Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. This mass-produced game crossed the Pacific, creating waves of popularity over the twentieth century. Annelise Heinz narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women's culture.

As it traveled from China to the United States and caught on with Hollywood starlets, high society, middle-class housewives, and immigrants alike, mahjong became a quintessentially American game.

Heinz also reveals the ways in which women leveraged a game to gain access to respectable leisure. The result was the forging of friendships that lasted decades and the creation of organizations that raised funds for the war effort and philanthropy. No other game has signified both belonging and standing apart in American culture.

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the political landscape of the American South transformed drastically. Local offices previously dominated by the slave-owning planter elite now sat a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse pool of politicians. Among this new cohort of officeholders were scores of Jewish immigrants, over fifty of whom served as mayors of southern towns between 1870 and 1900. In an era often defined by political turbulence and race-based electoral violence, these local Jewish politicians became some of the unsung leaders of southern towns.