**CHOICE REVIEW** In The Creative Self, Ruti (Univ. of Toronto, Canada) and Newman (Williams College) thoughtfully critique neoliberalism's relentless demand for self-optimization. Drawing from psychoanalytic thinkers Marion Milner and Donald W. Winnicott, they construct an alternative vision of selfhood that privileges creative living over transactional productivity. The authors masterfully challenge the dominant cultural ethos that equates personal worth with efficiency and performance. By exposing the emotional and social exhaustion inherent in this mindset, they advocate for a more liberated approach to life. Their engagement with Milner's concept of relinquishing ego in the face of loss and Winnicott's paradoxical understanding of the self offers readers a path toward authentic self-discovery that resists capitalist imperatives. What distinguishes this monograph is its intimate, dialogical style. The authors embody the themes through their own intellectual and emotional reflections. This seamless integration of scholarship and lived experience makes the work accessible to all who are interested in cultural criticism, psychology, and philosophy. In an era dominated by productivity pressures and self-improvement mandates, The Creative Self provides a necessary antidote. It invites readers to embrace creative flourishing as a counterpoint to the neoliberal drive for endless self-enhancement. This book is essential for anyone seeking an intellectually rigorous yet deeply humanistic perspective on meaningful living in contemporary society.

**CHOICE REVIEW** At a timely moment, distinguished British scholar Wiles (Univ. of Exeter, UK) delivers an elegantly written, wide-ranging study of the commonalities and frictions found between democracy and the stage. In an introduction and seven densely packed chapters, Wiles begins with the concepts of Aristotle and the emergence of tragedy in the heady days of fifth-century Athens and continues through the English Puritan Revolution, the French Revolution, the rise of American-style democracy, the notion of the universal desire for a form of democracy that creates a better world recognized as a possibility by Gandhi as India broke from the UK, and the rise of what Wiles called “theatrocracy,” in which theatre is the vessel through which democratic concepts are imperfectly but insistently expressed. Wiles posits that both democracy and theatre represent a merging of democratic concepts, and that we now “live in dangerous times” as far as the survival of democracy goes, demanding that citizens and artists rise to ultimately succeed (p. 183). This valuable study will appeal to scholars in many fields, perhaps including political science, history, and theatre.

** CHOICE REVIEW ** This fascinating and innovative study analyzes the intersections of race and state policies related to prostitution in France and West Africa between the late 19th century and the 1950s. Brothels in Senegal operated under a strict, if unwritten, code of racial segregation. French authorities in the colonies refused to reform the regulated prostitution system and resisted international efforts to ban human trafficking for many decades. Thanks to a very rich set of archival sources, Séquin (Lafayette College) masterfully documents the paths of women who became prostitutes and how they moved to and from the metropole to Senegal, even as she appropriately reveals how these sources often silence the perspectives of women. The chapters on the ways race shaped prostitution in France expose the weaknesses in self-serving claims of how French society supposedly was more welcoming and sexually liberated than other European states and the US. Police, military officers, and brothel owners collaborated in enforcing polices that maintained racial distinctions regarding African and African American male clients. This book is a model for linking social history with broad theoretical approaches to race, colonialism, and sexuality.

**CHOICE REVIEW** Krivulskaya’s engagingly written historical study of the convergence of sex, religion, and the press in Protestant America immediately hooks readers with a slightly scandalous line: “The story begins with a murder” (p. 5). Deeply researched in a dozen archival collections, period newspapers, and personal correspondence, Disgraced examines the misdeeds of members of the Protestant clergy from the 18th century into the 21st. Krivulskaya (California State Univ. San Marcos) delivers an analysis of the significant role of the popular press in the unmasking of these wayward men of the cloth. She argues that, through its coverage, the press not only established itself as the counterpoint to “the pulpit as a source of moral authority" but also forced Protestants to abandon the historically protective opacity of the relationship between ministers and vulnerable members of their flocks, and to enlist the aid of the faithful when lines were crossed to keep up the pressure to ensure that “men of God” were worthy of that title (p. 4). This contribution is achieved through Krivulskaya’s approachable analysis of human frailty, failings, and criminal activity, which became excruciatingly public.

