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From the start, New York’s organized hotel workers experimented with and adapted how they organized and governed members and related to other labor unions. Richman follows union fortunes from early IWW activity through the Communist-led affiliates of the American Federation of Labor in the 1920s and 1930s, the shaping of breakthrough negotiating strategies, and the postwar era. As Richman shows, workers adopted a radicalism and militancy seldom associated with an AFL organization while openly negotiating the Communist Party’s power and influence within the union, until the Party’s eclipse in the 1950s.

An inspiring story of action and perseverance, We Always Had a Union profiles a foundational American labor union and offers lessons for today’s workers and organizers.

Redefining American identity through Roosevelt’s words.

The turn of the 20th century represented one of the most chaotic periods in the nation's history, as immigrants, Native Americans, and African Americans struggled with their roles as Americans while white America feared their encroachments on national identity. This book examines Theodore Roosevelt’s public rhetoric—speeches, essays, and narrative histories—as he attempted to craft one people out of many. Leroy G. Dorsey observes that Roosevelt's solution to the problem appeared straightforward: everyone could become "Americans, pure and simple" if they embraced his notion of "Americanism." Roosevelt grounded his idea of Americanism in myth, particularly the frontier myth—a heroic combination of individual strength and character. When nonwhites and immigrants demonstrated these traits, they would become true Americans, earning an exalted status that they had heretofore been denied.

Dorsey’s analysis illuminates how Roosevelt's rhetoric achieved a number of delicate, if problematic, balancing acts. Roosevelt gave his audiences the opportunity to accept a national identity that allowed "some" room for immigrants and nonwhites, while reinforcing their status as others, thereby reassuring white Americans of their superior place in the nation. Roosevelt’s belief in an ordered and unified nation did not overwhelm his private racist attitudes, Dorsey argues, but certainly competed with them. Despite his private sentiments, he recognized that racist beliefs and rhetoric were divisive and bad for the nation’s progress. The resulting message he chose to propagate was thus one of a rhetorical, if not literal, melting pot.

By focusing on Roosevelt’s rhetorical constructions of national identity, as opposed to his personal exploits or his role as a policy maker, We Are All Americans offers new insights into Roosevelt’s use of public discourse to bind the nation together during one of the most polarized  periods in its history.

Private Danny Chen was only nineteen years old when he was found dead on a U.S. Army base in Afghanistan. His non-combat death took place under “suspicious circumstances inside the wire.” The court martials revealed that Chen faced weeks of unrelenting hazing and racial harassment by his superiors. We Are Danny is both Elizabeth OuYang’s troubling and critical account of what transpired and her memoir of Chen’s death and life, starting with his funeral.

OuYang, who led the fight for justice, narrates Chen’s story in a personal style that speaks directly to him. We Are Danny chronicles the community-based efforts to stand up to injustice where young enlistees like Chen, who fight for their country, are met with bigotry. OuYang details organizing local and national campaigns to petition the Army for a timely and thorough investigation of Chen’s death. She describes an unprecedented group meeting with high-ranking officials from the Pentagon, and recounts candlelight vigils, community protests, and the naming of Pvt. Danny Chen Way in Manhattan’s Chinatown to honor him.  

There are, sadly, many Private Danny Chens. We Are Danny offers a valuable lesson on how community advocacy and demanding accountability can focus attention on needed military reforms.

We Are Not South African explores how national identity functions as a colonial tool of communication, control, and power. Author Rachel Lara van der Merwe examines how humans and the planet are integrally shaped by the idea of the nation and speculates on how different sociopolitical imaginaries, instead of the nation, could inform ways of being-together in the world.

Linking national identity to colonialism, the book broadens the idea of the nation to include its impact on all forms of life, human and more-than-human. Van der Merwe builds her argument on three central observations: that nations are made up of conflicting and fractured imaginaries, not unified, cohesive ones; the nation is divisive by nature, tracing back to its colonial origins; and the nation, along with the state, exploits both humans and more-than-humans. In order to build a more just and sustainable planetary society, she argues, liberation from such colonial formations is vital. In response, the book asks, How could we reimagine how we organize our societies through values of relationality and mutual care rather than rigid borders? What sociopolitical imaginaries do we need, or already possess, that might inform new configurations of community?

Citizens’ assemblies bring the shared wisdom of ordinary people into political decision making on the climate and ecological crisis. They are increasingly being used at local, national and even global levels. But with what impact? Can they take us beyond the shortcomings of electoral and partisan politics? Can they make a real difference? This book explains why climate assemblies have captured the imagination of governments and activists alike, exploring the ways they can have a meaningful impact on climate politics.

