Distributed Presses

Learn more about Alan Jamieson's Faith and Sword

Author Commentary: Alan G. Jamieson

In a Globe and Mail op-ed published on Wednesday, August 15, Alan Jamieson considers the telling parallels between the British occupation of Egypt from 1882 to 1919 and the now four-year U.S. occupation of Iraq. In particular, he considers when and how the U.S. will finally withdraw from Iraq. He notes:

Thus, the Americans probably face stronger pressure to leave Iraq than was exerted on the British in Egypt, but they may still feel they have compelling reasons to stay, whatever the political debate at home.
Like the British in Egypt, the Americans may promise year after year to leave Iraq, yet still hang on. Whether they will match the British record of a "temporary" occupation that lasted for three-quarters of a century is another matter.

Read Jamieson's op-ed

New York Calling Excerpt

On July 25th, 2007, the New York Sun printed an excerpt of Luc Sante's essay "Commerce" from the forthcoming Reaktion title New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg, edited by Marshall Berman and Brian Berger.

Read the Excerpt

Review: New York Calling

Publisher's Weekly reviewed Reaktion's forthcoming New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg edited by Marshall Berman and Brian Berger in the July 9th, 2007 issue.

Publisher's Weekly highlights the "bonding of firsthand recollection to broader historical issues," and suggests that "this multivoiced collection establishes itself as a unique document of the city's last three decades."

Review: The First English Dictionary, 1604

Julia Keller recently reviewed Bodleian Library's The First English Dictionary, 1604 in the Chicago Tribune. She writes that "few books are as delightful as this compendium. . . ."

The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music (Review Unavailable Online)

Review: Pathways to Unknown Worlds

Byron Coley recently praised Pathways to Unknown Worlds from WhiteWalls in the May issue of the Wire. Coley praises the visual work included in the volume, "It looks incredible. . . ." He praises the essays by Corbett and Adam Abraham for setting the scene. Finally, he exclaims of Ra's work, ". . . [I]ts visionary brilliance will become plain to anyone who takes the time to look at it with the wonder it deserves."

Review: Unintended Consequences: The United States at War

Bruce Elder briefly reviewed Kenneth J. Hagan and Ian J. Bickerton's Unintended Consequences: The United States at War in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 24th, 2007. Elder credits Hagan and Bickerton for demonstrating the many ways in which wars faught by the U.S. fail to achieve the planned goals: "The book persuasively demonstrates that there will always be unintended consequences flowing from war."

Posted by SSD at 10:13 AM | Permalink
Posted to History | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion | Reviews

Review: Karaoke: The Global Phenomenon by Zhou Xun and Francesca Tarocco

Nina C. Ayoub recently reviewed Karaoke: The Global Phenomenon in the "Note Bene" section of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Ayoub discusses the spread of karaoke and its origins. She also credits Zhou Xun and Francesca Tarocco for providing a theoretical context for the discussion:

The two academics give a nod to theory at the beginning of their tour. Karaoke, they say, challenges easy equations of globalization with Americanization. "'Global traffic' goes in all directions." In this case, an Eastern creation has spread, incorporating local traditions in every new place.

Review: The First English Dictionary, 1604

Scott McLemee recently reviewed Bodleian Library's The First English Dictionary, 1604 on Inside Higher Ed. McLemee provides some biographical details on Robert Cawdrey, the original author, and assesses the historical context in which the dictionary was produced.

He goes on to praise Cawdrey and his dictionary on a number of accounts. McLemee praises Cawdrey's pioneering spirit:

At the risk of being overly present-minded, there's a sense in which Cawdrey was a pioneer in dealing with the effects of his era's information explosion. Thanks to the printing press, the English language was undergoing a kind of mutation in the 16th century.

He also praises the format and its accessibility:

Apart from its importance to the history of lexicography, this pioneering reference work remains interesting as an early effort to strike a balance between innovation and accessibility in language use.

Read the NBCC's Blog Entry "The Devil's Dictionary" on McLemee's Review

Read McLemee's response to the NBCC Entry on Puritan Sexuality

Read a brief Entry on Bookninja

Author Event: Ian J. Bickerton and Kenneth J. Hagan

Ian J. Bickerton and Kenneth J. Hagan, authors of Unintended Consequences: The United States at War, recently wrote an article in the San Francisco Chronicle outlining the ways in which wars result in unintended consequences for the United States. More specifically, "Iraq is only the latest example of an American war whose unintended consequences dwarf the original justification and expectations of the leaders who drew the nation into belligerency."