**CHOICE REVIEW** Initially inspired by a 1934 US National Resources Board map of soil erosion, Caison (English, Georgia State Univ.) discovered that high erosion areas aligned nearly perfectly with the US despoilment of Indigenous homelands and an inherent disinterest in preventing erosion. Each chapter focuses on erosion across the United States: e.g., "Landsides and Horizons of the West," "Surfaces and Allotments of the Heartland," and "Disappearing Grounds and Backgrounds of the Gulf." Important environmental texts in this study include Audubon’s Birds of America, Octavia Butler's "Earthseed" series, George Washington Cable's "Belles Demoiselles Plantation," Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, and Lynn Riggs’s play Green Grow the Lilacs, among others. Caison demonstrates that the American crisis of severe erosion stems from abusive land ownership, disregard for polluted waterways, and inadequate but crucial understanding of Indigenous land use methods. In her final chapter, "Littoral Cells and Literal Sells of the Atlantic," Caison tells her own story of learning about erosion and the anxiety it causes. The conclusion, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Erosion,” considers the global scale of erosion and its devastating emotional and physical effects.

**CHOICE REVIEW** Explaining Creativity provides a compendium of research on transformational creativity, including discussions of general versus domain-specific innovation, the role of teams in creativity, and different goals for creative productivity (e.g., improving society or personal transcendence). Notably, everyday creativity is not discussed in detail. The volume differentiates between individual contributions to exceptional performances and ideas and the broader influence of time and circumstances. For example, one section discusses the criteria for what is or was considered creative at different points in history and by different cultures. According to the presented research, 200 years ago fine craftsmanship was more valued than originality. Each chapter—whether on testing for creative ability, mental health, and creative production, group or individual creativity, or creativity in performance or production—presents the background of the topic and the most current analysis of what is evident and what remains controversial. The writing is scholarly but blessedly clear. Each chapter ends with a set of provocative thought experiments that can be enlightening to tackle, whether for a solo reader or in a classroom setting.

**CHOICE REVIEW** Geographies of Relation offers a new lens for examining diaspora and borderlands texts and performances that considers the inseparability of race, ethnicity, and gender in imagining and enacting social change. Theresa Delgadillo crosses interdisciplinary and canonical borders to investigate the interrelationships of African-descended Latinx and mestizx peoples through an analysis of Latin American, Latinx, and African American literature, film, and performance.   Not only does Delgadillo offer a rare extended analysis of Black Latinidades in Chicanx literature and theory, but she also considers over a century's worth of literary, cinematic, and performative texts to support her argument about the significance of these cultural sites and overlaps. Chapters illuminate the significance of Toña La Negra in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, reconsider feminist theorist Gloria Anzaldúa's work in revising exclusionary Latin American ideologies of mestizaje, delve into the racial and gender frameworks Sandra Cisneros attempts to rewrite, unpack encounters between African Americans and Black Puerto Ricans in texts by James Baldwin and Marta Moreno Vega, explore the African diaspora in colonial and contemporary Peru through Daniel Alarcón's literature and the documentary Soy Andina, and revisit the centrality of Black power in ending colonialism in Cuban narratives. Geographies of Relation demonstrates the long histories of networks and exchanges across the Americas as well as the interrelationships among Indigenous, Black, African American, mestizx, Chicanx, and Latinx peoples. It offers a compelling argument that geographies of relation are as significant as national frameworks in structuring cultural formation and change in this hemisphere. 

**CHOICE REVIEW** Olsthoorn (Univ. of Amsterdam) has written a most impressive work on Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy. Olsthoorn is in full command of all Hobbes’s writings and provides meticulous, comprehensive readings of his ideas related to justice. For example, Olsthoorn elegantly solves some interpretative puzzles in chapters 5 and 7 by convincingly showing how differences between, say, De Cive and Leviathan can be explained. Furthermore, Olsthoorn is familiar with all pertinent debates and relates his interpretations to them—with one notable exception: he gives Leo Strauss all but a footnote (p. 81). The issue is whether natural right or natural law is more fundamental. As it appears that Olsthoorn’s argument to recover Hobbes’s moral respectability relies on the existence of God to bind in foro interno, one may quote Hobbes: “Besides the creation of the world, there is no argument to prove a deity” (English Works), to which Strauss adds, “And the creation of the world cannot be proved.” Apart from this objection, Hobbes on Justice is an engaging, deeply thoughtful, must-read book.

**CHOICE REVIEW** Berkowitz (Univ. College London, UK) has written a well-researched and gossipy account of how moviemakers invented "The Good War" in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor. Berkowjitz describes an industry filled with isolationists, morality police, anti-Semites, Jews, and profit-hungry capitalists. Across the country is a president who loves the movies and seeks national unity; FDR had friends in front of and behind the cameras. The guardians of Roosevelt's vision were Leo Rosten, Budd Schulberg, and Leonard Spigelgass, who shaped a national narrative that emphasized a wholesome America fighting the bad guys on the other side. Warner Brothers was ready with Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and Sergeant York (released July, 1941), much to the chagrin of investors who saw Hitler's Germany as a lucrative profit center. To get the job done and the war won with Hollywood's help, history had to be rearranged. The United States of the 1930s and 1940s was not exactly a bastion of democracy and equality. Surrounded by bigots and racists, these Hollywood heroes shaped their films to meet the needs of a nation. Rosten wrote: "Facts don't speak at all. Facts are utterly and entirely meaningless until they are arranged and structured and patterned." Americans saw only "The Good War." Excellent bibliography.

