The rise of merchant capital in Mecca conditioned the development of Meccan social, economic, religious, and political structure. Mahmood Ibrahim traces the roots of capitalism from the emergence of merchants as the main force in Mecca through the first civil war in Islam (656–661). Through a rereading of original Arabic sources and drawing from modern scholarship on the subject, Ibrahim offers a new interpretation of the rise of Islam.

He argues that Islam contributed certain institutional beliefs and practices that unblocked obstacles and helped merchants gain political and economic hegemony over western Asia. Ibrahim contends that, with the conquest of Mecca, the newly formed Muslim state spread its control to the rest of Arabia, which mobilized a significant social force and allowed for further expansion outside Arabia, thus extending merchant control to include new surplus-producing regions, a vast network of trade routes, and wider markets.

This extensively researched study offers a new interpretation of the history of Islam, including the formation of Islamic society and the unfolding of the first civil war. In offering a better understanding of the Umayyad Caliphate that ruled Islam for a century to come, Ibrahim helps lay the groundwork for understanding the Middle East as it is today.

Of interest to scholars of Middle Eastern studies, this important work will be necessary reading for students of Near Eastern and North African history, as well as students of the history of Medieval Europe.

Published originally as La flor mas bella de la maquiladora, this beautifully written book is based on interviews the author conducted with more than fifty Mexican women who work in the assembly plants along the U.S.-Mexico border. A descriptive analytic study conducted in the late 1970s, the book uses compelling testimonials to detail the struggles these women face.

The experiences of women in maquiladoras are attracting increasing attention from scholars, especially in the context of ongoing Mexican migration to the country's northern frontier and in light of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This book is among the earliest accounts of the physical and psychological toll exacted from the women who labor in these plants. Iglesias Prieto captures the idioms of these working women so that they emerge as dynamic individuals, young and articulate personalities, inexorably engaged in the daily struggle to change the fundamental conditions of their exploitation.

Walid Ikhlassi evokes the individual's struggle for dignity and significance in the Syrian city of Aleppo during the French mandate of the forties and fifties. His characters' seeking of personal fulfillment parallels the struggle of the nation for self-definition. The changing political and cultural landscape of Syria challenges individuals in their attempts to live lives of integrity, as Ikhlassi provides analytical insights into the civil society of Syria, the axis of his writing.

From the boy Antara who personifies the Arab legend of a half-African slave warrior/hero to everyday middle-aged lovers, Ikhlassi's characters fight colonial oppression and corruption from the newly formed government. Foreign and internal forces challenge the evolution of a modern nation rooted in traditional Arab values. Its strong and determined men and women refuse to accept victimhood. The introduction by author and critic Elizabeth Warnock Fernea places the stories in their historical and literary context.

An avowed experimentalist, Ikhlassi portrays the modern human situation through techniques as widely divergent as realism, surrealism, interior monologue, and stream-of-consciousness. Selections of his work have been translated into English, Russian, French, German, Dutch, Armenian, and other languages.

Using documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, recently opened archival collections, and interviews with the actual participants, Immerman provides us with a definitive, powerfully written, and tension-packed account of the United States' clandestine operations in Guatemala and their consequences in Latin America today.

The physical signs of Roman Catholicism pervade the Mexican countryside. Colonial churches and neighborhood chapels, wayside shrines, and mountaintop crosses dot the landscape. Catholicism also permeates the traditional cultures of rural communities, although this ideational influence is less immediately obvious. It is often couched in enigmatic idiom and imagery, and it is further obscured by the vestiges of pagan customs and the anticlerical attitudes of many villagers. These heterodox tendencies have even led some observers to conclude that Catholicism in rural Mexico is little more than a thin veneer on indigenous practice.

In Mary, Michael, and Lucifer John M. Ingham attempts to develop a modern semiotic and structuralist interpretation of traditional Mexican culture, an interpretation that accounts for the culture's apparent heterodoxy. Drawing on field research in Tlayacapan, Morelos, a village in the central highlands, he shows that nearly every domain of folk culture is informed with religious meaning. More precisely, the Catholic categories of spirit, nature, and evil compose the basic framework of the villagers' social relations and subjective experiences.

