The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. The Books Division of the University of Chicago Press has been publishing books for scholars, students, and general readers since 1892.

New Study: Adirondack Brook Trout Recovering After Acid Rain Reductions

January 26, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A new study by the US Geological Survey shows that a nationwide effort to control acid deposition by reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants has worked, reversing decades of ecological damage and supporting significant recovery of brook trout populations in the Adirondack Park’s 30,000 miles of rivers, brooks and streams.

The study covered a period of more than 40 years, finding that Adirondack brook trout had repopulated streams once too acidic to support them. Of the 42 sites surveyed, more than half had no trout in 1984-89. By 2023 brook trout were living in 33 of the 42. Adirondack brook trout were one of signature species sampled in 42 streams across the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about New Study: Adirondack Brook Trout Recovering After Acid Rain Reductions

How Northern Manufacturing Fueled Slavery

October 15, 2025 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

When we talk about slavery in Early America, we often focus on plantations: their large, fertile fields, their cash crops, and the people who labored on those fields to produce those cash crops under conditions of enslavement.

But what about the ordinary objects that made slavery work? The shoes, axes, cloth, and hoes? What can these everyday objects reveal about the economic and social systems that sustained slavery in the early United States? [Read more…] about How Northern Manufacturing Fueled Slavery

The Menace of Prosperity: NYC’s Struggle for Economic Development, 1865–1981

June 27, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Many local policymakers make decisions based on a deep-seated belief: what’s good for the rich is good for cities. Convinced that local finances depend on attracting wealthy firms and residents, municipal governments lavish public subsidies on their behalf.

Whatever form this strategy takes — tax-exempt apartments, corporate incentives, debt-financed mega projects — its rationale remains consistent and assumed to be true. But this wasn’t always the case. [Read more…] about The Menace of Prosperity: NYC’s Struggle for Economic Development, 1865–1981

The Political Development of American Debt Relief

December 10, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Americans have a long history with debt. They also have a long history of mobilizing for debt relief. Throughout the nineteenth century, indebted citizens demanded government protection from their financial burdens, challenging readings of the Constitution that exalted property rights at the expense of the vulnerable.

Their appeals shaped the country’s periodic experiments with state debt relief and federal bankruptcy law, constituting a pre-industrial safety net. Yet, the twentieth century saw the erosion of debtor politics and the eventual retrenchment of bankruptcy protections. [Read more…] about The Political Development of American Debt Relief

Governed by Despots: John Swanson Jacobs Chronicles Enslavement and Resistance

December 2, 2024 by Alan J. Singer Leave a Comment

The University of Chicago Press recently published a unique account of an escape from enslavement in North Carolina decades before the Civil War. The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots (2024) by John Swanson Jacobs tells of his escape from enslavement by North Carolina plantation owner and Congressional Representative Samuel Sawyer in 1838 while he and the slaveholder were in transit through the City of New York. [Read more…] about Governed by Despots: John Swanson Jacobs Chronicles Enslavement and Resistance

Alcoholic Insanity in the Early Republic

December 5, 2023 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

How and when did doctors become respected professionals in American society?

The answer lies in early Americans’ fascination with delirium tremens, or alcoholic insanity, and the Temperance Movement of the early-to-mid 19th century.

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Matthew Osborn, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and author of Rum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American Republic (University of Chicago Press, 2014), leads us on an exploration of early American medical history and reform movements. [Read more…] about Alcoholic Insanity in the Early Republic

Kermit Roosevelt III: The Nation That Never Was

April 12, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

In his book The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story (University of Chicago Press, 2022), Kermit Roosevelt III argues that a traditional American narrative – “that our fundamental values as a country were stated in the Declaration of Independence, fought for in the Revolution, and made law in the Constitution”– is neither useful nor true.

Instead, he writes, we should look to the 19th century, to the period following Abraham Lincoln‘s Gettysburg Address, “when it was possible to envision the emergence of the nation committed to liberty and equality.” [Read more…] about Kermit Roosevelt III: The Nation That Never Was

Early America’s Trade With China

September 7, 2022 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Dael Norwood, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delaware, joins Liz Covart to explore the lure of trade with China with details from his book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2022).

