Ethnic studies / Ethnicity Books

Book SynopsisTrade Review"A work by turns shocking, moving, and though-provoking. It merits the attention of anyone interested in the historical roots of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and, more recently, Black Lives Matter.... By Hands Now Known is one of those rare books that forces us to consider in new ways the nature of our politics and society and the enduring legacy of our troubled past." -- Eric Foner - New York Review of Books"Devastating.... [A] remarkable book." -- Dave Davies - Fresh Air, NPR"[Shows] the ‘chronic, unpredictable violence’ that shaped daily life in the South.... Recounting such stories is part of the important work that this book does.... But historical retrieval is only part of Burnham’s goal with this book, which also makes a case for reparations, to pick up ‘where law has failed.’... With justice so elusive, even a simple acknowledgment of the facts is a necessary step. As some of the survivors put it when they first heard from Burnham and her team: ‘I thought I’d never get this call.’" -- Jennifer Szalai - New York Times"The corrective we all need.... This book is a rich, evocative testament to [Burnham’s] life’s work, as she illuminates a series of harrowing, untold cases of racial violence from 1920 to 1960, tapping a database she built over the course of a decade. Her insights and interpretations bring a vital, necessary perspective to the segregationist era." -- Oprah Daily"The detailed accounts of racial terror in this book are hard to stomach, but necessary to understand the national legacy of slavery and the Jim Crow system that emerged after emancipation.... Margaret Burnham’s rich historical analysis documents the longstanding failure of federal laws and institutions to prevent racial violence and police brutality. The book also shines a light on the resourcefulness of African Americans who organized to help one another and fight for justice." -- Debbie Elliott - NPR"Burnham illuminates a continuum of white supremacy.... She also examines Black Americans’ long-standing ‘practices of dissent and resistance’ and describes reparations as an ethical imperative." -- The New Yorker"[A] searing indictment of the all-encompassing violence of Jim Crow and a persuasive case for long-overdue reparations.... An indispensable addition to the literature of social justice and civil rights." -- Kirkus, starred review"Meticulously researched and carefully documented.... The dozens of fully fleshed out stories in this book—which are examples, of course, of countless stories left untold—add a personal element to this achingly real history. By Hands Now Known is impossible to read without being overwhelmed by the magnitude of racial violence in the U.S. in the past and persisting into the present." -- Booklist, starred review"Uncovers the hidden and unknown victims of Jim Crow violence.... Readers interested in the long history of the civil rights struggle should definitely read this." -- Library Journal, starred review"Searing.... An essential reckoning with America’s history of racial violence." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review"Defying national suppression and indifference, By Hands Now Known vividly conveys the stories of those whose lives were destroyed by previously undocumented racial violence between 1920 and 1960.… Margaret A. Burnham, drawing on a painstakingly constructed database, launches a vital and restorative reckoning with the reprehensible devastation of lives, communities, justice, and memory." -- Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University, and author of When Should Law Forgive?"If you truly want to understand why police and vigilantes who kill Black people are rarely held to account, you must read this extraordinary book.… By far the most sobering and most illuminating work I have ever read on the long history of state-sanctioned racial violence in the US." -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels"In this necessary and important book, Margaret A. Burnham addresses the enormous violence necessary to sustain Jim Crow through a series of compelling case studies about the lives destroyed by the brutal regime of separate but equal.… In reckoning with the impact of this history on the present, Burnham asks how we might undo or redress this legacy of violence. It is timely and essential reading." -- Saidiya Hartman, author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments"Needs to be read by everyone who recognizes the historic mandate of our time: to interrupt cycles of racist violence.… Rigorously delineated, passionately argued, Margaret A. Burnham’s book offers us heart-wrenching cases.… But Burnham goes further, asking us to finally acknowledge the history of ever-present resistance, even under the most insurmountable conditions, and to consider what justice might mean today." -- Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz"A vitally important history.… Burnham’s meticulous unpacking—of newspaper accounts, coroners’ reports, and interviews with surviving witnesses, family members, and clergy—is searing, unforgettable, and profoundly moving." -- Patricia J. Williams, author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights and Giving a Damn"Masterfully explores how everyday acts of violence fundamentally shaped Jim Crow during the twentieth century. With meticulous and compelling new research, Margaret A. Burnham offers a powerful, moving, and groundbreaking account of the interconnections between race, law, and citizenship in US history." -- Keisha N. Blain, coeditor of the number-one New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls and award-winning author of Until I Am Free"[This] narratively lively yet stunningly exhaustive interrogation of Jim Crow laws retained from slavery, misconstrued after Reconstruction, and nationalized during Plessy v. Ferguson, ought to become indispensable to all legal and civil rights considerations, and the cause célebre of our time—reparations." -- David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of W. E. B. Du Bois

