Seven books about the messy politics of Indian meals

Asfiyah Qadri is a writer based in Mumbai, India. Her work has appeared in Tweak India, Vogue India, and Brown History, and explores themes of memory, identity, and nostalgia.

At Electric Lit Qadri tagged seven titles about the messy politics of Indian meals. One entry on the list:

Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai

In the initial segment of this book, we meet Uma, a spinster who spends her days at the beck and call of her parents, only to be met with vitriolic remarks in return. Despite feeding those around her, Uma’s life in India is one of fasting—starved of freedom, education, new experiences. The latter half follows Uma’s brother, Arun, who moves in with an American family, the Pattons, after he enrolls in a college in the United States. The Pattons lead a life of excess—they buy an obscene amount of groceries, have a freezer crammed with meat, and their daughter Melanie obsessively snacks on candy bars only to vomit everything back up.

While their circumstances are unalike, Uma and Melanie are similar in that they’re both unhappy with their lives, which has the effect of thwarting their appetite, both literal and symbolic. There is, after all, a sense of aliveness to hunger—a reaching outwards, a wish for nourishment, the sign of a body functioning as it should. What can be understood of a hunger that is quashed, diminished like theirs? Does it point to a barren inner world? A belief that one’s needs will forever remain unmet? A quashing of desire itself?

Read about another book on the list.

Fasting, Feasting is among Leila Aboulela's recommended books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Benjamin R. Siegel's "Markets of Pain"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers by Benjamin Robert Siegel.

About the book, from the publisher:

Markets of Pain offers a sweeping history of the business of licit opium--following cultivators, merchants, scientists, and policymakers--and shows how this potent crop reshaped global trade, medicine, and geopolitics.

For centuries, opium has been a source of both profit and peril, its legacy entangled with addiction, imperialism, and the complex interplay of global trade and national development. While the illicit opium trade is infamous, the history of licit opium--how it was farmed, refined, and used to build modern medicine and shape state power--has remained largely untold.

Drawing on archival sources from Asia, Europe, and the United States, Markets of Pain traces the global arc of licit opium from poppy fields and processing plants in India, Turkey, and Australia to the clinics and laboratories of modern medicine. It shows how both the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic treated the opium poppy as a national resource and a means of securing global stature. In postcolonial India, by contrast, nationalist leaders initially rejected opium's imperial legacy before embracing its strategic value amid the shifting currents of the Cold War. At the heart of this story are the cultivators, scientists, bureaucrats, and policymakers who shaped the licit opium trade and grappled with its far-reaching consequences. Their work and visions demonstrate how colonial empires and postcolonial states helped forge the global pharmaceutical industry as it struggled to govern a drug it could not abandon.

Markets of Pain reveals how a seemingly marginal crop became an unlikely engine of modernization, a tool of Cold War geopolitics, and a harbinger of today's global opioid crisis. Blending vivid scenes from opium's fields and factories with incisive analysis of scientific and diplomatic archives, Benjamin Robert Siegel recovers a buried history with urgent relevance for global supply chains, international power, and public health.

Visit Benjamin R. Siegel's website.

The Page 99 Test: Markets of Pain.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven historical fiction books set in Appalachia

Melissa D’Agnese is a senior editor at FIRST for Women, Woman’s World, and various a360media special interest publications.

At Woman’s World she tagged seven of the best historical fiction books set in Appalachia, including:

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

In 1997, Charles Frazier published his sweeping Civil War epic, Cold Mountain, and the novel became a literary sensation. After topping bestseller lists and winning the National Book Award, it was adapted into a blockbuster movie starring Jude Law and Nicole Kidman. The novel follows wounded Confederate soldier Inman as he deserts the front lines and embarks on a difficult journey back to the Blue Ridge Mountains—and to Ada, the woman he loves. Along the way, he encounters a fractured world filled with dangers and unexpected humanity. Meanwhile, Ada struggles to rebuild her life at home. It’s a moving and tumultuous story of love, survival and homecoming.

Read about another entry on the list.

Cold Mountain is among Thomas Maloney's top ten deaths in fiction, Geraldine Brooks's six favorite works of historical fiction, Charles Palliser's top ten neo-Victorian novels, Henry Winkler's best books, and Tunku Varadarajan's five most delectable combinations of fiction and food.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Laurie Frankel's "Enormous Wings"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Enormous Wings: A Novel by Laurie Frankel.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author Laurie Frankel, an exuberant and timely new novel

At seventy-seven, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas—that would be her three grown children—but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting, and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant.

