Academic and Trade Titles from Ohio’s Largest University Press

Cover of Thomas H. Begay and the Navajo Code Talkers

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An important and beautifully told tale of ’sanctioned forgetting,’ and glorious remembering.

Sisonke Msimang, author of The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela

A fascinating study….The book is a story of one person and it is a history of the twentieth century, with all its conflicts, hopes, experiments, and persecution.

John C. Swanson, author of Tangible Belonging: Negotiating Germanness in Twentieth-Century Hungary

Exciting, accessible, and very personal. The Code Talkers are named, and their experiences—their emotions, actions, dedication, and bravery—are palpable….A remarkable true story, well told.

Kirkus

[D]espite its privileged place at the heart of British domesticity, the ‘old Cashmere shawl’ possessed an uncanny power to disturb and disrupt. An important, original, and long-awaited contribution to the literary study of British India.

Nigel Leask, author of Stepping Westward: Writing the Highland Tour, c.1720-1830

New and Upcoming Releases

Collective Chaos
A Roller Derby Team Memoir
By Samantha Tucker and Amy Spears

Through stories about playing this full-contact, theatrical, and revolutionary sport, Collective Chaos shows the value of gaining a truly radical self-knowledge through teamwork, love, discipline, and critical consideration of our local and global societies and of our roles and responsibilities within them.

Biography & Autobiography | Sports · Sports & Recreation | Roller & In-Line Skating · Biography & Autobiography | LGBTQ+ · Sports & Recreation | Cultural & Social Aspects · Ohio · Ohio and Regional

Cover of 'African Activists of the Twentieth Century'

African Activists of the Twentieth Century
Hani, Maathai, Mpama/Palmer, Saro-Wiwa
By Hugh Macmillan, Tabitha Kanogo, Robert R. Edgar, Roy Doron, and Toyin Falola

This omnibus edition brings together concise and up-to-date biographies of Chris Hani, Wangari Maathai, Josie Mpama/Palmer, and Ken Saro-Wiwa. The volume complements history, social justice, and political science courses and is a useful collection for general readers interested in learning about Africa’s most influential historical figures.

Biography, Activists · History | Modern | 20th Century · African History · Kenya · Nigeria · South Africa · African Studies

Gardening for Moths
A Regional Guide
By Jim McCormac and Chelsea Gottfried

Loaded with stunning color photographs, this practical guidebook, which encompasses the identification of moths, their caterpillars, and their vital roles in midwestern ecosystems, shows gardeners how to use native plants to attract these essential, but often overlooked and misunderstood, insects.

An Ordinary Life?
The Journeys of Tonia Lechtman, 1918–1996
By Anna Müller

A Jew, Pole, daughter, mother, wife, Communist, migrant, Holocaust survivor, and refugee driven to fight for a better world. Ordinary or anything but? In Tonia Lechtman’s life, the lofty and the quotidian intertwined, making everything she did both monumental and mundane. Who was she?

Biography & Autobiography | Jewish · Jewish History · History | Modern | 20th Century · Poland · Palestine · Israel · France · Spain · Polish and Polish-American Studies

Apartheid’s Leviathan
Electricity and the Power of Technological Ambivalence
By Faeeza Ballim

Beginning in the 1960s, the security of electricity supply has shaped South Africa’s economic growth and prosperity, and electricity shortages have negatively inflected the rise of its postapartheid democracy. Construction delays and escalating costs have thwarted the nation’s mining, manufacturing, and power generation.

Thomas H. Begay and the Navajo Code Talkers
By Alysa Landry

Through Thomas H. Begay’s singular story, this richly illustrated biography for young readers describes aspects of Navajo history and culture and shows how a select group of Navajo soldiers used their native Diné language to invent and operate a secret communications system that was crucial to a US victory in the Pacific during World War II.

Sprawl
Poems
By Andrew Collard

Andrew Collard’s lyrical poems about Detroit show how the social and geographical past influences the present. Written from the perspective of a single parent raising a child amid increasing social isolation, economic insecurity, public catastrophes, and anxiety, Sprawl reminds us of the comforting endurance of communal experience.

Poetry | Subjects & Themes | Places · Poetry | Subjects & Themes | Family · Detroit · Literature · Poetry

Textile Orientalisms
Cashmere and Paisley Shawls in British Literature and Culture
By Suchitra Choudhury

Considering popular literary images of Indian and Paisley shawls as markers of fashion, class, gender, and race during the long nineteenth century, this book shows how Indian imports and influences shaped wider discussions of British literature, art, politics, and empire.

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Exam, Desk, and Review Copies

Examination copies for course adoption consideration are available for books priced under $35. Instructors can also request one complimentary desk copy for every 20 copies of a book ordered.

You can request an exam copy, a desk copy, or a review copy directly from book description pages on our website. For instructions, please read Requesting a Desk, Examination, or Review Copy.

Support the Press

Ohio University Press, the oldest university press in Ohio, and its trade imprint, Swallow Press, are dedicated to publishing books of serious scholarship and creative work. You can help the press build on its strengths and pursue new opportunities as a publisher of works of enduring quality by making a donation.

In the Press

Review in Kansas History (March 2023)
Posted on Mar 09, 2023 for On the Plains in ’65
Interview in The Conversation, March 7, 2023
Posted on Mar 09, 2023 for Convening Black Intimacy
“The Glaring Omission of Regina Twala,” The Millions, March 8, 2023
Posted on Mar 09, 2023 for Written Out
Interview in the Cincinnati Review, February 28, 2023
Posted on Mar 06, 2023 for Sprawl
Review in Library Journal, March 3, 2023
Posted on Mar 03, 2023 for Written Out
Review in the International Journal of African Historical Studies 55 no. 3 (2022)
Posted on Mar 03, 2023 for Spear
Review in the International Journal of African Historical Studies 55, no. 3 (2022)
Posted on Mar 03, 2023 for Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa

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Hollis Summers Poetry Prize

Named for the distinguished poet who taught for many years at Ohio University and made Athens, Ohio, the subject of many of his poems, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize invites writers to submit unpublished collections of original poems.

The competition is open to both those who have not published a book-length collection and those who have.

Congratulations to Katie Berta, winner of the 2024 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize for Retribution Forthcoming.

New in African Studies

Apartheid’s Leviathan
Electricity and the Power of Technological Ambivalence
By Faeeza Ballim

Written Out
The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala
By Joel Cabrita

This biography of Twala, an unjustly neglected Black African literary figure in apartheid South Africa and colonial Swaziland (now Eswatini) shows that her posthumous obscurity has been no accident. The book charts how White scholars and politicians used racial and gendered prejudices to erase Twala’s work and claim her uncompensated intellectual labor for themselves.