**CHOICE REVIEW** The same nuclear technologies (uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing) that allow states to have peaceful nuclear programs can be used to produce nuclear weapons. This excellent book is a pathbreaking study of the causes of nuclear latency and its potential impact on international politics. Fuhrmann (Texas A&M Univ.) skillfully unpacks the logic and prospects for success in using latent (“weaponless”) nuclear deterrence to achieve international influence. He examines three mechanisms of latent nuclear deterrence: proliferation, delayed attack, and doubt. He considers 23 countries that achieved “full nuclear latency.” He uses sophisticated statistical analysis to conclude that states with “unrestrained” nuclear programs are better positioned to use deterrence by delayed attack or doubt than their counterparts with restrained programs, but they are more likely to invite preventive attacks. A separate chapter discusses nuclear weapons proliferation and arms races. The final chapter summarizes the findings from the book’s quantitative and qualitative analyses and discusses the implications of nuclear latency theory for nuclear deterrence, proliferation, and the prospects for nuclear arms control and disarmament. A useful addition to Vipin Narang's Seeking the Bomb: Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation (2022).

**CHOICE REVIEW** If one were looking simply for a history of 18th-century European music, look elsewhere. However, Irving (Institució Milà y Fontanals de Recerca en Humanitats, Spain) will cause readers to reconsider how musicians think and talk about music coming from this time and place. Serious musicologists have long discussed musical styles, composers, and specific works of music in the context of European music, Western music, and the like, while acknowledging that these titles are a loose catchall that does not serve a good purpose. These political and geographic labels come from a time that does not always align with the politics and geography in play when the music was written, and they represent a very Eurocentric, modern approach to culture. Thoughtfully and carefully constructed based on sources dating as early as the Middle Ages, this volume asks deep philosophical, cultural, and anthropological questions that will cause the reader to reconsider how they view labels of "Western" or "European" imposed on anything—including music. The level of detail and number of sources does not make Irving's book an easy read; nonetheless, it is a must read for serious students of music and music professionals, as well as for scholars who study other European or Western topics.

**CHOICE REVIEW** After the COVID pandemic, everyone in education, health care, and clinical practice needs to be aware of what children missed, what happened to their development, and how their age at the impact of the pandemic changed their developmental trajectories. Children cannot afford a repeat of how we dealt with their education and care during that time. Ten information-packed and well-written chapters cover the impact of school closure and virtual classrooms on a long list of structural and developmental outcomes: absentee rates, learning gains, remediation plans, special services delivery, evaluation and diagnosis delays, and stress levels. The concluding chapters summarize what has happened and discuss what clinical practice looks like now. The book is timely and thorough and rings a very loud warning bell about the impact of unaddressed needs. This text is a most welcome review of the recent research examining many outcomes for children, and readers would do well to heed the warnings contained within.

**CHOICE REVIEW** Ferrucci (Univ. of Colorado) breaks with a media sociology tradition that researches how journalists perceive their craft and social responsibilities as a framework for understanding news-making decisions. He counters that the market model underlying a news organization impacts its internal culture, journalistic practices, and editorial decisions. Some examples of market models include chain-, community-, or mogul-owned variables and the financial objectives of profit versus nonprofit companies. Ferrucci assesses six contemporary news organizations with different market models, including The Boston Globe, Denver Post, and The Colorado Sun. The book details how distinct organizational foundations elicit differences in news emphases. Ferrucci additionally encourages future research grounded in the book's proposed conceptual and methodological framework. The book is an excellent companion to (and contrast with) media sociology exemplars such as Anthony Smith's Goodbye, Gutenberg (1980) and Herbert J. Gans's Deciding What's News (2nd ed., 2005). Comprehensive notes and references are provided at the book’s end. Highly recommended for collections in journalism and mass communication graduate programs.

**CHOICE REVIEW** The Political Army analyzes the United States Army’s comprehensive and deliberate campaign to manage and frequently manipulate the national media from 1939 to 2000. Crosbie (Royal Danish Defence College) traces the Army's media management from its extemporaneous beginnings to its institutionalized professionalization, driving its rise to political prominence. Army leaders recognized the importance of media management, understanding that controlling information had become crucial in modern warfare. In this endeavor, the Army distinguished itself as an adept learning organization from both victories (WW II, Gulf War) and failures (1950s New Look, Vietnam Tet Offensive). It continually adapted its approach to the press, evolving its strategies over time to ensure robust public and domestic political support. Crosbie, a military sociologist, expertly frames this relationship within the broader context of the free press's role in a democratic government and its application of violence. These two new arguments of the Army’s flexible competence and the media’s role as both a willing and unwilling instrument in armed conflict make this monograph a truly groundbreaking study in civil-military relations and 20th-century US history.

