University of Chicago Press: New Titles in Sociology

University of Chicago Press: New Titles in Sociology http://www.press.uchicago.edu/rss/newsoc.xml The latest new books in Sociology en-us erg@press.uchicago.edu In Time of War http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=5514391 Adam J. Berinsky <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>From World War II to the war in Iraq, periods of international conflict seem like unique moments in U.S. political history—but when it comes to public opinion, they are not. To make this groundbreaking revelation, <I>In Time of War</I> explodes conventional wisdom about American reactions to World War II, as well as the more recent conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Adam Berinsky argues that public response to these crises has been shaped less by their defining characteristics—such as what they cost in lives and resources—than by the same political interests and group affiliations that influence our ideas about domestic issues.</P><P> </P><P>With the help of World War II–era survey data that had gone virtually untouched for the past sixty years, Berinsky begins by disproving the myth of “the good war” that Americans all fell in line to support after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The attack, he reveals, did not significantly alter public opinion but merely punctuated interventionist sentiment that had already risen in response to the ways that political leaders at home had framed the fighting abroad. Weaving his findings into the first general theory of the factors that shape American wartime opinion, Berinsky also sheds new light on our reactions to other crises. He shows, for example, that our attitudes toward restricted civil liberties during Vietnam and after 9/11 stemmed from the same kinds of judgments we make during times of peace.</P><P> </P><P>With Iraq and Afghanistan now competing for attention with urgent issues within the United States, <I>In Time of War </I>offers a timely reminder of the full extent to which foreign and domestic politics profoundly influence—and ultimately illuminate—each other.</P></DIV></DIV><br></div> Building the Devil's Empire http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=5806997 Shannon Lee Dawdy <br><br><DIV><DIV><DIV><P><I>Building the Devil’s Empire</I> is the first comprehensive history of New Orleans’s early years, tracing the town’s development from its origins in 1718 to its revolt against Spanish rule in 1768. Shannon Lee Dawdy’s picaresque account of New Orleans’s wild youth features a cast of strong-willed captives, thin-skinned nobles, sharp-tongued women, and carousing travelers. But she also widens her lens to reveal the port city’s global significance, examining its role in the French Empire and the Caribbean, and she concludes that by exemplifying a kind of rogue colonialism—where governments, outlaws, and capitalism become entwined—New Orleans should prompt us to reconsider our notions of how colonialism works.</P><P> </P><P>"[A] penetrating study of the colony's founding."—<I>Nation</I></P><P><I></I> </P><P>“A brilliant and spirited reinterpretation of the emergence of French New Orleans. Dawdy leads us deep into the daily life of the city, and along the many paths that connected it to France, the North American interior, and the Greater Caribbean. A major contribution to our understanding of the history of the Americas and of the French Atlantic, the work is also a model of interdisciplinary research and analysis, skillfully bringing together archival research, archaeology, and literary analysis.”—Laurent Dubois, Duke University</P></DIV></DIV></DIV><br></div> Wannabe U http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6130399 Gaye Tuchman <br><br><DIV><DIV><DIV><P>In most debates over its future, the university is represented—by both its critics and its champions—as a secular temple for learning, a sacred space freed from the more mundane concerns that trouble other institutions. But lately this lofty image looks increasingly tarnished, especially with regard to public research universities. There, a new class of administrative professionals has been busy working to make colleges as much like businesses as possible. In this eye-opening exposé of the modern university, Gaye Tuchman paints a candid portrait of these wannabe corporate managers and the new regime of revenue streams, mission statements, and five-year plans they’ve ushered in.</P><P> </P><P>Based on years of observation at a state school, <I>Wannabe U</I> tracks the dispiriting consequences of trading in traditional educational values for loyalty to the market. Aping their boardroom idols, the new corporate administrators wander from job to job and reductively view the students as future workers in need of training. Obsessed with measurable successes, they stress auditing and accountability, which leads, Tuchman reveals, to policies of surveillance and control dubiously cloaked in the guise of scientific administration. Following the big money to be made from the discoveries of Wannabe U’s researchers, Tuchman probes the cozy relationships that the administration forms with industry and the government.