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Discover the overlooked years that forged Theodore Roosevelt’s reforming spirit, revealing how bureaucratic battles shaped a future president and transformed American government forever

Roosevelt the Reformer is a compelling scholarly biography that uncovers a neglected chapter of Theodore Roosevelt’s life: his six-year tenure as U.S. Civil Service Commissioner from 1889 to 1895. Rather than focusing on his presidency or battlefield exploits, the book reveals how Roosevelt’s administrative work shaped his reformist zeal, political skills, and enduring impact on American governance. Through vivid narrative and careful analysis, it shows how this “quiet” period contributed directly to the modernization of the federal government and the emergence of the merit-based civil service. 

Structured chronologically, the book traces each year of Roosevelt’s commissionership while weaving together political events, personal life, and broader social context. It draws on rich primary sources—letters, speeches, and contemporary accounts—and includes scholarly features such as notes, bibliography, and index. Richard D. White Jr., a historian of American political development, combines narrative storytelling with rigorous research to illuminate Roosevelt’s battles with patronage politics, his reform strategies, and his growing administrative expertise. 

This book will appeal to historians, political scientists, and general readers interested in the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and the origins of modern government. It is especially valuable for readers seeking fresh perspectives on Theodore Roosevelt, public administration, or reform movements, offering both an engaging biography and a nuanced study of how institutions and leaders are transformed.

Prize for Best Book in Environmental Studies, Latin American Studies Association
Honorable mention for Best Book Prize in Visual Culture, Latin American Studies Association
Honorable mention for Best Book on Mexico, Latin American Studies Association 

Since the first moment of conquest, colonizers and the colonized alike in Mexico confronted questions about what it meant to be from this place, what natural resources it offered, and who had the right to control those resources and on what basis.

Focusing on the ways people, environment, and policies have been affected by political boundaries, historian Rick A. López explores the historical connections between political identities and the natural world. López analyzes how scientific intellectuals laid claim to nature within Mexico, first on behalf of the Spanish Empire and then in the name of the republic, during three transformative moments: the Hernández expedition of the late sixteenth century; the Royal Botanical Expedition of the late eighteenth century; and the heyday of scientific societies such as the Sociedad Mexicana de Historia Natural of the late nineteenth century. 

This work traces how scientific intellectuals studied and debated what it meant to know and claim the flora that sprang from Mexican soil—ranging from individual plants to forests and vegetated landscapes—and the importance they placed on indigeneity. It also points to the short- and long-term consequences of these efforts. López draws on archival and published sources produced from the sixteenth century through the start of the twentieth century and gives special attention to the use of visual images such as scientific illustrations and landscape art. López employs the term “visualization” in recognition of the degree to which officials, botanists, and draftsmen produced imagery and also how they and others viewed nature.

Rooted in Place reveals how scientific endeavors were not just about cataloging flora but were deeply intertwined with the construction of identity and the political landscape at three pivotal moments in Mexican history.

Explores the relationship between voting in elections and rooting for sports teams in the United States.

Americans have spoken of candidates “running” for office and of elections as “races” for so long that we no longer hear the sports metaphor. In Rooting Interests, cultural historian David Henkin takes the metaphor seriously. Since the 1830s, when American elections became mass spectacles staged before an unprecedented electorate, voting and rooting have grown up together, alongside horse racing, prizefighting, and baseball. Fans and voters alike know their single preference will almost never decide the outcome, yet they bet, brag, wear the colors, bask in reflected glory, and blame the coach. From Van Buren’s invention of the mass party through Progressive reform, women’s suffrage, and today’s red-and-blue map, Henkin traces a durable structure of partisan feeling that binds strangers to party labels across generations. If voters now behave more like fans, it is not because politics has been trivialized into sport, but because they care more and switch sides less.

Roots and Wings recounts Virginia Tanner’s remarkable career as a dancer, artist, and educator. From her early experiences assisting at Evelyn Davis’s dance school in Washington, DC, to the creation of the Tanner Dance Program at the University of Utah, her influence on the field was pervasive. She channeled children’s energy, sharpened their senses, and encouraged youthful, authentic dance expression.

Manley’s extensive archival research and personal interviews depict Virginia Tanner as an innovative dance artist and ambitious leader in the field of modern dance. While exploring Tanner’s story, Roots and Wings emphasizes the value of unique instructional methodologies for teaching dance to young children and the vital role the arts play in children’s lives. Tanner’s work endures, continuing to echo with sensitivity and spirit in young dancers throughout the United States and abroad.

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was one of the most brilliant and passionate minds drawn to the revolutionary socialist movement. An outstanding social and economic theorist of the twentieth century, and a dedicated political activist, she proved willing to go to prison and even give her life for her beliefs.

