Cornell U. Press

Labor in the new urban battlegrounds; local solidarity in a global economy.

Turner (international and comparative labor, Cornell U.) and Cornfield (sociology, Vanderbilt U.) present comparative case studies of labor efforts to build local civil society coalitions in support of their campaigns in American cities and, for further comparative purposes, in Europe. The case studies are preceded by four papers presenting a overview of local coalition building by the US living wage movement and exploring overarching issues, including the strategic context of local government, the significance of community empowerment organizations for unions, and labor's emerging urban strategy. The remaining nine contributions present case studies on the local politics of labor in the union towns of Boston, Seattle, Buffalo, New York, and Los Angeles; labor's "frontier" in Miami, Nashville, and San Jose; and the European cases of Hamburg, London, and Frankfurt. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Laughing matters; farce and the making of absolutism in France.

Beam (history, U. of Victoria, Canada) analyzes the marginalization of French farce in two stages: during the Wars of Religion (1562-98), as urban elites who had previously been patrons of farce turned against the genre, and under Henry IV (1589-1610), as urban officials seeking royal patronage turned to more flattering theatrical genres. She argues that censorship of farce thus was carried out at many levels of French society and can be seen as having played a part, together with the changing political culture it reveals, in the making of absolutism in France, rather than merely having been a consequence of it. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mi voz, mi vida; Latino college students tell their life stories.

Garrod (education, Dartmouth College), Kilkenny (social work, Simmons College, Boston), and Goméz (sociology and Latino studies, Northeastern Illinois U., Chicago) present a collection of 15 first-person narratives by Latino college students, aged 18 to 22, who attended Dartmouth; all but one of the essays was written within the last four years. The authors reflect on formative relationships and influences, life-changing events, and factors that helped shape their values, educational outcomes, and sense of personal identity. The text does not focus on Dartmouth per se or on its educational impact on the students, but rather on their evolving lives and Latino identities. The contributions are grouped into four major themes from the essays — resilience, biculturalism, mentoring, and identity. For educators, college administrators, students and their families. No subject index. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Murder after death; literature and anatomy in early modern England.

Sugg (literature and medicine, U. of Durham) shows how studies of the body, particularly dissections conducted publicly in England from the mid-Elizabethan era to the outbreak of civil war, were first based upon religious rhetorical inquiry, and that as the research became increasingly secular a rift formed between science and religion, which Sugg shows was reflected in literature. The results were significant shifts in ideas about violence, the interior body, and ideas about society, culture, psychology and religion. Sugg's choices of contemporary illustrations are particularly interesting. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The occult mind; magic in theory and practice.

There being no recognized academic discipline devoted to analyzing occult, magical, or esoteric traditions, Lehrich (religion and writing, Boston U.) draws insights from several established disciplines to make an extended argument concerning magic in early modern Europe. He limits himself mostly to works available in modern English editions. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

On Aristotle's "Metaphysics 13-14".

The Greek philosopher Syrianus followed in the footsteps of his teacher Plutarch as the head of Plato's Academy in Athens. This volume translates his critical commentaries on Books 13 and 14 of Aristotle's Metaphysics, which were a polemical attack on the Pythagorean/Platonic mathematical world-view. The commentary is primarily concerned with the nature of Number and in particular focused on defending from Aristotelian attack the Form numbers, "which must be regarded rather [than monadic or unitary numbers] as 'what it is to be Two, or Three, or Seven', are not addible (asumblêtoi), and are not composed of undifferentiated units that can be added to or subtracted from them." For Syrianus, these Forms are creative principles in the universe and are themselves real essences. Translators Dillon (Greek, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) and O'Meara (philosophy, U. of Fribourg, Switzerland) include an introductory essay summarizing the arguments of Syrianus and providing other context. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

On Aristotle's "Nicomachean ethics 1-4, 7-8".

The six surviving books from the commentaries of the Peripatetic philosopher Aspasius (100-150 AD) on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the oldest known commentary on any of Aristotle's works. This is the first complete translation of the Aspasian commentaries in any modern language. Konstan (classics and comparative literature, Brown U.) has adopted a literal approach to the translation, accepting some stiltedness in the overall style on the assumption that the readers of an ancient commentary on Aristotle "would wish to know, as closely as possible, to what extent words and phrases in Aspasius corresponded to those in Aristotle's text." (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The political economy of grand strategy.

The idea that "politics stops at the water's edge," long a cliché of international relations, is intellectually bankrupt, argues Narizny (international relations, Lehigh U.). He constructs a theory of great power foreign policy that seeks to explain expansionist versus isolationist tendencies and other foreign policy preferences in reference to contending domestic political coalitions that vie for state power. He identifies the different policy preferences of: domestic interests with little stake in the international economy, core interests that rely on income from the markets of other great powers, peripheral interests employed in sectors that export to or invest in peripheral states, and military-colonial interests that derive income from government spending. He then constructs a theory of how they will influence foreign policy in varied coalitions and in confluence with international and domestic constraints. He tests the theory on the cases of the United States in 1865-1941 and Great Britain in 1868-1939, looking at their respective policies towards other great powers and towards the periphery. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Preying on the state; the transformation of Bulgaria after 1989.

Analyzing state dysfunction in Bulgaria in the early years of post-communist transition, Ganev (political science, Miami U. of Ohio) focuses on structural factors and modes of self-interested elite agency rather than ideological considerations and policy preferences. He essentially argues that the structural legacy of the state-owned economy led to a situation in which predatory elites engage in "extraction from the state," preying on wealth accumulated in the state domain. This project is aided by undermining state institutions from the inside and thus the predatory elite has no incentive to build strong state structures. Furthermore, because the project does not run up against the interests of large groups of title-holders, the extraction project is unlikely to encounter popular resistance and therefore the types of formal and informal constraints that encouraged the formation of governance rules and regulations in the construction of Western states are absent in the case of post-communist transition. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Race or ethnicity?; on Black and Latino identity.

