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The Textures of Time
Agency and Temporal Experience
Michael G. Flaherty
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of Contemporary Sociology. The review read, "This book is a valuable contribution to agency theory. It would be useful for those looking to extend their view of this area to include perceptions and manipulations of time, as well as those interested in attention or mediated experiences." |
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Once the American Dream
Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States
Bernadette Hanlon
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of Contemporary Sociology. The review read, "This book will be useful for courses covering metropolitan or suburban development, courses that are increasingly offered in urban studies programs. In compact form, it synthesizes much of what we know about patterns of development and decline in U.S. urban regions. It provides a useful summary of much of the literature on older suburbs. A particularly helpful feature for students and other newcomers to the topic is a full-page table summarizing the results of over a dozen important studies on the topic. Hanlon makes skillful use of concrete examples found in specific suburbs around the United States to illustrate points she is making." |
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Separate Societies
Poverty and Inequality in U.S. Cities
Second Edition
William W. Goldsmith and Edward J. Blakely
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of Contemporary Sociology. The review read, "When the authors concluded the first edition with an optimistic appraisal of policy options that could alleviate poverty and inequality, they could not have known that the nation was on the cusp of a political and economic transformation that would greatly exacerbate existing inequalities. Therefore, this second edition is all the more welcome."
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Tasting Freedom
Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America
Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. The review read, " In Tasting Freedom, Biddle and Murray seek not only to recover the life of the martyred Catto but also to tell the story of 'the first civil rights movement' in the city of Philadelphia.... Biddle and Dubin have done yeoman's work in recovering his story from a scattered evidentiary base and bringing it to life in vivid, and often moving, prose.... Most powerful of all is the authors' reconstruction of the 1871 Election Day riots during which a white political thug gunned down Catto in broad daylight.... [I]t is clear why the authors find Catto so compelling; one of the great achievements of their work is that it communicates to the modern reader what was obvious to Catto's contemporaries: the man's brilliance and charisma. This is a book that will reward both general and scholarly readers." |
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Abuse of Power
How Cold War Surveillance and Secrecy Policy Shaped the Response to 9/11
Athan Theoharis
Cited in the January 2012 issue of School Library Journal as being one of the ten best books adult readers "don't want to miss." The review read, "Through endless diligence, [Theoharis has] cracked some of the deliberately byzantine and misleading naming and filing practices of the Hoover-era FBI and shows us how the same kinds of rhetoric, deception, and abuse of power can, and have, extended to the present. This is a look back that makes you look up, look around, and pay attention. It's necessary reading for anyone who wants to understand the 20th century, but it's equally important for alert citizens in the post-9/11 era."
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Distant Corners
American Soccer's History of Missed Opportunities and Lost Causes
David Wangerin
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of Soccer and Society. The review read, "[R]ichly researched....By allowing himself to provide in-depth analyses of significant individuals, teams and seasons, Wangerin retells the lost story of soccer in America in a way that allows leading figures to emerge from the shadows, perchance to move into the light as beacons for a future that will be enriched with a sense of legacy and a greater awareness of prior successes and failures. Distant Corners should appeal to those with an interest in soccer's challenge to American exceptionalism as well as those who seek a more full and accurate representation of the history of modern sport."
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Second Cities
Globalization and Local Politics in Manchester and Philadelphia
Jerome I. Hodos
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of Choice. The review read, "With creative conceptualization, Hodos has infused complexity, choice, and history into a discussion that often has been satisfied with simple categorization. Summing Up: Highly recommended." |
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The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising
Travis N. Ridout and Michael M. Franz
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of Choice. The review read, "For anyone interested in the role of ads in campaigns, this is a very valuable book. Summing Up: Recommended." |
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Cheaper by the Hour
Temporary Lawyers and the Deprofessionalization of the Law
Robert A. Brooks
Reviewed in the Law Library Journal, Vol. 103, No. 4 . The review read, "[A]n illuminating and sobering look at the law's version of the temporary employment industry.... Cheaper by the Hour should prove instructive for anyone concerned about the short- or long-term future of the U.S. legal profession, and the title is recommended for all libraries that serve law firms or law schools. The book may also provide a sharp but valuable dose of reality for undergraduate students considering legal education and the debt load that it can entail." |
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Latino Lives in America
Making It Home
Luis R. Fraga, John A. Garcia, Rodney E. Hero, Michael Jones-Correa, Valerie Martinez-Ebers and Gary Segura
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of Perspectives on Politics. The review read, "Latino Lives in America is the first book to come out of the Latino National Survey (LNS) project. Its release has been much anticipated, and its authors do not shy away from covering the wide array of issues that are of perennial concern to those interested in Latino politics.... Fraga and his fellow authors...[offer] the reader a rare opportunity to hear participants' thoughts with clear meaning." |
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Once the American Dream
Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States
Bernadette Hanlon
Reviewed in December 2011 issue of City and Community. The review read, "[Hanlon] offer[s] a detailed analysis of the inner-ring suburbs of the 100 largest urban areas and a comprehensive overview of the research to date on the forces shaping these communities....She provides detailed case studies of Dundulk, Maryland, and Cleveland Heights, Ohio, which exemplify some of the problems facing these vulnerable inner-ring communities.... This book serves as the most comprehensive view to date of the state of the inner-ring suburbs." |
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The Machinery of Whiteness
Studies in the Structure of Racialization
Steve Martinot
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of The Monthly Review. The review read "Martinot makes an excellent case for how our refusal to look at America's race machine allows for people's lives to be destroyed over and over again despite social advances such as an end to Jim Crow and progressive civil rights legislation."
