New Books Network

In his biography of Jozef Tiso, Catholic priest and president of independent Slovakia (1939-1944), James Ward provides a deeper understanding of a man who has been both honored and vilified since his execution as a Nazi collaborator in 1947. Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia (Cornell University Press, 2013) is also a fascinating look at Catholicism, nationalism and human rights as moral standards in 20th century East Central Europe. The book explores both the political and social contexts that shaped Tiso and the choices he made in attempts to shape the country in which he lived – whether Habsburg Hungary, interwar Czechoslovakia or a Slovak republic.  Ward reveals, as well, how the fight over Tiso’s legacy in post-communist Slovakia mirrored the polarization of Slovak politics at the end of the 20th century. Priest, Politician, Collaborator was the 2014 Honorable Mention for the Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History from the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies.

How those within the Brussels Beltway in the EU institutions must pine for the simple days of the past. Not only was the European project in itself far less contested, but the nature of the journalism surrounding the EU was also far more accommodating. One of the main lessons of John Lloyd and Cristina Marconi‘s fascinating book Reporting the EU: News, Media and the European Institutions (I. B. Tauris, 2014) is how much it has mirrored the evolution of the European project itself. In the first couple of decades the journalists were as likely to be true believers as the Eurocrats in the corridors of power, even if their reports tended to reflect the concerns and interests of the individual countries that they served. That started to change as the EU (under various names) grew and changed. In the 1980s the British press developed a real streak of Euroscepticism, and journalists in general began to ask more questions than the Eurocrats were used to. Big developments such as the Maastricht Treaty and the expansion into the poorer corners of the former Soviet Empire begged bigger questions. And then there was the euro crisis, and the current wave of popular Euroscepticism that has found a home in almost every corner of the continent. All the while Eurocrats and EU boosters charged that Euroscepticism was something contrived through the practicing of hostile journalism by spiteful editors in thrall to shadowy media tycoons. If only the people of Europe had a fair picture of what they did, they’d say: then they’d fall in behind the European project once again. At least the euro crisis has led to the EU finding its way to the front pages of newspapers, along with a widespread realisation that what goes on within that Brussels Beltway (and in places like Berlin) matters to all its citizens far more than they’d realised. The authors of the book hope that recognition will continue to give the EU, for all its complexity, a legitimate place in Europe’s popular media, worthy of this peculiar set of institutions that has grown to have such an impact in so many parts of daily life. I hope you enjoy the interview!

In her imaginative and scrupulous book, Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa (Ohio University Press, 2014), historian Michelle Moyd writes about the askari, Africans soldiers recruited in the ranks of the German East African colonial army. Praised by Germans for their loyalty and courage, the askari were reviled by Tanzanians for the violence and disruptions the askari caused in their service to the colonial state. Moyd questions the starkness of these characterizations. By linking askari micro-histories with wider nineteenth-century African historical processes, she shows how the askari, as soldiers and colonial intermediaries, not only helped to build the colonial state but also sought to carve out paths to respectability and influence within their own local African contexts. Moyd offers a truly fresh perspective on African colonial troops as state-making agents and critiques the mythologies surrounding the askari by focusing on the nature and contexts of colonial violence, notions of masculinity and respectability.

“In no other instance,” notes Yaacov Ariel, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “have members of one community of faith considered another group to hold a special role in the divine course of human redemption and to be their God’s first nation.” This theological concept underpins An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews (NYU Press, 2013), Ariel’s most recent monograph, published in 2013 with New York University Press. It weaves together various strands of evangelical-Jewish relations from the US, England, and Israel. Ariel also takes his study beyond most others on the topic by bringing together chapters on politics, the state of Israel, and Christian Zionism with those on less studied aspects, including evangelical responses to the Holocaust, missionary work, and Messianic Judaism. An Unusual Relationship synthesizes more than a hundred years of history in lucid and readable prose and will appeal to general audiences, as well as specialists.

Neurotechnology in National Security and Defense: Practical Considerations, Neuroethical Concerns (CRC Press, 2014), edited by Dr. James Giordano, is an impressive collection of essays by authors at the cutting edge of an emerging field which links neuroscience and national security. The book dispels myths that this confluence has solely offensive applications by outlining a variety of defensive and medical applications for neurotechnology in military and national security settings. By blending ethical and moral concerns throughout more technical discussions, this volume is likely to appeal to an audience beyond scientific specialists in the field. As neuroscience continues to flourish and develop more rapidly, thoughtful consideration of its possibilities and perils in the sphere of national defense and security is increasingly necessary. Giordano and his colleagues have done a great service to their readers by laying a strong groundwork for future examinations and ethical debates on this burgeoning and complex topic.

