For much of the twentieth century, France recruited colonial subjects from sub-Saharan Africa to serve in its military, sending West African soldiers to fight its battles in Europe, Southeast Asia, and North Africa. In this exemplary contribution to the "new imperial history," Gregory Mann argues that this shared military experience between France and Africa was fundamental not only to their colonial relationship but also to the reconfiguration of that relationship in the postcolonial era. Mann explains that in the early twenty-first century, among Africans in France and Africa, and...
For much of the twentieth century, France recruited colonial subjects from sub-Saharan Africa to serve in its military, sending West African soldiers ...
"Colored Amazons" is a groundbreaking historical analysis of the crimes, prosecution, and incarceration of black women in Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century. Kali N. Gross reconstructs black women's crimes and their representations in popular press accounts and within the discourses of urban and penal reform. Most importantly, she considers what these crimes signified about the experiences, ambitions, and frustrations of the marginalized women who committed them. Gross argues that the perpetrators and the state jointly constructed black female crime. For some women, crime...
"Colored Amazons" is a groundbreaking historical analysis of the crimes, prosecution, and incarceration of black women in Philadelphia at the turn of ...
In Disciplining Statistics Libby Schweber compares the science of population statistics in England and France during the nineteenth century, demonstrating radical differences in the interpretation and use of statistical knowledge. Through a comparison of vital statistics and demography, Schweber describes how the English government embraced statistics, using probabilistic interpretations of statistical data to analyze issues related to poverty and public health. The French were far less enthusiastic. Political and scientific elites in France struggled with the "reality" of statistical...
In Disciplining Statistics Libby Schweber compares the science of population statistics in England and France during the nineteenth century, de...
In Disciplining Statistics Libby Schweber compares the science of population statistics in England and France during the nineteenth century, demonstrating radical differences in the interpretation and use of statistical knowledge. Through a comparison of vital statistics and demography, Schweber describes how the English government embraced statistics, using probabilistic interpretations of statistical data to analyze issues related to poverty and public health. The French were far less enthusiastic. Political and scientific elites in France struggled with the "reality" of statistical...
In Disciplining Statistics Libby Schweber compares the science of population statistics in England and France during the nineteenth century, de...
The history of Western intervention in the Middle East stretches from the late eighteenth century to the present day. All too often, the Western rationale for invading and occupying a country to liberate its people has produced new forms of domination that have hindered rather than encouraged the emergence of democratic politics. Abdeslam M. Maghraoui advances the understanding of this problematic dynamic through an analysis of efforts to achieve liberal reform in Egypt following its independence from Great Britain in 1922.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Egypt's reformers equated liberal notions...
The history of Western intervention in the Middle East stretches from the late eighteenth century to the present day. All too often, the Western ratio...
As the twentieth century drew to a close, the unity and authority of the secularist Turkish state were challenged by the rise of political Islam and Kurdish separatism on the one hand and by the increasing demands of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank on the other. While the Turkish government had long limited Islam--the religion of the overwhelming majority of its citizens--to the private sphere, it burst into the public arena in the late 1990s, becoming part of party politics. As religion became political, symbols of Kemalism--the official ideology of...
As the twentieth century drew to a close, the unity and authority of the secularist Turkish state were challenged by the rise of political Islam and K...
Beyond Belief is a bold rethinking of the formation and consolidation of nation-state ideologies. Analyzing India during the first two decades following its foundation as a sovereign nation-state in 1947, Srirupa Roy explores how nationalists are turned into nationals, subjects into citizens, and the colonial state into a sovereign nation-state. Roy argues that the postcolonial nation-state is consolidated not, as many have asserted, by efforts to imagine a shared cultural community, but rather by the production of a recognizable and authoritative identity for the state. This...
Beyond Belief is a bold rethinking of the formation and consolidation of nation-state ideologies. Analyzing India during the first two decades ...
Salt in the Sand is a compelling historical ethnography of the interplay between memory and state violence in the formation of the Chilean nation-state. The historian and anthropologist Lessie Jo Frazier focuses on northern Chile, which figures prominently in the nation's history as a site of military glory during the period of national conquest, of labor strikes and massacres in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, and of state detention and violence during World War II and the Cold War. It was also the site of a mass-grave excavation that galvanized the national human...
Salt in the Sand is a compelling historical ethnography of the interplay between memory and state violence in the formation of the Chilean nati...
In the midst of China's post-Mao market reforms, the old status hierarchy is collapsing. Who will determine what will take its place? In "Creating Market Socialism," the sociologist Carolyn L. Hsu demonstrates the central role of ordinary people--rather than state or market elites--in creating new institutions for determining status in China. Hsu explores the emerging hierarchy, which is based on the concept of "suzhi," or quality. In suzhi ideology, human capital and educational credentials are the most important measures of status and class position. Hsu reveals how, through their words and...
In the midst of China's post-Mao market reforms, the old status hierarchy is collapsing. Who will determine what will take its place? In "Creating Mar...
A sociological study of networking that explores the relationship between networks and agency and that analyzes a rich historical antecedent of contemporary networking and the concept of self that accompanies it.
A sociological study of networking that explores the relationship between networks and agency and that analyzes a rich historical antecedent of contem...