FACULTY & STAFF

Professor (American cultural history, consumer history, architectural history)

Beyond Piggly Wiggly: Inventing the American Self-Service Store (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023, in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance)

"Beyond Piggly Wiggly is a cultural history of self-service that reveals how grocers and other stakeholders invested time and money into convincing consumers that doing the literal heavy lifting of shopping was both economically advantageous and socially and culturally acceptable (and sometimes even preferred). Lisa C. Tolbert shows how through trial and error local grocers refined self-service, shifting grocery stores from human-dependent food distribution depots to 'systems for automatic selling.'" - Susan V. Spellman, author of Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business

Professor Emeritus of History (History of science)

Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy: Contexts of Creation and Reception. (MIT Press, 2021)

"The focal point of this study is Helmholtz's youthful and enigmatic pamphlet on the conservation of force from 1847. But its scope is immense, covering the complex historical developments that converged in this scientific classic and those that branched out of it." - Daan Wegener, Utrecht University .

Associate Professor (Islamic history)

Antioch: A History. With Andrea U. de Giorgi. (London/New York: Routledge, 2021)

"Antioch has typically been treated as a city whose classical glory faded permanently amid a series of natural disasters and foreign invasions in the sixth and seventh centuries CE. Such studies have obstructed the view of Antioch’s fascinating urban transformations from classical to medieval to modern city and the processes behind these transformations. Through its comprehensive blend of textual sources and new archaeological data reanalyzed from Princeton's 1930s excavations and recent discoveries, this book offers unprecedented insights into the complete history of Antioch, recreating the lives of the people who lived in it and focusing on the factors that affected them during the evolution of its remarkable cityscape." - Routledge.

Visiting Assistant Professor (U.S. history, Middle East history, World/International Relations history)

Oil Money: Middle East Petrodollars and the Transformation of US Empire, 1967-1988 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021)

"Covering new ground in describing US foreign policy, David M. Wight examines the cultural and political meanings that different parties attached to economic change. The ways that Oil Money contextualizes economic inequality is of central importance in the aftermath of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring." - Nathan J. Citino, Rice University

Professor (U.S. women's history)

They Didn't See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties (Basic Books, 2020)

"From the declaration of the "Year of the Woman" to the televising of Anita Hill's testimony, from Bitch magazine to SisterSong's demands for reproductive justice: the 90s saw the birth of some of the most lasting aspects of contemporary feminism. Historian Lisa Levenstein tracks this time of intense and international coalition building, one that centered on the growing influence of lesbians, women of color, and activists from the global South. Their work laid the foundation for the feminist energy seen in today's movements, including the 2017 Women's March and #MeToo campaigns." - Basic Books.

Associate Professor (Public history)

From Asylum to Prison: Deinstitutionization and the Rise of Mass Incarceration after 1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018)

"Through a meticulous analysis, rich in archival research, Anne Parsons brilliantly illuminates the historical transformations in custodial confinement from the asylum to the prison over the period 1945 to 1985. Parsons unmasks the myths surrounding deinstitutionalization and reveals instead how prisons and correctional facilities filled the emptying spaces of mental hospitalization--providing the infrastructure for the carceral state of the late twentieth century. Anyone working on decarceration must read her haunting historical account." -Bernard E. Harcourt, Columbia University

Professor (African history, European expansion in Africa, material culture, oral history)

Making Money: Life, Death, and Early Modern Trade on Africa's Guinea Coast (Ohio University Press, 2017)

"In this wonderfully researched book, Colleen Kriger anchors the coastal activity of the Europeans in the African cultures they met, making them only one set of many actors in a society that had to marry widely different economic cultures into a workable system. This book will open a new chapter and discussion about the nature of African relationships with Europeans.” -John K. Thornton, author of A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820

Associate Professor (18th-19th century American history, American Indian history, environmental history)

The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies (University of Nebraska Press, 2017)

"These essays showcase some of the best work in the field...One of the strengths of this volume is the wide scope and diversity in regard to both tribes and time periods."- Kathryn E. Holland Braund, coeditor of Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and War of 1812

