Books published by Pennsylvania State University Press

A collection of essays examining Immanuel Kant's lectures and minor writings as well as his political essays. Offers a comprehensive introduction to Kant's political thought from a position of engagement with modern political and philosophical questions.

Explores the history and architecture of two city squares, constructed by rival political parties, in the Italian city of Parma from 1196 to 1300.

Examines postcards as images that are carriers of text, and textual correspondence that circulate images across boundaries of class, gender, nationality and race. Discusses issues concerning the concrete practices of production, consumption, collection and appropriation.

Examines patterns of income inequality among 16 advanced democracies from the mid 1970s to the early 2000s and explains why some societies have a large and growing divide between the rich and the poor while others, facing similar global economic pressures, maintain more egalitarian income distributions.

A cross-national analysis of political recruitment and candidate selection in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay. Provides typology and theoretical insights for other countries in the region and around the world.

A collection of essays which analyze and evaluate both the theoretical and historical contexts of the agrifood system and the ways in which trends of individual action and collective activity have led to an "accumulation of resistance" that greatly affects the mainstream market of food production.

Examines protest movements on both the left and the right from 1969 to 1995 in order to understand how they became large and influential and why protesters in different conflicts used quite different methods (ranging from conventional participation to nonviolent disruption to violent militancy).

Simone de Beauvoir identified the importance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's writings to feminist theory. But there has been little agreement on how Merleau-Ponty's ideas ultimately have an impact on feminist philosophy. The essays presented here attempt to situate Merleau-Ponty in the larger context of feminist theory.

Provides evidence that Walt Whitman's engagement with the visual arts extended beyond photography into painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Discussing Whitman's gradual emergence as an American, democratic, and radical figure, this book is of interest both to Whitman specialists and to readers seeking an introduction to Whitman's role as a poet.

When theorists explain how democracies conduct foreign policy, they tend to ignore or downplay differences and assume that all behave similarly. Challenging this assumption, this text argues that differences in their structural autonomy have a lot to do with how foreign security policies are chosen and international negotiations are carried out.

This work shows how a historiographically sensitive rereading of contemporaneous documents about the 16th-century Spanish conquest and evangelization of Michoacan can challenge traditional celebratory interpretations of missionary activity in early colonial Mexico.

The counter-epic is a literary style that developed in reaction to imperialist epic conventions as a means of scrutinizing the consequences of foreign conquest of dominated peoples. This work covers the representation of militant Christian imperialism in early modern Spanish literature.

This book is designed specifically to provide an objective evaluation of Guevara's record as a guerrilla soldier, commander, and strategist from his first skirmish in Cuba to his defeat in Bolivia eleven years later.

The 20th century was one of profound transformation in rural America, when demographic shifts and economic restructuring dramatically altered the lives of rural people and their communities. This work defines these changes and interprets their implications for the future of rural America.

This collection of essays illustrate how deep concern about money in American politics runs - and how the definition of the problem has changed over time. Chapters cover episodes from the early 19th century through the 1970s.

From its first publication in 1960, this novel sparked a debate about the extent to which its story of a belated return to childhood scenes mirrored key events of Richter's own life. John Donner, the lead character, traces a similar path to Richter, from west to east and to his childhood home.

The essays in this volume, representing a wide range of feminist interpretations of Rousseau, explore the many tensions in his thought that arise from his unique combination of radical and traditional perspectives on gender relations and the state.

An exploration of such universal terms as "people", "man" or "human" in early modern England, from the Civil War through the Enlightenment. Such language falsely implies inclusion of both men and women when actually it excludes women.

This text aims to help students understand America's history of miscegenation and the role the "one-drop rule" has played in it. The author examines challenges to the one-drop rule, including the multiracial identity movement and the census classification of racial groups.

This collection evaluates John Dewey's pragmatism from a feminist perspective. The variety of interpretations offered ranges from Jane Addams' praise for his collegial efforts to resolve the problems of the inner city to contemporary comparisons of his approach with Addams' critique of capitalism.

The 14 essays included in this collection clearly illustrate the ways in which feminist readings can deepen understanding of Heidegger's philosophy. They illuminate both the richness and the limitations of the resources Heidegger's work can provide for feminist thought.

This volume of essays investigates the question of Levinas's relationship to feminist thought. Levinas breaks with Heidegger's phenomenology by understanding the ethical relation to the "Other," the face-to-face, as exceeding the language of ontology.

The story of the rural life and landscape of Somerset County in Pennsylvania, as it evolved from the earliest settlement days. It demonstrates how much one can learn about the economy and culture of a particular place simply by being attentive to the built landscape.

This work looks back at the role of US intelligence during World War II, from Pearl Harbour through the plot against Hitler, from the D-Day invasion to the "unconditional surrender" of Japan, and shows how better use of the intelligence available could have saved many lives and shortened the war.

Presenting a re-reading of Mary Daly's published works, this open-ended anthology seeks to deauthorize the official canon of Western philosophy and refute the claim by some feminists that Daly's work is unworthy of further analysis because it contains fatal errors.

Sets up a dialogue between work on the ethic of care and studies of public care in practice. The author argues that care as it is currently institutionalized often both assumes and perpetuates dependency and so paternalistic relationships of authority.