New Books

Sociologists JANET M. WILMOTH and ANDREW S. LONDON co-edited a new book LifeCourse Implications of U.S. Public Policies (Routledge, 2021) that includes several Maxwell School contributors. The book encourages readers to consider the influence of public policies and social programs on lives, aging and the life course. The foreword is authored by University Professor of Sociology Jennifer Karas Montez. In chapter one, “An Introduction to Life-Course Perspectives on Public Policies,” Wilmoth and London, both professors of sociology, review the history of U.S. public policy development, starting with policies and associated programs that emerged out of President Theodore Roosevelt’s New Deal. In chapter six, “U.S. Food and Nutrition Policy Across the Life Course,” Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs Collen Heflin evaluates the development of U.S. food and nutrition policy. In chapter 10, “How Social Policies Affect Grandparent Care Work,” University Professor of Sociology Madonna Harrington Meyer and sociology Ph.D. student Amra Kandic examine the nexus of public policies and care work by grandparents.

RYAN GRIFFITHS, associate professor of political science, argues that the rules and informal practices regarding state recognition create a strategic playing field between existing states and aspiring nations in his new book, Secession and the Sovereignty Game: Strategy and Tactics for Aspiring Nations (Cornell University Press, 2021). To win sovereign statehood, an aspiring nation must compel and persuade its home state and the international community to provide recognition. Griffiths explains how aspiring nations go about it, the dynamics that follow and how tactics vary according to local conditions. It combines original data, fieldwork in a dozen breakaway regions, more than 100 interviews with secessionist leaders, and case studies on Catalonia, the Murrawarri Republic, West Papua, Bougainville, New Caledonia and Northern Cyprus.

ALBRECHT DIEM, associate professor of history, provides a new view on the emergence of monastic life in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages—an institution and form of life that had a deep impact on Western culture—in his new book, The Pursuit of Salvation. Community, Space, and Discipline in Early Medieval Monasticism (Brepolis Publishers, 2021). The book revolves around a hardly studied seventh-century monastic rule for nuns which he was able to identify as the work of the eminent hagiographer Jonas of Bobbio. This discovery profoundly alters the narrative of the impact of Irish monasticism in Europe. Diem shows that the topics addressed in this rule, such as hierarchy, authority, space, love, confession, silence, sleep, mutual care, exclusion and education, lend themselves to writing a new history of monasticism that replaces the traditional narrative.

AUSTIN ZWICK, assistant teaching professor and the assistant director of the Policy Studies Program, explores the intersection between urban planning and technological change in his new book, The Platform Economy and the Smart City: Technology and the Transformation of Urban Policy (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021). As new innovations change the way we live and work, municipal governments are struggling to keep up with new demands to regulate novel industries and streamline service delivery. This march toward the future holds both promise and peril for local governments, asserts Zwick. He highlights the need for cities to rethink their historical approach as reactive policymakers, but rather embrace and harness innovative technologies into proactive governance.

BRIAN BREGE, assistant professor of history, offers a fresh appraisal of one of the foremost cities of the Italian Renaissance as it sought knowledge, fortune and power throughout Asia, the Americas and beyond in his new book, Tuscany in the Age of Empire (Harvard University Press, 2021). He examines how Tuscany established a global presence while unable to compete directly with the growing empires of other European states. By finding areas of common interest with stronger neighbors and forming alliances with other marginal polities, a small state was able to protect its own security while carving out a space as a diplomatic and intellectual hub in a globalizing Europe, Brege asserts.