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Behind the Backlash
Muslim Americans after 9/11
Lori Peek
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of Social Science Journal. The review read, "Behind the Backlash addresses the issue of Muslim American backlash in a post 9/11 environment through the use of a strong and clear thesis that explicates the public and political exclusion faced by Muslim Americans before and particularly, in the aftermath of 9/11....This study is significant because it provides outstanding and relevant insight into the public and political reaction to crisis events and the subsequent marginalization of members of society due to catastrophes beyond their control. Peek's research is also important...[she] provides the reader with testimonials that are compelling and invaluable to an understanding of the human and societal components and consequences resulting from crisis events. Lori Peek's work is insightful...[i]t enhances the reader's awareness of the lived experiences of sectors of society who are impacted by resulting societal and political scapegoating." |
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The Public and Its Possibilities
Triumphs and Tragedies in the American City
John D. Fairfield
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of Housing Studies. The review read, "[Fairfield provides] a multitude of references to key events, movements, people and organizations used to expound [his] narrative.... This book plays a crucial role in exposing the many striking similarities between the concerns of today and the past.... In terms of his narration, Fairfield saves the best for last with a truly excellent and comprehensive final chapter focusing on the damage inflicted on American cities by suburbanization and middle-class self-interest.... [T]he strength of the book is in detailing the continuing conflict inherent in the struggle for democratization as civic aspirations are perpetually set against private and individual interests. The central theme of the role of citizenship and how to cultivate this for the public good offers a reminder of how this has persisted right up to the present. Fairfield's excellent narrative will be of interest to scholars and students across the social sciences who are interested in the development of the American city and in the struggles and contestations for civic participation and democracy." |
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Mexican Voices of the Border Region
Laura Velasco Ortiz and Oscar F. Contreras, with translations by Sandra del Castillo
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of Choice. The review read, "What emerges from the collaborative narratives of researches and interviewees are life experiences that evidence the harshness of the current economic recession and enduring hope amid despair. These life histories expose readers to the pervasiveness of gender, ethnic, and class inequities in Mexican society, which do not vanish at the border line. A balancing forte of the book is the account of US-born children of Mexican immigrants. These life stories illustrate how the border creates a conundrum across a geopolitical line; Mexicans are and are not like one another. Well researched and documented, readable and fascinating. Summing Up: Highly recommended." |
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How to Be South Asian in America
Narratives of Ambivalence and Belonging
anupama jain
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of Choice. The review read, "[j]ain shows how the literary and cinematic works she studies represent these aspirations to attain the 'American dream,' the ways of achieving them, and often of failing to do so; she also explores the agency available to fictional representatives of this community and the profound ambivalence many of them felt, be they Hindu, Muslim, Parsee, etc. [j]ain is a perceptive reader and elegant writer, and her observations on subjects' representation of the South Asian diaspora's urgent desire to belong, coupled with their 'audacious refusal to become [America's] Other,' deserves a wide readership. Summing Up: Highly recommended." |
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How Racism Takes Place
George Lipsitz
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of Choice. The review read, "Veteran scholar Lipsitz provides another deeply probing look at US racism...Lipsitz provides original analyses of urban development in St. Louis (a football stadium) and a television series (The Wire) on Baltimore to show how such activities obscure links between institutionalized racism and urban space—including urban poverty and predatory lending—in front of unreflective observers.... Summing Up: Highly Recommended."
