Editors’ Picks for June 2022

10 reviews handpicked from the latest issue of Choice.

Posted on June 16, 2022 in Editors' Picks

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Editors… have succeeded in producing an absolutely magnificent, eminently accessible, truly groundbreaking cultural compendium by way of innovatively melding Hopi and non-Hopi voices and archaeological science.

—R. G. Mendoza, California State University, Monterey Bay

Becoming Hopi: a history, ed. by Wesley Bernardini et al. Arizona, 2021. 664p bibl index ISBN 9780816542345, $75.00; ISBN 9780816542833 ebook, $75.00.

The Hopi Mesas of Arizona have long drawn anthropologists, ethnohistorians, and travelers to the enchanted lands of the Hopi people. With a pedigree of place spanning some 2,000 years, the Hopi have prospered in an otherwise parched and inhospitable land of rocky, craggy mesas and little rain. Though the Hopi have long been thought to be one of the best documented Puebloan communities of the Greater Southwest, a robust understanding of Hopi has nevertheless remained elusive to outsiders until now. Editors Bernardini (Univ. of Redlands), Koyiyumptewa and Kuwanwisiwma (both, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office), and Schachner (Univ. of California, Los Angeles) have succeeded in producing an absolutely magnificent, eminently accessible, truly groundbreaking cultural compendium by way of innovatively melding Hopi and non-Hopi voices and archaeological science. There is much to commend in this “people’s” atlas of Hopi culture, art, and tradition, including the editors’ brilliantly successful effort to integrate archaeologically and ethnohistorically robust accountings of epic clan migrations, origins, routes, rock art, time lines, and some 300 ancestral villages and pilgrimage sites spanning the whole of the US Southwest and northern Mexico in this landmark volume. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. —R. G. Mendoza, California State University, Monterey Bay

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This text offers a winsome approach to fusing theory and practice, including exercises to trigger readers’ creativity.

—S. Lenig, Columbia State Community College

Binns, Daniel. Material media-making in the digital age. Intellect, 2021. 194p bibl index ISBN 9781789383492, $106.50; ISBN 9781789383515 ebook, $80.00.

Binns adopts making/creation as his lens for understanding film technology and theory, not “to awkwardly clunk theory and practice together [but to] break the film scholar’s obsession with the finished product . . .” (p. 4). For Binns, the distance between theory and physical manipulation of light, sound, and movement is slight. As he argues, experimental film generates a filmmaking process less directed at audience reception and more engaged with new creative processes. His alternative methods offer practical advice for composing films, for example, by using economical cellphones. Text themes include time itself as a manipulated medium: Binns champions time’s “fluidity” (as a medium governed by inherent uncertainty). He also proposes sound as a fundamental element, advocating a new cohesion between image and soundscape. His creative method extends to devising programs for capturing screenshots/filmfragments, resulting in film assemblages or collages. Referencing the vlog films of the Neistat brothers, he describes them as messy, emphasizing a “handcrafted, raw aesthetic” (p. 99). Finally, Binns embraces new genres, including “.gif films,” an economical alternative to traditional methods, and speculates on the arrival of a streaming genre in which atmosphere prevails over traditional narrative. This text offers a winsome approach to fusing theory and practice, including exercises to trigger readers’ creativity. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. —S. Lenig, Columbia State Community College

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Informed by historical and contemporary sources, this is an important contribution to historical and political sociology collections.

—G. B. Osborne, University of Alberta

Cohn, Samuel. All societies die: how to keep hope alive. Cornell, 2021. 272p bibl ISBN 9781501755903, $26.95; ISBN 9781501755910 ebook, $12.99.

In this highly accessible and thought-provoking book, Cohn (Texas A&M Univ.) addresses the factors that contribute to societal collapse with the aim of identifying what needs to be collectively addressed to avoid the collapse of today’s global society. The first section is devoted to historical case studies, including the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the rise of violence in the Middle East, the French Revolution, and the breakdown of Somalia. For Cohn, these examples share common themes and inform his well-organized, systematic treatment of the process of social decline. Dismissing arguments that rely purely on ecological catastrophes or moral crises, Cohn offers a multicausal analysis to show how 12 key interconnected factors, encompassing economics, politics, crime and corruption, ethnic conflict, and science and technology, have the potential to contribute to the cataclysmic collapse of civilization unless they are meaningfully addressed. Cohn argues that this “Twelve-Step Circle of Societal Death” may be initiated by four possible triggers, which he claims are presently occurring: major economic recessions, increased landlessness, ecological collapse, and a decrease in female status. Informed by historical and contemporary sources, this is an important contribution to historical and political sociology collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. —G. B. Osborne, University of Alberta

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Libraries can no longer focus solely on the needs of their immediate communities but must consider their position in the global information network.

—L. K. Miller, formerly, Western Kentucky University Libraries

Marcum, Deanna B. Along came Google: a history of library digitization, by Deanna Marcum and Roger C. Schonfeld. Princeton, 2021. 214p index ISBN 9780691172712, $29.95; ISBN 9780691208039 ebook, contact publisher for price.

