Books

Winner of the 2010 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry

Quan Barry explores the universal image of war as evidenced in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as Vietnam, the country of her birth. She also turns her signature lyricism to other topics such as the beauty of Peru or the paintings of Ana Fernandez.

Poetry in America offers lyric and narrative poems that function like works of social realism for our times: hard times, wartime, divorce, times of downturn and dissipated resources.

Wanda Coleman creates the kind of poetry that excites and ignites those who hate poetry, refreshes it for those who are bored by it, and inspires those who want to write it.

“In The World Falls Away, Wanda Coleman’s poems glow with an almost radioactive edginess. Yet, there is also range and substance giving her intense American voice staying power. To use, Whitman’s word, her work has ‘amplitude.'”—Diane Wakoski

Winner of the 2012 annual Book Award presented by The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University.

Winner of the 2010 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize

“Glenn Shaheen is claiming new ground for American poetry. His poems are about the nightmares of information overload, collapsing infrastructure, ubiquitous violence, and other ills of late empire. The subjects are not happy, but Shaheen’s clear vision and crisp—often witty—language offer the pleasures of surprise, discovery, and recognition.”—Ed Ochester

Winner of the 2011 Drue Heinz Literature Prize

Told in precise, evocative prose that skewers the heart of the matter time after time, these memorable stories view and illuminate the human condition from a compelling, funny and entirely original perspective.

The launch of the Sputnik satellite in October 1957 changed the course of human history. In the span of a few years, Soviets sent the first animal into space, the first man, and the first woman. These events were a direct challenge to the United States and the capitalist model that claimed ownership of scientific aspiration and achievement. Into the Cosmos shows us the fascinating interplay of Soviet politics, science, and culture during the Khrushchev era, and how the space program became a binding force between these elements.

Lamos chronicles several decades of debates over high-risk writing programs on the national level, and locally, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign using critical race theorist Derrick Bell’s concept of “interest convergence.” To Lamos, understanding the past dynamics of convergence and divergence is key to formulating new strategies of local action and “story-changing” that can preserve and expand race-consciousness and high-risk writing instruction, even in adverse political climates.

Recipient of a special commendation from the 2013 (CCCC) Outstanding Book Award selection committee.

Kenneth Warren presents a compelling biography that chronicles the startling success of Charles Schwab’s business career, his leadership abilities, and his drive to advance steel-making technology and operations. Through extensive research and use of previously unpublished archival documentation, Warren offers a new perspective on the life of a monumental figure—a true visionary—in the industrial history of America.

Winner of the 1996 Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Award Killing Time examines the cultural history of southwestern Pennsylvania through the lens of leisure activities. Scott Martin details how leisure activities were integral in the formation of class, gender, ethnic, and community identities.

A compelling study of the divergent political courses taken by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan in the wake of Soviet rule. McGlinchey examines economics, religion, political legacies, foreign investment, and the ethnicity of these countries to evaluate the relative success of political structures in each nation.

“Poems that stick with you like a song that won’t stop repeating itself in your brain, poems whose cadences burrow into your bloodstream, orchestrating your breathing long before their sense attaches its hooks to your heart.”—Washington Post on Captivity

This book examines a highly significant chapter in the history of the Russian state and society: how those in power in Russian understood the impact of drinking on the state policy and on Russia’s working classes between 1895 and 1932.

The Soviets are often viewed as insatiable industrialists who saw nature as a force to be tamed and exploited. Song of the Forest counters this assumption, uncovering significant evidence of Soviet conservation efforts in forestry, particularly under Josef Stalin. Stephen Brain profiles the leading Soviet-era conservationists, agencies, and administrators, and their efforts to formulate forest policy despite powerful ideological differences.

Better known as a poet and dramatist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was also a learned philosopher and natural scientist. Astrida Orle Tantillo offers the first comprehensive analysis of his natural philosophy, which she contends is rooted in creativity.

In this original cultural history, Ernesto Capello analyzes the formation of memory, myth, and modernity through the eyes of Quito’s diverse populations. By employing Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of chronotopes, Capello views the configuration of time and space in narratives that defined Quito’s identity and its place in the world. To Capello, these tropes began to crystallize at the end of the nineteenth century, serving as a tool for distinct groups who laid claim to history for economic or political gain during the upheavals of modernism.