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Mexican Voices of the Border Region
Laura Velasco Ortiz and Oscar F. Contreras, with translations by Sandra del Castillo
Reviewed in the December 2011 issue of The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. The review read, "[N]umerous monographs have examined different aspects of the borderlands. Mexican Voices of the Border Region is unique, however, in its multi-faceted approach....The stories are heart-wrenching, and each one implicitly illustrates the three factors that the editors argue characterize the U.S.-Mexico border: adjacency, asymmetry, and interaction. Yet it is striking the extent to which those interviewed interpret and tell their own stories in individual, rather than structural, terms. This disjuncture is illustrated poignantly by the Mexican-American border patrol agent whose testimony closes the book." |
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St. Peter's Church
Faith in Action for 250 Years
Cordelia Frances Biddle, Elizabeth S. Brown, Alan J. Heavens and Charles P. Peitz
Featured in the Holiday Book section in the November 27 issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The item read, "This is a charming and informative book, complete with great shots of Society Hill in its less tony days." |
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The Coolie Speaks
Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba
Lisa Yun
Reviewed in the November 2011 issue of the Hispanic American Historical Review. The review read, "[Yun] produces a fascinating, elegantly written, and careful analysis of thousands of depositions and petitions collected during an 1874 Chinese government fact-finding mission to Cuba (at the height of the anticolonial Ten Years' War) to investigate the work and life conditions of Chinese coolies and intervene on their behalf.... [O]ne of the book's greatest scholarly contributions is that it challenges a monolithic historiographical portrayal of the Cuban body politic....[T]his interdisciplinary work of history and literary criticism is a highly readable, critical scholarly innovation for studies of race, labor regimes and violence, immigration, and Asian diaspora experience in Cuba and the Americas."
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The Temp Economy
From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America
Erin Hatton, foreword by Nelson Lichtenstein
Reviewed in the November 2011 issue of American Journal of Sociology. The review read, "Hatton has written a persuasive account of how the temporary employment industry grew, following World War II, from a slightly seedy and quite marginal position in the U.S. economy into a robust industry that was central in redefining employment relations."
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Pushing for Midwives
Homebirth Mothers and the Reproductive Rights Movement
Christa Craven
Reviewed in the November 2011 issue of American Journal of Sociology. The review read, "Craven makes a convincing case for her claim that a continued commitment to expanding reproductive justice is dependent on finding ways to see, and then to ameliorate, the race and class prejudices that lurk, thinly veiled, below the surface of the push for midwives. The most important contribution of this book is the author's sophisticated and nuanced historical discussion of factors that have shaped struggles over reproductive healthcare in the Unites States." |
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Merger Games
The Medical College of Pennsylvania, Hahnemann University, and the Rise and Fall of the Allegheny Health Care System
Judith P. Swazey
Reviewed in the November 15 issue of Library Journal. The review read, "Swazey writes a detailed history.... [She] reveals the difficulty of merging the nonprofit, for-profit, and medical education cultures of American health care. She shows how a combination of corporate hubris, ambitious vision, and the sheer complexity of the merger—with its many players and multiple allegiances—doomed it to fail. The book demonstrates on a micro level the complexity of American health care, showing how on-the-ground considerations are driven by larger policy goals. VERDICT...an informative read." |
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The Unheard Voices
Community Organizations and Service Learning
edited by Randy Stoecker and Elizabeth A. Tryon with Amy Hilgendorf
Reviewed in the November 2011 issue of Adult Education Quarterly. The review read, "[T]he book makes a case for the need to attend to the unheard voices in the service learning relationship... The authors accomplished their objectives of voicing the perspectives of the community organizing staff. The authors challenge the existing service learning models that reinforce stereotypes such as the perception of poor communities as helpless and the facade of the models' effectiveness.... By and large, the book captures the critical areas needed to ensure that service learning perpetuates mutual benefit, good relationships, meaningful change, social justice, civic engagement, and knowledge about community impact in service learning. It also highlights the intricacy of the relationships involved in actualizing service learning at the individual and institutional levels by challenging the models often imposed on community organizers and suggesting ways of customizing the models to fit the needs of those involved." |
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Patriotic Professionalism in Urban China
Fostering Talent
Lisa M. Hoffman
Reviewed in the November 2011 issue of Contemporary Sociology. The review read, "The book is engaging, well written, and provocative. It will be of great interest to scholars and students interested in labor transformation in the new China, and it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of postsocialist transitional economies. For me, the book provided a wonderful way to become grounded in processes at the social and human end of global city formation. I learned much from reading it. It will be interesting to see a few years from now whether Hoffman's professional patriots were a transitional phase of labor formation in China."