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ypi is a beautiful writer and a serious political thinker, and in just a couple hundred readable pages, she takes turns between being bitingly, if darkly, funny (she skewers Stalinism and the World Bank with equal deadpan) and truly profound...Free is meant to inspire." -- Max Strasser - New York Times"A young life unfolding amid great historical change: ideology, war, loss, uncertainty. This is history brought memorably and powerfully to life." -- Tara Westover, author of Educated"Free is astonishing. Lea Ypi has a natural gift for storytelling. It brims with life, warmth, and texture, as well as her keen intelligence. A gripping, often hilarious, poignant, psychologically acute masterpiece, and the best book I’ve read so far this year." -- Olivia Sudjic, author of Asylum Road"Illuminating and subversive, Free asks us to consider what happens to our ideals when they come into contact with imperfect places and people, and what can be salvaged from the wreckage of the past." -- Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran"Written by an intellectual with storytelling gifts, Free makes life on the ground in modern-day Albania vivid and immediate." -- Vivian Gornick, author of The Odd Woman and the City"A new classic that bursts out of the global silence of Albania to tell us human truths about the politics of the past hundred years… revelation after revelation—both familial and national—as if written by a master novelist. As if it were, say, a novella by Tolstoy. That this very serious book is so much fun to read is a compliment to its graceful, witty, honest writer. A literary triumph." -- Amy Wilentz, author of Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti"Lea Ypi is a pathbreaking philosopher who is also becoming one of the most important public thinkers of our time.… This extraordinary book is both personally moving and politically revolutionary. If we take its lessons to heart, it can help to set us free." -- Martin Hägglund, author of This Life"Free is one of those very rare books that shows how history shapes people’s lives and their politics. Lea Ypi is such a brilliant, powerful writer that her story becomes your story." -- Ivan Krastev, coauthor of The Light That Failed"Written by one of Europe’s foremost left-wing thinkers, this is an unmissable book for anyone engaged in the politics of resistance." -- Paul Mason, author of Postcapitalism"This extraordinary coming-of-age story is like an Albanian Educated, but it is so much more than that." -- David Runciman, author of How Democracy Ends"A lyrical memoir, of deep and affecting power, of the sweet smell of humanity mingled with flesh, blood, and hope." -- Philippe Sands, author of The Ratline"Ypi’s beguiling memoir of innocence and experience in Albania’s communist era and its aftermath is told through intimate stories of a taken-for-granted life devolving into uncertainty. It serves as a profound primer on how to live when old verities turn to dust." -- Washington Post Best Books of 2022"Utterly engrossing . . . Ypi's memoir is brilliantly observed, politically nuanced and - best of all - funny." -- Stuart Jeffries - Guardian"A uniquely engaging and illuminating account of a young life during a period of intense turmoil... Free offers gem after gem of the bizarre reality that Hoxhaism produced.....Detailing the absurdities of Hoxha’s regime from a child’s perspective, Ypi pulls off the remarkable feat of emphasizing their cruelty with a light and often humorous touch... Free concludes with important lessons about sustaining the ability to ‘reflect, apologize and learn,’ given that ‘people never make history under circumstances they choose.’" -- Misha Glenny - Times Literary Supplement"Precious little was known about life in communist Albania under Enver Hoxha. That strange world and its legacy is now stunningly brought to life in Lea Ypi’s Free. From protective doublespeak round the kitchen table to the uncertain, and unfulfilled promises of post-communism, Ypi offers a moving and compelling memoir of growing up in turbulent times, as well as a frank questioning of what it really means to be 'free.'" -- Frederick Studeman - Financial Times"Free is much more than a historical account of a country we know or care little about, except as a punchline for jokes about poverty and atavism. Just as Ypi and her family watched empires crumble, taking whole realities with them, we too are living in catastrophic times, with the geopolitical certainties that have sheltered us for the past century, for better or worse – the US, UK and more recently, the EU – all in various stages of collapse or decay. This, Ypi warns us, is how it will feel when the levee breaks." -- Ed O'Loughlin - Irish Times"Lea Ypi's Free is the first book since Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend that I have pressed on family, friends and colleagues, insisting they read it. . . a truly riveting memoir and a profound meditation on what it means to be free." -- Ruth Scurr - Spectator"Ypi's deliciously smart memoir of her Albanian girlhood at the end of the Cold War is a brilliant disquisition on the meanings of freedom - its lures, false hopes, disappointments and possibilities - in our time." -- Lyndsey Stonebridge - New Statesman"Essential reading. Lea Ypi's gorgeously written text - part memoir, part bildungsroman - tells a very personal story of socialism and postsocialism. Poignant and timely." -- Kristen Ghodsee - Jacobin"An astonishing and deeply resonant memoir about growing up in the last days of the last Stalinist outpost of the 20th century. . . What makes it so unforgettable is that we see this world, one about which we know so little, through the eyes of a child... It is more fundamentally about humanity, and about the confusions and wonders of childhood. Ypi weaves magic in this book: I was entranced from beginning to end." -- Laura Hackett - Sunday Times"Riveting. . .A wonderfully funny and poignant portrait of a small nation in a state of collapse. . . gloriously readable. . .One of the nonfiction titles of the year, it is destined for literary accolades and popular success" -- Luke Harding - Observer"The author’s narrative voice is stunning, expertly balancing humor, pathos, and deep affection for the characters and places that defined her past. She is adept at immersing readers in her childhood experiences of unquestioned loyalty to “The Party” while also maintaining a tongue-in-cheek, critical distance from what she now recognizes as a tyrannical regime." -- Kirkus Reviews

