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Scientifically up-to-date and illustrated with over 240 color photos, An Atlas of Illinois Fishes is a benchmark in the study of Illinois’s ever-changing fish communities and the habitats that support them.

France’s century-long wars of conquest in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia remain both understudied and symbolic of European imperialism. Launched to provide political legitimacy for the House of Bourbon during unstable times, these wars of empire ironically ended by generating nationalist sentiments that undermined French imperial aspirations, although France was successful on the battlefield after tremendous effort. The controversy both at the time and today about France’s North African ambitions has overshadowed the significant history of this conflict. Fought across some of the world’s most unforgiving, yet spectacular, terrain, these wars featured innovative military campaigns, epic battles, inspiring resistance leaders, and countless episodes of remarkable courage. Profoundly relevant, the French North African wars had a major global impact, influencing the development of military organization, tactics, and technology in the American Civil War, both world wars, and even modern Middle Eastern conflicts. Yet it is the human element that is most compelling. Based on extensive primary source research, Lions of the Atlas: France’s Wars for Empire and Resistance in North Africa, 1827–1934 is the first-ever comprehensive study, in any language, of these pivotal wars and those who fought them. 

Beginning with the French naval blockade and amphibious invasion of Algeria in 1827–1830, the book tells the story of the large-scale campaigns and huge set-piece battles that ensued over the following several decades, across the highest peaks of the Atlas Mountains, in hills and valleys, along and over rivers, through scorching deserts, and even in fierce urban combat in town and city streets. Engagements include two unforgettable campaigns to capture the mountain fortress at Constantine, bold and devastating forays by Algerian cavalrymen and mountain warriors, and the pivotal 1844 Battle of Isly. The story continues with the French invasion of Tunisia in 1881, and then the thirty-year French campaign for the subjugation of Morocco, concluding with the Rif War of the 1920s that shocked the world. The narrative features charismatic resistance leaders such as Algeria’s Emir Abd-el-Kader, legendary military units such as the colorful Zouaves and the Foreign Legion, and changes in military technology, including the use of aircraft and armored vehicles. A major contribution to our understanding of one of the world’s most storied regions, Lions of the Atlas provides gripping and insightful reading while presenting the complex history of war and resistance in North Africa.

Media studies courses, particularly introductory courses, are often narrowly focused on US and Western European canons. Instructors for introductory media studies courses wishing to expand the offerings in their curricula will find in these essays new ways of approaching foundational concepts and issues in the field, including globalization, social difference, and diverse media cultures. Scholars wishing to expand their research into specific media forms or representational issues can also turn to these case studies for approaches from beyond the US. By including a variety of media and several geographical areas, the collection introduces readers to the formal, technological, and cultural diversity of global media studies.

Edited by Juan Llamas-Rodriguez with contributions from Anthony Adah and Añulika Agina, Maria Corrigan, Benjamin Han, Anna Shah Hoque, Meryem Kamil, Angelica Marie Lawson, Lilia Adriana Perez Limon, Sonia Robles, Kuhu Tanvir, David Tenorio, and Rachel van der Merwe.

Earlier this year, President Obama declared one of his top priorities to be “making sure that people are able to get enough to eat.” The United States spends about five billion dollars on food aid and related programs each year, but still, both domestically and internationally, millions of people are hungry. In 2006, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations counted 850 million hungry people worldwide, but as food prices soared, an additional 100 million or more who were vulnerable succumbed to food insecurity.

If hunger were simply a matter of food production, no one would go without. There is more than enough food produced annually to provide every living person with a healthy diet, yet so many suffer from food shortages, unsafe water, and malnutrition every year. That’s because hunger is a complex political, economic, and ecological phenomenon. The interplay of these forces produces a geography of hunger that Thomas J. Bassett and Alex Winter-Nelson illuminate in this empowering book. The Atlas of World Hunger uses a conceptual framework informed by geography and agricultural economics to present a hunger index that combines food availability, household access, and nutritional outcomes into a single tool—one that delivers a fuller understanding of the scope of global hunger, its underlying mechanisms, and the ways in which the goals for ending hunger can be achieved. The first depiction of the geography of hunger worldwide, the Atlas will be an important resource for teachers, students, and anyone else interested in understanding the geography and causes of hunger. This knowledge, the authors argue, is a critical first step toward eliminating unnecessary suffering in a world of plenty.