Bickerton and Hagan go on to argue that the United States should emphasize negotiation and restraint:

Rather than calling for an expanded use of military force . . . , the United States should look for ways to encourage democratic change through restraint and patience.
"Negotiation" rather than "war" should become the United States' byword in its relations with hostile regimes as well as with friendly ones. That way it can seek to avoid the nasty uninteded consequences that are sure to follow once the shooting begins. It's a lesson U.S. planners should heed as they consider how to deal with Iran.

Read the Article

Posted by SSD at 11:22 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | History | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion

Review: Pathways to Unknown Worlds

Scott Verrastro recently reviewed Pathways to Unknown Worlds from WhiteWalls in JazzTimes, calling it, ". . . a fascinating array of early Sun Ra and El Saturn artifacts. . . ." Verrastro contextualizes the collection within the universe of Sun Ra, reminding readers new to Sun Ra that his Afro-Futurist mythology is both serious and full of humor.

We agree with Verrastro: "To these eyes, too much Sun Ra epehemera is never enough. . . ."

Bored? Listen to Lars Svendsen, Instead.

Lars Svendsen, author of A Philosophy of Boredom, recently spoke on To the Best of Our Knowledge on Wisconsin Public Radio. Svendsen shares his research into the long history of boredom, the types of boredom, and some solutions to boredom.

What is it that makes you bored? Who were the first bored people? What is the meaning of boredom? Are we responsible for our boredom? Are there any benefits to boredom? Tune in. Find out. Stay engaged.

Listen to the Show

Review: Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow

A.N. Wilson recently reviewed David Goodway's Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward in the UK's Daily Telegraph. Wilson proclaims that Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow is, "A splendid survey of 'Left-libertarian thought' . . . . Though it is very learned, it isn't dry."

From William Morris to George Orwell, left-libertarian thought has long been an important but neglected part of British history. In Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow, David Goodway seeks to recover and revitalize that indigenous anarchist tradition.

Posted by SSD at 09:54 AM | Permalink
Posted to History | Literature | Liverpool University Press | Philosophy

John Belcham on Thinking Allowed

John Belcham, editor of Liverpool 800, recently spoke on the celebration of Liverpool's 800th year on BBC's Thinking Allowed. Belcham discusses Liverpool architecture, cultural quarters, and the importance of sugar to the city's history.

In anticipation of Liverpool's eight-hundredth anniversary in 2007, Liverpool 800 is the definitive biography of this magnificent world city. The book uses the latest historical research to explore the life of Liverpool over eight centuries to the present day, and includes detailed sections on politics, economics, and culture. Written by experts on Liverpool history, such as Donald M. MacRaild and Colin G. Pooley and incorporating exquisite color illustrations, Liverpool 800 offers an insider's perspective on the city the European Union has named "European Capital of Culture" for 2008.

Listen to Thinking Allowed

Author Event: Danny Postel at Stop Smiling

On Friday, February 2nd at 7:00 pm at the editorial offices of Stop Smiling, Danny Postel will discuss "The Necropolitical Imagination" or Michel Foucault's complex interaction with the Iranian Revolution. The discussion will be based on a section from Postel's Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism and will be followed by a conversation between Postel and Stop Smiling editor J. C. Gabel.

Stop Smiling is located at 1371 N. Milwaukee Ave, about halfway between the North/Damen and Ashland/Milwaukee Blue Line stops in Chicago. Don't miss it!

Find out more about Stop Smiling

More Information on the Event

Author Event: Philip Mosley and Anthracite!

Philip Mosley, editor of Anthracite! An Anthology of Coal Region Drama, invites the public to attend a book signing and dramatic reading at the Bookstore of Penn State Worthington Scranton on Tuesday, January 23rd from Noon to 2:00pm.

Philip Mosley is professor of English, Communications, and Comparative Literature at Penn State Worthington Scranton. He edited and wrote the introduction for the book which was published recently by the University of Scranton Press.

Review: Ralph Ayres' Cookery Book

Florence Fabricant, writing in the December 27th, 2006 edition of the New York Times offers a brief review of Bodleian Library's Ralph Ayres' Cookery Book, the cookbook of an 18th Century dining hall master from New College, Oxford:

This slender volume reproduces the pages of the original, interpsersing them with botanical illustrations. It offers some dishes that are quite appealing: quince marmalade, rasberry jam, veal rolled with bacon into ovals and roasted on a spit "as with larks" and gingerbread glazed with dark ale.

