New Books Network

Shows how apocalypticism helped drive anti-slavery abolitionism and inspire progressive social reform in nineteenth-century America In March 1844, Melissa Botsford of Meriden, Connecticut, defiantly left her local Methodist church because it supported slavery and other “sins” that permeated America. Botsford was among one hundred thousand other abolitionists who abandoned their evangelical churches throughout the decade. These protesters came out with a stern apocalyptic warning: God would soon judge America—and its churches—for the sins of slavery and race prejudice. It has long been assumed that apocalypticism is antithetical to social reform. Yet in Apocalyptic Abolitionism: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America (NYU Press, 2026), Kevin M. Burton uncovers the untold story of how apocalypticism shaped the abolitionist cause and helped destroy slavery in the United States. Contrary to popular opinion, the revival fires of the Second Great Awakening did not drive most evangelicals to progressive social reforms like abolitionism. Neither were the denominational schisms during that period a fight between northern abolitionists and southern slaveholders. Rather, before the Methodist and Baptist denominations split along sectional lines, most abolitionists, particularly members of the Adventist movement, had already left their churches in what was likely the largest mass exodus from mainstream evangelicalism in American history, precisely because most evangelicals opposed radical social reform movements. This volume makes the case that evangelicals receive undeserved credit for antislavery, and that it was apocalyptic abolitionists who led the way. Drawing from rare and overlooked sources to create a database of biographies of nearly 2000 people to track their religious affiliations and activism over time, Burton offers invaluable data to develop a robust framework for understanding apocalypticism, evangelicalism, and social reform politics of the nineteenth century. Kevin M. Burton is Assistant Professor of Church History, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, where he also directs the Center for Adventist Research. to American religious history." ~John Corrigan, author of The Feeling of Forgetting: Christianity, Race, and Violence in America

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Fitness for Freedom: Disability, Degeneration, and Modern Irish Writing (Syracuse UP, 2025) explores the legacy of intersectional stereotypes of disability, race, gender, sexuality, class, and religion that justified imperial rule in Ireland and the forms of oppression that continued after independence. Marion Quirici identifies models of citizenship and creative autonomy in Irish modernist literature that valorize vulnerability over ability and interdependence over independence. She uncovers a history in which an entire nation, Ireland, was characterized as disabled and therefore “not fit for freedom.” Beyond symbolism, the Famine and decades of emigration led to a perception that Ireland’s racial stocks were depleted, and that those who remained were feeble and few. The fraught relationship between disability and Irishness provides context for Quirici’s analysis of modernist Irish literature. Revivalists such as William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, Pádraic Pearse, and the Gaelic Athletic Association created new mythologies of Irish ability to counter imperial stereotypes, tacitly reinforcing the idea of disability as a disqualification for sovereignty. Certain Irish modernists, however—James Joyce, Edna O’Brien, Samuel Beckett, Brian O’Nolan, and Christy Brown—called the “fitness for freedom” ideology into question. These authors allow us to disentangle disability from unfitness and scrutinize its relationship to liberation. In their work, disability becomes an avenue for exploring the human experience and discovering the inherent creativity and collaborative potential of an interdependent life.

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Could humanity’s most powerful invention become a threat to its survival? In this episode of The Survival Curve, we examine the disturbing prospect behind the “ten percent” debate: a risk of catastrophe that cannot be precisely calculated, but whose consequences demand serious attention.
We explore three routes to disaster: machines escaping human control, people using AI to unleash devastating cyber or biological attacks, and military systems accelerating a crisis towards nuclear war. What happens when a human still approves the decision, but no longer has the time or information to question the machine?
Can governments preserve meaningful control as technological competition intensifies—and who bears responsibility if they fail?

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In this episode, the editors of the Journal of Autoethnography offer an inside look at the journal, discussing its origin and revisiting notable articles that have contributed to the practice of autoethnography.
The Journal of Autoethnography is published four times a year by the University of California Press. For more information about the journal, including subscription and submission information, please visit here. If you are interested in supporting the work of UC Press and its Journals Program, please consider making a charitable donation to the UC Press Foundation.
To learn more about the UC Press Foundation and how to contribute, please visit here.
Articles mentioned:
Matthew S. Johnston; Through Madness and Back Again: An Autoethnography of Psychosis. Journal of Autoethnography 11 May 2020; 1 (2): 137–155. doi: here
Jessica Smartt Gullion; The Mayhill Project. Journal of Autoethnography 1 January 2025; 6 (1): 37–49. doi: here
Elizabeth Stephens; Homicide by Police: Coping with Traumatic Death. Journal of Autoethnography 11 May 2020; 1 (2): 111–121. doi: here
Anonymous Author; Highlighting Numbers: Students Stalking Faculty and the Lasting Impacts of a Flawed System. Journal of Autoethnography 1 April 2021; 2 (2): 143–160. doi: here
Arthur P. Bochner; Autoethnography as a Way of Life: Listening to Tinnitus Teach. Journal of Autoethnography 7 January 2020; 1 (1): 81–92. doi: here
Csaba Osvath; Writing With and Against the Machine: Autoethnographic Reflections on AI, VR, and Narrative Becoming. Journal of Autoethnography 1 July 2026; 7 (3): 346–358. doi: here
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft. 2000. Simon & Schuster.
Goodall, H. Lloyd. A need to know: The clandestine history of a CIA family. Left Coast Press, 2006.
Robin M. Boylorn, Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience (Revised Edition, 2017). Peter Lang.
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. 2019, Penguin.
Ellis, Carolyn. Revision: Autoethnographic reflections on life and work. 2019. Routledge.
A complete list of University of California Press journals is available at UC Press Journals
Tony Adams is Caterpillar Professor of Communication at Bradley University.
Andrew F. Herrmann is CEO of Applicable Consulting LLC.

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Eminent historian Peter Burke joins Jana Byars to discuss his new book, The Connoisseur: A Cultural History (Reaktion, 2026), considering the art connoisseur from the Renaissance to the present day. Connoisseurs have been an influential, if somewhat mysterious, figure in the history of art, responsible for making or breaking high-profile collections and reputations and influencing taste, the art market, and the field of art history with their pronouncements. But what did it take to become a connoisseur, and how reliable were the great connoisseurs of previous centuries? With the advent of scientific techniques and artificial intelligence, what future is there for expertise based on the trained eye? This book offers the first history of the art connoisseur, from the Renaissance to its professionalization in the nineteenth century and on to the present. Featuring portrayals of many leading connoisseurs, such as Bernard Berenson, Roberto Longhi, and Giovanni Morelli, this is a highly readable history of the extraordinary characters and intellects that have shaped the art world through a mixture of intuition, learning, and chutzpah.

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