LSU Faculty Published Books

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Sermons From a Southern Rabbi

2009
Charles David Isbell

Every Shabbat in synagogues around the world and across America, sermons from the local rabbi are an important component of worship. This book brings together thirty-five sermons preached to the congregation of a typical small southern city, Lake Charles, Louisiana. Included are several sermons based upon the weekly parashah (assigned biblical portion from the Pentateuch), a series of messages brought during the high holy days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) of 2007, three funeral sermons, a special Yom ha-Sho'ah (Holocaust-memorial) address, and a short talk about freedom, given on July 4, 2008. Each message represents the author's attempt to link the concerns of the modern world back to the classical, biblical roots of the Jewish faith, thereby invoking the principles of biblical faith to serve as guidelines in the twenty-first century.
Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico

2009
Barry D. Keim

"The storm has entered the Gulf." For those who live or travel near the Gulf of Mexico, this ominous announcement commands attention, especially given the frequency and force of hurricane strikes in recent years. Since 2004, the shores around the Gulf of Mexico have been in the crosshairs for an increasing number of hurricanes and tropical storms, including Charley and Wilma in southwestern Florida and Ivan, Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike along the northern Gulf coast from Panama City to near Galveston. In this definitive guide, climatologists Barry D. Keim and Robert A. Muller examine the big picture of Gulf hurricanes -- from the 1800s to the present and from Key West, Florida, to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula -- providing an extraordinary compilation and interpretation of the entire region's hurricane and tropical storm history.
Drawing from their own research and from National Hurricane Center records, Keim and Muller examine numerous individual Gulf storms, considering each hurricane's origin, oceanic and atmospheric influences, seasonality, track, intensity, size, point of landfall, storm surge, and impact on life, property, and the environment. They describe the unique features of the Gulf that influence the development of hurricanes, such as the loop current and its eddies, and identify areas of the coastline that are more or less vulnerable because of physical environment, socioeconomic environment, or both. They point out that the increase in population along the Gulf Coast over the past century has led to a rise in hurricane damage as once sparse coastlines are now lined with residents, commerce, and industry. In addition, they assess predicted hurricane activity for coming years in light of competing climate theories as well as cyclical patterns over the past century.
Keim and Muller begin their book by scrutinizing the Gulf's deadliest storm, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, whose victims received little to no warning of its approach. They then retrace 2005's Hurricane Katrina, the most costly storm, using NHC advisories and reports. Their comparison of these two catastrophic events shows that despite 105 years of tremendous technological advances, hurricanes remain ultimately rather unpredictable and human warning, readiness, and response measures continue to be imperfect. Keim and Muller also detail other memorable Gulf storms -- the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Audrey, Betsy, Camille, Gilbert, Andrew, Wilma, and more -- and give the hurricane strike records from 1901 to 2005 at thirty locations around the Gulf. They extend the New Orleans hurricane strike record back to the middle of the nineteenth century, providing key insight into comparisons of storm activities during the two centuries.
An epilogue summarizes the destructive 2008 hurricane season, including storms Dolly, Gustav, and Ike. Plentiful maps, charts, tables, graphs, and photos, along with anecdotal observations and an informative text, make Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico a captivating and useful volume for Gulf residents, storm trackers, or anyone fascinated by the weather.
Cocktail: A Play About the Life and HIV Drug Development Work of Dr. Krisana Kraisintu

2009
Vincent J. LiCata

Dr. Krisana Kraisintu was awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award for public service, Asia's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, in July 2009.

Cocktail is a play about one woman's audacious crusade to fight the AIDS epidemic and the pharmaceutical industry's unyielding control over lifesaving drugs. Scientist-activist Dr. Krisana Kraisintu, a Thai national, defied politicians, patents, and restrictions to give the world its first generic "cocktail" pill for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Her generic drugs changed the course of HIV in her native Thailand and later in Africa, but brought her into direct conflict with some of the world's leading drug manufacturers.

The play powerfully dramatizes the worldwide explosion of AIDS and Dr. Krisana's visionary work, from her research in a windowless storage room mixing and combining toxic raw materials in grueling solitary toil, to her confrontation with corporate greed and political corruption, and ultimately to her single-handedly saving millions of lives.