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Review: Stalking by Bran Nicol

Stalking remains popular today. Edel Kennedy writes in the Irish Independent that "Our modern attitude to love and relationships is breeding a generation of lusty stalkers," and quotes Bran Nicol's recently released Stalking from Reaktion Books: "Stalkers can find it particularly hard to read the implicit codes."

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Review: Stalking by Bran Nicol

John Allemang recently reviewed Bran Nicol's Stalking in the Globe and Mail. Allemang praises the "lively work," which shows how ". . . our cultural artifacts not only reflect our growing social anxieties but also come to define them."

While Allemang points out that the Greek gods could be the original stalkers, he credits Nicol with successfully analyzing our current "Age of Stalking:" "Nicol builds a strong case that our era has aided and abetted a peculiar obsession to the point where it is accepted as an everyday phenomenon."

Read Cotter's Review in the New York Times

Review: Cosmophilia by Blair and Bloom

Holland Cotter of the New York Times recently reviewed the exhibition of Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College. Cotter compares the selections included in the show to the terraced architecture of the Mughal gardens in which the various man-made sections represent all of creation:

[The artworks emanate] . . . the suggestion of the world as a continuous, light-catching fabric, ever on the loom and always hiding something ineffable behind it: space, time, God, life energy, call it what you will.

With a history spanning some fourteen centuries, Islamic art is one of the world's great artistic traditions, although it largely eschews such familiar art forms as painting on canvas and monumental sculpture. Cosmophilia is also the catalog of the exhibition of 123 examples of the finest examples of Islamic art from the C. L. David Collection in Copenhagen, Denmark showing at the McMullen Museum at Boston College and soon to travel to the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago. These beguiling works from Spain, West Africa, China, and Indonesia include ornamental textiles, calligraphy, book-painting, ceramics, and inlaid wood.

An introductory essay by cocurators Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom that explores the nature and meaning of ornament in Islamic art accompanies this lavishly illustrated catalog. In addition to their in-depth discussion of the collection, Blair and Bloom reveal how Islamic artists incorporate figural ornament, written text, geometry, and even vegetation in their designs. The resulting volume will thrill anyone interested in the distinctive beauty of Islamic art.

Review: Designing the Seaside by Fred Gray

Toni Salama recently reviewed Fred Gray's Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature in the Chicago Tribune. Salama first distinguishes between the American beach and the British seaside and goes on to say that Designing the Seaside is ". . . a fascinating, sometimes embarrassing, gallery of how we once saw ourselves, or at least how the British did."

Posted by SSD at 09:32 AM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | History | Reaktion | Reviews

Review: The World of Emperor Charles V

Wim Blockmans and Nicolette Mout's The World of Emperor Charles V received praise from Amy R. Caldwell on H-Net: "Each individual article in this volume presents a unique look at the reign of Charles V. Each one shows the variety of possibilities for future research. "

Caldwell is not without criticism of the book, but she argues, "...the book is certainly a worthwhile volume, and one can hope that it is a sign of more Charles V research to come."

The distinguished contributors investigate three main areas of Charles' reign. They examine the economic developments that emerged under his rule, including the financing of wars and how his merging of various realms stimulated trade between different regions. The authors then consider the structure of Charles' political system, exploring the monarchy's method for maintaining the secrecy of their communications and the structure of his vast empire's administrative apparatus. The volume concludes with an examination of the unique relationship between Charles and artists, as he constructed and manipulated his public image through his support of artworks that glorified his deeds.

Learn More about Christopher Frayling's Mad, Bad and Dangerous?

Posted by SSD at 01:03 PM | Permalink
Posted to Edita | History | Reviews

Award: Mad, Bad and Dangerous by Christopher Frayling

Christopher Frayling's Mad, Bad and Dangerous was nominated for an International Horror Guild award in nonfiction works produced in 2005.

According to the IHG site,

The International Horror Guild Awards are now in their twelfth year. Based on public recommendations, the juried awards recognize outstanding achievements in the field of Horror and Dark Fantasy. Nominations are derived from recommendations made by the public and the judges' knowledge of the field.