During this episode, Norwood reveals China’s place in the world during the early modern period; Why Europeans and later Americans wanted to trade with China; And, details about why Americans set out to establish a trade with China right after they secured the United States’ independence from Great Britain. [Read more…] about Early America’s Trade With China

Policing in New York City: A History of the NYPD

October 4, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

As debates about reducing funding for U.S. police forces continue, the new book Policing the Big Apple: The Story of the NYPD (The University of Chicago Press, 2021) by Jules Stewart offers an enlightening historical overview of one of the world’s largest metropolitan contingents: the New York City Police Department. [Read more…] about Policing in New York City: A History of the NYPD

Frontier Seaport: Detroit’s Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt

April 8, 2020 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Located 600 miles inland from Philadelphia and over 700 miles from Québec City, early Detroit could have been a backwater, a frontier post that Europeans established to protect colonial settlements from Native American attacks. Yet Detroit emerged as a cosmopolitan entrepôt filled with many different people and all of the goods you would expect to find in early Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, or Charleston.

In this podcast episode we explore the early history of Detroit with Catherine Cangany, an associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and author of Frontier Seaport: Detroit’s Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt (University of Chicago Press, 2014). [Read more…] about Frontier Seaport: Detroit’s Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt

The Money Question in Early America

September 11, 2019 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

We read and hear a lot about money. We read and hear about fluctuations in the value of the Dollar, Pound, and Euro, interest rates and who can and can’t get access to credit, and we also read and hear about new virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra. We talk a lot about money. But where did the idea of money come from? Did early Americans think about money a lot too?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, we are joined by Jeffrey Sklansky, Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the author of Sovereign of the Market: The Money Question in Early America (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Jeff is an expert in the intellectual and social history of capitalism in early America and he’s agreed to lead us on an investigation of the world of money in early America. [Read more…] about The Money Question in Early America

Governance After the American Revolution

April 4, 2018 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, George William Van Cleve, a researcher in law and history at the University of Seattle Law School and author of We Have Not A Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017), takes us into the Confederation period so we can discover more about the Articles of Confederation, the government it established, and the problems that government confronted. [Read more…] about Governance After the American Revolution

Death, Suicide, & Slavery in British North America

March 22, 2017 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Early America was a diverse place. It contained many different people who had many different traditions that informed how they lived… and died.
How did early Americans understand death? What did they think about suicide?

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Terri Snyder, a Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton and author of The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America (University of Chicago Press, 2015), helps us answer these questions and more as she takes us on an exploration of slavery and suicide in British North America. [Read more…] about Death, Suicide, & Slavery in British North America

Disease & The Seven Years’ War

January 18, 2017 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

When we think of the French and Indian War, or Seven Years’ War, we often think of battles: The Monongahela, Ticonderoga, Québec. Yet, wars aren’t just about battles. They’re about people and governments too.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, we explore a very different aspect of the French and Indian or Seven Years’ War. We explore the war through the lens of disease and medicine and how disease prompted the British government to take steps to keep its soldiers healthy.

Our guide for this investigation is Erica Charters, an Associate Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford and author of Disease, War, and the Imperial State: The Welfare of British Armed Forces during the Seven Years’ War (University of Chicago Press, 2014). [Read more…] about Disease & The Seven Years’ War

Custom Houses and the Making of the American State

September 14, 2016 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Could customs collectors, the tax men of early America, be the unsung founders of the early United States?

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, we explore the creation of the United States customs service and its contributions to the establishment of the federal government with Gautham Rao, an Assistant Professor of History at American University and author of National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State (University of Chicago Press, 2016). [Read more…] about Custom Houses and the Making of the American State

War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

December 2, 2015 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

As Benjamin Franklin stated in 1789, “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Given the certainty of taxes it seems important that we understand how the United States’ fiscal system developed.

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, we explore the development of the early American fiscal system with Max Edling, Professor of History at King’s College, London and author of A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867 (University of Chicago Press, 2014). [Read more…] about War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

Nice Guys Finish Last: The Baseball Classic by Leo Durocher

April 5, 2010 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The history of baseball is rife with colorful characters. But for sheer cantankerousness, fighting moxie, and will to win, very few have come close to Leo “the Lip” Durocher. Following a five-decade career as a player and manager for baseball’s most storied franchises, Durocher teamed up with veteran sportswriter Ed Linn to tell the story of his life in the game.

The resulting book, Nice Guys Finish Last (University of Chicago Press, 2009), is baseball at its best, brimming with personality and full of all the fights and feuds, triumphs and tricks that made Durocher such a success—and an outsized celebrity. [Read more…] about Nice Guys Finish Last: The Baseball Classic by Leo Durocher

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