Ethnic studies / Ethnicity Books

Book SynopsisHere is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love.

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Book SynopsisAncestral Self-Care Practices for Black WomenFrom navigating hostile work environments and healing from trauma to exploring African American home remedies and promoting holistic well-being, Protecting My Peace is a comprehensive guide for black women seeking to prioritize their mental, emotional, and physical health.Reclaim your peace. Protecting My Peace: Embracing Inner Beauty and Ancestral Power focuses on transforming self-perception, recreating ancestral traditions, and channeling the spiritual power of the African feminine divine. Delve into transformative self-care practices and go beyond traditional approaches to physical and mental well-being. Find strategies to connect with ancestral roots, embrace spirituality, and foster personal growth. Prioritize your mental, emotional, and physical health with practical advice on African American home remedies, how to be healthy, and overcoming trauma. Rediscover your inner strength. Enter a transformative journey toward self-acceptance and belonging. Learn to perceive physical beauty through a fresh lens, embrace your whole self, and let your spirit radiate with the essence of your African ancestry.A must-read for black women seeking to reclaim their power and well-being. Understand the philosophy of the African feminine divine. Find empowerment in the idea that places women of the African diaspora at the heart of their cultures. Learn how embracing this power can improve self-confidence, self-esteem, mental health, and emotional well-being.Inside, you’ll find: An exploration of the perception of physical beauty The sense of peace that comes with fully embracing our ancestral traditions An introduction to the philosophy of the African feminine divine If you liked Emotional Self-Care for Black Women, Real Self-Care, or I’m Not Yelling, you’ll love Protecting My Peace.Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Movement and Dance Chapter 2: Plant-Based Diet and Natural Remedies Chapter 3: Feminine Power Chapter 4: Beauty and Wellbeing Chapter 5: Music and Drumming Chapter 6: Ritual and the Ancestors Chapter 7: Joy and Community Chapter 8: Meditation and Affirmations ConclusionDETAILED TOC Introduction: The introduction sets the tone for the book, outlining its purpose and what readers can expect from it. It highlights the focus on professional Black women and the unique challenges they face in the workplace. Chapter 1: Movement and Dance at Work: This chapter explores how movement and dance can help professional women express themselves, release work-related stress and tension, and improve overall well-being. Chapter 2: Plant-Based Diet and Natural Remedies for the Working Woman: The author discusses the benefits of a plant-based diet and natural remedies for maintaining physical and mental health in a demanding work environment. Chapter 3: Feminine Power in the Workplace: This chapter focuses on embracing feminine power and the strength that comes with it, despite societal expectations and norms that may attempt to suppress it in professional settings. Chapter 4: Beauty, Wellbeing, and the Professional Woman: The author discusses self-love and recognizing one's beauty and worth, regardless of external societal pressures and standards, while navigating the workplace. Chapter 5: Music and Drumming for Workplace Empowerment: This chapter explores the power of music and drumming as a means of expression, empowerment, and healing in professional environments. Chapter 6: Ritual, Ancestors, and the Working Woman: This chapter discusses the importance of connecting with ancestors and engaging in ritual practices to find strength and guidance in difficult times, especially when facing challenges in the workplace. Chapter 7: Joy, Community, and the Professional Sisterhood: This chapter emphasizes the importance of community and finding joy amid struggle and oppression through building supportive relationships and engaging in uplifting activities with fellow professional women. Chapter 8: Meditation and Affirmations for the Workplace: The author discusses the benefits of meditation and affirmations for mental and emotional well-being and provides practical tips for incorporating these practices into daily work routines. Conclusion: The conclusion summarizes the book's central themes and encourages readers to continue their self-love, healing, and empowerment journey as they navigate the professional world.

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Book SynopsisHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an ambitious masterwork of political economy, detailing the impact of slavery and colonialism on the history of international capitalism. In this classic book, Rodney makes the unflinching case that African maldevelopment is not a natural feature of geography, but a direct product of imperial extraction from the continent, a practice that continues up into the present. Meticulously researched, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa remains an unshakably relevant study of the so-called "great divergence" between Africa and Europe, just as it remains a prescient resource for grasping the the multiplication of global inequality today. In this new edition, Angela Davis offers a striking foreword to the book, exploring its lasting contributions to a revolutionary and feminist practice of anti-imperialism.Trade ReviewWalter Rodney's magisterial opus is recognized globally as a landmark in African studies, not to mention the history of colonialism and imperialism. Beautifully written and expertly argued, it is that rare book that can be called a classic. It belongs on every bookshelf. -- Gerald Horne, historian and author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776 and Confronting Black JacobinsThis book is a legendary classic that galvanized freedom fighters around the world. -- Cornel West, philosopher, author, critic, and activistWalter Rodney was a pioneering scholar who provided new answers to old questions and posed new questions in relation to the study of Africa. -- Professor Winston McGowanThis classic work of black political thought, political economy, and Africa history inspired scholars and political activists in the struggle against colonialism and its misrepresentations of the past. I applaud this reissue, which should bring Rodney's prescient analysis to a new generation struggling from below, in whose hands, he would have reminded us, is no less than the future of humankind. -- Lewis R. Gordon, Author of An Introduction to Africana Philosophy"Appearing in 1972, HEUA was a genuine tour de force. It fused, as had never been done in a single volume before, African history in the global sense and underdevelopment theory, Marxism and black nationalism, intellectual passion and political commitment. HEUA instantly joined a select pan-Africanist canon that would be read at least as much outside as within the academy, an exclusive category that included the two texts that had greatly influenced Rodney's intellectual development, notably James's Black Jacobins and Williams's Capitalism & Slavery, along with Black Reconstruction, W. E. B. Dubois's magisterial work on the struggle for democracy in the United States during the post-Civil War, post-slavery era. HEUA, however, differed from the above-mentioned works, which were written long after the events they charted occurred. HEUA, by contrast, was more urgent and immediate, having been produced in the heat of battle, which is to say amid the ongoing struggle of Africans against capitalist and neocolonialist underdevelopment. His purpose in writing the book, Rodney explained in the Preface, was "to try and reach Africans who wish to explore further the nature of their exploitation, rather than to satisfy the 'standards' set by our oppressors and their spokesmen in the academic world." -- Michael West * Groundings: Development, Pan-Africanism, Critical Theory, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2018 *A masterpiece. -- Andy Higginbottom * Redline *Rodney's analysis remains as relevant as it was when first published - a call to arms in the class struggle for racial equality. * LA Review of Books *This groundbreaking literary powerhouse performed a vital function in resistance to institutional racism. -- Paul Boateng * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisEvery voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent. This book is an attempt to speak'*Updated edition featuring a new afterword*The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I''m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION NARRATIVE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARBLACKWELL''S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONLONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR A BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDTrade ReviewA revelation ... Undoubtedly essential * Spectator *This is a book that was begging to be written. This is the kind of book that demands a future where we’ll no longer need such a book. Essential * Marlon James, Man Booker Prize-Winner 2015 *Set to blow apart the understanding of race relations in this country * Stylist *A wake-up call to a nation in denial about the structural and institutional racisms occurring in our homes, offices and communities * Observer *One of the most important books of 2017 * Nikesh Shukla, editor of The Good Immigrant *Eye-opening ... Honest, opinionated and pretty kick-ass * Elle *Blistering … This book is essential reading for anyone even remotely interested in living in a fairer, kinder and more equal world * Paris Lees *Eviscerating ... A riveting deep-dive into the history and communication of race in Britain … This book is destined to become cult * Red *The black British Bible * Gal-Dem *Political, accessible and uncompromising * Guardian, Books of the Year *Vital dialogue from a powerful voice * Daily Telegraph *A thunderclap of a book -- Catherine Johnson, Jhalak Prize judgeHas become essential to understanding what life is like in the UK for many people of colour. A must-read for everyone * Elle Book Club *