Cocktail is a mesmerizing experience of Kraisintu's life that is in turns spine chilling, lyrical, heartbreaking, and funny, yet ultimately humbling and inspiring.
Approaches to Teaching Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works

2009
John Lowe

Zora Neale Hurston emerged as a celebrated writer of the Harlem Renaissance, fell into obscurity toward the end of her life, yet is now recognized as a great American author. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is popular among general readers and is widely taught in universities, colleges, and secondary schools. A key text of African American and women's literature, it has also been studied by scholars interested in the 1930s, small-town life, modernism, folklore, and regionalism, and it has been viewed through the lenses of dialect theory, critical race theory, and transnational and diasporan studies.

Considering the ubiquity of Hurston's work in the nation's classrooms, there have been surprisingly few book-length studies of it. This volume helps instructors situate Hurston's work against the various cultures that engendered it and understand her success as short story writer, playwright, novelist, autobiographer, folklorist, and anthropologist. Part 1 outlines Hurston's publication history and the reemergence of the author on the literary scene and into public consciousness. Part 2 first concentrates on various approaches to teaching Their Eyes , looking at Hurston's radical politics and use of folk culture and dialect; contemporary reviews of the novel, including contrary remarks by Richard Wright; Janie's search for identity in Hurston's all-black hometown, Eatonville; and the central role of humor in the novel. The essays in part 2 then take up Hurston's other, rarely taught novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine , Moses, Man of the Mountain , and Seraph on the Suwanee . Also examined here are Hurston's anthropological works, chief among them Mules and Men , a staple for many years on American folklore syllabi, and Tell My Horse , newly reconsidered in Caribbean and postcolonial studies.
Constructions of Strict Lyapunov Functions

2009
Michael Malisoff

Converse Lyapunov function theory guarantees the existence of strict Lyapunov functions in many situations, but the functions it provides are often abstract and nonexplicit, and therefore may not lend themselves to engineering applications. Often, even when a system is known to be stable, one still needs explicit Lyapunov functions; however, once an appropriate strict Lyapunov function has been constructed, many robustness and stabilization problems can be solved through standard feedback designs or robustness arguments. Non-strict Lyapunov functions are often readily constructed.

This book contains a broad repertoire of Lyapunov constructions for nonlinear systems, focusing on methods for transforming non-strict Lyapunov functions into strict ones. Their explicitness and simplicity make them suitable for feedback design, and for quantifying the effects of uncertainty. Readers will benefit from the authors' mathematical rigor and unifying, design-oriented approach, as well as the numerous worked examples.
German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship

2009
Suzanne L. Marchand

Nineteenth-century studies of the Orient changed European ideas and cultural institutions in more ways than we usually recognize. "Orientalism" certainly contributed to European empire-building, but it also helped to destroy a narrow Christian-classical canon. This carefully researched book provides the first synthetic and contextualized study of German Orientalistik, a subject of special interest because German scholars were the pace-setters in oriental studies between about 1830 and 1930, despite entering the colonial race late and exiting it early. The book suggests that we must take seriously German orientalism's origins in Renaissance philology and early modern biblical exegesis and appreciate its modern development in the context of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century debates about religion and the Bible, classical schooling, and Germanic origins. In ranging across the subdisciplines of Orientalistik, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire introduces readers to a host of iconoclastic characters and forgotten debates, seeking to demonstrate both the richness of this intriguing field and its indebtedness to the cultural world in which it evolved.
Applied Behavior Analysis for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

2009
Johnny L. Matson

Autism was once thought of as a rare condition, until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network released the statistic that about 1 in every 150 eight-year-old children in various areas across the United States is afflicted by an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. This news led to a dramatic expansion of research into autism spectrum disorders and to the emergence of applied behavior analysis (ABA) as the preferred method of treatment, even among prescribing practitioners.

Applied Behavioral Analysis for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders ably synthesizes research data and trends with best-practice interventions into a comprehensive, state-of-the-art resource. Within its chapters, leading experts review current ABA literature in depth; identify interventions most relevant to children across the autism spectrum; and discuss potential developments in these core areas:

Assessment methods, from functional assessment to single case research designs. Treatment methods, including reinforcement, replacement behaviors, and other effective strategies. The role of the differential diagnosis in ABA treatment planning. Specific deficit areas: communication, social skills, stereotypies/rituals. Target behaviors, such as self-injury, aggression, adaptive and self-help problems. ASD-related training concerns, including maintenance and transition issues, and parent training programs.

