Books published by University of Illinois Press

Gideon Welles’s 1861 appointment as secretary of the navy placed him at the hub of Union planning for the Civil War and in the midst of the powerful personalities vying for influence in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet. Although Welles initially knew little of naval matters, he rebuilt a service depleted by Confederate defections, planned actions that gave the Union badly needed victories in the war’s early days, and oversaw a blockade that weakened the South’s economy. Perhaps the hardest-working member of the cabinet, Welles still found time to keep a detailed diary that has become one of the key documents for understanding the inner workings of the Lincoln administration. In this new edition, William E. and Erica L. Gienapp have restored Welles’s original observations, gleaned from the manuscript diaries at the Library of Congress and freed from his many later revisions, so that the reader can experience what he wrote in the moment. With his vitriolic pen, Welles captures the bitter disputes over strategy and war aims, lacerates colleagues from Secretary of State William H. Seward to General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, and condemns the actions of the self-serving southern elite he sees as responsible for the war. He just as easily waxes eloquent about the Navy's wartime achievements, extols the virtues of Lincoln, and drops in a tidbit of Washington gossip.Carefully edited and extensively annotated, this edition contains a wealth of supplementary material. The appendixes include short biographies of the members of Lincoln’s cabinet, the retrospective Welles wrote after leaving office covering the period missing from the diary proper, and important letters regarding naval matters and international law.

Provides a more nuanced view of the musical world of Bach's time while revealing in more specific terms than ever how and why Bach's own music remains fresh and compelling.

Expands how we understand intellectual possibilities, economic success, and social mobility in post-Reconstruction America.

Provides an important alternative reading of Singaporean society.

Considers the ways in which Mormons and anti-Mormons both questioned and constructed ideas of the national body politic, citizenship, gender, the family, and American culture at large.

Bringing together the latest and most innovative scholarship on the history of the emotions.

This insightful history uncovers the modern police department's role in reconciling democracy with industrial capitalism.

Demonstrates how landscape features such as waterways, iron forges, and caves played a key role in the conduct and effectiveness of the Underground Railroad.

Explores the multivalent meanings of Caribbean space and community in a cross-cultural and transdisciplinary perspective.

Masterfully connecting historical systems of racial slavery to post-Enlightenment modernity.

Analyzes and challenges the crucial boundary that separates an artistic concept from its actual implementation in life.

Offers a unique glimpse inside the industry and reveals how executives and content creators are remaking their roles, their audiences, and their products at this critical historic juncture.

Presents the voices of twelve Central Appalachian women, environmental justice activists fighting against mountaintop removal mining and its devastating effects on public health, regional ecology, and community well-being.

This pioneering study treats sex tourism as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that involves a range of activities and erotic connections, from sex work to romantic transnational relationships.

A thematic foundation for an interdisciplinary conversation about gendered resistance in locations including Brazil, Yemen, India, and the United States.

Chronicles more than 175 bridges spanning 55 locations along the Main Channel, South Branch, and North Branch of the Chicago River.

Offers important perspectives on the relationship of labour and the state.

Calls for and enacts innovative, radically inclusionary ways of reading, teaching, and communicating.

Examines the regional and national history that shaped Cline's career and the popular culture that she so profoundly influenced with her music.

Explanations, and effects on how sexualities are understood and experienced in a range of national contexts.

The working lives of Indigenous women

The first English translation of a foundational treatise in music theory

Presents early twentieth-century Chicago as a vital centrepiece of Black thought and expression

Newly translated treatises from the great Enlightenment thinker

Invigorating global social change through communication

A trans-Atlantic inquiry into German dance studies

The first book-length study devoted to Rudolf Friml's multifaceted musical legacy

The inner life of a sensitive and ambitious woman--an exceptional Chinese American flapper, writer, and journalist