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Amherst Books
8 Main Street  Amherst, MA 01002  ˇ   413.256.1547  ˇ  800.503.5865  ˇ  books@amherstbooks.com
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DependentStates
Amherst College professor Karen Sanchez-Eppler has a new book out, Dependent States: The Child's Part in Nineteenth-Century American Culture.   In it she examines the ties between children's literacy training & the growing cultural prestige of the novel; the way children functioned rhetorically in reform literature to enforce social norms; the way the risks of death to children shored up emotional power in the home; how Sunday schools socialized children into racial, religious, & national identities; & how class identity was produced, not only in terms of work, but also in the way children played.   (2005)
ConsumingFantasies
Hampshire College professor of English literature & cultural studies Lise Sanders has a new book, Consuming Fantasies: Labor, Leisure, & the London Shopgirl, 1880–1920.   The shopgirl was the subject of popular novels, newspaper articles, & political treatises on women’s work & leisure at the turn of the twentieth century.   But who exactly was she, & why did she feature in so many narratives about women, sexuality, & urban life?   As Sanders reveals, the shopgirl embodied the fantasies associated with a growing consumer culture: romantic adventure, upward mobility, & the acquisition of material goods.   Reading novels such as George Gissing‘s The Odd Women & W. Somerset Maugham‘s Of Human Bondage as well as short stories, musical comedies, & films, she argues that the London shopgirl appeared in the midst of controversies over sexual morality & the pleasures & dangers of London itself.   Sanders explores the shopgirl’s centrality to modern conceptions of fantasy, desire, & everyday life for working women & argues for her as a key figure in cultural & social histories of the period.   (2006)
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Catherine Sanderson, who teaches in psychology at Amherst College, has a new book— Slow & Steady Parenting: Active Child–Raising for the Long Haul (Birth to Age Three).   Her book shows parents that following the quick–fix solutions in other books may not be the best way to raise well–adjusted kids.   Based on the most current research, Sanderson explains that the road to successful parenting is slow & steady.   Filled with imporant lessons & helpful advice for everyday situations, the book can help you decrease parent–child struggles & enchance a child’s psychological & physical well–being.   (2007)
MercyonTrial
Amherst College professor Austin Sarat has a new book, Mercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution.   In this first book-length study of executive clemency, Sarat turns our focus from questions of guilt & innocence to the very meaning of mercy itself.   From the history of capital clemency in the twentieth century to surrounding legal controversies & philosophical debates about when (if ever) mercy should be extended, Sarat examines the issue comprehensively.   In the end, he acknowledges the risks associated with mercy—but, he argues, those risks are worth taking.   (2005)
Dissent in Dangerous Times
Edited by Amherst College professor Austin Sarat Dissent in Dangerous Times examines the role of political opposition in our times, the nature of political repression in liberal societies, the political & legal implications of fear, & how past generations responded to similar situations.  It is also a reminder of the fragility & enduring power of freedom, & will inspire readers to think about, & beyond, September 11.   Includes essays by Sarat, Lauren Berlant, Wendy Brown, among others.   (2005)
LimitsofLaw
Edited by Amherst College professors, Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, & Martha Merrill Umphrey, The Limits of Law brings together well-established scholars to examine the limits of law, a topic that has been of broad interest since the events of 9/11 & the responses of U.S. law & policy to those events.   It includes essays by, among others, the editors & Amherst College professor, Adam Sitze.   (2005)
WorldsCauseLawyers
Edited by Amherst College professor Austin Sarat & Stuart Scheingold, The Worlds Cause Lawyers Make: Structure & Agency In Legal Practice examines the connections between lawyers & causes, the settings in which cause lawyers practice, & the ways they marshal social capital & make strategic decisions.   (paper, 2005)
CauseLawyers
Edited by Amherst College professor Austin Sarat & Stuart Scheingold, another title in their Cause Lawyering series: Cause Lawyers & Social Movements.(paper, 2005)
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Edited by Amherst College professors Austin Sarat & Nasser Hussain,the new Forgiveness, Mercy & Clemency, collects a group of essays which examine “the registers of individual psychology, religious belief, social practice, & political power circulating in & around those who foorgive, grant mercy, or possess clemncy power“.   As well as contributions by the editors & others, the book includes an essay by Amherst professor Adam Sitze.   (2006)
LifeofElaineEastman
Amherst resident & professor emeritus of biology at the University of Massachusetts, Theodore Sargent, has a new book, The Life Of Elaine Goodale Eastman.   Eastman, raised in a sheltered, puritanical household in New England, followed her conscience & calling in 1885 when she traveled west & opened a school on the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.   Over the next six years she witnessed many of the monumental events that affected the Lakotas, including the Ghost Dance religion & the fallout from the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890.   She also fell in love with & married Charles Eastman, a Dakota doctor with whom she had six children, & went on to help edit his many popular books on Sioux life & culture.   (2005)