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019, a powerful, well-researched, fictional account exploring the trokosi tradition for the curious and the open-minded.Abeo Kata lives a comfortable, happy life in West Africa as the privileged nine-year-old daughter of a government employee and stay-at-home mother. But when the Katas' idyllic lifestyle takes a turn for the worse, Abeo's father, following his mother's advice, places the girl in a religious shrine, hoping that the sacrifice of his daughter will serve as atonement for the crimes of his ancestors. Unspeakable acts befall Abeo for the fifteen years she is enslaved within the shrine. When she is finally rescued, broken and battered, she must struggle to overcome her past, endure the revelation of family secrets, and learn to trust and love again. In the tradition of Chris Cleave's Little Bee, Praise Song for the Butterflies is a contemporary story that offers an educational, eye-opening account of the practice of ritual servitude in West Africa. Spanning decades and two continents, Praise Song for the Butterflies is an unflinching tale of the devastation that children are subject to when adults are ruled by fear and someone must pay the consequences."Abeo is unrelenting - a fiery protagonist who sparks in every scene. Bernice L. McFadden has created yet another compelling story, this time about hope and freedom." Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the SunTrade ReviewAbeo is unrelenting-a fiery protagonist who sparks in every scene. Bernice L. McFadden has created yet another compelling story, this time about hope and freedom. * Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun *

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Book SynopsisLanre Bakare was born and grew up in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He is a correspondent covering arts and culture for the Guardian, where his writing focuses on the intersection of art, race and culture across multiple disciplines.He was senior correspondent on the award-winning Cotton Capital project and has worked in New York and Los Angeles as part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guardian US team.

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Book SynopsisMalcolm X''s The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written in collaboration with Alex Haley, author of Roots, and includes an introduction by Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic, in Penguin Modern Classics.From hustling, drug addiction and armed violence in America''s black ghettos Malcolm X turned, in a dramatic prison conversion, to the puritanical fervour of the Black Muslims. As their spokesman he became identified in the white press as a terrifying teacher of race hatred; but to his direct audience, the oppressed American blacks, he brought hope and self-respect. This autobiography (written with Alex Haley) reveals his quick-witted integrity, usually obscured by batteries of frenzied headlines, and the fierce idealism which led him to reject both liberal hypocrisies and black racialism.Vilified by his critics as an anti-white demagogue, Malcolm X gave a voice to unheard African-Americans, bringing them pride, hope and fearlessness, and remains an inspirational and controversial figure.Malcolm X (1925-65), born Malcolm Little in Omaha, and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, lost both his parents at a young age. Leaving school early, he soon became part of Harlem''s underworld, and in 1946 he was sentenced to ten years'' imprisonment. It was in prison that Malcolm X converted to Islam. Paroled in 1952, he became an outspoken defender of Muslim doctrines, formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1963, and had received considerable publicity by the time of his assassination in 1965.If you enjoyed The Autobiography of Malcolm X, you might like Nelson Mandela''s No Easy Walk to Freedom, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.''This extraordinary autobiography is a brilliant, painful, important book''The New York TimesTable of ContentsNightmare; mascot; "homeboy"; Laura; harlemite; Detroit red; hustler; trapped; caught; satan; saved; saviour; minister Malcolm X; Black Muslims; Icarus; out; Mecca; El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz; 1965.

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Book Synopsis''He changed the course of history'' Barack Obama''Lightning makes no sound until it strikes''This is the momentous story of the Civil Rights movement, told by one of its most powerful and eloquent voices. Here Martin Luther King, Jr. recounts the pivotal events in the city of Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 that propelled his non-violent campaign for racial justice from a movement of lunch counter sit-ins and prayer meetings to a phenomenon that ''rocked the richest, most powerful nation to its foundations''. As inspiring and resonant as it was upon publication, Why We Can''t Wait is both a unique historical document, and an enduring testament to one man''s wise, courageous and endlessly hopeful vision.Trade ReviewA champion for justice, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., helped awaken our Nation's long-slumbering conscience and inspired a generation ... He changed the course of history -- Barack ObamaMartin Luther King's early words return to us today with enormous power, as profoundly true, as wise and inspiring, now as when he wrote them -- Howard Zinn

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Book Synopsis"Latinx" (pronounced "La-teen-ex") is the gender-neutral term that covers the largest racial minority in the United States, and the poorest but fastest-growing American group, whose political empowerment is altering the balance of forces in a growing number of states. In this groundbreaking discussion, Ed Morales explains how Latinx political identities are tied to a long Latin American history of mestizaje, translatable as "mixedness" or "hybridity", and that this border thinking is both a key to understanding Latinx cultures and a challenge to America's infamously black-white racial regime.Trade ReviewIn a volume that offers once an survey of histories and contemporary trends of Latinx identity in the United States and a gesture toward a radical political potential predicated on such identity, Morales argues that "the Latinx view of race, inherited from nation-building ideologies that lionized race-mixing in Latin America, poses narratives that challenge and resist" the black-white binary which dominates Anglo-American thinking. -- Spencer Dew * Religious Studies Review; June 2019 *

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Book SynopsisThe ultimate guide to understanding politics from multi-award-winning children's magazine The Week Junior, perfect for helping children make sense of the world around them.