</P><P> </P><P>Like the best campus novelists, Tuchman entertains with her acidly witty observations of backstage power dynamics and faculty politics, but ultimately <I>Wannabe U</I> is a hard-hitting account of how higher education’s misguided pursuit of success fails us all.</P><P> </P></DIV></DIV></DIV><br></div> Bulletproof http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6676834 Jennifer Wenzel <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>In 1856 and 1857, in response to a prophet’s command, the Xhosa people of southern Africa killed their cattle and ceased planting crops; the resulting famine cost tens of thousands of lives. Much like other millenarian, anticolonial movements—such as the Ghost Dance in North America and the Birsa Munda uprising in India—these actions were meant to transform the world and liberate the Xhosa from oppression. Despite the movement’s momentous failure to achieve that goal, the event has continued to exert a powerful pull on the South African imagination ever since. It is these afterlives of the prophecy that Jennifer Wenzel explores in <I>Bulletproof</I>.</P><P>            Wenzel examines literary and historical texts to show how writers have manipulated images and ideas associated with the cattle killing—harvest, sacrifice, rebirth, devastation—to speak to their contemporary predicaments. Widening her lens, Wenzel also looks at how past failure can both inspire and constrain movements for justice in the present, and her brilliant insights into the cultural implications of prophecy will fascinate readers across a wide variety of disciplines.</P></DIV></DIV><br></div> Child http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6701936 Richard A. Shweder, Editor in Chief <br><br><DIV><DIV><DIV><DIV><P><EM>The Child: An Encyclopedic Companion</EM> offers both parents and professionals access to the best scholarship from all areas of child studies in a remarkable one-volume reference.</P><P> </P><P>Bringing together contemporary research on children and childhood from pediatrics, child psychology, childhood studies, education, sociology, history, law, anthropology, and other related areas, <EM>The Child</EM> contains more than 500 articles—all written by experts in their fields and overseen by a panel of distinguished editors led by anthropologist Richard A. Shweder. Each entry provides a concise and accessible synopsis of the topic at hand. For example, the entry “Adoption” begins with a general definition, followed by a detailed look at adoption in different cultures and at different times, a summary of the associated mental and developmental issues that can arise, and an overview of applicable legal and public policy.</P><P> </P><P>While presenting certain universal facts about children’s development from birth through adolescence, the entries also address the many worlds of childhood both within the United States and around the globe. They consider the ways that in which race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and cultural traditions of child rearing can affect children’s experiences of physical and mental health, education, and family. Alongside the topical entries, <EM>The Child</EM> includes more than forty “Imagining Each Other” essays, which focus on the particular experiences of children in different cultures. In “Work before Play for Yucatec Maya Children,” for example, readers learn of the work responsibilities of some modern-day Mexican children, while in “A Hindu Brahman Boy Is Born Again,” they witness a coming-of-age ritual in contemporary India.</P><P> </P><P>Compiled by some of the most distinguished child development researchers in the world, <I>The Child</I> will broaden the current scope of knowledge on children and childhood. It is an unparalleled resource for parents, social workers, researchers, educators, and others who work with children.</P><P> </P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV><br></div> Enabling Creative Chaos http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6797144 Katherine K. Chen <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>In the summer of 2008, nearly fifty thousand people traveled to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to participate in the countercultural arts event Burning Man. Founded on a commitment to expression and community, the annual weeklong festival presents unique challenges to its organizers. Over four years Katherine K. Chen regularly participated in organizing efforts to safely and successfully create a temporary community in the middle of the desert under the hot August sun.</P><P> </P><P><I>Enabling Creative Chaos</I> tracks how a small, underfunded group of organizers transformed into an unconventional corporation with a ten-million-dollar budget and two thousand volunteers. Over the years, Burning Man’s organizers have experimented with different management models; learned how to recruit, motivate, and retain volunteers; and developed strategies to handle regulatory agencies and respond to media coverage. This remarkable evolution, Chen reveals, offers important lessons for managers in any organization, particularly in uncertain times.