Bartok
Amherst professor of music David Schneider, has published his first book—Bartók, Hungary, & the Renewal of Tradition: Case Studies in the Intersection of Modernity & Nationality.  Drawing from a wide array of material, including contemporary reviews & little-known Hungarian documents, Schneider examines Bartók’s musical oeuvre as both a continuation & a profound transformation of the national Hungarian tradition that Bartók repeatedly rejected in public, presenting us with a new perspective on the relationship between nationalism & modernism in early twentieth-century music.   (2007)
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Eric Schocket, who died in September, taught at Hampshire College.   His posthumously published book, Vanishing Moments: Class & American Literature, analyzes how various American authors have reified class through their writing, from the first influx of industrialism in the 1850s to the end of the Great Depression in the early 1940s.   Schocket offers careful readings of works by Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, William Dean Howells, Jack London, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Muriel Rukeyser, & Langston Hughes, among others, & explores how these authors worked to try to heal the rift between the classes.  (2007)
MyBodyworks
My Bodyworks: Songs About Your Bones, Muscles, Heart & More!, written by Jane Schoenberg, with music by Steven Schoenberg, & illustrations by Cynthia Fisher.   Learning about the body just got more exciting! Young children will discover how their bodies work when they read & sing along with fun & fact-filled songs.  How many bones are in each of your feet?   What are the five senses?   Where is the gluteus maximus?   Why do we pass gas?   Find out in this engaging book & 12-song CD set with its diverse array of musical styles that promises to get the whole family rocking.   (2004)
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Amherst’s Kathleen Scott, has a beautiful new book.   Based on her 2004 Lyell lectures at Oxford, Tradition & Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts establishes criteria for genuine artistic originality in manuscript books.   Each manuscript is assessed in detail in terms of its text, scribe(s), artists, decorative programme & circumstances of creation & is also set in its wider contexts of contemporary English manuscript art history by extensive reference to related manuscripts both contemporary & earlier, in England & on the Continent.   This ground-breaking study, by a leading historian of English art of the fifteenth century, offers an original investigation of motives for including pictures in manuscripts, of the role of the author in illustration, & of the traditional & innovative nature of visual representation in medieval manuscripts.   (2007)
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In his new book, The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell’s Secret, Northampton resident Seth Shulman uncovers the story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, & unchecked ambition.   By scrutinizing Bell’s journals, Shulman is able to prove that Bell furtively—and illegally—copied part of Elisha Gray’s invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued.   (2008)
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Seth Shulman’s new book, Undermining Science: Suppression & Distortion in the Bush Administration, shows how the Bush administration has systematically misled Americans on a wide range of scientific issues affecting public health, foreign policy, & the environment by ignoring, suppressing, manipulating, or even distorting scientific research.   It is the first book to focus exclusively on how this explosive issue has played out during the Presidency of George W. Bush & the first to comprehensively document his administration's abuses of science.   Shulman explains that, by knowingly misrepresenting & suppressing the truth, the Bush administration broke its covenant with its constituents in the most fundamental way possible, with consequences that reach far beyond the scientific community.   (2007; paper 2008)
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Norman Sims, professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts, has a new book: True Stories: A Century of Literature Journalism.   In it, Sims, who is the principal investigator for two major grant–funded projects, the Media Giraffe Project & the New England News Forum, traces more than a century of literary journalism’s history, examining the cultural connections, competing journalistic schools of thought, & innovative writers that have given literary journalism its power.   Seminal exmples of the genre provide ample context & background for the study of this style of journalism. (2008)
BlackArtsMovement
James Smethurst, professor in the Afro-Am Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts, has a new book, The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s & 1970s.  The book examines the formation of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s & demonstrates how it deeply influenced the production & reception of literature & art in the United States through its negotiations of the ideological climate of the Cold War, decolonization & the civil rights movement.   We pleased to be able to report that he won the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians for the book.   Smethurst is also author of The New Red Negro: The Literary Left & African American Poetry & co-editor of Left of the Color Line: Race, Radicalism, and Twentieth-Century Literature of the United States.   (2006)