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Book SynopsisBorn a slave in Maryland circa 1817, Frederick Douglass went on to become the most influential and distinguished African American of the nineteenth century. As an abolitionist, newspaper publisher, orator and statesman, Douglass dedicated his life to the triumph of freedom over oppression for all black Americans.Published shortly after his escape from slavery, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave became an immediate bestseller in 1845 and is still the most widely read slave narrative in American history. A piercing denounciation of slavery, the Narrative mobilized masses of people for the abolitionist cause. But the Narrative is also a deeply personal memoir in which Douglass chronicles his childhood years of deprivation and brutality, his efforts to teach himself to read (teaching a slave to read was illegal in the South), and his dangerous flight to freedom in 1838.In his insightful introduction, Professor Henry Louis

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Book SynopsisA rich compendium of wisdom from such distinguished and celebrated African Americans as Malcolm X, Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman, Alice Walker and others, designed to help you focus on the thoughts, attitudes, and deeds that will lead to the achievement of your true goals. Each lesson will last a lifetime!

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Book SynopsisA distinguished Stanford law professor examines the steep decline in marriage rates among the African American middle class, and offers a paradoxical-nearly incendiary-solution. Black women are three times as likely as white women to never marry. That sobering statistic reflects a broader reality: African Americans are the most unmarried people in our nation, and contrary to public perception the racial gap in marriage is not confined to women or the poor. Black men, particularly the most successful and affluent, are less likely to marry than their white counterparts. College educated black women are twice as likely as their white peers never to marry. Is Marriage for White People? is the first book to illuminate the many facets of the African American marriage decline and its implications for American society. The book explains the social and economic forces that have undermined marriage for African Americans and that shape everyone''s live

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Book SynopsisCombining interdisciplinary scholarship, political reportage, and personal reflection, this daring book measures the current celebrations of 1960s-era civil rights anniversaries against the realization of a black American presidency, and the stark social and economic conditions of contemporary Black America.

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Book SynopsisThe author, who was raised among the Sioux until the age of 15, is a uniquely qualified interpreter of Native American ways. He discusses forms of ceremonial and symbolic worship, the unwritten scriptures, and the spirit world, emphasizing the universal quality and personal appeal of Native American religion.

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Book SynopsisNew York Times bestselling author Paul Tough''s Whatever It Takes is one of the best books ever written about how poverty influences learning, and vice versa (The Washington Post).What would it take?That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poor children — not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children's Zone, a ninety-seven-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America. His conclusion: if you want poor kids to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to change everything in their lives — their schools, their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing practices of their parents.Whatever It Takes is a tour de forc

