Results by title

How the best intentions of African socialism became the useful tools of capitalism.

In the mid-twentieth century, skilled labor was seen as the key to national development. For newly independent African countries, this posed a formidable challenge: to build thriving economies, they needed to rapidly educate workers. As it turns out, that wasn’t their only obstacle.

Ambition and Adjustment reveals how responses to this human capital problem from the political left and right converged in unlikely ways to block Africa’s postcolonial progress. Focusing on nation-building projects in Zambia and Tanzania, Priya Lal recounts how the first generations of Africa’s professional class faced pressures on all sides—from foreign planners prioritizing economic growth and from local socialists decrying higher education and professionalization as wasteful and elitist. When African development stalled, international institutions like the World Bank took up parts of both approaches, justifying structural adjustment programs that defunded African universities and hospitals in the name of social equity. Indeed, Lal shows that neoliberal austerity in the 1990s was packaged in Africa’s socialist narratives from the 1960s.

By unearthing this forgotten history, Ambition and Adjustment upends traditional accounts of postcolonial development, exposing how socialism and capitalism both conflicted and overlapped to shape Africa’s trajectory since independence.

In Ambition, Competition, and Electoral Reform, Jamie L. Carson and Jason M. Roberts present an original study of U.S. congressional elections and electoral institutions for 1872-1944 from a contemporary political science perspective. Using data on late nineteenth and early twentieth century congressional elections, the authors test the applicability in a historical context of modern political science theories, assess the effects of institutional reforms, and identify the factors that shape the competitiveness of elections. They present several key findings: the strategic politicians theory is applicable in an era without candidate-centered campaigns; there was an incumbency advantage prior to the full development of candidate-centered campaigns; institutional reforms have had a significant effect on elections; and the degree of electoral competition frequently correlates with elected officials' responsiveness to citizens.

A new translation for scholars and students of biblical interpretation and ancient Christianity

The ancient writer dubbed Ambrosiaster was a pioneer in the revival of interest in the Pauline Epistles in the later fourth century. He was read by Latin writers, including Pelagius and Augustine, and his writings, passed on pseudonymously, had a long afterlife in the biblical commentaries, theological treatises, and canonical literature of the medieval and the early modern periods. In addition to his importance as an interpreter of scripture, Ambrosiaster provides unique perspectives on many facets of Christian life in Rome, from the emergence of clerical celibacy to the development of liturgical practices to the subordination of women.

Features

• An up-to-date overview of what is known about Ambrosiaster, the transmission of his commentary on the Pauline Epistles, his exegetical method, his theological orientation, and aspects of Christianity in Rome in the fourth century
• A scholarly translation of the final version of the commentary, along with notes that identify significant variants from prior versions of the commentary
• Bibliography thatincludes a comprehensive list of the scholarly literature on Ambrosiaster

The definitive biography Amelia Gayle Gorgas, one of the most influential people in the history of the University of Alabama

Amelia Gayle Gorgas: A Biography is a richly documented and deeply compelling portrait of one of Alabama’s most influential nineteenth‑century women. Drawing on the unparalleled depth of the Gayle‑Gorgas Collection—letters, journals, family papers, and contemporary accounts—this biography argues that Amelia’s life offers enduring insight into the resilience, intellect, and quiet leadership that shaped Southern society before, during, and after the Civil War. 

Far more than the daughter of a governor, wife of Confederate ordnance chief Josiah Gorgas, or mother of famed physician William Crawford Gorgas, Amelia emerges here as a figure of remarkable adaptability and personal strength. The book traces her journey from a lively Greensboro childhood through the upheavals of war‑torn Richmond, the hardships of Reconstruction‑era Alabama, and her transformative service as librarian at The University of Alabama. Its chapters illuminate the themes that define her legacy: intellectual curiosity without formal schooling, deft management of family and community crises, a gift for nurturing students and soldiers alike, and an ability to thrive in environments as varied as Maine, Charleston, Sewanee, and Tuscaloosa. 

