The American Association of Geographers virtual meeting is an important reminder of why we all gather: to share new insights and to get inspired. In that spirit, we’re excited to share some highlights from the University of California Press Geography list, which focuses on advancing new perspectives on environmental, social, and cultural issues.
New and Forthcoming Books:
As COVID-19 continues to challenge society in unpredictable and unimagined ways, Sarah Jaquette Ray shares valuable lessons for thriving in the face of an uncertain future in her forthcoming Field Guide to Climate Anxiety. While the tools in the book are specific to navigating emotions around climate change, her advice will help anyone who is feeling overwhelmed.
A People’s Guide to Greater Boston by Joseph Nevins, Suren Moodliar, and Eleni Macrakis is the newest book in the series and offers a rich, vibrant alternative to the traditional city guide and tourist destinations. This book highlights the city’s history of radical organizing and the places and people involved in movements ranging from abolishing slavery to ensuring sexual liberation and securing workers’ rights.
Laura R. Barraclough’s Charros: How Mexican Cowboys are Remapping Race and American Identity traces the evolution of the charro—a skilled, elite, and landowning horseman–through mixed triumphs and hostile backlashes, revealing the “original cowboy” as a crucial agent in the production of U.S., Mexican, and border cultures as well as a guiding force for Mexican American identity and social movements.
A recent title in our “American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present” series, Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger by Julie Sze is an essential primer, showing how people fight, survive, love, and create in the face of violence that challenges the conditions of life itself.
Stuart Schrader’s Badges without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transforms American Policing casts a new light on American empire and shows how the U.S. the same imperial tactics used to project imperial power overseas shapes the policing of city streets at home. This book offers a new account of the War on Crime and reveals the connections between foreign and domestic racial control.
America’s Largest Classroom: What We Learn from our National Parks, edited by Jessica L. Thompson and Ana K. Houseal, offers insight and practical advice for improving educational outreach at national parks as well as suggestions for classroom educators on how to meaningfully incorporate parks into their curricula. This volume showcases why parks are important spaces for learning about nature and U.S. cultural and social history.
Please consider supporting U.S. bookstores by purchasing online via Bookshop.org and Indiebound. Many, including Barnes & Noble, offer curbside pick-up as well.
