18284 books match the query 'United States' and 3764 start with t

cover of The History of Michigan Law

The History of Michigan Law

Paul Finkelman

Ohio University Press, 2006

The History of Michigan Law offers the first serious survey of Michigan’s rich legal past. Michigan legislators have played a leading role in developing modern civil rights law, protecting the environment, and assuring the right to counsel for those accused of crimes. Michigan was the first jurisdiction in the English-speaking world to abolish the death penalty. As the state industrialized, its legal system responded to the competing demands and interests of farmers, railroads, entrepreneurs, and workers.

Michigan was a beacon of liberty for fugitive slaves and free blacks before the Civil War and an early leader in the adoption of laws to protect civil rights and prohibit discrimination after that conflict. The state was the site of the Ossian Sweet murder trial, which illustrated the tensions in Michigan between law and popular ideology. The History of Michigan Law documents and analyzes these legal developments and others, including the history of labor law, women’s rights, and legal education.

This landmark volume will serve as the entry point for all future studies that involve law and society in Michigan and will be invaluable in the comparative study of state law. As the Michigan Supreme Court enters its third century, The History of Michigan Law has relevance beyond the legal community, for scholars and students of American history.

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cover of The History of Special Education: From Isolation to Integration

The History of Special Education

From Isolation to Integration

Margret A. Winzer

Gallaudet University Press, 1993

This comprehensive volume examines the facts, characters, and events that shaped this field in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States. From the first efforts to teach disabled people in early Christian and Medieval eras to such current mandates as Public Law 94-142, this study breaks new ground in assessing the development of special education as a formal discipline.
 
     The History of Special Education presents a four-part narrative that traces its emergence in fascinating detail from 16th-century Spain through the Age of Enlightenment in 17th-century France and England to 18th-century issues in Europe and North America of placement, curriculum, and early intervention. The status of teachers in the 19th century and social trends and the movement toward integration in 20th century programs are considered as well.
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cover of The History of Temple University Japan: An Experiment in International Education

The History of Temple University Japan

An Experiment in International Education

Richard Joslyn and Bruce Stronach

Temple University Press, 2023

When Temple University Japan (TUJ) was founded in 1982—to advance the mission of international higher education—the university had few ties to Japan, or any other Asian country. However, more than 40 years later, TUJ has overcome substantial obstacles and remains the only American university campus in Japan, gaining legitimacy and considerable respect as an international institution of higher education. In The History of Temple University Japan, two former TUJ Deans, Richard Joslyn and Bruce Stronach, explore the creation, development, and maturation of TUJ, and present a case study of how Temple University successfully created an overseas branch campus.
 
The authors recount the development of the academic program, the recruitment of students, and the support from Temple that enabled curricular and pedagogical improvement. 
They also address the university’s relationships with three Japanese partners, and the financial threats and crises TUJ faced over the decades. 
 
The History of Temple University Japan is not only an important documentation of TUJ, but also a history of U.S.-Japanese relations. What emerges is the significant impact TUJ has had on the thousands of students, faculty, and staff who have been a part of this international academic institution.  
 
 
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cover of The History of Wisconsin, Volume I: From Exploration to Statehood

The History of Wisconsin, Volume I

From Exploration to Statehood

Alice E. Smith

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1973

Published in 1973, this first volume in the History of Wisconsin series remains the definitive work on Wisconsin's beginnings, from the arrival of the French explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634, to the attainment of statehood in 1848. This volume explores how Wisconsin's Native American inhabitants, early trappers, traders, explorers, and many immigrant groups paved the way for the territory to become a more permanent society. Including nearly two dozen maps as well as illustrations of territorial Wisconsin and portraits of early residents, this volume provides an in-depth history of the beginnings of the state.
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cover of The History of Wisconsin, Volume II: Civil War Era, 1848-1873

The History of Wisconsin, Volume II

Civil War Era, 1848-1873

Richard N. Current

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1976

This second volume in the History of Wisconsin series introduces us to the first generation of statehood, from the conversion of prairie and forests into farmland to the development of cities and industry. In addition, this volume presents a synthesis of the Civil War and Reconstruction era in Wisconsin. Scarcely a decade after entering the Union, the state was plunged into the nationwide debate over slavery, the secession crisis, and a war in which 11,000 "Badger Boys in Blue" gave their lives. Wisconsin's role in the Civil War is chronicled, along with the post-war years. Complete with photographs from the Historical Society's collections, as well as many pertinent maps, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in this era of Wisconsin's history.

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cover of The History of Wisconsin, Volume III: Urbanization & Industrialization 1873-1893

The History of Wisconsin, Volume III

Urbanization & Industrialization 1873-1893

Robert C. Nesbit

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1985

Although the years from 1873-1893 lacked the well known, dramatic events of the periods before and after, this period presented a major transformation in Wisconsin's economy. The third volume in the History of Wisconsin series presents a balanced, comprehensive, and witty account of these two decades of dynamic growth and change in Wisconsin society, business, and industry. Concentrating on three major areas: the economy, communities, and politics and government, this volume in the History of Wisconsin series adds substantially to our knowledge and understanding of this crucial, but generally little-understood, period.

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cover of The History of Wisconsin, Volume IV: The Progressive Era, 1893-1914

The History of Wisconsin, Volume IV

The Progressive Era, 1893-1914

John D. Buenker

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1998

Published in Wisconsin's Sesquicentennial year, this fourth volume in The History of Wisconsin series covers the twenty tumultuous years between the World's Columbian Exposition and the First World War when Wisconsin essentially reinvented itself, becoming the nation's "laboratory of democracy."

The period known as the Progressive Era began to emerge in the mid-1890s. A sense of crisis and a widespread clamor for reform arose in reaction to rapid changes in population, technology, work, and society. Wisconsinites responded with action: their advocacy of women's suffrage, labor rights and protections, educational reform, increased social services, and more responsive government led to a veritable flood of reform legislation that established Wisconsin as the most progressive state in the union.

As governor and U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., was the most celebrated of the Progressives, but he was surrounded by a host of pragmatic idealists from politics, government, and the state university. Although the Progressives frequently disagreed over priorities and tactics, their values and core beliefs coalesced around broad-based participatory democracy, the application of scientific expertise to governance, and an active concern for the welfare of all members of society-what came to be known as "the Wisconsin Idea."

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cover of The History of Wisconsin, Volume V: War, a New Era, and Depression, 1914-1940

The History of Wisconsin, Volume V

War, a New Era, and Depression, 1914-1940

Paul W. Glad

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1990

The fifth volume in The History of Wisconsin series covers the years from the outbreak of World War I to the eve of American entry into World War II. In between, the rise of the woman's movement, the advent of universal suffrage, and the "great experiment" of Prohibition are explored, along with the contest between newly emergent labor unions and powerful business and industrial corporations. Author Paul W. Glad also investigates the Great Depression in Wisconsin and its impact on rural and urban families in the state. Photographs and maps further illustrate this volume which tells the story of one of the most exciting and stressful eras in the history of the state.

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cover of The History of Wisconsin, Volume VI: Continuity and Change, 1940-1965

The History of Wisconsin, Volume VI

Continuity and Change, 1940-1965

William F. Thompson

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1988

The sixth and final volume in the History of Wisconsin series examines the period from 1940-1965, in which state and nation struggled to maintain balance and traditions. Some of the major developments analyzed in this volume include: coping with three wars, racial and societal conflict, technological innovation, population shifts to and from cities and suburbs, and accompanying stress in politics, government, and society as a whole. Using dozens of photographs to visually illustrate this period in the state's history, this volume upholds the high standards set forth in the previous volumes.

