University of Chicago Press

Gates, Barbara T., editor

"The hibernating trance is intirely [sic] under the animal's own control, and only in a secondary degree dependant [sic] on the weather. . . . [The hedgehog] closes its eyes & holds its breath, occasionally it catches a breath in spite of itself with a sobbing gasp. The process looks difficult and highly uncomfortable; and the animal is very cross if interrupted. . . ."--Beatrix Potter, from "Hedgehogs"

From the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, hundreds of British women wrote about and drew from nature. Some--like the beloved children's author Beatrix Potter, who produced natural history about hedgehogs as well as fiction about rabbits--are still familiar today. But others have all but disappeared from view. Barbara Gates recovers these lost works and prints them alongside little-known pieces by more famous authors, like Potter's field notes on hedgehogs, reminding us of better known stories that help set the others in context.

The works contained in this volume are as varied as the women who produced them. They include passionate essays on the protection of animals, vivid accounts of travel and adventure from the English seashore to the Indian Alps, poetry and fiction, and marvelous tales of nature for children. Special features of the book include a detailed chronology placing each selection in its historical and literary context; biographical sketches of each author's life and works; a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary literature; and over sixty illustrations.

An ideal introduction to women's powerful and diverse responses to the natural world, In Nature's Name will be treasured by anyone interested in natural history, women, or Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

704 p. (est.), 28 halftones, 37 line drawings. 2002
Cloth $75.00tx 0-226-28444-1 Spring 2002
Paper $27.50 0-226-28446-8 Spring 2002

Chappell, Sally A. Kitt

At the turn of the last millennium, a powerful Native American civilization emerged and flourished in the American Midwest. By 1050 C.E. the population of its capital city, Cahokia, was larger than that of London. Its technology was Stone Age, yet its culture fostered widespread commerce, refined artistic expression, and monumental architecture. The model for this urbane world was nothing less than the cosmos itself. The climax of their ritual center, a four-tiered pyramid covering fourteen acres, rose more than a hundred feet. This beautifully illustrated book traces the history of this six-square-mile area in the central Mississippi Valley from the Big Bang to the present.

Chappell seeks to answer fundamental questions about this unique space, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. How did this swampy land become so amenable to human life? Who were the remarkable people who lived here before the Europeans came? Why did the whole civilization disappear so rapidly? And finally, what can we learn about ourselves as we look into the changing meaning of Cahokia through the ages?

To explore these questions, Chappell probes a wide range of sources, including the work of astronomers, geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Archival photographs and newspaper accounts, as well as interviews with those who work at the site and Native Americans, bring the story up to the present.

Tying together these many threads, Chappell weaves a rich tale of how different people conferred their values on the same piece of land and how the transformed landscape, in turn, inspired different values in them--cultural, spiritual, agricultural, economic, and humanistic.

Subjects: History: American History

238 p., 57 color plates, 71 halftones. 8-1/2 x 9-1/2 2002
Cloth $38.00sp 0-226-10136-3 Fall 2001

Hume's Reception in Early America
Mark G. Spencer, editor

Distributed for the Thoemmes Press. 440 p.
(est.), 2 Volumes. 5-3/8 x 8-1/2 2002

Cloth CUSA $265.00tx 1-85506-934-2 Spring 2002
Available 05/02.


Questions about this title? email sales@press.uchicago.edu

Lamb, Jonathan, Vanessa Smith, and Nicholas Thomas, editors

European encounters with Pacific peoples often proved as wrenching to
the Europeans as to the natives. This anthology gathers some of the
most vivid accounts of these cultural exchanges for the first time.
Detailed commentaries by respected scholars of the literature and
cultures of the Pacific emphasize the mutuality of impact of these
colonial encounters and the continuity of Pacific cultures that still
have the power to transform visitors today.


"As my sense of the turpitude and guilt of sin was weakened, the vices of the natives appeared
less odious and criminal. After a time, I was induced to yield to their allurements, to imitate their
manners, and to join them in their sins . . . and it was not long ere I disencumbered myself of
my European garment, and contented myself with the native dress. . . ."--from Narrative of the
late George Vason, of Nottingham

As George Vason's anguished narrative shows, European encounters with Pacific peoples often
proved as wrenching to the Europeans as to the natives. This anthology gathers some of the
most vivid accounts of these cultural exchanges for the first time, placing the works of
well-known figures such as Captain James Cook and Robert Louis Stevenson alongside the
writings of lesser-known explorers, missionaries, beachcombers, and literary travelers who
roamed the South Seas from the late seventeenth through the late nineteenth centuries. Here we
discover the stories of the British buccaneers and privateers who were lured to the Pacific by
stories of fabulous wealth; of the scientists, cartographers, and natural historians who tried to fit
the missing bits of terra incognita into a universal scheme of knowledge; and of the varied
settlers who established a permanent European presence in Polynesia and Australia. Through
their detailed commentary on each piece and their choice of selections, the editors--all respected
scholars of the literature and cultures of the Pacific--emphasize the mutuality of impact of these
colonial encounters and the continuity of Pacific cultures that still have the power to transform
visitors today.