French philosopher Luce Irigaray has become one of the twentieth century's most influential feminist thinkers. Among her many writings are three books (with a projected fourth) in which she challenges the Western tradition's construals of human beings' relations to the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and to nature. In answer to Heidegger's undoing of Western metaphysics as a "forgetting of Being," Irigaray seeks in this work to begin to think out the Being of sexedness and the sexedness of Being.

This volume is the first English translation of L'oubli de l'air chez Martin Heidegger (1983). In this complex, lyrical, meditative engagement with the later work of the eminent German philosopher, Irigaray critiques Heidegger's emphasis on the element of earth as the ground of life and speech and his "oblivion" or forgetting of air.

With the other volumes (Elemental Passions and Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche, published elsewhere) in Irigaray's "elemental" series, The Forgetting of Air offers a fundamental rereading of basic tenets in Western metaphysics. And with its emphasis on dwelling and human habitation, it will be important reading not only in the humanities but also in architecture and the environmental sciences.

The digital storytelling project Humanizing Deportation invites migrants to present their own stories in the world’s largest and most diverse archive of its kind. Since 2017, more than 300 community storytellers have created their own audiovisual testimonial narratives, sharing their personal experiences of migration and repatriation. With Migrant Feelings, Migrant Knowledge, the project’s coordinator, Robert Irwin, and other team members introduce the project’s innovative participatory methodology, drawing out key issues regarding the human consequences of contemporary migration control regimes, as well as insights from migrants whose world-making endeavors may challenge what we think we know about migration.

In recent decades, migrants in North America have been treated with unprecedented harshness. Migrant Feelings, Migrant Knowledge outlines this recent history, revealing stories both of grave injustice and of seemingly unsurmountable obstacles overcome. As Irwin writes, “The greatest source of expertise on the human consequences of contemporary migration control are the migrants who have experienced them,” and their voices in this searing collection jump off the page and into our hearts and minds.

Since prehistoric times, Andean societies have been organized around the ayllu, a grouping of real or ceremonial kinspeople who share labor, resources, and ritual obligations. Many Andean scholars believe that the ayllu is as ancient as Andean culture itself, possibly dating back as far as 6000 B.C., and that it arose to alleviate the hardships of farming in the mountainous Andean environment.

In this boldly revisionist book, however, William Isbell persuasively argues that the ayllu developed during the latter half of the Early Intermediate Period (around A.D. 200) as a means of resistance to the process of state formation. Drawing on archaeological evidence, as well as records of Inca life taken from the chroniclers, Isbell asserts that prehistoric ayllus were organized around the veneration of deceased ancestors, whose mummified bodies were housed in open sepulchers, or challups, where they could be visited by descendants seeking approval and favors. By charting the temporal and spatial distribution of chullpa ruins, Isbell offers a convincing new explanation of where, when, and why the ayllu developed.

This book presents penetrating observations by six authorities on the personality development of children for the enlightenment of parents, teachers, and others who have a vital interest in children.

In the first paper, the late Harold E. Jones, a professor of psychology and the director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, examines the development of personality over a long period of time. He discusses the child-rearing practices used with a number of babies, then follows through with observations made several years later to see the effects of these practices.

In another paper, John E. Anderson, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and the former director of the Institute of Child Development and Welfare there, supports the theory that valid predictions of future personality adjustment can be made through an assessment of the present status of an individual.

Anderson’s findings are based on the results of tests administered to children of Nobles County, Minnesota, during the period 1950–1957, and on teacher-community-pupil ratings of these children.

Still other papers offer a variety of ideas. Dr. Milton J. E. Senn, Sterling Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and the director of the Child Study Center at Yale University, suggests that there be greater harmony and more exchange of thought among people working toward a proper understanding of human nature. To a degree this entire book follows his suggestion.

Among several noteworthy observations made by Stanford University Professor of Psychology Robert R. Sears is the point that the development of conscience depends largely upon whether a child is loved or rejected by his or her parents.

John W. M. Whiting, professor of education and director of the Laboratory for Human Development at Harvard University, discusses, among other problems, the question of why children like to play grown-up roles and what happens when they are not permitted to do so. Orville Brim, a sociologist at the Russell Sage Foundation of New York City, explains personality in terms of demands, holding that one’s personality changes from situation to situation and from person to person.