This volume is a vital resource for researchers, graduate students, and professionals in clinical child and school psychology as well as the related fields of education and mental health.
Social Behavior and Skills in Children

2009
Johnny L. Matson

That children are capable of pathology--not only such conditions as ADHD and learning disabilities, but also such "adult" disorders as anxiety and depression--stands as a defining moment in psychology's recent history. Within this recognition is the understanding that the social skills deficits that accompany these disorders must be targeted for assessment and treatment to ensure optimal functioning in school, with peers, and in later transitions to puberty and adulthood.

Social Behavior and Skills in Childrencuts across disciplinary lines to clarify the scope of assessment options and interventions for a wide range of disorders. A panel of leading scholars reviews current research, discusses social deficits unique to specific disorders, and identifies evidence-based best practices in one authoritative, approachable reference.

This volume:

Discusses theoretical models of social skills as they relate to assessment and treatment. Analyzes the etiology of social behavior problems in children and the relation between these problems and psychopathology. Reviews 48 norm-referenced measures of social skills in children. Examines the range of evidence-based social skills interventions. Addresses challenging behaviors, such as aggression and self-injury. Focuses on specific conditions, including developmental disabilities, conduct disorders, ADHD, chronic medical illness, depression, anxiety, and severe psychopathology.

Social Behavior and Skills in Childrenis an essential reference for university libraries as well as a must-have volume for researchers, graduate students, and clinicians in child, and school psychology, special education, and other related fields.
Theory and the Common from Marx to Badiou

2009
Patrick McGee

Using a method that combines analysis, memoir, and polemic, McGee writes experimentally about a series of thinkers who ruptured linguistic and social hierarchies, from Marx, to Gramsci, to Badiou.
Reconsidering Islam in a South Asian Context

2009
M. Reza Pirbhai

Despite late reconsideration, a dominant paradigm rooted in Orientalist essentialisations of Islam as statically 'legalistic' and Muslims as uniformly 'transgressive' when local customs are engaged, continues to distort perspectives of South Asia's past and present. This has led to misrepresentations of pre-colonial Muslim norms and undue emphasis on colonial reforms alone when charting the course to post-coloniality. This book presents and challenges staple perspectives with a comprehensive reinterpretation of doctrinal sources, literary expressions and colonial records spanning the period from the reign of the 'Great Mughals' to end of the 'British Raj' (1526-1947). The result is an alternative vision of this transformative period in South Asian history, and an original paradigm of Islamic doctrine and Muslim practice applicable more broadly.
Political Affect: Connecting the Social and the Somatic

2009
John Protevi

For many philosophers, the rational cognitive (Cartesian) subject defines the human, or at least defines what humans should be. Yet some recent cognitive science, as well as the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, has called into question such individuality and rationality and emphasized social and emotional subjectivity. Understanding such embodied and embedded subjectivity, John Protevi argues, demands the notion of bodies politic.

In Political Affect , Protevi investigates the relationship between the social and the somatic: how our bodies, minds, and social settings are intricately and intimately linked. Bringing together concepts from science, philosophy, and politics, he develops a perspective he calls political physiology to indicate that subjectivity is socially conditioned and sometimes bypassed in favor of a direct connection of the social and the somatic, as with the politically triggered basic emotions of rage and panic. Protevi's treatment of affective cognition in social context breaks new theoretical ground, insisting that subjectivity be studied both in its embodied expression and in terms of the distribution of affective cognitive responses in a population.

Moving beyond the theoretical, Protevi applies his concept of political affect to show how unconscious emotional valuing shaped three recent, emotionally charged events: the cold rage of the Columbine High School slayings, the racialized panic that delayed rescue efforts in Hurricane Katrina, and the twists and turns of empathy occasioned by the Terry Schiavo case. These powerful individual and collective political events require new philosophical understanding.
Measure and Integration: A Concise Introduction to Real Analysis

2009
Leonard F. Richardson

A uniquely accessible book for general measure and integration, emphasizing the real line, Euclidean space, and the underlying role of translation in real analysis

Measure and Integration: A Concise Introduction to Real Analysis presents the basic concepts and methods that are important for successfully reading and understanding proofs. Blending coverage of both fundamental and specialized topics, this book serves as a practical and thorough introduction to measure and integration, while also facilitating a basic understanding of real analysis.

