New Books in American Studies

Craig MartinView on AmazonWhether you need help being more focused at work, are having a spiritual crisis, or want to understand how you can change your inner self for the better, the popular self-help and spiritual well-being market has got you covered. In Capitalizing Religion: Ideology and the Opiate of the Bourgeoisie (Bloomsbury, 2014), Craig Martin, Associate Professor of Religious Studies St. Thomas Aquinas College, examines the rhetoric of individualism at root in these works and popular conceptions of 'spirituality' or individual religion. He demonstrates that individual religion has been placed within sets of dichotomies, communal vs. individual, tradition vs. choice, organized religion vs. spirituality, that establish the continuing conversations about contemporary spirituality. Overall, he argues that many spirituality and related self-help discourses recommend quietism, consumerism, and worker productivity, which reproduce the status quo within neoliberal capitalism. In our conversation we discuss the relationship between individuals and communities, the role of human agency, experience, ideology, contemporary fiction, Émile Durkheim, William James, Karl Marx, Louis Althusser, and the joys of reading Deepak Chopra.

Laura F. EdwardsView on AmazonIn this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2015). Per the book's introduction, "[a]lthough hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction Amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering American's relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues, this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain." Some of the topics we cover are: –The way, in the lead up to the Civil War, all arguments came back to the Constitution. –How wartime policies in both the Confederacy and the states that remained in the Union fundamentally remade the –legal authority of the nation. –Why the Confederacy's legal order was at odds with its stated governing principles. –Popular conceptions of Reconstruction-era legal change.

Tomás Summers SandovalView on AmazonSince the mid-19th century, San Francisco (or Yerba Buena as it was known during the Spanish colonial period) has been considered a gateway city ideally situated along the western edge of the North American continent and central in the development of global trade, communication, and cultural exchange. Despite the city's early history as a Spanish colonial outpost, the historical record provides little mention of the region's historic Latina/o roots and character. Addressing this historical omission, Tomás Summers Sandoval, Professor of History and Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies at Pomona College in Claremont, CA, has written the first historical work chronicling the Latina/o experience in the formation and development of The City by the Bay. In Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community and Identity in San Francisco (University of North Carolina Press, 2013) Summers Sandoval connects the migrations of various Latin American groups to San Francisco with successive waves of European imperialism along the Pacific Rim of North and South America. Developing alongside capitalist penetration into Central and South America from the California Gold Rush to the late-20th century, Latina/o migrations to the city have resulted in a multi-ethnic conglomeration of latinoamericanos. Focusing on how this diverse group created a sense of community and collective identity, Summers Sandoval argues that Latinas/os in San Francisco forged Latinidad (pan-ethnic solidarity) through the shared experiences of transnational migration, local discrimination, and political activism. Shedding new light on a key segment within the development of the cosmopolitan character and progressive politics of the city, Latinos at the Golden Gate fills a major gap in the history of San Francisco.

David George SurdhamView on AmazonDavid George Surdham is the author of The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989 (University of Illinois Press, 2015). Surdham is Associate Professor of Economics at Northern Iowa University. Just back from the Major League Baseball All-Star break, Surdham has written a book for sports lovers. Why do major league sports receive such preferential treatment from Congress? And what does this have to do with labor and economic development policy? Surdham examines Congressional hearings held over decades to figure out how Washington's role in professional sports has changed over since the 1950s.

View on AmazonIn December 2014, Cuba and the United States announced their renewed efforts to normalize relations. Diplomatic ties were severed in 1961 following the rise of Fidel Castro and the intensification during the Cold War. An economic and intellectual embargo was instituted by President Kennedy, arguing that Cuba needed to be sealed from the free world in order to induce regime change and contain communist influence. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 nearly brought the world to nuclear ruin. Negotiations between The United States and the Soviet Union averted disaster, and crystalized the necessity for antagonistic powers to maintain a line of communication. Thus, despite the embargo, Fidel Castro frequently expressed a desire to return to normalcy with the United States. Both sides have a long history of communicating in secret over a range of issues, including refugee policies and air piracy. William LeoGrande, professor of government at American University, and Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., are co-authors of the new book Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). LeoGrande and Kornbluh detail efforts for both sides to reconcile their opposing ideological positions in the hope of, as Raul Castro articulated, rebuilding the bridge of friendship between Cuba and the United States.

Michael Ray FitzGeraldView on AmazonIn his new book Native Americans on Network TV: Stereotypes, Myths, and the 'Good Indian' (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013), Michael Ray FitzGerald reviews how television represented Native Americans, including in both positive and negative stereotypes. He talks about these portrayals from early television shows to more recent characterizations.  

Megan ThrelkeldView on AmazonMegan Threlkeld is an associate professor of history at Denison University. Her book Pan-American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) provides a rich transnational examination of the years following World War I and American women activists who saw themselves global leaders in promoting women's rights and international peace. U.S. internationalists such as Jane Addams, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Doris Stevens sought to build friendships with Mexican women, including educator Margarita Robles de Mendoza and feminist Elena Torres. They established new organizations, sponsored conferences and rallied for peaceful relations between the two countries at a time of tense or broken diplomatic ties. The efforts at an apolitical "human internationalism" were complicated by differences in ideologies, and cross-cultural misunderstanding that took for granted that Mexican women wanted the same political rights as U.S. women. To U.S. women, Mexican nationalism appeared as an obstacle while the revolutionary spirit of Mexico inspired its female citizens to focused on wide-ranging social reform and international economic justice. Despite failures internationalism endured through women's political involvement in the Peace with Mexico campaign, and the establishment of the Inter-American Commission on Women. Pan American Women exposes the ideological and racist views that brought failure to building an inter-American movement for peace and equality and illuminates the role of U.S. feminism and women's activism in forwarding imperialism abroad.