Marcum, senior advisor at Ithaka S+R and former associate librarian at the Library of Congress, and Schonfeld, director of libraries, scholarly communication, and museums at Ithaka S+R, offer a cogent history of “the dream of the universal library.” This timely work examines the digitization of libraries and their transformation from collection builders to information access points. In the midst of this transition, Google announced its intention to digitize millions of published books. The authors’ aim is to explore “how Google attempted to enter, and in some senses disrupt, traditional scholarly communication systems.” Chapters examine first attempts to provide broad access to knowledge, the promise of digital technologies, the birth of Google and its plans to digitize books, librarians’ and scholars’ responses to these plans, the subsequent lawsuit and its outcome, the evolving role of the HathiTrust, and the future of digitization in a post-COVID world. Libraries can no longer focus solely on the needs of their immediate communities but must consider their position in the global information network. An index is provided; a bibliography would have been useful. Recommended for library and information science collections. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers/faculty; practitioners. —L. K. Miller, formerly, Western Kentucky University Libraries

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Scholars from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the US are among the authors that Uchendu (Univ. of Nigeria) and Edeagu (Univ. of Bayreuth, Germany; AE-FUNAI, Nigeria) have brought together in this illuminating, scholarly, multidimensional, and multidisciplinary work.

—G. Emeagwali, Central Connecticut State University

Negotiating patriarchy and gender in Africa: discourses, practices, and policies, ed. by Egodi Uchendu and Ngozi Edeagu. Lexington Books, 2021. 352p bibl index ISBN 9781793642042, $120.00; ISBN 9781793642059 ebook, $45.00.

This text is a major contribution to women’s studies in Africa and elsewhere. Scholars from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the US are among the authors that Uchendu (Univ. of Nigeria) and Edeagu (Univ. of Bayreuth, Germany; AE-FUNAI, Nigeria) have brought together in this illuminating, scholarly, multidimensional, and multidisciplinary work. Over four sections—”Gender Discourse and Domination”; “Women, Work, and Exploitation”; “Women in Power and Male Dominance”; and “Policy Implementation”—the contributing authors examine patriarchal structures of dominance and systemic hindrances to full equality. They find that institutionalized patriarchy has been the norm in various spheres, including everyday speech, and has been reflected in film, literature, and politics. A study of Nollywood points to the uncomfortable environment women composers face in the film music industry. In politics, women elected to parliamentary and advisory positions have not been able to escape abusive and misogynistic indignities either. Nevertheless, challenges have been posed to patriarchal dominance from various sources, including a garment women typically wear, the khanga, which has been employed as a visual and symbolic challenge to male chauvinism. Projects such as the Kenyan Dads and Daughters and mechanisms such as the Maputo Protocol are among the harbingers of hope discussed in the collection. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. —G. Emeagwali, Central Connecticut State University

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Even more helpful is the array of data that dramatically details hate crimes and the extensive bibliography for people seeking additional information on the topic.

—C. C. Lovett, Emporia State University

Newton, David E. Hate groups: a reference handbook. ABC-CLIO, 2021. 344p bibl index ISBN 9781440877742, $63.00; ISBN 9781440877759 ebook, contact publisher for price.

One concern plaguing many Western democracies is the rise of domestic hate groups, a pressing global problem that Newton (formerly, Univ. of San Francisco), a prolific author for ABC-CLIO, explores here. Part of the “Contemporary World Issues” series, Hate Groups is a significant primer on the topic and a major research tool to help the general public and students better understand the socio-pathology of groups that target those they consider outsiders, including Jews, Muslims, and minorities of all types. Many organizations target or focus on different ethnicities, believing those subgroups are threats to the majority’s existence. Newton defines what constitutes a hate group and offers proposals that may reduce the threats such groups pose, profiling many that operate today. Even more helpful is the array of data that dramatically details hate crimes and the extensive bibliography for people seeking additional information on the topic. Newton’s study is a remarkable research tool for all academic and public libraries and is a must for their collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels. —C. C. Lovett, Emporia State University

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Interspersed throughout are personal stories drawn from letters, memoirs, and other primary sources. Čapková and Kieval have done a tremendous service in opening up the unique history and complexity of Jewish life in this neglected region.

—R. K. Byczkiewicz, Central Connecticut State University

Prague and beyond: Jews in the Bohemian lands, ed. by Kateřina Čapková and Hillel J. Kieval. Pennsylvania, 2021. 384p bibl index ISBN 9780812253115, $79.95; ISBN 9780812299595 ebook, contact publisher for price.