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cover of The History of the American Indians: A Critical Edition

The History of the American Indians

A Critical Edition

James Adair; edited, introduced, and annotated by Kathryn E. Holland Braund

University of Alabama Press, 2009

A fully annotated edition of a classic work detailing the cultures of five southeastern American Indian tribes during the Contact Period

James Adair was an Englishman who lived and traded among the southeastern Indians for more than 30 years, from 1735 to 1768. During that time he covered the territory from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River. He encountered and lived among Indians, advised governors, spent time with settlers, and worked tirelessly for the expansion of British interests against the French and the Spanish. Adair’s acceptance by the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws provided him the opportunity to record, compare, and analyze their cultures and traditions.

Adair’s written work, first published in England in 1775, is considered one of the finest histories of the Native Americans. His observations provide one of the earliest and what many modern scholars regard as the best account of southeastern Indian cultures. This edition adheres to current standards of literary editing, following the original closely, and provides fully annotated and indexed critical apparatus.
 
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cover of The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture

The Hoarders

Material Deviance in Modern American Culture

Scott Herring

University of Chicago Press, 2014

The verb “declutter” has not yet made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, but its ever-increasing usage suggests that it’s only a matter of time. Articles containing tips and tricks on how to get organized cover magazine pages and pop up in TV programs and commercials, while clutter professionals and specialists referred to as “clutterologists” are just a phone call away. Everywhere the sentiment is the same: clutter is bad.

In The Hoarders, Scott Herring provides an in-depth examination of how modern hoarders came into being, from their onset in the late 1930s to the present day. He finds that both the idea of organization and the role of the clutterologist are deeply ingrained in our culture, and that there is a fine line between clutter and deviance in America. Herring introduces us to Jill, whose countertops are piled high with decaying food and whose cabinets are overrun with purchases, while the fly strips hanging from her ceiling are arguably more fly than strip. When Jill spots a decomposing pumpkin about to be jettisoned, she stops, seeing in the rotting, squalid vegetable a special treasure. “I’ve never seen one quite like this before,” she says, and looks to see if any seeds remain. It is from moments like these that Herring builds his questions: What counts as an acceptable material life—and who decides? Is hoarding some sort of inherent deviation of the mind, or a recent historical phenomenon grounded in changing material cultures? Herring opts for the latter, explaining that hoarders attract attention not because they are mentally ill but because they challenge normal modes of material relations. Piled high with detailed and, at times, disturbing descriptions of uncleanliness, The Hoarders delivers a sweeping and fascinating history of hoarding that will cause us all to reconsider how we view these accumulators of clutter.
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cover of The Hocking Valley Railway

The Hocking Valley Railway

Edward H. Miller

Ohio University Press, 2024

The Hocking Valley Railway was once Ohio’s longest intrastate rail line, filled with a seemingly endless string of coal trains. Although coal was the main business, the railroad also carried iron and salt. Despite the fact that the Hocking Valley was such a large railroad, with a huge economic and social impact, very little is known about it. The Hocking Valley Railway traces the journey of a company that began in 1867 as the Columbus & Hocking Valley, built to haul coal from Athens to Columbus. Extensions of the line and consolidation of several branches ultimately created the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo. This was a 345-mile railway, extending from the Lake Erie port of Toledo through Columbus and on to the Ohio River port of Pomeroy. The history of the Hocking Valley, like that of other railroads, is one of boom times and depression. By the 1920s, the Hocking coalfields were largely depleted, and the mass of track south of Columbus became a backwater, while the Toledo Division boomed. The corporate name has been gone for more than three-quarters of a century, but the Hocking Valley lives on as an integral part of railroad successor CSX. The Hocking Valley Railway, complete with 150 photographs and illustrations, also documents a historic transformation in midwestern transportation from slow canalboats to fast passenger trains. Historians and railroad enthusiasts will find much to savor in the story of this ever-changing company and the managers who ran it.
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cover of The Hogg Family and Houston: Philanthropy and the Civic Ideal

The Hogg Family and Houston

Philanthropy and the Civic Ideal

By Kate Sayen Kirkland

University of Texas Press, 2009

Progressive former governor James Stephen Hogg moved his business headquarters to Houston in 1905. For seven decades, his children Will, Ima, and Mike Hogg used their political ties, social position, and family fortune to improve the lives of fellow Houstonians.

As civic activists, they espoused contested causes like city planning and mental health care. As volunteers, they inspired others to support social service, educational, and cultural programs. As philanthropic entrepreneurs, they built institutions that have long outlived them: the Houston Symphony, the Museum of Fine Arts, Memorial Park, and the Hogg Foundation. The Hoggs had a vision of Houston as a great city—a place that supports access to parklands, music, and art; nurtures knowledge of the "American heritage which unites us"; and provides social service and mental health care assistance. This vision links them to generations of American idealists who advanced a moral response to change.

Based on extensive archival sources, The Hogg Family and Houston explains the impact of Hogg family philanthropy for the first time. This study explores how individual ideals and actions influence community development and nurture humanitarian values. It examines how philanthropists and volunteers mold Houston's traditions and mobilize allies to meet civic goals. It argues that Houston's generous citizens have long believed that innovative cultural achievement must balance aggressive economic expansion.

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cover of The Hohokam and Their World: An Exploration of Art and Iconography

The Hohokam and Their World

An Exploration of Art and Iconography

Linda M. Gregonis and Victoria R. Evans

University of Arizona Press, 2025

Southwest Books of the Year Pick

People traveling around the Sonoran Desert will see the traces of an ancient society, the Hohokam, through the material that they left behind—pottery, shell ornaments, carved stone, and rock imagery.
 
The Hohokam and Their World offers readers the opportunity to explore how these various images and objects may have been used by the Hohokam, and what the icons and objects may have meant, including how the Hohokam conveyed ideas about water, the Sonoran Desert, the ocean, travel, ancestors, and the cosmos.
 
Authors Linda M. Gregonis and Victoria R. Evans discuss how artists drew inspiration from their Sonoran Desert homeland and were also influenced by the cultures of western Mexico, the hunter-gatherers of the western desert, the Mogollon to the east, and the Pueblo cultures of the northern Southwest. Unlike traditional archaeological texts, this book takes a holistic approach by examining a diverse range of artistic expressions used by the Hohokam. From intricately crafted pottery to mesmerizing carvings in rock, each medium offers a unique glimpse into the Hohokam’s relationship with their environment and the wider world.
 
Whether you’re planning a visit to national parks or museums in the Southwest or simply intrigued by ancient civilizations, The Hohokam and Their World is a must-read. The work includes a glossary of key archaeological and anthropological terms, as well as endnotes and an extensive list of references for those who want to dig deeper.

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cover of The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?

The Hollow Hope

Can Courts Bring About Social Change?

Gerald N. Rosenberg

University of Chicago Press, 1991

Liberals have acclaimed, and conservatives decried, reliance on courts as tools for changes. But while debate rages over whether the courts should be playing such a legislative role, Gerald N. Rosenberg poses a far more fundamental question—can courts produce political and social reform?

