Bookshelf

University of Maryland faculty and staff showcase their expertise as authors of the following books, all published in the second half of 2025: 

“The American Revolution and the Fate of the World”
Richard Bell, Professor of History
Penguin’s Riverhead Books
The award-winning author reveals the full breadth and depth of America’s founding event as not only the colonies’ triumphant liberation from the rule of an overbearing England; it was also a cataclysm that pulled in participants from around the globe and threw the entire world order into chaos.

“Social Entrepreneurship for Development: A Business Model”
Margaret Brindle, Associate Clinical Professor of Public Policy
Routledge
This second edition presents a fresh approach to poverty alleviation by bridging the fields of international development and social entrepreneurship. Its six-step model allows developing country producers to position themselves better as owners of retail brands in foreign market countries. 

“How Fathers Help their Children Develop: Money and Love”
Natasha J. Cabrera, Professor, and Ronald B. Mincy
Cambridge University Press
This book builds upon decades of research to explore how and why fathers matter for children’s development. It challenges the commonly held view that fathers are only economic providers and points to the complex interplay between the love fathers have for their children and the money they have (or don’t have) to support them.

“The Community of Inquiry Framework in Writing Studies: Designing for Learning with Peer Review” 
Jennifer M. Cunningham, Mary K. Stewart, Natalie Stillman-Webb, and Lyra Hilliard, Principal Lecturer in the Department of English
WAC ClearingHouse
Applying the “Community of Inquiry” framework to writing studies, this book examines peer review in hybrid and online first-year writing courses. Drawing on theory and multi-institutional case studies, interviews, and artifacts, the authors offer data-driven, pedagogically pragmatic insights into designing and facilitating effective collaborative learning.

“Rebel Governance in the Age of Climate Change”
Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Professor of Government and Politics
Cambridge University Press
Cunningham reveals how governments work with non-governmental organizations—including rebel groups and armed actors—when there is a common cause, namely the impacts of climate change. 

“Keep Your Ear to the Ground: A History of Punk Fanzines in Washington, D.C.”
John R. Davis, Curator in Special Collections in the Performing Arts, University Libraries
Georgetown University Press
In this first history of the fanzines that emerged from Washington, DC's highly influential punk community, Davis unveils the development of punk fanzines and their role in supporting DC's hardcore and punk scene from the 1970s into the twenty-first century.

“Atlantic Theory: On the Vicissitudes of Relation”
John E. Drabinski, Professor of English and of African American and Africana Studies
Edinburgh University Press
The essay collection examines major figures in Atlantic theory to present it as a distinct framework for understanding colonial power, historical trauma, post-imperial negotiation, and the creative resistance of oppressed peoples.

“So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlantic”
John E. Drabinski, Professor of English and of African American and Africana Studies
Northwestern University Press
Drabinski repositions James Baldwin as a Black Atlantic writer, shifting criticism beyond a narrowed U.S. lens to place his work in dialogue with Caribbean and African thinkers. He shows how this Atlantic perspective deepens Baldwin’s insights on race, history, and memory while reshaping how his work is understood both globally and in the United States.

“Extravagant Camp: The Queer Abjection of Asian America”
Chris Eng, Assistant Professor of English
NYU Press
Engaging its double meaning, Eng explores how camp and encampment have contoured the figure of the Asian American. The book follows campy performances that imaginatively restage the camps that have been central to dominant narratives of Asian American history: Chinese railroad labor, Japanese American incarceration, Vietnam War refugee resettlement, and counterinsurgency camps across US imperial entanglements in the Philippines. 

“Everyday Activists: Undocumented Immigrants' Quest for Justice and Well-Being”
Christina Getrich, Associate Professor of Government and Politics 
NYU Press
Getrick shares previously untold stories and perspectives of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients who participate in organized marches or protests and are not necessarily activists but who have a profoundly positive impact on immigrant communities in the United States. 

“Acting, Planning, and Learning”
Malik Ghallab, computer science Professor Emeritus Dana Nau, and Paolo Traverso 
Cambridge University Press
This is an overview of AI's next big challenge: integrating the essential cognitive functions needed by robots and other automated agents, including planning what actions to undertake and under what conditions, acting (choosing what steps to execute, deciding how and when to execute them, monitoring their execution and reacting to events), and learning about ways to act and plan.

