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The Calling of History
Sir Jadunath Sarkar and His Empire of Truth
Dipesh Chakrabarty
University of Chicago Press, 2015
A leading scholar in early twentieth-century India, Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958) was knighted in 1929 and became the first Indian historian to gain honorary membership in the American Historical Association. By the end of his lifetime, however, he had been marginalized by the Indian history establishment, as postcolonial historians embraced alternative approaches in the name of democracy and anti-colonialism. The Calling of History examines Sarkar’s career—and poignant obsolescence—as a way into larger questions about the discipline of history and its public life.

Through close readings of more than twelve hundred letters to and from Sarkar along with other archival documents, Dipesh Chakrabarty demonstrates that historians in colonial India formulated the basic concepts and practices of the field via vigorous—and at times bitter and hurtful—debates in the public sphere. He furthermore shows that because of its non-technical nature, the discipline as a whole remains susceptible to pressure from both the public and the academy even today. Methodological debates and the changing reputations of scholars like Sarkar, he argues, must therefore be understood within the specific contexts in which particular histories are written.

Insightful and with far-reaching implications for all historians, The Calling of History offers a valuable look at the double life of history and how tensions between its public and private sides played out in a major scholar’s career.
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Carmen Blacker
Scholar of Japanese Religion, Myth and Folklore: Writings and Reflections
Hugh Cortazzi
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
Carmen Blacker was an outstanding scholar of Japanese culture, known internationally for her writings on religion, myth and folklore – her most notable work being The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan. Importantly, a third of the volume comprises significant extracts from the author’s diaries covering a period of more than forty years, together with a plate section drawn from her extensive photographic archive, thus providing a rare opportunity to gain a personal insight into the author’s life and work. The volume includes a wide selection of writings from distinguished scholars such as Donald Keene and her former pupil Peter Kornicki in celebration of her work and legacy, together with various essays and papers by Carmen Blacker herself that have hitherto not been widely available. In addition to her scholarship, Carmen Blacker was also highly regarded for her work in promoting Japanese Studies at Cambridge and played a vital role in helping to re-establish The Japan Society, London, post-war.
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Chronicles of a Radical Criminologist
Working the Margins of Law, Power, and Justice
Gregg Barak
Rutgers University Press, 2020
Over the past five decades, prominent criminologist Gregg Barak has worked as an author, editor, and book review editor; his large body of work has been grounded in traditional academic prose. His new book, Chronicles of a Radical Criminologist, while remaining scholarly in its intent, departs from the typical academic format. The book is a a first-person account that examines the linkages between one scholar's experiences as a criminologist from the late 1960s to the present and the emergence and evolution of radical criminology as a challenge to developments in mainstream criminology. Barak draws upon his own experiences over this half-century as a window into the various debates and issues among radical, critical, and technocratic criminologies. In doing so, he revisits his own seminal works, showing how they reflect those periods of criminological development.
 
What holds this book together is the story of how resisting the crimes of the powerful while struggling locally for social justice is the essence of critical criminology. His seven chapters are divided into three parts—academic freedom, academic activism, and academic praxis—and these connected stories link the author's own academic career in Berkeley, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Chicago; Alabama; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and across the United States. Barak's eventful scholarly life involved efforts to overcome laws against abortion and homosexuality; to formalize protective practices for women from domestic violence and sexual assault; to oppose racism and classism in the criminal justice system; to challenge the wars on gangs, drugs, and immigrants; and to confront the policies of mass incarceration and the treatment of juvenile offenders.
 
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Chronicles Of Faith
The Autobiography of Frederick D. Patterson
Frederick D. Patterson, edited by Martia Graham Goodson
University of Alabama Press, 1991
Records the life of a man who influenced the course of higher education for African Americans and Africans throughout the twentieth century

Patterson, orphaned soon after birth in 1901, became a veterinary scientist at Tuskegee Institute and soon thereafter--at the depths of the Depression--was selected as president of that most important institution. It was at Tuskegee that Patterson formulated the idea and the organization--the United Negro College Fund. In doing so he made a place for himself in U.S. and world history by providing the model of cooperative fund raising that enabled financially starved private black colleges to survive and serve the youth of the segregated North and South.
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Code Name Puritan
Norman Holmes Pearson at the Nexus of Poetry, Espionage, and American Power
Greg Barnhisel
University of Chicago Press, 2024
An insightful biography of an unassuming literary scholar—and spy—who transformed postwar American culture.
 
