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The Basque Seroras: Local Religion, Gender, and Power in Northern Iberia, 1550-1800

Amanda L. Scott

This book explores the intersections between local community, women's work, and religious reform in early modern northern Spain. The book illuminates the lives of these uncloistered religious women, ... More

This book explores the intersections between local community, women's work, and religious reform in early modern northern Spain. The book illuminates the lives of these uncloistered religious women, who took no vows and were free to leave the religious life if they chose. Their vocation afforded them considerably more autonomy and, in some ways, liberty, than nuns or wives. The book recovers the surprising ubiquity of seroras, with every Basque parish church employing at least one. Their central position in local religious life revises how we think about the social and religious limitations placed on early modern women. By situating the seroras within the social dynamics and devotional life of their communities, the book reconceives of female religious life and the opportunities it could provide. It also shows how these devout laywomen were instrumental in the process of negotiated reform during the Counter-Reformation.Less

Competing Germanies: Nazi, Antifascist, and Jewish Theater in German Argentina, 1933-1965

Robert Kelz

Following World War II, German antifascists and nationalists in Buenos Aires believed theater was crucial to their efforts at community-building, and each population devoted considerable resources to ... More

Following World War II, German antifascists and nationalists in Buenos Aires believed theater was crucial to their efforts at community-building, and each population devoted considerable resources to competing against its rival onstage. This book tracks the paths of several stage actors from European theaters to Buenos Aires and explores how two of Argentina's most influential immigrant groups, German nationalists and antifascists (Jewish and non-Jewish), clashed. Theatrical performances articulated strident Nazi, antifascist, and Zionist platforms. Meanwhile, as their thespian representatives grappled onstage for political leverage among emigrants and Argentines, behind the curtain, conflicts simmered within partisan institutions and among theatergoers. Publicly they projected unity, but offstage nationalist, antifascist, and Zionist populations were rife with infighting on issues of political allegiance, cultural identity and, especially, integration with their Argentine hosts. The book reveals interchange and even mimicry between antifascist and nationalist German cultural institutions. Furthermore, performances at both theaters also fit into contemporary invocations of diasporas, including taboos and postponements of return to the native country, connections among multiple communities, and forms of longing, memory, and (dis)identification. Sharply divergent at first glance, their shared condition as cultural institutions of emigrant populations caused the antifascist Free German Stage and the nationalist German Theater to adopt parallel tactics in community-building, intercultural relationships, and dramatic performance. Its cross-cultural, polyglot blend of German, Jewish, and Latin American studies gives the book a wide, interdisciplinary academic appeal and offers a novel intervention in Exile studies through the lens of theater, in which both victims of Nazism and its adherents remain in focus.Less

The Comstocks of Cornell-The Definitive Autobiography

Anna Botsford Comstock

Karen Penders St. Clair (ed.)

This book is the autobiography written by the naturalist educator Anna Botsford Comstock about her life and that of her husband, the entomologist John Henry Comstock—both prominent figures in the ... More

This book is the autobiography written by the naturalist educator Anna Botsford Comstock about her life and that of her husband, the entomologist John Henry Comstock—both prominent figures in the scientific community and in Cornell University history. A first edition was published in 1953, but it omitted key Cornellians, historical anecdotes, and personal insights. This twenty-first-century edition restores the author's voice by reconstructing the entire manuscript as Anna Comstock wrote it—and thereby preserves Comstock's memories of the personal and professional lives of the couple as she originally intended. The book includes an epilogue documenting the Comstocks' last years and fills in gaps from the 1953 edition. Described as serious legacy work, this book is an essential part of the history of both Cornell University and its press.Less

Constitutional Dysfunction on Trial: Congressional Lawsuits and the Separation of Powers

Jasmine Farrier

In an original assessment of all three branches, this book reveals a new way in which the American federal system is broken. Turning away from the partisan narratives of everyday politics, the book ... More

In an original assessment of all three branches, this book reveals a new way in which the American federal system is broken. Turning away from the partisan narratives of everyday politics, the book diagnoses the deeper and bipartisan nature of imbalance of power that undermines public deliberation and accountability, especially on war powers. By focusing on the lawsuits brought by Congressional members that challenge presidential unilateralism, the book provides a new diagnostic lens on the permanent institutional problems that have undermined the separation of powers system in the last five decades, across a diverse array of partisan and policy landscapes. As each chapter demonstrates, member lawsuits are an outlet for frustrated members of both parties who cannot get their House and Senate colleagues to confront overweening presidential action through normal legislative processes. But these lawsuits often backfire—leaving Congress as an institution even more disadvantaged. The book argues these suits are more symptoms of constitutional dysfunction than the cure. It shows federal judges will not and cannot restore the separation of powers system alone. Fifty years of congressional atrophy cannot be reversed in court.Less

