Featuring the work of the most distinguished scholars in the field, this volume assesses the state of Afro-American literary study and projects a vision of that study for the 1990s. "A rich and rewarding collection."—Choice.

"This diverse and inspired collection . . . testifies to the Afro-Am academy's extraordinary vitality."—Voice Literary Supplement

In this bold book, Samuel Cohen asserts the literary and historical importance of the period between the fall of the Berlin wall and that of the Twin Towers in New York. With refreshing clarity, he examines six 1990s novels and two post-9/11 novels that explore the impact of the end of the Cold War: Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, Roth's American Pastoral, Morrison's Paradise, O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods, Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted, Eugenides's Middlesex, Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, and DeLillo's Underworld. Cohen emphasizes how these works reconnect the past to a present that is ironically keen on denying that connection. Exploring the ways ideas about paradise and pastoral, difference and exclusion, innocence and righteousness, triumph and trauma deform the stories Americans tell themselves about their nation’s past, After the End of History challenges us to reconsider these works in a new light, offering fresh, insightful readings of what are destined to be classic works of literature.

At the same time, Cohen enters into the theoretical discussion about postmodern historical understanding. Throwing his hat in the ring with force and style, he confronts not only Francis Fukuyama’s triumphalist response to the fall of the Soviet Union but also the other literary and political “end of history” claims put forth by such theorists as Fredric Jameson and Walter Benn Michaels. In a straightforward, affecting style, After the End of History offers us a new vision for the capabilities and confines of contemporary fiction.

The editors and contributors to this volume are not willing to accept what is known as uneven development, where some cities win and some lose. They look at two practical consequences of urban growth:  the change in residence patterns as neighborhoods gentrify, and the change in employment patterns, as factory workers lose jobs and white-collar workers gain jobs. The editors' goal is to highlight the alternatives to uneven development and to the growth ideology. They outline and advocate specific policies, including affordable housing, changes in taxation, and direct community participation in planning and zoning decisions. 

Challenging Uneven Development begins with a rousing discussion of the pervasiveness of the community redevelopment ideology. The growth machine defines the language of the debate. The next group of chapters examine residence patterns--how communities have organized to fight gentrification, why residential integration is essential for good planning as well as morality, and what strategies can be used to achieve racial diversity.  Another chapter emphasizes the role of lenders in regulating the flow of credit within communities.  Disinvestment by credit providers causes decline, and opens the way for gentrification, which displaces local residents. The impact of taxes in stimulating the growth machine is also explained. 

Later chapters move beyond gentrification issues to examine other problems of economic restructuring. They look at how blacks, Latinos, and women have been affected by the growth of service sector jobs. The final chapter serves as a strategic guide to those who wish to establish a progressive agenda for community-based economic development.  The authors call for social change, not unimaginative reform.

The contributors to this volume are leaders or researchers from community organizations, civic groups, government agencies, and universities. In addition to the editors, they are Mel King, Teresa Cordova, Daniel Lauber, Jena Pogge, David Flax-Hatch, Arthur Lyons, Wendy Wintermute, Charles Hicklin, Jeffrey D. Reckinger, David Mosena, Charlotte Chun, Raymndo Flores, Luther Snow, Deborah Bennett, John Betancur, and Patricia Wright. They have presented  "state-of-the-art"  progressive policy solutions for urban problems.