Rosenberg presents, with remarkable skill, an overwhelming case that efforts to use the courts to generate significant reforms in civil rights, abortion, and women's rights were largely failures.

"The real strength of The Hollow Hope . . . is its resuscitation of American Politics—the old-fashioned representative kind—as a valid instrument of social change. Indeed, the flip side of Mr. Rosenberg's argument that courts don't do all that much is the refreshing view that politics in the best sense of the word—as deliberation and choice over economic and social changes, as well as over moral issues—is still the core of what makes America the great nation it is. . . . A book worth reading."—Gary L. McDowell, The Washington Times

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cover of The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?

The Hollow Hope

Can Courts Bring About Social Change?

Gerald N. Rosenberg

University of Chicago Press, 2023

Presents a powerful argument for the limitations of judicial action to support significant social reform—now updated with new data and analysis.
 
Since its first publication in 1991, The Hollow Hope has spurred debate and challenged assumptions on both the left and the right about the ability of courts to bring about durable political and social change. What Gerald N. Rosenberg argued then, and what he confirms today through new evidence in this edition, is that it is nearly impossible to generate significant reforms through litigation: American courts are ineffective and relatively weak, far from the uniquely powerful sources for change they are often portrayed to be.
 
This third edition includes new data and a substantially updated analysis of civil rights, abortion rights and access, women’s rights, and marriage equality. Addressing changes in the political and social environment, Rosenberg draws lessons from the re-segregation of public schools, victories in marriage equality, and new obstacles to abortion access. Through these and other cases, the third edition confirms the power of the book’s original explanatory framework and deepens our understanding of the limits of judicial action in support of social reform, as well as the conditions under which courts do produce change. Up-to-date, thorough, and thought-provoking, The Hollow Hope remains vital reading.
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cover of The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Second Edition

The Hollow Hope

Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Second Edition

Gerald N. Rosenberg

University of Chicago Press, 2008

In follow-up studies, dozens of reviews, and even a book of essays evaluating his conclusions, Gerald Rosenberg’s critics—not to mention his supporters—have spent nearly two decades debating the arguments he first put forward in The Hollow Hope. With this substantially expanded second edition of his landmark work, Rosenberg himself steps back into the fray, responding to criticism and adding chapters on the same-sex marriage battle that ask anew whether courts can spur political and social reform.
            Finding that the answer is still a resounding no, Rosenberg reaffirms his powerful contention that it’s nearly impossible to generate significant reforms through litigation. The reason? American courts are ineffective and relatively weak—far from the uniquely powerful sources for change they’re often portrayed as. Rosenberg supports this claim by documenting the direct and secondary effects of key court decisions—particularly Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. He reveals, for example, that Congress, the White House, and a determined civil rights movement did far more than Brown to advance desegregation, while pro-choice activists invested too much in Roe at the expense of political mobilization. Further illuminating these cases, as well as the ongoing fight for same-sex marriage rights, Rosenberg also marshals impressive evidence to overturn the common assumption that even unsuccessful litigation can advance a cause by raising its profile.
            Directly addressing its critics in a new conclusion, The Hollow Hope, Second Edition promises to reignite for a new generation the national debate it sparked seventeen years ago.
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cover of The Hollywood War Film: Critical Observations from World War I to Iraq

The Hollywood War Film

Critical Observations from World War I to Iraq

Daniel Binns

Intellect Books, 2017

Combining action, violence, and deeply conflicted emotions, war has always been a topic made for the big screen. In The Hollywood War Film, Daniel Binns considers how war has been depicted throughout the history of cinema. Looking at depictions of both World Wars, the Vietnam War, and the major conflicts in the Middle East, Binns reflects on representations of war and conflict, revealing how Hollywood has made the war film not just a genre, but a dynamic cultural phenomenon.

Looking closely at films such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Full Metal Jacket, and The Hurt Locker, Binns reveals the commonalities in Hollywood films despite the distinct conflicts and eras they represent, and he shows how contemporary war films closely echo earlier films in their nationalistic and idealistic depictions. Offering a trenchant analysis of some of the most important war films from the past century, this book will be of interest to anyone who has been captivated by how film has dealt with one of humanity’s most difficult, but far too common, realities.
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cover of The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of  American Jewry, 1938-1967

The Holocaust Averted

An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-1967

Gurock, Jeffrey S

Rutgers University Press, 2015

The increasingly popular genre of “alternative histories” has captivated audiences by asking questions like “what if the South had won the Civil War?” Such speculation can be instructive, heighten our interest in a topic, and shed light on accepted history. In The Holocaust Averted, Jeffrey Gurock imagines what might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred and forces readers to contemplate how the road to acceptance and empowerment for today’s American Jews could have been harder than it actually was.
 
Based on reasonable alternatives grounded in what is known of the time, places, and participants, Gurock presents a concise narrative of his imagined war-time saga and the events that followed Hitler’s military failures. While German Jews did suffer under Nazism, the millions of Jews in Eastern Europe survived and were able to maintain their communities. Since few people were concerned with the safety of European Jews, Zionism never became popular in the United States and social antisemitism kept Jews on the margins of society. By the late 1960s, American Jewish communities were far from vibrant.

This alternate history—where, among many scenarios, Hitler is assassinated, Japan does not bomb Pearl Harbor, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is succeeded after two terms by Robert A. Taft—does cause us to review and better appreciate history. As Gurock tells his tale, he concludes every chapter with a short section that describes what actually happened and, thus, further educates the reader.
 
 
 
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cover of The Holocaust of Texts: Genocide, Literature, and Personification

The Holocaust of Texts

Genocide, Literature, and Personification

Amy Hungerford

University of Chicago Press, 2002

Why do we so often speak of books as living, flourishing, and dying? And what is at stake when we do so? This habit of treating books as people, or personifying texts, is rampant in postwar American culture. In this bracing study, Amy Hungerford argues that such personification has become pivotal to our contemporary understanding of both literature and genocide. Personified texts, she contends, play a particularly powerful role in works where the systematic destruction of entire ethnic groups is at issue.

Hungerford examines the implications of conflating texts with people in a broad range of texts: Art Spiegelman's Maus; Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451; the poetry of Sylvia Plath; Binjamin Wilkomirski's fake Holocaust memoir Fragments; and the fiction of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo. She considers the ethical consequences of this trend in the work of recent and contemporary theorists and literary critics as well, including Cathy Caruth, Jacqueline Rose, Jacques Derrida, and Paul de Man. What she uncovers are fundamentally flawed ideas about representation that underwrite and thus undermine powerful and commonly accepted claims about literature and identity. According to Hungerford, the personification of texts is ethically corrosive and theoretically unsound. When we exalt the literary as personal and construe genocide as less a destruction of human life than of culture, we esteem memory over learning, short-circuit debates about cultural change, lend credence to the illusion or metaphysics of presence, and limit our conception of literature and its purpose.

Ultimately, The Holocaust of Texts asks us to think more deeply about the relationship between reading, experience, and memorialization. Why, for instance, is it more important to remember acts of genocide than simply to learn about them? If literary works are truly the bearers of ontology, then what must be our conduct toward them? Considering difficult questions such as these with fresh logic, Hungerford offers us an invigorating work, one that will not only interest scholars of American and postwar literature, but students of the Holocaust and critical theory as well.
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cover of The Holocaust, Corporations, and the Law: Unfinished Business

The Holocaust, Corporations, and the Law

Unfinished Business

Leora Bilsky

University of Michigan Press, 2017

The Holocaust, Corporations, and the Law explores the challenge posed by the Holocaust to legal and political thought by examining issues raised by the restitution class action suits brought against Swiss banks and German corporations before American federal courts in the 1990s. Although the suits were settled for unprecedented amounts of money, the defendants did not formally assume any legal responsibility. Thus, the lawsuits were bitterly criticized by lawyers for betraying justice and by historians for distorting history.