SkepticTraveler
Susan Snively, Director of the Writing Center at Amherst College, has published several collections of poems—From This Distance, Voices in the House, The Undertow, & now, Skeptic Traveler.   Former Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur, writing of Snively's poetry, said it is "clean-cut, fluent, witty, direct, full of personality & surprise."   Her poems have appeared in The Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, The Antioch Review, The Florida Review, The Southern Humanities Review, & other magazines; her essays have appeared in StorySouth, The Southern Review, The Florida Review, & The Tampa Review.   (2005)
Disappearance
The prolific Ilan Stavans, who teaches at Amherst College, has just published a new book— The Disappearance: A Novella & Stories.   Stavans is mostly known for his penetrating essays on culture.  (See below!)   However, he is also a celebrated storyteller whose work has been translated into a dozen languages & has garnered numerous international awards. Disappearance includes the novella, “Morirse está en hebreo”, a thought-provoking meditation on continuity & tradition among Mexican Jews that takes place just as a decades–long one–party dictatorship is crumbling down.   It is the basis for a critically–acclaimed Mexican feature film that will be released in the United States in late 2006.   (2006)
Dictionary Days
Prolific author, editor, translator & professor at Amherst College, Ilan Stavans, has given us two new books this season.   The first, Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion, is a ebullient & erudite essay on the pleasures of the dictionary.   With forays into etymology & lexicography, filled with literary anecdotes, & personal discoveries, the book is a delight to read.   (2005)
Interviews with Ilan Stavans
The second book by Stavans this season is Conversations with Ilan Stavans.   For almost twenty years Stavans—described by the Washington Post as “Latin America's liveliest & boldest critic & most innovative cultural enthusiast”—has interviewed path–breaking intellectuals & artists in a wide range of media. As host of the critically acclaimed PBS series La Plaza, he interviews guests on pressing issues that affect the Western Hemisphere today, asking hard–hitting questions on immigration, religion, bilingualism, race, & democracy. This book collects for the first time in one volume Stavans's most provocative & enlightening interviews with Hispanics from both sides of the Rio Grande.  (2004)
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Allen Steele’s new sf novel, Spindrift, is now available.   A great addition to the Coyote series, Spindrift, recounts the first encounter with extraterrestials, with all the hi-tech intrigue & political machinations we've come to expect of Steele & the Coyote books.   (2007)
AllenSteele
Whatley resident Allen Steele has a new volume in his Coyote series, Coyote Frontier.   Besides the Coyote books—Coyote & Coyote Rising—Steele is author of numerous books, including Orbital Decay, Clarke County, Space, Lunar Descent, Labyrinth of Night, The Jericho Iteration, The Tranquillity Alternative, A King of Infinite Space, Oceanspace, & Chronospace.   He has also published four collections of short fiction: Rude Astronauts, All-American Alien Boy, Sex & Violence in Zero-G, & American Beauty.   Steele's novels & stories have won & been nominated for the most prestigious awards in the science fiction world.   (2005; 2006 paper)
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Lucía Suárez, who recently joined the Amherst College faculty, is author of a new book on Hispaniola: The Tears of Hispaniola: Haitian & Dominican Diaspora Memory.   The book explores the ways in which Haitian & Dominican autobiography & fiction serve as public record—documenting violence, terror, memory, & human rights violations on the island of Hispaniola, home to the two nations of Haiti & the Dominican Republic.   The book explores the works of four writers—Jean–Robert Cadet, Junot Díaz, Loida Maritza Perez, & Edwidge Danticat—all of whom were born on & subsequently left the island.   Suárez concludes that these writers use an autobiographical format as a means of coming to terms with & bringing attention to the larger injustices still occurring on the island.   Moreover, she uses their work as a platform to consider questions of ethnic identity & social reform for the large & growing U.S.–Caribbean community, finding that citizens of the diaspora challenge prejudices & make a distinct impact on the cultural landscape of the United States.   (2006)
CaptorsandCaptives
Amherst College professor Kevin Sweeney & Evan Haefeli won the New England Historical Association Book Award & the Award of Merit from the American Association for State & Local History when Captors & Captives: The 1704 French & Indian Raid on Deerfield was published in 2004.   The definitive account of a pivotal episode in colonial American history is now available in paperback.   (2004; paper 2005)
CaptiveHistories
Edited by Amherst College professor Kevin Sweeney & Evan Haefeli, Captive Histories: English, French, & Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid draws together an unusually rich body of original sources that tell the story of the 1704 French & Indian attack on Deerfield, Massachusetts, from different vantage points.   Texts range from one of the most famous early American captivity narratives, John Williams‘s “The Redeemed Captive”, to the records of French soldiers & clerics, to little–known Abenaki & Mohawk stories of the raid that emerged out of their communities‘ oral traditions.   (2006)

Last updated 16 October, 2008 Site Map