As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, belly-rubbers and rubber-neckers all descending on Vista View while Pepper struggles to determine her next move. Soon she has some hard decisions to make—and some she’s not allowed to make.

Enormous Wings is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It’s about what happens when you don’t get to choose anymore. It’s about motherhood and family, sex and love and friendship, and how those bedrocks—even so late in the day—can still change, and then change everything.

Visit Laurie Frankel's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Laurie Frankel and Calli.

The Page 69 Test: The Atlas of Love.

My Book, The Movie: Goodbye for Now.

The Page 69 Test: Goodbye for Now.

My Book, The Movie: This Is How It Always Is.

The Page 69 Test: This Is How It Always Is.

Writers Read: Laurie Frankel (February 2017).

The Page 69 Test: One Two Three.

Q&A with Laurie Frankel.

The Page 69 Test: Enormous Wings.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Diane Josefowicz

From my Q&A with Diane Josefowicz, author of The Great Houses of Pill Hill:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The Great Houses of Pill Hill is a novel about an interior decorator who inadvertently winds up investigating the murder of her marquee client, a surgeon who lives with his wife in a grand mansion in an expensive neighborhood nicknamed Pill Hill because, historically, many doctors either lived or had offices there.

Since the book has been published, I've heard from many people who also live on or near a Pill Hill. It turns out, quite a few neighborhoods have that nickname, and they have a similar historical connection with medicine and medical professionals.

For a long time, the novel's working title was The Ministry of the Interior, which is also the name of the heroine's interior design firm. But this working title directed the reader's attention to the wrong things. As your question implies, a novel's title should place the reader directly in the scene of the story. In The Great Houses of Pill Hill, the murdered client is himself a doctor, and the local hospital plays a role in the plot, so...[read on]

Visit Diane Josefowicz's website.

Q&A with Diane Josefowicz.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books that celebrate Paris

Kate Clayborn is the USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance novels. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Bookpage, and more.

She is a lifelong reader of texts of all kinds, and a passionate advocate for the romance genre. A Midwesterner by birth, she now lives in Virginia.

Clayborn's latest novel is The Paris Match.

At People magazine the author tagged "ten favorite Paris-set texts ... all which taught me something about the textures of Parisian life." One title on the list:

How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City by Joan DeJean

Something that has always fascinated me about Paris is our collective psychic relationship to it — the way it’s so easy to call its landmarks to mind, the way we associate it with certain clothing, the way we picture sidewalk cafés with La Vie en Rose playing softly from… somewhere. But Paris is an old, old city, with such a complicated history that is completely divorced from a lot of what we picture when we think of the it today. DeJean’s book starts all the way back in the 1500s, describing a time when Paris was pretty desolate. The story of how imagination and innovation made it into what it is now is truly compelling, but so too is the reminder of Paris’s deep complexity. It’s a city that should never be over-simplified or simply romanticized, and that’s a good reminder for a writer who takes it on as a setting.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 99 Test: How Paris Became Paris.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jennifer Randles's "Living Diaper to Diaper"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood by Jennifer Randles.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revealing account of parenting in a country that neglects the needs of poor families—through the humble diaper.

Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American families with young children struggle to get enough diapers.

Drawing on interviews with mothers dealing with this overlooked issue, Jennifer Randles shows how diapers have unique practical and symbolic significance for the well-being of families. Tracing the social history of diapering, Randles unravels a complex story of caregiving inequalities, the environmental impacts of child-rearing, and responsibility for meeting children’s basic needs. Yet it is also a hopeful story: the book chronicles the work of people who manage diaper banks as well as the growing diaper distribution movement.

A hard-nosed yet nuanced tale of parenting, Living Diaper to Diaper is an eye-opening examination of inequality and poverty in America.

Learn more about Living Diaper to Diaper at the University of California Press website.

Writers Read: Jennifer Randles (April 2017).

The Page 99 Test: Proposing Prosperity?.

The Page 99 Test: Living Diaper to Diaper.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kayla Hardy reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kayla Hardy, author of The Quarter Queen: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I recently reread Lindsey Stewart’s The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic which is such a seminal work of art that explores the essential contributions of black conjure women through American history in respect to spirituality and health. The book does an excellent job of tracing black wellness back to the southern plantation system where black women first practiced conjure magic to cure illnesses with herbal tinctures and mixtures, whose recipes have endured to this day. The book shows that these practices have lived on to shape positive counter narratives of power in the face of slavery and the Jim Crow era as well as...[read on]

About The Quarter Queen, from the publisher:

A Voodoo witch must navigate a magically and racially divided nineteenth-century New Orleans to save her mother—and the soul of the city itself—in this lush debut novel inspired by the life of Marie Laveau.

