We invite queries about writing single book reviews or multi-book review essays about books published in the last three years. Contact Jeffrey Omari and Neil Kaplan-Kelly at polar.reviews@gmail.com for more information, or to propose a book for review. PoLAR expects potential reviewers to have received their PhD in Anthropology or a related field, or to have evidence of relevant publications or expertise.
PoLAR receives regular announcements about new books as well as physical review copies from scholarly presses, and shares these announcements here. We can also request a review copy of a book not listed here, if a review of it would be relevant to the readership of the journal. If your book is not listed below, please contact us.
Most books below can be provided for review in either e-book or hard copy formats. Titles marked with a ✏︎ (pencil icon) have been received at the review office. Titles marked with an *(asterisk) have been requested for review.
PoLAR: Books For Review
February 2026
Bozçalı, Firat. Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey’s Kurdish Borderlands. 2025. Stanford University Press.
Burch, Melissa. The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America. 2025. Princeton University Press.
Driessen, Miriam. Immunity on Trial: Ethiopian Courts, Chinese Corporations, and Contestations over Sovereignty. 2026. University of California Press.
Golubović: Jelena Inner Zone: The Untold Violence of Retribution in Besieged Sarajevo. 2026. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hong, Emily. Borderland Solidarity: Indigenous Law, Media, and Environmental Activism in Kachinland. 2026. Stanford University Press.
Hundle, Anneeth Kaur. Insecurities of Expulsion:Afro-Asian Entanglements in Transcontinental Uganda. 2025. Duke University Press.
Perez, Justin. Queer Emergent: Scandalous Stories from the Twilight of AIDS in Peru. 2025. Duke University Press.
Polleri, Maxime. Radioactive Governance: The Politics of Revitalization in Post-Fukushima Japan. 2026. NYU Press.
Saleh, Zaineb. Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey’s Kurdish Borderlands. 2025. Stanford University Press.
Upton, J. Christopher. Justice at the Boundaries: Mediating Reconciliation and Legal Recognition in Taiwan’s Indigenous Courts. 2026. University of California Press.
von Bieberstein, Alice. Temptations in Ruin: Sovereign Accumulation and the Making of Post-Genocide Turkey. 2026. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Weiss, Joseph. Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada. 2026. University of North Carolina Press.
April 2025
Al-Bulushi, Samar. War-Making as Worldmaking: Kenya, the United States and the War on Terror. 2024. Stanford University Press.
Ansell, Aaron. The Elementary Forms of Corruption: Moral Imagination and Political Change in Brazil. 2025. Chicago: Hau press.
Balakian, Sophia. Unsettled Families: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Kinship. 2025. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Barker, Joshua. State of Fear: Policing a Postcolonial City. 2024. Durham: Duke University Press.
Blaser, Mario. For Emplacement: Political Ontology in Two Acts. 2025. Durham: Duke University Press.
Boehm, Deborah a. & Mikaela H. Rogonzen-Soltar. States of Return: Rethinking Migration and Mobility. 2024. New York: New York University Press.
Coutin, Susan Bibler. On the Record: Papers, Immigration, and Legal Advocacy. 2025. Oakland: University of California Press.
Diamond, Alex. Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia’s Peace Laboratory. 2026. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gonzalez, Roberto J. War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future. 2024. Oakland: University of California Press.
Haberkorn, Tyrell. Dictatorship on Trial: Coups and the Future of Justice in Thailand. 2024. Stanford University Press.
Hudani, Shakirah E. Master Plans and Minor Acts: Repairing the City in Post-Genocide Rwanda. 2024. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jobson, Ryan Cecil. The Petro-State Masquerade: Oil, Sovereignty, and Power in Trinidad and Tobago. 2024. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jusionyte, Ieva. Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border. 2025. Oakland: University of California Press.
Meiu, George Paul. Queer Objects to the Rescue: Intimacy and Citizenship in Kenya. 2023. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pearson, Heath. Life Beside Bars: Confinement and Capitol in An American Town.2024. Durham: Duke University Press.
Pinto-Garcia, Lina. Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia. 2025. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scott, James C. Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces of Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play. 2025. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Solan, Lawrence M., Peter M. Tiersma, and Tammy Gales. Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice. Second Edition, 2025. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ticktin, Miriam. Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World. 2025. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
December 2023 – February 2024
Bajoghli, Narges Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez. 2024. How Sanctions WOrk: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Bhungalia, Lisa. 2024. Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Cardenas, Roosbelinda. 2023. Raising two Fists: Struggles for Black Citizenship in Multicultural Colombia. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Chacón, Jennifer M. , Susan Bibler Coutin, and Stephen Lee. 2024. Legal Phantoms: Executive Action and the Haunting Failures of Immigration Law. Stanford University Press.
Channell-Justice, Emily. 2022. Without the State: Self-Organization and Political Activism in Ukraine. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
Galemba, Rebecca Berke. 2023. Laboring for Justice: The Fight against Wage Theft in an American City. Stanford University Press.
Guérin, Isabelle, Santosh Kumar, and And G. Venkatasubramanian. 2023. The Indebted Woman: Kinship, Sexuality, and Capitalism. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Eren, Colleen P. 2023. Reform Nation: The First Step Act and the Movement to End Mass Incarceration. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Mitchell, Audra. 2023. Revenant Ecologies: Defying the Violence of Extinction and Conservation. University of Minnesota Press.
Mitchell, Lisa. 2023. Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections. Duke University Press.
Nguyen, Nicole. 2023. Terrorism on Trial: Political Violence and Abolitionist Futures. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Öxyrük, Esra, 20203. Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany. Stanford University Press.
Prasse-Freeman, Elliot. 2023. Rights Refused: Grassroots Activism: Grassroots Activism and State Violence in Myanmar. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Sariouğlu, Esra. 2023. The Body Unburdened: Violence, Emotions, and the New Woman in Turkey. Oxford University Press.
Schmeding, Annika. 2024. Sufi Civilities: Religious Authority and Political Change in Afghanistan. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Semerdjian, Elyse. 2023. Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide. Stanford, California: Stanford California Press.
Wilde, Matt. 2023. A Blessing and a Curse: Oil, Politics, and Morality in Bolivarian Venezuela. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Witteborn, Saskia. 2023. Unruly Speech: Displacement and the Politics of Transgression. Stanford University Press.