Leora Bilsky argues class action litigation and settlement offer a mode of accountability well suited to addressing the bureaucratic nature of business involvement in atrocities. Prior to these lawsuits, legal treatment of the Holocaust was dominated by criminal law and its individualistic assumptions, consistently failing to relate to the structural aspects of Nazi crimes. Engaging critically with contemporary debates about corporate responsibility for human rights violations and assumptions about “law,” she argues for the need to design processes that make multinational corporations accountable, and examines the implications for transitional justice, the relationship between law and history, and for community and representation in a post-national world. Her novel interpretation of the restitution lawsuits not only adds an important dimension to the study of Holocaust trials, but also makes an innovative contribution to broader and pressing contemporary legal and political debates. In an era when corporations are ever more powerful and international, Bilsky’s arguments will attract attention beyond those interested in the Holocaust and its long shadow.
 
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cover of The Home Fronts of Iowa, 1939-1945

The Home Fronts of Iowa, 1939-1945

Lisa L. Ossian

University of Missouri Press, 2018

As Americans geared up for World War II, each state responded according to its economy and circumstances—as well as the disposition of its citizens. This book considers the war years in Iowa by looking at activity on different home fronts and analyzing the resilience of Iowans in answering the call to support the war effort.
With its location in the center of the country, far from potentially threatened coasts, Iowa was also the center of American isolationism—historically Republican and resistant to involvement in another European war. Yet Iowans were quick to step up, and Lisa Ossian draws on historical archives as well as on artifacts of popular culture to record the rhetoric and emotion of their support.
Ossian shows how Iowans quickly moved from skepticism to overwhelming enthusiasm for the war and answered the call on four fronts: farms, factories, communities, and kitchens. Iowa’s farmers faced labor and machinery shortages, yet produced record amounts of crops and animals—even at the expense of valuable topsoil. Ordnance plants turned out bombs and machine gun bullets. Meanwhile, communities supported war bond and scrap drives, while housewives coped with rationing, raised Victory gardens, and turned to home canning.
The Home Fronts of Iowa, 1939–1945 depicts real people and their concerns, showing the price paid in physical and mental exhaustion and notes the heavy toll exacted on Iowa’s sons who fell in battle. Ossian also considers the relevance of such issues as race, class, and gender—particularly the role of women on the home front and the recruitment of both women and blacks for factory work—taking into account a prevalent suspicion of ethnic groups by the state’s largely homogeneous population.
The fact that Iowans could become loyal citizen soldiers—forming an Industrial and Defense Commission even before Pearl Harbor—speaks not only to the patriotism of these sturdy midwesterners but also to the overall resilience of Americans. In unraveling how Iowans could so overwhelmingly support the war, Ossian digs deep into history to show us the power of emotion—and to help us better understand why World War II is consistently remembered as “the Good War.”
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cover of The Home Plot: Women, Writing, and Domestic Ritual

The Home Plot

Women, Writing, and Domestic Ritual

Ann Romines

University of Massachusetts Press, 1992

In this finely crafted study, Ann Romines builds on twenty years of feminist scholarship to show how domestic ritual--the practice and tradition of housekeeping--has helped shape the substance and tone of some of the best fiction by American women. Examining works by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Willa Cather, and Eudora Welty, Romines argues that one cannot fully appreciate this writing unless one understands the domestic codes in which it is inscribed.

By reading domestic ritual as a gendered language, Romines seeks to reclaim one of the oldest female traditions--housekeeping--from trivialization and devaluation. In the process, she brings fresh insight to the work of five important American novelists.
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cover of The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control

The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control

Norval Morris and Gordon J. Hawkins

University of Chicago Press, 1970

Norval Morris and Gordon Hawkins's first premise is that our criminal justice system is a moral busybody, unwisely extended beyond its proper role of protecting persons and property. But they go further and systematically cover the amount, costs, causes, and victims of crime: the reduction of violence; the police; corrections; juvenile delinquency; the function of psychiatry in crime control; organized crime; and the uses of criminological research. On each topic precise recommendations are made and carefully defended.
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cover of The Horror of Police

The Horror of Police

Travis Linnemann

University of Minnesota Press, 2022

Unmasks the horrors of a social order reproduced and maintained by the violence of police

Year after year the crisis churns: graft and corruption, violence and murder, riot cops and armored vehicles claim city streets. Despite promises of reform, police operate with impunity, unaccountable to law. In The Horror of Police, Travis Linnemann asks why, with this open record of violence and corruption, policing remains for so many the best, perhaps only means of security in an insecure world. 

Drawing on the language and texts of horror fiction, Linnemann recasts the police not only as self-proclaimed “monster fighters” but as monsters themselves, a terrifying force set loose in the world. Purposefully misreading a collection of everyday police stories (TV cop dramas, detective fiction, news media accounts, the direct words of police) not as morality tales of innocence avenged and order restored but as horror, Linnemann reveals the monstrous violence at the heart of liberal social order. 

The Horror of Police shows that police violence is not a deviation but rather a deliberate and permanent fixture of U.S. “law and order.” Only when viewed through the refracted motif of horror stories, Linnemann argues, can we begin to reckon the limits of police and imagine a world without them. 

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cover of The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low: A Curious Life in Independent Music

The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low

A Curious Life in Independent Music

Rob Miller

University of Illinois Press, 2025

“The music business is not a meritocracy: it is a crapshoot taking place in a septic tank balanced on the prow of the Titanic, a venal snake pit where innovation, creativity, and honest business practices are actively discouraged.”

Rob Miller arrived in Chicago wanting to escape the music industry. In short order, he co-founded a trailblazing record label revered for its artist-first approach and punk take on country, roots, and so much else. Miller’s gonzo memoir follows a music fan’s odyssey through a singular account of Bloodshot Records, the Chicago scene, and thirty years as part of a community sustaining independent artists and businesses.

Hilarious and hundred-proof, The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low delivers a warm-hearted yet clear-eyed account of loving and living music on the edge, in the trenches, and without apologies.
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cover of The House On Breakaheart Road: Poems

The House On Breakaheart Road

Poems

Gailmarie Pahmeier

University of Nevada Press, 1998

This breathtaking collection of poems by award-winning Nevada poet Gailmarie Pahmeier explores the many facets of a woman's experience. Told largely through the voice of a fictional character, "Emma," the poems display a range of moods, from tender to wry, ironic, tough, lyrical, reckless. Pahmeier's voice is uniquely her own—strong, profoundly wise, rich in humor and subtlety, utterly feminine. She understands how women live, how they love, and what they need. Ultimately, she teaches us "what comes of it, of love."
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cover of The House That Madigan Built: The Record Run of Illinois' Velvet Hammer

The House That Madigan Built

The Record Run of Illinois' Velvet Hammer

Ray Long. Foreword by Charles N. Wheeler III

University of Illinois Press, 2022

Michael Madigan rose from the Chicago machine to hold unprecedented power as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. In his thirty-six years wielding the gavel, Madigan outlasted governors, passed or blocked legislation at will, and outmaneuvered virtually every attempt to limit his reach.

