Baylor History Faculty Publish Four New Books
The Baylor History faculty has been busy this year with teaching, mentoring, researching, and publishing. Four new books have been published by our faculty on a wide variety of topics, from examining the relationship between human rights and religious liberty to exploring racial and ethnic foodways across the U.S., and from the American Revolution to female church leadership within conservative Protestantism. Read on for a detailed look at each of these exciting new publications.
Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry, 2025
By Dr. Beth Allison Barr, The James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History
From the back cover:
“As a pastor’s wife for twenty-five years, Beth Allison Barr has lived with assumptions about what she should do and who she should be. This book draws on that experience and Barr’s academic expertise to trace the history of an important leadership role for conservative Protestant women: the pastor’s wife. Barr demonstrates how the rise of this role intersects with the decline of women’s independent leadership in the church, and she charts a better path forward.”
Freedom of Conscience in (Post)Soviet Space: Legacies of Michael Bourdeaux and the Keston Archive, 2025
Edited by Dr. Julie K. deGraffenried, Associate Professor & Department Chair of History, Michael Long and Xenia Dennen
From the back cover:
“Freedom of Conscience in (Post)Soviet Space…is inspired by Michael Bourdeaux’s work, the Keston Archive’s holdings, and continuing questions of freedom of conscience. Ranging from England to Siberia and moving chronologically from 1917 to the twenty-first century, this book reveals the unique organization and methodology behind the Keston’s collection of materials and the ways those in the West thought about religion and communism during the Cold War, including the connection between religious liberty and human rights.”
Culinary Mestizaje: Racial Mixing and Foodways Across the United States, 2025
Edited by Dr. Felipe Hinojosa, John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America & Professor of History and Rudy P. Guevarra Jr.
From the back cover:
“Culinary Mestizaje is about food, cooking, and community, but it’s also about how immigrant labor and racial mixing are transforming established U.S. food cultures from Hawai’i to the coast of Maine, South Philadelphia to the Pacific Northwest. This collection of essays asks what it means that Chamorro cooking is now considered a regional specialty of the Bay Area, and that a fusion like brisket tacos registers as ‘native’ to Houston, while pupusas are the pride of Atlanta.”
Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution, 2025
By Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson, Ralph & Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History & Associate Professor of History
From the back cover:
“Entangled Alliances is a reinterpretation of the American Revolution through analysis of diplomacy in the emerging United States during decades of hemispheric transformation. Ronald Angelo Johnson brings to light the fascinating story of American patriots and rebels from Saint-Dominigue (later Haiti) allying against European tyranny.”