Providing an extensive overview of her writings, this volume contains a number of items never before anthologised. Her work was broad in scope tackling capitalism and socialism; globalisation and imperialism; history; war and peace; social struggles, trade unions, political parties; class, gender, race; the interconnection of humanity with the natural environment. The editors provide an extensive and informative introduction outlining and evaluating her life and thought.

This is the most comprehensive introduction to the range of Rosa Luxemburg’s thought.

Born on a farm near Anahuac, Texas, in 1875 and possessed of only a fourth-grade education, Ross Sterling was one of the most successful Texans of his generation. Driven by a relentless work ethic, he become a wealthy oilman, banker, newspaper publisher, and, from 1931 to 1933, one-term governor of Texas. Sterling was the principal founder of the Humble Oil and Refining Company, which eventually became the largest division of the ExxonMobil Corporation, as well as the owner of the Houston Post.

Eager to "preserve a narrative record of his life and deeds," Ross Sterling hired Ed Kilman, an old friend and editorial page editor of the Houston Post, to write his biography. Though the book was nearly finished before Sterling's death in 1949, it never found a publisher due to Kilman's florid writing style and overly hagiographic portrayal of Sterling.

In this volume, by contrast, editor Don Carleton uses the original oral history dictated by Ross Sterling to Ed Kilman to present the former governor's life story in his own words. Sterling vividly describes his formative years, early business ventures, and active role in developing the Texas oil industry. He also recalls his political career, from his appointment to the Texas Highway Commission to his term as governor, ending with his controversial defeat for reelection by "Ma" Ferguson. Sterling's reminiscences constitute an important primary source not only on the life of a Texan who deserves to be more widely remembered, but also on the history of Houston and the growth of the American oil industry.

Every ten years, the Texas legislature redistricts itself and the state’s congressional districts in an attempt to ensure equality in representation. With a richly textured cultural fabric, Texas often experiences redistricting battles that are heated enough to gain national attention. Collecting a variety of voices, including legislators themselves, in addition to lawyers, community organizers, political historians, and political scientists, Rotten Boroughs, Political Thickets, and Legislative Donnybrooks delivers a multidimensional picture of how redistricting works in Texas today, and how the process evolved.

In addition to editor Gary Keith’s historical narrative, which emphasizes the aftermath of the Warren Court’s redistricting decisions, longtime litigators David Richards and J. D. Pauerstein describe the contentious lines drawn from the 1970s into the 2000s. Former state legislator and congressman Craig Washington provides an insider’s view, while redistricting attorney and grassroots organizer Jose Garza describes the repercussions for Mexican Americans in Texas. Balancing these essays with a quantitative perspective, political scientists Seth McKee and Mark McKenzie analyze the voting data for the 2000 decade to describe the outcomes of redistricting. The result is a timely tour that provides up-to-date context, particularly on the role of the Voting Rights Act in the twenty-first century. From local community engagement to the halls of the Capitol, this is the definitive portrait of redistricting and its repercussions for all Texans.

A fresh exploration of apologetic material that pushes beyond form criticism

Andrew Knapp applies modern genre theory to seven ancient Near Eastern royal apologies that served to defend the legitimacy of kings who came to power under irregular circumstances. Knapp examines texts and inscriptions related to Telipinu, Hattusili III, David, Solomon, Hazael, Esarhaddon, and Nabonidus to identify transhistorical common issues that unite each discourse.

Features:

• Compares Hittite, Israelite, Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian apologies
• Examination of apologetic as a mode instead of a genre
• Charts and illustrations

Garcilaso de la Vega, the first native of the New World to attain importance as a writer in the Old, was born in Cuzco in 1539, the illegitimate son of a Spanish cavalier and an Inca princess. Although he was educated as a gentleman of Spain and won an important place in Spanish letters, Garcilaso was fiercely proud of his Indian ancestry and wrote under the name EI Inca.

Royal Commentaries of the Incas is the account of the origin, growth, and destruction of the Inca empire, from its legendary birth until the death in 1572 of its last independent ruler. For the material in Part One of Royal Commentaries—the history of the Inca civilization prior to the arrival of the Spaniards—Garcilaso drew upon "what I often heard as a child from the lips of my mother and her brothers and uncles and other elders . . . [of] the origin of the Inca kings, their greatness, the grandeur of their empire, their deeds and conquests, their government in peace and war, and the laws they ordained so greatly to the advantage of their vassals."