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Book SynopsisWhat is race and why does it matter? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid? America’s foremost novelist reflects on themes that preoccupy her work and dominate politics: race, fear, borders, mass movement of peoples, desire for belonging. Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a foreword to Toni Morrison’s most personal work of nonfiction to date.Trade ReviewMorrison’s new book of essays, The Origin of Others, shows that the sick, sad world in which her novels are set is an old one—one that she yearns to lean out of, one we’re falling right back into instead. The Origin of Others is, at once, a critique, memoir, and writer’s notebook; the Nobel Prize–winning author explicates the observations and inspirations behind some of her most prized novels. The book draws from her Norton Lectures, in which she discusses race, borders, history, and other literary heavyweights such as Flannery O’Connor and Ernest Hemingway. Readers could consider this book a companion to her Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, if they want a pellucid look at the racial minefield throughout American literature. -- Kaila Philo * The Millions *It is hard not to want more than an afternoon with her incisive mind…Her essays are richly embellished with anecdote and memory, but grounded in literary analysis. Morrison looks to literature as a potent site of prejudicial tuition…Drafted in the months before Brexit and Donald Trump, it is hard not to see The Origin of Others as politically prescient. -- Beejay Silcox * The Australian *For those who want to understand better the process of inventing others, its literary past, and the tendency in us all to dismiss others clamoring for a sense of belonging, The Origin of Others is a must-read. Morrison’s fans will appreciate her hauntingly clear reading of the times, even while she remains true to her literary aesthetic. New readers can look to this text as a foray into the mind of one of the greatest thinkers of our time. With the same revolutionary simplicity as Martin Buber’s I and Thou, Morrison reminds us once again that whatever can be said of the self is always determined by how one stands in relation to the other. -- Audrey Thompson * Christian Century *If you’ve ever wanted to take a peek into the brilliant mind of Toni Morrison, look no further than her latest book. In The Origin of Others, Morrison dissects all the thematic elements that frequent her work, and sheds light on what inspires her and what keeps her up at night. Based on her Norton Lectures, the renowned novelist delves deep into how literature has shaped society’s perceptions of race over the years, as well as how some of her most beloved books came to be. Plus, it has a brilliant introduction from Ta-Nehisi Coates! -- Gina Mei * Shondaland *Pulitzer– and Nobel Prize–winning novelist Morrison analyzes the language of race and racism and the classification of people into dehumanizing racial categories in American culture… Lyrically written and intelligently argued, this book is on par with Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination and The Black Book. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *This is an intriguing and timely series of reflections on race, fear, belonging and otherness. -- Louise Kennedy * The ARTery *This volume collects the great novelist’s Norton lectures at Harvard University, giving those of us who didn’t get to attend a glimpse at Morrison’s thoughts on race and otherness, and how these things affect literature and lives around the world. * The Millions *[A] slender but profound volume. -- Tom Beer * Newsday *The Origin of Others is a must read. -- Tara Block * PopSugar *From legendary writer and thinker Toni Morrison comes a book that deals with one of the thorniest topics of our time: race…What is race? What motivates us to construct otherness? What makes us so afraid of one another? Probing, brilliant, and beautifully rendered, The Origin of Others is destined to become one of the major sociological texts of our time. -- Elizabeth Kiefer * Refinery29 *Every literature lover who dreams of studying with Toni Morrison will devour The Origin of Others, a new collection of her Harvard lectures on race, literature, and otherness. -- Angela Carone * San Diego Magazine *What is sure to be her most personal and self-reflecting work in nonfiction yet, Morrison delves further into the themes that have always been crucial to her canon: race, politics, history, identity, et al. -- Maura M. Lynch and Jinnie Lee * W Magazine *Morrison explores how cultures, societies, and individuals develop the notion of the Other, the reasons for it, the perceived benefits of distinguishing based on what many insist are racial traits despite the slipperiness of concepts of race…In this slim volume, Morrison shares again her enormous talent for examining the complexity of race and racial identity, the inhumanity that results from ‘othering’ a fellow human being, the justifications for cruelty that has resulted in romanticized images of slavery and oppression, and how the perversity of racism reverberates through centuries. -- Vanessa Bush * Booklist *Melding memoir, history, and trenchant literary analysis, Nobel Prize laureate Morrison offers perceptive reflections on the configuration of Otherness…As sharp and insightful as one would expect from this acclaimed author. * Kirkus Reviews *May be [Morrison’s] most comprehensive look at race in America to date. * Pacific Standard *[Morrison] traces through American literature patterns of thought and behavior that subtly code who belongs and who doesn’t, who is accepted in and who is cast out as ‘Other.’ …The Origin of Others combines Toni Morrison’s accustomed eloquence with meaning for our times as citizens of the world. -- Nell Irvin Painter * New Republic *The Origin of Others gives readers around the world a chance to take a peek inside the insightful mind of one of America’s most celebrated novelists… Equal parts challenging and engaging, reading The Origin of Others is like learning from the literary legend herself. -- Sadie Trombetta * Bustle *It is hard not to read Toni Morrison’s The Origin of Others in the light of recent disturbing political developments in the U.S… Morrison considers the fetishization of skin color and the questions posed by our era of mass migration, and offers elegant reminders of some well-known but still unpalatable facts… She shows how a single word choice in a Hemingway novel can exploit and fortify any number of racialized fetishes and revulsions, and she also explains, with a dispassionate attention to technique, why and how Hemingway made such choices as a writer, the useful short cuts they allowed him to take for the purposes of narrative and character and mood. -- Lidija Haas * The Guardian *Morrison trains her well-aimed pen at the themes that only a titan such as herself can so gracefully take on like race, fear, borders and the mass movement of people, for example. -- Lesley-Ann Brown * NBC News *Toni Morrison is the one of the great contemporary analysts of race and identity…Here she develops in a more concerted way than we find in her earlier work the means by which racist ideologies obliterate the possibility of knowing others, and stifle the chance we are afforded to gain knowledge of ourselves…Morrison draws on a series of episodes from [America’s] literature and history, and examines them in relation to salient moments from her own life. The resulting work is transformative, exhilarating, distressing. And acutely and urgently necessary…The Origin of Others is full of insights. They are made all the more persuasive by Morrison’s elegant, plangent prose, and by her refusal to exclude herself from those mythologies of otherness of which we are all the unhappy legatees. To read this wise, probing and inspiring book is to acquaint yourself with a writer who is a foe of that inheritance and a vital friend of the human project. -- Matthew Adams * The National *In a series of essays that provides equally unique insights into American literary history and Morrison’s own mind, The Origin of Others explores how otherness, particularly racial difference, is socially constructed, and the ways Morrison has always worked to explore and confound that construct through her writing. -- Emily Lever * The Literary Show Project *The Nobel Prize–winning novelist employs literary criticism, history, and memoir to illustrate how power imagines difference in order to legitimize oppression… As Barack Obama completed a two-term presidency, and his attorneys general launched investigations into police brutality across the country, it seemed reasonable to assume that the United States was finally preparing to acknowledge and address the structural racism that underpins its society. The intervening year has exposed that as a dangerous assumption, and made required reading of a book that, in any sane version of the present, should have marked how much progress had recently been made and how far was yet to go. -- Ben Eastham * Art Review *[Morrison] is doing what she does best, using historical, personal and current events to explore how racism continues to divide society. Drawing on issues of globalization and the mass movement of people, she explores how the presence of others contributes to belonging. The book is as good as I had expected. Morrison’s narrative is both powerful and chilling as she takes us on a journey that shocks and enlightens but forever reminds us that, ‘The definition of Americanness (sadly) remains color for many people.’ -- Kalwant Bhopal * Times Higher Education *A slim volume that contains multitudes. It can be read in one sitting, yet it’s a book that readers will likely return to frequently for its conceptual richness, catholic knowledge, and political imagination…Literature, Morrison argues throughout The Origin of Others, is central to shaping social imaginations of hate, and conversely, literature has the potential to help us envision better worlds and better futures…Morrison deftly moves between literary analysis, personal memoir, historical research, critical theory, and politics. And moreover, she does so with incredible clarity and grace. Her intended audience is not specialists in narrow fields, but wide and broad publics…We live in a regime in which nation-states can blind us from seeing the tragedies and genocides unfolding beyond our artificial borders. Toni Morrison's latest book challenges us in subtle and profound ways to see beyond such artifices. We need literary fictions to see the many violences of our political fictions. -- Ryan Poll * PopMatters *In this era of stark division, distrust and state-sponsored xenophobia, it is hard to imagine a more timely and laudable message than the plea for understanding, with its separation of the fact of culture from notions of racial essentialism, and its implicit faith in the importance, and transformative power, of literature. -- Clifford Thompson * Times Literary Supplement *The autobiographical moments in The Origin of Others are the most interesting paragraphs within this book. Peeking into the life of this Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s personal life to understand her concerns for black America, provides a logical solution in shaping black identity—control our narrative… The Origin of Others moved me to be more conscious of what type of language and behavior I, a hip-hop journalist and aspiring historian, put into the world. -- Darryl Robertson * VIBE *A painful and powerful study of race as it affected [Morrison’s] writing and her reading. The book is clear and challenging. Attitudes are eloquently investigated. -- Eavan Boland * Irish Times *There is another aspect to otherness: how we cope, survive, rationalize and discriminate by creating, in our minds and habits, others. No book addresses this more profoundly than Toni Morrison’s small book of essays, The Origin of Others…It’s Trumpism that makes her insights essential now…Morrison addresses the ‘romancing of slavery’ in our literature and history. She looks carefully at what ‘being or becoming a stranger’ means in American life. She analyzes our fetishes with darkness, our preoccupations with blackness and the tropes we perpetuate regarding Africa: menace, depravity, incomprehensibility. This is not easy, comforting reading for a Christmas morning, but it is a book we need to be talking about. -- Jon M. Sweeney * America *Morrison expertly dissects the nuanced conversations around race and why they matter. -- Shalayne Pulia * InStyle *Morrison has much to say about events that are not only on the American mind, but the global one, as she ranges over nostalgic returns to slavery, the pervasive use of racial epithets by white writers, and the forced migration of an unprecedented number of displaced people…In The Origin of Others, Morrison revisits ways of reading American literature, but also expands her scope to ponder the meaning of race itself, and how it lodges itself in both individual and collective imaginaries. -- Yogita Goyal * Los Angeles Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisFrom the Wild West shows of the nineteenth century to the popular movie Westerns of the twentieth century, one view of an idealized and mythical West has been promulgated. Elyssa Ford suggests that we look beyond these cowboy clichés to complicate and enrich our picture of the American West.Trade ReviewIn Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion, Ford compellingly uses the rodeo to explore how lived experiences interact with mythic pasts to shape modern identities in diverse settings across North America. The theme of work and the roles of women in each rodeo are highlights in this appealing study." —Margaret Frisbee, associate professor of history, Metropolitan State University of Denver"Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion is an important addition to rodeo history, providing a welcome exploration of rodeo that falls outside the traditional white, masculine narrative. Well written and extensively researched, Elyssa Ford beautifully demonstrates the importance of the sport to diverse racial and outsider groups, deftly illustrating how the staging of rodeos 'for themselves and by themselves’ provides important personal and community connection to their Western past." —Renée M. Laegreid, author of Riding Pretty: Rodeo Royalty in the American West"This well-researched and elegantly written work delves into the overlooked diversity of the West, as both place and idea, and the complex relationship between rodeo and identity." —David Wolman, coauthor of Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World’s Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West