Veteran reporter Ray Long draws on four decades of observing state government to provide the definitive political analysis of Michael Madigan. Secretive, intimidating, shrewd, power-hungry--Madigan mesmerized his admirers and often left his opponents too beaten down to oppose him. Long vividly recreates the battles that defined the Madigan era, from stunning James Thompson with a lightning-strike tax increase, to pressing for a pension overhaul that ultimately failed in the courts, to steering the House toward the Rod Blagojevich impeachment. Long also shines a light on the machinery that kept the Speaker in power. Head of a patronage army, Madigan ruthlessly used his influence and fundraising prowess to reward loyalists and aid his daughter’s electoral fortunes. At the same time, he reshaped bills to guarantee he and his Democratic troops shared in the partisan spoils of his legislative victories. Yet Madigan’s position as the state’s seemingly invulnerable power broker could not survive scandals among his close associates and the widespread belief that his time as Speaker had finally reached its end.

Unsparing and authoritative, The House That Madigan Built is the page-turning account of one the most powerful politicians in Illinois history.

[more]
cover of The House Will Come To Order: How the Texas Speaker Became a Power in State and National Politics

The House Will Come To Order

How the Texas Speaker Became a Power in State and National Politics

By Patrick L. Cox and Michael Phillips

University of Texas Press, 2010

In a state assumed to have a constitutionally weak governor, the Speaker of the Texas House wields enormous power, with the ability to almost single-handedly dictate the legislative agenda. The House Will Come to Order charts the evolution of the Speaker's role from a relatively obscure office to one of the most powerful in the state. This fascinating account, drawn from the Briscoe Center's oral history project on the former Speakers, is the story of transition, modernization, and power struggles.

Weaving a compelling story of scandal, service, and opportunity, Patrick Cox and Michael Phillips describe the divisions within the traditional Democratic Party, the ascendance of Republicans, and how Texas business, agriculture, and media shaped perceptions of officeholders. While the governor and lieutenant governor wielded their power, the authors show how the modern Texas House Speaker built an office of equal power as the state became more complex and diverse. The authors also explore how race, class, and gender affected this transition as they explain the importance of the office in Texas and the impact the state's Speakers have had on national politics.

At the apex of its power, the Texas House Speaker's role at last receives the critical consideration it deserves.

[more]
cover of The House and Senate in the 1790s: Petitioning, Lobbying, and Institutional Development

The House and Senate in the 1790s

Petitioning, Lobbying, and Institutional Development

Kenneth R. Bowling

Ohio University Press, 2002

Amid the turbulent swirl of foreign intrigue, external and internal threats to the young nation’s existence, and the domestic partisan wrangling of the 1790s, the United States Congress solidified its role as the national legislature. The ten essays in The House and Senate in the 1790s demonstrate the mechanisms by which this bicameral legislature developed its institutional identity. The first essay sets the scene for the institutional development of Congress by examining its constitutional origins and the efforts of the Founders to empower the new national legislature. The five following essays focus on two related mechanisms—petitioning and lobbying—by which citizens and private interests communicated with national lawmakers.

Although scholars tend to see lobbying as a later nineteenth-century development, the papers presented here clearly demonstrate the existence of lobbyists and lobbying in the 1790s. The final four papers examine other aspects of the institutional development of the House and the Senate, including the evolution of political parties and congressional leadership.

The essays in this collection, the third volume in the series Perspectives on the History of Congress, 1789-1801, originated in a series of conferences held by the United States Capitol Historical Society from 1994 to 2001.

[more]
cover of The House by the Side of the Road: The Selma Civil Rights Movement

The House by the Side of the Road

The Selma Civil Rights Movement

Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson

University of Alabama Press, 2011

On Sunday, March 7, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. and six hundred followers set out on foot from Selma, Alabama, bound for Montgomery to demand greater voting rights for African Americans. As they crossed the city’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, state and local policemen savagely set on the marchers with tear gas and billy clubs, an event now known as “Bloody Sunday” that would become one of the most iconic in American history.
 
King’s informal headquarters in Selma was the home of Dr. Sullivan and Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson and their young daughter, Jawana. The House by the Side of the Road is Richie Jean’s firsthand account of the private meetings King and his lieutenants, including Ralph David Abernathy and John Lewis, held in the haven of the Jackson home.
 
Sullivan Jackson was an African American dentist in Selma and a prominent supporter of the civil rights movement. Richie Jean was a close childhood friend of King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, a native of nearby Marion, Alabama. Richie Jean’s fascinating account narrates how, in the fraught months of 1965 that preceded the Voting Rights March, King and his inner circle held planning sessions and met with Assistant Attorney General John Doar to negotiate strategies for the event.
 
Just eight days after Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson made a televised addressed to a joint session of Congress on Monday, March 15. Jackson relates the intimate scene of King and his lieutenants watching as Johnson called the nation to dedicate itself to equal rights for all and ending his address with the words: “We shall overcome.” Five months later, Congress passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act on August 6.
 
The major motion picture Selma now commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In it, Niecy Nash and Kent Faulcon star as Sullivan and Richie Jean Jackson among a cast including Oprah Winfrey, Tom Wilkinson, and Cuba Gooding Jr. A gripping primary source, The House by the Side of the Road illuminates the private story whose public outcomes electrified the world and changed the course of American history.

[more]
cover of The House is Made of Poetry: The Art of Ruth Stone

The House is Made of Poetry

The Art of Ruth Stone

Edited by Wendy Barker and Sandra M. Gilbert

Southern Illinois University Press, 1996

Ruth Stone has always eschewed self-promotion and, in the words of Leslie Fiedler, "has never been a member of any school or clique or gaggle of mutual admirers." But her poems speak so vibrantly for her that she cannot be ignored.

In her preface to this volume, Sandra M. Gilbert declares that Stone’s "intense attention to the ordinary transforms it into (or reveals it as) the extraordinary. Her passionate verses evoke impassioned responses." At the same time, Gilbert continues, the essays collected here "consistently testify to Stone’s radical unworldliness, in particular her insouciant contempt for the ‘floor walkers and straw bosses’ who sometimes seem to control the poetry ‘factory’ both inside and outside the university."

Wendy Barker and Sandra Gilbert have organized the book into three sections: "Knowing Ruth Stone," "A Life of Art," and "Reading Ruth Stone." In "Knowing Ruth Stone," writers of different generations who have known the poet over the years provide memoirs. Noting Stone’s singularity, Fiedler points out that "she resists all labels" and is "one of the few contemporaries whom it is possible to think of simply as a ‘poet.’" Sharon Olds defines her vitality ("A Ruth Stone poem feels alive in the hands"), and Jan Freeman praises her aesthetic intensity ("Everything in the life of Ruth Stone is integrated with poetry").

"A Life of Art" sketches the outlines of Stone’s career and traces her evolution as a poet. Barker and Norman Friedman, for example, trace her development from the "high spirits and elegant craft" of her first volume—Inan Iridescent Time— through the "deepening shadows," "poignant wit," and "bittersweet meditations" of her later work. In interviews separated by decades (one in the 1970s and one in the 1990s), Sandra Gilbert and Robert Bradley discuss with Stone her own sense of her aesthetic origins and literary growth.

