History of the Americas Books

Book SynopsisMartin Luther King Jr. delivered his powerful “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963. Sixty years later, the speech endures as a defining moment in the civil rights movement and remains a beacon in the ongoing struggle for racial equality.This gripping book tells the story behind “The Speech” and sheds light on other key moments of the March on Washington, drawing on interviews with Clarence Jones, a close friend of and draft speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr.; Joan Baez, who sang at the march; as well as Angela Davis and other leading civil rights luminaries.Now with a new introduction to mark the 60th anniversary of that historic day in Washington, The Speech offers an essential analysis of King’s words at a moment of urgent reckoning and renewed calls for justice and liberation.Trade Review“Slim but powerful…. Younge is adept at both distilling the facts and asking blunt questions.” —Boston Globe“Gary Younge's meditative retrospection on [the speech's] significance reminds us of all the micro-moments of transformation behind the scenes—the thought and preparation, vision and revision—whose currency fed that magnificent lightning bolt in history.” —Patricia J. Williams

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Book SynopsisExplore the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show through stunning visuals and compelling stories!Renowned as the world's largest outdoor quilt show, the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon, attracts more than 10,000 visitors annually to celebrate quilting artistry and craftsmanship. Explore the vibrant quilting community that gathers in this picturesque town, guided by the vision of quilters Jean and Valori Wells. Relive your experience or imagine your visit with this engaging overview of the show's history, unique community ties, and stunning photos capturing memorable moments and quilt displays. Immerse yourself in hundreds of vibrant, full-color photos celebrating the rich history of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show The perfect souvenir for anyone who has attended this bucket-list event or dreams of going Explore the deep connections between the show's founder, the town, the quilters, and the beautiful art of quilting

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Book SynopsisSharing his extensive and meticulous research, Jacques Privat reveals that the Vikings were in Greenland, its neighbouring islands, and the eastern shores of Canada long before Columbus. He examines in depth how Greenland and its surroundings were inhabited for nearly 5 centuries by two Nordic colonies, Vestri-bygd and Eystri-bygd, which disappeared mysteriously: one in 1342 and the other in the 16th century. Drawing on the still-living indigenous oral tradition of the Far North, as well as surviving sculptural art such as carvings, he shows how, far from being constantly at odds with the native population, the Norsemen and the Inuit formed a harmonious community. He reveals how this friendly Inuit-Viking relationship encouraged the Scandinavian settlers to forsake Christianity and return to their pagan roots. Working with ancient European maps and other cartography, such as the 15th-century Martin Behaim globe, as well as explorers’ records of their voyages, the author examines the English, Irish, German, Danish, Flemish, and Portuguese presence in the Far North. He explores how Portugal dominated many seas and produced the first correct cartography of Greenland as an island. He also reveals how Portugal may have been behind the disappearance of the Vikings in Greenland by enslaving them for their European plantations. Dispelling once and for all the theories that the Inuit were responsible for the failure of the Scandinavian colonies of the Far North, the author reveals how, ultimately, the Church opted to cut all ties with the settlements--rather than publicise that a formerly Christian people had become pagan again. When the lands of the Far North were officially “discovered” after the Middle Ages, the Norse colonies had vanished, leaving behind only legends and mysterious ruins.Trade Review“Privat has carried out a remarkable piece of historical detective work, drawing on written sources in several different languages and sifting through archaeological and anthropological evidence. The result is a detailed picture of the settlers as well as the indigenous Inuit population and the ways in which they interacted. This book will go down as a landmark in the area of Scandinavian studies and Viking exploration.” * Christopher McIntosh, author of Occult Russia *“Jacques Privat revives the presence of the Scandinavians in Greenland during the Middle Ages. He sheds new light on contacts between Scandinavians and Inuit and on the premises of the great discoveries in Canada and North America.” * Jean-Marie Maillefer, professor emeritus of Scandinavian languages and civilizations at Paris-Sorbon *“The work of Jacques Privat forms a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the medieval history of the Scandinavians in Greenland. He introduces a new historical, geographical, and ethnographical vision. He offers new definitions of the relationship of this people with the church, the Inuit people, and the other nations of Europe. This book offers a new view of the disappearance of these Scandinavian settlers by freeing itself from the overly restrictive context of some earlier analyses.” * Pierre Robbe, Professor at the Muséum National de l’Histoire Naturelle *“Privat’s research is enticing because of the wide variety of fields it tackles, and the result is a truly original theory. Another new aspect is his examination of the evidence provided by Inuit art, whose value is obvious.” * Regis Boyer, French literary scholar, historian, and translator, specializing in Nordic literature a *“Having put together a vast and imposing collection of archival data, Privat was able to establish important parallels between the written source material, archaeological and ethnological evidence, and the contributions offered by ancient cartography.” * Jöelle Robert-Lamblin, Research Director of the French National Centre for Scientific Research *Table of ContentsForeword by Claude Lecouteux Introduction: The Arctic beyond Your Imagination 1 The Inuit in Greenland 2 The Vikings in Greenland 3 The Traditional Inuit Cultural Background as a Research Element 4 Inuit Art as a Research Element 5 Inuit Loans, Inussuk Culture, and the Vikings 6 Prolonged Contact or Cohabitation of Inuit and Vikings 7 The Testimony of the Nordic Source Texts 8 The Different Theories on Inuit and Viking Contact 9 The Church in Greenland 10 The Scandinavian Presence in the Far North 11 The European Presence in the Far North Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA historical document reintroducing Dallas as an early French socialist utopia, pieced from journal entries, letters, and sketches of French scholar Victor Considerant. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, where visions of egalitarian futures brewed, Victor Considerant set off with a legion of over two hundred European settlers to create their own socialist utopia. Their settlement was La Réunion, just thirty miles outside of Downtown Dallas, along the scenic Trinity river. Utopian visions clashed with the harsh agrarian realities of Texas, as the settlers - academics, musicians and intellectuals - floundered in the heat, and La Réunion wilted. Victor Considerant’s name can be found everywhere in Dallas, but the history of its provenance is not as ubiquitous. Collecting his journal entries, letters to friends back home, and sketches of his surroundings, The Road to Texas provides a glimpse into his ambitions and visions and a