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Book SynopsisWhy have Jews been the object of the most enduring and universal hatred in history? Why is the Jewish state the most hated country in the world today? Drawing on extensive historical research, Prager and Telushkin reveal how Judaism''s distinctive conceptions of God, Law, and Peoplehood, have rendered the Jews, and now the Jewish state as well, to other people''s God, laws, or national allegiances. Anti-Semitism is not just another ethnic or racial prejudice, and it is not caused, as so many people falsely believe, by Jewish economic success or the need for scapegoats. Rather, anti-Semitism today, as in the past, is a reaction to Judaism and its distinctive values. Separate chapters document how anti-Semitism is a unique hatred (no other prejudice has been as universal, deep, or permanent), and how the Chosen People idea has spawned hatred. The role of non-Jewish Jews such as Marx and the M.I.T. professor, Noam Chomsky, in provoking anti-Jewish animosity as well is examined and explained. WHY THE JEWS? also provides an authoritative overview of the seven major forms of anti-Semitism the Jewish people have suffered: pagan, Christian, Muslim, Enlightenment, Leftist, Nazi and anti-Zionist anti-Semitism. Prager and Telushkin explain why anti-Semitism poses a mortal danger to moral non-Jews, and what kind of changes would have to happen to produce a world without hatred of the Jews.

