University Of Chicago Press Research Articles

The Judicial Bookshelf

The Judicial Bookshelf Donald Grier Stephenson Jr. (bio) Introduction: Supreme Court History as a Parade of Themes Of the hundreds of books about the Supreme Court published in the twentieth century, surely few have been more widely read and referenced than The American Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey, professor of government at Harvard University from 1946 until his death in 1969. First published in 1960 by the University of Chicago Press, this compact and elegantly written one-volume interpretive history of the Court has been updated now through six editions by McCloskey's student, Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas.1 The paragraph that concluded the Epilogue in the initial edition combined a historical overview with what appeared to be an admonition for the Warren Court, ironically just as it was on the eve of an even more activist phase. From 1789 to the Civil War, the Court labored to establish a reasoned argument for the cause of union. From the war to 1937 it performed a similar function on behalf of laissez faire. Toward the end of each of those periods, the judges overstepped the practical boundaries of judicial power and endangered the place they had earned in the American governmental system. Since 1937, the Court has striven to evolve a civil rights doctrine that will realize the promise of the American libertarian tradition, yet accord with the imperatives of political reality. Even when criticisms are duly acknowledged, the fact remains that the Court has contributed more to an understanding of this issue than any other agency in American life. It would be a pity if the judges, having done so much, should now once again forget the limits that their own history so compellingly prescribes.2 McCloskey's paragraph illustrates a common goal of many who write about the Court: Highlighting one or more themes that capture the essence of a period of judicial history. [End Page 113] Indeed, in fewer than 150 words, McCloskey pointed to at least four such themes, the last of which was hardly a surprise. As William Lasser observed some three decades later in the context of warnings against an overreach of judicial power, the theme of "weakness and vulnerability pervades the literature on the Supreme Court."3 This theme perhaps echoed the same "forbearance in the use of power" to which Paul Freund referred as he eulogized Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1965.4 The word forbearance itself is a reminder that the Court's work of deciding cases occurs in at least three dimensions as it may choose to allow, to direct, as well as to forbid. Yet in the context of deciding cases contemporary observers as well as someone decades hence might well choose to associate the words political or partisan as both a related and even an identifying theme for the Court of this part of the twenty-first century. That characterization, however, is hardly novel or even distinctive in that the label could also easily be applied to much of the Court's history. Indeed, scholars have long regarded the Court as political in numerous ways. Perhaps most obviously, the Court is political because its decisions shape public policy by deciding what government—national, state, or local—may or may not do. At least since the 1960s, for example, the Court has overseen operation of the criminal justice system to a degree never before experienced, from police-citizen encounters through punishment. Second, decisions clarify the boundaries of political authority, focusing less on what may be done than on who may do it or how it may be done. The Steel Seizure Case5 turned not on whether government could cope with labor disruptions but on whether President Truman in the executive order had exceeded his authority and intruded into Congress's law-making domain. The Legislative Veto case6 did not question government's authority to deport a particular individual but instead challenged the device by which Congress had mandated deportation. Third, the Court itself may become an issue in presidential elections, as has happened at least a dozen times since 1800 because of unpopular decisions. Quadrennial campaigns in the past four decades, for example, would have...

Czy międzynarodowy projekt publikacji historii kartografii w epoce Oświecenia jest encyklopedią i dobrym początkiem?

Is It an Encyclopedia and a Good Start for an International Project to Publish the History of Cartography in the Enlightenment? The History of Cartography, t. 4, Cartography in the European Enlightenment, cz. 1–2, red. Matthew H. Edney, Mary Sponberg Pedley, University of Chicago Press, Chicago – London 2019, ss. 1764, 479 haseł/artykułów, 954 ilustracji. The author indicates the extensive range of topics of Cartography in the European Enlightenment, which works both to its advantage and disadvantage. It is a disadvantage because only some of the subjects in the volume were discussed thoroughly, focusing on the scope of the entire project. The authors had the opportunity to carefully select objects, map makers, facts, and phenomena they presented, but the final product has many holes, as often happens in the case of encyclopedias. An advantage is that it provides a canvas that can be filled with topics that have not yet been covered. There is an impressive number of 207 authors who wrote 479 entries and articles, and their work, thanks to a well-devised structure of topics, also gives future researchers of the history of the cartography of the European Enlightenment a chance to systematically expand and deepen their experience with the book. Thematic cross-index allows the reader to search for information similarly to using keywords on the Internet. It is beneficial and intuitive, especially for young people, allowing them to easily navigate and browse the publication.

