New books by 91̽»¨ faculty members include a pair of children’s works profiling STEM researchers and a personal memoir of an immigrant’s journey to freedom. Also, several 91̽»¨faculty and staff members are featured as 91̽»¨Press looks back on a century of publishing — and a book on British colonialism is honored.

Work of Quintard Taylor, Bill Holm featured as 91̽»¨ Press looks back at 100

Marking the 100^th birthday of 91̽»¨ Press, its staff chose “10 pivotal titles” from its history — including three books by 91̽»¨faculty members — in an essay for the website LitHub titled “.”

The list represents books, the staff wrote, that helped define their fields. “Mirroring the innovative spirit of research and inquiry at the 91̽»¨, the press developed a reputation for publishing at the forefront of many fields … from natural and environmental history to Native and Indigenous studies, and from African American and Asian studies to literature in translation.”

The list includes “,” by , 91̽»¨professor emeritus of art history and curator emeritus of the Northwest Coast Indian art at the , calling it “a foundational reference work and study guide for contemporary Native carvers, painters and weavers.” 91̽»¨Press put out a 50^th anniversary edition of the volume in 2014.

Also featured is 91̽»¨history professor emeritus ‘s chronicle of “the growth of the neighborhood at the city’s heart that shaped its urban history.” “” was published in 1994.

“Seattle’s journey to world-class status has been closely tied to the vibrant culture that blossomed in this community,” the 91̽»¨press staff wrote, “nurturing such talents as Ray Charles, Quincy Jones and Jimi Hendrix along with the first Black Panther Party chapter outside of Oakland. The book’s call for economic justice remains as relevant and urgent as ever.”

Also noted is “,” published in 1973 with a new, updated edition in 2018. The book — called the bible of botanists and gardeners in the region — is by C. Leo Hitchcock, who was a 91̽»¨professor of botany; with botanist Arthur Cronquist. The new edition was revised by David Giblin and Peter Zika of the and 91̽»¨biology professor , with Ben Legler of the University of Idaho.

Also on the list was John Okada’s novel “No-No Boy,” with fair consideration for the author’s family by 91̽»¨English professor .

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Faisal Hossain of civil & environmental engineering publishes children’s books on STEM

, 91̽»¨professor of civil and environmental engineering, has published two books for young readers: “The Secret Lives of Scientists, Engineers, and Doctors,” volumes and , from Mascot Books.

The books will showcase “the struggle, growth and success” of 12 professionals in STEM fields, including a geneticist, a biologist, a cancer researcher and a scientist at the National Institutes of Health, among others. They will be written especially for readers from second to fifth grades.

With more volumes planned, the book series is a spin-off from a National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine effort called aiming to widen access to science education. Read an on the Civil & Environmental Engineering website.

Published in September, the book is available for order and will be in stores soon. To learn more, contact Hossain at fhossain@uw.edu.

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Affiliate dentistry faculty member publishes memoir of escape from Iran

, a part-time affiliate faculty member of the 91̽»¨School of Dentistry, has published “,” a memoir of her solo journey from Iran to the United States as a Baha’i refugee.

The book tells of Khajavi-Harvey growing up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, and of her escape on her own at age 15 across the Iran-Pakistan border. Khajavi-Harvey is a Seattle dentist and human rights activist.

One reviewer wrote that the story “is a vivid reminder that immigrants bring with them deeply rooted values of family, loyalty, hard work and perseverance. We are richer for their presence.”

The memoir is available through eBook platforms, online retailers and bookstores. To learn more, contact Khajavi-Harvey at zkharvey@gmail.com.

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Historian George Behlmer’s book ‘Risky Shores’ honored by conference on British studies

91̽»¨history professor emeritus ‘s 2018 book “Risky Shores: Savagery and Colonialism in the Western Pacific” was co-winner of the 2019 from the North American Conference on British Studies.

The prize, which comes with $500, is awarded each year to “the best book published anywhere by a North American scholar on any aspect of British studies since 1800.” Behlmer’s was published by Stanford University Press, and was this summer in the journal American Historical Review.

The other Stansky Book Prize winner was “Trust Among Strangers: Friendly Societies in Modern Britain,” by Penelope Ismay of Boston College.

A new book by 91̽»¨ history professor seeks to improve understanding of the British colonial era by “reconsidering the conduct of islanders and the English-speaking strangers who encountered them.”

“” was published this summer by Stanford University Press.

The book, Behlmer writes, “charts the twisting course of an idea that has long sustained inequality among human groups … the defamatory idea of ‘savagery’ together with its agent, ‘the savage.'”

Behlmer argues that Britain’s early visitors to the Western Pacific in the eighteenth century, who were mostly mapmakers and missionaries, “manipulated the notion of savagery to justify their own interests.” Their descriptions of the islanders they met as savages “did more than merely denigrate,” Behlmer writes. “It would serve as well to emphasize the fragility of indigenous cultures.”

“Risky Shores” focuses on the islands of the western Pacific ocean between the time of Captain in 1779 and the end of World War II in 1945. The area called — a subregion of — encompassed , the , (then called the ), and .

Across five chapters, Behlmer examines “the savage practices so closely connected in British minds with the western Pacific” such as cannibalism and headhunting.

Images of Melanesian “savages” — in reality local residents who were understandably threatened by the appearance, behavior and weaponry of white explorers — helped create “a unifying sense of Britishness” in the nineteenth and early 20^th centuries, Behlmer writes.

“These exotic people inhabited the edges of empire. And precisely because they did, Britons who never had and never would leave their home islands could imagine, in vivid if spurious detail, their nation’s imperial reach.”

“Risky Shores is a wonderful book,” wrote Jane Sampson, professor of arts, history and classics at the University of Alberta. “Beautifully researched, compellingly written and vitally important to debates about race relations and agency in the Pacific world.

“Behlmer analyzes a dazzling array of primary source material, enhancing more conventional explorers’ journals and missionary reports with his impressive command of ballads, artwork, films sideshow acts and literature. The result is an intellectual feast.”

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For more information, contact Behlmer at 206-543-5747 or behlmer@uw.edu.