It is a cliche to suggest we are what we read, but it is also an important insight. In The New Literary Middlebrow: Readers and Tastemaking in the Twenty First Century (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014), Beth Driscoll, from University of Melbourne, extends and critiques the work of Pierre Bourdieu to account for modern literary tastes and the literary field in which those tastes are embedded. The book attempts to explore and defend the idea of the middlebrow in literature. ‘Middlebrow’ is defined by eight characteristics, whereby it is middle class, it has reverence to elite cultures, and it is entrepreneurial, mediated, feminised, emotional, recreational and earnest. In the main it is situated within the tension between the aesthetic and the commercial. The book uses four case studies to explore how this tension, along with the idea of the middlebrow, plays out. In the first case study the role of Oprah Winfrey as a tastemaker and cultural intermediary is explored as part of an analysis of book clubs. The analysis shows how Oprah’s book club was important in establishing markets for books as well as being a site for the struggle over what is, and what is not, legitimate taste. This legitimacy is tied to elements of the middlebrow aesthetic, which has earnestness and self improvement as an important component. This component is both the source of struggle with more elite elements of the literary field and a source of changing reading practices, for example in the way Harry Potter is used in schools. The final two case studies, of book prizes and literary festivals, add to the defence of the middlebrow as a vital form of aesthetic production and cultural consumption for both understanding the future of reading and the future of the market for literature in the era of social media.

Melek Ortabasi’s new book explores the work of Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962), a writer, folk scholar, “eccentric, dominating crackpot,” “brilliant, versatile iconoclast” and much more. The Undiscovered Country: Text, Translation, and Modernity in the Work of Yanagita Kunio (Harvard University Asia Center, 2014) expands how we understand and evaluate his work by contextualizing it in terms of translation studies, simultaneously informing how we think about (and with) translation. Translation was a method of resistance for Yanagita, offering a way to work against a “homogenizing national narrative” in the first half of Japan’s twentieth century. Ortabasi considers Yanagita’s work as a poet, a travel writer, a folk studies scholar, a linguist, and a pedagogue: in every case, whether literally or figuratively, Yanagita was also acting as a translator. The Undiscovered Country takes us into some amazing texts that include a collection of oral tales from a rural castle town in northern Japan, travelogues, methodological introductions to academic fields, works on regional dialectical names for snails (snails!), language-maps, glossaries, children’s literature (including a history of fire!), a television show, and much more. It’s a fascinating study for readers interested in both modern Japan and translation studies alike. Enjoy!

Carolyn L. Kane’s new book traces the modern history of digital color, focusing on the role of electronic color in computer art and media aesthetics since 1960. Chromatic Algorithms: Synthetic Color, Computer Art, and Aesthetics after Code (University of Chicago Press, 2014) places color at the center of media studies, exploring some amazing works of art and technology to understand the changing history of the relationship between color as embodied in machine code and screen interface. Using a methodology called “media archaeology” that is informed by the work of Foucault, Nietzsche, Kittler, Heidegger, Stiegler, and others, Chromatic Algorithms traces a transformation of color from optics to algorithms.  The chapters trace a history of synthetic color in Western aesthetics and philosophy, the rise of Day-Glo, the aesthetics of color in video art from the 1960s and 1970s, the technology of color TVs, the connection between color and notions of transcendence and utopia, “democratic color” and Salvador Dalí’s urinated-upon pen, the early history of art/engineering at Bell Labs, the technology of digital infrared visualization, the aesthetics of “Photoshop cinema,” bioart and its glow-in-the-dark bunnies, and the work of some amazing artists including Lillian Schwartz, Jeremy Blake, and many many others. It is a gorgeous and fascinating study of color, technology, visualization, the digital, and beyond. As you work through the book, I highly recommend searching the Web for some of the amazing work described in its chapters. I’m based in Canada and so some of the following links may not work for you: in that case, just try searching on your own for the title: The rock opera Battle for Milkquarious! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zDMhwq3pcA Jeremy Blake, Winchester Redux http://vimeo.com/16485005 Zbigniew Rybczyński, Tango http://vimeo.com/9033947 Paper Rad: http://www.paperrad.org/ This site has some clips from Lillian Schwartz’z Proxima Centauri: http://lillian.com/kinetic/ You can browse video clips from WGBH’s New Television Workshop here: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/

In Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Jothie Rajah tells a compelling story of the rule of law as discourse and praxis serving illiberal ends. Through a series of case studies on legislation criminalizing vandalism and regulating the print media, legal profession, and religion in Singapore, Rajah raises critical questions about the meaning and place of law in a postcolony that celebrates colonialism as a cause of its modernity, prosperity and plurality. Terrence Halliday describes Rajah’s work as “theoretically innovative, empirically compelling, and gracefully written”, adding that it “has far-reaching consequences for national leaders who seek ‘third ways’ in which economic development is partitioned from political liberalism”. As Halliday suggests, the contents of Authoritarian Rule of Law transcend the confines of the small city-state with which it is primarily concerned, and go to global debates about legislation, discourse and legitimacy, as well as to the inherent tensions in the rule-of-law ideal itself.

Philosophy does not have to be stuck in the clouds. It can have relevance in everyday life, for everyday people, and Scott Samuelson attempts to do just that in his book, entitled The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Samuelson weaves in a personal narrative from his experience teaching at Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa and a deep historical exploration of philosophy. His students provide interesting and everyday lessons that the author forges into the foundation for complex philosophical issues. The book is organized into four sections that each focus on a single question, yet vast question: What is Philosophy? What is Happiness? Is Knowledge of God Possible? and What is the Nature of Good and Evil?. From Socrates, to Pascal, from the Stoics to Epicureans, Samuelson allows for an easier understanding of advanced philosophical discourse, and without watering down the complexity. He joins New Books in Education for the interview.