Creating the Suburban School Advantage: Race, Localism, and Inequality in an American Metropolis

John L. Rury

This book explains how American suburban school districts gained a competitive edge over their urban counterparts. It focuses on the period between 1950 and 1980, and presents a detailed study of ... More

This book explains how American suburban school districts gained a competitive edge over their urban counterparts. It focuses on the period between 1950 and 1980, and presents a detailed study of metropolitan Kansas City, a region representative of trends elsewhere. While big-city districts once were widely seen as superior and attracted families seeking the best educational opportunities for their children, suburban school systems grew rapidly in the post-World War II era as middle-class and more affluent families moved to those communities. At the same time, economically dislocated African Americans migrated from the South to center-city neighborhoods, testing the capacity of urban institutions. As demographic trends drove this urban–suburban divide, a suburban ethos of localism contributed to the socioeconomic exclusion that became a hallmark of outlying school systems. As the book demonstrates, struggles to achieve greater educational equity and desegregation in urban centers contributed to so-called white flight and what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan considered to be a crisis of urban education in 1965. Despite the often valiant efforts made to serve inner city children and bolster urban school districts, this exodus, the book argues, created a new metropolitan educational hierarchy—a mirror image of the urban-centric model that had prevailed before World War II. The stubborn perception that suburban schools are superior, based on test scores and budgets, has persisted into the twenty-first century and instantiates today's metropolitan landscape of social, economic, and educational inequality.Less

Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State

Melissa M. Lee

Policymakers worry that “ungoverned spaces” pose dangers to security and development. Why do such spaces exist beyond the authority of the state? Earlier scholarship—which addressed this question ... More

Policymakers worry that “ungoverned spaces” pose dangers to security and development. Why do such spaces exist beyond the authority of the state? Earlier scholarship—which addressed this question with a list of domestic failures—overlooked the crucial role that international politics play. This book argues that foreign subversion undermines state authority and promotes ungoverned space. Enemy governments empower insurgents to destabilize the state and create ungoverned territory. This kind of foreign subversion is a powerful instrument of modern statecraft. But though subversion is less visible and less costly than conventional force, it has insidious effects on governance in the target state. To demonstrate the harmful consequences of foreign subversion for state authority, the book marshals a wealth of evidence and presents in-depth studies of Russia’s relations with the post-Soviet states, Malaysian subversion of the Philippines in the 1970s, and Thai subversion of Vietnamese-occupied Cambodia in the 1980s. The evidence presented is persuasive: foreign subversion weakens the state. The book challenges the conventional wisdom on statebuilding, which has long held that conflict promotes the development of strong, territorially consolidated states. The book argues instead that conflictual international politics prevents state development and degrades state authority. In addition, the book illuminates the use of subversion as an underappreciated and important feature of modern statecraft. Rather than resort to war, states resort to subversion. Policymakers interested in ameliorating the consequences of ungoverned space must recognize the international roots that sustain weak statehood.Less

The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia

Teo Ballvé

This book challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although the book takes this locally ... More

This book challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although the book takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously, it demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder. Through this exploration of war, paramilitary organizations, grassroots support and resistance, and drug-related violence, the book argues that Urabá, rather than existing in statelessness, has actually been an intense and persistent site of state-building projects. Indeed, these projects have thrust together an unlikely gathering of guerilla groups, drug-trafficking paramilitaries, military strategists, technocratic planners, local politicians, and development experts each seeking to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of “the state” in a space in which it supposedly does not exist. By untangling this odd mix, the book reveals how Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient, if not at all benevolent, regimes of rule.Less

The Future of Change: How Technology Shapes Social Revolutions

Ray Brescia

This book identifies a series of “social innovation moments” in American history. Through these moments—during which social movements have embraced advances in communications technologies—the book ... More