This book charts the development of climate assemblies across Europe and beyond. It explores what ordinary people want, highlighting the ways in which assembly recommendations take us beyond current government policies and offer new visions and directions for change. It shows that not all assemblies are the same and that the context and design of climate assemblies have differed quite profoundly – as have their impacts on policy and public discourse. The book also lays out the key elements needed for climate assemblies to have sustained impact, providing essential insights for anyone wanting to run or advocate for them, and concludes with reflections on what we can expect from assemblies as they evolve.

The transition to net zero and climate resilient societies requires deep social and economic transformations that will have significant impacts on citizens’ choices and behaviours. Such a transition needs to engage the public directly and this book shows how climate assemblies can achieve this, allowing us to address the issues we all face together.

Citizens’ assemblies bring the shared wisdom of ordinary people into political decision making on the climate and ecological crisis. They are increasingly being used at local, national and even global levels. But with what impact? Can they take us beyond the shortcomings of electoral and partisan politics? Can they make a real difference? This book explains why climate assemblies have captured the imagination of governments and activists alike, exploring the ways they can have a meaningful impact on climate politics.

This book charts the development of climate assemblies across Europe and beyond. It explores what ordinary people want, highlighting the ways in which assembly recommendations take us beyond current government policies and offer new visions and directions for change. It shows that not all assemblies are the same and that the context and design of climate assemblies have differed quite profoundly – as have their impacts on policy and public discourse. The book also lays out the key elements needed for climate assemblies to have sustained impact, providing essential insights for anyone wanting to run or advocate for them, and concludes with reflections on what we can expect from assemblies as they evolve.

The transition to net zero and climate resilient societies requires deep social and economic transformations that will have significant impacts on citizens’ choices and behaviours. Such a transition needs to engage the public directly and this book shows how climate assemblies can achieve this, allowing us to address the issues we all face together.

In this memoir, Melendez describes with the unsparing eye of an insider the idealism, anger, and vitality of the Lords as they rose to become the most respected and powerful voice of Puerto Rican empowerment in the country. He also traces the internal ideological disputes that led the group, but not the mission, to fracture in 1972. Written with passion and compelling detail, We Took the Streets tells the story of how one group took on the establishment—and won.

In 1968 Miguel “Mickey” Melendez was a college student, developing pride in his Cuban and Puerto Rican cultural identity and becoming increasingly aware of the effects of social inequality on Latino Americans. Joining with other like-minded student activists, Melendez helped form the central committee of the New York branch of the Young Lords, one of the most provocative and misunderstood radical groups to emerge during the 1960s. Incorporating techniques of direct action and community empowerment, the Young Lords became a prominent force in the urban northeast. From their storefront offices in East Harlem, they defiantly took back the streets of El Barrio. In addition to running clothing drives, day-care centers, and food and health programs, they became known for their media-savvy tactics and bold actions, like the takeovers of the First People’s Church and Lincoln Hospital.

The social media platform WeChat has had a subtle but meaningful influence within the Chinese immigrant community in America. It serves as a channel for dispensing political information and keeping this minority racial group connected.

WeChat and the New Chinese American examines how and why the platform, which originated in China and followed many recent immigrants to their new life in America, has become an indispensable source of communication, community access, and interconnection not just between immigrants, but also with China and the rest of the Chinese diaspora.

Jingsi Christina Wu conducts interviews with upper-middle-class Chinese immigrants who settled in America after 2000 to track general trends in the larger WeChat information and opinion environment, including its rise as a source of political discourse during the 2016 election and beyond and its impact on U.S.-China relations. In doing so, she tells a complicated, evolving story about Chinese and Chinese American populations, the changing media landscape, and the ongoing social division in the Chinese immigrant community as well as in the larger American society.

A military history study that traces the development of precision‑guided munitions from World War I through the Gulf War, examining how advances in weapons technology reshaped air power, military strategy, and U.S. national security policy.

In the United States, efforts to develop precision guided munitions—PGMs—began during the First World War and resulted in an 'aerial torpedo' by the 1920s. While World War II was dominated by large-scale strategic bombing—essentially throwing out tons of free-falling munitions in the hope they hit something important—both sides in the war worked to develop airborne munitions that could be steered toward a target. However after that war, U.S. national security policy focused on the atomic bomb, hardly a weapon that needed to be directed with accuracy.

The cost of emphasis on atomic weapons was revealed in the general unsuitability of American tactics and weapons deployment systems during the Vietnam War. Lessons learned in that conflict, coupled with rapid technological developments in aerodynamics, lasers, and solid-state electronics, brought air power dramatically closer to the "surgical strike" now seen as crucial to modern warfare. New technology created attractive choices and options for American policymakers as well as field commanders, and events in the Arab-Israeli wars, the U.S. raid on Libya, and most dramatically in the first Gulf War created an ever-increasing demand for the precision weapons.

The prospect of pinpoint delivery of weapons right to the enemy's door by speeding aircraft seems to presage war in which the messy and politically risky deployment of ground troops is unnecessary. The potential of such weapons, and their strategic limitations, made the Gulf War and Iraqi War living theater for assessing what such weapons can and cannot do and have important implications for planning for future warfare.