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Book SynopsisShannen Dee Williams provides a comprehensive history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, tracing how Black sisters' struggles were central to the long African American freedom movement.Trade Review“Deeply researched, elegantly written, and boldly argued, Subversive Habits is a brilliant excavation of the long political history of Black nuns. This is extraordinary scholarship that is as accessible as it is groundbreaking and illuminating. This timely and essential book widens the frames of Black women’s history, of religion and activism, and of Black Catholicism.” -- Barbara D. Savage, author of * Your Spirits Walk beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion *“Sweeping in its scope, exhaustively researched, and balanced in presentation,Subversive Habits is a seminal history of Black Catholic Nuns and their struggle for equality and justice in the Catholic Church.” -- Bettye Collier-Thomas, author of * Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion *"An awe-inspiring history book about Black nuns who fought for freedom and equality. . . . Subversive Habits is a stirring history text about the remarkable faith and conviction of Black nuns in America." -- Melissa Wuske * Foreword *(Starred Review) "Informative and often surprising, this should be required reading for scholars of Catholic and African American religious history and will undoubtedly become the standard text on its subject." * Publishers Weekly *"The 'uncommon faithfulness' of the nuns in Subversive Habits—taking the church at its word when it teaches that we are all one body—is a model of discipleship from which all Catholics can learn." -- Kathleen Manning * U.S. Catholic *"Shannen Williams's book chronicles the bold steps and persistence African-American sisters took to debunk their rejection by white orders that insisted Black women lacked souls and/or virtue suitable to be admitted to them. . . . This outstanding book, Subversive Habits, is well-researched, quite revealing and a set of history and reality lessons of how Black sisters kept the faith and made the Catholic Church change." -- Ralph E. Moore, Jr. * The AFRO *"This eye-opening, inspiring and thoroughly researched book unearths a history that few Americans know: the challenges and triumphs of Black Catholic nuns in the United States. It’s one of the most exciting new books in Black women’s history and powerfully captures the interconnections between race, religion and politics." -- Keisha Blain * Politico *"Subversive Habits demands a committed reader. However, it will reward the resilient and open-minded reader with apokalupsis—tremendous learning about the scope of racism throughout the American Catholic Church as well as the witness of these Black Catholic women and their contributions to the church and the world. Please take up the reading and stick with it. Draw some perseverance from the women the book depicts and take heart in their commitment to justice." -- Kevin Spinale * America *"Subversive Habits brings a very necessary balance to histories published in recent decades that focus on civil rights work by Catholics. It seems these historians were writing about the exception and not the norm. This is the story of courageous nuns, including those who felt they couldn't remain any longer, who are the true gems of American Catholic history. Every woman religious must read this book." -- Laura Swan * Magistra *"In Subversive Habits, historian Williams has given us a remarkable work of scholarship, one that may be distressing for many readers because she clears away any shred of doubt about the U.S. Catholic Church being racist from its very beginnings." -- Kathleen Finley * The Tablet *"I have never read a more thoughtful account of the Black Catholic experience than Shannen Dee Williams’ Subversive Habits. Williams’ book is a revelatory history of the experiences of Black religious women in understanding race, faith, and change in the Catholic church from the antebellum period through the various waves of civil-rights struggle to the contemporary era." -- Marcia Chatelain * Chronicle of Higher Education * "Williams seeks to tell the story of these women and of the Black and majority white sisterhoods in which they participated. The account is well documented, and Williams includes a look at the current departures of Black sisters from religious life and considers the likely future of Black female religious communities. Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, and professionals." -- L. H. Hoyle * Choice *"Williams's book is the go-to work on Black women religious in the United States during and in the afterlife of slavery. Future scholars, practitioners, and interlocutors are indebted to this brilliant author for the treasure trove she has gifted us." -- Ahmad Greene-Hayes * Journal of Southern History *Table of ContentsAbbreviations ix Note on Terminology xiii Preface: Bearing Witness to a Silenced Past xv Acknowledgments xix Introduction. America’s Forgotten Black Freedom Fighters 1 1. Our Sole Wish Is to Do the Will of God: The Early Struggles of Black Catholic Sisters in the United States 23 2. Nothing Is Too Good for the Youth of Our Race: The Fight for Black-Administered Catholic Education during Jim Crow 61 3. Is the Order Catholic Enough? The Struggle to Desegregate White Sisterhoods after World War II 103 4. I Was Fired Up to Go to Selma: Black Sisters, the Second Vatican Council, and the Fight for Civil Rights 134 5. Liberation Is Our First Priority: Black Nuns and Black Power 167 6. No Schools, No Churches! The Fight to Save Black Catholic Education in the 1970s 200 7. The Future of the Black Catholic Nun Is Dubious: African American Sisters in the Age of Church Decline 231 Conclusion. The Catholic Church Wouldn't Be Catholic If It Wasn’t for Us 259 Glossary 271 Notes 273 Bibliography 345 Index 371

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Book SynopsisAchille Mbembe theorizes the genealogy of the contemporary world—one plagued by inequality, militarization, enmity, and a resurgence of racist, fascist, and nationalist forces—and calls for a radical revision of humanism a the means to create a more just society.Trade Review"The appearance of Achille Mbembe's Necropolitics will change the terms of debate within the English-speaking world. Trenchant in his critique of racism and its relation to the precepts of liberal democracy, Mbembe continues where Foucault left off, tracking the lethal afterlife of sovereign power as it subjects whole populations to what Fanon called ‘the zone of non-being.’ Mbembe not only engages with biopolitics, the politics of enmity, and the state of exception; he also opens up the possibility of a global ethic, one that relies less on sovereign power than on the transnational resistance to the spread of the death-world." -- Judith Butler“This book establishes Achille Mbembe as the leading humanistic voice in the study of sovereignty, democracy, migration, and war in the contemporary world. Mbembe accomplishes the nearly impossible task of finding a radical path through the darkness of our times and seizes hope from the jaws of what he calls ‘the deadlocks of humanism.’ It is not a comforting book to read, but it is an impossible book to put down.” -- Arjun Appadurai“Mbembe refreshes the debate in a Europe consumed by the ‘desire of apartheid.’ This is a man who is not afraid to throw national history, identities, and borders out the window. French universalism? ‘Conceited,’ asserts Mbembe. . . . In the style of Edouard Glissant . . . he doesn’t limit his geography to the level of the nation but expands it to the ‘Whole-World.’ He dreams of writing a common history of humanity that would deflate all the flashy national heroism and redraw new relations between the self and the other. In a France and a Europe which are even afraid of their own shadows, one can clearly see the subversive potential of Mbembe’s thought. His latest book Necropolitics, draws the unpleasant portrait of a continent eaten up by the desire of ‘apartheid,’ moved by the obsessive search for an enemy, and with war as its favorite game.” -- Cécile Daumas, * Libération *“[Mbembe’s] new book . . . is a precious tool to understand what occurs in the North as well as in the South. The analyses of this faithful reader of Franz Fanon are irrevocable: war has become not an exception but a permanent state, ‘the sacrament of our era’. . . . One of the biggest challenges we have to face, Mbembe warns us, is to defend our democracies while including this ‘other’ whom we don’t want if we are to build our common future.” -- Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux and Michael Pauron * Jeune Afrique *"[Mbembe's] latest and eminently readable offering . . . speaks to the spirit of our times with such clarity and profundity that it bears all the hallmarks of an instant classic of anti-racist literature." -- Ashish Ghadiali * Red Pepper *"[Necropolitics] is a book that is in places rather complex to read but it is definitely worth persevering with, since it is filled with interesting insights into such issues as racism, the role of borders and separation, terrorism and its political expression and the mundane and everyday forms of enmity and hatred that shape the contemporary world around us." -- John Solomos * Ethnic and Racial Studies *“Hardly a single longform essay, Necropolitics is a portal of intricate thoughts on the state of the planet. … Mbembe’s latest work is a significant contribution to political and critical theory. Necropolitics is the book of this stifling hour, Mbembe its chronicler.” -- Eric Otieno * Postcolonial Studies *“Necropolitics pursues the themes of race and sovereign power as they relate to borders, prisons, war, and policing in the wake of decolonization and the aftermath of the U.S. civil rights struggle…. Mbembe’s commitment to articulating a common humanity as praxis, or as a humanity in creation, when institutions of life-making, care, and social reproduction are subjugated to the overwhelming power of death-making institutions, is what sets Necropolitics apart from other literatures that take up these questions.” -- Anuja Bose * Contemporary Political Theory *"Necropolitics would be a relevant supplementary text for graduate courses in theory political sociology and international relations.… The book provides the reader with fundamental perspectives on race, that align with common critiques of democracy and Foucault's concept of bioppower while drawing on Fanon's work." -- Kendall L. Gilliam * International Social Science Review *"Before Covid-19, Mbembe’s picture of a world enchanted by its own practice of mass murder-suicide in the name of democracy and liberal values seemed accurate enough. After, or during, or whenever we are, Mbembe’s prescience is horrifying, comforting, and absolutely necessary." -- Aria Dean * Artforum *"Some of Mbembe’s most penetrating and sustained meditations on democracy, race, colonialism, and his continued theorization of biopolitics. . . . Corcoran’s translation of Mbembe’s dense philosophical rhetoric manages to communicate its poetic character and vital pulse." -- Patrick Lyons * French Studies *"Mbembe’s work on necropolitics demonstrates how contemporary societies have exited democracy, renewing the camp and other colonial practices to create death worlds and a society of separation. Necropolitics makes an important contribution through outlining the conditions of hatred and separation that constitute contemporary death worlds." -- Patrick Dwyer * Canadian Review of Law and Society *"Necropolitics enriches African Studies while staying away from conventional tropes and stereotypes of identity politics. . . . In relation to African studies, the contribution of Mbembe’s Necropolitics lies in repositioning Africans as a divergent ‘minor’ process committed to actualizing futurity as a site of production of novel ethics, an ethics of connecting with the African past not as something dead and gone, but as emblematic of ‘a living labor’ that might produce the new Earth." -- Saswat Samay Das, Dibyendu Sahana * Africa Spectrum *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction. The Ordeal of the World 1 1. Exit from Democracy 9 2. The Society of Enmity 42 3. Necropolitics 66 4. Viscerality 93 5. Fanon's Pharmacy 117 6. This Stifling Noonday 156 Conclusion. Ethics of the Passerby 184 Notes 191 Index 211

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Book SynopsisChallenging the legacy of slavery, colonization, and ongoing racism that portrays African-American people as unable to love, the author of 'All About Love' explores how the ethic of love has become the foundation of hope and survival.

