Elizabeth Arveda Kissling

Although a regular occurrence for millions of women, menstruation is typically represented in US culture as an illness or a shameful episode—to the benefit of an entire industry. Elizabeth Kissling reveals how corporations capitalize on long-standing negative attitudes about menses to sell solutions for nonexistent problems. The commercialization of menstruation, Kissling acknowledges, has  More >

Andres Serbin, translated by Sabeth Ramirez

Andres Serbin explores the complex of factors—external and domestic—that have shaped the geopolitical dynamics of the Caribbean region since the emergence, beginning in 1962, of non-Hispanic actors in the form of the newly independent Caribbean states. Serbin is especially concerned with attempts at cooperation and integration in the region, as well as with the impact of the arms race  More >

Richard F. Patteson

Offering a critical perspective on new fiction from the West Indies, Patteson concentrates on five writers from diverse backgrounds and with differing perspectives and artistic strategies, who nevertheless share a commitment to an imaginative repossession of Caribbean life and consciousness. The writers discussed are Olive Senior (Jamaica), who combines devices of oral narratives and  More >

Karyl Kicenski

What explains the boom in private prisons—especially since the record of privatization for rehabilitating prisoners and saving taxpayer dollars is, at best, mixed? Karyl Kicenski examines the privatization of California state prisons to illuminate the forces that shape and distort our criminal justice policies. Tracing the growth of private prisons from 1980 to the current day, Kicenski  More >

Seydou Badian, translated by Marie-Thérèse Noiset

A gentle novel about the enduring conflict between young and old, new and traditional, foreign and native. Badian tells the story of a village family in an African country under French rule. The family's father and the eldest son revere the customs of their ancestors, while the younger children are strongly attracted by European ways and ideas. The daughter, Kany, has fallen in love with her  More >

Ian Smart

This is the first book-length analysis of the emerging literature written in Spanish by contemporary Central Americans whose grandparents came from the largely English-speaking islands of the Caribbean. Smart shows how the themes of language, religion, identity, exile, the plantation, mestizaje, and interracial love are explored in this literature to their fullest pan- Caribbean potential, and how  More >

Maxwell A. Cameron and Grace M. Jaramillo, editors

Although military coups are rare in the Andean countries, democracies remain prone to deep political crises caused by elected leaders (especially strongmen, or caudillos) who abuse their power—often with broad public approval. What explains this phenomenon? The authors of Challenges to Democracy in the Andes propose answers to this question. Offering an analytical framework that  More >

Chester E. Finn Jr. Diane Ravitch, and P. Holley Roberts

This provocative volume explores themes that were highlighted in Chester Finn's and Diane Ravitch's earlier work (with coauthor Robert Fancher) Against Mediocrity. It elucidates and responds to concerns that underlie current challenges to the humanities, including public apathy, vocationalism, inadequate teacher training, the trendiness of computer study, and the readily determinable  More >

Rainier Spencer

What is multiracialism—and what are the theoretical consequences and practical costs of asserting a multiracial identity? Arguing that the multiracial movement bolsters, rather than subverts, traditional categories of race, Rainier Spencer critically assesses current scholarship in support of multiracial identity.  More >

Sean Foley

T. E. Lawrence once observed that Saudi Arabia had "so little art" that it could "be said to have no art at all." Whether that was once the case is arguable. But that it is not the case now is clear in Sean Foley's Changing Saudi Arabia. Exploring the contemporary arts movement in Saudi Arabia in the context of the kingdom's changing political realities, Foley finds  More >