This book identifies a series of “social innovation moments” in American history. Through these moments—during which social movements have embraced advances in communications technologies—the book illuminates the complicated, dangerous, innovative, and exciting relationship between these technologies, social movements, and social change. It shows that, almost without fail, developments in how we communicate shape social movements, just as those movements change the very technologies themselves. From the printing press to the television, social movements have leveraged communications technologies to advance change. In this moment of rapidly evolving communications, it is imperative to assess the role that the Internet, mobile devices, and social media can play in promoting social justice. But first we must look to the past, to examples of movements throughout American history that successfully harnessed communications technology, thus facilitating positive social change. Such movements embraced new communications technologies to help organize their communities; to form grassroots networks in order to facilitate face-to-face interactions; and to promote positive, inclusive messaging that stressed their participants' shared dignity and humanity. Using the past as prologue, the book provides effective lessons in the use of communications technology so that we can have the best communicative tools at our disposal—both now and in the future.Less

The Gathering Storm: Eduardo Frei's Revolution in Liberty and Chile's Cold War

Sebastián Hurtado-Torres

This novel take on diplomatic history examines the involvement of the United States in Chile during the Eduardo Frei administration (1964–1970) and shows how the engagement between the two nations ... More

This novel take on diplomatic history examines the involvement of the United States in Chile during the Eduardo Frei administration (1964–1970) and shows how the engagement between the two nations deepened the process of political polarization in Chile. At the heart of the book is a description of the partnership between Frei's government and that of Lyndon B. Johnson. Both leaders considered modernization to be integral to political and economic development, and the U.S. Embassy in Santiago was recognized by all parties to be the center of this modernizing agenda and the practical work of the Alliance for Progress (AFP). The book portrays the diplomatic and economic relationship between Chile and the United States in a manner that departs from the most militant and conservative interpretations of U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. By focusing on the active participation of agents of U.S. foreign policy—particularly those associated with the AFP—and not secret operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency, the book offers a fresh narrative about a critical period in Chilean political history and a new understanding of the ways and means through which the foreign policy of the United States was carried out.Less

Greek Warfare beyond the Polis: Defense, Strategy, and the Making of Ancient Federal States

David A. Blome

This book assesses the nature and broader significance of warfare in the mountains of classical Greece. Based on detailed reconstructions of four unconventional military encounters, the book argues ... More

This book assesses the nature and broader significance of warfare in the mountains of classical Greece. Based on detailed reconstructions of four unconventional military encounters, the book argues that the upland Greeks of the classical mainland developed defensive strategies to guard against external aggression. These strategies enabled wide-scale, sophisticated actions in response to invasions, but they did not require the direction of a central, federal government. The book brings these strategies to the forefront by driving ancient Greek military history and ancient Greek scholarship “beyond the polis” into dialogue with each other. As it contends, beyond-the-polis scholarship has done much to expand and refine our understanding of the ancient Greek world, but it has overemphasized the importance of political institutions in emergent federal states and has yet to treat warfare involving upland Greeks systematically or in depth. In contrast, the book scrutinizes the sociopolitical roots of warfare from beyond the polis, which are often neglected in military histories of the Greek city-state. By focusing on the significance of warfare vis-à-vis the sociopolitical development of upland polities, the book shows that although the more powerful states of the classical Greek world were dismissive or ignorant of the military capabilities of upland Greeks, the reverse was not the case. The Phocians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Arcadians in circa 490–362 BCE were well aware of the arrogant attitudes of their aggressive neighbors, and as highly efficient political entities, they exploited these attitudes to great effect.Less

The History of Starved Rock

Mark Walczynski

This book provides an overview of the famous site in Utica, Illinois, from when European explorers first viewed the bluff in 1673 through to 1911, when Starved Rock became the centerpiece of ... More

This book provides an overview of the famous site in Utica, Illinois, from when European explorers first viewed the bluff in 1673 through to 1911, when Starved Rock became the centerpiece of Illinois' second state park. The land that today comprises Starved Rock State Park and the adjacent countryside was nearly continuously occupied by Native Americans until the early nineteenth century. By the early nineteenth century, American frontier settlers would arrive and change the entire dynamic of the Starved Rock area. The book pulls together stories and insights from the language, geology, geography, anthropology, archaeology, biology, and agriculture of the park to provide readers with an understanding of both the human and natural history of Starved Rock, and to put it into context with the larger history of the American Midwest.Less

