New Releases

Despite the persistence of racial inequality, it is class differences that are transforming social stratification in America, says Douglas S. Massey *78, a professor of sociology and public affairs, in Spheres of Influence: The Social Ecology of Racial and Class Inequality, written with Stefanie Brodmann. The authors find that the effects of racial inequality are exacerbated by class differences within racial groups.

In Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter, professor of Near Eastern studies Jonathan Marc Gribetz draws on archival documents from the final decades of Ottoman rule to shed new light on how Zionists and Arabs understood each other. He suggests that the current focus on territorial dividing lines misses key elements of the conflict.

States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America brings back a chronicle of gay life in the United States that was first published in 1980. Edmund White, a professor of creative writing, traveled the country in the late ’70s to explore gay liberation, political activism, and sexual freedom.