"Reading Ruth Stone" is an examination of Stone’s key themes and modes. Diane Wakoski and Diana O’Hehir focus on the tragicomic vision that colors much of her work; Kevin Clark and Elyse Blankley explore the political aspects of her poetry; Roger Gilbert analyzes her "often uncannily astute insights into the ‘otherness’ of other lives"; Janet Lowery and Kandace Brill Lombart draw on the biographical background of Stone’s "grief work"; and Sandra Gilbert studies her caritas, her empathic love that redeems pain.

[more]
cover of The House of the Singing Winds: The Life and Work of T. C. Steele

The House of the Singing Winds

The Life and Work of T. C. Steele

Rachel Berenson Perry

Indiana Historical Society Press, 2016

First published in 1966, this account of the life and work of T.C. Steele, one of Indiana's most renowned artists, has become a much-sought-after classic. For this reissue, sixty-two of the book's seventy-six illustrations, including all ten color plates, have been newly photographed and reproduced according to the highest modern standards. The text, unchanged from the first edition, includes a brief biography by the painter's grandson, Theodore L. Steele; a poetic memoir of Steele's last Brown County years by Selma N. Steele; and an appreciation of Steele's work by art historian Wilbur D. Peat.
[more]
cover of The House on Lemon Street: Japanese Pioneers and the American Dream

The House on Lemon Street

Japanese Pioneers and the American Dream

Mark Rawitsch

University Press of Colorado, 2013

In 1915, Jukichi and Ken Harada purchased a house on Lemon Street in Riverside, California. Close to their restaurant, church, and children's school, the house should have been a safe and healthy family home. Before the purchase, white neighbors objected because of the Haradas' Japanese ancestry, and the California Alien Land Law denied them real-estate ownership because they were not citizens. To bypass the law Mr. Harada bought the house in the names of his three youngest children, who were American-born citizens. Neighbors protested again, and the first Japanese American court test of the California Alien Land Law of 1913-The People of California v. Jukichi Harada-was the result.

Bringing this little-known story to light, The House on Lemon Street details the Haradas' decision to fight for the American dream. Chronicling their experiences from their immigration to the United States through their legal battle over their home, their incarceration during World War II, and their lives after the war, this book tells the story of the family's participation in the struggle for human and civil rights, social justice, property and legal rights, and fair treatment of immigrants in the United States.

The Harada family's quest for acceptance illuminates the deep underpinnings of anti-Asian animus, which set the stage for Executive Order 9066, and recognizes fundamental elements of our nation's anti-immigrant history that continue to shape the American story. It will be worthwhile for anyone interested in the Japanese American experience in the twentieth century, immigration history, public history, and law.

This publication was made possible with the support of Naomi, Kathleen, Ken, and Paul Harada, who donated funds in memory of their father, Harold Shigetaka Harada, honoring his quest for justice and civil rights. Additional support for this publication was also provided, in part, by UCLA's Aratani Endowed Chair as well as Wallace T. Kido, Joel B. Klein, Elizabeth A. Uno, and Rosalind K. Uno.

[more]
cover of The House on Rondo

The House on Rondo

Debra J Stone

University of Minnesota Press, 2025

A young girl reckons with the demolition of a Black Saint Paul neighborhood to make way for the Interstate in the early 1960s

When thirteen-year-old Zenobia has to leave her friends and spend the summer at Grandma’s while Mama recovers from a stroke, life seems so unfair. But then the eviction letters start arriving throughout her grandparents’ neighborhood, and white men chalk arrows to mark the gas and water lines, and a new world of unfairness unfolds before her. It’s 1963, and Zenobia’s grandparents’ house on Rondo Avenue in Saint Paul—like all the homes in this thriving Black community—is targeted for demolition to make way for the new Interstate Highway 94.

 

As Zenobia gradually learns about what’s planned for the Rondo neighborhood and what this means for everyone who lives there, she discovers how her story is intertwined with the history of her family, all the way back to Great Grandma Zenobia and the secrets Grandma Essie held close about the reason for her light skin. With the destruction of the neighborhood looming, Zenobia takes a stand on behalf of her community, joining her no-nonsense neighbor, onetime cowgirl Mrs. Ruby Pearl, in a protest and ultimately getting arrested. Though Zenobia is grounded for a month, her punishment seems of little consequence in comparison to what is happening all around her. Even though the demolition continues, she is proud to discover the power and connection in protesting injustice.

 

The House on Rondo captures the heartbreak, resistance, and resilience that marks a community sacrificed in the name of progress—a “progress” that never seems to favor Black families and neighborhoods and that haunts cities like Saint Paul to this day. As Zenobia learns what can be destroyed and what cannot, her story teaches us that joy, community, and love persist, even amid violence and loss.

[more]
cover of The Housing Lottery: How Scarcity Drives America’s Rental Assistance Policies

The Housing Lottery

How Scarcity Drives America’s Rental Assistance Policies

Brian J. McCabe

University of Chicago Press, 2026

How scarcity shapes nearly every aspect of our rental assistance programs, including the Housing Choice Voucher program. 

It’s no secret that the United States is experiencing a housing crisis. While the cost of rental housing has soared since 2000, the median household income has barely changed. The Housing Choice Voucher program is America’s largest rental assistance program, but most households that are eligible for assistance simply cannot get access to it. Without enough resources to serve every eligible household in their communities, public housing agencies keep waiting lists, run lotteries, and claw back vouchers from households that are unable to meet the demands of the housing market. Despite the enormous benefits that come from affordable housing, it’s simply out of reach for most renters in need.

In The Housing Lottery, sociologist Brian J. McCabe takes readers to the frontlines of these housing agencies to understand how scarcity shapes nearly every aspect of the program. Following the bureaucrats charged with making these decisions about allocating housing resources, McCabe shows how decisions and regulations resulting from scarcity have enormous consequences. He presents extensive evidence about the importance of rental assistance for lifting households out of poverty and creating economic opportunity. To improve housing assistance as a public resource and to combat housing insecurity and its negative effects, McCabe argues for a more inclusive, expansive approach to federal housing policy.

[more]
cover of The Huddled Masses Myth: Immigration And Civil Rights

The Huddled Masses Myth

Immigration And Civil Rights

Kevin R. Johnson

Temple University Press, 2003

Despite rhetoric that suggests that the United States opens its doors to virtually anyone who wants to come here, immigration has been restricted since the nation began. In this book, Kevin R. Johnson argues that immigration policy reflects the social hierarchy that prevails in American society as a whole and that immigration reform is intertwined with the struggle for civil rights. The "Huddled Masses" Myth focuses on the exclusion of people of color, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities, the poor, political dissidents, and other disfavored groups, showing how bias shapes the law. In the nineteenth century, for example, virulent anti-Asian bias excluded would-be immigrants from China and severely restricted those from Japan. In our own time, people fleeing persecution and poverty in Haiti generally have been treated much differently from those fleeing Cuba. Johnson further argues that although domestic minorities (whether citizens or lawful immigrants) enjoy legal protections and might even be courted by politicians, they are regarded as subordinate groups and suffer discrimination. This book has particular resonance today as the public debates the uncertain status of immigrants from Arab countries and of the Muslim faith.
[more]
cover of The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River

The Hudson

An Illustrated Guide to the Living River

Stephen P. Stanne

Rutgers University Press, 2021

Since 1996, The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River has been an essential resource for understanding the full sweep of the great river's natural history and human heritage. This updated third edition includes the latest information about the ongoing fight against pollution and environmental damage to the river, plus vibrant new full-color illustrations showing the plants and wildlife that make this ecosystem so special.
 