To Live Peaceably Together: The American Friends Service Committee's Campaign for Open Housing. By Tracy E. K'Meyer. Historical Studies of Urban America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022. 240 pp. $45.00 cloth.

To Live Peaceably Together: The American Friends Service Committee's Campaign for Open Housing. By Tracy E. K'Meyer. Historical Studies of Urban America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022. 240 pp. $45.00 cloth. - Volume 91 Issue 4

The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos. By Elisabeth Ivarsflaten and Paul M. Sniderman. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2022. 216p. $95.00 cloth, $30.00 paper.

The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos. By Elisabeth Ivarsflaten and Paul M. Sniderman. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2022. 216p. 30.00 paper. - Volume 20 Issue 4

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential

Ow! Bam! Good Grief!: Comics and Politics

Ow! Bam! Good Grief!: Comics and Politics Lori Clune (bio) Blake Scott Ball, Charlie Brown’s America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. xii + 256 pp. Images, notes, bibliography, and index. $34.95. Paul S. Hirsch, Pulp Empire: The Secret History of Comic Book Imperialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 344 pp. Images, notes, bibliography, and index. $30.00. A few weeks ago, I needed a new pair of sneakers. Responding to social media ads, I explored the touted Cariuma shoes website. The first to pop up was emblazoned with Snoopy atop his iconic doghouse. Why did this mod, eco-friendly footwear company choose to display Snoopy and other recognizable Peanuts characters not seen in new comic-strip format in more than twenty years? Why are Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Woodstock still popular well into the twenty-first century? Why do some comics resonate? What do they reveal about American society? And how, in light of all of those questions, can historians use comics? The scholar Eric Avila defines cultural history as “the history of stories, their origins, transmission, and significance in time. Lost voices,” he explains, help widen the “definition of what constitutes historical evidence” and highlight culture as “a driving force in history.”1 Comics are an example of a relatively overlooked cultural historic source. In both the book and strip format, comics are accessible cultural products that succeed or fail in how much they resonate with readers. They provide unique insights into politics and culture, both in the United States and abroad. They are compelling avenues for scholarly exploration for historians and our students. The Venn diagram of politics and culture has become the sweet spot for an increasing number of scholars. Many U.S. historians have shifted to looking at war, death, racism, sexism, and nukes through the lens of cultural products. While these scholars may look longingly at seemingly lighthearted historical sources—such as cartoons, television shows, and games—the dark side of humanity can seep into any crevice. The role sexism played in the creation of Monopoly (The Landlord’s Game, 1904); childhood polio and iron lungs and [End Page 416] the gameplay in Candyland (1948); how Johnny Carson groping Eva Gabor on The Tonight Show sparked the popularity of Twister (1966); racism and sexism in the original Oregon Trail (1971); strategically planning nuclear destruction in Balance of Power (1985).2 Cultural products can help historians tell a richer, fuller social and political story. Scholars Blake Scott Ball and Paul S. Hirsch each embrace this overlap of culture and politics and take what is often seen as populist and disposable foolishness—Peanuts and comic books—in their capable hands to create compelling and enlightening lenses through which to view modern American history. In Charlie Brown’s America, Blake Scott Ball provides a “biography of Peanuts’ cultural life” by examining the popular comic strip. Neatly covering 1950 to 2000, Ball uses Peanuts as an effective lens through which to view Cold War America (p. 3). In addition to the strips themselves, Ball makes great use of thousands of pieces of fan mail and other letters sent to Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. By capturing the voices of these ordinary folks, Ball is able to add their opinions and give an indication of how the comic strip was received. Ball argues that through Peanuts’ characters Schulz was able to channel “Americans’ dreams, hopes, fears, and worries” and comment on social and political issues in post-WWII America (p. 3). Chapter Two, for example, explores the Cold War origins of Peanuts. As someone who grew up reading Peanuts, I was surprised how deftly Schulz reflected the Cold War in his strips. It is now difficult to see Linus’s omnipresent blanket as anything but an expression of Cold War anxiety. And J. Edgar Hoover really had signed original Peanuts strips hanging in his office? One wonders which ones! On June 18, 1954, just two years after the United States tested its first hydrogen bomb, Peanuts characters grappled with fear of the bomb by integrating it into their play. Charlie Brown explains, “We’re playing ‘H-Bomb test.’” Three panels later Lucy roars...

Foxconned: Imaginary Jobs, Bulldozed Homes & the Sacking of Local Government, by LawrenceTabak (University of Chicago Press, 2021), xxi + 290 pp.