“Considerations for Culturally Informed Leadership”
Kathy L. Guthrie and Darren Pierre, Senior Lecturer in the Science, Technology, and Society Program
Emerald Publishing
This book explores the dynamic process of leadership across diverse cultural landscapes. It invites readers to embark on a journey of self-discovery and reflection, encouraging them to see themselves as learners, engagers, and connectors in a global context.

“Mystical Landscapes in Medieval Persian Literature”
Edited by Fatemeh Keshavarz, Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Language and Literature, and Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Professor of History 
Edinburgh University Press
In this collection, Fatemeh Keshavarz and Ahmet T. Karamustafa bring together leading researchers from comparative literature, history, literary criticism and religious studies to explore the major authors and genres of medieval Persian mystical literature. 

“Female Robots and AI in Science Fiction Cinema: The Fabular Femininity of Gynoids”
Rebecca Jones, Visiting Lecturer in University Honors
Palgrave Macmillan
The first comprehensive overview of the history of female-presenting AI and robots in U.S. and UK live-action, science fiction films from 1949 to 2023, it offers an original taxonomy that aids in the examination of 80 films and over 135 characters’ representations.

“The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round”
Arie Kruglanski, Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, and Dan Raviv
Routledge
The scholars offer a better understanding of how the same universal need to belong and feel significant drives both our daily efforts to succeed, contribute and build a just society—and to commit the atrocities of wars, cruelty and inhumanity.

“Multiliteracies, Multimodality and Learning by Design in Second Language Learning and Teacher Education”
Edited by Agustín Reyes-Torres, María Estela Brisk and Manel Lacorte, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese
Routledge
This edited volume offers valuable insights and practical strategies for addressing the language and literacy needs of students in diverse, multilingual classrooms.

“Fundamentals of Electric Power Engineering”
Isaak D. Mayergoyz, Distinguished University Professor and Alford L. Ward Professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Patrick McAvoy
World Scientific Publishing
The second, updated and expanded edition of this book explains the fundamentals of electric power engineering as well as sections on electric and magnetic circuit theory. 

“The Church of Divine Electricity”
Emily Mitchell, Associate Professor of English 
University of Wisconsin Press
The short story collection explores the intricate dynamics between humans and non-humans, encompassing technological, natural and fantastical relationships.

“Collection Management Basics, Eighth Edition” 
Maggie Saponaro, UMD Libraries' Director of Collection Development Strategies, John Novak and G. Edward Evans 
Bloomsbury
This new edition offers students and working professionals the tools to manage the complex process of creating appropriate collections of resources for all types of libraries.

“Belvoir: An Archaeology of Maryland Slavery”
Julie Schablitsky, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology
University of Alabama Press
Schablitsky, chief archaeologist and director of the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Office of Cultural Resources, shares various findings from her time leading a dig at the namesake Crownsville, Md., former tobacco plantation that dates to the 1730s. 

“In the Shadow of Empire: Art in Occupied Japan”
Alicia Volk, Professor of Japanese Art
University of Chicago Press, 2025
Volk brings to light a significant body of postwar Japanese art, exploring how it accommodated and resisted the workings of the American empire during the early Cold War. Her account presents the points of view of Japanese artists and their audiences under American occupation and amid the ruins of war.  

“Writing Groups in the Writing Center: Negotiating Authority and Expertise in Collaborative Learning”
Sara Wilder, Assistant Professor of English
Utah State University Press 
This qualitative study of multidisciplinary writing groups uses three case studies to show how collaboration expands writing center praxis through negotiated authority, emotional labor and shared expertise. Addressing equity, mentorship and concerns about generative AI, the book offers practical and scholarly insights for educators, administrators and researchers into facilitating meaningful, human-centered collaborative writing.

“Rebels in the Field: Cadres and the Development of Insurgent Military Power”
Alec Worsnop, Assistant Professor
Oxford University Press
This book examines why some insurgent movements develop effective military power while others fail, arguing that success depends on building capable small-unit combat leaders—cadres—rather than relying solely on social or political ties.

Many of these titles are available for free through the University of Maryland Libraries as e-books. Find them at lib.umd.edu.