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The Temp Economy
From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America
Erin Hatton, foreword by Nelson Lichtenstein
Reviewed in the November 2011 issue of Contemporary Sociology. The review read, "This book is a must-read for students of organizations, occupations, and work; labor markets and unions; sex and gender; and economic sociology. It is compellingly argued and documented. Furthermore, it engenders concern and reflection in all who view work as activity that not only puts bread on the table but offers opportunities for workers to obtain meaning, fulfillment, and respect." |
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Civic Talk
Peers, Politics, and the Future of Democracy
Casey A. Klofstad
Reviewed in the journal Political Communication, Vol. 28, Number 4. The review read, "In his carefully constructed study of political conversations, Casey Klofstad provides compelling evidence for the impact of civic talk on the participatory habits of today's young adults. Civic Talk is a well-documented portrait of how our social network can pull us into voluntary civic life and even get us to the polls on election day. The book fills a gap in the literature on political communication and reinvigorates the importance of peers as key socializers in political life.... Overall, this book contributes to two distinct but overlapping literatures. The detailed analysis of political conversations addresses a causal question that has stumped a field burgeoning with rich, thoughtful studies. And the emphasis on the role of peers as a socializing influence within the college environment adds a much needed element to our understanding of civic engagement in higher education. Both traditions are enhanced by Klofstad's contribution." |
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Modeling Citizenship
Jewish and Asian American Writing
Cathy Schlund-Vials
Reviewed in the November issue of Choice. The review read, "The work's success lies in Schlund-Vials's comparative study of analogous yet divergent texts of Jewish and Asian American literatures regarding 'model minorities,' migration, relocation, and citizenship, thoughtfully interpreted in terms of law, public sentiment, and immigrant attitudes of belonging and alienation.... Summing Up: Recommended"
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Abuse of Power
How Cold War Surveillance and Secrecy Policy Shaped the Response to 9/11
Athan Theoharis
Reviewed in the November 2011 issue of Choice. The review read, "Theoharis, the premier scholar of intelligence and domestic security, chronicles the evolution of counterintelligence operations conducted by the FBI from Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush.... This book deserves a wide readership, as the FBI's failures in the Cold War may foretell a similar fate for the War on Terror. Summing Up: Highly recommended." |
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How to Be South Asian in America
Narratives of Ambivalence and Belonging
anupama jain
Reviewed in Hyphen magazine on October 13. The review read, "A sprawling study that combines ethnography, literary theory, and film criticism, jain's book looks closely at narratives of South Asian American identity that circulate through the media, fiction, and film....jain [provides] a series of skillful readings of diasporic fiction and films.... [her] reading of Bharati Mukherjee's work, in particular, is compelling.... jain's book doesn't offer any easy answers, but instead gives us more questions: What exactly are the stories of national, racial, and ethnic identity that we have been telling ourselves? Who is allowed into America's national narratives? And on whose terms?" |
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Rude Democracy
Civility and Incivility in American Politics
Susan Herbst
Reviewed in the The International Journal of Communication. The review read, "Herbst's volume is one of those rare works that should spur rethinking of crucial democratic concepts, civility, and partisanship, while displaying a model of such work through the grounded and insightful studies of Palin and Obama. The work also moves beyond the horizons of criticism to measure the tasks ahead in developing a culture of argument that welcomes a generation born of America at war and in the midst of the Great Recession. Civility and incivility constitute the strategic assets and costs of public deliberation."
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Afro-Caribbean Religions
An Introduction to Their Historical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions
Nathaniel Samuel Murrell
Reviewed in the issue 106.2011/2 of Anthropos. The review read, "The African-based religions of the New World have been much studied, for over a century now, but no single scholar has attempted a work as comprehensive as this. The word 'monumental' will probably be used to describe it. The book jacket says the work covers 'every African-derived religion of the Caribbean;' and it looks as well into the broad African roots of, and specific cultural influences upon many of them, and he cites all relevant scholarship....It is a vast and mostly successful undertaking, truly a monumental work, and it must be on the shelf of anyone interested in cultures of the Caribbean, from any disciplinary perspective."