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Book Synopsis''A towering achievement. There is simply nothing like it in the history of Black radical thought'' Cornel West''Cedric Robinson''s brilliant analyses revealed new ways of thinking and acting'' Angela Davis''This work is about our people''s struggle, the historical Black struggle''Any struggle must be fought on a people''s own terms, argues Cedric Robinson''s landmark account of Black radicalism. Marxism is a western construction, and therefore inadequate to describe the significance of Black communities as agents of change against ''racial capitalism''. Tracing the emergence of European radicalism, the history of Black African resistance and the influence of these on such key thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James and Richard Wright, Black Marxism reclaims the story of a movement.Trade ReviewA towering achievement. There is simply nothing like it in the history of Black radical thought -- Cornel WestCedric Robinson's brilliant analyses revealed new ways of thinking and acting -- Angela DavisI can say, without a trace of hyperbole, that this book changed my life. -- Robin KelleyBlack Marxism shattered the taken-for-granted of understanding the modern world, allowing us to see the racist nature of capitalism. There are very few books that transform how we have to approach the world and Black Marxism is one of them -- Kehinde AndrewsA handbook for a new generation of radicals and activists ... Robinson's work helpfully points to the tension in Marxism between the march towards progress and the spontaneous character of revolution... offers a sense of belonging and a means of imagining a common future -- Kevin Okoth * London Review of Books *

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisFor reasons of language and history, the United States has prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity in El Norte, America has much older Spanish roots - ones that have long been unacknowledged or marginalized. The Hispanic past of the United States predates the arrival of the Pilgrims by a century and has been every bit as important in shaping the nation. El Norte chronicles the sweeping and dramatic history of Hispanic North America from the arrival of the Spanish to the present - from Ponce de Leon's initial landing in Florida in 1513 to Spanish control of the vast Louisiana territory in 1762 to the Mexican-American War in 1846 and up to the more recent tragedy of post-hurricane Puerto Rico and the ongoing border acrimony with Mexico. Interwoven in this stirring narrative of events and people are cultural issues that have been there from the start and remain unresolved: language, belonging, community, race and nationality. Seeing them play out over centuries provides vital perspective at a time when it is urgently needed. In 1883, Walt Whitman wrote 'to that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply some of the most needed parts.' That future is here, and El Norte, an emotive and eventful history in its own right, will have a powerful impact on our perception of the United States.Trade Reviewa detailed and anecdote-rich summary of how far back the Hispanic presence goes in what is now the US * TLS *Gibson's sprawling work makes a major contribution by reminding us of the falseness of Donald Trump's xenophobic narrative. Her rich account leaves no doubt that America is a vastly more interesting place because of the millions of Hispanic immigrants who have been arriving on our shores for more than 600 years. * Guardian *Gibson's book is a scholarly, compelling case for reassessing the Hispanic role in US history... El Norte is a worthy history of an overlooked population. * History Today *El Norte is the book that Americans, Anglo and Hispanic, should read as an education on their own American place or role . . . This is a serious book of history but also an engaging project of reading the future in the past. * New York Times Book Review *[Gibson] writes engagingly of moments of violence and injustice, deprivation and discrimination, music and muses: Her paragraphs on the early-20th-century Texas society women who bickered over how to restore the Alamo, for instance, would do justice to the pen of an Edith Wharton. * Wall Street Journal *In this enlightening and exhaustively researched work, Carrie Gibson has accomplished the monumental task of recovering an extraordinary and consequential Hispanic past traditionally written out of American history. Her narrative is far reaching, vividly detailed, and a gift to assessing the American experience and evolving identity. -- Jack E. Davis, author of THE GULF, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryCarrie Gibson has written an epic history which will significantly change the way we look at American history...Her research is meticulous in detail and her writing propels the reader through 500 years to today. So thorough is her work that I will be keeping El Norte on my bookshelf -- but pulling it down often to leaf through its pages. -- Richard Parker, author of LONE STAR NATIONA sweeping story of our Hispanic roots that links the dreamers of the Conquest with the Dreamers of the present, ranging across a continent's history from first contacts in Florida to intersecting empires on Vancouver Island. In connecting places across the United States with their Hispanic pasts, Carrie Gibson connects our America with what one Cuban called Nuestra América, blurring borders at a time when others are building them up. -- Paul Gillingham, author of CUAUHTEMOC’S BONES

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Book SynopsisThe first major account of the history of reggae, black music journalist Lloyd Bradley describes its origins and development in Jamaica, from ska to rock-steady to dub and then to reggae itself, a local music which conquered the world. There are many extraordinary stories about characters like Prince Buster, King Tubby and Bob Marley. But this is more than a book of music history: it relates the story of reggae to the whole history of Jamaica, from colonial island to troubled independence, and Jamaicans, from Kingston to London.Table of ContentsPart One First session: boogie in my bones; music is my occupation; we are rolling; message from the king; train to Skaville; strange country; what a world. Part Two Simmer down: soul style; dance crasher; mix it up; you can get it if you really want. Part Three Studio kinda cloudy: pressure drop; wake the town, tell the people; dubwise situation; dreadlocks in moonlight; ah fi we dis; trench town rock; warrior charge; sipple out deh. Part Four Fist to fist days gone: ring the alarm; kid's play; Johnny dollar; healing of a nation.

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Book SynopsisThis Very Short Introduction offers an overview of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural awakening among African Americans between the two world wars. Cheryl A. Wall brings readers to the Harlem of 1920s to identify the cultural themes and issues that engaged writers, musicians, and visual artists alike.Table of ContentsChapter 1. When the Negro Was In Vogue Chapter 2. Defining New Negro Identities Chapter 3. Harlem: City of Dream Chapter 4. What Is Africa to Me? Chapter 5. Strong Roots Sink Down Epilogue: Beyond Harlem Further reading Index

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Book SynopsisKaysha Corinealdi traces the multigenerational activism of Afro-Caribbean Panamanians as they forged diasporic communities in Panama and the United States throughout the twentieth century.Trade Review"A widely appealing and valuable addition to diaspora studies, Central American and Caribbean historiography, and scholarly understandings of how individuals and groups navigate belonging in and beyond the nation." -- Elizabeth Manley * The Americas *"Panama in Black uncovers the complexities of Afro-Caribbean Panamanian identity across class, gender, and generational lines. Corinealdi’s account of Afro-diasporic world making reveals an ongoing practice in which Afro-Caribbean migrants shaped ideas of citizenship on the isthmus and throughout the Americas. As a result, this book is essential reading for those interested in the history of Caribbean migrations, the African diaspora, the Canal Zone, Panamanian nation formation, and citizenship in Latin America." -- Takkara Brunson * H-Caribbean *"Panama in Black demonstrates some of the reasons researchers, including myself, were drawn to these immigrants and their descendants. . . . I salute Kaysha Corinealdi for this latest addition to the bookshelf and look forward to more." -- Michael Conniff * ReVista *Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction. Legacies of Exclusion and Afro-Caribbean Diasporic World Making 1 1. Panama as Diaspora: Documenting Afro-Caribbean Panamanian Histories, 1928–1936 29 2. Activist Formations: Fighting for Citizenship Rights and Forging Afro-Diasporic Alliances, 1940–1950 57 3. Todo por la Patria: Diplomacy, Anticommunism, and the Rhetoric of Assimilation, 1950–1954 93 4. To Be Panamanian: The Canal Zone, Nationalist Sacrifices, and the Price of Citizenship, 1954–1961 122 5. Panama in New York: Las Servidoras and Engendering an Educated Black Diaspora, 1953–1970 150 Conclusion. Afro-Caribbean Panamanians and the Future of Diasporic World Making 180 Notes 195 Bibliography 233 Index 253