"One of the year's best books on Puerto Rico."—El Nuevo Dia, San Juan "[The authors] are highly regarded labor economists who have written extensively and intelligently in the past, and again in this volume, on Puerto Rican migration and labor markets... There isabundant statistical data and careful analysis, some of which challenges the conventional wisdom. Highly recommended." —Choice Island Paradox is the first comprehensive, census-based portrait of social and economic life in Puerto Rico. During its nearly fiftyyears as a U.S. commonwealth, the relationship between Puerto Rico's small, developing economy and the vastly larger, more industrialized United States has triggered profound changes in the island's industry and labor force. Puerto Rico has been deeply affected by the constant flow of its people to and from the mainland, and by the influx of immigrant workers from other nations. Distinguished economists Francisco Rivera-Batiz and Carlos Santiago provide the latest data on the socioeconomic status of Puerto Rico today, and examine current conditions within the context of the major trends of the past two decades. Island Paradox describes many improvements in Puerto Rico's standard of living, including rising per-capita income, longer life expectancies, greater educational attainment, and increased job prospects for women. But it also discusses the devastating surge in unemployment. Rapid urbanization and a vanishing agricultural sector have led to severe inequality, as family income has become increasingly dependent on education and geographic location. Although Puerto Rico's close ties to the United States were the major source of the island's economic growth prior to 1970, they have also been at the root of recent hardships. Puerto Rico's trade andbusiness transactions remain predominantly with the United States, but changes in federal tax, social, and budgetary policies, along with international agreements such as NAFTA, now threaten to alter the economic ties between the island and the mainland. Island Paradox reveals the social and family changes that have occurred among Puerto Ricans on the island and the mainland. The significant decline in the island's population growth is traced in part to women's increased pursuit of educational and employment opportunities before marrying. More children are being raised by singleparents, but this stems from a higher divorce rate and not a rise in teenage pregnancy. The widespread circular migration to and from the United States has had strong repercussions for the island's labor markets and social balance, leading to concerns about an island brain drain. The Puerto Rican population in the United States hasbecome increasingly diverse, less regionally concentrated and not, as some have claimed, in danger of becoming an underclass. Within a single generation Puerto Rico has experienced social and economic shifts of an unprecedented magnitude. Island Paradox charts Puerto Rico's economic fortunes, summarizes the major demographic trends, and identifies the issues that will have the strongest bearings on Puerto Rico's prospects for a successful future. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series

Lost for Words? explores the rise and decline of progressive Catholic grassroots activism and its drive for social justice and democratic change in four low-income neighborhoods in São Paulo, Brazil. Ottmann focuses on the obstacles faced by the poor who took seriously the claim that "the people" were to transform Brazilian society "from the bottom up." He follows their travails through periods of democratization, mass unemployment, and conservative backlash within the Church.

Frank Goetz Ottmann moves beyond purely political analysis to record how residents and progressive Catholic activists were drawn into a struggle for a "juster" society, and how this movement began to unravel even before it reached its peak in the early 1980s.

Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, and drawing on theoretical insights from recent debates on social movements and the sociology of religion, he examines how, by the early 1990s, the liberationist movement had lost its following, lost its allies, failed to achieve its core goals, and seemed to die. Ottmann then shows how in recent years activists have worked to create a new and pragmatic form of religious activism, one that draws on a range of agendas, including Catholic feminism.

Can there ever be justice for the Holocaust? During the 1990s—triggered by lawsuits in the United States against Swiss banks, German corporations, insurance companies, and owners of valuable works of art—claimants and their lawyers sought to rectify terrible wrongs committed more than a half century earlier. Some Measure of Justice explores this most recent wave of justice-seeking for the Holocaust: what it has been, why it emerged when it did, how it fits with earlier reparation to the Jewish people, its significance for the historical representation of the Holocaust, and its implications for justice-seeking in our time.
    Writings on the subject of Holocaust reparations have largely come from participants, lawyers, philosophers, journalists, and social scientists specializing in restitution. In Some Measure of Justice Michael Marrus takes up the issue as a historian deeply involved with legal issues. He engages with larger questions about historical understanding and historical interpretation as they enter the legal arena. Ultimately this book asks, What constitutes justice for a great historic wrong? And, Is such justice possible?

 

 

Winner, Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Literature

 "The Census is a most valuable source of information about our lives; these volumes make the story it has to tell accessible to all who want to know." —Lee Rainwater, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences "A lucid and balanced overview of major trends in the United States and essential reading for policymakers. State of the Union is a reality check that provides the factual basis for policy analysis."—Peter Gottschalk, Boston College State of the Union: America in the 1990s is the definitive new installment to the United States Census Series, carrying forward a tradition of census-based reports on American society that began with the 1930 Census. These two volumes offer a systematic, authoritative, and concise interpretation of what the 1990 Census reveals about the American people today. •Volume One: Economic Trends focuses on the schism between the wealthy and the poor that intensified in the 1980s as wages went up for highly educated persons but fell for those with less than a college degree. This gap was reflected geographically, as industries continued their migration from crumbling inner cities to booming edge cities, often leaving behind an impoverished minority population. Young male workers lost ground in the 1980s, but women made substantial strides, dramatically reducing the gender gap in earnings. The amount of family income devoted to housing rose over the decade, but while housing quality improved for wealthy, older Americans, it declined for younger, poorer families. •Volume Two: Social Trends examines the striking changes in American families and the rapid shifts in our racial and ethnic composition. Americans are marrying much later and divorcing more often, and increasing numbers of unmarried women are giving birth. These shifts have placed a growing proportion of children at risk of poverty. In glaring contrast, the elderly were the only group to make gains in the 1980s, and are now healthier and more prosperous than ever before. The concentrated immigration of Asians and Latinos to a few states and cities created extraordinary pockets of diversity within the population. Throughout the 1990s, the nation will debate questions about the state of the nation and the policies that should be adopted to address changing conditions. Will continued technological change lead to even more economic polarization? Will education become an increasingly important factor in determining earnings potential? Did new immigrants stimulate the economy or take jobs away from American-born workers? Will we be able to support the rapidly growing population of older retirees? State of the Union will help us to answer these questions and better understand how well the nation is adapting to the pervasive social and economic transformations of our era. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series