Twelve American academics from the fields of philosophy and political science contribute 12 essays examining the nature and relation between race and ethnic identities, and the social consequences of the complex relations between them. The text explores whether it makes sense to speak of racial and ethnic identities, especially of Black and Latino identities, and if so, how these identities should be conceptualized, and if/how they are related to gender. It also considers how race and ethnicity have influenced the lot of some social groups in significant ways, including how racially defined institutions deal with racial assimilation, how different concepts of race and ethnicity influence public policy and various forms of racism, how exploited racial and ethnic groups might be effectively recognized, and the role of affect in social justice as dispensed by the courts. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Regulating capital; setting standards for the international financial system.

Analyzing the emergent role of financial regulators as international actors, Singer (political science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) focuses on two key questions. He first seeks to understand why international regulatory standards have emerged in such cases as the 1988 Basel Accord, which established an international capital adequacy rule for the banking industry, yet not in the case of the securities or insurance industries despite vigorous negotiations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The second connected issue concerns national variances in regulator preferences. He argues that preferences for international standardization only emerges when regulatory agencies are faced with the combined situation of domestic instability in the form of firm collapses and asset market volatility simultaneously with competitive threats from foreign financial sectors. This is because attempts to impose unilateral domestic regulation to check instability leave domestic firms vulnerable to international competitive threat. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Securing Japan; Tokyo's grand strategy and the future of East Asia.

Has postwar Japanese security strategy been marked by incoherence and a lack of focus, as many commentators claim? Not according to Samuels (political science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), who argues in this historical analysis of Japanese strategy formulation that Japanese strategists have responded to a rising China, the threat of North Korea, the possibility of abandonment by the United States, and the relative decline of the Japanese economy with strategic agility and pragmatic recognition of constraints. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The self in moral space; life narrative and the good.

Parker (English, Chinese U. of Hong Kong) explores how writers of autobiographical works place themselves within and shape their narratives by factors — goods, he calls them — that command their respect. Examples he mentions are ideals of self-realization, social justice, equality of respect, and care for certain others. He looks at Judeo-Christian and Romantic goods, universal and particular goods, ethical and aesthetic values, and other facets. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The sex of class; women transforming American labor.

For Cobble (Rutgers U.), the phrase the sex of class refers to more than the facts that women are a greater proportion of the US wage and salary workforce and that more men are doing work in conditions that had been typical of women's jobs. It is also about the need for expanding the boundaries of the US labor movement in order to turn gender diversities into an organizing strength instead of a weakness. The 14 papers he presents discuss gender inequalities in the wage labor market and public policy, unions and sexual politics, family policies and union politics, organizing women's work, and cross-border connections. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The state of working America 2006/2007.

This is the latest biennial report from the Economic Policy Institute presenting and analyzing data on family incomes, wages, taxes, unemployment, poverty, and other indicators related to the living standards of working Americans. The report identifies growing divergences between productivity and compensation, diminished expectations in employment, and ongoing wealth disparities. It also provides regional analysis and international comparisons. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Style is matter; the moral art of Vladimir Nabokov.

De la Durantaye (English and American literature, Harvard U.) ponders whether the infamous 1953 novel Lolita represents a sterile exercise of linguistic virtuosity, or a deeply human account of love and loss, whether it is an incitement to vice or an encouragement to virtue, whether it is art for nothing but its own sake, or a work of rare moral force. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Talk of the nation; language and conflict in Romania and Slovakia.

Csergo (political science, the George Washington U.) analyzes the political debates over Hungarian minority language rights in Romania and Slovakia in the contexts of post-Communist institutional transformation, European accession, and relations with the Hungarian kin-state. He opens with a discussion of the relationship between language conflicts in the first years of transition and broader questions of sovereignty and democratization. He then looks at the participation of international actors and domestic minority and majority elites in the language debates and describes the models that emerged regarding the relationship between languages in the areas of public spaces, self-government, and education. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Textures of struggle; the emergence of resistance among garment workers in Thailand.

In this ethnographic study of Thai female textile factory workers, Pangsapa (global gender studies, State U. of New York at Buffalo) describes the exploited realities of workers laboring for low wages and under horrific conditions and analyzes the circumstances surrounding the women's lives that contribute to accommodation, acquiescence, or resistance to their exploitation in the textile factories. She also addresses the all-encompassing nature of wage employment in the factories and its impacts on women's collective and personal consciousnesses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

What workers want, rev. ed.

With the exception of a new introduction and a new concluding chapter, this work by Freeman (economics, Harvard U.) and Rogers (law, political science, and sociology, U. of Wisconsin) is an essentially unchanged version of the first edition, which analyzed the results of the Worker Representation and Participation Study, a large survey of private-sector American workers and managers conducted in the fall and spring of 1994-1995 and designed to find out how workers felt about their influence on decisions at the work place and the possibilities of improving their role in workplace governance. The three main findings of the survey were a gap between participation desires and realities, preferences for cooperative versus adversarial relations with management, and openness to different pathways to workplace participation. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The wisdom to doubt; a justification of religious skepticism.

A species as limited and immature as humans has no reasonable choice but to withhold judgment about the existence of an ultimate salvic reality, argues Schellenberg (philosophy, Mount Saint Vincent U.). The skepticism he advocates is committed to an eventual confluence of all forms of belief, and will not rest at any partial conformity, however convenient. He first sets out seven modes of religious skepticism, then applies them to standard arguments for religion. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)