"Really great essays that expand our understanding not only of Indigenous Southerners but of larger processes of social change and cross-cultural encounters."- Katherine M. B. Osburn, author of Choctaw Resurgence in Mississippi: Race, Class, and Nation Building in the Jim Crow South, 1830-1977

Associate Professor (British Empire)

The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2016)

"This well-researched book breaks new ground by tracing the impact of, and local responses to, the Indian uprising of 1857 throughout the British Empire. Focusing on the interaction between local politics and imperial networks of information, Bender effectively re-examines the 'Mutiny' as a genuinely global event." - Kim A. Wagner, Queen Mary University of London

Affiliate Professor ( African American & African Diaspora Studies)

Malik Ambar: Power and Slavery across the Indian Ocean (Oxford University Press, 2016)

"Writing in an engaging and imaginative style, Omar H. Ali does a remarkable job of reconstructing the most scholarly and accessible account yet published of this remarkable African leader. Drawing upon both previous studies of Malik Ambar and a rich trove of primary documents from Indian history, he further enhances our understanding of Ambar with field research in both Ethiopia and India." -Ned Alpers, University of California, Los Angeles

Professor (Southern history, oral history)

William F. Winter and the New Mississippi, A Biography (University Press of Mississippi, 2013)

"William Winter is a fascinating figure in the history of the modern South. He is among a handful of the most important politicians in twentieth-century Mississippi, but also an unusually thoughtful and intelligent observer and participant in the dramatic changes that took place in his native state in the second half of the twentieth century. Chuck Bolton brings to this book all of the skill and rigor on display in his previous works. The end result is a compelling biography that is sure to stand as the definitive work on a very fine governor and an even more remarkable human being." -Joseph Crespino, Emory University

Professor Emerita of History and Psychology

Hormones, Heredity, and Race: Spectacular Failure in Interwar Vienna (Rutgers Press, 2013)

"This terrifically inventive and important story is one of the first to examine physiological attempts to understand heredity in the first half of the twentieth century, offering a beautiful rendering of the intersection of science and politics." - Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, University of Florida.

Associate Professor (Atlantic World, Caribbean)

Creolization and Contraband: Curaçao in the Early Modern Atlantic World (University of Georgia Press, 2012)

"This exploration of localized sociocultural mixing and extensive, illicit commerce on a Dutch Caribbean island makes for a fascinating study of colonial agency. The Antilles was the most dynamic site of creolization and contraband in the early modern world. Anyone interested in Atlantic history will want to read this excellent book." -Philip D. Morgan, author of Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry

Professor (Ancient history, Greek, Roman, Persia)

Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire 525-332 BCE (Oxford University Press, 2012)

"Professor Ruzicka's illuminating account of Persia's two-hundred-year struggle to control Egypt is a distinguished addition to the new Persian historiography. No reader will doubt that the key to understanding the history of the eastern Mediterranean is recognizing that Persia was the region's great power up to Alexander's conquest." -Stanley Burstein, California State University, Los Angeles

Professor Emeritus of History (African American history, race, slavery)

Families in Crisis in the Old South: Divorce, Slavery, and the Law (University of North Carolina Press, 2012)

"Dazzling in its sweep and depth, Schweninger's study of divorce, slavery, and the law provides a window into an entire matrix of household and social relations. Gender, race, and property relations are considered across class lines, all within the Souths institutions of marriage and slavery." -Victoria E. Bynum, author of The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies

Associate Professor (East Asia, China, Vietnam)

The Tongking Gulf Through History (University of Pennsyvania Press, 2011)
Edited by Nola Cooke, Li Tana, and James A. Anderson

"An informative picture of trade, economic, and political relationships throughout the Tongking Gulf over an extended period of time: approximately two thousand years. The well-researched essays each contribute fresh insights into the subject of maritime trade and premodern global connections in the region." -Erica Brindley, Pennsylvania State University