This volume gives a detailed account of the Hudson River’s history, including the geological forces that created it, the various peoples who have lived on its banks, and the great works of art it has inspired. It also showcases the many species making a home on this waterway, including the Atlantic sturgeon, the bald eagle, the invasive zebra mussel, and the herons of New York Harbor. Combining both scientific and historical perspectives, this book demonstrates why the Hudson and its valley have been so central to the environmental movement. 
 
As it charts the progress made towards restoring the river ecosystem and the effects of emerging threats like climate change, The Hudson identifies concrete ways that readers can help. To that end, royalties from the sale of this book will go to the non-profit environmental advocacy group Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.
[more]
cover of The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers' Lives, Labor, and Advocacy

The Human Cost of Food

Farmworkers' Lives, Labor, and Advocacy

Edited by Charles D. Thompson, Jr., and Melinda F. Wiggins

University of Texas Press, 2002

Finding fresh fruits and vegetables is as easy as going to the grocery store for most Americans—which makes it all too easy to forget that our food is cultivated, harvested, and packaged by farmworkers who labor for less pay, fewer benefits, and under more dangerous conditions than workers in almost any other sector of the U.S. economy. Seeking to end the public's ignorance and improve workers' living and working conditions, this book addresses the major factors that affect farmworkers' lives while offering practical strategies for action on farmworker issues.

The contributors to this book are all farmworker advocates—student and community activists and farmworkers themselves. Focusing on workers in the Southeast United States, a previously understudied region, they cover a range of issues, from labor organizing, to the rise of agribusiness, to current health, educational, and legal challenges faced by farmworkers. The authors blend coverage of each issue with practical suggestions for working with farmworkers and other advocates to achieve justice in our food system both regionally and nationally.

[more]
cover of The Human Meaning of Social Change

The Human Meaning of Social Change

Angus and Converse, Philip E. Campbell

Russell Sage Foundation, 1972

This book is a companion piece to Sheldon and Moore's Indicators of Social Change. Whereas Indicators of Social Change was concerned with various kinds of "hard" data, typically sociostructural, this book is devoted chiefly to so-called "softer" data of a more social-psychological sort: the attitudes, expectations, aspirations, and values of the American population. The book deals with the meaning of change from two points of view. First, it is interested in the human meaning which people attribute to the complex social environment in which they find themselves; their understanding of group relations, the political process, and the consumer economy in which they participate. Secondly, it discusses the impact that the various alternatives offered by the environment have on the nature of their lives and the fulfillment of those lives. The twelve essays which make up the volume deal successively with the major domains of life. Each author sets forth an inclusive statement of the most significant dimensions of psychological change in a specific area of life, to review the state of present information, and to project the measurements needed to improve understanding of these changes in the future.
[more]
cover of The Human Right to Language: Communication Access for Deaf Children

The Human Right to Language

Communication Access for Deaf Children

Lawrence Siegel

Gallaudet University Press, 2008

In 1982, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Amy Rowley, a deaf six-year-old, was not entitled to have a sign language interpreter in her public school classroom. Lawrence Siegel wholeheartedly disagrees with this decision in his new book The Human Right to Language: Communication Access for Deaf Children. Instead, he contends that the United States Constitution should protect every deaf and hard of hearing child’s right to communication and language as part of an individual’s right to liberty. Siegel argues that when a deaf or hard of hearing child sits alone in a crowded classroom and is unable to access the rich and varied communication around her, the child is denied any chance of success in life.

In The Human Right to Language, Siegel proposes that the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution be enforced so that Amy Rowley and her peers can possess that which virtually every other American child takes for granted – the right to receive and express thought in school. He asserts that the common notion of a right to “speech” is too infrequently interpreted in the narrowest sense as the right to “speak” rather than the broader right to receive and transmit information in all ways. Siegel reveals that there are no judicial decisions or laws that recognize this missing right, and offers here a legal and constitutional strategy for change. His well-reasoned hypothesis and many examples of deaf children with inadequate communication access in school combine to make a compelling case for changing the status quo.

[more]
cover of The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History

The Human Shore

Seacoasts in History

John R. Gillis

University of Chicago Press, 2012

Since before recorded history, people have congregated near water. But as growing populations around the globe continue to flow toward the coasts on an unprecedented scale and climate change raises water levels, our relationship to the sea has begun to take on new and potentially catastrophic dimensions. The latest generation of coastal dwellers lives largely in ignorance of the history of those who came before them, the natural environment, and the need to live sustainably on the world’s shores. Humanity has forgotten how to live with the oceans.

 
In The Human Shore, a magisterial account of 100,000 years of seaside civilization, John R. Gillis recovers the coastal experience from its origins among the people who dwelled along the African shore to the bustle and glitz of today’s megacities and beach resorts. He takes readers from discussion of the possible coastal location of the Garden of Eden to the ancient communities that have existed along beaches, bays, and bayous since the beginning of human society to the crucial role played by coasts during the age of discovery and empire. An account of the mass movement of whole populations to the coasts in the last half-century brings the story of coastal life into the present.
 
Along the way, Gillis addresses humankind’s changing relationship to the sea from an environmental perspective, laying out the history of the making and remaking of coastal landscapes—the creation of ports, the draining of wetlands, the introduction and extinction of marine animals, and the invention of the beach—while giving us a global understanding of our relationship to the water. Learned and deeply personal, The Human Shore is more than a history: it is the story of a space that has been central to the attitudes, plans, and existence of those who live and dream at land’s end.
[more]
cover of The Humane Economy: Populism, Capitalism, and Democracy

The Humane Economy

Populism, Capitalism, and Democracy

Pollack, Norman

Rutgers University Press, 1990

 .
[more]
cover of The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st-Century City

The Humane Metropolis

People and Nature in the 21st-Century City

Rutherford H. Platt

University of Massachusetts Press, 2006

Four-fifths of Americans now live in the nation's sprawling metropolitan areas, and half of the world's population is now classified as “urban.” As cities become the dominant living environment for humans, there is growing concern about how to make such places more habitable, more healthy and safe, more ecological, and more equitable—in short, more “humane.”

This book explores the prospects for a more humane metropolis through a series of essays and case studies that consider why and how urban places can be made greener and more amenable. Its point of departure is the legacy of William H. Whyte (1917-1999), one of America's most admired urban thinkers. From his eyrie high above Manhattan in the offices of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Whyte laid the foundation for today's “smart growth” and “new urbanist” movements with books such as The Last Landscape (1968). His passion for improving the habitability of cities and suburbs is reflected in the diverse grassroots urban design and regreening strategies discussed in this volume.

Topics examined in this book include urban and regional greenspaces, urban ecological restoration, social equity, and green design. Some of the contributors are recognized academic experts, while others offer direct practical knowledge of particular problems and initiatives. The editor's introduction and epilogue set the individual chapters in a broader context and suggest how the strategies described, if widely replicated, may help create more humane urban environments.