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The Textures of Time
Agency and Temporal Experience
Michael G. Flaherty
Reviewed in PsycCRITIQUES, Volume 56, Issue 37. The review read, "[A]n interesting and original research effort.... [This] book should be of interest to researchers in the fields of sociology and psychology of time. It offers an interesting approach in stressing that people actively deal with time and are not simply the passive recipients of it."
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Baltimore '68
Riots and Rebirth in an American City
edited by Jessica I. Elfenbein, Thomas L. Hollowak and Elizabeth M. Nix
Reviewed in The Baltimore City Paper. The review read, "Baltimore '68 has much to offer, and its authors (as part of a six-year oral history project helmed by Elfenbein, a University of Baltimore associate provost, with an expanded roster of interviews), clearly tried mightily to include as many voices as possible. The book contains just a few of the oral histories, interspersed with expert historical analysis that seeks to contextualize the events.... They do succeed in rethinking events that many see as the modern-day turning point for Baltimore City." |
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Livestock/Deadstock
Working with Farm Animals from Birth to Slaughter
Rhoda M. Wilkie
Reviewed in Anthrozoos Volume 24, Issue 4. The review read, "Wilkie takes us through a fascinating history of animal domestication.... In a multifaceted work, she examines paradoxes such as these animals being 'sentient commodities'.... It is a tribute to the author's sociological research skills linked with a compassionate personal approach, that she is able to bring to the surface much thought and feeling that would otherwise, one assumes, never be voiced. The volume offers a unique insight into the often contradictory nature of animal production and care."
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Pushing for Midwives
Homebirth Mothers and the Reproductive Rights Movement
Christa Craven
Reviewed in the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative Volume 2, Number 1. The review read, "[Craven] masterfully deploys contextual analysis, incisive critique, and accessible language to engage readers who might be more interested in the status of or struggle for midwifery elsewhere, grassroots organizing, and/or mothering studies....Thus, while Pushing for Midwives focuses on the state of Virginia, it offers broad insight into the medicalization of reproduction, the 're-birth' of midwifery, and grassroots organizing among diverse populations that support midwifery. The book is a welcome and timely addition to mothering studies and the anthropology of reproduction." |
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Distant Corners
American Soccer's History of Missed Opportunities and Lost Causes
David Wangerin
Reviewed in the October 2011 issue of When Saturday Comes. The review read, "Wangerin has a stoical but cheerful approach to US football history, and clearly enjoys unearthing people, games, and anecdotes long since confined to the pages of yellowing local newspapers.... The final two chapters really make this book sing.... The flops, failures, flukes and flashes of the bust-boom-bust NASL are a largely unmined treasure of football stories." |
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Cheaper by the Hour
Temporary Lawyers and the Deprofessionalization of the Law
Robert A. Brooks
Reviewed in the September 2011 issue of The American Journal of Sociology. The review read, "Brooks offers us an uncommon examination of professional work from the inside.... [T]he book is engaging to read, makes good use of the data, and raises important questions about the future directions of professional work. The book should be of significant interest to anyone studying the changing nature of work, and certainly to anyone considering a law career."
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The Textures of Time
Agency and Temporal Experience
Michael G. Flaherty
Reviewed in the September 2011 issue of The American Journal of Sociology. The review read, "[A] fine sociological success.... Both agency and experience appear in the subtitle of The Textures of Time, and some of Flaherty's most perceptive insights appear in his accounts of how the two are related in practice.... The Textures of Time does indeed earn its keep and deserves a place...on the sociological shelf." |
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Tasting Freedom
Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America
Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin
Reviewed in the September 2011 issue of The Journal of American History. The review read, "This is a densely contextualized life history...Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin skillfully situate their subject at the center of multiple concentric circles.... The authors make this book accessible to a general audience. Stories within stories and on top of stories—sad, frightening, inspirational, infuriating, funny, and poignant—deeply humanize our understanding of everyday life in Philadelphia and the extent to which race inflected daily routines there and other large cities in the Civil War era. The portrait is well researched.... The result is a towering, persuasive narrative that recounts the precarious condition of blacks in nineteenth-century Philadelphia." |
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Nearest East
American Millennialism and Mission to the Middle East
Hans-Lukas Kieser
Reviewed in the September 2011 issue of The Journal of American History. The review read, "Kieser's discussion of American missionary involvement in Anatolia, with extensive quotations from missionaries in the field and debates about policies, is excellent, as is his use of his millennial template for the Cold War period until 1967." |
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