Although his impact on twentieth-century American cultural life was profound, few people know the story of Norman Holmes Pearson. His life embodies the Cold War alliances among US artists, scholars, and the national-security state that coalesced after World War II. As a Yale professor and editor, he helped legitimize the study of American culture and shaped the public’s understanding of literary modernism—significantly, the work of women poets such as Hilda Doolittle and Gertrude Stein. At the same time, as a spy, recruiter, and cultural diplomat, he connected the academy, the State Department, and even the CIA.

In Code Name Puritan, Greg Barnhisel maps Pearson’s life, from his youthful injury that led to a visible, permanent disability; to his wartime counterespionage work neutralizing the Nazis’ spy network; to his powerful role in the cultural and political heyday sometimes called the American Century. Written with clarity and informed by meticulous research, Barnhisel’s revelatory portrait of Pearson details how his unique experiences shaped his beliefs about American character, from the Puritans onward.
 
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Complete Copyright for K12 Librarians and Educators
Carrie Russell
American Library Association, 2023
Particularly in places of learning, technology is all-pervasive; because everyone is always making copies, copyright is center stage. And copyright law, when misapplied or misinterpreted, affects not only the way that you teach but even what you teach. With decades of experience interpreting the intricacies of copyright law as it pertains to librarianship, Russell is the ideal authority to address the concerns of librarians, teachers, and teaching librarians who work in the K–12 environment. Her book will encourage you to stop allowing your fear of copyright issues to limit how and what you share or teach, and instead be more involved in shaping copyright law to better serve your learning community. Through scenario-based discussions, it covers key topics such as
  • the reasons librarians and teachers have so many misconceptions about copyright, and why understanding copyright is a process, not a one-time event;
  • recent legislative and policy developments that impact schools and libraries;
  • situations often encountered by educators, such as using copyrighted material in class assignments, digital lesson plans, bulletin board displays, social media, school plays, and band performances and talent shows;
  • the use of licensed content in a variety of settings;
  • what constitutes "fair use," so that you can be empowered by knowing exactly what's possible within the law; and
  • guidance on making long-term strategic decisions and developing copyright policies.
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Complete Copyright for K–12 Librarians and Educators
Carrie Russell
American Library Association, 2012

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Confessions of an American Scholar
Simon O’Toole
University of Minnesota Press, 1970

Confessions of an American Scholar was first published in 1970. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Professor O'Toole, a well-known American literary scholar (Simon O'Toole is a pseudonym), gives us a candid, amusing, and, on the whole, frightening look at what really goes on in academic life. He has taught at black and white colleges, private and public colleges, Ivy Leagues and brick colleges; and over the years he has found himself transformed from a good teacher and no scholar into a prolific scholar and a tired teacher. Along the way he fought Joe McCarthy and told his students to burn their draft cards. At the conclusion of his tale he makes some serious proposals for a solution to what he calls the mess of American education. At the core of his suggestions is the opinion that America needs less education instead of more, an idea that seems certain to evoke cries of treason from many of his academic brethren.

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The Conscience of the University, and Other Essays
By Harry Huntt Ransom
University of Texas Press, 1982

In 1982, a century after the laying of the cornerstone of its first building, the University of Texas was ranked by the New York Times among the best in the nation. No one had more to do with that extraordinary achievement than Harry Huntt Ransom. From 1935 to his death in 1976, he served the University in positions ranging from instructor in English to chancellor of The University of Texas System. In the fifties, sixties, and seventies, he held a succession of administrative posts requiring him to face a myriad of perplexing problems. Among the critical issues calling for analysis and decision in those years were the post-Sputnik pressure for greater emphasis on science and technology, the student revolts during the 1960s, and the defection of growing numbers of university faculty to industry and government.

Harry Huntt Ransom did not merely respond to the problems of the times. He had his own large ambitions for the University of Texas, in particular the improvement of student programs, the development of a vigorous faculty, and—the achievement for which he is best remembered—the building of a world-renowned library.

He was concerned with the role of the university in society, what the university should do and do well, and what it should not do. Always he viewed these matters in broad perspective, and his approach to them was far-sighted and deeply philosophical.

As dean, vice-president, president, and chancellor, Ransom wrote and spoke often on these and other important subjects. Aside from the books that he wrote and edited, he left a prodigious amount of material, some of which had been published in various journals and some of which had been delivered as lectures and addresses and never made available in printed form.