Foxconned: Imaginary Jobs, Bulldozed Homes & the Sacking of Local Government, by LawrenceTabak (University of Chicago Press, 2021), xxi + 290 pp.

Review: The New Female Antihero: The Disruptive Women of Twenty-First-Century US Television, by Sarah Hagelin and Gillian Silverman

Review: <i>The New Female Antihero: The Disruptive Women of Twenty-First-Century US Television</i>, by Sarah Hagelin and Gillian Silverman

Secretary's Report, 2022 : American Society of Naturalists.

Secretary's Report, 2022 : American Society of Naturalists.

The Meanings of Marriage in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century United States

The Meanings of Marriage in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century United States Jessica Weiss (bio) Catherine J. Denial, Making Marriage: Husbands, Wives and the American State in Dakota and Ojibwe Country. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2013. 208 pp. ISBN 9780873519069 (pb); 9780873519076 (ebook). Karen M. Dunak, As Long as We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Post-War America. New York: New York University Press, 2013. 254 pp. ISBN 9780814737811 (cl); 9781479858354 (pb); 9780814760444 (ebook). Clare Virginia Eby, Until Choice do Us Part: Marriage Reform in the Progressive Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. 264 pp. ISBN 9780226085661 (cl); 9780226085838 (pb); 9780226085975 (ebook). Sarah M. S. Pearsall, Polygamy: An Early American History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. 416 pp. ISBN 9780300226843 (cl). Histories of American marriage—or more accurately, marriages and weddings—reveal much, not only about marriage and the ideas shaping gender and gender roles over time, but also about North America, conquest, American self-definition, and the national project. One of society's most intimate relationships, marriage is never as private as it is assumed to be. Marriages bind spouses, if temporarily, and compose communities; marital ideals define nations. Laws and marriage practices shape social systems and govern relations between communities and married individuals; however, marriage partners and those seeking to marry challenge and reshape marriage, while reformers and state builders place it at the center of their projects. In 2015, the US Supreme Court, in the syllabus for its Obergefell v. Hodges decision, noted salutary reconfigurations of marriage over time: "Changes … have worked deep transformations in the structure of marriage. … These new insights have strengthened, not weakened, the institution. Changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations."1 These books trace understandings of marriage and attempts to effect transformations in marriages and marriage ceremonies, drawing on fascinating sources to uncover stories of complexity and loss that temper a fully positivist portrayal, as well as stories of the resilience and flexibility that have transformed and sustained the institution since the sixteenth century. [End Page 170] From contact to the present, Euro-American marriage customs challenged the individual behavior and cultural practices of Native American communities and vice versa. Reformers sought to perfect the nation with visions of inspired family life; couples sought autonomy and choice inside companionate marriage, and, through egalitarian marriage, a better society; and young people treated traditions as a buffet, sampling old rituals to blend with select new ideas about what weddings should be, democratizing the idea of the white wedding until denying marriage was widely construed as an abrogation of rights.2 Always present both explicitly and implicitly, the complicated public and private aspects of marriage rise to the surface when rights around marriage are in question—most recently, for example, regarding gay marriage and reproductive freedom. These works explore marital diversity and change over time as well as the evolving public and private meanings of marriage, painting a complex portrait of the history of American marriages and the ideals and aspirations around them. Sarah Pearsall recovers the lost history of polygamy, contextualizing the nineteenth-century controversy over Mormon polygyny and transforming our understanding of the nation's origins. Catherine Denial centers interracial marriages between Native American women and Euro-American trappers alongside mission and military marriages during the processes of conquest, territory formation, and state-building in the upper Midwest, demonstrating the incomplete imposition of Anglo-American law and custom through the late nineteenth century and the resilience of Native American kinship systems. Clare Eby brings to light the importance of marriage reform to many Progressive-era reformers and moves beyond nonfiction publications to fiction, popular press coverage, and personal papers, arguing that reformers and reform-minded couples believed society could be improved by bettering marriage even as they found the companionate, egalitarian model that acknowledged women's autonomy challenging to implement and proposed no-fault divorce, illuminating a forgotten side of Progressivism. Karen Dunak explores the origins and manifestations of the postwar white wedding, finding flexibility for individual and consumerist self-expression and for couples' agency to shape the public event, connecting the social cachet of...

Dynamic Partisanship: How and Why Voter Loyalties Change. By Ken Kollman and John E. Jackson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2021. 232p. $105.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.