From Victor Frankenstein to Dr. Moreau to Doc Brown in Back to the Future, the scientist has been a puzzling, fascinating, and threatening presence in popular culture. From films we have learned that scientists are either evil maniacal geniuses or bumbling saviors of society. Mad, Bad and Dangerous? puts this dichotomy to the test, offering a wholly engaging yet not uncritical history of the cinematic portrayal of scientists.

Visit the IHG online

Review: The Shifts in Hizbullah's Ideology by Joseph E. Alagha

Rola el-Husseini wrote an in depth review of Joseph E. Alagha's upcoming Spring 2007 title The Shifts in Hizbullah's Ideology in the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies. The review is in response to recent hostilities in Lebanon amongst Israel's military, Lebanon's people, Hizbullah fighters, and their multifarious supporters.

Rola el-Husseini discusses Alagha's treatment of the linkages among Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah, focusing on the politico-religious concept of wilayat al-faqih, Hizbullah's funding, and the "Lebanonization" project associated with Hizbullah's charitable works. Along with Hamzeh's In the Path of Hizbullah, el-Husseini describes Alagha's The Shifts in Hizbullah's Ideology as, ". . . especially helpful in decoding the nature of the relations between the Islamic Republic and Hizbullah."

Download a .pdf version of the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies

Review: Faith and Sword by Alan G. Jamieson

James Srodes recently reviewed Alan G. Jamieson's book Faith and Sword: A Short History of Christian-Muslim Conflictin the Washington Times. He describes Jamieson's book as, ". . .[A] straightforward textbook in reviewing the history of the conflict between adherents of the two religions. . . ."

Learn more about Jamieson's book Faith and Sword

Review: Designing the Seaside

Michael S. Gant recently reviewed Fred Gray's Designing the Seaside on the Silicon Valley-based Metroactive blog. "Summer has passed, and now is the time to read about going to the beach, instead of going to the beach," claims Gant. Gant praises Gray's work, equating the book's charms with that of its subject: "You can almost smell the salt air."

Read the Full Review on H-France

Review: Autobiography and Independence

Clarisse Zimra of Southern Illinois University recently reviewed Debra Kelly's Autobiography and Independence: Self and Identity in North African Writing in French in the online H-France Review:

With this book, professor Debra Kelly, who teaches at the University of Westminster, proffers a richly researched study on four authors raised as subjects of Empire in North Africa during the first half of the twentieth century: Algeria's Mouloud Feraoun, a Kabyle born in 1913 and Assia Djebar, an Andalusian-Berber born in 1936; Albert Memmi, a Tunisian Sephardim born in 1923 and Abdelkébir Khatibi, a Moroccan Arab born in 1938. None had French as a native tongue. All wrote in the language of the colonizers. Trained in the schools of their colonial masters, witnesses to their countries' access to full independence, their writings have been stamped by a personal experience profoundly marked by the cultural and political trauma of colonial history. Such history has defined them and shaped their craft. Therefore, Kelly posits, these four must be read along two simultaneous axes of interpretation: (a) the biographical connection that sees their works as the painful coming of age of the colonized self seeking agency; and (b) the socio-political context against which they define and eventually achieve their own private and public decolonization.

Learn More about Autobiography and Independence/

Author Event: Alan G. Jamieson

Alan G. Jamieson, author of Faith and Sword: A Short History of Christian-Muslim Conflict, wrote an editorial for the Monday, September 18th edition of Ottowa Citizen on Pope Benedict XVI's recent quotation of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus. Jamieson explains the history behind the emperor's claim and suggests that the pope's use of the quotation was unfortunate.

Read the Essay

Learn more about Jamieson's book Faith and Sword

Review: Allergy by Mark Jackson

The New England Journal of Medicine recently reviewed Mark Jackson's Allergy: The History of a Modern Malady, which has also garnered praise elsewhere.

In the New England Journal of Medicine, Heather L. Van Epps praises Jackson's skills as a historian and claims that Allergy "provides a rich medical and social narrative, suitable for anyone with a penchant for medical history and curiosity about the roots of this still enigmatic modern-day scourge."