In 1843 New Orleans, the reigning Voodoo queen is Marie Laveau, feared by her enemies and followers alike. Her daughter, Marie "Ree" Laveau the Second, is everything her cutthroat and principled mother is not—spoiled and entitled, with a wickedly rebellious streak—and defies her mother at every turn. But Ree’s world is turned upside down when she finds Marie comatose in the bayou, cursed by exiled Voodoo king Jon the Conjurer—Marie’s former teacher, lover, and greatest enemy.

As Marie hovers on the brink of death, Ree races to uncover the secrets of her mother’s life in search of a cure and gradually uncovers a web of alliances, dangers, and deception. What’s worse, Henryk Broussard, Ree’s long-missing childhood best friend, returns as a witch hunter of the Church, tasked with investigating her. With so many enemies circling, including a puritanical-minded Brotherhood of alchemists and the slave-holding mayor of the city, Ree must confront the past and face her mother’s demons that have now become her own—or die trying.

Told in alternating timelines between Ree in the present and Marie’s rise to power twenty-five years earlier, The Quarter Queen is an intimate yet epic portrait of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand one another, and a captivating exploration of racism, family, and womanhood.

Visit Kayla Hardy's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Quarter Queen.

Q&A with Kayla Hardy.

My Book, The Movie: The Quarter Queen.

Writers Read: Kayla Hardy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five cautionary novels about shopping

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five “buyer, beware” novels about the dangers of shopping. One entry on the list:

The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang, translated by Slin Jung

[T]his is about a fantastical market that doesn’t capture people with fruit, but instead helps them decide what they want from their lives. The Rainfall Market is invite-only, where shoppers walk around and try to decide what their perfect life will look like. Lovely, right? But there’s a catch: if they can’t decide after a week, they will be trapped inside the market for the rest of their days. (And I thought the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run seemed like a lot of pressure.)

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Andrew Welsh-Huggins's "The Delivery"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Delivery (Mercury Carter Thrillers) by Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Freelance courier Mercury Carter races against time and across New England to rescue a trafficking victim in this new thriller from the author of The Mailman.

Merc Carter is not your typical deliveryman. A former postal inspector, he specializes in moving sensitive or dangerous packages—of all sorts—from point A to B. And sometimes he needs his gun to do so. Carter’s current mission leads him to Providence, Rhode Island, but his delivery is interrupted when he comes across a woman badly injured in a car wreck in the pouring rain. Then a man with a gun appears warning Carter away from the scene and Carter leaps into action, disarming the attacker and rescuing the crash victim.

Just as Carter thinks the danger has passed, he discovers a deeper mystery stemming from the crash, a deadly puzzle involving a memorable pair of grifters, a crooked ex-cop, stolen identities, human trafficking, and murder. And it appears that Carter’s next assignment will put him right in this conspiracy’s perilous center . . .

The follow-up to last year’s acclaimed hit, The Mailman, which launched the Mercury Carter series, The Delivery is a fast-paced, unpredictable thriller following a memorable protagonist whose resourcefulness is matched only by his quick wit and determination to never miss a delivery.

Visit Andrew Welsh-Huggins's website.

My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave.

Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (April 2023).

My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road.

The Page 69 Test: The End of the Road.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (November 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: The Mailman.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (March 2025).

The Page 69 Test: The Delivery.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Mahmud El Sayed

From my Q&A with Mahmud El Sayed, author of The Republic of Memory: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Memory is definitely one of the meta-themes of the story (“what must this crew, so far from Earth in years and light-years, remember and why?”) so hopefully quite a bit. TROM was not the book’s original title (or even the second or third version) and it came about via a process with my editor and their publishing team. When I won the Future Worlds Prize in 2023, the novel was called ‘What the Crew Wants’ (probably it’s third title by then) in reference to a popular Arab Spring protest chant and I still have a soft spot for that one. However, having gone through so many titles before, it was easy to accept changing it. For myself, I always thought of it simply as “The Book.”

What's in a name?

TROM is multi-POV and while I’m not Dickensian in my character naming there are definite reasons why characters are named as they are. Given that the book is set on a generation ship that is divided by language...[read on]

Follow Mahmud El Sayed on Instagram.

The Page 69 Test: The Republic of Memory.

