University of Pittsburgh Press
The University of Pittsburgh Press is a publisher with distinguished lists in a wide range of scholarly and cultural fields. They publish books for general readers, scholars, and students. The Press focuses on selected academic areas: Latin American studies, Russian and East European studies, Central Asian studies, composition and literacy studies, environmental studies, urban studies, the history of architecture and the built environment, and the history and philosophy of science, technology, and medicine. Their books about Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania include history, art, architecture, photography, biography, fiction, and guidebooks.
Their renowned Pitt Poetry Series represents many of the finest poets active today, as reflected in the many prestigious awards their work has garnered over the past four decades. In addition, the Press is home to the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, and, in rotation with other university presses, the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. They sponsor the prestigious Drue Heinz Literature Prize, which recognises the finest collective works of short fiction available in an international competition.
Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel, The
Format: Paperback
Pages: 312
ISBN: 9780822957287
Pub Date: 12 Oct 2000
Description:
A critical study of the philosophy and political practice of the Czech dissident movement Charter 77. Aviezer Tucker examines how the political philosophy of Jan Patocka (1907-1977), founder of Charter 77, influenced the thinking and political leadership of Vaclav Havel as dissident and president. Presents the first serious treatment of Havel as philosopher and Patocka as a political thinker.
Through the Charter 77 dissident movement in Czechoslovakia, opponents of communism based their civil struggle for human rights on philosophic foundations, and members of the Charter 77 later led the Velvet Revolution. After Patocka's self-sacrifice in 1977, Vaclav Havel emerged a strong philosophical and political force, and he continued to apply Patocka's philosophy in order to understand the human condition under late communism and the meaning of dissidence. However, the political/philosophical orientation of the Charter 77 movement failed to provide President Havel with an adequate basis for comprehending and responding to the extraordinary political and economic problems of the postcommunist period. In his discussion of Havel's presidency and the eventual corruption of the Velvet Revolution, Tucker demonstrates that the weaknesses in Charter 77 member's understanding of modernity, which did not matter while they were dissidents, seriously harmed their ability to function in a modern democratic system. Within this context, Tucker also examines Havel's recent attempt to topple the democratic but corrupt government in 1997-1998. The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel will be of interest to students of philosophy and politics, scholars and students of Slavic studies, and historians, as well as anyone fascinated by the nature of dissidence.
History of Environmental Politics Since 1945, A
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9780822957478
Pub Date: 12 Oct 2000
Description:
An overview of contemporary environmental affairs, from 1940s to the present—with an emphasis on nature in an urbanized society, land developments, environmental technology, the structure of environmental politics, environmental opposition, and the results of environmental policy.
Postmodern Presidency
Bill Clinton's Legacy in U.S. Politics
Format: Paperback
Pages: 312
ISBN: 9780822957423
Pub Date: 28 Sep 2000
Description:
Choice Outstanding Academic Book. As America’s first truly postmodern president, Bill Clinton experienced both great highs and stunning lows in office that will shape the future course of American politics. Clinton will forever be remembered as the first elected president to be impeached, but will his tarnished legacy have lasting effects on America’s political system?
Including the conflict in Kosovo, the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, and new developments in the 2000 presidential campaign, The Postmodern Presidency is the most comprehensive and current assessment of Bill Clinton’s presidency available in print. The Postmodern Presidency examines Clinton’s role in redefining the institution of the presidency, and his affect on future presidents’ economic and foreign policies. The contributors highlight the president’s unprecedented courtship of public opinion; how polls affected policy; how the president gained “celebrity” status; how Clinton’s “postmodern” style of public presidency helped him survive the 1994 elections and impeachment; and how all of this might impact future presidents. This new text also demonstrates how the Clinton presidency changed party politics in the public and in Congress, with long-term implications and costs to both Republicans and his own Democratic party, while analyzing Clinton’s effect on the 1990s “culture wars,” the politics and importance of gender, and the politics and policy of race. This text is a must for anyone who studies, teaches, or has an interest in the American presidency and politics.
From Darkness To Light
Class, Consciousness, & Salvation In Revolutionary
Format: Paperback
Pages: 488
ISBN: 9780822957041
Pub Date: 03 Aug 2000
Description:
In this interdisciplinary and controversial work, Igal Halfin takes an original and provocative stance on Marxist theory, and attempts to break down the divisions between history, philosophy, and literary theory.