Immigrant Japan: Mobility and Belonging in an Ethno-nationalist Society

Gracia Liu-Farrer

Immigrant Japan? Sounds like a contradiction, but as this book shows, millions of immigrants make their lives in Japan, dealing with the tensions between belonging and not belonging in this ... More

Immigrant Japan? Sounds like a contradiction, but as this book shows, millions of immigrants make their lives in Japan, dealing with the tensions between belonging and not belonging in this ethno-nationalist country. Why do people want to come to Japan? Where do immigrants with various resources and demographic profiles fit in the economic landscape? How do immigrants narrate belonging in an environment where they are “other” at a time when mobility is increasingly easy and belonging increasingly complex? The book illuminates the lives of these immigrants by bringing in sociological, geographical, and psychological theories—guiding the reader through life trajectories of migrants of diverse backgrounds while also going so far as to suggest that Japan is already an immigrant country.Less

Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City

Philip Mark Plotch

This book is the fascinating and dramatic story behind New York City's struggle to build a new subway line under Second Avenue and improve transit services all across the city. The book reveals why ... More

This book is the fascinating and dramatic story behind New York City's struggle to build a new subway line under Second Avenue and improve transit services all across the city. The book reveals why the city's subway system, once the best in the world, is now too often unreliable, overcrowded, and uncomfortable. It explains how a series of uninformed and self-serving elected officials have fostered false expectations about the city's ability to adequately maintain and significantly expand its transit system. Since the 1920s, New Yorkers have been promised a Second Avenue subway. When the first of four planned phases opened on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 2017, subway service improved for tens of thousands of people. Riders have been delighted with the clean, quiet, and spacious new stations. Yet these types of accomplishments will not be repeated unless New Yorkers learn from their century-long struggle. The book offers valuable lessons in how governments can overcome political gridlock and enormous obstacles to build grand projects. However, it is also a cautionary tale for cities. It reveals how false promises, redirected funds, and political ambitions have derailed subway improvements. Given the ridiculously high cost of building new subways in New York and their lengthy construction period, the Second Avenue subway (if it is ever completed) will be the last subway built in New York for generations to come.Less

The Man in the Dog Park: Coming Up Close to Homelessness

Cathy A. Small

This book offers the reader a rare window into homeless life. Spurred by a personal relationship with a homeless man who became the book's co-author, the author takes a compelling look at what it ... More

This book offers the reader a rare window into homeless life. Spurred by a personal relationship with a homeless man who became the book's co-author, the author takes a compelling look at what it means and what it takes to be homeless. Interviews and encounters with dozens of homeless people lead us into a world that most have never seen. We travel as an intimate observer into the places that many homeless frequent, including a community shelter, a day labor agency, a panhandling corner, a pawn shop, and a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) housing office. Through these personal stories, we witness the obstacles that homeless people face, and the ingenuity it takes to negotiate life without a home. The book points to the ways that our own cultural assumptions and blind spots are complicit in US homelessness and contribute to the degree of suffering that homeless people face. At the same time, the book shows us how our own sense of connection and compassion can bring us into touch with the actions that will lessen homelessness and bring greater humanity to the experience of those who remain homeless.Less

More Than Medicine: Nurse Practitioners and the Problems They Solve for Patients, Health Care Organizations, and the State

LaTonya J. Trotter

This book chronicles the everyday work of a group of nurse practitioners (NPs) working on the front lines of the American health care crisis as they cared for four hundred African American older ... More

This book chronicles the everyday work of a group of nurse practitioners (NPs) working on the front lines of the American health care crisis as they cared for four hundred African American older adults living with poor health and limited means. The book describes how these NPs practiced an inclusive form of care work that addressed medical, social, and organizational problems that often accompany poverty. In solving this expanded terrain of problems from inside the clinic, these NPs were not only solving a broader set of concerns for their patients; they became a professional solution for managing “difficult people” for both their employer and the state. Through the book, the reader discovers that the problems found in the NPs' exam room are as much a product of our nation's disinvestment in social problems as of physician scarcity or rising costs.Less

Nature beyond Solitude: Notes from the Field

John Seibert Farnsworth

The field notes taken for this book are not only about nature, but from nature as well. The book lets the reader peer over the author'shoulder as he takes his notes. The reader follows him to a ... More

