Books by Barnard Authors

Nonfiction

Spirited: Cocktails From Around the World by Adrienne Stillman Krausz ’08 

Drawing from a worldwide community of bartenders and cocktail devotees, Stillman has compiled one of the most exhaustive beverage almanacs to date. Stillman, who personally tested and perfected every recipe, documents each beverage with its history, heritage, and photo, creating an indispensable mixology dictionary.

Seeing Like an Activist: Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement by Erin Pineda ’06

Pineda reexamines the legacy of the civil rights movement through a contemporary lens and points out how it is often used to silence new generations of activists. Pineda argues that holding up the methods of the civil rights movement as the gold standard overgeneralizes the practices of civil disobedience and political participation that served activists decades ago and can continue to serve activists today. 

Nostalgia After Apartheid: Disillusionment, Youth, and Democracy in South Africa by Amber R. Reed ’05 

Reed considers one of the unexpected outcomes following the institution of the South African democracy: a “nostalgia” felt by Black residents for some aspects of apartheid life in rural Eastern Cape. She offers a new viewpoint on how poorly enacted systems of democracy coupled with economic shortcomings of the post-apartheid state affected the rural Black population, resulting in many residents seeing South African democracy as a repression of their own African customs.

Rarities of These Lands: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Dutch Republic by Claudia Swan ’86

Swan tracks the variety of foreign products that traveled in and out of Dutch hands during the Netherlands’ political and economic height of the 17th century. As the republic gained independence from Spain, the Dutch strove to establish a new national identity through the many exotic goods — “rarities,” they called them — they traded with Middle Eastern countries. 

Preserving Neighborhoods: How Urban Policy and Community Strategy Shape Baltimore and Brooklyn by Aaron Passell, Associate Director of Urban Studies

Challenging the idea that historic preservation is exclusively an elite project that causes gentrification, professor and urban sociologist Passell investigates distinct processes of preservation through two case studies of Brooklyn and Baltimore. Passell’s work is born out of an interest in the intersection of social life and urban environments and how historic preservation, in particular, can facilitate resistance to change and foster investment in neglected neighborhoods. 

Weaving Modernism: Postwar Tapestry Between Paris and New York by K.L.H. Wells ’05

With modernism quickly becoming the dominant aesthetic after World War II, Wells examines how tapestry in France helped promote this change in style, capturing the attention of artists from Picasso to Matisse. Offering new abstract artists an established medium to create and distribute their work, tapestry found its way into modern homes and offices across America and France. Inside the book, readers can examine works by such notable artists as Helen Frankenthaler, Josef Albers, and Frank Stella.

Two American Crusades: Actors and Factors in the Cold War and the Global War on Terrorism by Marian K. Leighton ’64

Informed by decades of working closely with the United States intelligence community, Leighton details America’s complicated involvement in conflicts across the 20th and 21st centuries. The book treats the Cold War and the global war on terrorism as interlinked conflicts — inseparable from each other and from historical and international contexts — shedding light on why peace continues to evade American foreign policymakers. 

Simply Julia: 100 Easy Recipes for Healthy Comfort Food by Julia Turshen ’07 

Turshen uses her experience as a private chef and as a New York Times bestselling cookbook author to share her holistic philosophy on home cooking. Turshen amasses a variety of delicious, soulful, and low-maintenance recipes to prepare in your own kitchen. Complete with the chef’s tips on everything from buttermilk to menu planning, the cookbook provides ample ideas for the aspiring home cook. 

Making Milton: Print, Authorship, Afterlives by Marissa Nicosia ’07 (with Emma Depledge and John S. Garrison)

Nicosia and her co-editors have compiled 14 original essays examining the rise of John Milton — best known for his epic poem “Paradise Lost” — to becoming one of the most widely accepted contemporary thinkers and writers of the 17th century. The essays study Milton’s work by looking at how it came into existence, positing that the means of production and distribution significantly influenced how he wrote and how his writing was then received. 

A Regarded Self: Caribbean Women and the Ethics of Disorderly Being by Kaiama L. Glover, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of French and Africana Studies

Professor Glover details a new way to study and understand the protagonists of Caribbean women writers. She challenges the notion that these writers and their characters are  inseparable from their community and seeks to establish a new literary identity of “the regarded self.” Highlighting how these female characters define their identities in radical, sometimes uncomfortable ways, Glover provides a fresh look at women in Caribbean literature. 

The Polio Pioneer by Linda Elovitz Marshall ’71 

Children’s author Marshall follows the life and legacy of Dr. Jonas Salk, one of the most influential American physicians of the 20th century. Featuring colorful illustrations and accessible language, Marshall’s book turns attention to the role of vaccination in our society as she explains Dr. Salk’s many contributions to the influenza vaccine, the polio vaccine, and the medical community in general. 

Fiction 

The Comeback by Elizabeth Lee ’08 

Lee (under the name E. L. Shen) tells the story of Maxine Chen, a middle schooler struggling with maintaining a perfect identity both within the high-pressure world of figure skating and in the scrutinizing environment of being a Chinese American at her New York school. Maxine’s story of finding friendship and community in the face of grueling competition and racism will inspire an audience of young readers. 

Poetry 

Qorbanot: Offerings by Alisha Kaplan ’11

Taking its title from the Hebrew word for “sacrificial offerings,” Kaplan’s book examines, through poetry, the timeworn concept of sacrifice. In this joint effort with visual artist Tobi Aaron Kahn, Kaplan muses on the traditional, historical, and intimate ramifications of sacrifice through the legacy of Holocaust survivors and the Orthodox Judaism religion.