The author develops the theory of measure and integration on abstract measure spaces with an emphasis of the real line and Euclidean space. Additional topical coverage includes:

Measure spaces, outer measures, and extension theorems

Lebesgue measure on the line and in Euclidean space Measurable functions, Egoroff's theorem, and Lusin's theorem Convergence theorems for integrals Product measures and Fubini's theorem Differentiation theorems for functions of real variables Decomposition theorems for signed measures Absolute continuity and the Radon-Nikodym theorem Lp spaces, continuous-function spaces, and duality theorems Translation-invariant subspaces of L2 and applications

The book's presentation lays the foundation for further study of functional analysis, harmonic analysis, and probability, and its treatment of real analysis highlights the fundamental role of translations. Each theorem is accompanied by opportunities to employ the concept, as numerous exercises explore applications including convolutions, Fourier transforms, and differentiation across the integral sign.

Providing an efficient and readable treatment of this classical subject, Measure and Integration: A Concise Introduction to Real Analysis is a useful book for courses in real analysis at the graduate level. It is also a valuable reference for practitioners in the mathematical sciences.
Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together

2009
Felicia Wu Song

Does contemporary Internet technology strengthen civic engagement and democratic practice? The recent surge in online community participation has become a cultural phenomenon enmeshed in ongoing debates about the health of American civil society. But observations about online communities often concentrate on ascertaining the true nature of community and democracy, typically rehearsing familiar communitarian and liberal perspectives. This book seeks to understand the technology on its own terms, focusing on how the technological and organizational configurations of online communities frame our contemporary beliefs and assumptions about community and the individual. It analyzes key structural features of thirty award-winning online community websites to show that while the values of individual autonomy, egalitarianism, and freedom of speech dominate the discursive content of these communities, the practical realities of online life are clearly marked by exclusivity and the demands of commercialization and corporate surveillance. Promises of social empowerment are framed within consumer and therapeutic frameworks that undermine their democratic efficacy. As a result, online communities fail to revolutionize the civic landscape because they create cultures of membership that epitomize the commodification of community and public life altogether.
Ms. Mentor's New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia

2009
Emily Toth

Ms. Mentor, that uniquely brilliant and irascible intellectual, is your all-knowing guide through the jungle that is academia today. In the last decade Ms. Mentor's mailbox has been filled to overflowing with thousands of plaintive epistles, rants, and gossipy screeds. A mere fraction has appeared in her celebrated monthly online and print Q&A columns for the Chronicle of Higher Education ; her readers' colorful and rebellious ripostes have gone unpublished--until now.
Hearing the call for a follow-up to the wildly successful Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia , Ms. Mentor now broadens her counsel to include academics of the male variety. Ms. Mentor knows all about foraging for jobs, about graduate school stars and serfs, and about mentors and underminers, backbiters and whiners. She answers burning questions: Am I too old, too working class, too perfect, too blonde? When should I reproduce? When do I speak up, laugh, and spill the secrets I've gathered? Do I really have to erase my own blackboard? Does academic sex have to be reptilian?
From the ivory tower that affords her an unparalleled view of the academic landscape, Ms. Mentor dispenses her perfect wisdom to the huddled masses of professorial newbies, hardbitten oldies, and anxious midcareerists. She gives etiquette lessons to academic couples and the tough-talking low-down on adjunct positions. She tells you what to wear, how to make yourself popular, and how to decode academic language.
She introduces you to characters you must know: Professor Pelvic, Dr. Iron Fist, Mr. Upstart Whelp, Dean Titan, Professor McShameless.
In this volume Ms. Mentor once again shares her wide-ranging unexpurgated wisdom, giving tips on bizarre writing rituals, tenure diaries, and time management (Exploding Head Syndrome). She decodes department meetings and teaches you the tricks for getting stellar teaching evaluations.
Raw, shocking, precise, clever, absurd--Ms. Mentor has it all.
Organic Nomenclature: A Programmed Introduction

2009
James G. Traynham

The perfect complement to your first organic chemistry course or for quick review in later courses, Organic Nomenclature: A Programmed Introduction, Sixth Edition teaches correct, up-to-date organic chemical nomenclature. The rules, styles, and details of IUPAC names are emphasized -- such as punctuation and spacing -- which are used almost exclusively in Chemical Abstracts indexing. It includes a separate treatment of functional group classes and combines coverage of aliphatic and aromatic compounds. Also, it focuses more on systematic nomenclature than on unsystematic names that may have little use in the future.
Dirty Little Angels