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Book SynopsisSulphur Springs native Frank Webster Pearce was a soldier in Texas' own 36th Infantry Division and the 111th Engineer Combat Battalion. The Division's story has been told before, but never from start to finish by a combat engineer.

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Book SynopsisAn incisive analysis of contemporary crime film in Brazil, this book focuses on how movies in this genre represent masculinity and how their messages connect to twenty-first-century sociopolitical issues. Jeremy Lehnen argues that these films promote an agenda in support of the nation's recent swing toward authoritarianism that culminated in the 2018 election of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.Lehnen examines the integral role of masculinity in several archetypal crime films, most of which foreground urban violence, including Cidade de Deus, Quase Dois Irmãos, Tropa de Elite, O Homem do Ano, and O Doutrinador. Within these films, Lehnen finds representations that criminalize the poor, marginalized male; emasculate the civilian middle-class male intellectual, casting him as unable to respond to crime; and portray state security as the only power able to stem increasing crime rates.Drawing on insights from masculinity studies, Lehnen contends that Brazilian crime films are ideologically charged mediums that assert and normalize the presence of the neo-authoritarian male within society. This book demonstrates how gendered scripts can become widely accepted by audiences and contribute to very real power structures beyond the sphere of cinema.

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Book SynopsisThe untold story of the intersecting lives of the Reverend Jim Jones and Harvey Milk—marking the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre and Milk's assassination November 1978. The Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrates the murders and suicides of 918 people at a remote jungle outpost in South America. Days later, Harvey Milk, one of America's first openly gay elected officials—and one of Jim Jones's most vocal supporters—is assassinated in San Francisco's City Hall. This horrifying sequence of events shocked the world. Almost immediately, the lives and deaths of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk became shrouded in myth. The distortions and omissions have piled up since. Now, forty years later, this book corrects the record. The product of a decade of research, including extensive archival work and ­dozens of exclusive interviews, Cult City reveals just how confused our understanding has become. In life, Jim Jones enjoyed the support of prominent politicians and Hollywood stars even as he preached atheism and communism from the pulpit; in death, he transforms into a fringe figure, a 'fundamentalist Christian,' and a 'fascist.' In life, Harvey Milk outed friends, faked hate crimes, and falsely claimed that the U.S. Navy dishonorably discharged him over his homosexuality; in death, he is honored in an Oscar-winning movie, with a California state holiday, and with a U.S. Navy ship named for him. His assassin, a blue-collar Democrat who often voted with Milk in support of gay issues, is remembered as a right-winger and a homophobe. But the story extends far beyond Jones and Milk. Author Daniel J. Flynn vividly portrays the strange intersection of mainstream politics and murderous extremism in 1970s San Francisco—the hangover after the high of the Summer of Love. In recounting the fascinating, intersecting lives of Jim Jones and ­Harvey Milk, Cult City tells the story of a great city gone horribly wrong.

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Book SynopsisFrom renowned journalist Guy Rundle, Red, White and Blown is a piercing and provocative investigation into the United States' resolute failure to reckon with its own divisions and blind spots. Interrogating the political events of the 2022 midterm elections as well as their cultural and historical backdrop, this latest book from the Crikey Reads series asks us to frankly consider the US for what it may have ultimately become: a cult.From the Orange People in Oregon to the Moonies with their stadium weddings, the US is a country where cults have easily taken a foothold since the 1970s. But do those crazed origins stem much further back? Could the US perhaps itself be likened to a cult – one that has acquired immense power and imposed its vision on millions, but has now found its impossible fantasy collapsing from within, prompting it to do what cults always do: believe in magic and look for enemies? With this necessary and fresh perspective, Rundle allows us to slot the inexplicable nature of the US into place. Red, White and Blown gives the Australian reader a tour through the embattled republic and poses a question: why are we slavishly attaching ourselves to a potential cult, when we have so far successfully avoided the very things that have made the US so? From Crikey and Hardie Grant Books, The Crikey Read is a series that brings an unflinching and truly independent eye to the issues of the day in Australia and the world.