Presenting a new Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL) curriculum that can be used in secondary and postsecondary educational settings, Kalima wa Nagham, Volume 2, is a textbook that uniquely and simultaneously introduces Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and salient aspects of Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) to level two language students. Students who fully utilize this book should be able to develop important language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and expressing deep cultural knowledge.

Written by Arabic language teaching practitioners and experienced educators who are certified language testers, Kalima wa Nagham employs a threaded story that introduces language concepts along with music to enhance vocabulary retention and recall. At the core of the textbook are dialogues that present students and teachers with examples of Arabic grammatical concepts and important cultural aspects, as well as related vocabulary. These are supplemented by drills and activities that can be used in a classroom setting or pursued individually. Volume 2 incorporates media language to help students understand news reports and other media texts as well as original cartoons that demonstrate the meaning and significance of idiomatic expressions in a refreshing way. Dialogues and pronunciation and listening drills to accompany the lessons are available on the University of Texas Press website. This volume is student-centered in content and methodology, which will enable learners to meet and exceed linguistic and cultural proficiency expectations.

Presenting a new Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL) curriculum that can be used in secondary and postsecondary educational settings, Kalima wa Nagham, volume 3, is a textbook that uniquely and simultaneously introduces Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and salient aspects of Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) to students whose proficiency level is at least intermediate high according to ACTFL’s rating scale. Students who fully use this book should be able to develop important language skills—listening, speaking, reading, writing, and expressing deep cultural knowledge—and reach the advanced high proficiency level by the end of the book.

Written by Arabic language teaching practitioners and experienced educators who are certified language testers, Kalima wa Nagham employs a threaded story that introduces language concepts along with music to enhance vocabulary retention and recall. At the core of the textbook are written and oral texts that present students and teachers with examples of Arabic grammatical concepts and important cultural aspects, as well as related vocabulary. These are supplemented by drills and activities that can be used in a classroom setting or pursued individually. Dialogues and pronunciation and listening drills that accompany the lessons are available on the University of Texas Press website. This volume is student-centered in content and methodology, which will enable learners to meet and exceed linguistic and cultural proficiency expectations.

Presenting a new Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL) curriculum that can be used in secondary and postsecondary educational settings, Kalima wa Nagham (Volume I) is a textbook that uniquely and simultaneously introduces Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and salient aspects of Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) to beginning language students. Students who fully utilize this book should be able to develop the different language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and expressing deep cultural knowledge.

Written by Arabic language teaching practitioners and experienced educators who are certified language testers, Volume I of Kalima wa Nagham employs a threaded story that introduces language concepts along with music to enhance vocabulary retention and recall. At the core of the textbook are dialogues that present students and teachers with examples of Arabic grammatical concepts and important cultural aspects, as well as related vocabulary. These are supplemented by drills and activities that can be used in a classroom setting or pursued individually. Dialogues, pronunciation and listening drills, and charts to accompany the lessons are available on the UT Press website. This volume is student-centered in content and methodology, which will enable learners to meet and exceed linguistic and cultural proficiency expectations.

The Vietnam War (1964–1975) divided American society like no other war of the twentieth century, and some of the most memorable American art and art-related activism of the last fifty years protested U.S. involvement. At a time when Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art dominated the American art world, individual artists and art collectives played a significant role in antiwar protest and inspired subsequent generations of artists. This significant story of engagement, which has never been covered in a book-length survey before, is the subject of Kill for Peace.

Writing for both general and academic audiences, Matthew Israel recounts the major moments in the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement and describes artists’ individual and collective responses to them. He discusses major artists such as Leon Golub, Edward Kienholz, Martha Rosler, Peter Saul, Nancy Spero, and Robert Morris; artists’ groups including the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC) and the Artists Protest Committee (APC); and iconic works of collective protest art such as AWC’s Q. And Babies? A. And Babies and APC’s The Artists Tower of Protest. Israel also formulates a typology of antiwar engagement, identifying and naming artists’ approaches to protest. These approaches range from extra-aesthetic actions—advertisements, strikes, walk-outs, and petitions without a visual aspect—to advance memorials, which were war memorials purposefully created before the war’s end that criticized both the war and the form and content of traditional war memorials.