View on AmazonDr. William Elliott III, associate professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, and Melinda Lewis, associate professor of practice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, explore the landscape of the US higher education student loan situation in The Real College Debt Crisis: How Student Borrowing Threatens Financial Well-Being and Erodes the American Dream (Praeger 2015). Using real-life examples along with academically rooted studies, the authors attempt to answer the question, "Does the student who goes to college and graduates but has outstanding student debt achieve similar financial outcomes to the student who graduates from college without student debt?" Co-author Melinda Lewis joins New Books in Education for the interview to discuss the book. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd. You can also find the authors on Twitter at @melindaklewis and Dr. Elliott's organization at @AssetsEducation.

Suzanna Reiss View on Amazon[Cross-posted with permission from Who Makes Cents: A History of Capitalism Podcast] Today's guest discusses the history of the coca leaf and the U.S. drug control regime. Amongst other topics, we discuss the importance of coca to both Coca-Cola and Merck and the pharmaceutical industry. For Suzanna Reiss, this provides a way to interpret the history of capitalism across the mid-twentieth century and after. Suzanna Reiss is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She is author of We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US Empire (University of California Press, 2014). You can read more about her work here.

Jonathan EigView on AmazonJonathan Eig is a New York Times best-selling author of four books and former journalist for the Wall Street Journal. His book The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution (W.W. Norton, 2014) gives us a lively narrative history of the development and marketing of the birth control pill. He presents us with four risk-taking outsiders whose path became intertwined in the pursuit of a reliable and simple contraceptive. The feminist Margaret Sanger, in her campaign for the rights of women, sought a reliable birth control method as a means to sexual and social liberation. The genius scientist Gregory Pincus's research stretched the boundaries of law and ethics and tied him to the business interest of Searle pharmaceuticals. The wealthy socialite Katharine McCormick's singular focus and funding kept the research going. The handsome promoter John Rock, a Catholic infertility doctor, was willing to go against his church's teaching and provide untested drugs to desperate patients. The story begins in the radical and sexually freewheeling Greenwich Village of the early twentieth century. Eig follows Sanger's crusade for birth control information, cultural change, scientific victories and defeats, and the marketing of what became the first FDA-approved contraceptive pill in 1960. This is a well-researched and riveting story of four exceptional people and a revolution in the intimate lives of women and men. The birth control pill forever changed how we think about marriage, sexuality, and parenting.

Caseen GainesView on AmazonOn the thirtieth anniversary of the film, Caseen Gaines has written We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (Plume, 2015). The book is an engaging history of the Back to the Future series, from its earliest development through the ups and downs in the making of the three films. Gaines had access to people and documents that fill his book with great details.    

View on AmazonJennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox are the authors of Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics (Oxford UP, 2015). Lawless is a Professor of Government and the Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University. Fox is a Professor of Political Science at Loyola Marymount University. The two conducted surveys of over 4,000 younger Americans. What they find is that their young Americans rarely think, talk or consider politics. While many seem to care about the world, this infrequently translates to running for office or aspirations to work in politics. They find: Just 11 percent of respondents said that they had thought about running office "many times" while 61 percent said they "never" considered it. Asked if various jobs paid the same, they find just 13 percent of respondents said they would want to be a member of Congress, versus 37 percent who chose business executive and 27 percent school principal; only 19 percent indicated that a future goal was to become a political leader. And less than 10% of respondents said that their parents would want them to pursue a job as a member of Congress, compared to around 50 percent for owning a business.

In hew new book Real War vs. Reel War: Veterans, Hollywood, and WWII (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), Suzanne Broderick shares how she discussed a number of World War II films with veterans and others who experienced the conflict first hand.

Clare Virginia Eby is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut. In Until Choice Do Us Part: Marriage Reform in the Progressive Era (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Eby examines the origins of how we think of marriage through the theoretical and experimental reform of the institution in the progressive era. Marriage theorist such as Havelock Ellis, Elsie Clews Parson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman took up a critique of the economic for basis of marriage to advocate for a woman's legal autonomy, erotic agency, and right to non-reproductive sexuality. Against a traditional model, they proposed an equalitarian one of mutual consent and affection. Marital reform ideals included breaking the economic dependency of women, rejecting the validation of marriage by church or state, voluntary monogamy, at will divorce, and mutual sexual satisfaction. The redefining personal relationship, as a microcosm of society, was a means to reforming society as a whole, and an educational process carried through a variety of writing reaching a larger reading public. In addition to the theorists, Eby examines the lives and writing of three literary couples who experimented with the new ideal; Upton and Meta Fuller Sinclair, Theodore and Sara White Dreiser, and Neith Boyce and Hutchins Hapgood. Examples of literary works that explored new forms of marriage included Sinclair's Love's Pilgrimage (1911), Theodore Dreiser's The Genius (1915) and Neith Boyce's The Bond (1908). These works took up the themes of open marriages, sexual variety, emotional compatibility, dual careers, and the end of love in divorce. Until Choice Do Us Part provides insight into our contemporary marriage patterns and the tension between love and freedom that remains.

People living in the modern west generally have no problem criticizing religiously-justified violence. It's therefore always interesting when I discuss John Brown, a man who legitimized anti-slavery violence Biblically. My most recent batch of students sought to resolve this tension by declaring John Brown to be "crazy but right." In his new book Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics (Stanford University Press, 2014), Ted A. Smith unravels the tensions that led to my students' ambiguous conclusion. By providing a profound ethical meditation on Brown and his fellow raiders to challenge how people, particularly Americans, think about morality; the relationship between religion, the state, and violence; and to the possibilities of judgment and redemption, Smith illustrates how an ethical and philosophical reading of history can help us to better understand the world we live in, what we should do, and of the importance of going beyond just what we ought to do.