To Vote or Not to Vote
The Merits and Limits of Rational Choice Theory
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9780822957348
Pub Date: 03 Aug 2000
Description:
What makes people decide to vote? In addressing this simple question, Andr\u00e9 Blais examines the factors that increase or decrease turnout at the aggregate, cross-national level and considers what affects people\u2019s decision to vote or to abstain. In doing so, Blais assesses the merits and limitations of the rational choice model in explaining voter behavior.
The past few decades have witnessed a rise in the popularity of the rational choice model in accounting for voter turnout, and more recently a groundswell of outspoken opposition to rational choice theory. Blais tackles this controversial subject in an engaging and personal way, bringing together the opposing theories and literatures, and offering convincing tests of these different viewpoints. Most important, he handles the discussion in a clear and balanced manner. Using new data sets from many countries, Blais concludes that while rational choice is an important tool—even when it doesn\u2019t work—its empirical contribution to understanding why people vote is quite limited. Whether one supports rational choice theory or opposes it, Blais\u2019s evenhanded and timely analysis will certainly be of interest, and is well-suited for advanced undergraduate and graduate-level classes.
Models Of Nature
Ecology, Conservation, and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9780822957331
Pub Date: 21 Jul 2000
Description:
Models of Nature studies the early and turbulent years of the Soviet conservation movement from the October Revolution to the mid-1930s—Lenin\u2019s rule to the rise of Stalin. This new edition includes an afterword by the author that reflects upon the study's impact and discusses advances in the field since the book was first published.
Slave Emancipation In Cuba
The Transition to Free Labor, 1860–1899
Format: Paperback
Pages: 360
ISBN: 9780822957355
Pub Date: 21 Jul 2000
Description:
Slave Emancipation in Cuba is the classic study of the end of slavery in Cuba. Rebecca J. Scott explores the dynamics of Cuban emancipation, arguing that slavery was not simply abolished by the metropolitan power of Spain or abandoned because of economic contradictions.
Rather, slave emancipation was a prolonged, gradual and conflictive process unfolding through a series of social, legal, and economic transformations.Scott demonstrates that slaves themselves helped to accelerate the elimination of slavery. Through flight, participation in nationalist insurgency, legal action, and self-purchase, slaves were able to force the issue, helping to dismantle slavery piece by piece. With emancipation, former slaves faced transformed, but still very limited, economic options. By the end of the nineteenth-century, some chose to join a new and ultimately successful rebellion against Spanish power. In a new afterword, prepared for this edition, the author reflects on the complexities of postemancipation society, and on recent developments in historical methodology that make it possible to address these questions in new ways.
Zinc Fingers
Poems A to Z
Format: Paperback
Pages: 104
ISBN: 9780822957249
Pub Date: 20 Jul 2000
Description:
In Peter Meinke’s eleventh collection, he writes poems of humor and sadness. His poems speak truth with the self-assurance of a man willing to laugh at himself and, by extension, he invites us to laugh at ourselves as well.
Triumphant Capitalism
Henry Clay Frick and the Industrial Transformation of America
Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
ISBN: 9780822957447
Pub Date: 24 Jun 2000
Description:
A detailed, carefully wrought business biography of Henry Clay Frick, one of the leading entrepreneurs in American heavy industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Kenneth Warren has provided not only insight into the life of Henry Clay Frick, but a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the basic industries, the shaping of society, locality, and region - and thereby of laying the foundations for the value systems and landscapes of present-day America.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 112
ISBN: 9780822941194
Pub Date: 18 May 2000
Description:
This is the first thorough guide to the design and history of "Kentuck," a splendid mountain house in southwestern Pennsylvania designed in 1953-1954 by Frank Lloyd Wright. Inspired by Fallingwater, the famous house only seven miles away that Wright designed above the waterfalls of Bear Run, local businessman I. N.
Hagan and his wife, Bernardine, commissioned the 86-year-old Wright to design this home. Kentuck, constructed on an isolated knoll, or knob, is now owned by Lord Palumbo of London and is open for public tours. This vivid account tells the story of how the house came to be, detailing the many complexities faced by the Hagans—from the delights and difficulties in dealing with Wright to the problems with topography and architectual plans. In fulfilling Wright's vision, the Hagans and their contractor managed to construct a building of great beauty, dignity, and serenity. More than fifty photographs, drawings, and diagrams accompany a detailed descriptive text to illustrate how the peculiarities of the plan, based on the equilateral triangle, resulted in a house that generates countless vistas, indoors and out, and spatial effects of great charm and intimacy. Frank Lloyd Wright's House on Kentuck Knob brings to life an unusual work of residential architecture. It is the perfect introduction to Kentuck, and for those who have visited there, a lovely reminder of this luminous but modest house.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 312
ISBN: 9780822961277
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2000
Description:
The vision of a central waterway connecting tidewater Virginia with the Ohio River to rival the Erie Canal persisted for decades during the 19th century. The idea was at first fostered by the commonwealth of Virginia and then reincarnated as the Central Water Line, which was endorsed by the federal government. It was a grand vision, and though never implemented, the Great Kanawha Navigation nevertheless became a highly successful regionally controlled waterway that developed the rich resources of the Kanawha Valley.