2009
Christopher Tusa

Set in the slums of New Orleans, among crack houses and abandoned buildings, Dirty Little Angels is the story of 16-year-old Hailey Trosclair. When the Trosclair family suffers financial hardship and a miscarriage, Hailey finds herself looking to God to save her family. When her prayers go unanswered, Hailey puts her faith in Moses Watkins, a failed preacher and ex-con. Fascinated by Moses¿ lopsided view of religion, Hailey and her brother Cyrus begin spending time at an abandoned bank that Moses plans to convert into a drive-through church. Gradually, Moses¿ twisted religious beliefs become increasingly more violent, and Hailey and Cyrus find themselves trapped in a world of danger and fear from which there may be no escape.
Atmospheric Aerosols: Characterization, Chemistry, Modeling, and Climate

2009
Kalliat T. Valsaraj

Atmospheric aerosols play a large role in air pollution in urban areas and in regulating climate. They also play a role in the ongoing debate on global warming potentials of various species. To understand the proper roles of aerosols in the atmosphere, we need data on their physical
characterization, their chemistry and appropriate models to project into the future. Apart from general discussions in textbooks, there are not very many monographs devoted to the aspects outlined above. This symposium series book will describe the characteristics of atmospheric aerosols, the
chemistry of aerosols, and finally the interplay between aerosol modeling and global climate changes using specific case studies.

The book is organized into three sections: Characterization, Chemistry and Modeling of Atmospheric Aerosols. The characterization section of the book includes three chapters. The chapters include: The role of morphology on aerosol particle reactivity; The chemistry portion of the book covers
several interesting topics including secondary aerosols and the chapters include: Surface activity of perfluorinated compounds at the air-water interface; Atmospheric chemistry of urban surface films; Photochemistry of secondary organic aerosol formed from oxidation of monoterpenes; Finally the
modeling section of the book includes two very interesting chapters; Understanding climatic effects of aerosols: modeling radiative effects of aerosols; Environmental effects to residential New Orleans following hurricane katrina: indoor sediment, vapor-phase and aerosolized contaminants.
Feel These Words: Writing in the Lives of Urban Youth

2009
Susan Weinstein

Feel These Words is the story of nine young people from Chicago--Jig, Crazy, TeTe, Mekanism, Robbie, Marta, Patricia, Jose, and Dave--who regularly write poetry and/or song lyrics, but not for school. The Writers, as author Susan Weinstein calls them, are skilled in a variety of literacy-centered discourses through which they develop sophisticated understandings of core rhetorical issues and explore concepts of identity, social positioning, gender roles, and sexuality. Despite a deep engagement with imaginative composition, their work regularly goes unrecognized or is devalued due to the normative trends in standardized curricula and testing. Weinstein argues that this devaluation exists because their writing is informed by discourses that use language, forms, and styles different from--and at times at odds with--the mainstream. She explores the ways in which educators can focus not simply on what they believe kids need to be taught, but also on what makes them want to learn.
Governing After Crisis: The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning

2008
Arjen Boin

The constant threat of crises such as disasters, riots and terrorist attacks poses a frightening challenge to Western societies and governments. While the causes and dynamics of these events have been widely studied, we know little about what happens following their containment and the restoration of stability. This volume explores 'post-crisis politics,' examining how crises give birth to longer term dynamic processes of accountability and learning which are characterised by official investigations, blame games, political manoeuvring, media scrutiny and crisis exploitation. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary crises, including Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, the Madrid train bombings, the Walkerton water contamination, Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia and the Boxing Day Asian tsunami, this is a ground-breaking volume which addresses the longer term impact of crisis-induced politics. Competing pressures for stability and change mean that policies, institutions and leaders may occasionally be uprooted, but often survive largely intact.
The Variational Approach to Fracture

2008
Blaise Bourdin

Presenting original results from both theoretical and numerical viewpoints, this text offers a detailed discussion of the variational approach to brittle fracture. This approach views crack growth as the result of a competition between bulk and surface energy, treating crack evolution from its initiation all the way to the failure of a sample. The authors model crack initiation, crack path, and crack extension for arbitrary geometries and loads.
The Mathematical Theory of Finite Element Methods

