Our Spring/Summer 2014 catalog is here! With fourteen new books, three new in paper, and eighteen new Ebooks there is certainly something for every reader. http://press.umsystem.edu/pages/catalogs/UMP_catalog_SP14_web.pdf  
Adam C. Bradford
To 21st century readers, 19th century depictions of death look macabre if not maudlin--the mourning portraits and quilts, the postmortem daguerreotypes, and the memorial jewelry now hopelessly, if not morbidly, distressing. Yet this sentimental culture of mourning and memorializing provided opportunities to the bereaved to assert deeply held beliefs, forge social connections, and advocate for social and political change. This culture also permeated the literature of the day, especially the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman. In Communities of Death, Adam C. Bradford explores the ways in which the ideas, rituals, and practices of mourning were central to the work of both authors. ~June
Edited by Earle V. Bryant
A writer perhaps best known for the revolutionary works Black Boy and Native Son, Richard Wright also worked as a journalist during one of the most explosive periods of the 20th century. From 1937 to 1938, Wright turned out more than two hundred articles for the Daily Worker--the newspaper that served as the voice of the American Communist Party. Byline, Richard Wright, edited by Earle V. Bryant, assembles more than one hundred of those articles plus two of Wright's essays from New Masses, revealing to readers the early work of an American icon. ~June
J. Malcolm Garcia
In What Wars Leave Behind, J. Malcolm Garcia reveals the stories of the people left behind in the war ravaged countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Kosovo, Chad, and Syria. Garcia gives readers the sort of gritty detail learned from immersing himself in other cultures. He eats the food, drinks the tea, and endures the oppressive heat. These are the stories of how a middle-class guy from the Midwest with a social work degree learned to experience and embrace the cultures of Third World countries in conflict--and lived to tell the tale. ~April
William Least Heat-Moon
The story behind the writing of William Least Heat-Moon's best-selling Blue Highways is as fascinating as the journey that he recounted in his 1982 book. More than thirty years later, in Writing Blue Highways, Heat-Moon reflects on the four years after the road trip--the stops and starts in his composition process, the numerous drafts and painstaking revision, the depressing string of rejections by publishers, the strains on his personal relationships, and many other aspects of the toil that went into writing his first book. Along the way, he traces the hard lessons he learned and offers guidance to aspiring authors and experienced writers alike. Far from being a technical manual, this work is an adventure story of its own, a journey of "exploration into the myriad routes of heart and mind that led to the making of a book from the first sorry and now vanished paragraph to the last words that came not from a graphite pencil but from a letterpress in Tennessee." ~April
Earl J. Hess and Pratibha A. Dabholkar
The Cinematic Voyage of The Pirate: Kelly, Garland, and Minnelli at Work follows the model of Hess and Dabholkar's previous study of Singin' in the Rain. Drawing on exhaustive research in archives, memoirs, interviews, and newspaper coverage, it takes the reader from the original conception of the story in the mind of a German playwright named Ludwig Fulda, through S. N. Behrman's Broadway production starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, to the arduous task of crafting a suitable screenplay at MGM. Behind-the-scenes issues such as Garland's personal problems during the making of the film and the shaping of the film by Minnelli and Kelly are among the many subjects detailed here. ~June
Nancy Peterson Hill
Grenville Clark was born to wealth and privilege in Manhattan, where his maternal grandfather, LeGrand Bouton Cannon, was an industry titan, retired Civil War colonel, and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. Clark grew up on a first-name basis with both Presidents Roosevelt, and his close friends included Supreme Court justices. He was well known and respected in the inner circles of business, government, and education. In A Very Private Public Citizen: The Life of Grenville Clark, Nancy Peterson Hill gives life to the unsung account of this great and largely anonymous American hero and reveals how the scope of Clark's life and career reflected his selfless passion for progress, equality, and peace. ~June
Colum Kenny