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Book SynopsisSince the mid-nineteenth-century abolition of slavery, the call for reparations for the crime of African enslavement and native genocide has been growing. In the Caribbean, grassroots and official voices now constitute a regional reparations movement. While it remains a fractured, contentious and divisive call, it generates considerable public interest, especially within sections of the community that are concerned with issues of social justice, equity, civil and human rights, education, and cultural identity. The reparations discourse has been shaped by the voices from these fields as they seek to build a future upon the settlement of historical crimes.This is the first scholarly work that looks comprehensively at the reparations discussion in the Caribbean. Written by a leading economic historian of the region, a seasoned activist in the wider movement for social justice and advocacy of historical truth, Britain’s Black Debt looks at the origins and development of reparations as a regional and international process. Weaving together detailed historical data on Caribbean slavery and the transatlantic slave trade with legal principles and the politics of postcolonialism, the author sets out a solid academic analysis of the evidence. He concludes that Britain has a case of reparations to answer which the Caribbean should litigate.The presentation of rich empirical historical data on Britain’s transatlantic slave economy and society supports the legal claim that chattel slavery as established by the British state and sustained by citizens and governments was understood then as a crime, but political and moral outrage were silenced by the argument that the enslavement of black people was in Britain’s national interest. International law provides that chattel slavery as practised by Britain was a crime against humanity. Slavery was invested in by the royal family, the government, the established church, most elite families, and large public institutions in the private and public sector. Citing the legal principles of unjust and criminal enrichment, the author presents a compelling argument for Britain’s payment of its black debt, a debt that it continues to deny in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.Britain’s Black Debt brings together the evidence and arguments that the general public and expert policymakers have long called for. It is at once an exciting narration of Britain’s dominance of the slave markets that enriched the economy and a seminal conceptual journey into the hidden politics and public posturing of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. No work of this kind has ever been attempted. No author has had the diversity of historical research skills, national and international political involvement, and personal engagement as an activist to present such a complex yet accessible work of scholarship for both activists and academics.

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Book SynopsisAntiblackness investigates the ways in which the dehumanization of Black people has been foundational to the establishment of modernity. Drawing on Black feminism, Afropessimism, and critical race theory, the book's contributors trace forms of antiblackness across time and space, from nineteenth-century slavery to the categorization of Latinx in the 2020 census, from South Africa and Palestine to the Chickasaw homelands, from the White House to convict lease camps, prisons, and schools. Among other topics, they examine the centrality of antiblackness in the introduction of Carolina rice to colonial India, the presence of Black people and Native Americans in the public discourse of precolonial Korea, and the practices of denial that obscure antiblackness in contemporary France. Throughout, the contributors demonstrate that any analysis of white supremacy---indeed, of the world---that does not contend with antiblackness is incomplete. Contributors. Mohan Ambikaipaker, Jodi A. Byrd, Iyko Day, Anthony Paul Farley, Crystal Marie Fleming, Sarah Haley, Tanya Katerí Hernández, Sarah Ihmoud, Joy James, Moon-Kie Jung, Jae Kyun Kim, Charles W. Mills, Dylan Rodríguez, Zach Sell, João H. Costa Vargas, Frank B. Wilderson III, Connie WunTrade Review“These essays arrive right on time, and with no apparent expiration date. Moon-Kie Jung and João H. Costa Vargas have assembled a collection that forcefully unravels, analyzes, and exposes how slavery and global antiblackness structure and produce meaning in the modern world. The essays theorize, analyze, and provide us field notes for understanding how and why antiblackness does not just underwrite the modern world but actively produces it in multiple modalities. After encountering these essays, any analysis that does not contend with antiblackness as central to modern life is an analysis blind to what exactly the modern means.” -- Rinaldo Walcott, author of * The Long Emancipation: Moving toward Black Freedom *“Moon-Kie Jung and João H. Costa Vargas have assembled an impressive cross section of thinkers who write from a host of methodological and philosophical positions and approaches and who work toward a necessary language to situate antiblackness in and beyond Black studies. The need for this project could not be more urgent.” -- Shana L. Redmond, author of * Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson *"This book could be used in courses on Black studies, sociology, history, political science, and social justice studies. Alongside the text, which is incredibly relevant to the current sociopolitical moment, instructors might also have students view the film 13th (2016), which resonates most strongly with the theme of intentionally scaffolded racial injustice in the American criminal justice system in part 3 of Antiblackness. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- C. L. Lalonde * Choice *“Every educator, scholar, and researcher of antiblack violence and racism is encouraged to engage with Antiblackness. . . . Recognizing the framework of antiblackness can heighten awareness in understanding how the afterlife of global enslavement functions in our interconnected realities every single day.” -- Tiffany N. Peacock * Transforming Anthropology *“[Antiblackness] is an important tool that will allow readers to articulate the travesties done to Black people all over the world and combat the narrative that race has nothing to do with how our world has been structured. . . . Knowledge is power and this book will certainly educate anyone who is interested in portions of history that are often untold in the media and in educational institutions.” -- Jordannah Elizabeth * Amsterdam News *“Antiblackness . . . is highly recommended to students of African Studies, History, Religious Studies, Sociology, and Political Science. . . . Significantly, the book will be useful to teach students in high schools and universities to understand the long history of Anti-Blackness and how to combat such problems in our societies.” -- Kofi Johnson * International Social Science Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Antiblackness of the Social and the Human / João H. Costa Vargas and Moon-Kie Jung 1 Part I. Openings 1. The Illumination of Blackness / Charles W. Mills 17 2. Afropessimism and the Ruse of Analogy: Violence, Freedom Struggles, and the Death of Black Desire / Frank B. Wilderson III 37 3. Afro-feminism before Afropessimism: Meditations on Gender and Ontology / Iyko Day 60 4. Toward a General Theory of Antiblackness / Anthony Paul Farley 82 Part II. Groundings 5. Limited Growth: U.S. Settler Slavery, Colonial India, and Global Rice Markets in the Mid-Nineteenth Century / Zach Sell 107 6. Flesh Work and the Reproduction of Black Culpability / Sarah Haley 131 7. "Not to Be Slaves of Others": Antiblackness in Precolonial Korea / Jae Kyun Kim and Moon-Kie Jung 143 Part III. Captivities 8. "Mass Incarceration" as Misnomer: Chattel/Domestic War and the Problem of Narrativity / Dylan Rodríguez 171 9. Gendered Antiblackness and Police Violence in the Formations of British Political Liberalism / Mohan Ambikaipaker 198 10. Schools as Sites of Antiblack Violence: Black Girls and Policing in the Afterlife of Slavery / Connie Wun 224 11. Presidential Powers in the Captive Maternal Lives of Sally, Michelle, and Deborah / Joy James 244 Part IV. Unsettlings 12. On the Illegibility of French Antiblackness: Notes from an African American Critic / Crystal M. Fleming 263 13. Latino Antiblack Bias and the Census Categorization of Latinos: Race, Ethnicity, or Other? / Tanya Katerí Hernández 283 14. Born Palestinian, Born Black: Antiblackness and the Womb of Zionist Settler Colonialism / Sarah Ihmoud 297 15. Not Yet: Indigeneity, Antiblackness, and Anticolonial Liberation / Jodi A. Byrd 309 References 325 Contributors 369 Index 373

