Cross-posted with permission from Who Makes Cents? A History of Capitalism Podcast.] Today we'll focus on the history of resistance to the New Deal. In her book Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal (W. W. Norton, 2010), Kimberly Phillips-Fein details how many of the most prominent elites had their ideas and practices shaped by groups that were part of organized resistance to the New Deal. She argues that this history helps revise common understandings of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s and after.

Natalia Mehlman PetrzelaView on AmazonThe intersection between Spanish-bilingual education and sex education might not be immediately apparent. Yet, as Natalia Mehlman Petrzela shows in her new book, Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015), the meeting between these two paradigms of education firmly connects in California during the 1960s and 70s. Under the backdrop of California during an era of the sexual revolution, a dramatic influx of Latinos, and awakened protest movements, Dr. Petrzela, assistant professor at The New School, explores this historical landscape of education and society. From well-known political icons like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, to lesser-known figures such as Ernesto Galarza, and even details from regular people who lived the moment, Classroom Wars provides an in-depth and nuanced look into this interesting intersection in American educational history. Dr. Petrzela joins New Books in Education for the interview and you can follow her on Twitter at @nataliapetrzela or find her website at nataliapetrzela.com. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd.

Christopher J. PhillipsView on AmazonChristopher J. Phillips' new book is a political history of the "New Math," a collection of curriculum reform projects in the 1950s & 1960s that were partially sponsored by the NSF and involved hundreds of mathematicians, teachers, professors, administrators, parents, and students. The New Math: A Political History (University of Chicago Press, 2015) explores the formation of an idea of the "American subject" in an environment where math was considered to be a component of intelligent citizenship. As classrooms became sites shaped by Cold War politics, efforts to reform mathematics curricula were bound up in ideas of subjectivity and discipline. Phillips pays special attention to the work of the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG) in this context, looking closely at the textbooks that the SMSG produced for children studying at a range of levels. Importantly, The New Math explores not just the production of these textbooks but also what happened when they were actually brought into American classrooms and engaged by teachers, students, and parents. As a result, in addition to being a fascinating political history it's also a model of how we can treat the archaeology of the classroom as a way to approach the history of science.

Christina Dunbar-HesterView on AmazonFor the past few decades a major focus has been how the Internet, and Internet associated new media, allows for greater social and political participation globally. There is no disputing that the Internet has allowed for more participation, but the medium carries an inherent elitism and the need for expertise, which may limit accessibility. According to some advocates, old media like radio offer an alternative without the limitations of new media systems. In her new book Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism (MIT Press, 2014), Christina Dunbar-Hester, an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, explores the activist organization the Prometheus Project, and its role in advocating for greater community access to low power radio licenses. In an ethnographic examination of the medium of microradio, Dunbar-Hester examines the dichotomy of old versus new media, as well as the use of media for participatory and emancipatory politics on the local community level.

Michelle NickersonView on AmazonRecently, historians have shown that the modern conservative movement is older and more complex than has often been assumed by either liberals or historians. Michelle Nickerson's book, Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right (Princeton University Press, 2012) expands that literature even further, demonstrating not only the longer roots of conservative interest in family issues, such as education, but also the important role women played in shaping the early movement. Mothers of Conservatism does this by examining the role of women in the rise of grassroots conservatism during the 1950s. Nickerson explains how women in Southern California became politicized during the height of the Cold War, coming to see communist threats in numerous, mostly local, battles. These women, who were primarily homemakers, argued that they had a special political role as mothers and wives, translating their domestic identities into political activism. Nickerson traces their activism in battles over education and mental health issues among others. She further explains the ideology behind their activism and demonstrates how important these women were to shaping the coming conservative movement and in the long-term, the Republican Party. Mothers of Conservatism draws on rich archival material as well as on oral history interviews conducted by the author. With these archival sources and interviews, Nickerson brings the activists' stories, politics, and humanity to life. In this interview, we discuss the ideology, activism, and legacy of the women as well as Nickerson's experience interviewing her sources.