 "The Census is a most valuable source of information about our lives; these volumes make the story it has to tell accessible to all who want to know." —Lee Rainwater, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences "A lucid and balanced overview of major trends in the United States and essential reading for policymakers. State of the Union is a reality check that provides the factual basis for policy analysis."—Peter Gottschalk, Boston College State of the Union: America in the 1990s is the definitive new installment to the United States Census Series, carrying forward a tradition of census-based reports on American society that began with the 1930 Census. These two volumes offer a systematic, authoritative, and concise interpretation of what the 1990 Census reveals about the American people today. •Volume One: Economic Trends focuses on the schism between the wealthy and the poor that intensified in the 1980s as wages went up for highly educated persons but fell for those with less than a college degree. This gap was reflected geographically, as industries continued their migration from crumbling inner cities to booming edge cities, often leaving behind an impoverished minority population. Young male workers lost ground in the 1980s, but women made substantial strides, dramatically reducing the gender gap in earnings. The amount of family income devoted to housing rose over the decade, but while housing quality improved for wealthy, older Americans, it declined for younger, poorer families. •Volume Two: Social Trends examines the striking changes in American families and the rapid shifts in our racial and ethnic composition. Americans are marrying much later and divorcing more often, and increasing numbers of unmarried women are giving birth. These shifts have placed a growing proportion of children at risk of poverty. In glaring contrast, the elderly were the only group to make gains in the 1980s, and are now healthier and more prosperous than ever before. The concentrated immigration of Asians and Latinos to a few states and cities created extraordinary pockets of diversity within the population. Throughout the 1990s, the nation will debate questions about the state of the nation and the policies that should be adopted to address changing conditions. Will continued technological change lead to even more economic polarization? Will education become an increasingly important factor in determining earnings potential? Did new immigrants stimulate the economy or take jobs away from American-born workers? Will we be able to support the rapidly growing population of older retirees? State of the Union will help us to answer these questions and better understand how well the nation is adapting to the pervasive social and economic transformations of our era. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series

Write Now speculates on some of the dominant literary and critical trends in contemporary American literature, bringing together writers and critics in a volume that shows how literature engages both the mind and the heart. The essays in this collection show that today’s writers are blurring the lines between genres, challenging the boundaries that distinguish fiction from nonfiction, memoir from biography, essay from poetry, and autobiography from criticism.
Contributors explore many of the relationships now shaping American literature and criticism, including the tensions between postmodernist playfulness and autobiographical earnestness, art and commerce, and politics and aesthetics. Novelists Miriam Levine, Robert Olmstead, and Jonathan Strong offers essays on their creative processes and discuss the imaginative and emotional mysteries of writing and reading. Essays on Alice Walker, Art Spiegelman, Marilynne Robinson, and AIDS literature examine how the act of writing is linked to themes of longing, discovery, desire, and betrayal.
In evaluating both familiar and rarely studied contemporary literature from the standpoint of practicing writers as well as critics, this volume challenges the literary politics that silence critics as well as writers and testifies to the power of silent works to speak aloud. Certain to spark conversations about the politics of scholarship on current American writing, Write Now will be of interest to teachers and scholars of creative writing and American literary studies, those engaged in the arts of writing and literary criticism, and readers of contemporary American literature.

Contributors. Bonnie Braendlin, Christine Caver, Thomas Doherty, Rachel Blau DePlessis, Jennifer Gillan, Stephanie Girard, Deborah Landau, Miriam Levine, Sharon O’Brien, Robert Olmstead, Juliana Spahr, Jonathan Strong