Dynamic Partisanship: How and Why Voter Loyalties Change. By Ken Kollman and John E. Jackson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2021. 232p. $105.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.

Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit (By Bruce B. Lawrence)

Reviewed by: Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit by Bruce B. Lawrence Gordon D. Newby (bio) Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit Bruce B. Lawrence New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell Manifestos, 2021. 192 Pages. Professor Bruce B. Lawrence, The Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religion at Duke University, has published his latest work, Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit, in the Wiley-Blackwell Manifesto series. In an introductory overview, Lawrence declares his work to be a Manifesto in three words and six chapters. His choice of the genre of manifesto gives this work a personal, confessional voice and a hortative message that encourages the reader to adopt a different historical worldview and a new analytic vocabulary. His starting point is to return to and invite into the intellectual and moral worldview of Marshall G. S. Hodgson, the author of the posthumously published three-volume work, The Venture of Islam. Each of the three words of the title of this manifesto point to three interconnected aspects found in Hodgson’s major work that has the subtitle of “Conscience and History in a World Civilization,” placing Hodgson’s project in a moral as well as a historical dimension.1 In Lawrence’s view, the Hodgsonian mission failed to bring about the shift in thinking that he hoped. Lawrence writes, “At the most basic level each [term in the title, Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit] connotes a surplus: Islamicate is more than Islamic or Muslim, Cosmopolitan is more than congenial or civil, and Spirit is more than subject or agent. Together Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit projects the presence of a tidal wave in world history that remains hidden for most, [End Page 92] opaque for many, and misunderstood even by experts” (p. xvi). In this manifesto, Lawrence exhorts us to take strong action to revise our thinking and those of our students to a pan-world perspective. Because Lawrence’s Manifesto is so closely linked to Hodgson’s Venture, it must be viewed with Venture in mind. Marshall Hodgson, a professor at the University of Chicago and chairman of the interdisciplinary Committee on Social Thought, died in 1968, and his Venture of Islam was completed from his notes and published by the University of Chicago Press in 1974. Its broad vision of the role of Islamicate civilization was quickly embroiled in controversy over his use of the term “Islamicate.” This neologism was meant to distinguish between the religion of Islam, that is things and ideas Islamic, and the wider civilization that was Islamicate. This distinction was meant to open a discussion of Islamicate civilization to include groups usually identified as Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and others who were part of the culture and history of the Islamicate world and decenter the discussion of world civilization away from the teleological imperative of Western Christian culture and the subject of religion. In Lawrence’s “Preamble,” he asks, “Why Islamicate, why now, why me?” His answers inform the reader who he is and why he is so strongly engaged with this subject in the manifesto. It is a reference to Hodgson’s urging that we reveal who we are and the pre-commitments that we bring to any discussion. For Hodgson, this is the beginning of realizing the force of Conscience in the projects of writing and teaching world history. In Lawrence’s work, we learn that he started using The Venture of Islam for an undergraduate class at Duke University in 1976, only a year after its publication.2 As Lawrence recalls Venture’s reception among his students and colleagues, his experience reflects a broader reception among students and colleagues who struggled with Hodgson’s neologisms and his challenges to re-think and re-center our values when we make our modern Euro-American world the standard against which we measure the rest of the world and its past. Even before 1979, the year that the Iranian Revolution brought Islam to Western headlines and consciousness, the term Islam had acquired fraught and pejorative connotations and distorted interpretations that entailed prejudices and misinterpretations. The word had become too loaded and charged to be analytically useful for talking about the fourteen centuries of Islam’s existence and its world-wide spread. Prophet Muhammad’s...

Objective Humanities, Reflexive Humanities

Objective Humanities, Reflexive Humanities

:The Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany, 1891–1961: Scholars, Singers, Missionaries

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany, 1891–1961: Scholars, Singers, Missionaries. By Anna Maria Busse Berger. New Material Histories of Music. Edited by James Q. Davies and Nicholas Mathew. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. Pp. xii+352. $55.00 (cloth); $10.00 to $55.00 (e-book).Celia ApplegateCelia ApplegateVanderbilt University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 94, Number 4December 2022Families Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/722186 Views: 16Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