Bill T. JonesView on AmazonWhen does a dance become a book? How does choreography lend itself to the page? What discontents exist in theorizing performance that are best explored through the written word? And how does one distill the hours of embodied practice into 100 or so pages of a tightly packaged and beautifully rendered text? It was the opportunity of a lifetime to interview the incomparable Bill T. Jones, a mainstay in the landscape of American modern dance and contemporary performance. A true renaissance man, Jones will be familiar to listeners as a multi-talented artist who has shaped contemporary culture as a choreographer, dancer, theater director and author. Creator of over 140 dance works for his own company and numerous commissions for others, Jones is a recipient of the coveted MacArthur Genius Award (1994) and was recognized for his multiple achievements in 2010 at the Kennedy Center Honors. Today as Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, Jones leads this internationally recognized institution known for its commitment to innovative artistry and the presentation of creative work that is shaped by contemporary issues. His most recent book, Story/Time, The Life of An Idea (Princeton University Press, 2014) chronicles a series of multi-media lectures he delivered at the invitation of Princeton University as part of their Toni Morrison Lecture Series. The book is part text and part art object, including photos, and quotations from other artists, including Bill's mentor, American composer John Cage. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the country's highest honor for achievement in the arts, Jones crafted this book as a means by which to consider the challenges, demands, rewards and sacrifices that have shaped his career for the last three decades.

View on AmazonDoug McAdam and Karina Kloos are the authors of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 2014). McAdam is The Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and the former Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Kloos is a scholar of political sociology and social movements at Stanford University, where she is a PhD candidate. What has gotten us to this point of high political polarization and high income inequality? McAdam and Kloos offer a novel answer to what divides us as a country that focuses on the role social movements have in pulling parties to the extremes or pushing parties to the middle. They argue that the post-World War II period was unusual for its low levels of social movement activities and the resulting political centrism of the 1950s. The Civil Rights movement that followed – and the related backlash politics of the Southern Democrats – pushed the parties away from the center and toward regional realignment. Along the way, activists re-wrote party voting procedures that reinforced the power of vocal minorities within each party, thereby entrenching political polarization for the decades to come.

View on AmazonDoug McAdam and Karina Kloos are the authors of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 2014). McAdam is The Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and the former Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Kloos is a scholar of political sociology and social movements at Stanford University, where she is a PhD candidate. What has gotten us to this point of high political polarization and high income inequality? McAdam and Kloos offer a novel answer to what divides us as a country that focuses on the role social movements have in pulling parties to the extremes or pushing parties to the middle. They argue that the post-World War II period was unusual for its low levels of social movement activities and the resulting political centrism of the 1950s. The Civil Rights movement that followed – and the related backlash politics of the Southern Democrats – pushed the parties away from the center and toward regional realignment. Along the way, activists re-wrote party voting procedures that reinforced the power of vocal minorities within each party, thereby entrenching political polarization for the decades to come.

Kaeten MistryView on AmazonIn the annals of cold war history Italy is rarely seen as a crucial locale.  In his stimulating new book, The United States, Italy, and the Origins of Cold War: Waging Political Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Kaeten Mistry reveals how events in Italy proved surprisingly crucial in defining a conflict that dominated much of the twentieth century.  For the United States, it marked the first intervention in the postwar era to influence events abroad through political warfare, the use of all measures 'short of war' in foreign affairs.  Drawing particular attention to the Italian election of 18 April 1948, he explains how the campaign for the first national election of the newfound Italian republic marked a critical defeat for communism in the early cold war.  The United States utilized a range of overt and covert methods against Marxist political and social power.  Political warfare seemingly outlined a way to tackle communist strength more widely. Analyzing American political warfare efforts against the Italian left allows Mistry to advance a number of important arguments.  He shows how U.S. efforts were largely improvised and many key decisions ad hoc.  While officials in Washington like George F. Kennan worked to institutionalize political warfare, Italian actors and a host of non-governmental organizations played a crucial role in the defeat of the Italian left, even if they did not always share the same agenda as American officials.  Mistry emphasizes Italian agency, explaining how Christian Democrat Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi pursued his own agenda to protect national sovereignty.  The Vatican had its own objectives, as did trade unions, citizen groups, and multinational corporations.  Other actors held a less rigid view of the Cold War than their American counterparts.  In short, political warfare was more than an American story yet U.S. officials and commentators lined up to praise the election campaign as a distinctly American success.  Mistry argues that this 'perception of success' contributed to an expanded use of political warfare, as U.S efforts turned to subverting communist power in Eastern Europe and, later, the Global South. The work is a refreshing reminder of how foreign policy is rarely under the control of elite figures in Washington.  Rather, it is subject to negotiation with various foreign and non-governmental actors.  When viewed in this light, Mistry's work is a useful reminder that governments will almost always invite trouble when they assume the 'success' of their efforts to shape events abroad, overlooking the role and motives of other peoples and groups, to make the case for intervention elsewhere.  Enjoy.

