California Press: 1495 books
A Taste of Power
Food and American Identities
Language: English
Release Date: October 2, 2015
Since the founding of the United States, culinary texts and practices have played a crucial role in the making of cultural identities and social hierarchies. A Taste of Power examines culinary writing and practices as forces for the production of social order and, at the same time, points of cultural...
The Life of Cheese
Crafting Food and Value in America
Language: English
Release Date: December 10, 2012
Cheese is alive, and alive with meaning. Heather Paxson’s beautifully written anthropological study of American artisanal cheesemaking tells the story of how craftwork has become a new source of cultural and economic value for producers as well as consumers. Dairy farmers and artisans inhabit a...
Arete
Greek Sports from Ancient Sources
Language: English
Release Date: September 1, 2012
From the informal games of Homer's time to the highly organized contests of the Roman world, Miller has compiled a trove of ancient sources: Plutarch on boxing, Aristotle on the pentathlon, Philostratos on the buying and selling of victories, Vitruvius on literary competitions, and Xenophon on female...
Doing the Best I Can
Fatherhood in the Inner City
Language: English
Release Date: June 1, 2013
Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one of the leading social problems of today. Doing the Best I Can is a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among inner-city men often dismissed as "deadbeat dads." Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson examine...
Beyond Chutzpah
On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History
Language: English
Release Date: June 2, 2008
Meticulously researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Norman G. Finkelstein exposes the corruption of scholarship and the contrivance of controversy shrouding human rights...
The Para-State
An Ethnography of Colombia's Death Squads
Language: English
Release Date: November 24, 2015
Since its independence in the nineteenth century, the South American state of Colombia has been shaped by decades of bloody political violence. In The Para-State, Aldo Civico draws on interviews with paramilitary death squads and drug lords to provide a cultural interpretation of the country’s...
The Wind Doesn't Need a Passport
Stories from the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Language: English
Release Date: June 1, 2010
Award-winning journalist Tyche Hendricks has explored the U.S.-Mexico borderlands by car and by foot, on horseback, and in the back of a pickup truck. She has shared meals with border residents, listened to their stories, and visited their homes, churches, hospitals, farms, and jails. In this dazzling...
Assassination of a Saint
The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice
Language: English
Release Date: January 24, 2017
"A tale told well that provides valuable insights into the motives and modus operandi of the death squads in El Salvador, and of the financiers who commissioned and facilitated such crimes. It also highlights the difficulties that face those who pursue such cases many years after the crimes...
To Repair the World
Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation
Language: English
Release Date: May 1, 2013
Here, for the first time, is a collection of short speeches by the charismatic doctor and social activist Paul Farmer. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging,...
by
Language: English
Release Date: May 14, 2002
Language: English
Release Date: May 14, 2002
In rethinking and reframing the American national narrative in a wider context, the contributors to this volume ask questions about both nationalism and the discipline of history itself. The essays offer fresh ways of thinking about the traditional themes and periods of American history. By locating...
From Savage to Negro
Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954
Language: English
Release Date: November 23, 1998
Lee D. Baker explores what racial categories mean to the American public and how these meanings are reinforced by anthropology, popular culture, and the law. Focusing on the period between two landmark Supreme Court decisions—Plessy v. Ferguson (the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine...
The Last Great Strike
Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America
Language: English
Release Date: January 4, 2016
In May 1937, seventy thousand workers walked off their jobs at four large steel companies known collectively as “Little Steel.” The strikers sought to make the companies retreat from decades of antiunion repression, abide by the newly enacted federal labor law, and recognize their union. For two...
by Vijay Prashad
Language: English
Release Date: September 13, 2016
Language: English
Release Date: September 13, 2016
This fast-paced and timely book from Vijay Prashad is the best critical primer to the Middle East conflicts today, from Syria and Saudi Arabia to the chaos in Turkey. Mixing thrilling anecdotes from street-level reporting that give readers a sense of what is at stake with a bird's-eye view of the...
Deep Things out of Darkness
A History of Natural History
Language: English
Release Date: December 31, 2012
Natural history, the deliberate observation of the environment, is arguably the oldest science. From purely practical beginnings as a way of finding food and shelter, natural history evolved into the holistic, systematic study of plants, animals, and the landscape. Deep Things out of Darkness chronicles...