Only a century ago, allergies as we know them didn't exist. Ailments such as hay fever, asthma, and food intolerance were considered rare and non-fatal diseases that affected only the upper classes of Western society. Yet, as Jackson reveals here, what began in the early 1900s as a scorned subfield of immunology research in Europe and America exploded into great medical, cultural, and political significance by the end of that century. Allergy traces how the allergy became the archetypal "disease of civilization," a fringe malady of the wealthy that became a disorder that bridged all socioeconomic boundaries and fueled anxieties over modernization. Jackson also examines the social impact of the allergy, as it required new therapeutic treatments and diagnostic procedures and brought in vast economic rewards.

Read the Review (log-in required)

Read Rachel Aspden's review in the New Statesman

Review: The Wisdom of Sun Ra

The magisterial proclamations contained in Whitewalls' Wisdom of Sun Ra are garnering interest from Chicago, where the broadsheets were written, to the U.K. at the New Statesman.

Peter Margasak writes in the Chicago Reader:

The Wisdom of Sun Ra includes beautiful reproductions of the dog-eared broadsheets, with full transcriptions in the second half of book. As interesting as the writings are in their own right, they're also offer powerful insights into the personality and philosophy that was central to Ra's later work.

Rachel Aspden is less enthralled with the particularities of Ra's space-mythologies than Peter Margasak, but she still advocates the book as a "fascinating window" into Ra's views:

It's easy to overdose on Ra's liberal use of capitals and frequent invocations of Neptune, but for browsing, John Corbett's selection offers a fascinating window on to the weird world of one of the 20th century's most influential musicians.

Read Peter Margasak's Reader blog

Read Brophy's entry at PropertyProf Blog

Review: The Destruction of Memory by Robert Bevan

Robert Bevan's Destruction of Memory continues to impress readers. Given the ongoing destruction throughout various global wars, it continues to be a timely work. Alfred A. Brophy writes in the PropertyProf Blog, ". . . I highly recommend Bevan's Destruction of Memory; it's an important and moving book."

Brophy even expands on Bevan's themes, relating the destruction of architecture following race riots in Tulsa and the destruction of the University of Alabama's Library at the hands of Union soldiers in 1865.

Read another essay by Jamieson on Afghanistan in The Edmonton Journal

Continuing the Christian-Muslim Conflict?: Israel, Iran and Lebanon by Alan G. Jamieson

The current clash between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon brings more warfare to an area that has seen the clash of armies since ancient times. Is this a new stage in a conflict that has its roots in the modern post-1945 period or just a continuation of a centuries-old struggle? It may seem odd to characterize warfare between a Jewish state and a terrorist group drawn from the Shia Muslim population of Lebanon as a continuation of the Christian-Muslim conflict which began in the seventh century CE, yet this clash has discernible roots in that age-old struggle. This essay will examine the elements of historical continuity between the past and today, as well as important new features in the current conflict.

At the start of the twentieth century, the world's greatest Muslim power, the Ottoman empire, was struggling to resist the attacks upon it by the Christian powers of Europe. This conflict still had a definite religious aspect. During the 1890s the Christian powers had threatened to intervene when Christian Armenians were massacred in the empire. For a thousand years the Muslims had generally been dominant in the Christian-Muslim conflict, but from the seventeenth century onwards, the Christian powers of Europe had become ever stronger. They achieved their final victory in the First World War. The Ottoman Empire was defeated and broken up. By the early 1920s there were only a handful of Muslim states in the world which were not part of one of the European empires.

Continue reading "Continuing the Christian-Muslim Conflict?: Israel, Iran and Lebanon by Alan G. Jamieson" »

Author Event: Kim Stringfellow, Greetings from the Salton Sea

Kim Stringfellow was interviewed by Bobby Tanzilo of OnMilwaukee.com in conjunction with an exhibit at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The center is located at 608 New York Ave, Sheboygan, WI 53082 and can be contacted at 920-458-6144. The exhibition runs until October 22.

Stringfellow describes the relations between art and science in her work, focusing on the environment and its degradation as it is manifested at the Salton Sea.

Read the interview with Kim Stringfellow

Learn more about the exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center

Review: The Destruction of Memory by Robert Bevan

Joshua Arthurs recently reviewed Robert Bevan's The Destruction of Memory in In These Times:

Although cultural heritage has been protected by international treaties for more than 50 years, it rarely features in war crimes tribunals. Yet from the Nazi looting of synagogues to the Taliban's demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas, deliberate destruction of the physical environment has often presaged devastating conflicts. Bevan's timely book urges us to remain attentive to such early warning signs.

Given the ongoing wars, Bevan's book is sure to continue to appeal to readers.