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Book Synopsis''The problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color-line.''Originally published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is a classic study of race, culture, and education at the turn of the twentieth century. With its singular combination of essays, memoir, and fiction, this book vaulted W. E. B. Du Bois to the forefront of American political commentary and civil rights activism. The Souls of Black Folk is an impassioned, at times searing account of the situation of African Americans in the United States. Du Bois makes a forceful case for the access of African Americans to higher education, memorably extols the achievements of black culture (above all the spirituals or ''sorrow songs''), and advances the provocative and influential argument that due to the inequalities and pressures of the ''race problem'', African American identity is characterized by ''double consciousness''.This edition includes a valuable appendix of other writing by Du Bois, which sheds light on his attitu

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Book SynopsisAn impassioned defence of Black excellence in the arts.When Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason?s eldest daughter, Isata, made her solo debut at the BBC Proms in 2023, she could not have been prouder. Watching years of hard work transform into a transcendent performance was profoundly moving, both as music-lover and parent. All fractured when her younger daughter came to her in tears a few days later, having read online abuse about her sister. Isata, it was declared, did not deserve to be there. How do you prepare your child for the fact that no matter their talent, technique or dedication, they will be told they do not belong? Through conversations with her extraordinarily gifted family, Kanneh-Mason explores what it?s like to come of age in these turbulent times, when Black artistic self-expression is so often met with disparagement and abuse online ? and offers a hopeful, powerful way through.

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Book SynopsisNow a major motion picture starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander Skarsgard. A writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen wrote just two novels, published here, and a handful of short stories. Critically acclaimed, both speak powerfully of the contradictions and restrictions experienced by black women at that time. Quicksand, written in 1928, is an autobiographical novel about Helga Crane, a mixed race woman caught between fulfilling her desires and gaining respectability in her middle class neighbourhood. Written a year later, Passing tells the story of two childhood friends, Clare and Irene, both light skinned enough to pass as white. Reconnecting in adulthood, Clare has chosen to live as a white woman, while Irene embraces black culture and has an important role in her community. Nella Larsen's novels are moving, characterful, and important books. She pioneered writing about the conflicts of sexuality, race and the secret suffering of women in the early twentieth century.Trade ReviewQuicksand and Passing are novels that I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating and indispensable -- Alice WalkerHighly charged interior dramas of the black middle class in Harlem [by] an original and hugely insightful writer * New York Times *Quicksand does not just explore the contradictory terrain of women and romance; its sexual politics tear apart the very fabric of the romance form -- Hazel Carby, Yale UniversityDiscovering The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen is like finding lost money with no name on it. One can enjoy it with delight and share it without guilt -- Maya AngelouThese are precious and unusual works * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisAfrican-American art has made an increasingly vital contribution to the art of the United States from the time of its origins in early-eighteenth-century slave communities. This major reassessment of the subject discusses folk and decorative arts such as ceramics, furniture, and quilts alongside fine art sculptures, paintings, and photography produced by African Americans, both enslaved and free, throughout the nineteenth century. It explores art and politics,the influence of galleries and museums, and examines the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, the Era of Civil Rights and Black Nationalism through the 1960s and 1970s, and the emergence of new black artists and theorists in the 1980s and 1990s. African-American Art shows that in its cultural diversityand synthesis of cultures it mirrors those in American society as a whole. `a much needed text. . . breaks down the barrier between folk and formal art, and articulates an interrelationship of both concepts to African-American people aTrade ReviewSharon Patton has written a much needed text which surveys the broad scope of the history of African-American art from slavery to the present. She has followed a different tack, tracing art themes and their development throughout the history, rather than the influences of specific artists or periods. Thus, she shows how ideas such as crafts, formal painting and sculpture, or architecture, co-existed with equal importance to the culture from the times of the Colonies. In so doing, she breaks down the barrier between folk and formal art, and articulates an interrelationship of both concepts to African-American people and their culture. Her book expands the framework for the visual arts in the United States in the last two centuries. * Professor Keith Morrison, Dean, College of Creative Arts, San Francisco State University *Table of ContentsCHAPTER 1: COLONIAL AMERICA AND THE YOUNG REPUBLIC 1700-1820; CHAPTER 2: NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA, THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION; CHAPTER 3: TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA AND MODERN ART 1900-60; CHAPTER 4: TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA: THE EVOLUTION OF A BLACK AESTHETIC

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisLiberals have been arguing for nearly a century that racism is fundamentally an individual problem of extremist beliefs. Responding to Nazism, thinkers like gay rights pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld and anthropologist Ruth Benedict called for teaching people, especially poor people, to be less prejudiced. Here lies the origin of today's liberal antiracism, from diversity training to Hollywood activism. Meanwhile, a more radical antiracism flowered in the Third World. Anticolonial revolutionaries traced racism to the broad economic and political structures of modernity. Thinkers like C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, and Frantz Fanon showed how racism was connected to colonialism and capitalism, a perspective adopted even by Martin Luther King.Today, liberal antiracism has proven powerless against structural oppression. As Arun Kundnani demonstrates, white liberals can heroically confront their own whiteness all they want, yet these structures remain.This deeply researched and swift-moving narrative history tells the story of the two antiracisms and their fates. As neoliberalism reordered the world in the last decades of the twentieth century, the case became clear: fighting racism means striking at its capitalist roots.Trade ReviewDrawing lessons from a long tradition of anticolonial, anti-imperialist, and Marxist intellectuals and movements, Arun Kundnani demonstrates how racism and capitalism are indivisible parts of one global system. And unless we can see the whole, we'll never know how to fight. -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom DreamsThis is the book we need to deepen our understanding of how ideas of racism and anti-racism became divorced from questions of who has what and why. Kundnani explains in gorgeous detail how in the twentieth century, people who were struggling to build a new world came to comprehend racism, capitalism, and colonialism as codependent systems. And he shows us how neoliberalism has shaped new racisms-involving, for example, 'the terrorist' and 'the welfare queen'--pointing to key areas of the fight today. -- Amna A. Akbar, professor of law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of LawAn important and absorbing intervention into debates around racism today, illuminating the profound structural links between imperialism, racism and capitalism. Kundnani shows us how an understanding of this long history is a vital resource for our fights against exploitation and oppression today. -- Priyamvada Gopal, author of Insurgent EmpireWith theoretical precision and clarity, Kundnani lays out the failings of liberals and the left, offering instead a radical anti-racism fit for tackling the urgent issues facing the world today. -- Adam Elliott-Cooper, author of Black Resistance to British PolicingWhat is Antiracism? is going to be a major staple for decades to come. -- Joshua Briond, host of the Millennials Are Killing Capitalism podcastTears into the system-and the liberal excuses that surround it -- Yuri Prasad * Socialist Worker *Provide[s] a structural analysis of racism, including colonialism and capitalism, whilst showing how liberal ideas of anti-racism can be easily co-opted to support new forms of racist power ... an essential read -- Benjamin Ashraf * New Arab *Cutting ... With over three decades of activism and an impressive body of work to his name, Kundnani draws on a history of collective struggle to offer answers to how anti-racism can be rescued from corporate whitewashing to instead challenge the structures of 'racial capitalism'. -- Sigrid Corey * Red Pepper *

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Book SynopsisCarolyn L. Baker grew up in Southern California during segregation and came of age in the counter-cultural climate of the 1960s. Many years later, when Baker was in her mid-sixties, she first learned of the murder of Emmett Till, sparking an investigation of her own position as a white woman in the midst of a world of racial trauma. An Unintentional Accomplice follows Baker’s awakening to the realities of her own white privilege, confronting white guilt, navigating aspects of white identity, and searching out ways to be an ally who both acknowledges her own position and seeks to provide active support for those who live with a different set of circumstances. We find Baker facing the painful reality that, no matter how unintentional, she plays a role within a system that continues to inflict racial harm. She comes to realize that, by not actively opposing discrimination, as a white person, she acts as an accomplice. An Unintentional Accomplice offers a non-judgmental personal narrative that invites readers to explore the complexities of race in America and how to navigate the guilt that can arise in the face of these realities. The book defines institutionalized discrimination, illustrates the distance between the American dream and American reality, calls for a radically inclusive feminism, and suggests relevant ways to change direction and take action to build a more humane nation.