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Book SynopsisA sweeping saga of the Spanish history and influence in North America over five centuries, from the acclaimed author of Empire's Crossroads

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Book SynopsisA powerful polemic on the state of black America that savages the idea of a post-racial society. America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of African Americans. But today the situation has grown even more dire. From the murders of black youth by the police, to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, to the disaster visited upon poor and middle-class black families by the Great Recession, it is clear that black America faces an emergency—at the very moment the election of the first black president has prompted many to believe we’ve solved America’s race problem. Democracy in Black is Eddie S. Glaude Jr.'s impassioned response. Part manifesto, part history, part memoir, it argues that we live in a country founded on a “value gap”—with white lives valued more than others—that still distorts our politics today. Whether discussing why all Americans have racial habits that r

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Book SynopsisMLK’s classic account of the first successful large-scale act of nonviolent resistance in America: the Montgomery bus boycott.A young Dr. King wrote Stride Toward Freedom just 2 years after the successful completion of the boycott. In his memoir about the event, he tells the stories that informed his radical political thinking before, during, and after the boycott—from first witnessing economic injustice as a teenager and watching his parents experience discrimination to his decision to begin working with the NAACP. Throughout, he demonstrates how activism and leadership can come from any experience at any age.Comprehensive and intimate, Stride Toward Freedom emphasizes the collective nature of the movement and includes King’s experiences learning from other activists working on the boycott, including Mrs. Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin. It traces the phenomenal journey of a community and shows how the 28-year-old Dr. King, with h