</P></DIV></DIV><br></div> "Do You Know...?" http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6823453 Robert R. Faulkner and Howard S. Becker <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>Every night, somewhere in the world, three or four musicians will climb on stage together. Whether the gig is at a jazz club, a bar, or a bar mitzvah, the performance never begins with a note, but with a question. The trumpet player might turn to the bassist and ask, “Do you know ‘Body and Soul’?”—and from there the subtle craft of playing the jazz repertoire is tested in front of a live audience. These ordinary musicians may never have played together—they may never have met—so how do they smoothly put on a show without getting booed offstage.<BR /><BR />In <I>“Do You Know . . . ?”</I> Robert R. Faulkner and Howard S. Becker—both jazz musicians with decades of experience performing—present the view from the bandstand, revealing the array of skills necessary for working musicians to do their jobs. While learning songs from sheet music or by ear helps, the jobbing musician’s lexicon is dauntingly massive: hundreds of thousands of tunes from jazz classics and pop standards to more exotic fare. Since it is impossible for anyone to memorize all of these songs, Faulkner and Becker show that musicians collectively negotiate and improvise their way to a successful performance. Players must explore each others’ areas of expertise, develop an ability to fake their way through unfamiliar territory, and respond to the unpredictable demands of their audience—whether an unexpected gang of polka fanatics or a tipsy father of the bride with an obscure favorite song.<BR /><BR /><EM>“Do You Know . . . ?”</EM> dishes out entertaining stories and sharp insights drawn from the authors’ own experiences and observations as well as interviews with a range of musicians. Faulkner and Becker’s vivid, detailed portrait of the musician at work holds valuable lessons for anyone who has to think on the spot or under a spotlight.</P></DIV></DIV><br></div> How It Works http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6887675 Robert P. Fairbanks II <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>Of the some sixty thousand vacant properties in Philadelphia, half of them are abandoned row houses. Taken as a whole, these derelict homes symbolize the city’s plight in the wake of industrial decline. But a closer look reveals a remarkable new phenomenon—street-level entrepreneurs repurposing hundreds of these empty houses as facilities for recovering addicts and alcoholics. <I>How It Works</I> is a compelling study of this recovery house movement and its place in the new urban order wrought by welfare reform.</P><P> </P><P>To find out what life is like in these recovery houses, Robert P. Fairbanks II goes inside one particular home in the Kensington neighborhood. Operating without a license and unregulated by any government office, the recovery house provides food, shelter, company, and a bracing self-help philosophy to addicts in an area saturated with drugs and devastated by poverty. From this starkly vivid close-up, Fairbanks widens his lens to reveal the intricate relationships the recovery houses have forged with public welfare, the formal drug treatment sector, criminal justice institutions, and the local government.</P></DIV></DIV><br></div> Cracking Under Pressure http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6927710 Lynn Owens <br><br><DIV><P>Most academic studies have focused almost exclusively on the <I>emergence</I> of social movements, paying less attention to their declines. But as every activist knows, decline is an important and vital period for any mobilization. This volume broadens and enriches social movement theory through a close investigation of the fate of the squatters’ movement in Amsterdam, which emerged in the late 1970s as a response to the housing shortage of the 1960s, eventually peaking in the early 1980s before falling into a period of prolonged decline. Author Lynn Owens explores this decline, focusing on the subjective experience of the squatters and the culture of decline at large.</P></DIV><br></div> Identity Processes and Dynamics in Multi-Ethnic Europe http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6927744 Charles Westin, José Bastos, Janine Dahinden, and Pedro Góis <br><br><DIV><P>This volume explores the changing face of identity in the constantly shifting world of postcolonial and multiethnic contemporary Europe. The authors included in this text come from disciplines as diverse as cultural studies, anthropology, American studies, and social psychology, and the empirical case studies they explore cover terrain just as far-ranging—the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, the Basque country in Spain, and the United Kingdom, among others. Methods and materials vary from ethnographic analysis to quantitative surveys of attitudes and identity, and the introductory and closing chapters present an overview of recent trends in research on collective identity and disciplinary identity studies, respectively.