In addition to Rutherford H. Platt, contributors to the volume include Carl Anthony, Thomas Balsley, Timothy Beatley, Eugenie L. Birch, Edward J. Blakely, Colin M. Cathcart, Steven E. Clemants, Christopher A. De Sousa, Steven N. Handel, Peter Harnik, Michael C. Houck, Jerold S. Kayden, Albert LaFarge, Andrew Light, Charles E. Little, Anne C. Lusk, Thalya Parilla, Deborah E. Popper, Frank J. Popper, Mary V. Rickel, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Robert L. Ryan, Laurin N. Sievert, Andrew G. Wiley-Schwartz, and Ann Louise Strong.

Included in the back of the book is a DVD of a 22-minute film created by Ted White, which serves as a companion to the text.

[more]
cover of The Humanities and the Dream of America

The Humanities and the Dream of America

Geoffrey Galt Harpham

University of Chicago Press, 2011

In this bracing and original book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that today’s humanities are an invention of the American academy in the years following World War II, when they were first conceived as an expression of American culture and an instrument of American national interests. The humanities portray a “dream of America” in two senses: they represent an aspiration of Americans since the first days of the Republic for a state so secure and prosperous that people could enjoy and appreciate culture for its own sake; and they embody in academic terms an idealized conception of the American national character.  Although they are struggling to retain their status in America, the concept of the humanities has spread to other parts of the world and remains one of America's most distinctive and valuable contributions to higher education.

 

The Humanities and the Dream of America explores a number of linked problems that have emerged in recent years: the role, at once inspiring and disturbing, played by philology in the formation of the humanities; the reasons for the humanities’ perpetual state of “crisis”; the shaping role of philanthropy in the humanities; and the new possibilities for literary study offered by the subject of pleasure. Framed by essays that draw on Harpham’s pedagogical experiences abroad and as a lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Academy, as well as his vantage as director of the National Humanities Center, this book provides an essential perspective on the history, ideology, and future of this important topic.

[more]
cover of The Humanities in the Age of Information and Post-Truth

The Humanities in the Age of Information and Post-Truth

Edited by Ignacio López-Calvo and Christina Lux

Northwestern University Press, 2019

The essays in The Humanities in the Age of Information and Post-Truth represent a defense of the social function of the humanities in today's society. Edited by Ignacio López-Calvo and Christina Lux, the volume explains different ways in which the humanities and the arts, beyond their intrinsic and nonfunctional value, may be a valuable tool in our search for social justice, human empathy, freedom, and peace, all the while helping us answer many of the twenty-first century's big questions. Some essays explore the ways in which the humanities may help us imagine a different, more just world, and articulate politically effective mechanisms to achieve such goals. Others address the place of the humanities and the arts amid the ontological and epistemological uncertainties constantly produced in a fast-changing world. 

While the reader may suspect that these types of lucubration are a desperate reaction to decreased public funding for the humanities worldwide, a decreased enrollment of students, or anxiety over the future of our profession, there is in this volume a coherent argument for the continued need, perhaps more now than ever, to invest in humanities education if we are to have informed and socially conscious citizens rather than just willing consumers and obedient workers. Furthermore, the essays prove that the humanities and the arts are, after all, not a luxury but an integral part of a complete scholarly education.
 
[more]
cover of The Hunters or the Hunted?: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy

The Hunters or the Hunted?

An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy

C. K. Brain

University of Chicago Press, 1981

"Amongst scientists involved [in taphonomy], C. K. Brain stands out as the pioneer; this impressive book is a statement of his investigations. . . . The Hunters or the Hunted? is a very important book for paleoanthropology. It presents the first thorough analysis of the Sterkfontein Valley assemblages, contributes significantly to the resolution of lingering controversies and, by placing the old information in a fresh perspective, enables new and more sophisticated questions to be asked not only of the South African material but of similar assemblages elsewhere. Another contribution is that it reinforces the recent change in feelings as to what constitutes data, for the value of looking at fossil and contemporary bones as closely as this is clear. Brain urges the necessity of recovering fossils with a high regard for subtle detail. I hope excavators of any vertebrate fossil site will be persuaded to follow his advice and pay more attention to these features of bone accumulations that have been previously neglected; for taphonomy can be a powerful tool in elucidating the problems of fossil assemblages, especially when handled with the care and caution that Brain brings to the subject."—Andrew Hill, Nature
[more]
cover of The I in Team: Sports Fandom and the Reproduction of Identity

The I in Team

Sports Fandom and the Reproduction of Identity

Erin C. Tarver

University of Chicago Press, 2017

There is one sound that will always be loudest in sports. It isn’t the squeak of sneakers or the crunch of helmets; it isn’t the grunts or even the stadium music. It’s the deafening roar of sports fans. For those few among us on the outside, sports fandom—with its war paint and pennants, its pricey cable TV packages and esoteric stats reeled off like code—looks highly irrational, entertainment gone overboard. But as Erin C. Tarver demonstrates in this book, sports fandom has become extraordinarily important to our psyche, a matter of the very essence of who we are.
           
Why in the world, Tarver asks, would anyone care about how well a total stranger can throw a ball, or hit one with a bat, or toss one through a hoop? Because such activities and the massive public events that surround them form some of the most meaningful ritual identity practices we have today. They are a primary way we—as individuals and a collective—decide both who we are who we are not. And as such, they are also one of the key ways that various social structures—such as race and gender hierarchies—are sustained, lending a dark side to the joys of being a sports fan. Drawing on everything from philosophy to sociology to sports history, she offers a profound exploration of the significance of sports in contemporary life, showing us just how high the stakes of the game are.
 
[more]
cover of The Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight against ALS

The Ice Bucket Challenge

Pete Frates and the Fight against ALS

Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge

University Press of New England, 2017

While everyone knows of the Ice Bucket Challenge, the viral craze that swept the nation in summer 2014, too few know the truly inspirational story behind it. Pete Frates was a man at war with his own body. A man whose love for others was unshakable. A man who refused to fight alone, and in so doing mobilized a global army to combat one of the most devastating diseases on earth: ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. When disease crippled Frates, the former Boston College baseball star turned tragedy into inspiration. Pete’s story is a testament to the power of love, the steadfastness of family, the generosity of strangers, and the compassion of crowds. Half of the authors’ proceeds will go to the Frates family.
[more]
cover of The Iconoclastic Imagination: Image, Catastrophe, and Economy in America from the Kennedy Assassination to September 11

The Iconoclastic Imagination

Image, Catastrophe, and Economy in America from the Kennedy Assassination to September 11

Ned O'Gorman

University of Chicago Press, 2015

Bloody, fiery spectacles—the Challenger disaster, 9/11, JFK’s assassination—have given us moments of catastrophe that make it easy to answer the “where were you when” question and shape our ways of seeing what came before and after. Why are these spectacles so packed with meaning?

In The Iconoclastic Imagination, Ned O’Gorman approaches each of these moments as an image of icon-destruction that give us distinct ways to imagine social existence in American life. He argues that the Cold War gave rise to crises in political, aesthetic, and political-aesthetic representations. Locating all of these crises within a “neoliberal imaginary,” O’Gorman explains that since the Kennedy assassination, the most powerful way to see “America” has been in the destruction of representative American symbols or icons. This, in turn, has profound implications for a neoliberal economy, social philosophy, and public policy. Richly interwoven with philosophical, theological, and rhetorical traditions, the book offers a new foundation for a complex and innovative approach to studying Cold War America, political theory, and visual culture.
[more]