In Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier, author Catherine L. Newell explores what drove the United States to rapidly expand its space exploration plans—in particular, she looks at the roles of religious faith and mankind’s desire to explore new frontiers. By “recasting the space race as an inherently spiritual endeavor, Newell exposes and explains the origins of the language of ‘divine destiny’—which imbues much of the modern talk of visiting other planets today” (Publishers Weekly). One of the major players in Destined for the Stars is Chesley Bonestell (1888–1986), whose astronomical art was extremely influential…

Ryan Black of Jackson Heights, NY is the 2018 winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. The University of Pittsburgh Press and Pitt Poetry Series will published his collection, “The Tenant of Fire” in fall 2019. Black will also receive a $5,000 cash prize. In explaining his inspiration behind the collection, Black states: “Kirk Semple, a New York Times metro reporter, described Queens, NY, as a “petri dish for what our increasingly diverse and heterogeneous nation is becoming.” The Tenant of Fire is about Queens—its history, both public and personal, real and imagined—and mines the complex, often contradictory, lived…

Sally McMurry is the 2018 winner of the Philip S. Klein Book Prize from the Pennsylvania Historical Association for Pennsylvania Farming: A History in Landscapes. Pennsylvania Farming, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in October 2017, presents the first history of PA agriculture in sixty years. McMurry goes beyond a strictly economic approach and considers the diverse forces that helped shape the farming landscape, from physical factors to cultural repertoires to labor systems. Above all, the people who created and worked on Pennsylvania’s farms are placed at the center of attention. More than 150 photographs inform the interpretation, which…

A note from Peter Kracht, director at the University of Pittsburgh Press: We are pleased to introduce the new University of Pittsburgh Press colophon. The logo is a graphic representation of the Cathedral of Learning, iconic symbol of the University of Pittsburgh. Its soaring design was intended to inspire the students and scholars of the University. Begun in 1926 and finished a decade later, it is still the second-tallest academic structure and neo-Gothic building in the world. Its completion in 1936 marked the very same year as the founding of the University of Pittsburgh Press. While it reaches for the sky, the Cathedral’s…