Heinrich Popitz, Phenomena of Power: Authority, Domination, and Violence. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. $60.00. 202 pp.

Published in German in 1992, this English translation by Gianfranco Poggi introduces the sociologist, Heinrich Popitz (1925–2002) to a new generation of readers. He delves into the sociohistorical manifestations of power and breaks through to its general structures. Long influential in German sociology, this book offers a challenging reworking of one of the essential concepts of the social sciences.

Scott W. Allard, Places in Need: The Changing Geography of Poverty. New York: Russell Sage Foundation 2017. $32.50. 288 pp.

Allard, professor of public policy at the University of Washington’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, reports that more poor people live in the suburbs than in cities, having doubled over the past quarter century. He calls for a better understanding of suburban communities for the alleviation of poverty in metropolitan areas.

Prema A. Kurien, Ethnic Church Meets Megachurch: Indian American Christianity in Motion. New York: New York University Press, 2017. $35.00. 304 pp.

Kurien, professor of sociology at Syracuse University, examines how the megachurch phenomenon is shaping contemporary immigrant religious institutions, specifically Indian American Christianity. She draws on multi-site research in the US and India to provide a global perspective on religion by demonstrating the variety of ways that transnational processes affect religious organizations and the lives of members, both in the place of destination and of origin.

Joel Dinerstein, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. $40.00. 541 pp.

Dinerstein, professor of English at Tulane University, uncovers the hidden history of this concept and its new set of codes that came to define a global attitude and style. Cool began as a stylish defiance of racism, a challenge to suppressed sexuality, a philosophy of individual rebellion, and a youthful search for social change. Dinerstein explores the intersections of film noir, jazz, existential literature, Method acting, blues, and rock and roll, and he reveals that they came together to create something completely new—and that something is cool.

Peter H.Schuck, One Nation Undecided: Clear Thinking about Five Hard Issues That Divide Us. Princeton University Press, 2017. $29.95. 440 pp.

Schuck, the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale University, has written a “what-to-do-book” about difficult hot-button issues, including poverty, immigration, affirmative action, campaign finance, and religious objections to gay marriage and transgender rights. His objective is to educate rather than proselytize —the very nature of these five issues is that they resist clear answers; reasonable people can differ about where they come out on them.