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Book SynopsisIn an age of Black Lives Matter, James Baldwin's essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and African Americans abroad are as powerful today as when they were first written. With documentaries like I Am Not Your Negro bringing renewed interest to Baldwin's life and work, Notes of a Native Son serves as a valuable introduction.Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America. With a keen eye, he examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many black expatr

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Book SynopsisExplores how sacred and secular expressions of Carnival throughout the African diaspora came together in a gumbo-sized melting pot to birth one of the most unique traditions celebrating African culture, Indigenous peoples, and Black Americans.

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Book SynopsisChronicles the improbable turnaround of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight years in state prison, returned to society to earn a PhD in creative writing and become a tenured professor. Horton's essays highlight the difficulties of trying to change one's life for the better, how the weight of felony convictions never dissipates.Table of Contents Part I. The Protagonist in Somebody Else's Melodrama Part II. November 2nd and a Mother's Love Dead Weight Perception Versus Reality Can Poetry Save a Life? Change, Changed .Or. Changing? And So, It's Complicated Poet-In-Residence: Motivation Part III. 1303 T Street: Collateral Damage Florida Turnpike Via 6th and Chesapeake Archetypes and Disaster A Day in the Life of Cell 23 Reevaluation

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Book SynopsisThe classic Christmas tale, with beautiful new illustrationsTrade Review"A merrier and more pungent celebration of the season for family reading aloud has not been written in our time." -- The Nation"Enchanting." -- Chicago Tribune"Surely this Christmas story ranks among the great experiences of the language." -- Harper’s Magazine"The language is enchanting and the poetry shines with an unearthly radiance." -- The New York Times

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Book SynopsisThis emerging field of study sought to address omissions from numerous disciplines and correct the myriad distortions, stereotypes, and myths about persons of African descent.In An Introduction to Black Studies, Eric R.Table of ContentsThe Nature, Scope, and Construction of Black Studies The Origin and Development of Black Studies as a Field of Analysis The History of African Americans in the United States African Americans in the United States from the Civil War to the Present African Americans and Education African Americans at Home and Abroad African American Religious Traditions African American Religious Traditions Black Feminism The African American Experience from a Sociological Perspective The African American Experience from a Sociological Perspective Black Psychology Black Psychology African Americans and Politics African Americans and Politics The Creative Expressions of African Americans The Creative Expressions of African Americans

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Book SynopsisOffers an introduction to the theology and history of the Black Catholic experience from those who know it best: Black Catholic scholars, teachers, activists, and ministers. The reader offers a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary approach that illuminates what it means to be Black and Catholic in the United States.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"What a wonderful project! This book magnificently centerstages how dance in Hollywood constitutes a cultural space in which Latina stars turn their performance into the ultimate expression of/for agency and empowerment. Let the rhythm take you over! Go girls!" -- Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez * Mount Holyoke College *"A well-researched, engaging book that expands our understanding of the shaping of the Hollywood Latina, and of Latinas in the national imaginary, through analysis of dance and embodiment in these dynamics." -- Mary Beltrán * author of Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV St *"In this fresh examination, Priscilla Peña Ovalle convincingly probes the racial dynamics and sexual politics that shape the paradoxical figure of the dancing Hollywood Latina." -- Rosa-Linda Fregoso * author of meXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderland *"A good resource for those interested in dance, film, and media studies and in gender, race and sexualities studies. Recommended." * Choice *"What a wonderful project! This book magnificently centerstages how dance in Hollywood constitutes a cultural space in which Latina stars turn their performance into the ultimate expression of/for agency and empowerment. Let the rhythm take you over! Go girls!" -- Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez * Mount Holyoke College *"A well-researched, engaging book that expands our understanding of the shaping of the Hollywood Latina, and of Latinas in the national imaginary, through analysis of dance and embodiment in these dynamics." -- Mary Beltrán * author of Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV St *"In this fresh examination, Priscilla Peña Ovalle convincingly probes the racial dynamics and sexual politics that shape the paradoxical figure of the dancing Hollywood Latina." -- Rosa-Linda Fregoso * author of meXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderland *"A good resource for those interested in dance, film, and media studies and in gender, race and sexualities studies. Recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1 Mobilizing the Latina myth 2 Dolores Del Rio dances across the imperial color line 3 Carmen Miranda shakes it for the nation 4 Rita Hayworth and the cosmetic borders of race 5 Rita Moreno, the critically acclaimed "all-round ethnic" 6 Jennifer Lopez, racial mobility, and the new urban/Latina commodity Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisWhat exactly is goodness? Where is it found in the literary imagination? Toni Morrison, one of American letters' greatest voices, pondered these perplexing questions in her celebrated Ingersoll Lecture, delivered at Harvard University in 2012 and published now for the first time.Trade Review"The publication of this extraordinary book could not have arrived at a more propitious moment. At a time when the country as a whole seems tormented by the corrosive presence of a new kind of evil that is trying to banish any memory, much less evidence, of its opposite, Goodness and the Literary Imagination reminds readers of evil’s opposite, but in forms that Morrison’s fiction renders again strange. Its publication should be treated as a major event; its contribution to American literary and religious studies is absolutely assured."