Subjects:
Anthropology: General Anthropology
Asian Studies: Southeast Asia and Australia
Culture Studies
Geography: Cultural and Historical Geography
Geography: Cartography
History: British History
History: American History
History: Asian History
History of Science
Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature
Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature

359 p., 13 halftones, 2 maps. 2001
Cloth $49.00tx 0-226-46845-3 Fall 2000
Paper $18.00 0-226-46846-1 Fall 2000
For more information, see the book synopsis at

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/14102.ctl

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America.

Edited and translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop.

With an Introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see
what a great republic was like. What struck him most was the country's equality of conditions,
its democracy. The book he wrote on his return to France, Democracy in America, is both
the best ever written on democracy and the best ever written on America. It remains the most
often quoted book about the United States, not only because it has something to interest and
please everyone, but also because it has something to teach everyone.

Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's new translation of Democracy in America is the first
to appear in three decades and only the third since the original two-volume work was published
in 1835 and 1840. It is a spectacular achievement, capturing the elegance, subtlety, and
profundity of Tocqueville's original. Their translation is the only one to provide notes
identifying events and allusion no longer familiar to today's readers, and, unlike other
translations, it includes a superb and substantial introduction placing the work and its author in
the broader context of the traditions of political philosophy and statesmanship.

As we approach the 160th anniversary of the publication of Democracy in America, Mansfield
and Winthrop have provided an additional reason to celebrate. Lavishly prepared and produced,
this long-awaited new translation will surely become the authoritative edition of Tocqueville's
profound and prescient masterwork.

Subjects:

History: American History
Political Science: Political and Social Theory

The University of Chicago Press

File last modified on 9/01/00.

Questions about this title? email sales@press.uchicago.edu.

709 p. 2000

Cloth $35.00 0-226-80532-8

The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815.

From the beginning of the colonial period to the recent conflicts
in the Middle East, encounters with the Muslim world have
helped Americans define national identity and purpose. Focusing
on America's encounter with the Barbary states of North Africa from 1776 to 1815, Robert
Allison traces the perceptions and mis-perceptions of Islam in the American mind as the new
nation constructed its ideology and system of government.

"A powerful ending that explains how the experience with the Barbary states compelled many
Americans to look inward . . . with increasing doubts about the institution of slavery." --David
W. Lesch, Middle East Journal

"Allison's incisive and informative account of the fledgling republic's encounter with the
Muslim world is a revelation with a special pertinence to today's international scene." --Richard
W. Bulliet, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This book should be widely read. . . . Allison's study provides a context for understanding
more recent developments, such as America's tendency to demonize figures like Iran's
Khumaini, Libya's Qaddafi, and Iraq's Saddam." --Richard M. Eaton, Eighteenth Century
Studies

xviii, 294 p., 15 halftones.

Paper $17.00tx 0-226-01490-8

Subjects:

History: General History

Exodus!: Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America.

No other story in the Bible has fired the imaginations of African Americans quite like that of
Exodus. Its tale of suffering and the journey to redemption offered hope and a sense of
possibility to people facing seemingly insurmountable evil.

Exodus! shows how this biblical story inspired a pragmatic tradition of racial advocacy among
African Americans in the early nineteenth century--a tradition based not on race but on a moral
politics of respectability. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., begins by comparing the historical uses of
Exodus by black and white Americans and the concepts of "nation" it generated. He then traces
the roles that Exodus played in the National Negro Convention movement, from its first meeting
in 1830 to 1843, when the convention decided--by one vote--against supporting Henry
Highland Garnet's call for slave insurrection.

Exodus! reveals the deep historical roots of debates over African-American national identity
that continue to rage today. It will engage anyone interested in the story of black nationalism
and the promise of African-American religious culture.

232 p. 2000

Cloth $42.00tx 0-226-29819-1
Paper $16.00tx 0-226-29820-5

Subjects:

Black Studies
History: American History
Religion: Philosophy of Religion, Theology, and Ethics
Religion: American Religions

July 26, 2002