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Book SynopsisA deft, musical debut poetry collection about the disabling effects of illness, rupture, and inheritance—informed both by Yoruba divinatory systems and violent Western medical understandings of the Black body.  If I Gather Here and Shout summons Yoruba divinatory rituals into a hospital room. Incantatory verses accumulate alongside personal and historical “figures” of illness and death to illuminate the tensions between legibility and meaning-making that emerge when an ill Black body is processed through a Western medical context. With intimate knowledge of how ancestral memory aches and sings in the body, Funto Omojola invokes a lamenting chorus in the ceremony of survival.

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Book Synopsis'I needed to get to the stopping places, so I needed to get on the road. It was the road where I might at last find out where I belonged.'Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would tell him stories of her childhood in the ancient Romani language; the places they worked, the ways they lived, the superstitions and lores of their people. In a bid to better understand his heritage, Damian sets out on a journey to discover the stopping places – the old encampment sites known only to Travellers. Through winter frosts and summer dawns, from horse fairs to Gypsy churches, Damian lives on the road, somewhere between the romanticised Gypsies of old, and their much-maligned descendants of today.‘A beautiful writer who seems born to tell this fascinating story’ Amy LiptrotWinner of the Somerset Maugham AwardShortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing AwardLonglisted for the Wainwright Prize Trade ReviewTender and intensely lyrical ... the prose is pure delight. The author breathes life into everything he sees ... To read The Stopping Places is to better understand the curious history of the Roma and how they have survived into 21st-century Britain -- Jackie Annesley * The Sunday Times *A beautiful writer who seems born to tell this fascinating story. It's brilliantly researched, avoiding stereotype and explaining misconceptions, while showing what is vital and special about modern traveller culture -- Amy LiptrotA fine prose style, vividly conjuring the smell of a hop pillow, the whinnying of a horse fair and the ‘wet-look hairstyles’ of the men, as well as the dead cold of a wagon in winter... An element of memoir clings to this excellent account of folk most of us don’t understand... The end of the book hints at redemption, as Le Bas comes to terms with the conflicts of his dual world. But he is too good a writer to make a meal of it -- Sara Wheeler * The Spectator *An insight into the hidden world and culture of travelling people, written with delicacy and affection -- Ken LoachBeautifully written and deeply affecting… While this is a beautiful, important book about Gypsy culture, it’s also a moving exploration of what it means to belong -- Clover Stroud * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE 2020 At the dawn of the twentieth century, black women in the US were carving out new ways of living. The first generations born after emancipation, their struggle was to live as if they really were free. These women refused to labour like slaves. Wrestling with the question of freedom, they invented forms of love and solidarity outside convention and law. These were the pioneers of free love, common-law and transient marriages, queer identities, and single motherhood - all deemed scandalous, even pathological, at the dawn of the twentieth century, though they set the pattern for the world to come. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman deploys both radical scholarship and profound literary intelligence to examine the transformation of intimate life that they instigated. With visionary intensity, she conjures their worlds, their dilemmas, their defiant brilliance.Trade ReviewOne of our most brilliant contemporary thinkers ... She's a theorist and writer who actually changes what's possible in my thought patterns -- Claudia RankineInfuses the history of black women and queer radicals with incredible life and urgency. She basically invents a new genre -- Carmen Maria Machado * New Statesman *I was inspired, surprised and deeply moved....[Hartman's] mode is intimate, radical and always alive to the details. -- Leslie Jamison * New York Times Book Review *This is scholarship as art * New Inquiry *Exhilarating....A rich resurrection of a forgotten history....[Hartman's] rigor and restraint give her writing its distinctive electricity and tension....This kind of beautiful, immersive narration exists for its own sake but it also counteracts the most common depictions of black urban life from this time. -- Parul Sehgal * New York Times *Ambitious, original... a beautiful experiment in its own right, to be set beside the many attempts at living free that Hartman here chronicles with a keen sense of history, imagination, and love. * Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts *Wayward Lives is a startling, dazzling act of resurrection... These remarkable black women were shamed, scorned, criminalized, studied, diagnosed and then erased from history. Yet now, Hartman challenges us to see, finally, who they really were: beautiful, complex, and multidimensional-whole people - who dared to live by their own rules, somehow making a way out of no way at all. * Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow *With urgency and compassion, Hartman rescues the lives of young black women from the margins of history. Wayward Lives is a series of adventure stories that take the reader through the travails and triumphs of a multitude of black women, as they negotiate the perilous path of self-discovery at the turn of the twentieth century. In her impeccably researched new book, Hartman breathes glorious life into these true survival tales with the precision and invention of a master storyteller. * Lynn Nottage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sweat and Ruined *Fantastic, really amazing ... daring -- Hari KunzruWayward Lives unsorts the archive looking for the errant, the unruly, the gorgeously disarranged paths of fugitive black girls. Fleeing from respectability, the good, the right and the true, the black girls that interest Hartman are everyday revolutionaries or what she calls 'chorines, bulldaggers, aesthetical negroes, socialists, lady lovers, pansies and anarchists.' This book is a love song to the wayward, a riotous poem, a lyrical homage to the minor. It changes the way we do history, the way we constitute the political, and makes resistance newly visible in the ordinary. This book changes everything. * Jack Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity and The Queer Art of Failure *Saidiya Hartman tells a mesmerizing story with a multitude of women as its heroines, lifting up invisible black seekers within the cities of one hundred years ago to the light of memory and tribute. She uses the weapons of lyric and literature to steal 'colored women' away from the grasp of white lawmen and the clinical gaze, and along the way gives history what it lacks and wants-black women as secret agents of destiny, deep lives from the unnamed crowd, and underground sinners as the true sponsors of social change. * Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family *A masterpiece... The wayward lives and beautiful experiments in which Professor Hartman is interested can only be described and illuminated in wayward and experimental ways-not in analytic detachment but by joining the experiment, by engaging in its hard-won freedoms, its autonomous profligacies, its shifting directions... Hartman radically reimagines the very idea of the portrait... A truly great and groundbreaking book. * Fred Moten, professor of performance studies, New York University *Lyrical and novelistic....This passionate, poetic retrieval of women from the footnotes of history is a superb literary achievement * Publisher's Weekly *How to honour the soft liquid rigour, the sharp vast tenderness, of a writer like Saidiya Hartman? ... For those of us who turn to the archive seeking comfort, looking for old ways of looking at new things, for redress to our subjugated history - this book is a balm and a pedagogic tool. Wayward Lives is a book that wants you to live. -- Imani Robinson and Ebun Sodipo * Wasafiri *Lyrical and highly readable ... Hartman opens a window onto a form of resistance less well documented than the protests led by organised labour and civil rights campaigners * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisA scathing critique of the Left from an indigenous anti-colonial perspective.Why am I writing this book? Because I share Gramsci''s anxiety: “The old are dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The fascist monster, born in the entrails of Western modernity. Of course, the West is not what it used to be. Hence my question: what can we offer white people in exchange for their decline and for the wars that will ensue? There is only one answer: peace. There is only one way: revolutionary love.—from Whites, Jews, and UsWith Whites, Jews, and Us, Houria Bouteldja launches a scathing critique of the European Left from an indigenous anti-colonial perspective, reflecting on Frantz Fanon''s political legacy, the republican pact, the Shoah, the creation of Israel, feminism, and the fate of postcolonial immigration in the West in the age of rising anti-immigrant populism. Drawing upon such prominent voices as James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Jean Genet, she issues a polemical call for a militant anti-racism grounded in the concept of revolutionary love.Such love will not come without significant discomfort for whites, and without necessary provocation. Bouteldja challenges widespread assumptions among the Left in the United States and Europe—that anti-Semitism plays any role in Arab-Israeli conflicts, for example, or that philo-Semitism doesn''t in itself embody an oppressive position; that feminism or postcolonialist theory is free of colonialism; that integrationalism is a solution rather than a problem; that humanism can be against racism when its very function is to support the political-ideological apparatus that Bouteldja names the “white immune system.”At this transitional moment in the history of the West—which is to say, at the moment of its decline—Bouteldja offers a call for political unity that demands the recognition that whiteness is not a genetic question: it is a matter of power, and it is high time to dismantle it.This Semiotext(e)/Intervention series English-language edition includes a foreword by Cornel West.