**CHOICE REVIEW** In this challenging study, Campisi (Georgetown Univ) theorizes on the concept of the contemporary (e.g., montage, collage, kaleidoscope) and provides a close comparative analysis of recent Latin American novels written in the first two decades of the 21st century, many of which deal with the post-dictatorship era in Argentina and Chile, for example. As such, they are rooted in neoliberal conditions and reflect the economic hardships suffered by the poorer members of society. The sociopolitical and psychological results of the dictatorship are the stuff of several of the novels, which feature the exiled children of imprisoned and disappeared parent activists. In this way, Campisi is able to comment on the fate of today's displaced communities, forced migration, and also the reality of climate change, environmental pollution, and other modern disasters. The book is divided into two parts with five chapters. Each chapter is a comparative study of two novels from different Latin American regions with similar problems. Thus, the author has the opportunity to introduce common elements of environmental studies, memory studies, children studies, ecofeminism, memories of slavery, oral history, colonization, and exploitation. The volume has a useful introduction and conclusion, 40 pages of valuable notes, and Spanish titles and quotations with English translations.

**CHOICE REVIEW** This book examines the late-19th-century origins of aid to political prisoners and exiles in the Russian Empire. Finkel (Dartmouth College) meticulously charts the emergence of domestic and international networks, “loosely connected emergent enterprises,” and “gradually unfolding, accrued shared understandings and practices” that together came to be known as the “political Red Cross” (p. 5). The author suggests that advocacy work for political prisoners “developed many of its key characteristics well before becoming one of the central components of the modern human rights movement in the second half of the twentieth century” (p. 5). He emphasizes how the seemingly paradoxical combination of politics and philanthropy provided for a broadly appealing, durable movement. Marshalling a range of sources, published and archival, the book’s six chapters are split into three parts—“Precedents and Origins,” “The Revolutionary Underground,” and “Émigrés and Foreign Publics”—that together paint a complex picture of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s and make the case for the importance of this period in the development of political prisoner aid. Two appendixes provide helpful details on the organizations and individuals involved.

**CHOICE REVIEW** In his introduction to this fascinating collection of essays, Parsons (Georgetown Univ.) makes an appeal for a “weak theory” of transnationalism. This approach allows for broader perspectives and methodologies that may reveal unexpected connections and disconnections, which in turn can “liquefy the borders” of Irish literature and culture (p. 14). Eschewing a focus on traditional national boundaries, the essays in this volume explore diverse scales and perspectives in a global context. The chapters are divided into four thematic sections: “Transnational Genealogies” examines the legacies of 19th- and 20th-century works in the present moment; “Planets” expands the scope to the environmental humanities and the largest scales imaginable; “Missed Translations” highlights the insoluble challenges of translations while exploring Irish identity from a global perspective; and “Transnational Futures” focuses on the present moment with an eye to an uncertain future. While Joyce is the focus of several essays in the volume, other literary figures—Dion Boucicault, Maria Edgeworth, Edna O’Brien—are welcome additions, as is a chapter on Traveller and Black women’s writing. Transnationalism in Irish Literature and Culture is a welcome addition to a field emerging from the legacy of postcolonial studies and adapting to a rapidly changing world.

**CHOICE REVIEW** With a focus on three classic novels of the first part of the 20th century—Los de abajo, Doña Bárbara, and Grande sertão: veredas—the author examines the figure of the transgressive warrior who adopts male clothing, roles, and behaviors to occupy a more powerful social position, though they are ultimately disempowered as the novel moves to protect a traditional gendered social order. The book's five chapters address clothing as a tool for gender performance; naming and nicknaming; the presentation of masculinities; warriors’ interaction with traditionally feminine characters; and an analysis of warrior women and trans warriors in history and fiction, including works such as Cartucho, La Negra Angustias, Las soldaderas, and La mujer habitada. Gonella (Dickinson College) is aware that her appellations might not hold up over time but defends them as tools that “denote alternative possibilities and contexts that continue to engage official discourses.” Warrior Women and Trans Warriors provides careful readings of the texts and their social and critical contexts, through the lens of trans theory as well as other approaches. As Latin America produces more works about trans characters and by trans authors, this text offers interesting groundwork.