Graham SteeleView on AmazonPolitical debate in western democracies such as in Canada, the U.S. and Britain has become empty theatre, full of rhetorical flourishes with little meaning for citizens, according to a new book by a former minister of finance in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. What I Learned About Politics (Nimbus, 2014) by Graham Steele is an insider's account of his 12 years as an elected politician. The book explains that Canadian politicians behave with shockingly bad manners in the Canadian Parliament and provincial legislatures because ordinary members have so little power. The important political decisions are routinely made elsewhere, behind closed doors, well away from the public scrutiny. Steele argues that the prime minister and provincial premiers in the Canadian parliamentary system are close to being absolute rulers with more power than monarchs or presidents of the United States. Graham Steele served for eight years on the opposition benches in the Nova Scotia legislature firing rhetorical questions at government cabinet ministers to score political points. After his party won a provincial election, he sat with the government as minister of finance and took his turn fending off questions that he found both superficial and irresponsible. Steele, who is now retired from politics, is a member of the New Democratic Party, Canada's center-left social democratic party. The subtitle of his book, Inside the Rise — and Collapse — of Nova Scotia's NDP Government, refers to his party's rise and fall in the elections of 2009 and 2013. In this interview with the New Books Network, Graham Steele takes us on a political tour from inside the Nova Scotia legislature, where he says little goes on that really matters, to the government's cabinet room across the street where real decisions are made in secret.

David KruglerView on AmazonIn 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back (Cambridge University Press, 2014), David Krugler chronicles the origins and development of ten major race riots that took place in the United States during that year. Although sustained, anti-black violence both predates and succeeds the year under examination,  1919 distinguishes itself by the sheer number of major racial conflicts occurring between late 1918 and late 1919. Krugler argues that these riots can be seen as a direct result of the societal upheavals engendered by the Great War and less directly, as a continuation of Reconstruction violence. Krugler uses the term "race riot" as shorthand for "anti-black collective violence", which took several forms including mob attacks and lynchings. He describes the armed resistance of African Americans to this systemic and systematic terror as a three-front war comprised of self-defense, "the battle for the truth about the riots", and the fight for justice.

Kenneth PrewittView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Education] The US Census has been an important American institution for over 220 years. Since 1790, the US population has been counted and compiled, important figures when tabulating representation and electoral votes. The Census has also captured the racial make-up of the US and has become a powerful public policy tool with both data and clout, affecting a range of policies from segregation to affirmative action. In What Is Your Race?: The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans (Princeton University Press 2013), Dr. Kenneth Prewitt provides a broad historical and political overview of the racial counting component of the Census, from its inception to its future. Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University, was formerly the Director the US Census Bureau, and his first-hand experience strengthens the narrative throughout the book. Prewitt's book follows the historical ebbs and flows of the Census and race politics in the US, which are unequivocally linked. From the early era of counting the slave population, to later integrating the new immigrant whites–such as Southern European Catholics and East European Jews–with the larger White Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority, and calumniating with race identity politics reflected in the Census discourse today, What Is Your Race? is a fascinating and thorough account of an American institution that has had a powerful influence on policy and society. Specifically, the racial categories, called statistical races in the book, used in the Census have been etched into the American psyche, and the results have sometimes been quite devises. Why should the Census count Hispanics in their own category and not Middle Eastern Americans? Prewitt faced these kinds of tough questions while running the Census and now grapples with them in this book. His final recommendation to ease tensions created from the simplistic statistical race measurement currently used by the Census is to incrementally move away form these categories and to move towards counting national origin, providing much more statistical granularity. You will have to read the book for the full policy prescription, which is fully mapped out for the next century. Dr. Prewitt joins New Books in Education for the interview. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd.