New York State Peoples Places And Priorities

The state of New York is virtually a nation unto itself. Long one of the most populous states and home of the country’s most dynamic city, New York is geographically strategic, economically prominent, socially diverse, culturally innovative, and politically influential. These characteristics have made New York distinctive in our nation’s history. In New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities, Joanne Reitano brings the history of this great state alive for readers. Clear and accessible, the book features: Primary documents and illustrations in each chapter, encouraging engagement with historical sources and issues Timelines for every chapter, along with lists of recommended reading and websites Themes of labor, liberty, lifestyles, land, and leadership running throughout the text Coverage from the colonial period up through the present day, including the Great Recession and Andrew Cuomo’s governorship Highly readable and up-to-date, New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities is a vital resource for anyone studying, teaching, or just interested in the history of the Empire State.

Now in its second edition, New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities is an accessibly written book that explores the ever-shifting dynamics of New York State history in a single volume. The text is organized both chronologically and topically, balancing political, economic, social, and cultural history. It discusses key figures, groups, movements, and controversies, upstate and downstate. Each chapter is divided into teachable, digestible sections that examine the major developments and challenges of that period, with timelines and lists of online resources to aid student understanding. The new edition brings New York State’s history into the present with coverage of recent political and economic developments, the Covid-19 pandemic, immigration, and global warming. Throughout the book, material was added concerning the American Revolution, the Civil War, women’s rights, and environmental justice. Artwork, maps, charts, and textboxes illuminate the state’s rich history. Analytical questions accompanying figures and texts encourage deeper engagement with the past. Designed for undergraduates, this book is a concise and updated account of New York State’s history over the centuries, with a wealth of resources to benefit students and instructors alike.

Ladies' Day at the Capitol integrates for the first time the history of New York's women lawmakers with the larger story of New York State politics. Through extensive research and interviews, Lauren Kozakiewicz documents New York women's actions as elected officials between 1919 and 1992 and explores how gendered ideas affected their careers and ability to represent women's voices in government. Ladies' Day at the Capitol offers a general framework for understanding the women's legislative careers over time while also providing a deeper look at key lawmakers' specific histories. The study broadens out to include chapters on creating representative organizations of women legislators and women's efforts to champion specific issues. It builds off earlier studies of state legislators that treated women in the aggregate. It complements other, more recent work that takes a state-centered approach to the history of the woman politician. It is unique in the degree to which chapters on New York's political history and women's efforts to win the vote in New York give the reader essential context for the historical analysis.

State Oddities takes a different kind of look at the American nation, spotlighting the fun foibles, peculiarities, and twists in each of the 50 states that are (mostly) united under the Stars and Stripes. State Oddities is a fascinating trip through the 50 states for students studying America, teachers planning classroom activities, and general readers who will enjoy an eye-opening journey through the nation's fun side. It offers a compelling look at the character of America through the individuality of 50 very distinct states that together form the USA. This book paints a picture of the broad sweep of the American story, offering a gateway to the country as it developed into one nation filled with individual states that can be remarkably different from each other, yet unified under such national symbols as the American flag and "The Star-Spangled Banner." The author of State Oddities has become known as a master of "painless history," telling America's story in a sparkling style along with the historian's eye for fascinating detail. On the book's cross-country journey, the reader will find that it differs from other works by taking a fresh look at stories we think we know.

City and Country: The Historical Evolution of Urban-Rural Systems begins with a simple assumption: every human requires, on average, two-thousand calories per day to stay alive. Tracing the ramifications of this insight leads to the caloric well: the caloric demand at one point in the environment. As population increases, the depth of the caloric well reflects this increased demand and requires a population to go further afield for resources, a condition called urban dependency. City and Country traces the structural ramifications of these dynamics as the population increased from the Paleolithic to today. We can understand urban dependency as the product of the caloric demands a population puts on a given environment, and when those demands outstrip the carry capacity of the environment, a caloric well develops that forces a community to look beyond its immediate area for resources. As the well deepens, the horizon from which resources are gathered is pushed further afield, often resulting in conflict with neighboring groups. Prior to settled villages, increases in population resulted in cultural (technological) innovations that allowed for greater use of existing resources: the broad-spectrum revolution circa 20 thousand years ago, the birth of agricultural villages 11 thousand years ago, and hierarchically organized systems of multiple settlements working together to produce enough food during the Ubaid period in Mesopotamia seven-thousand years ago—the first urban-rural systems. As cities developed, increasing population resulted in an ever-deepening morass of urban dependency that required expansion of urban-rural systems. These urban-rural dynamics today serve as an underlying logic upon which modern capitalism is built. The culmination of two decades of research into the nature of urban-rural dynamics, City and Country argues that at the heart of the logic of capitalism is an even deeper logic: urbanization is based on urban dependency.

During the 20th-century, Spaniards and African-Americans shared significant cultural memories forged by the profound impact that various artistic and historical events had on each other. Addressing three crucial periods (the Harlem Renaissance and Jazz Age, the Spanish Civil War, and Franco's dictatorship), this collection of essays explores the transnational bond and the intercultural exchanges between these two communities, using race as a fundamental critical category. The study of travelogues, memoirs, documentaries, interviews, press coverage, comics, literary works, music, and performances by iconic figures such as Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, and Ramón Gómez de la Serna, as well as the experiences of ordinary individuals such as African American nurse Salaria Kea, invite an examination of the ambiguities and paradoxes that underlie this relationship: among them, the questionable and, at times, surprising racial representations of blacks in Spanish avant-garde texts and in the press during the years of Franco’s dictatorship; African Americans very unique view of the Spanish Civil War in light of their racial identity; and the oscillation between fascination and anxiety when these two communities look at each other.

The Restless City: A Short History of New York from Colonial Times to the Present is a brief, insightful and lively history of the peoples, events and interactions that have formed New York City. Weaving together the shifting currents of economic, political, social, and cultural life, Joanne Reitano shows how New York has acted both as an indicator and a driver of the American experience in its negotiation of evolving urban challenges. The third edition of The Restless City has been updated to include new material on early settler/Native American interactions, and to be more fully inclusive of the outer boroughs of New York. Each chapter features at least two primary sources accompanied by discussion questions for students. Authoritative and comprehensive, The Restless City remains a superior resource for students and scholars interested in the rich history of the nation’s premier urban center.

This coursebook offers an exciting new approach to teaching criminal law to graduate and undergraduate students, and indeed to the general public. Each well-organized and student-friendly chapter offers historical context, tells the story of a principal historic case, provides a modern case that contrasts with the historic, explains the legal issue at the heart of both cases, includes a unique mapping feature describing the range of positions on the issue among the states today, examines a key policy question on the topic, and provides an aftermath that reports the final chapter to the historic and modern case stories. By embedding sophisticated legal doctrine and analysis in real-world storytelling, the book provides a uniquely effective approach to teaching American criminal law in programs on criminal justice, political science, public policy, history, philosophy, and a range of other fields.