Some newly released titles

December saw the arrival of several exciting new books in our warehouse. They include:

Barcelona 1900, edited by Teresa-M Sala

Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond by Abdulkader H. Sinno

Introduction to Manuscript Studies, edited by Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham

Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East by Ussama Makdisi

Laboratories of Faith: Mesmerism, Spiritism, and Occultism in Modern France by John Warne Monroe

Signs of Grace: Religion and American Art in the Gilded Age by Kristin Schwain

Happy new year!

Richard Polt in the Chronicle of Higher Education

A story in the 12/21/2007 Chronicle of Higher Education features Cornell University Press author Richard Polt, who, when’s he’s not preoccupied with Heidegger or Harry Stephen Keeler, collects typewriters:

Out With the New, In With the Old

More on Blackwater from P. W. Singer

P. W. Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Updated Edition, has a new story up on the Wired blog:

Blackwater: The Roger Clemens of War

Announcing the Spring 2008 Cornell University Press catalog

The Spring 2008 Cornell University Press catalog is now available for download on our website: Catalogs from Cornell University Press.

North to Alaska: Chabon and Cohen by way of Tsuk Mitchell

Several of us here in Sage House have read and enjoyed Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union—perhaps you have, too. If you are fascinated by Chabon’s imagining of a parallel history in which the focus of Jewish resettlement was not Israel, but rather Alaska, you may be interested in our recent book Architect of Justice: Felix S. Cohen and the Founding of American Legal Pluralism by Dalia Tsuk Mitchell, which recently won the American Historical Association’s 2007 Littleton-Griswold Prize. Cohen, who is best known for his work with the Department of the Interior in the 1930s and 1940s, was a major voice in support of the real Alaska Development Program, which was intended to provide northern refuge for the Diaspora.

Tsuk Mitchell’s book provides a detailed and concise account of the program and its eventual nonimplementation. Two samples:

“Cohen believed that bringing various occupations and talents to Alaska would be a foundation for strengthening Alaska’s economy and for promoting American values and culture. In a letter to Warner Brothers Pictures, discussing the possibility of a documentary on the Alaska Development Program, Cohen stressed the similarities between Alaska and the Western frontier in the late nineteenth century. ‘As the West was built through the pioneer spirit of persecuted and poor immigrants from Europe, so can Alaska be transformed into one more industrial and cultural star on the American shield,’ he explained.”

“Editorials in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner asserted that Alaska could not ‘afford to carry on with a mass of misfits’ and that German-Jews are unsuited for Alaska settlers.’ ‘They are not the type of hardy Scandinavians who have had so much to do with the development of Alaska.’ . . . Even the Alaska Weekly, which condemned ‘opposition to Jewish refugees based on racial antipathy,’ declared that ‘Jews would be the least desirable of immigrants because of being the least adaptable.’”

***

Listen to an interview with Michael Chabon about The Yiddish Policemen’s Union on the nextbook site here: Land of the Lost

New York Times article about The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: The Frozen Chosen

Q & A with Chabon in the Seattle Times.

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

On NPR’s Weekend Edition (December 8, 2007), there was a story about the importance of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the U.S. economy and the efforts that are being taken to secure the complex: Balancing Security and Commerce at L.A. Port. Our recent book Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution by Edna Bonacich and Jake B. Wilson is an in-depth look at the logistics, economics, and labor issues surrounding the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Mike Davis says that Getting the Goods is “a stunning, behind-the-scenes account of the largely invisible workers who make our big-box, just-in-time world possible.”

Updated Edition of Corporate Warriors arrives

The Updated Edition of P. W. Singer’s Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry has arrived in our warehouse. The first edition of this book has had a most eventful (and influential) run, and this new paperback looks to carry on its success. From the description:

In the updated edition of Singer’s classic account of the military services industry and its broader implications, the author describes the continuing importance of that industry in the Iraq War. This conflict has amply borne out Singer’s argument that the privatization of warfare allows startling new capabilities and efficiencies in the ways that war is carried out. At the same time, however, Singer finds that the introduction of the profit motive onto the battlefield raises troubling questions—for democracy, for ethics, for management, for human rights, and for national security.

The Iron Whim on PopMatters

At PopMatters, Jason B. Jones gives The Iron Whim by Darren Wershler-Henry a 7/10. Among other interesting things, Jones writes:

” . . . a book rich with telling anecdotes, conceptual ambition, and an easy, charming style. . . . Anyone interested in technology and writing—in the technology that writing is and is conditioned by—will enjoy The Iron Whim.”

Read the whole review here.

Vogel x 2

Steven Vogel, author of Japan Remodeled: How Government and Industry Are Reforming Japanese Capitalism, is featured as an expert in The Economist’s new special report on Japan: Going Hybrid. Vogel is also featured on episode 64 of the Invisible Hand podcast.