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Book SynopsisArt has always played a significant role in the history of the labour movement. Songs, stories, poems, pamphlets, and comics, have inspired workers to take action against greedy bosses and helped shape ideas of a more equal world. They also help fan the flames of discontent. Radical social change doesn''t come without radical art. It would be impossible to think about labour unrest without its iconic songs like "Solidarity Forever" or its cartoons like Ernest Riebe''s creation, Mr. Block.In this vein, The Graphic History Collective has created an illustrated chronicle of the strike—the organized withdrawal of labour power—in Canada. For centuries, workers in Canada—Indigenous and non-Indigenous, union and non-union, men and women—have used the strike as a powerful tool, not just for better wages, but also for growing working-class power. This lively comic book will inspire new generations to learn more about labour and working-class history and the power of solidarity.

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2023 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book PrizeOn his fifteenth birthday, in the summer of 1880, future science-fiction writer M.P. Shiel sailed with his father and the local bishop from their home in the Caribbean out to the nearby island of Redonda—where, with pomp and circumstance, he was declared the island’s king. A few years later, when Shiel set sail for a new life in London, his father gave him some advice: Try not to be strange. It was almost as if the elder Shiel knew what was coming.Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda tells, for the first time, the complete history of Redonda’s transformation from an uninhabited, guano-encrusted island into a fantastical and international kingdom of writers. With a cast of characters including forgotten sci-fi novelists, alcoholic poets, vegetarian publishers, Nobel Prize frontrunners, and the bartenders who kept them all lubricated while angling for the throne themselves, Michael Hingston details the friendships, feuds, and fantasies that fueled the creation of one of the oddest and most enduring micronations ever dreamt into being. Part literary history, part travelogue, part quest narrative, this cautionary tale about what happens when bibliomania escapes the shelves and stacks is as charming as it is peculiar—and blurs the line between reality and fantasy so thoroughly that it may never be entirely restored.Trade ReviewPraise for Try Not to Be Strange"This combination literary history, travelogue and cautionary tale tells the history of the formerly uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda and its development into a 'micronation' ruled by writers, beginning with the science fiction author M.P. Shiel in 1880."—New York Times"A wonderfully entertaining book, an account of how its Canadian author grew fascinated with a literary jape, a kind of role-playing game or shared-world fantasy involving some of the most eccentric and some of the most famous writers of modern times."—Washington Post“Highly recommend … The fact that it involved M.P. Shiel is just the beginning of the strangeness. Great read!”—Patton Oswalt"Michael Hingston's captivating history underscores the affinity between [Javier] Marias's preoccupations as an artist and the peculiar interplay of the real and fictional that defines the kingdom"—TLS"Hingston traces the story of one of the strangest kingdoms in the world ... a fascinating account."—Winnipeg Free Press"That spirit, the tongue-in-cheek mock seriousness of the whole endeavour, and the playfulness of its participants, is a keen factor in Try Not to Be Strange. The book is a delightful reading experience, utterly unexpected and unlike anything you are likely to read this year."—Toronto Star"Try Not to Be Strange takes on the magnificent feat of writing the history of a persistent and yet barely extant literary kingdom ... The charm of the book, really, is the earnestness with which Hingston approaches the story"—Alberta Views"The island [of Redonda] is the subject of the Canadian writer Michael Hingston’s often excellent Try Not to Be Strange ... A Redondan gong for Hingston seems in order: perhaps he could be made Duke of Rather Interesting Non-fiction."—The Spectator"The authoritative history of the Kingdom of Redonda."—The BC Review"Try Not to be Strange is an enjoyable account of a bizarre not-quite-real place, with a rich cast of characters—not least Hingston himself, who amusingly tracks his own obsessiveness."—Complete Review"Combining travelogue, memoir, and literary history, Hingston has crafted a fascinating tale full of eccentric characters. Editions of all sizes play a role in the drama, and bibliophiles will also relish the author’s auction experience."—Fine Books and Collections Magazine"Try Not to Be Strange is a passionate and skillfully written exploration of an extraordinary world and those who search for such places to get to the heart of what stories really mean. Hingston’s thirst for deeper knowledge is palpable, and it illuminates what the kingdom might really stand for."—Quill & Quire"Full of colorful personalities, exotic locales, and unexpected twists, this is a jaunty historical footnote."—Publishers WeeklyPraise for Michael Hingston"[Hingston] does it all with a delicious sense of humour."—Quill & Quire (starred review)"Wise and love-driven ... full of observations, analysis, and well-researched history."—Edmonton Journal “A fresh take on the campus novel, Michael Hingston’s debut is a droll, incisive dissection of the terrible, terribly exciting years known as post-adolescence.”—Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers "This book captures the joy and excitement at first discovering Calvin and Hobbes, and the wistful sadness that it is no more."—Patton Oswalt "The Dilettantes is a whip-smart and very funny literary portrait of the post-ironic generation. Don't miss this."—Zoe Whittall, author of The Best Kind of People "His insights are rich and concise, but he never commandeers the work, as is the habit with writing about pop culture. As a critic, Hingston uses light touches of salt to bring out the flavours already in the work... A fine companion to a comic about a kid without much interest in companionship."—Bookshelf NewsTable of ContentsChapter 1: Perpetuating the Fraud Chapter 2: Try Not to Be Strange Chapter 3: Raising the Standard Chapter 4: Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go Chapter 5: Succession Crisis Chapter 6: The Territory and the Map Chapter 7: A Mere Rock

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Book SynopsisCountry of Poxes is the story of land theft in North America through three diseases: syphilis, smallpox and tuberculosis. These infectious diseases reveal that medical care, widely considered a magnanimous cornerstone of the Canadian state, developed in lockstep with colonial control over Indigenous land and life.Pathogens are storytellers of their time. The 500-year-old debate over the origins of syphilis reflects colonial judgments of morality and sexuality that became formally entwined in medicine. Smallpox is notoriously linked with the project of land theft, as colonizers destroyed Indigenous land, economies and life in the name of disease eradication. And tuberculosis, considered the "Indian disease," aroused intense fear of contagion that launched separate systems of care for Indigenous Peoples in a de facto medical apartheid, while white settlers retreated to sanatoria in the Laurentians and Georgian Bay to be cured. In this immersive and deeply reflective book, physician and activist Dr. Baijayanta Mukhopadhyay provides riveting insights into the biological and social relationships of disease and empire. Country of Poxes considers a future of health in Canada that heeds redress and healing for Nations brutalized by the Canadian state.

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Book SynopsisThe remarkable story of the money sent by the Choctaw to the Irish in 1847 is one that is often told and remembered by people in both nations. This gift was sent to the Irish from the Choctaw at the height of the Great Irish Famine, just sixteen years after the Choctaw began their march on the Trail of Tears toward the areas west of the Mississippi River. Famine Pots honours that extraordinary gift and provides further context about and consideration of this powerful symbol of cross-cultural synergy through a collection of essays and poems that speak volumes of the empathy and connectivity between the two communities. As well as signalling patterns of movement and exchange, this study of the gift exchange invites reflection on processes of cultural formation within Choctaw and Irish society alike, and sheds light on long-time concerns surrounding spiritual and social identities. This volume aims to facilitate a fuller understanding of the historical complexities that surrounded migration and movement in the colonial world, which in turn will help lead to a more constructive consideration of the ways in which Irish and Native American Studies might be drawn together today.

