This week is #ACBookWeek in the United Kingdom, a week long celebration of the diversity, innovation, and influence of academic books. Follow the conversation on Twitter or on our blog via the #ACBook Week tag.
The influence of academic discourse on policy-makers and other influencers is well established, and we are happy to continue to publish scholarship that is both innovative and influential. As part of the UK’s Academic Book Week, we wanted to highlight some of our recent UK/EU-focused titles that we feel showcase the diversity, innovation, and influence of scholarly publishing.
Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent Extremism
Michael Kimmel
What draws young men into violent extremist groups? What are the ideologies that inspire them to join? And what are the emotional bonds forged that make it difficult to leave, even when they want to? Having conducted in-depth interviews with ex–white nationalists and neo-Nazis in the United States, as well as ex-skinheads and ex-neo-Nazis in Germany and Sweden, renowned sociologist Michael Kimmel demonstrates the pernicious effects that constructions of masculinity have on these young recruits.
Constructions of Terrorism: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Research and Policy
edited by Michael Stohl, Richard Burchill, and Scott Howard Englund
Discussions about the meaning of terrorism are enduring in everyday language, government policy, news reporting, and international politics. And disagreements about both the definition and the class of violent events that constitute terrorism contribute to the difficulty of formulating effective responses aimed at the prevention and management of the threat of terrorism and the development of counterterrorism policies. Constructions of Terrorism collects works from the leading scholars on terrorism from an array of disciplines—including communication, political science, sociology, global studies, and public policy—to establish appropriate research frameworks for understanding how we construct our understanding of terrorism.
The Odyssey: A New Translation by Peter Green
Homer, translated by Peter Green
The Odyssey is vividly captured and beautifully paced in this swift and lucid new translation by acclaimed scholar and translator Peter Green. Accompanied by an illuminating introduction, maps, chapter summaries, a glossary, and explanatory notes, this is the ideal translation for both general readers and students to experience The Odyssey in all its glory. Green’s version, with its lyrical mastery and superb command of Greek, offers readers the opportunity to enjoy Homer’s epic tale of survival, temptation, betrayal, and vengeance with all of the verve and pathos of the original oral tradition.
Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom
Norman Finkelstein
Based on scores of human rights reports, Norman G. Finkelstein’s new book presents a meticulously researched inquest into Gaza’s martyrdom. He shows that although Israel has justified its assaults in the name of self-defense, in fact these actions constituted flagrant violations of international law. Finkelstein’s magnum opus is both a monument to Gaza’s martyrs and an act of resistance against the forgetfulness of history.
Brian O’Doherty: Collected Essays
Brian O’Doherty, edited by Liam Kelly
This long-awaited volume brings together much of Brian O’Doherty’s most influential writing, including essays on major figures such as Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol, and a substantial follow-up to his iconic Inside the White Cube. New pieces specifically authored for this collection include a meditation on O’Doherty’s various alternate personae—most notably Patrick Ireland—and a reflection on his seminal “Highway to Las Vegas” from 1972, penned after a return visit in 2012.
The Doctor Faustus Dossier: Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann, and Their Contemporaries, 1930-1951
edited by E. Randol Schoenberg
This complete edition of letters and documents between Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann brings together two towering figures of twentieth-century music and literature, both of whom found refuge in Los Angeles during the Nazi era. Culminating in the famous dispute over Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus, the correspondence, diary entries, and related articles provide a glimpse inside the private and public lives of these two great artists, the outstanding figures of the German-exile community in California.
A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries
Henry Notaker
A History of Cookbooks provides a sweeping literary and historical overview of the cookbook genre, exploring its development as a part of food culture beginning in the Late Middle Ages. Studying cookbooks from various Western cultures and languages, Henry Notaker traces the transformation of recipes from brief notes with ingredients into detailed recipes with a specific structure, grammar, and vocabulary. In addition, he reveals that cookbooks go far beyond offering recipes: they tell us a great deal about nutrition, morals, manners, history, and menus while often providing entertaining reflections and commentaries.
Food and Power: A Culinary Ethnography of Israel
Nir Avieli
Drawing on ethnography conducted in Israel since the late 1990s, Food and Power considers how power is produced, reproduced, negotiated, and subverted in the contemporary Israeli culinary sphere. Nir Avieli explores issues such as the definition of Israeli cuisine, the ownership of hummus, the privatization of communal Kibbutz dining rooms, and food at a military prison for Palestinian detainees to show how cooking and eating create ambivalence concerning questions of strength and weakness and how power and victimization are mixed into a sense of self-justification that maintains internal cohesion among Israeli Jews.