The conventionalized and formal history of an oral tradition, Royal Commentaries describes the gradual imposition of order and civilization upon a primitive and barbaric world. To this Garcilaso adds facts about the geography and the flora and fauna of the land; the folk practices, religion, and superstitions; the agricultural and the architectural and engineering achievements of the people; and a variety of other information drawn from his rich store of traditional knowledge, personal observation, or speculative philosophy.

Important though it is as history, Garcilaso's classic is much more: it is also a work of art. Its gracious and graceful style, skillfully translated by Harold V. Livermore, succeeds in bringing to life for the reader a genuine work of literature.

Part One covers the history of the Incas up to the arrival of the Spanish.

Garcilaso de la Vega, the first native of the New World to attain importance as a writer in the Old, was born in Cuzco in 1539, the illegitimate son of a Spanish cavalier and an Inca princess. Although he was educated as a gentleman of Spain and won an important place in Spanish letters, Garcilaso was fiercely proud of his Indian ancestry and wrote under the name El Inca.

Royal Commentaries of the Incas is the account of the origin, growth, and destruction of the Inca empire, from its legendary birth until the death in 1572 of its last independent ruler. For the material in Part One of Royal Commentaries—the history of the Inca civilization prior to the arrival of the Spaniards—Garcilaso drew upon "what I often heard as a child from the lips of my mother and her brothers and uncles and other elders . . . [of] the origin of the Inca kings, their greatness, the grandeur of their empire, their deeds and conquests, their government in peace and war, and the laws they ordained so greatly to the advantage of their vassals."

The conventionalized and formal history of an oral tradition, Royal Commentaries describes the gradual imposition of order and civilization upon a primitive and barbaric world. To this Garcilaso adds facts about the geography and the flora and fauna of the land; the folk practices, religion, and superstitions; the agricultural and the architectural and engineering achievements of the people; and a variety of other information drawn from his rich store of traditional knowledge, personal observation, or speculative philosophy.

Important though it is as history, Garcilaso's classic is much more: it is also a work of art. Its gracious and graceful style, skillfully translated by Harold V. Livermore, succeeds in bringing to life for the reader a genuine work of literature.

Part Two covers the Spanish conquest of the Incas.

Garcilaso de la Vega, the first native of the New World to attain importance as a writer in the Old, was born in Cuzco in 1539, the illegitimate son of a Spanish cavalier and an Inca princess. Although he was educated as a gentleman of Spain and won an important place in Spanish letters, Garcilaso was fiercely proud of his Indian ancestry and wrote under the name El Inca.

Royal Commentaries of the Incas is the account of the origin, growth, and destruction of the Inca empire, from its legendary birth until the death in 1572 of its last independent ruler. For the material in Part One of Royal Commentaries—the history of the Inca civilization prior to the arrival of the Spaniards—Garcilaso drew upon "what I often heard as a child from the lips of my mother and her brothers and uncles and other elders . . . [of] the origin of the Inca kings, their greatness, the grandeur of their empire, their deeds and conquests, their government in peace and war, and the laws they ordained so greatly to the advantage of their vassals."

The conventionalized and formal history of an oral tradition, Royal Commentaries describes the gradual imposition of order and civilization upon a primitive and barbaric world. To this Garcilaso adds facts about the geography and the flora and fauna of the land; the folk practices, religion, and superstitions; the agricultural and the architectural and engineering achievements of the people; and a variety of other information drawn from his rich store of traditional knowledge, personal observation, or speculative philosophy.

Important though it is as history, Garcilaso's classic is much more: it is also a work of art. Its gracious and graceful style, skillfully translated by Harold V. Livermore, succeeds in bringing to life for the reader a genuine work of literature.

Beginning its narrative in 1961, when Albanian King Zog I died in a Paris hospital after 22 years in exile, this book tells the colourful story of this Balkan country's first and only monarch. The road to becoming Europe's youngest president in 1925 and then king of Albania in 1928 was paved with feuds and assassinations, a political career-path common in the region. He craved the throne for several reasons; the Balkans were mostly run by kings, and Zog wanted to impress his mother and also give his six sisters an easy social rise. 

Once king, his accomplishments were decidedly meagre. He spent most of his time keeping up appearances as a monarch despite the obvious fraud he had imposed on an illiterate and uninterested population. His one great success was that he had almost all his opponents assassinated, usually in broad daylight abroad. 

Zog retained his power until his "friend" Mussolini ousted him in 1939. On the surface a Westernizer, this self-proclaimed ruler left Albania almost as he found it, with almost no roads or trains, thoroughly uneducated and utterly impoverished. 

In his book, Robert Austin combines Zog’s adventurous life story with a studious analysis of Albania's political history from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the threshold of Euro-Atlantic integration.