For the last twenty-five years of Ransom's life his wife, Hazel, was his closest companion and confidant. At the urging of Harry's friends, colleagues, and admirers, she undertook the task of sifting through her late husband's papers in an effort to organize and preserve some of the important contributions he had made to the thought and planning that were so instrumental in shaping the University of Texas and higher education in general. In these essays we see the force of reasoning and grace of style for which Ransom was so widely admired. It was he who reminded us that books last longer than buildings. This is a book of lasting importance that Harry Ransom himself might have given us had he lived longer.

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Copyright Essentials for Librarians and Educators
American Library Association
American Library Association, 2000

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Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators
Creative Strategies and Practical Solutions
Kenneth D. Crews
American Library Association, 2020

Copyright law never sleeps, making it imperative to keep abreast of the latest developments. Declared “an exemplary text that seals the standards for such books” (Managing Information), this newly revised and updated edition by respected copyright authority Crews offers timely insights and succinct guidance for LIS students, librarians, and educators alike. Readers will

  • learn basic copyright definitions and key exceptions for education and library services;
  • find information quickly with “key points” sidebars, legislative citations, and cross-references;
  • get up to speed on fresh developments, such as how the recently signed Marrakesh Treaty expands access for people with disabilities and why the latest ruling in the Georgia State University case makes developing a fair use policy so important;
  • understand the concept of fair use, with fresh interpretations of its many gray areas that will aid decision making;
  • learn the current state of affairs regarding mass digitization, Creative Commons, classroom use and distance education, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and other important topics;
  • receive guidance on setting up on a copyright service at a library, college, or university; and
  • find many helpful checklists for navigating copyright in various situations.

This straightforward, easy-to-use guide provides the tools librarians and educators need to take control of their rights and responsibilities as copyright owners and users.

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Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators
Creative Strategies and Practical Solutions
Kenneth D. Crews
American Library Association, 2012

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Crash Course
From the Good War to the Forever War
Franklin, H. Bruce
Rutgers University Press, 2018
Growing up during the Second World War, H. Bruce Franklin believed what he was told: that America’s victory would lead to a new era of world peace. Like most Americans, he was soon led to believe in a world-wide Communist conspiracy that menaced the United States, forcing the nation into a disastrous war in Korea. But once he joined the U.S. Air Force and began flying top-secret missions as a navigator and intelligence officer, what he learned was eye-opening. He saw that even as the U.S. preached about peace and freedom, it was engaging in an endless cycle of warfare, bringing devastation and oppression to fledgling democracies across the globe.
 
Now, after fifty years as a renowned cultural historian, Franklin offers a set of hard-learned lessons about modern American history. Crash Course is essential reading for anyone who wonders how America ended up where it is today: with a deeply divided and disillusioned populace, led by a dysfunctional government, and mired in unwinnable wars. It also finds startling parallels between America’s foreign military exploits and the equally brutal tactics used on the home front to crush organized labor, antiwar, and civil rights movements.
 
More than just a memoir or a history book, Crash Course gives readers a unique firsthand look at the building of the American empire and the damage it has wrought. Shocking and gripping as any thriller, it exposes the endless deception of the American public, and reveals from inside how and why many millions of Americans have been struggling for decades against our own government in a fight for peace and justice.  
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Crossing
A Transgender Memoir
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
University of Chicago Press, 2019
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
 
“I visited womanhood and stayed. It was not for the pleasures, though I discovered many I had not imagined, and many pains too. But calculating pleasures and pains was not the point. The point was who I am.”
 
Once a golden boy of conservative economics and a child of 1950s privilege, Deirdre McCloskey (formerly Donald) had wanted to change genders from the age of eleven. But it was a different time, one hostile to any sort of straying from the path—against gays, socialists, women with professions, men without hats, and so on—and certainly against gender transition. Finally, in 1995, at the age of fifty-three, it was time for McCloskey to cross the gender line.
 
Crossing is the story of McCloskey’s dramatic and poignant transformation from Donald to Dee to Deirdre. She chronicles the physical procedures and emotional evolution required and the legal and cultural roadblocks she faced in her journey to womanhood. By turns searing and humorous, this is the unflinching, unforgettable story of her transformation—what she lost, what she gained, and the women who lifted her up along the way.
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