Vivid storytelling blends seamlessly with meticulous scholarship, giving readers both an intimate family narrative and a sweeping social history of the nineteenth‑century South. This biography will appeal especially to readers of Southern history, women’s history, university and library heritage, Civil War studies, and anyone drawn to strong, quietly trailblazing figures whose lives illuminate broader cultural change. Amelia’s story endures because it speaks to the universal work of holding families, institutions, and communities together in times of profound upheaval.

In this work, Sean Dettman traces an observable correlation over the course of late summer 1940 between the bombings of London and other UK cities and the changing attitude of the American people towards adopting a moderate pro-aid position, and argues that these processes were aided by pro-aid US journalists who deployed a positive Blitz narrative centered on themes of resilience, courage, and fortitude. This shift in US public opinion allowed the Roosevelt Administration and pro-aid pressure groups to advance conversations in Washington towards aiding Britain, even at the risk of war.

Dettman also argues that this shift in opinion was caused by fear that a Nazi victory would threaten US national security and the American way of life, rather than an interest in expanding pro-democratic structures and institutions in Britain. 

Whereas the vast body of literature examining US public opinion during the ‘Great Debate’ reduces the Blitz narrative to a minor cause, America and the Blitz demonstrates how the Blitz narrative influenced domestic conversations regarding US national security and the American way of life. The author reveals that when the events and themes of the Blitz come into dialogue with conversations about US aid to Britain and national security, the traditional narrative changes.

America and the Blitz offers a new framework for understanding the ‘Great Debate,’ revealing the relationship between US journalists’ Blitz narrative and its effect on US public opinion towards aiding Britain and the ascendancy of American global power.

Between the two world wars, American publishing entered a “golden age” characterized by an explosion of new publishers, authors, audiences, distribution strategies, and marketing techniques. The period was distinguished by a diverse literary culture, ranging from modern cultural rebels to working-class laborers, political radicals, and progressive housewives. In America the Middlebrow, Jaime Harker focuses on one neglected mode of authorship in the interwar period—women's middlebrow authorship and its intersection with progressive politics. 

With the rise of middlebrow institutions and readers came the need for the creation of the new category of authorship. Harker contends that these new writers appropriated and adapted a larger tradition of women's activism and literary activity to their own needs and practices. Like sentimental women writers and readers of the 1850s, these authors saw fiction as a means of reforming and transforming society. Like their Progressive Era forebears, they replaced religious icons with nationalistic images of progress and pragmatic ideology. In the interwar period, this mode of authorship was informed by Deweyan pragmatist aesthetics, which insisted that art provided vicarious experience that could help create humane, democratic societies.

Drawing on letters from publishers, editors, agents, and authors, America the Middlebrow traces four key moments in this distinctive culture of letters through the careers of Dorothy Canfield, Jessie Fauset, Pearl Buck, and Josephine Herbst. Both an exploration of a virtually invisible culture of letters and a challenge to monolithic paradigms of modernism, the book offers fresh insight into the ongoing tradition of political domestic fiction that flourished between the wars.

Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua traces Brooklyn's transformation from a freedom village into a residential commuter satellite that supplied cheap labor to the city and the region. He examines why Brooklyn remained unindustrialized while factories and industrial complexes were built in nearly all the neighboring white-majority towns. As Brooklyn's population tilted more heavily toward single young men employed in the factories and as the city's cheaper retail businesses drew the town's consumer dollars, local businesses--except those catering to nightlife and vice--withered away.

Drawing on town records, regional and African American newspapers, census data, and other sources, Cha-Jua provides a detailed social and political history of America's first Black town. He places Brooklyn in the context of Black-town development and African American nationalism and documents the dedicated efforts of its Black citizens to achieve political control and build a thriving, autonomous, Black-majority community.

