Everyone knows summer is a great time to pick up a book and have a relaxing read. Our history professors are prolific writers and their books cover a broad range of topics. Each Friday of the summer via social media we highlighted a different book penned by our very own faculty. Below is a copy of all of our book suggestions.

Book Suggestion #1: To start things off, we suggest: Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey by Professor John Brooke

Climate Change and the Course of Global History presents the first global study by a historian to fully integrate the earth-system approach of the new climate science with the material history of humanity. A reviewer says, “‘Think of this as travel writing of the highest order. A rough journey for mankind becomes a stimulating armchair adventure for the reader. This is big history, framed by big ideas but anchored in the very recent explosion of knowledge about climate through the ages and about our history and prehistory. Brooke skillfully navigates the interpretive hazards of proxy paleoclimate data. In Brooke’s persuasive account, our evolution to modernity is not absolutely determined by climate and disease, but it has been substantially influenced by them. Our new knowledge shows that quite often these influences abruptly change course, and Brooke shows that much of our history is a consequence of societies scrambling to adjust.'” –Mark A. Cane, G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University http://ow.ly/oXtB30cg32U

 

 

Book Suggestion #2: Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery by Professor Margaret E. Newell

The book has won the James A. Rawley Prize in the History of Race Relations in the United States (Organization of American Historians) and the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize (Massachusetts Historical Society).

In Brethren by Nature, Margaret Ellen Newell reveals a little-known aspect of American history: English colonists in New England enslaved thousands of Indians. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists’ desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, including the Pequot War of 1637, King Philip’s War of 1675–76, and the northeastern Wabanaki conflicts of 1676–1749. When the wartime conquest of Indians ceased, New Englanders turned to the courts to get control of their labor, or imported Indians from Florida and the Carolinas, or simply claimed free Indians as slaves. https://history.osu.edu/publications/brethren-by-nature

 

 

Book Suggestion #3:  Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt by Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries

Winner of the 2010 Clinton Jackson Coley Award for the best book on local history from the Alabama Historical Association

Early in 1966, African Americans in rural Lowndes County, Alabama, aided by activists from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), established an all-black, independent political party called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO). The group, whose ballot symbol was a snarling black panther, was formed in part to protest the barriers to black enfranchisement that had for decades kept every single African American of voting age off the county’s registration books. Even after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, most African Americans in this overwhelmingly black county remained too scared even to try to register. Their fear stemmed from the county’s long, bloody history of whites retaliating against blacks who strove to exert the freedom granted to them after the Civil War. https://history.osu.edu/publications/bloody-lowndes

 

Book Suggestion #4: The Collapse of the Confederacy by Professor Mark Grimsley

Practically all Civil War historians agree that after the fall of Atlanta in September 1864 and Lincoln’s triumphant reelection in November, the South had no remaining chance to make good its independence. Well aware that Appomattox and Durham Station were close at hand, historians have treated the war’s final months in a fashion that smacks strongly of denouement: the great, tragic conflict rolls on to its now-certain end. Certain, that is, to us, but deeply uncertain to the millions of Northerners and Southerners who lived through the anxious days of early 1865. The final months of the Confederacy offer fascinating opportunities-as a case study in war termination, as a period that shaped the initial circumstances of Reconstruction, and as a lens through which to analyze Southern society at its most stressful moment. The Collapse of the Confederacy collects six essays that explore how popular expectations, national strategy, battlefield performance, and Confederate nationalism affected Confederate actions during the final months of the conflict. https://www.abebooks.com/9780803271036/Collapse-Confederacy-Key-Issues-Civil-0803271034/plp

 

Book Suggestion #5: Brain, Mind and Internet by Professor David J. Staley

The ‘architecture of the mind’ consists of both the biological brain coupled with the technologies that we have developed to extend our cognition. From the moment that we started storing our thoughts in permanent symbolic form outside of our bodies via Venus figures, body paint markings and cave paintings, humans have ‘offloaded’ cognition onto symbols outside of the brain. These external, materialized symbols have allowed us to extend our cognitive abilities beyond the limits of our biological brains. Far from ‘making us stupid’, the Internet represents merely the next great extension of this ‘external symbolic storage system’. For all the dramatic and disruptive change that the Internet surely represents, placing it in this long term historical context renders this change more familiar, perhaps even less jarring. Understanding that there has been a deep history of intimacy between humans and their cognitive tools provides a framework for thinking about the possible futures of the brain-Internet interface: the future of the architecture of the mind. https://history.osu.edu/publications/brain-mind-and-internet

 

Book Suggestion #6: Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism by Professor Bart Elmore