Why did a country that once mobilized millions of armed civilians become one of the most tightly regulated gun societies in the world? Weapons of the People traces the history of private gun ownership in modern China, from the late Qing dynasty to the early People’s Republic of China. Far from being rare, firearms were once embedded in everyday life, used for self-defense, social status, and political struggle. At the same time, government policies toward civilian arms were often inconsistent. These inconsistencies extended beyond uneven enforcement to include shifting official attitudes toward unsanctioned armed groups. The Chinese Communist Party’s treatment of armed individuals and groups repeatedly adapted to changing political conditions and strategic needs.

Drawing on extensive archival research, as well as published documents, legal cases, and personal accounts, Lei Duan reconstructs the social life of firearms and their shifting political meanings across different regimes. By uncovering these patterns of diversity in firearm ownership and inconsistency in government policy, this book highlights the complex interplay between firearms, society, and the state in modern Chinese history. This study invites readers to reconsider the role of firearms in shaping China’s modern trajectory and to challenge conventional understandings of the nation’s sociopolitical landscape. Duan offers a new prism through which to examine state-society relations in modern China. 

WINNER, 2025 Illinois State Historical Society Russell P. Strange Book of the Year Award!

Police brutality, gentrification, and grassroots activism in 1960s Chicago

In August of 1968, approximately 7,000 people protested the Vietnam War against the backdrop of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. This highly televised event began peacefully but quickly turned into what was later termed a “police riot.” Brian Mullgardt’s investigation of this event and the preceding tensions shines a light on the ministers, Yippies, and community members who showed up and stood together against the brutality of the police. Charting a complex social history, Wear Some Armor in Your Hair brings together Chicago history, the 1960s, and urbanization, focusing not on the national leaders, but on the grassroots activists of the time.

Beginning in 1955, two competing visions of urban renewal existed, and the groups that propounded each clashed publicly, but peacefully.  One group, linked to city hall, envisioned a future Lincoln Park that paid lip service to diversity but actually included very little. The other group, the North Side Cooperative Ministry, offered a different vision of Lincoln Park that was much more diverse in terms of class and race. When the Yippies announced anti-war protests for the summer of ‘68, the North Side Cooperative Ministry played an instrumental role. Ultimately, the violence of that week altered community relations and the forces of gentrification won out.

Mullgardt’s focus on the activists and community members of Lincoln Park, a neighborhood at the nexus of national trends, broadens the scope of understanding around a pivotal and monumental chapter of our history. The story of Lincoln Park, Chicago, is in many ways the story of 1960s activism writ small, and in other ways challenges us to view national trends differently.

A sweeping intellectual history of the welfare state’s policy-in-waiting.

The idea of a government paying its citizens to keep them out of poverty—now known as basic income—is hardly new. Often dated as far back as ancient Rome, basic income’s modern conception truly emerged in the late nineteenth century. Yet as one of today’s most controversial proposals, it draws supporters from across the political spectrum.

In this eye-opening work, Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas trace basic income from its rise in American and British policy debates following periods of economic tumult to its modern relationship with technopopulist figures in Silicon Valley. They chronicle how the idea first arose in the United States and Europe as a market-friendly alternative to the postwar welfare state and how interest in the policy has grown in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis and COVID-19 crash.

An incisive, comprehensive history, Welfare for Markets tells the story of how a fringe idea conceived in economics seminars went global, revealing the most significant shift in political culture since the end of the Cold War.

Since November 8, 1942, when American troops in Operation Torch first landed on the beaches of North Africa, almost a million Americans—military personnel and their dependents—have lived in Morocco. Their impact on the political and social evolution of Morocco has been significant, but historians and political scientists before this book had made little effort to chart its course or to assess its outcome.

The naval base at Port Lyautey in Morocco was the first foreign base captured by American troops in World War II, and United States objectives in Morocco continued to be primarily military. In 1942, as the price for French support against the Axis, the United States pledged its support for the restoration of the prewar French colonial empire. In 1950, faced with the threat of Soviet aggression, the United States negotiated an agreement with France and built four United States Air Force bases in Morocco without consultation with or notification of the Moroccan government.

In spite of its sterile diplomatic policy and both Communist and Moroccan nationalist demands for evacuation of United States military bases, the United States retained essential military facilities in Morocco for many years. Leon Blair concludes that American military personnel and their dependents favorably conditioned Moroccan public opinion. By their egalitarianism, humanitarianism, and evident interest, they reinforced the idealistic image of the United States that was held by the majority of Moroccans.

These Americans were neither individually nor collectively conscious agents in a campaign to modify Moroccan public opinion; they were simply a Western window in the Arab world, through which two civilizations might view one another. In the long run, they made a greater contribution in peace than in war.