The field notes taken for this book are not only about nature, but from nature as well. The book lets the reader peer over the author'shoulder as he takes his notes. The reader follows him to a series of field stations where he teams up with scientists, citizen scientists, rangers, stewards, and graduate students engaged in long-term ecological study, all the while scribbling down what he sees, hears, and feels in the moment. The field stations are located at Hastings Natural History Reservation, studying acorn woodpeckers; Santa Cruz Island Reserve, studying island foxes; Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, hawkwatching; H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, recording a forest log for two weeks through the Spring Creek Project; and North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, which was built as mitigation for the environmental harm caused by the hydroelectric dam. The book explores how communal experiences of nature might ultimately provide greater depths of appreciation for the natural world.Less

On an Empty Stomach: Two Hundred Years of Hunger Relief

Tom Scott-Smith

This book examines the practical techniques humanitarians have used to manage and measure starvation, from Victorian “scientific” soup kitchens to space-age, high-protein foods. Tracing the evolution ... More

This book examines the practical techniques humanitarians have used to manage and measure starvation, from Victorian “scientific” soup kitchens to space-age, high-protein foods. Tracing the evolution of these techniques since the start of the nineteenth century, the book argues that humanitarianism is not a simple story of progress and improvement, but rather is profoundly shaped by sociopolitical conditions. Aid is often presented as an apolitical and technical project, but the way humanitarians conceive and tackle human needs has always been deeply influenced by culture, politics, and society. These influences extend down to the most detailed mechanisms for measuring malnutrition and providing sustenance. As the book shows, over the past century, the humanitarian approach to hunger has redefined food as nutrients and hunger as a medical condition. Aid has become more individualized, medicalized, and rationalized, shaped by modernism in bureaucracy, commerce, and food technology. The book focuses on the gains and losses that result, examining the complex compromises that arise between efficiency of distribution and quality of care. It concludes that humanitarian groups have developed an approach to the empty stomach that is dependent on compact, commercially produced devices and is often paternalistic and culturally insensitive.Less

Paradox and Representation: Silenced Voices in the Narratives of Nakagami Kenji

Machiko Ishikawa

How can the “voiceless” voice be represented? This primary question underpins this book's analysis of selected works by Buraku writer, Nakagami Kenji (1946–1992). In spite of his Buraku background, ... More

How can the “voiceless” voice be represented? This primary question underpins this book's analysis of selected works by Buraku writer, Nakagami Kenji (1946–1992). In spite of his Buraku background, Nakagami's privilege as a writer made it difficult for him to “hear” and “represent” those voices silenced by mainstream social structures in Japan. This “paradox of representing the silenced voice” is the key theme of the book. Gayatri Spivak theorizes the (im)possibility of representing the voice of “subalterns,” those oppressed by imperialism, patriarchy, and heteronomativity. Arguing for Burakumin as Japan's “subalterns,” the book draws on Spivak to analyze Nakagami's texts. The first half of the book revisits the theme of the transgressive Burakumin man. This section includes analysis of a seldom discussed narrative of a violent man and his silenced wife. The second half of the book focuses on the rarely heard voices of Burakumin women from the Kiyuki trilogy. Satoko, the prostitute, unknowingly commits incest with her half-brother, Akiyuki. The aged Yuki sacrifices her youth in a brothel to feed her fatherless family. The mute Moyo remains traumatized by rape. The author's close reading of Nakagami's representation of the silenced voices of these sexually stigmatized women is this book's unique contribution to Nakagami scholarship.Less

Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy

Lloyd P. Gerson

In his third and concluding volume, the author presents an innovative account of Platonism, the central tradition in the history of philosophy, in conjunction with Naturalism, the “anti-Platonism” in ... More

In his third and concluding volume, the author presents an innovative account of Platonism, the central tradition in the history of philosophy, in conjunction with Naturalism, the “anti-Platonism” in antiquity and contemporary philosophy. The book contends that Platonism identifies philosophy with a distinct subject matter, namely, the intelligible world and seeks to show that the Naturalist rejection of Platonism entails the elimination of a distinct subject matter for philosophy. Thus, the possibility of philosophy depends on the truth of Platonism. From Aristotle to Plotinus to Proclus, the book clearly links the construction of the Platonic system well beyond simply Plato's dialogues, providing strong evidence of the vast impact of Platonism on philosophy throughout history. The book concludes that attempts to seek a rapprochement between Platonism and Naturalism are unstable and likely indefensible.Less