</P></DIV><br></div> Gay Fatherhood http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6930945 Ellen Lewin <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>Men are often thought to have less interest in parenting than women, and gay men are generally assumed to prefer pleasure over responsibility. The toxic combination of these two stereotypical views has led to a lack of serious attention being paid to the experiences of gay fathers. But the truth is that more and more gay men are setting out to become parents and succeeding—and <I>Gay Fatherhood</I> aims to tell their stories. </P><P>Ellen Lewin takes as her focus people who undertake the difficult process of becoming fathers as gay men, rather than having become fathers while married to women. These men face unique challenges in their quest for fatherhood, negotiating specific bureaucratic and financial conditions as they pursue adoption or surrogacy and juggling questions about their future child’s race, age, sex, and health. <I>Gay Fatherhood</I> chronicles the lives of these men, exploring how they cope with political attacks from both the "family values" right and the "radical queer" left—while also shedding light on the evolving meanings of family in twenty-first-century America.</P></DIV></DIV><br></div> Drawing of the Mark of Cain http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6960200 Dik Van Arkel <br><br><DIV><P>Anti-Semitism is an exceptional historical phenomenon whose history extends at least two millennia into the past, as its discriminatory vitriol affecting many countries and a wide range of societies. Yet despite that history, the conditions of anti-Semitism are not universal. Many countries have no tradition of anti-Semitic thought, and even in those nations where anti-Semitism periodically rears its head, there have been long periods when it was nearly dormant. This definitive study tackles the complex roots and manifestations of anti-Semitism over the centuries, tracing the rise of anti-Jewish stereotypes and the circumstances in which racial prejudice has led to tragic consequences. As the large-scale social changes of the past two millennia have given extra impetus to the reappearance of cultural bias, this is a timely and important contribution to social historical scholarship.</P></DIV><br></div> Chicago http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=7877998 Dominic A. Pacyga <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>Chicago has been called by many names. Nelson Algren declared it “A City on the Make.” Carl Sandburg dubbed it the “City of Big Shoulders.” Upton Sinclair christened it “The Jungle,” while New Yorkers, naturally, pronounced it “the Second City.”</P><P> </P><P>At last there is a book for all of us, whatever we choose to call Chicago. Here, historian Dominic Pacyga gives his hometown the magisterial biography it has long deserved. <I>Chicago</I><I> </I>traces the city’s storied past, from the explorations of Joliet and Marquette in 1673 to the new wave of urban pioneers today. The city’s great industrialists, reformers, and politicians—and, indeed, the many not-so-great and downright notorious—animate this book, from Al Capone and Jane Addams to Mayor Richard J. Daley and President Barack Obama.</P><P> </P><P>But what distinguishes this book from the many others on the subject is its author’s uncommon ability to illuminate the lives of Chicago’s ordinary people. Born and raised in Back of the Yards on Chicago’s southwest side, Pacyga spent his college years working at the Union Stock Yards. <I>Chicago</I>, therefore, gives voice to the city’s steelyard workers and kill floor operators, mapping the neighborhoods distinguished not by Louis Sullivan masterworks, but by bungalows and corner taverns. And their stories come alive through an extensive selection of evocative illustrations culled from major institutional archives, local historical societies, and the author’s personal collection.</P><P> </P><P>Filled with the city’s one-of-a-kind characters and all of its defining moments, <I>Chicago: A Biography</I> is as big and boisterous as its namesake—and as ambitious as the men and women who built it.</P><P> </P></DIV></DIV><br></div> Political Ethnography http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=7995019 Edited by Edward Schatz <br><br><DIV><DIV><P>Scholars of politics have sought in recent years to make the discipline more hospitable to qualitative methods of research. Lauding the results of this effort and highlighting its potential for the future, <I>Political Ethnography</I> makes a compelling case for one such method in particular. Ethnography, the contributors amply demonstrate in a wide range of original essays, is uniquely suited for illuminating the study of politics. </P><P> </P><P>Situating these pieces within the context of developments in political science, Edward Schatz provides an overarching introduction and substantive prefaces to each of the volume’s four sections. The first of these parts addresses the central ontological and epistemological issues raised by ethnographic work, while the second grapples with the reality that all research is conducted from a first-person perspective. The third section goes on to explore how ethnographic research can provide fresh perspectives on such perennial topics as opinion, causality, and power. Concluding that political ethnography can and should play a central role in the field as a whole, the final chapters illuminate the many ways in which ethnographic approaches can enhance, improve, and, in some areas, transform the study of politics.