Associate Professor (African American history, U.S. South)

Cultivating Race: The Expansion of Slavery in Georgia, 1750-1860 (University Press of Kentucky, 2011)

"Watson Jennison's thoughtful synthesis of social, intellectual, and political history will stand for some time to come as the best one-volume account we have of slavery and racism in Georgia. This is a book that students and scholars of slavery, the South, and race in American history need to read and contend with." -Anthony E. Kaye, author of Joining Places: Slave Neighborhoods in the Old South

Associate Professor (19th century American history)

Undaunted Radical: The Selected Writings and Speeches of Albion W. Tourgee. (Louisiana State University Press, 2010)

Edited by Mark Elliott and John David Smith

"If we want to understand the opportunity and despair of Reconstruction, the uncertainty and contested nature of Jim Crow, and ultimately the nadir of race relations in the United States, then we must know more about Albion Tourgee. Elliott and Smith have made an incredible contribution by bringing together the best and most important of Tourgee's work."-Edward J. Blum, author of Reforging the White Republic

Associate Professor (Russian History)

Everyday Life and the "Reconstruction" of Soviet Russia During and After the Great Patriotic War, 1943-1948 (Slavica Publishers, 2008)

"Jones weaves a mass of fragmentary evidence into such coherent and seamless accounts of everyday life and its travails between 1943-48 that one might not realize the remarkable detective work necessary to reconstruct even the simplest narrative. Jones has produced a body of work that constitutes a valuable contribution to the study of the social and political history of the era of Soviet post-war reconstruction in general and the study of working-class consciousness in the late Stalin era in particular."-Dr. Michael C. Hickey, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

Professor Emeritus (Modern European intellectual history, French history, history of ideologies, French revolution, Napoleonic era)

Imagining Fascism: The Cultural Politics of the French Young Right, 1930-1945  (University of Delaware Press, 2007)

"Correcting the long-established practice of searching for the origins of intellectual engagement exclusively on the Popular Front Left, Mazgaj's study demonstrates that the Young Right created a distinctive nationalist prototype of the engage writer." -Publisher

Associate Professor (Recent America, civil rights)

From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)

Winner of the 2007 Liberty Legacy Foundation Award of the Organization of American Historians.

"Never before have King's social and political ideas been so thoroughly documented nor so persuasively explicated. Future generations of King scholars will owe Jackson a debt of gratitude for this monumental book of enduring value." -Clayborne Carson, Director, Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University

Professor (Renaissance and Reformation Europe, early modern Spain, religion, gender)

Related Lives Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750 (Cornell University Press, 2005)

"Related Lives contributes to our understanding of early modern Catholicism by exploring the complex relationship between the priests who took on the role of confessor or spiritual director to pious women and their female penitents. Jodi Bilinkoff provides a comprehensive view of the actual practice of confession, the confessor-penitent relationship, and the exploitation of this relationship in the crafting of pious biographies for the edification of other early modern Catholics."-Barbara B. Diefendorf, Boston University

Associate Professor (Medieval history)

Lordship in the County of Maine, c890-1160 (Boydell, 2004)

"In this stimulating, clearly written book, Richard Barton uses evidence from Maine and the bordering counties of Anjou, Blois, and Normandy to explore the character of aristocratic lordship in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Drawing primarily on monastic charters and notices, but also availing himself of the richer narratives provided by episcopal gesta and historical chronicles, the author treats lordship broadly as a set of practices and cultural understandings by which lords dominated others, maintained their own honor, and interacted with their peers." -Richard Keyser, Western Kentucky University

Associate Professor Emerita (American and Colonial history, material culture)

Purchasing Identity in the Atlantic World: Massachusetts Merchants, 1670-1780 (Cornell University Press, 2001)

"The strength of Hunter's analysis lies in her emphasis on patterns of consumption, rather than production, as well as in her dependence on detailed case studies to illustrate each shift in this budding American consumerism...Her analysis makes a significant contribution to the study of early American economic culture." -Virginia Quarterly Review