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Book Synopsis_____________________________‘If you’ve ever felt like you were out of your element, in over your head or working without a net, you will love this book. Funny, fast-paced, and so emotionally true it hurts.’ Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black_____________________________Guidelines for aspiring stenographers:· Neutral tones set the tone· Be discreet and neat – like a librarian or well-paid prostitute· Breathe quietly or not at all· Above all else, keep the secrets to yourself…In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein was just scraping by in Washington DC when an unusual job interview landed her in the Oval Office as one of Barack Obama's stenographers. She joined the elite team who accompanied the President wherever he went, recorder and mic in hand. On whirlwind trips across time zones, Beck forged friendships with a tight group of fellow travellers - young men and women who, like her, left their real lives behind to hop aboard Air Force One in service of the President. But as she learned the ropes of protocol, Beck became romantically entangled with a colleague, and suddenly, the political became all too personal. Set against the backdrop of a White House full of glamour, drama and intrigue, this is the story of a young woman making unlikely friendships, getting her heart broken, learning what truly matters and discovering her voice in the process._____________________________Praise for From the Corner of the Oval Office'Who knew the West Wing could be so sexy? Beck’s unparalleled access is obvious on every page, along with her knife-sharp humour... Lots of books claim to give real insider glimpses, but this one actually delivers.'Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada'This memoir is good and gossipy, will make you wish that you got to hang out with Barack and Michelle on a daily basis and is the missing link between The West Wing and Bridget Jones’s Diary.' Red'Set against the backdrop of a White House full of glamour, drama and intrigue, this is the story of a young woman making unlikely friendships, getting her heart broken, learning what truly matters and discovering her voice in the process.' GLAMOUR's Best Books of 2018Trade ReviewWho knew the West Wing could be so sexy? Beck’s unparalleled access is obvious on every page, along with her knife-sharp humour... Lots of books claim to give real insider glimpses, but this one actually delivers. * Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada *If you’ve ever felt like you were out of your element, in over your head, or working without a net, you will love this book. Beck Dorey-Stein offers an endlessly fascinating perspective on power and history in the making. This memoir is funny, fast-paced, and so emotionally true that it hurts. * Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black *Sex, lies and the White House... Dorey-Stein details her extraordinary experiences at the side of the former leader of the free world. Incredible. * Telegraph *Addictively readable... From the Corner of the Oval shatters the genre of the Washington memoir. Dorey-Stein writes with a fine eye for detail and conveys it with freshness, candor and humor. She takes her readers with her on a vertiginous tour of the world [...] and her sparkling, crackling prose had me cheering for her through each adventure. She never loses her starry-eyed optimism, her pinch-me wonderment, her “Working Girl” pluck. Which makes From the Corner of the Oval somehow, against the odds, a story of hope -- Paul Begala * New York Times *A sassy, genuinely hilarious and poignant tale... This marvellously addictive read is worth the cover price for its insider account of Obama's presidency alone. -- Caroline Sanderson * Bookseller *Love and heartbreak, ambition and jealousy, whirlwind travel to exotic locales and more page-turning drama than your favourite addictive novel. Consider yourself warned: this is not your father’s White House memoir. * Camille Perri, author of The Assistants *An entertaining behind-the-scenes memoir of a young Obama White House staffer. -- Lorraine Candy * Sunday Times Style Magazine *As someone who loves The West Wing, From the Corner of the Oval Office spoke to my geeky heart and gives great, sometimes surprising, insights into what it’s like to work for one of the most powerful person on the planet. -- Sarah Shaffi * Stylist *Bright pink and zinging with energy and sparkle...this book beautifully recaptures those vanished days of Obama's gentle wisdom. What makes it stand out among fly-on-the-wall accounts of the White House is Beck's honesty about the roller-coaster love affair she embarks on with a senior staffer, a grade-one, Jilly-Cooper-novel rotter. * Daily Mail *Set against the backdrop of a White House full of glamour, drama and intrigue, this is the story of a young woman making unlikely friendships, getting her heart broken, learning what truly matters and discovering her voice in the process. * Glamour's best books to read in 2018 *This memoir is good and gossipy, will make you wish that you got to hang out with Barack and Michelle on a daily basis and is the missing link between The West Wing and Bridget Jones’s Diary. * Red *An apolitical, fundamentally human story, and one with which many women will identify. * Refinery29 *An entertaining, relatable and refreshingly frank guide to life in the orbit of the President... This lively, entertaining story offers a joyful nostalgia trip back to more hopeful times. * Express *An extraordinary behind-the-scenes glimpse into Obama's White House, from a young woman who stumbles her way almost by chance into a job as a stenographer amongst the inner circle of the West Wing. Dorey-Stein’s memoir navigates intimate liaisons and world history, from hotel gyms to Air Force One. * Vogue *This memoir by a former Oval Office stenographer is equal parts racy, pacy and funny. From barely keeping her head above financial waters in Washington DC to hopping on board Air Force One with Barack Obama and his elite team, Dorey-Stein doesn’t so much dish the dirt as mop up the mess left at her feet by the drama of politics and the heartbreak of romance. * Irish Independent *An incredible story * GQ *Delightful... a bit Legally Blonde. What's most surprising about this isn't the hot pink cover, it's that we haven't had such a book before. Washington DC is famously a city of eager twentysomethings who work and date within the same pool. Where has the workplace relationship comedy been this whole time? * Mail on Sunday *Hilarious . . . [Beck] Dorey-Stein writes with honesty and panache. * Publishers Weekly *If you’re like me and you pour yourself a cocktail and look at pictures of Obama and cry, you will adore From the Corner of the Oval. If you’re a normal person who ever wanted to be a fly on the wall in a singularly historic place in time, you will find this book fascinating. Beck Dorey-Stein’s warmth, humor, and keen view made me wistful, happy, hopeful, and only sad when the book ended. * Julie Klam, author of The Stars in Our Eyes *An insider account of Obama's presidency in this fascinating memoir by former White House staffer Beck Dorey-Stein * Good Housekeeping *Intriguing and funny * Prima *A White House story with shades of Bridget Jones... Dorey-Stein is perceptive and has made an unusually interesting contribution to the groaning shelves of presidential history. * Evening Standard *For five years Beck Dorey-Stein was a stenographer in the White House, giving her a front-row seat as US political history was made. * Observer *[This] breezy page turner is essentially Bridget Jones goes to the White House. * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisFrom one of America’s greatest non-fiction writers, an epic saga of the rise and fall of American power, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, told through the life of one man.**WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2019****FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2020**Richard Holbrooke was one of the most legendary and complicated figures in recent American history. Brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites, he was both admired and detested. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage. He was the force behind the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars, America's greatest diplomatic achievement in the post-Cold War era. His power lay in an utter belief in himself and his idea of a muscular, generous foreign policy. But his sharp elbows and tireless self-promotion ensured that he never rose to the highest levels in government that he so desperately coveted. Holbrooke’s story is the story of the rise and fall of America during its era of supremacy: its strength, drive, and sense of possibility, as well as its penchant for overreach and heedless self-confidence. Drawing on Holbrooke’s diaries and papers, George Packer’s narrative is both intimate and epic in its revelatory portrait of this extraordinary and deeply flawed man, and the elite spheres of society and government he inhabited.A GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR Trade ReviewPortrays Holbrooke in all of his endearing and exasperating self-willed glory... Both a sweeping diplomatic history and a Shakespearean tragicomedy… Our Man not only revitalizes but in some ways reinvents the art of journalistic biography… If you could read only one book to comprehend America’s foreign policy and its quixotic forays into quicksands over the past 50 years, this would be it. -- Walter Isaacson * New York Times *Rarely in recent years has a work of non-fiction so clearly, ruthlessly, compassionately shown such a prominent person’s life from the inside out. It is a masterwork about diplomacy, government and the world. -- Anand Giridharadas * Guardian, *Books of the Year* *Holbrooke in all his capacious brilliance and arrogance has been captured by George Packer… [Our Man] is, I strongly feel, a classic. * Washington Post *Outstanding... Our Man is one of the most fascinating dissections of US power – its strengths and serious weaknesses – I’ve read. * Guardian *Packer is one of the most talented non-fiction writers in the US. In his hands, a biography of a diplomat who never quite made it to the top becomes a history of modern America’s entanglement with the world. -- Gideon Rachman * Financial Times, *Books of the Year* *