Q&A with Mahmud El Sayed.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top books about libraries

Edwin B. Maxwell is the Chief Librarian of Brooklyn Public Library (BPL). A New York City native, born and raised in the Bronx, he began his career at BPL and worked his way through every level of the system, now leading public service across BPL’s central library and 60 neighborhood branches. Over nearly two decades, he has expanded access, supported youth programming, and helped shape libraries as spaces for connection, learning, and opportunity. He believes deeply that reading, in all its forms, belongs to everyone, and that libraries are essential community spaces that show up as real pillars in their communities, meeting people’s needs in whatever way is needed.

At Lit Hub Maxwell tagged eight favorite books about libraries, including:

Eric Klinenberg, Palaces for the People

A defining argument for libraries as essential civic infrastructure. Klinenberg makes the case that social connection, not just physical buildings and services, is what holds communities together, and few institutions do that more consistently than libraries.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: George G. Szpiro's "Ignorance"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Ignorance: What We Do Not Know, Cannot Know, Must Not Know, and Refuse to Know by George G. Szpiro.

About the book, from the publisher:

Does the lack of evidence mean that aliens don’t exist? Why does an unproven mathematical hypothesis have profound consequences? Are humans capable of grasping the nature of divinity? Is it ethical to give a patient a placebo? Why do people persist in demonstrably false beliefs like flat earth theory? Should someone want to know when they will die?

George G. Szpiro examines these questions and many others, offering an engaging and witty tour of what we can learn from ignorance. In a series of fast-paced chapters, he unravels problems ranging across science, mathematics, law, economics, politics, religion, psychology, and philosophy—some esoteric, others drawn from everyday life. Ignorance comes in many forms, Szpiro shows. Some questions are only temporarily unsolved; others are inherently unanswerable. Sometimes authorities keep answers from us, for good or ill. Often our assumptions and biases keep us from overcoming our ignorance, and occasionally we choose to remain ignorant—for surprisingly rational reasons.

Ultimately, Szpiro argues, ignorance is not purely negative. It can motivate the pursuit of learning and wisdom—as long as we acknowledge it. Presenting sophisticated topics in an accessible way, this book shows how ignorance sheds light on the nature of knowledge.

Visit George G. Szpiro's website.

The Page 99 Test: Perplexing Paradoxes.

The Page 99 Test: Ignorance.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Catriona McPherson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Catriona McPherson, author of The Dead Room.

Her entry begins:

I’ve been having a fantastic run of reading just recently. Yes, my alphabetically-through-the-TBR policy has come good again. I’m in the Hs – Greg Herren, Mick Herron, Georgette Heyer – and these three I’m picking out today.

Edwin Hill is a pal and so I went to my local bookshop (Avid Reader, Davis) when I heard he had a new one out. Shamingly enough, though, I realised I was two books behind, rather than one, so it’s Edwin’s 2024 psychothriller Who to Believe that I’ve just devoured.

It’s a structural masterclass. I never mean that to suggest that the structure is what you’re going to notice – which sounds like no fun at all – but always that the structure is an advanced undertaking that disappears completely into an enjoyable read. That’s certainly true here. If I wrote a murder multiple times, once for each of the characters who was there at the metaphorical kill, I’d bore myself, my agent and possibly my editor. If my agent ever passed it on. I wouldn’t bore anyone else unless a burglar broke in and took it from the drawer where it belonged. But Edwin? Fantastic stuff. The murder, its lead-up and its aftermath get more fascinating with every new narrator. And, for once, even though each narrator is compelling, you’re never sorry when the change happens. I can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s a...[read on]

About The Dead Room, from the publisher:

In this atmospheric thriller from Catriona McPherson, a young widow seeking refuge from her grief wades into the mists at the far end of memory lane―where something even darker awaits.

Reeling from the death of her husband, thirty-something audiobook narrator Lindsay Hale retreats to her Scottish hometown and the comforts of old times. The bungalow where she grew up is just as she left it, next to the scrapyard her family still owns. But something is wrong…something beyond grief.

Something she can only glimpse from the corner of her eye.

Lindsay’s brother and best friend are there to welcome her back. An elderly widow helps Lindsay make sense of her new normal, and a kind man hints at unexpected possibilities. But when her widow friend vanishes, only Lindsay seems to notice. And while she starts “recognizing” strangers, she begins forgetting familiar faces.

Every night, as Lindsay’s dream house fills with nightmares, she wonders whether she’s truly unraveling―or if something more sinister’s at play. Buried secrets surface and reality bends, forcing Lindsay to face the terrifying truth that her new haven isn’t so safe after all.

Visit Catriona McPherson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Go to My Grave.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (November 2018).

My Book, The Movie: The Turning Tide.

The Page 69 Test: The Turning Tide.

