Books published by University of California Press

Drawing on his lifelong fascination with the game, the author guides readers into the world of twenty-first-century chess to help us understand its unique pleasures and challenges, and to advance a new 'anthropology of passion.'

Presents a detailed ethnographic study of a therapeutic prison unit in Canada for the treatment of sexual offenders. Utilizing extensive interviews and participant-observation over an eighteen month period of field work, this title takes the reader into the depths of what prison inmates commonly refer to as the 'hound pound.'

With its thunderous sounds and dazzling choreography, Japanese taiko drumming has captivated audiences in Japan and across the world, making it one of the most successful performing arts to emerge from Japan in the past century. This book explores the origins of taiko in the early postwar period and its popularization over the following decades.

Why is Cinco de Mayo - a holiday commemorating a Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862 - so widely celebrated in California and across the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? This title shows how the meaning of Cinco de Mayo has shifted over time.

Part ethnography, part memoir, this book traces Japan's vibrant cafe society over one hundred and thirty years. It also traces Japan's coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America.

Presents the thousand years of Roman history through sixteen studies of famous court cases - from the legendary trial of Horatius for the killing of his sister, to the trial of Jesus Christ, to that of the Christian leader Priscillian for heresy.

Offers a history of how the American drug industry and key sectors of the medical profession came to be allies against pharmaceutical reform. This title details the political strategies they have used to influence public opinion, shape legislative reform, and define the regulatory environment of prescription drugs.

Explores how Italy's Mezzogiorno became both backward and picturesque, an alternately troubling and fascinating borderland between Europe and its others.

Praised as the definitive history of Beirut, this is the story of a city that has stood at the crossroads of Mediterranean civilization for more than four thousand years. It takes the reader from the ancient to the modern world, offering a dazzling panorama of the city's Seleucid, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, and French incarnations.

Combining personal memories with political information about Hawai'i's crucial Territorial era, this title discovers the central role played by the author's great-great-grandfather in the politics of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Hawai'i.

Surveys the life and work of the Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay, who is best known for his extraordinary garden, Little Sparta, a unique 'poem of place' in which poetry, sculpture, and horticulture intersect. This book directs sustained attention to Finlay the verbal artist, revealing the full breadth and richness of his poetics.

From risque cabaret performances to engrossing after-hours shop talk, this title offers a look inside the secretive subculture of modern magicians. It follows the day-to-day lives of some of France's most renowned performers, revealing not only how secrets are created and shared, but also how they are stolen and destroyed.

Explores the unintended consequences of compassion in the world of immigration politics. This book focuses on France and its humanitarian immigration practices to argue that a politics based on care and protection can lead the state to view issues of immigration and asylum through a medical lens.

Sweeps across dramatic and varied terrains - volcanoes and glaciers, billabongs and canyons, prairies and rain forests - to explore how humans have made sense of our planet's marvelous landscapes. This book investigates how we live with the great shaping forces of nature - from fire to changing climates and the intricacies of adaptation.

In May 1968, France teetered on the brink of revolution as a series of student protests spiraled into the largest general strike the country has ever known. This book examines the social, political, and cultural effects of May '68 on a variety of music in France, from the initial shock of 1968 through the 'long' 1970s.

Focuses on one of the most important religious centers in Africa and in the world: the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria. This title presents a study of the spiritual and cultural center of the Yoruba religion, tells how the city went from great prominence to near obliteration and then rose again as a contemporary city of gods.

Provides a fresh account of the modernized AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) - the 40-million member insurance giant and political lobby that continues to set the national agenda for Medicare and Social Security.

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus publicly defended his hypothesis that the earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the center of a finite universe. This title reframes this pivotal moment in the history of science, centering the story on a conflict over the credibility of astrology that erupted in Italy just as Copernicus arrived in 1496.

Ecological restoration, the attempt to guide damaged ecosystems back to a previous, usually healthier or more natural, condition, is one of the most promising approaches to conservation. This book explores the promise of restoration, both as a way of reversing environmental damage and as a context for negotiating our relationship with nature.

An exploration of a troubling phenomenon: the fast-growing belief in Muslim countries that the end of the world is at hand - and with it the "Great Battle," prophesied by both Sunni and Shi'i tradition, which many believers expect will begin in the Afghan-Pakistani borderlands. It uncovers the role of apocalypse in Islam over the centuries.

Focuses on the interplay between two modes of human existence: that of participating in other peoples' lives and that of turning inward to one's self. This title shows how the historical complexities and particularities found in human interactions reveal the dilemmas, conflicts, cares, and concerns that shape all of our lives.

Offers an integrated theory of the study of religion as visual culture. Providing key tools for scholars across disciplines studying the materiality of religions, this title gives an overview including case studies of the ways seeing is related to touching, hearing, feeling, and such ephemeral experiences as dreams, imagination, and visions.

Suitable for those who are interested in green development - including policy makers, architects, developers, builders, and homeowners - this practical guide focuses on the central question of how to conserve biodiversity in neighborhoods and to minimize development impacts on surrounding habitats.

The United States has seen a dramatic rise in the number of informal day labor sites in the last two decades. This book offers a perspective on how the informal economy of undocumented labor truly functions in American society.

Examines the role of Russian Orthodox Church in the treatment of HIV/AIDS.

Presents a study that explores the emergence and growth of a remarkable global trade network operated by Armenian silk merchants from a small outpost in the Persian Empire. This book discusses the trans-imperial cosmopolitan world of the New Julfans. It also explores the effects of long distance trade on the organization of community life.

Where will the water come from to sustain the great desert cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix? This title explores the water in the West, and explains why America built the dam that made Lake Powell and others like it and then allowed its citizens to become dependent on their benefits, which were always temporary.

Follows the trials and triumphs of eight such migrants - including a vegetable vendor, an itinerant knife sharpener, a free-spirited recycler, and a cash-strapped mother - offering an inside look at the pain, self-sacrifice, and uncertainty underlying China's dramatic national transformation.

One of Japan's most important modern poets, Tada Chimako (1930-2003) gained prominence in her native country for her sensual, frequently surreal poetry and fantastic imagery. This title presents a selection from Tada's extraordinary oeuvre, including nontraditional free verse, poems in the traditional forms of tanka and haiku, and prose poems.

Looks at the multi-faceted nature of New Orleans, a city replete with contradictions. Featuring 22 full-color two-page-spread maps, this title plumbs the depths of this major tourist destination, pivotal scene of American history and culture and, most recently, site of monumental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.