Emory Kemp has compiled a comprehensive history of navigation on the Great Kanawha River, detailing the industrial archaeology of this waterway from the early 19th century, and offering a detailed case study of a major 19th- and early 20th-century civil engineering project that would significantly advance the nation's industrial development.Using the early unsuccessful attempts to connect the James River and western waters as a background, The Great Kanawha Navigation emphasizes technological innovation and construction of navigational structures on the river. With the river men championing open navigation during favorable stages of the river, and at the same time clamoring for controls to ensure navigation during periods of low flow, the Corps of Engineers responded with the concept of the movable dam to provide a cost-effective means of moving bulk cargo, especially coal, salt, lumber, cement, and chemicals, along nearly 100 miles of the Great Kanawha River. The Great Kanawha Navigation employed a series of ten locks and dams and became a laboratory for the use of movable dams in the United States, using first the French Chanoine shutter wicket dam and then the German Roller Gate dam. The innovative technology of the ten dams, the volume of freight carried and the management of the system by the Corps of Engineers made this one of the most significant public works in the nation. Each of the two systems provided cost-effective and environmentally sound means to tap the rich mineral resources of the Kanawha Valley. By any measure, the Great Kanawha Navigation has been one of the more successful ventures of the Corps of Engineers; Kemp has provided extensive photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and maps to further emphasize the construction of the various hydraulic structures. The result is an interesting and significant blend of biographical, technical, political, geographical, and industrial history that will delight historians of technology and the region.
Traces Of A Stream
Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9780822957256
Pub Date: 24 Mar 2000
Description:
Traces of a Stream offers a unique scholarly perspective that merges interests in rhetorical and literacy studies, United States social and political theory, and African American women writers. Focusing on elite nineteenth-century African American women who formed a new class of women well positioned to use language with consequence, Royster uses interdisciplinary perspectives (literature, history, feminist studies, African American studies, psychology, art, sociology, economics) to present a well-textured rhetorical analysis of the literate practices of these women. With a shift in educational opportunity after the Civil War, African American women gained access to higher education and received formal training in rhetoric and writing.
By the end of the nineteenth-century, significant numbers of African American women operated actively in many public arenas. In her study, Royster acknowledges the persistence of disempowering forces in the lives of African American women and their equal perseverance against these forces. Amid these conditions, Royster views the acquisition of literacy as a dynamic moment for African American women, not only in terms of their use of written language to satisfy their general needs for agency and authority, but also to fulfill socio-political purposes as well. Traces of a Stream is a showcase for nineteenth-century African American women, and particularly elite women, as a group of writers who are currently underrepresented in rhetorical scholarship. Royster has formulated both an analytical theory and an ideological perspective that are useful in gaining a more generative understanding of literate practices as a whole and the practices of African American women in particular. Royster tells a tale of rhetorical prowess, calling for alternative ways of seeing, reading, and rendering scholarship as she seeks to establish a more suitable place for the contributions and achievements of African American women writers.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9780822985914
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2000
Description:
The first work in English to discuss the social and political history of lawyers in a Latin American country, Honorable Lives presents a portrait of lawyers in late colonial and early modern Colombia. Uribe-Uran focuses on the social origins, education, and careers of those qualified to practice law before the highest colonial courts—Audiencias—and the republican courts after the 1820s. In the course of his study, Uribe-Uran answers many questions about this elite group of professionals.
What were the social origins and families of lawyers? Their relation to the state? Their participation in political movements and parties, revolutions, civil wars, and other political processes? Their ideas, education, and training? By exploring the lives of lawyers, Uribe-Uran is also able to present a general history of Latin America while examining the key social and political changes and continuities from 1780 to 1850—particularly the elites and state managers.Honorable Lives features three genealogical charts detailing bureaucratic networks established by families of lawyers in different historical periods. The text also contains an abundant series of statistical tables and charts, and concise biographical information on approximately 150 Latin American lawyers. This book will appeal to Latin Americanists, students of law, and anyone interested in the lives and histories of lawyers.