The O'Shaughnessy brothers' story takes place between 1860 and 1950 in Illinois, Missouri, New York, and Ireland. They were the children of an impoverished immigrant who fled the famine in Ireland and of his Irish-American wife. An Irish-American Odyssey by Colum Kenny is the tale of this first generation immigrant family's struggle to assimilate into American society, highlighting their perseverance and determination to seize opportunities and surmount obstacles, all the while establishing a legacy for their own descendants in American art, advertising, journalism, and public service. ~June
Mark A. Lause
As the Civil War was drawing to a close, former Missouri governor Sterling Price led his army on one last desperate campaign to retake his home state for the Confederacy, part of a broader effort to tilt the upcoming 1864 Union elections against Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans. In The Collapse of Price's Raid: The Beginning of the End in Civil War Missouri, Mark A. Lause examines the complex political and social context of what became known as "Price's Raid," the final significant Southern operation west of the Mississippi River. ~July
Dennis R. Okerstrom
Project 9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II by Dennis R. Okerstrom is a thoroughly researched narrative of the Allied joint project to invade Burma by air. Beginning with its inception at the Quebec Conference of 1943 and continuing through Operation Thursday until the death of the brilliant British General Orde Wingate in March 1944, less than a month after the successful invasion of Burma, Project 9 details all aspects of this covert mission, including the selection of the American airmen, the procurement of the aircraft, the joint training with British troops, and the dangerous night-time assault behind Japanese lines by glider. ~June
Sam Pickering
A New York Times article once stated that "the art of the essay as delivered by [Sam] Pickering is the art of the front porch ramble." As Pickering himself puts it, "Well, I have gotten considerably older, and humor has come to mean more and more to me. And if I'm on the front porch, I am in a rocking chair." All My Days Are Saturdays offers fifteen new pieces in which he ponders a world that has changed and, in new ways, still delights him. This collection features Pickering writing about teaching and his recent retirement, visits to various locales, and, as he tell us, "the many people I meet...who tell me their stories, small tales that make one laugh and sigh." ~May
Lisle A. Rose
Farewell to Prosperity by Lisle A. Rose is a provocative, in-depth study of the Liberal and Conservative forces that fought each other to shape American political culture and character during the nation's most prosperous years. The tome's central theme is the bitter struggle to fashion post-World War II society between a historic Protestant Ethic that equated free-market economics and money-making with Godliness and a new, secular Liberal temperament that emerged from the twin ordeals of depression and world war to stress social justice and security. ~July
Kate Saller
The Moon in Your Sky: An Immigrant's Journey Home by Kate Saller tells of one woman's journey from rural Uganda during the reign of dictator Idi Amin Dada, through her family's escape to the US only to face more devastating challenges, to her triumphant achievement of a life devoted to relieving the suffering of orphans left by the ravages of war in her homeland. ~June
Michael E. Shay
Sky Pilots: The Yankee Division Chaplains in World War I by Michael E. Shay tells the story of nearly three dozen clergymen who volunteered as chaplains during the First World War. Assigned to the 26th "Yankee" Division, the first fully-assembled division in France, they experienced all of the horrors of war, shared all of the privations of the common soldier, and earned the love and affection of their "boys." Two died, several were gassed or wounded, and many of them were decorated by France and the United States for their heroism. ~May
Isabel Stenzel Byrnes and Anabel Stenzel
The tragedy of cystic fibrosis has been touchingly recounted before, but this is the first book to portray the symbiotic relationship between twins who share this life-threatening disease through adulthood. Isabel Stenzel Byrnes and Anabel Stenzel tell of their struggle to pursue normal lives while grappling with the realization that they will die young. Their story reflects the physical and emotional challenges of a particularly aggressive form of CF and tells how the twins’ bicultural heritage--Japanese and German--influenced the way they coped. The Power of Two is an honest and gripping portrayal of day-to-day health care, the impact of chronic illness on marriage and family, and the importance of a support network to continuing survival. These two remarkable sisters have much to teach about the power of perseverance--and about the ultimate power of hope. ~May
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Monday, January 6, 2014
Spring/Summer 2014 Catalog!
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