Books published by University Press of Kansas

Taps archival materials and unread works from John Updike's college years to offer a clearer view of his acute political thought and ideas. Updike's prescient literary imagination, Fromer shows, sensed the disappointments and alienation of rural white working- and middle-class Americans decades before conservatives sought to exploit them.

Presto! No More Pests! proclaimed a 1955 article introducing two new pesticides, "e;miracle-workers for the housewife and back-yard farmer."e; Easy to use, effective, and safe: who wouldnt love synthetic pesticides? Apparently most Americans didand apparently still do. Whyin the face of dire warnings, rising expense, and declining effectivenessdo we cling to our chemicals? Michelle Mart wondered. Her book, a cultural history of pesticide use in postwar America, offers an answer.America's embrace of synthetic pesticides began when they burst on the scene during World War II and has held steady into the 21st centuryfor example, more than 90% of soybeans grown in the US in 2008 are Roundup Ready GMOs, dependent upon generous use of the herbicide glyphosate to control weeds. Mart investigates the attraction of pesticides, with their up-to-the-minute promise of modernity, sophisticated technology, and increased productivityin short, their appeal to human dreams of controlling nature. She also considers how they reinforced Cold War assumptions of Western economic and material superiority.Though the publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring and the rise of environmentalism might have marked a turning point in Americans faith in pesticides, statistics tell a different story. Pesticides, a Love Story recounts the campaign against DDT that famously ensued; but the book also shows where our notions of Silent Springs revolutionary impact falterwhere, in spite of a ban on DDT, farm use of pesticides in the United States more than doubled in the thirty years after the book was published. As a cultural survey of popular and political attitudes toward pesticides, Pesticides, a Love Story tries to make sense of this seeming paradox. At heart, it is an exploration of the story we tell ourselves about the costs and benefits of pesticidesand how corporations, government officials, ordinary citizens, and the press shape that story to reflect our ideals, interests, and emotions.

Few first ladies have enjoyed a better reputation among historians than Edith Kermit Roosevelt. Aristocratic and sophisticated, tasteful and discreet, she managed the White House with a sure hand. Her admirers say that she never slipped in carrying out her duties as hostess, mother, and adviser to her husband. Lewis Gould's path-breaking study, however, presents a more complex and interesting figure than the somewhat secularized saint Edith Roosevelt has become in the literature on first ladies. While many who knew her found her inspiring and gracious, family members also recalled a more astringent and sometimes nasty personality. Gould looks beneath the surface of her life to examine the intricate legacy of her tenure from 1901 to 1909.The narrative in this book thus uncovers much new about Edith Roosevelt. Far from being averse to activism, Edith Roosevelt served as a celebrity sponsor at a New York musical benefit and also intervened in a high-profile custody dispute. Gould traces her role in the failed marriage of a United States senator, her efforts to secure the ambassador from Great Britain that she wanted, and the growing tension between her and Helen Taft in 1908-1909. Her commitment to bringing classical music artists to the White House, along with other popular performers, receives the fullest attention to date.Gould also casts a skeptical eye over the area where Edith Roosevelt's standing has been strongest, her role as a mother. He looks at how she and her husband performed as parents and dissents from the accustomed judgment that all was well with the way the Roosevelt offspring developed. Most important of all, Gould reveals the first lady's deep animus toward African Americans and their place in American society. She believed "e;that any mixture of races is an unmitigated evil."e; The impact of her bigotry on Theodore Roosevelt's racial policies must now be an element in any future discussion of that sensitive subject.On balance, Gould finds that Edith Roosevelt played an important and creative part in how the institution of the first lady developed during the twentieth century. His sprightly retelling of her White House years will likely provoke controversy and debate. All those interested in how the role of the presidential wife has evolved will find in this stimulating book a major contribution to the literature on a fascinating president. It also brings to life a first lady whose legacy must now be seen in a more nuanced and challenging light.

Provides an account of relations between American spymasters and Capitol Hill. This book provides a historical perspective for debates in Congress and beyond concerning the agency's recent failures and ultimate fate. It shows that anxieties over the challenges to democracy posed by our intelligence communities have been with us from the beginning.

Republicans today often ask, What would Reagan do? The short answer: probably not what they think. Hero of modern-day conservatives, Ronald Reagan was not even conservative enough for some of his most ardent supporters in his own timeand today his practical, often bipartisan approach to politics and policy would likely be deemed apostasy. To try to get a clearer picture of what the real Reagan legacy is, in this book Marcus M. Witcher details conservatives frequently tense relationship with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and explores how they created the latter-day Reagan myth.Witcher reminds us that during Reagans time in office, conservative critics complained that he had failed to bring about the promised Reagan Revolutionand in 1988 many Republican hopefuls ran well to the right of his policies. Notable among the dissonant acts of his administration: Reagan raised taxes when necessary, passed comprehensive immigration reform, signed a bill that saved Social Security, and worked with adversaries at home and abroad to govern effectively. Even his signature accomplishmentinvoked by Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!was highly unpopular with the Conservative Caucus, as evidenced in their newspaper ads comparing the president to Neville Chamberlain: Appeasement is as Unwise in 1988 as in 1938.Reagans presidential library and museum positioned him above partisan politics, emphasizing his administrations role in bringing about economic recovery and negotiating an end to the Cold War. How this legacy, as Reagan himself envisioned it, became the more grandiose version fashioned by Republicans after the 1980s tells us much about the late twentieth-century transformation of the GOPand, as Witchers work so deftly shows, the conservative movement as we know it now.