The history of Jewish communities in the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia have long been sidelined by scholars given the larger populations in Polish and Russian regions. The work under review corrects this. Čapková (New York Univ. Prague) and Kieval (Washington Univ. in St. Louis) compile seven contributions from prominent specialists to present a coherent chronological narrative of Jewish life in these lands under Habsburg domain from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Eschewing a top-down view, the editors concentrate on the internal cultural complexities and personal dynamics of prominent Jewish rabbis and leaders and ordinary Jews and how they defined the characteristics of their diverse communities. Individual essays address struggles with periodic persecution from Habsburg leaders to the challenges competing Czech and German nationalisms in the 19th century posed and how Bohemian Jews defined their relationship to them. Later chapters address the impact of the Final Solution and the Communist period on the Jewish community. Interspersed throughout are personal stories drawn from letters, memoirs, and other primary sources. Čapková and Kieval have done a tremendous service in opening up the unique history and complexity of Jewish life in this neglected region. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty. —R. K. Byczkiewicz, Central Connecticut State University

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Organized into nine chapters, the book presents both the conceptual underpinnings of equity and practical considerations for those facing these unpleasant realities.

—S. T. Schroth, Towson University

Schools under siege: the impact of immigration enforcement on educational equity, ed. by Patricia Gándara and Jongyeon Ee. Harvard Education Press, 2021. 248p index ISBN 9781682536476 pbk, $33.00.

Regardless of individual views on immigration policy, most people would agree that the threat of detention and deportation affect student performance and the operation of schools and those who work in them. Gándara (Univ. of California, Los Angeles) and Ee (Loyola Marymount Univ.) have collected a series of essays that examine how immigration policy influences students and teachers and explores how some schools have responded. Organized into nine chapters, the book presents both the conceptual underpinnings of equity and practical considerations for those facing these unpleasant realities. Each chapter explores a different aspect of the issue: chapters are devoted to the history of immigration and enforcement, the impact on schools, immigrant students and Title I schools, educators’ experiences, the consequences of ICE partnerships with local police, stresses educators face, schools coping with immigration and enforcement issues, and the concept of sanctuary schools. This is an excellent complement to Jo Napolitano’s The School I Deserve: Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America (2021) or Elly Fishman’s Refugee High: Coming of Age in America (2021) and a useful work for seminars exploring educational policy, equity, social justice, or contemporary schooling. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals. —S. T. Schroth, Towson University

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Skillfully organized and enjoyable to read, A Velvet Empire is a must read for historians of modern France and 19th-century colonialism.

—J. M. Rich, Marywood University

Todd, David. A velvet empire: French informal imperialism in the nineteenth century. Princeton, 2021. 368p bibl index ISBN 9780691171838, $39.95; ISBN 9780691205342 ebook, contact publisher for price.

Scholarship on informal empire in the 19th century often centers on British influence around the globe. However, A Velvet Empire forcefully contends that, similar to Britain, France also pursued international aspirations through “soft power” from 1815 to the 1870s. Todd (King’s College London, UK) effectively harnesses an array of case studies to show how French investors, politicians, and intellectuals saw opportunity in furthering French economic interests in Haiti, Mexico, and the Middle East and North Africa. More provocatively, he argues that even the French occupation of Algeria emerged only after efforts to establish less-formal ties with indigenous leaders failed. Todd suggests that the failures of informal empire combined with the fall of Napoleon III in 1870 and subsequent setbacks to generate support in France for expanding colonial rule. Ultimately, Todd convincingly overturns traditional assumptions in French and colonial scholarship that perceive this period of French history as one in which imperialism had relatively little influence on politics. Skillfully organized and enjoyable to read, A Velvet Empire is a must read for historians of modern France and 19th-century colonialism. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals. —J. M. Rich, Marywood University

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It will surely be required reading for academics, practitioners, and students in all disciplines even remotely connected to psychology and the clinical practice of psychoanalysis.

—M. Uebel, University of Texas

Tupinambá, Gabriel. The desire of psychoanalysis: exercises in Lacanian thinking. Northwestern University, 2021. 280p bibl index ISBN 9780810142824, $99.95; ISBN 9780810142817 pbk, $34.95; ISBN 9780810142831 ebook, $34.95.

Tupinambá (fellow, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) carries out a flawless, triumphant deconstruction of Lacanian psychoanalysis in this book. The text is revolutionary, in the precise sense that it overturns decades of Lacanian thinking. Tupinambá demonstrates that the historical and cultural conditions that grounded and enabled the psychoanalytic breakthroughs of Lacanian analysis were also responsible for severely limiting the full implications of Lacan’s own thinking from coming to fruition in practice. As readers find, at the intersection of the clinic and the academic institution emerges a politics that Tupinambá explores (or even exploits) in terms of how the very discipline of psychoanalysis has been both advanced and retrograded. An insistent and recurrent theme of the text (destitution) allows the author to pose his central question in chapter 8 (“The Idea of the Passe“): “… is there not, after all, a certain subjective destitution at play in the very engagement with the practice of analysis?” (p. 176). In this reader’s view, Tupinambá’s work may be the most important book on psychoanalysis published in the last several decades. It will surely be required reading for academics, practitioners, and students in all disciplines even remotely connected to psychology and the clinical practice of psychoanalysis. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. —M. Uebel, University of Texas

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