The Associational State argues that the relationship between state and civil society is fluid, and that the trajectory of American politics is not driven by ideological difference but by the ability to achieve public ends through partnerships forged between the state and voluntary organizations.

The decades between the Progressive Era of the 1920s and the civil rights struggles of the 1960s were a period of profound change in the lives of southern women. The life of Sarah Towles Reed (1882–1978) illuminates and parallels many of these transformations. Over the course of her long public life as a teacher, labor union lobbyist, and activist for the rights of public school teachers, Reed emerged as a groundbreaking leader, unafraid of taking on the educational and political hierarchies of the South. A Will of Her Own is the life story of a woman who had a lasting impact on her times as well as the story of the times themselves. Reed engaged the most significant concerns of the liberal reformers during the first half of the twentieth century—the struggle for economic independence for women and the fight for women's rights, the effort to maintain intellectual freedom in the face of cold war paranoia, and the pursuit of racial justice. Her successes, as well as her failures, lend a personal perspective to these national trends. Her career also helps to clarify what it meant to be a southern liberal in the twentieth century and how the region's peculiar circumstances shaped the politics and strategies of southern reformers.

The mysterious, highly influential hidden world of Yale’s secret societies is revealed in a definitive and scholarly history. Secret societies have fundamentally shaped America’s cultural and political landscapes. In ways that are expected but never explicit, the bonds made through the most elite of secret societies have won members Pulitzer Prizes, governorships, and even presidencies. At the apex of these institutions stands Yale University and its rumored twenty-six secret societies. Tracing a history that has intrigued and enthralled for centuries, alluring the attention of such luminaries as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Skulls and Keys traces the history of Yale’s societies as they set the foundation for America’s future secret clubs and helped define the modern age of politics. But there is a progressive side to Yale’s secret societies that we rarely hear about, one that, in the cultural tumult of the nineteen-sixties, resulted in the election of people of color, women, and gay men, even in proportions beyond their percentages in the class. It’s a side that is often overlooked in favor of sensational legends of blood oaths and toe-curling conspiracies. Dave Richards, an alum of Yale, sheds some light on the lesser known stories of Yale’s secret societies. He takes us through the history from Phi Beta Kappa in the American Revolution (originally a social and drinking society) through Skull and Bones and its rivals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While there have been articles and books on some of those societies, there has never been a scholarly history of the system as a whole.