Rachel Mesch‘s new book, Having It All in the Belle Epoque: How French Women’s Magazines Invented the Modern Woman (Stanford University Press, 2013), is a fascinating study of Femina and La Vie Heureuse, the first French magazines to use photography to depict and appeal to women readers and consumers. Divided into two parts focused on “Readers and Writers” and “Texts and Contexts,” the book examines the multiple ways these magazines represented and shaped women’s lives in the years prior to the First World War.  Wide-ranging and rich in textual evidence and illustration, Mesch’s account reveals much about how ideas and ideals about French women and femininity in these magazines engaged and interrogated both modernity and tradition. The book explores a series of questions raised in and by the pages of these publications: How should women balance work and home? What did marriage mean, and what were the keys its success? What was feminism in France, and how did this compare to other national feminisms? What impact did key female (literary and other) celebrities in France have on broader societal attitudes about women’s roles and possibilities as consumers and producers of culture? Asking the question “Did women have a Belle Epoque?” Having It All… is a study that explores some of the early twentieth-century  history of concerns and debates that remain extremely relevant to women’s lives into the twenty-first century. Readers will find in this book a rich archive that illuminates the history of women readers and writers before World War I while offering a longer-term perspective on the ways we think about the complexities of femininity and feminism (and their relationships to one another) up to the present day. Along these lines, the author has shared her research more widely in publications such as Slate, and on her blog Plus ça change.

When television began to grow in popularity, broadcasters had to come up with programming to fill the day. Growing from the Flash Gordon movie serials, science fiction shows geared towards young people filled the air in the 1950s, affecting both entertainment and the consumer culture. The series were also major influences on modern filmmakers, including George Lucas. This collection of essays examines the genre in many different and interesting ways. In their new book 1950s “Rocketman” TV Series and Their Fans: Cadets, Rangers, and Junior Space Men (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2012) Cynthia J. Miller and co-editor A. Bowdoin Van Riper brought together various writers to discuss the rise of the shows, along with many of the political, cultural, and historical aspects of the characters and plots. Cynthia discusses these essays and also talks about the process of drawing together essays for an academic collection.

If you look up the word “secular” in just about about any English-language dictionary, you’ll find that the word denotes, among other things, something that is not religious. This “not-religious-ness” would seem to be the modern essence of the word. If a government is secular, it can’t be religious. If a court is secular, it can’t be religious. If a party is secular, it can’t be religious. But, as Todd H. Weir points out in his fascinating book Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession (Cambridge University Press, 2014), the origins of what we might call “secularism”–the faith with no faith–were profoundly religious. To understand how this could be so, Weir takes us back to an age and place–the nineteenth-century German Lands–in which belonging to a church was a matter of state. The question then and there wasn’t whether you were going to adhere to a faith, but which one. Yet, in the wake of the Enlightenment, there were those who did not want to belong to one of the “established” (as in “establishment clause”) religions. They–”dissenters”–were seeking their own path to God and they petitioned the state to allow them to do so. Sometimes the lords of the land (and often heads of the church) granted this wish; sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they did, reversed themselves, and then reversed themselves again. Given the novelty of “free religion” and “free thinking,” it was hard to know what to do. In any case, the back and forth between officials and religious dissenters opened a space–narrow at first and then gradually widening–in which the faithful could be not only different but, well, not very faithful at all. Listen in.

Modern democracy is build around a collection of moral and political commitments.  Among the most familiar and central of these concern voting.  It is commonly held that legitimate government requires a system of universal suffrage. Yet, democrats tend to hold that certain exclusions are permissible.  For example, it is commonly thought that children and the mentally impaired may justifiably be disenfranchised.   We also tend to think that the disenfranchisement of felons and non-citizen residents is permissible.  Indeed, these exclusion are often thought to be consistent with universal suffrage. In Democracy and Disenfranchisement: The Morality of Electoral Exclusions (Oxford University Press, 2014), Claudio Lopez-Guerra challenges our common understanding of voting.  Ultimately, he argues in favor of an elitist system of enfranchisement by lottery.  He also criticizes arguments that universal suffrage is consistent with the exclusion of children, the mentally impaired, felons, and resident non-citizens.  The result is a fascinating and provocative exploration of, and challenge to, the fundamental idea that voting is a basic right.

Matthew T. Corrigan is the author of Conservative Hurricane: How Jeb Bush Remade Florida (University Press of Florida, 2014). Corrigan is chair and professor of political science at the University of North Florida. With an election just 700 odd days away, it is not too early to start talking about the candidates. Corrigan takes up this challenge with his examination of the political and policy legacy of former-Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He describes Bush as a “culture warrior” who completely changed Florida politics. Bush ushered in a host of policy reforms, particularly on education, that are likely to animate a presidential campaign, if he chooses to run.