2008
Susanne C. Brenner

This is the third and yet further updated edition of a highly regarded mathematical text. Brenner develops the basic mathematical theory of the finite element method, the most widely used technique for engineering design and analysis. Her volume formalizes basic tools that are commonly used by researchers in the field but not previously published. The book is ideal for mathematicians as well as engineers and physical scientists. It can be used for a course that provides an introduction to basic functional analysis, approximation theory, and numerical analysis, while building upon and applying basic techniques of real variable theory. This new edition is substantially updated with additional exercises throughout and new chapters on Additive Schwarz Preconditioners and Adaptive Meshes.
Essays in Derivatives: Risk-Transfer Tools and Topics Made Easy

2008
Don M. Chance

In the updated second edition of Don Chance's well-received Essays in Derivatives, the author once again keeps derivatives simple enough for the beginner, but offers enough in-depth information to satisfy even the most experienced investor. This book provides up-to-date and detailed coverage of various financial products related to derivatives and contains completely new chapters covering subjects that include why derivatives are used, forward and futures pricing, operational risk, and best practices.
Girls' and Women's Wellness: Contemporary Counseling Issues and Interventions

2008
Laura Hensley Choate

Comprehensive in scope and practical in execution, this guide includes strategies, examples, assessment methods, workshop outlines, and handouts for clients. Choate (counselor education, Louisiana State U.) and her contributors focus on both short-term and long-term solutions as they address body image, managing conflict and anger, cognitive models to improve self-esteem, women's college experiences, life balance for working women, intervention against sexual assault, and intimate partner violence. Especially interesting is their approach to counseling women about spirituality. Unlike many counselors, they allow for the positive influence of organized faith and for individual perceptions and choices within a range of faiths or combinations of faiths. They also give online and print resources for every topic.
Branding Texas: Performing Culture in the Lone Star State

2008
Leigh Clemons

Ask anyone to name an archetypal Texan, and you're likely to get a larger-than-life character from film or television (say John Wayne's Davy Crockett or J. R. Ewing of TV's Dallas) or a politician with that certain swagger (think LBJ or George W. Bush). That all of these figures are white and male and bursting with self-confidence is no accident, asserts Leigh Clemons. In this thoughtful study of what makes a "Texan," she reveals how Texan identity grew out of the history--and, even more, the myth--of the heroic deeds performed by Anglo men during the Texas Revolution and the years of the Republic and how this identity is constructed and maintained by theatre and other representational practices.

Clemons looks at a wide range of venues in which "Texanness" is performed, including historic sites such as the Alamo, the battlefield at Goliad, and the San Jacinto Monument; museums such as the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum; seasonal outdoor dramas such as Texas! at Palo Duro Canyon; films such as John Wayne's The Alamo and the IMAX's Alamo: The Price of Freedom; plays and TV shows such as the Tuna trilogy, Dallas, and King of the Hill; and the Cavalcade of Texas performance at the 1936 Texas Centennial. She persuasively demonstrates that these performances have created a Texan identity that has become a brand, a commodity that can be sold to the public and even manipulated for political purposes.
Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era

2008
William James Cooper Jr.

In his masterpiece, Jefferson Davis, American, William J. Cooper, Jr., crafted a sweeping, definitive biography and established himself as the foremost scholar on the intriguing Confederate president. Cooper narrows his focus considerably in Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era, training his expert eye specifically on Davis's participation in and influence on events central to the American Civil War. Nine self-contained essays address how Davis reacted to and dealt with a variety of issues that were key to the coming of the war, the war itself, or in memorializing the war, sharply illuminating Davis's role during those turbulent years.
Cooper opens with an analysis of Davis as an antebellum politician, challenging the standard view of Davis as either a dogmatic priest of principle or an inept bureaucrat. Next, he looks closely at Davis's complex association with secession, which included, surprisingly, a profound devotion to the Union. Six studies explore Davis and the Confederate experience, with topics including states' rights, the politics of command and strategic decisions, Davis in the role of war leader, the war in the West, and the meaning of the war. The final essay compares and contrasts Davis's first inauguration in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1861 with a little-known dedication of a monument to Confederate soldiers in the same city twenty-five years later. In 1886, Davis -- an old man of seventy-eight and in poor health -- had himself become a living monument, Cooper explains, and was an essential element in the formation of the Lost Cause ideology.
Cooper's succinct interpretations provide straightforward, compact, and deceptively deep new approaches to understanding Davis during the most critical time in his life. Certain to stimulate further thought and spark debate, Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era offers rare insight into one of American history's most complicated and provocative figures.