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Book SynopsisThe death of JFK, Jr., - accident or assassination? Exploding the Truth: The JFK, Jr. Assassination presents evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate the only surviving son of President John F. Kennedy and considers the motives that many powerful forces had, to make sure he never set foot in the White House. Divided into two parts, Part One examines the potential motives the Bush family, the C.I.A., and perhaps even Israeli intelligence, had to eliminate JFK, Jr. Part Two systematically dismantles the official version of events, that JFK, Jr., crashed his plane due to pilot error, and examines both the evidence of a government cover-up at the crime scene, and the extensive eyewitness reports of an explosion that brought the aircraft down.

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Book Synopsis** Chosen by Oprah Daily as one of the Best Books to Pick Up in May 2021 **'Fast-paced but nuanced ... impeccably researched ... a much-needed book' The Guardian''[S]o dystopian and apocalyptic that you can hardly believe what you are reading. ... But the story [it] tells is an essential one, with just a glimmer of hope in it. Because of the work of Ellsworth and many others, America is finally staring this appalling chapter of its history in the face. It's not a pretty sight.' Sunday TimesA gripping exploration of the worst single incident of racial violence in American history, timed to coincide with its 100th anniversary.On 31 May 1921, in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mob of white men and women reduced a prosperous African American community, known as Black Wall Street, to rubble, leaving countless dead and unaccounted for, and thousands of homes and businesses destroyed.But along with the bodies, they buried the secrets of the crime. Scott Ellsworth, a native of Tulsa, became determined to unearth the secrets of his home town. Now, nearly 40 years after his first major historical account of the massacre, Ellsworth returns to the city in search of answers. Along with a prominent African American forensic archaeologist whose family survived the riots, Ellsworth has been tasked with locating and exhuming the mass graves and identifying the victims for the first time. But the investigation is not simply to find graves or bodies - it is a reckoning with one of the darkest chapters of American history.'[A] riveting, painful-to-read account of a mass crime that, to our everlasting shame ... has avoided justice. Ellsworth's book presents us with a clear history of the Tulsa massacre and with that rendering, a chance for atonement ... Readers of this book will fervently hope we take that opportunity.' Washington PostTrade ReviewEllsworth recounts how survivors, researchers, and historians following the 1986 publication of his seminal book on the massacre served as essential catalysts in breaking long held silences around an American tragedy with the aim of modeling what racial healing could look like. * Oprah Daily, Best Books to Pick Up in May 2021 *Fast-paced but nuanced ... impeccably researched ... a much-needed book. * Guardian *[S]o dystopian and apocalyptic that you can hardly believe what you are reading. ... But the story [it] tells is an essential one, with just a glimmer of hope in it. Because of the work of Ellsworth and many others, America is finally staring this appalling chapter of its history in the face. It's not a pretty sight. * Sunday Times *[A] riveting, painful-to-read account of a mass crime that, to our everlasting shame ... has avoided justice. Ellsworth's book presents us with a clear history of the Tulsa massacre and with that rendering, a chance for atonement ... Readers of this book will fervently hope we take that opportunity. * Washington Post *Absolutely riveting ... With a stunning combination of objectivity and empathy, it demonstrates how even in polarized times we can come together in pursuit of truth. ... Anyone interested in America's future should read it as a template for the reconciliation that lies ahead. -- Tim Blake NelsonThe persistence, empathy and painstaking research of The Ground Breaking move us much closer to the justice that the victims of Greenwood, and the people of America, deserve. Heartbreaking and inspiring. -- Beta O'RourkeThe Ground Breaking will rattle you, and it should. It will move you toward a harder wisdom, and it must. -- Tim Tyson'I believe that the path of true racial reconciliation runs through millions of American Whites, whose hearts would be changed if they only knew our history. To those people I would simply say this: Please read this book. -- Tim MadiganImmensely readable and thoroughly engaging, The Ground Breaking is a remarkable blend of history and memoir that could not be more timely and informative. -- Gilbert KingThis book should be essential reading for anyone interested in an honest grappling with our racial past and with the task of moving forward. -- Kenneth W. MackIn a time marked by raw nativism, gangster capitalism and white supremacy off its leash, well-funded mobs winked at from above committed racially-driven mass terror against Black citizens and American democracy. Those who find themselves mystified when America's white power movement storms the U.S. Capitol in 2021 need to take a good look back at Tulsa, Oklahoma a century ago. -- Rev. Dr. William J. Barber IIA brilliant update that recounts the events with the swiftness of an especially grim crime thriller. ... An essential historical record surrounding heinous events that have yet to be answered with racial justice. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *[A] riveting investigation into the origins and aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre ... Interviews with survivors and reflections on the debate over reparations and the social, economic, and racial divisions of modern-day Tulsa add depth to Ellsworth's portrait of a community attempting to heal from an unimaginable injustice. This eloquent, deeply moving history isn't to be missed. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *A thoughtful exploration of the importance of collective memory. It is particularly poignant as 2021 marks the centennial of the massacre. A must-read for all who are interested in how history continues to impact the present. * Library Journal (starred review) *"The Ground Breaking" is ... candid and self-aware, undergirded by Ellsworth's earnest efforts to get at this history, and to get it right. ... Part of what makes this book so riveting is Ellsworth's skillful narration, his impeccable sense for when to reveal a piece of information and when to hold something back. ... "The Ground Breaking" makes for sobering reading; but it also sheds light, and some of it is hopeful. -- Jennifer Szalai * New York Times *If one of the public historian's greatest tasks is to make people care, Ellsworth succeeds spectacularly. His character-driven narrative is clear and compelling. * Foreign Policy *[B]eautifully written, instantly engrossing, and deeply empathetic ... an essential read. * Irish Examiner *