What's Eating the Universe? And Other Cosmic Questions

WHAT'S EATING THE UNIVERSE? And Other Cosmic Questions by Paul Davies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 208 pages. Hardcover; $22.50. ISBN: 9780226816296. *I could not have foreseen Paul Davies's latest book appearing. It is distinctively different from his previous books. Once again, it is beautifully written, as only a renowned physicist with a gift for explaining highly abstract concepts in understandable terms could accomplish. Yet this book is much shorter, much more concise, and lacks the long philosophical musings that made Paul Davies's previous books so enjoyable. It contrasts with his earlier work, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life?, a brilliant ten-chapter work over three hundred pages long. That book covers the physics of a universe just right for human life and pursues many different philosophical questions and answers. In contrast, What's Eating the Universe? has thirty truly short chapters with just 165 pages of material. Nevertheless, this book is highly recommended, especially for the novice who just wants an overview of the present state of our understanding of physics and cosmology, and a brief foray into some of the big questions. *Davies takes the reader on a journey beginning with the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) findings of ripples in the microwave radiation coming to us from every direction. These slight variations in temperature supported the Big Bang model of the universe by connecting the nearly uniform radiation background to galaxy formation with slight "hot spots" necessary to seed the gravity wells, allowing matter to grow from a nearly uniform state to the galaxies we see today. This is just one outstanding example of how scientific investigation has succeeded in explaining our universe. *Davies then presents a historical overview of the major ideas that have contributed to our growing understanding, moving from Copernicus to Einstein. He uses delightful analogies to help the reader grasp the ideas. For example, he uses the analogy of a trained marksman (sharpshooter) to explain how precise the initial expansion of the universe had to be for it to avoid either quickly collapsing or expanding too fast to form stars and galaxies. The many questions addressed by Davies include the speed and shape of space as it expands, the source and nature of matter, including dark matter, and the enigma of dark energy, the cause behind the accelerating expansion of the universe. Davies is a wonderfully gifted writer, and his descriptions are extremely helpful in clarifying these matters. *The title suggests that there are deeply troubling questions about our present understanding of the universe and its governing laws, leaving us with puzzling inconsistencies or paradoxes. And though there are some paradoxes, Davies is the first one to admit that the real story is that our present understanding of the universe via scientific investigation is an overwhelming success. The universe is understandable in terms of elegant mathematical laws that go astonishingly far in explaining and describing what we observe. And this is what's eating Paul Davies, not the universe. Most of his scientist friends have rejected the idea of meaning or purpose intrinsic to this universe, simply accepting the success of science without the need to question why it works. But Davies cannot leave it alone. He writes: "A universe that 'just exists' for no reason, with specific properties that 'just are,' is correctly described, in formal logic, as 'absurd.' But if there is no rational coherent scheme beneath the surface phenomena of nature, if things 'just are,' if the universe is absurd, then the success of the scientific enterprise is totally enigmatic. It cannot be pursued with any expectation that the methods adopted hitherto will continue to work, that we will go on uncovering new mechanisms and processes that make sense, for how can sense be rooted in absurdity?" (pp. 158-59). *However, for a Christian scientist, the universe is not absurd. It has meaning and purpose because it was created with meaning and purpose by a transcendent Creator God. Its basis of mathematically elegant laws is no accident, but rather a clear case of design, regardless of how God chose to create it. Davies knows this and is quite willing to acknowledge that this avoids the absurdity of a rational universe without a rational cause. Yet Davies persists, in the hope that science itself will one day uncover that deeper layer required to explain it. Davies personally experienced a journey from a Christian upbringing to atheist scientist, finally to agnostic scientist in which the deeper questions arising from science keep eating at him. *Reviewed by Steven Ball, Professor of Physics, LeTourneau University, Longview, TX 75602.

Hussein Fancy, The Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2016, xv-311 p.

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William H. SewellJr. Capitalism and the Emergence of Civic Equality in Eighteenth-Century France. [Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning.] The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (IL) [etc.] 2021. 412 pp. Ill. $105.00. (Paper: $35.00; E-book: $34.99.)

William H. SewellJr. Capitalism and the Emergence of Civic Equality in Eighteenth-Century France. [Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning.] The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (IL) [etc.] 2021. 412 pp. Ill. $34.99.) - Volume 67 Issue 3

:Sound Writing: Experimental Modernism and the Poetics of Articulation

:<i>Sound Writing: Experimental Modernism and the Poetics of Articulation</i>

:Disaffected: Emotion, Sedition, and Colonial Law in the Anglosphere

:<i>Disaffected: Emotion, Sedition, and Colonial Law in the Anglosphere</i>

:Joy of the Worm: Suicide and Pleasure in Early Modern English Literature

:<i>Joy of the Worm: Suicide and Pleasure in Early Modern English Literature</i>