Conquering Nature
The Enviromental Legacy of Socialism in Cuba
Format: Paperback
Pages: 344
ISBN: 9780822957218
Pub Date: 09 Mar 2000
Description:
Conquering Nature provides the only book-length analysis of the environmental situation in Cuba after four decades of socialist rule, based on extensive examination of secondary sources, informed by the study of development and environmental trends in former socialist countries as well as in the developing world. It approaches the issue comprehensively and from interdisciplinary, comparative, and historical perspectives. Based on the Cuban example, D\u00edaz-Briquets and P\u00e9rez-L\u00f3pez challenge the concept that environmental disruption was not supposed to occur under socialism since it was alleged that guided by scientific policies, socialism could only beget environmentally benign economic development.
In reality, the socialist environmental record proved to be far different from the utopian view. Between the early 1960s and the late 1980s the environmental situation worsened despite Cuba\u2019s achieving one of the lowest population growth rates in the world and having eliminated extreme living standard differentials in rural areas, two of the primary reasons often blamed for environmental deterioration in developing countries. The government\u2019s approach was to \u201cconquer nature\u201d and under its central planning approach, it did not take local circumstances into consideration. This disregard for the environmental consequences of development projects continues to this day despite official allegations to the contrary—as the country pursues an economic survival strategy based on the crash development of the tourist sector and exploitation of natural resources. An underlying conclusion of the book is that the environmental legacy of socialism will present serious challenges to future Cuban generations. Conquering Nature provides, for the first time, a relevant analysis of socialist environmental policies of a developing country. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Cuba and those interested in environmental issues in developing countries.
Friendly Liquidation of the Past, The
The Politics of Diversity in Latin America
Format: Paperback
Pages: 360
ISBN: 9780822957294
Pub Date: 09 Mar 2000
Description:
Constitutional reform has been one of the most significant aspects of democratization in late twentieth century Latin America. In The Friendly Liquidation of the Past—one of the first texts to examine this issue comprehensively —Van Cott focuses on the efforts of Bolivia and Colombia to incorporate ethnic rights into their fragile democracies. In the1990s, political leaders and social movements in Bolivia and Colombia expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of democracy--its exclusionary nature, the distance and illegitimacy of the state, and the empty promise of citizenship.
The highly symbolic act of constitution making elevated a public struggle for rights to the level of a discussion on the meaning of democracy and the nature of the state. Based on interviews with more than 100 participants in the reforms, Van Cott demonstrates how issues promoted by social movements—recognizing ethnic diversity, expanding political participation and improving representation, and creating spheres of cultural and territorial autonomy—were placed on the constitutional reform agenda and transformed through strategic interaction with political power-brokers into the nation’s highest law. The analysis follows each reform through five years of implementation to assess the early results of what Van Cott suggests is an emerging regional model of multicultural constitutionalism. The Friendly Liquidation of the Past fills an important gap in the study of ethnic politics and constitutional reform in the Andes, linking the literature on institutions and political reform to work in political theory on participatory democracy and multiculturalism.
Horse Fair, The
Format: Paperback
Pages: 104
ISBN: 9780822957201
Pub Date: 09 Mar 2000
Description:
In The Horse Fair, Robin Becker asks questions about citizenship and participation in the marketplaces—of bodies, of ideas, of objects—in which we function. She investigates how individuals marginalized by gender, religion, and sexual preference negotiate public and private spheres while inventing sustainable communities. Beginning with the great nineteenth-century French painter Rosa Bonheur, Becker has produced a number of multi-voiced, synthetic portraits, each within a framework of social history and a poetics of partiality—she speaks from the persona of Charlotte Salomon, child of assimilate, German-Jewish parents and grandparents and killed by the Nazis at the age of twenty-six; she appropriates passages from the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services; and juxtaposes them against stanzas that mourn her sister’s death and those that celebrate non-traditional families.
Organized around the long meditations, other poems show Becker's dexterity with formal verse (sestina, sonnet, tercets) and her imaginative engagements with free verse. The Horse Fair takes its name from Bonheur's monumental painting and serves as the vehicle through which Becker explores anti-Semitism, cross-dressing, and Bonheur's lifelong relationships with women. In Becker's hands, The Horse Fair transports us to the communal plaza where we come to barter and to buy, to study one another, to touch the foundation upon which we build our temporary habitations.