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Book SynopsisThe Fearless Benjamin Lay chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular and astonishing man-a Quaker dwarf who became one of the first ever to demand the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. He performed public guerrilla theatre to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity. He wrote a fiery, controversial book against bondage that Benjamin Franklin published in 1738. He lived in a cave, made his own clothes, refused to consume anything produced by slave labour, championed animal rights, and embraced vegetarianism. He acted on his ideals to create a new, practical, revolutionary way of life.Trade ReviewBenjamin Lay was a Quaker, a philosopher, a sailor, a commoner and a revolutionary abolitionist. Crossing the seas from Colchester to Philadelphia and beyond he spoke truth to power and, as a little person, waged a politics of the body in his everyday life. His antinomian radicalism has been wonderfully excavated by Marcus Rediker in this eloquent testament. -- Catherine Hall, author of Legacies of British Slave-Ownership and Civilising SubjectsAdmirers of Marcus Rediker’s splendid The Slave Ship will be delighted by this historian’s new book. Sailor, pioneer of guerrilla theater, and a man who would stop at nothing to make his fellow human beings share his passionate outrage against slavery, Benjamin Lay has long needed a modern biographer worthy of him, and now he has one. -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

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Book SynopsisIf the American foreign policy establishment is a grand citadel, Henry Kissinger is the specter haunting its dusty hallways. For half a century, he was an omnipresent figure in war rooms and at press briefings, dutifully shepherding the American empire through successive attempts at expansion. For multiple generations of antiwar activists, Kissinger personified the depravity of the US war machine. The Good Die Young assesses a career too frequently applauded in essays from respected scholars and journalists such as Gerald Horne, Carolyn Eisenberg, and Chip Gibbons, with an introduction from Bancroft Prize-winner Greg Grandin.The world Kissinger wrought is one we live in today, where ideal investment conditions are generated from the barrel of a gun. Today, global capitalism and United States hegemony are underwritten by the most powerful military ever devised. Any political vision worth fighting for must promise an end to the cycle of never-ending wars afflicting the world in the twenty-first century. Breaking that cycle means placing the twin evils of capitalism and imperialism in our crosshairs.The book follows Kissinger's fiery trajectory across the globe, covering Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. More than any other public figure, the life and career of this man illustrate the links between capitalism, empire, and the feedback loop of endless conflict that plagues us today.Trade ReviewAmong all this catharsis, no one could surpass the 'unbeatable levels of hater' reached by the lefty publishers Jacobin magazine and Verso Books...[The Good Die Young] features essays by celebrated scholars like Gerald Horne and Carolyn Eisenberg on the wide-spanning breadth of Kissinger's noxious foreign-policy legacy and the areas of the world still hurting thanks to his time in power. -- Nitish Pahwa * Slate *The collection strikes a blackly comic but erudite tone, opening with an introduction by Yale professor Greg Grandin that explores how Kissinger's intellectual and professional trajectory unfolded across presidential administrations and in parallel with American power at large. -- Sophia Nguyen * The Washington Post *Table of ContentsPreface - René Rojas, Bhaskar Sunkara, and Jonah WaltersIntroduction: To Die at the Right Time - Greg GrandinAmericas1. Kissinger and the South American Revolutions - Aldo Marchesi2. Kissinger in Chile - René Rojas3. Kissinger in Argentina - Leandro Morgenfeld4. Kissinger in Central America - Hilary GoodfriendEurope5. Kissinger in Cyprus - Leandros FischerMiddle East and Africa6. Kissinger in Angola - Piero Gleijeses7. Kissinger in South Africa - Gerald Horne8. Kissinger in Western Sahara - Aubrey Bloomfield9. Kissinger in the Gulf - Chip GibbonsAsia10. Kissinger in East Pakistan/Bangladesh - Mukhtar Mirjan11. Kissinger in East Timor - Alex de Jong12. Kissinger in Cambodia - Brett S. Morris13. Kissinger in Vietnam and China - An Interview with Carolyn Eisenberg14. From the War Room to Wall Street - Christy ThorntonAcknowledgmentsAbout the ContributorsNotes

