Books published by University of Wisconsin Press

Demonstrates how evolutionary theories shaped the American socialist movement and examines the attempts of radicals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to synthesise the evolutionary ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer with socialist philosophy, social theory and political practice.

By offering a comparative, institutional analysis of how state-supported pensions for the elderly developed in Britain, Canada and the United States, Anna Shola Orloff aims to make a contribution to understanding the growth of modern social welfare policies.

The War on Poverty, instituted in 1965 during the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, was one of the chief elements of that president's Great Society initiative. This book describes and assesses the major social science research effort that grew up with, and in part because of, these programs. Robert H. Haveman's objective is to illuminate the process by which social and political developments have an impact on the direction of progress in the social sciences. Haveman identifies the policy measures most closely tied to the War on Poverty and the Great Society and describes the nature of these policies and their growth from 1965 to 1980. He examines the extent and growth of resources devoted to the poverty-related research that accompanied these programs, and assesses the impact of the growth in this research commitment over the 1965-1980 period.Haveman's was the first full overview of recent poverty-related research and an overview of methodological developments in the social sciences in the post-1965 period which were stimulated by the antipoverty effort.

Throughout its modern history, Russia has seen a succession of highly performative social acts that play out prominently in the public sphere. This innovative volume brings the fields of performance studies and Russian studies into dialogue for the first time and shows that performance is a vital means for understanding Russia's culture from the reign of Peter the Great to the era of Putin.

This collection of theatre writings by the Russian modernist Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky brings his powerful, wildly imaginative vision of theatre to an English-language audience for the first time. The centerpiece is his play That Third Guy (1937), a farce written at the onset of the Stalinist Terror and never performed.

For 872 days during World War II, the city of Leningrad endured a crushing blockade at the hands of German forces. Amid the devastation, Olga Berggolts broadcast her poems on the one remaining radio station. Berggolts wrote her memoir Daytime Stars in the spirit of the thaw after Stalin's death. In it, she celebrated the ideals of the revolution and the heroism of the Soviet people.

Reveals the daily lives and religious practice of ordinary Muslim men in Tajikistan as they aspire to become Sufi mystics. Benjamin Gatling describes in vivid detail the range of expressive forms - memories, stories, poetry, artifacts, rituals, and other embodied practices - employed as they try to construct a Sufi life in twenty-first-century Central Asia.

A newly recovered modernist novel, recounting a passionate triangle of love and loss among three of the most daring women of belle époque Paris.

Examining the vanguard of New Turkish Cinema, Laurence Raw shows how these films reveal the effects of profound socio economic change on ordinary people in contemporary Turkey. Raw interleaves his film discussion with thoughtful commentary on nationalism, gender, personal identity, and cultural pluralism.

A comprehensive overview of the Indian mounds of Wisconsin, discussing who built the mounds, and when and why they were built. It uses evidence drawn from archaeology, ethnography, ethnohistory, linguistics, and the traditions and beliefs of present-day Native Americans in the Midwest.

The potato chip has been one of America's favorite snacks since its accidental origin in a nineteenth-century kitchen. This book tells the story of this crispy, salty treat, from the early sales of locally made chips at corner groceries, county fairs, and cafes to the mass marketing and corporate consolidation of the modern snack food industry.

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan - known as ""the UP"" - is historically, geographically, and culturally distinct. Drawing on sixteen years of fieldwork, including interviews with seventy-five lifelong residents of the UP, Kathryn Remlinger examines how the idea of a unique Yooper dialect emerged.

Growing up on a secluded smuggling route along the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic, Packy Jim McGrath regularly heard the news, songs, and stories of men and women who stopped to pass the time until cover of darkness. His stories reveal an intricate worldview that is both idiosyncratic and shared - a testament to individual talent, and a window into Irish vernacular culture.