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Book SynopsisThe question “Do black landscapes matter?” cuts deep to the core of American history. In this vital collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape.

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Book SynopsisWhat would it mean to reorient the study of Haitian literature toward ethics rather than the themes of politics, engagement, disaster, or catastrophe? This volume engages with this question from a feminist perspective and, in the process, discovers a revelatory lens through which we can productively read the work of contemporary Haitian writers.

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Book SynopsisPractical and candid, this book offers actionable steps to help Black women leaders create meaningful success. The reflections and recommendations of the contributors forge a critical and transformative analysis of race, gender, and higher education leadership.Trade ReviewExemplifying a key maxim in Black women’s survival and achievement, ‘lifting as we climb,’ this collection demonstrates to sister-scholar administrators and their non-Black colleagues that collaboration, commiseration, and celebration are strategic tools, meaningful service, and sources of strength for Black women leaders in higher education today. These thought-provoking essays are essential reading for all who seek to create academic excellence that is both inclusive and humane." - Bonnie Thornton Dill, University of Maryland"While there are many books about academic administrators, this unique and inspirational volume is the very first to center the perspectives and experiences of Black women leaders in academia. Desperately needed and long overdue, it is full of sage advice and concrete strategies for success, encouraging self-reflection, wellness, and humility; and emphasizing sisterhood, peer mentorship, and collaboration. It should be required reading for all academic leaders!" - Yolanda Covington-Ward, professor and Chair, W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst"Indeed, this important collection gives voice to a truth known to some but ignored by too many: If you look closely, Black women leaders are either present or in the process of being made. A must read for upper administrators, mentors, allies, and leaders in the making." - Tara T. Green, PhD, Chair and CLASS Distinguished Professor of African American Studies, University of Houston"Dear Department Chair is a welcomed collection that builds on the tradition of ‘lifting as we climb.’ Kudos to the editors who took it upon themselves to offer a readable collection about leadership in the academy. Colleagues, both women and men, of all hues will learn something from this work. I wish that it had been available when I became chair!" - Joye Bowman, Senior Associate Dean, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Book SynopsisContinuously available in print since 1968, this novel has become embedded in progressive anti-racist culture with wide circulation of the book and hotly debated film and television adaptations. A classic in the Black literary tradition, the novel offers a strong comment on entrenched racial inequities in the United States in the late 1960s.

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Book SynopsisA look into the origins and practices of Rastafarianism. From the direct accounts of these early members, the author is able to reconstruct pivotal episodes in Rastafarian history to offer a look into a subgroup of Jamaican society whose beliefs took root in the social unrest of the 1930s.Trade ReviewVital for students of African American religions and Caribbean religions, but also of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, and historians. Highly recommended. Chevannes closely attends to the internal rifts and doctrinal disputes that caused denominational splits within the movement. As Rastafari moved into the larger world, some of its teachings, such as the strict observance of menstrual taboos, were attacked. Chevannes’s analysis of that growth and how it is changing present-day Rastafari is fascinating and illuminating. No fanbook for couch-bound ‘Waspafaris’ sitting around the plastic bong, this is a serious look at a living, growing religion. Rastafari is unquestionably the best guide to the historical and social connections between the Rasta movement and Jamaica’s peasant religious traditions. It is also the finest overview of the movement and worthwhile reading simply for the tales of the individuals who founded the movement. The most authoritative analysis of the Rastafarian movement to date. Chevannes combines an oral history account of the social origins of the movement in Jamaica with an ethnographic study of current processes among Rastafarians in the city of Kingston.

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Book SynopsisThis memoir celebrates the Sicilian life in America, while providing a sociological portrait of the immigrant experience in the US. The author reminisces about his experience as a fledgeling writer trying to escape from the restrictive Italian American culture in which he grew up.

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