In this new history Bartow J. Elmore explores Coke through its ingredients, showing how the company secured massive quantities of coca leaf, caffeine, sugar, and other inputs. Its growth was driven by shrewd leaders such as Asa Candler, who scaled an Atlanta soda-fountain operation into a national empire, and “boss” Robert Woodruff, who nurtured partnerships with companies like Hershey and Monsanto. These men, and the company they helped build, were seen as responsible citizens, bringing jobs and development to every corner of the globe. But as Elmore shows, Coke was usually getting the sweet end of the deal. It continues to do so. Alongside Coke’s recent public investments in water purification infrastructure, especially in Africa, it has also built―less publicly―a rash of bottling plants in dangerously arid regions. Looking past its message of corporate citizenship, Elmore finds a strategy of relentless growth. The costs shed by Coke have fallen on the public at large. Its annual use of many billions of gallons of water has strained an increasingly scarce global resource. Its copious servings of high-fructose corn syrup have threatened public health. Citizen Coke became a giant in a world of abundance. In a world of scarcity it is a strain on resources and all who depend on them. http://ow.ly/1JwF30cgLyp

 

 

Book Suggestion #7: Beyond Mosque, Church, and State: Alternative Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans by Professor Theodora Dragostinova

Journalists and policy-makers in the West have often assumed that the religious and ethno-national heterogeneity of the Balkans is the underlying reason for the numerous problems the area has faced throughout the twentieth century. The multiple and turbulent political transitions in the area, the dynamics of the interaction between Christianity and Islam, the contradictory and constantly shifting nationality policies, and the fluctuating identities of the diverse populations continue to be seen as major challenges to the stability of the region. By exploring the development of intricate religious, linguistic, and national dynamics in a variety of case studies throughout the Balkans, this volume demonstrates the existence of alternatives and challenges to nationalism in the area. The authors analyze a variety of national, non-national, and anti-national(ist) encounters in four areas—Bosnia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania—traditionally seen as “hot-beds” of nationalist agitation and tension resulting from their populations’ religious or ethno-national diversity. In their entirety, the contributions in this volume chart a more complex picture of the national dynamics. The authors recognize the existence of national tensions both in historical perspective and in contemporary times, but also suggest the possibility of different paths to the nation that did not involve violence but allowed for national accommodation and reconciliation. http://ow.ly/wb4r30cgM9j

 

Book Suggestion #8: Radical Relations: Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and Their Children in the United States since World War II by Professor Daniel Rivers

In Radical Relations, Daniel Winunwe Rivers offers a previously untold story of the American family: the first history of lesbian and gay parents and their children in the United States. Beginning in the postwar era, a period marked by both intense repression and dynamic change for lesbians and gay men, Rivers argues that by forging new kinds of family and childrearing relations, gay and lesbian parents have successfully challenged legal and cultural definitions of family as heterosexual. These efforts have paved the way for the contemporary focus on family and domestic rights in lesbian and gay political movements. Based on extensive archival research and 130 interviews conducted nationwide, Radical Relations includes the stories of lesbian mothers and gay fathers in the 1950s, lesbian and gay parental activist networks and custody battles, families struggling with the AIDS epidemic, and children growing up in lesbian feminist communities. Rivers also addresses changes in gay and lesbian parenthood in the 1980s and 1990s brought about by increased awareness of insemination technologies and changes in custody and adoption law. https://history.osu.edu/publications/radical-relations

 

 

Book Suggestion #9: Caravans: Indian Merchants on the Silk Road by Professor Scott Levi

Caravans: Indian Merchants on the Silk Road examines the sophisticated techniques Multani and Shikarpuri merchants used to convert a modest amount of merchandise into vast portfolios of trade and moneylending ventures. Professor Levi also challenges the notion that the rising tide of European trade in the Indian Ocean usurped the overland ‘Silk Road’ trade and pushed Central Asia into economic isolation. In fact, it was at precisely the same historical moment that thousands of Multanis began making their way to Central Asia, linking the early modern Indian and Central Asian economies closer together than ever before. http://ow.ly/Dzq030cgNPx

 

 

Book Suggestion #10: Secret Gardens, Satanic Mills: Placing Girls in European History, 1750-1960 by Mary Jo Maynes (Editor), Birgitte Søland (Editor), Christina Benninghaus (Editor)

Secret Gardens, Satanic Mills offers a comparative history of European girlhood from 1750 to 1960, with a focus on Britain, France, and Germany. It covers diverse issues in the lives of girls, from sexuality and leisure to social roles in the family and the economy. A corrective to historians’ traditionally male orientation toward youth, the volume brings girls to the center of European history, emphasizing their importance in European economics and culture. It also identifies cultural and temporal differences within the European experience, particularly with regard to the spaces girls occupied. While the contributors appreciate the importance of systemic and institutional factors in shaping young girls’ lives, they are also sensitive to the ways in which girls have been able to resist dominance and create their own destinies. http://ow.ly/Zfav30cgOCB

 

 

Book Suggestion #11: Civil War Washington: History, Place, and Digital Scholarship by Professor Susan Lawrence

While it is impossible to re-create the tumultuous Washington DC of the Civil War, Civil War Washington sets out to examine the nation’s capital during the Civil War along with the digital platform (civilwardc.org) that reimagines it during those turbulent years. Among the many topics covered in the volume is the federal government’s experiment in compensated emancipation, which went into effect when all of the capital’s slaves were freed in April 1862. Another essay explores the city’s place as a major center of military hospitals, patients, and medical administration. Other contributors reflect on literature and the war, particularly on the poetry published in hospital newspapers and Walt Whitman’s formative experiences with the city and its wounded. http://ow.ly/YeqW30cgOXA