America's First Black Town challenges scholarly assumptions that Black political control necessarily leads to internal unity and economic growth. Outlining dynamics that presaged the post-1960s plight of Gary, Detroit, and other Black-dominated cities, Cha-Jua confirms that, despite Brooklyn's heroic struggle for autonomy, Black control was not enough to stem the corrosive tide of internal colonialism.

A poignant photographic tour of honor, sacrifice, and memory within America's national cemeteries

In America’s National Cemeteries, Timothy B. Spears takes the reader on a grand tour of these singular places of commemoration, the final resting place for more than four million American military personnel who died either in wartime, during their time of service, or after their honorable discharge. His absorbing account—part historical narrative and part travelogue—is enhanced by 180 of his remarkable photographs, which capture the spirit, beauty, and solemn remembrance to be found in each of the 156 national cemeteries across America.

Spears details the history of the cemeteries since their establishment during the American Civil War and explores their ongoing evolution and importance to American society and the commitment America has made to honoring its military dead. With headstones neatly arrayed in rows and each soldier typically buried in an identical fashion, the cemeteries symbolize an enduring connection between human mortality and national identity. They also reflect the nation’s persistent challenges with inequalities and injustice, violence and racism, lingering questions about “good” versus “bad” wars, and the vexed legacies of America’s military forays.

In this unique meditation on American history, memory, and place, Spears embraces the impact of the past on the present, offering an original perspective on the meaning of military service, mortality, and remembrance and how these national cemeteries have evolved into truly iconic and emblematic American spaces. The book also features a foreword by Roderick Gainer, Chief Curator of Arlington National Cemetery since 2013.

This is an auto-narrated audiobook edition of this book.

America’s Philosopher examines how John Locke has been interpreted, reinterpreted, and misinterpreted over three centuries of American history.
 
The influence of polymath philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) can still be found in a dizzying range of fields, as his writings touch on issues of identity, republicanism, and the nature of knowledge itself. Claire Rydell Arcenas’s new book tells the story of Americans’ longstanding yet ever-mutable obsession with this English thinker’s ideas, a saga whose most recent manifestations have found the so-called Father of Liberalism held up as a right-wing icon.

The first book to detail Locke’s trans-Atlantic influence from the eighteenth century until today, America’s Philosopher shows how and why interpretations of his ideas have captivated Americans in ways few other philosophers—from any nation—ever have. As Arcenas makes clear, each generation has essentially remade Locke in its own image, taking inspiration and transmuting his ideas to suit the needs of the particular historical moment. Drawing from a host of vernacular sources to illuminate Locke’s often contradictory impact on American daily and intellectual life from before the Revolutionary War to the present, Arcenas delivers a pathbreaking work in the history of ideas.

Perceptive and broad in scope, America’s Religious Crossroads illuminates the integral relationship between communal and spiritual growth in early Midwestern history.

Why does one talented individual win lasting recognition in a particular field, while another equally talented person does not? While there are many possible reasons, one obvious answer is that something more than talent is requisite to produce fame. The "something more" in the field of architecture, asserts Roxanne Williamson, is the association with a "famous" architect at the moment he or she first receives major publicity or designs the building for which he or she will eventually be celebrated.

In this study of more than six hundred American architects who have achieved a place in architectural histories, Williamson finds that only a small minority do not fit the "right person–right time" pattern. She traces the apprenticeship connection in case studies of Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Hobson Richardson, the firm of McKim, Mead & White, Latrobe and his descendants, the Bulfinch and Renwick Lines, the European immigrant masters, and Louis Kahn.

Although she acknowledges and discusses the importance of family connections, the right schools, self-promotion, scholarships, design competition awards, and promotion by important journals, Williamson maintains that the apprenticeship connection is the single most important predictor of architectural fame. She offers the intriguing hypothesis that what is transferred in the relationship is not a particular style or approach but rather the courage and self-confidence to be true to one's own vision. Perhaps, she says, this is the case in all the arts.

American Architects and the Mechanics of Fame is sure to provoke thought and comment in architecture and other creative fields.