U. of Massachusetts Press
The battle for the mind; war and peace in the era of mass communication.
Messinger, author of British Propaganda and the State in the First World War, surveys the roles played by mass communication in war and peace making efforts. He covers the last 150 years of media advancements, from newspapers and books to television and the Internet, and their application to international relations. Drawing from a wealth of literature as well as his own research, Messinger offers a fascinating overview and predicts future directions for mass communication and war and peace making strategies. This book is intended for those studying communications. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Making war and minting Christians; masculinity, religion, and colonialism in early New England.
Romero (history, U. of Houston) considers gender and religion cross-culturally to provide a fuller and ethnographically richer account of the formation of colonial New England than studies that rely only on missions and warfare. He surveys the changing realities of the meaning of manhood in the 17th century, as a context within which to examine the connection between colonialism and gender identities. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Performances of violence.
This interdisciplinary collection brings together scholars from the fields of anthropology, history, political theory, law, and social thought in order to consider the question of violence in relation to cultural contexts. In the words of its editors (all of Amherst U.), "It focuses on the relationship between the performances of violence and the subjectivity/subjecthood of its performers as well as on how performances are represented." Specific topics include representations of violence as essential and life-affirming in the writings of conservative political thinkers from Edmund Burke to the "War on Terror," mass media representations of serial killer Aileen Wuornos (portrayed by Charlize Theron in the movie Monster) as both performer and victim of violence, the theatrical and spectacular in the violence meted out by American soldiers on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib; and perceptions of and responses to violent "incidents" on the sector borders in divided Berlin from 1948 to the 1980s as staged within the rhetorical and physical rituals of the Cold War. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Sisters in the faith; Shaker women and equality of the sexes.
In 1788, the celibate Shakers attempted to institutionalize equality of the sexes in their theology, government, and daily practice. This study shows how Shaker women working together consolidated their gains and expanded their power. Drawing on Shaker journals and other primary documents, the book analyzes the division of labor between men and women in Shaker communities, showing that there was considerable cooperation and reciprocity, even though gender conflicts remained. Some areas explored are Shaker girlhood, the outside world's view of Shaker sisters, and the New Lebanon bonnet business. The book concludes that Shaker communities achieved a remarkable degree of gender equality for the time period, and that Shaker sisters had power and authority in their society from 1780 through the 19th century. The book includes b&w historical photos and a glossary of Shaker terms. Wergland has written a previous book on the Shakers. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The solemn sentence of death; capital punishment in Connecticut.
This volume provides an in-depth chronological account of the development and application of capital punishment in Connecticut from 1636 to 2005. Goodheart (history, U. of Connecticut) structures his narrative across eight chapters, each dedicated to a specific time period and each offering an examination of the capital code, the criminal justice system, the demographic profile of executed persons, and broader cultural context. He describes how the number of crimes for which one could receive the death penalty was whittled down over time to capital murder and explores the paradox of the current death penalty policy in Connecticut, whereby a restrictive statute and a lengthy appeals process have worked in combination in recent decades to block executions unless the convict seeks death (as was the case with Michael Ross in 2005). (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Sports and American art; from Benjamin West to Andy Warhol.
Guttmann (English and American studies, Amherst U.)employs an unusual format to marry American history with the history of sports art in the country, exploring the parallel development of sport, art, and the American character through time. He outlines the colonial, antebellum, post Civil War, industrial, and late 20th century periods in turn, characterizing the socio-political state of the nation, the predominant forms of sport, and the state of the art world, respectively. Guttmann then traces the intersection of sport and art in these periods- the cricketers and ice skaters of colonial paintings; wrestlers, sailors, and baseball players of late 19th century art; Warhol portraits of athletes such as Dorothy Hamill and Muhammad Ali and considers how each of the two activities informs and reveals the other throughout their mutual history. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Town meeting; practicing democracy in rural New England.
As one of 262 towns in Massachusetts still practicing town-meeting democracy, Ashfield offers many lessons on democratic government, both in the evolution of its political culture from its founding and in the conduct of its government in the present. Robinson (government and American studies, Smith College) presents a history of government in Ashfield, focusing on moments of major change in political culture, and then considers key thematic issues that the town has faced in its political decision-making, including modernizing the structure of government, building major infrastructure, managing the coercive power of government, education, and governance of the town common. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