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Book SynopsisFor two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them - slavery, conscription, taxes, corvee labour, epidemics and warfare. This book presents an examination of the huge literature on state-making.Trade Review"James Scott has published a book making a far more ambitious argument: Zomia, he says, offers a sort of counter-history of the evolution of human civilization. . . . What Zomia presents, Scott argues . . . is nothing less than a refutation of the traditional narrative of steady civilizational progress, in which human life has improved as societies have grown larger and more complex. Instead, for many people through history, Scott argues, civilized life has been a burden and a menace."—Drake Bennett, The Boston Globe"For those who live in states, savages are those who do not. Yet since the Enlightenment, there have always been Western intellectuals who want to find a critical role for the savage to play. The general idea has been to harness the otherness of indigenous or stateless people as a means of interrogating . . . the modern state. In the past twenty years or so, this project has dropped off drastically . . . . Scott has found a creative way to revive the tradition of critical thinking about the savage—and to highlight the social goals of equality and autonomy embodied in the Zomian social order that states routinely fall short of realizing."—Joel Robbins, Bookforum"Scott’s panoramic view will no doubt enthrall many readers . . . one doesn’t have to see like a Zomian nor pretend to be an anarchist to appreciate the many insights in James Scott’s book."—Grant Evans, Times Literary Supplement"While The Art of Not Being Governed makes an important contribution to the larger field of uplands studies (and not only the study of the Southeast Asian uplands), its merits lie ultimately in the questions that it raises and the trenchant skepticism with which it will leave the careful reader."—Bradley C. Davis, New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia "Scott's books is refreshingly welcome. . . . The author argues his case in a clear, comprehensible, and erudite fashion leaving readers in little doubt as to where he stands. . . . It has made a significant contribution by highlighting egalitarianism and independence as the ideals of hill societies. . . . Scott has provided us with a platform for rethinking ethnic identities and inter-ethnic relations."—Christian Daniels, Southeast Asian Studies"This book is engagingly and charmingly written, full of memorable catch phrases and striking images. It is a deeply humanitarian book, and a masterpiece of meditation on dichotomies between hill and valley, state and stateless, egalitarian and hierarchical, charismatic and traditional-bureaucratic authority."—Nicholas Tapp, ASEASUK (Association of South-East Asian Studies in the United Kingdom)"A brilliant examination."—The Global Journal". . . a sprawling, creatively 'disorderly' and beautifully written book. . . . [It is] dotted with memorable phrases and beautifully crafted paragraphs."—Tony Day, South East Asia Research"This book may well become a cult classic."—Sanjay Subrahmanyam, London Review of BooksReceived honorable mention for the 2009 PROSE Award in Government & Politics, presented by the The Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American PublishersBronze medal winner of the 2009 Book of the Year Award in the Political Science category, presented by ForeWord magazineChosen as A Best Book of 2009, Jesse Walker, managing editor, ReasonWinner of the 2010 Fukuoka Asian Academic Prize, given by the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize CommitteeA finalist in the category of Nonfiction for the 2010 Connecticut Book Award, given by the Connecticut Center for the Book"James Scott has produced here perhaps his most masterful work to date. It is deeply learned, creative and compassionate. Few scholars possess a keener capacity to recognize the agency of peoples without history and in entirely unexpected places, practices and forms. Indeed, it leads him ever closer to the anarchist ideal that it is possible for humans not only to escape the state, but the very state form itself."—Prasenjit Duara, National University of Singapore"A brilliant study rich with humanity and cultural insights, this book will change the way readers think about human history—and about themselves. It is one of the most fascinating and provocative works in social history and political theory I, for one, have ever read."—Robert W. Hefner, Boston University"Underscores key, but often overlooked, variables that tell us a great deal about why states rise and expand as well as decline and collapse. There are no books that currently cover these themes in this depth and breadth, with such conceptual clarity, originality, and imagination. Clearly argued and engaging, this is a path-breaking and paradigm-shifting book."—Michael Adas, Rutgers University"Finally, a true history of what pressures indigenous peoples face from these bizarre new inventions called nation states. Jim Scott has written a compassionate and complete framework that explains the ways in which states try to crowd out, envelop and regiment non-state peoples. He could take out every reference to Southeast Asia and replace it with the Arctic and it would fit the Inuit experience too. We need real applicable history that works, that fits. Truth like this, it's too darn rare."—Derek Rasmussen, former community activist in the Inuit territory of Nunavut, advisor to Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Jhalak PrizeWinner of the Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing ''A revelation'' Owen Jones''Afropean seizes the blur of contradictions that have obscured Europe''s relationship with blackness and paints it into something new, confident and lyrical'' Afua Hirsch A Guardian, New Statesman and BBC History Magazine Best Book of 2019 ''Afropean. Here was a space where blackness was taking part in shaping European identity ... A continent of Algerian flea markets, Surinamese shamanism, German Reggae and Moorish castles. Yes, all this was part of Europe too ... With my brown skin and my British passport - still a ticket into mainland Europe at the time of writing - I set out in search of the Afropeans, on a cold October morning.''Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities. Here is an alternative map of the continent, taking the reader to places like Cova Da Moura, the Cape Verdean shantytown on the outskirts of Lisbon with its own underground economy, and Rinkeby, the area of Stockholm that is eighty per cent Muslim. Johny Pitts visits the former Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where West African students are still making the most of Cold War ties with the USSR, and Clichy Sous Bois in Paris, which gave birth to the 2005 riots, all the while presenting Afropeans as lead actors in their own story.Trade ReviewAfropean announces the arrival of an impassioned author able to deftly navigate and illuminate a black world that for many would otherwise have remained unseen * The Guardian *[Pitts'] talent for sharp summary is apparent early on...a natural talent for describing cities and their atmosphere * The Evening Standard *a beautiful study of black identity in Europe * The Telegraph *it is remarkable how quickly he gets to the soul of a place [...] What is consistently impressive throughout Pitts's work is his ability to blend fact with anecdote; the effect is often cinematic. At times, you may feel that instead of reading a non-fiction book you are watching a well-paced historical thriller * New Statesman *"forced me to stop and pause", "the book invites us to witness journeys of creativity of communities often unrecorded in studies of European history, highlighting the commonality of African-European experiences across the continent" -- Olivette Otele * BBC History Magazine, Books of the Year *

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