</P><P> </P></DIV></DIV><br></div> Cultured Violence http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=8364554 Rosemary Jolly <br><br><DIV><DIV><P> </P><P><I>Cultured Violence<B> </B></I>explores contemporary South African culture as a test case for the achievement of democracy by constitutional means in the wake of prolonged and violent cultural conflict. Drawing on and juxtaposing narratives of profoundly different kinds—the fiction of J. M. Coetzee, public testimony form the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, documents from former Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s rape trial, and personal interviews among them—in order to illuminate different cultural senses of the “state of the nation” and retrieve otherwise elusive descriptions of South African subjects taken from accounts of their individual lives.</P><P> </P></DIV></DIV><br></div> Racism Postcolonialism Europe http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=8364587 Edited by Graham Huggan and Ian Law <br><br><DIV><P>This multidisciplinary edited collection turns the postcolonial critical gaze back on Europe itself, arguing that racism is alive and dangerously well and examining a variety of postcolonial criticism in order to understand a variety of racisms: those of false respect, reaction, and surveillance. <I>Racism Postcolonialism Europe</I> wisely suggests that all of these forms of postcolonial racism occur under the guise of representing the interests of the European <I>people</I>— which is a very different entity than the European <I>population</I> as a whole. This volume—which includes contributions from Griselda Pollock, Michel Wieviorka, and Philomena Essed—will  be required reading for scholars and students of race, postcolonial studies, sociology, and cultural studies alike.</P></DIV><br></div> Alaska at 50 http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=8364722 Edited by Gregory W. Kimura <br><br><DIV><P>In 2009 Alaska celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of U.S. statehood. To commemorate that milestone, <I>Alaska</I><I> at 50</I> brings together some of today’s most noteworthy and recognizable writers and researchers to address the past, present, and future of Alaska. Divided into three overarching sections—art, culture, and humanities; law, economy, and politics; and environment, people, and place—<I>Alaska</I><I> at 50</I> is written in highly accessible prose. Illustrations and photographs of significant artefacts of Alaska history enliven the text. Each contributor brings a strong voice and prescription for the next fifty years, and the resulting work presents Alaskans and the nation with an overview of Alaska statehood and ideas for future development. </P></DIV><br></div> Sticking Together or Falling Apart http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=8365030 Paul de Beer and Ferry Koster <br><br><DIV><P>This volume examines the impact of globalization and individualization on social solidarity, in both a theoretical and empirical context, focusing on types of informal solidarity, such as volunteering, charitable giving, and care, as well as more formal types, such as government benefits and developmental aid. The first thorough study of international comparative data on solidarity, <I>Sticking Together or Falling Apart</I> concludes that, overall, solidarity is on the rise rather than declining, despite the ambiguous effects of both globalization and individualization. </P></DIV><br></div> Social Movements in China and Hong Kong http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=8365035 Edited by Gilles Guiheux and Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce <br><br><DIV><P>This volume provides an account of how Chinese individuals, increasingly free from the constraints of the state, have to rely on their own efforts to support their well-being, and how, in certain circumstances, they must gather together to defend their interests. Complicating the internal and external factors behind the relationship between the individualization of society and the emergence of collective movements, the contributors suggest that specific protest actions taking place on the mainland and in Hong Kong have enabled both societies to expand their protest space. Ultimately, these developments lead us to reconceptualize citizenship as something practiced rather than given.</P></DIV><br></div>