My Book, The Movie: A Gingerbread House.

The Page 69 Test: Hop Scot.

The Page 69 Test: Deep Beneath Us.

Q&A with Catriona McPherson.

The Page 69 Test: The Witching Hour.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (September 2024).

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (December 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Scotzilla.

My Book, The Movie: Scotzilla.

The Page 69 Test: Scot's Eggs.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (November 2025).

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Room.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine of the best climate & sustainability books

Vogue asked four climate activists to help "compile a reading list that offers context and perspective on issues of climate, sustainability, and resistance." One pick by Leah Thomas, intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator:

Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy

I love this book because it shows how tending to the land can be both a personal and political act, especially as a Black woman reclaiming space, care, and belonging. It’s a beautiful reflection on how our relationships with soil, home, and community are deeply tied to climate, justice, and what it means to nurture a livable future.

Read about another entry on the list.

Soil is among Sari Fordham's seven books to read when the world is on fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mahmud El Sayed's "The Republic of Memory"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Republic of Memory: A Novel (The Song of the Safina) by Mahmud El Sayed.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A Memory Called Empire meets Children of Time in this Arabfuturist debut set on a generation ship on the brink of revolution as its crew begin to ask why they should toil for a people, and an empire, none of them remember.

The Safina is a city ship halfway through its four-hundred-year voyage from the ruins of Earth to a new colony world. Its crew maintain the ship, generation after generation, while protecting their ancestors in cryostasis so that one day they will be able to enjoy a fresh start under clear blue skies.

But when blackouts start, unrest follows.

The ship can only continue running smoothly with the cooperation of the crew. And the crew has had enough. As coordinated acts of resistance coincide with a much more complex conspiracy, a chain of events is set into motion that will change life on the Safina forever.

Inspired by the real-world events of the Arab Spring, The Republic of Memory is a bold interrogation of empire and an energizing portrait of revolution.

Follow Mahmud El Sayed on Instagram.

The Page 69 Test: The Republic of Memory.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Melinda Leigh

From my Q&A with Melinda Leigh, author of You Can Tell Me:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

You Can Tell Me as a title is meant to feel personal, as if someone is whispering secrets. The main character, Olivia Cruz, is a former investigative journalist turned true crime writer. One of her strengths is getting people to talk to her. They tell her their secrets. She is small and physically nonthreatening, and she uses this to her advantage. Since this is a series, the title of the first book must also establish the feel of the books yet to come.

What's in a name?

My protagonists are strong women, and I like to...[read on]

Visit Melinda Leigh's website.

Q&A with Melinda Leigh.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels that let India’s smaller towns shine

Sneha Pathak is an independent writer and translator based in India. Her work has appeared in Business Standard, Scroll.in and Strange Horizons. She translates between Hindi and English.

At Electric Lit Pathak tagged seven novels that feature India’s smaller towns. One title on the list:

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai’s novel moves between New York and Kalimpong, a small town in the Eastern Himalayan region, weaving the stories of multiple characters. There’s a retired, Cambridge-educated judge clinging to colonial ways; his granddaughter, Sai; and their cook’s son, Biju, an undocumented immigrant struggling in New York. The action unfolds during a tumultuous period in the region’s history as the Nepali-speaking majority demands its own state, turning the quiet, misty town into a “ghost town.” With the mighty Kanchenjunga looming over its treacherous terrain, a sharp class divide and political tensions on the rise, Kalimpong becomes an active presence shaping the trajectory of its characters’ lives.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Inheritance of Loss is among Geneva Abdul's five best postcolonial novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm's "The Genealogy of Genealogy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History by Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm.

About the book, from the publisher:

A daring reassessment of the critical method that reshaped the humanities and an invitation to imagine new ways of doing history.

The genealogical method—a mode of historical analysis that shows that what looks timeless is in fact contingent, bound to shifting relations of meaning, knowledge, and power—has become the dominant paradigm of humanistic inquiry. In The Genealogy of Genealogy, Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm turns this influential practice back on itself, tracing its unlikely rise through Nietzsche and Foucault and uncovering its suppressed ties to eugenics and racism. He rethinks the very stakes of critical history and proposes new tools for thinking about historical continuity, change, and difference.

Provocative and timely, The Genealogy of Genealogy offers both a diagnosis and a vision, challenging scholars across the humanities and social sciences to rethink how we write history and whether our most trusted methods are fit for the futures we seek to build.

Learn more about The Genealogy of Genealogy at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Myth of Disenchantment.

The Page 99 Test: The Genealogy of Genealogy.

--Marshal Zeringue