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Book SynopsisThe Caribbean Irish explores the little known fact that the Irish were amongst the earliest settlers in the Caribbean. They became colonisers, planters and merchants living in the British West Indies between 1620 and 1800 but the majority of them arrived as indentured servants. This book explores their lives and poses the question, were they really slaves? As African slaves started arriving en masse and taking over servants’ tasks, the role of the Irish gradually diminished. But the legacy of the Caribbean Irish still lives on.

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Book SynopsisIn this rich and surprising book, Frances F. Berdan casts fresh light on the enigmatic ancient Aztecs. She casts her net wide, covering topics as diverse as ethnicity, empire-building, palace life, etiquette, origin myths and human sacrifice. While often described as ‘stone age’, the Aztecs’ achievements were remarkable. They constructed lofty temples and produced fine arts in precious stones, gold and shimmering feathers. They crafted beautiful poetry and studied the sciences. They had schools and libraries, entrepreneurs and money, and a bewildering array of deities and dramatic ceremonies. Based on the latest research and lavishly illustrated, this book reveals the Aztecs to be a civilization of sophistication and finesse.Trade Review"In Mexico, the Aztecs are far from lost, argues archaeologist and anthropologist Berdan. . . . Most of this knowledgeable and accessible introduction to the Aztecs—the fruit of a lifetime’s study—is concerned with matters such as food and drink, textiles and dress, pottery and art objects, dwellings and architecture, the social divisions of society, trade and the economy, religion and mythology, and, inevitably, the notorious Aztec penchant for human sacrifice. This latter custom was integral to Aztec myths and ceremonies. 'Humans were burdened with a debt to their gods for their very existence,' and they believed they must repay it with their blood, and sometimes with their lives." * Science *“The Aztecs is wonderfully informative and insightful, totally up to date, and draws together a large body of evidence about Aztec society and culture, from codices to ethnohistory and archaeology. Written by a leading Aztec scholar who has spent decades producing pivotal and groundbreaking research, this book is a delight—accessible yet intellectually challenging, and full of stimulating information and captivating detail.” -- Elizabeth Baquedano, Senior Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London

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Book SynopsisThis book reveals how the ancient Maya - and their buildings, ideas, objects and identities - have been perceived, portrayed and exploited over 500 years in the Americas, Europe and beyond. Engaging in interdisciplinary analysis, the book summarizes ancient Maya art and history from the Preclassic period to the Spanish invasion, as well as the history of engagement with the ancient Maya, from Spanish invaders in the sixteenth century, to later explorers and archaeologists, taking in scientific literature, visual arts, architecture, world's fairs and Indigenous activism. It also looks at the decipherment of Maya inscriptions, Maya museum exhibitions and artists' responses, and contemporary Maya people's engagements with their ancestral past. Featuring the latest research, this book will interest scholars as well as general readers who wish to know more about this ancient, fascinating culture.

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Book SynopsisDuring the 1890s, British women for the first time began to leave their family homes to seek work, accommodation, and financial and sexual freedom. Decadent Women is an account of some of these women who wrote for the innovative art and literary journal The Yellow Book. For the first time, based on original research, Jad Adams describes the lives and work of these vibrant and passionate women, from well-connected and fashionable aristocrats to the desperately poor. He narrates the challenges they faced in a literary marketplace, and within a society that overwhelmingly favoured men, showing how they were pioneers of a new style, living lives of lurid adventure and romance, as well as experiencing poverty, squalor, disease and unwanted pregnancy.Trade Review'Part literary history, part social history, and entirely delightful, Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives is a detailed, diverting, and accessible study of all the women who contributed to the groundbreaking fin-de-siecle magazine, showing how it made their careers even as they made it the bible of British decadence.' - David Weir, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, The Cooper Union, New York; 'An elegant and compelling study that will be essential reading for all those interested in The Yellow Book and the New Woman.' - Kate Hext, Associate Professor of Decadent Literature and the Arts, University of Exeter; 'Through superb storytelling . . . this is a book that reflects impressive scholarship and research, but that wears its scholarship lightly. It draws upon a wide range of biographical materials, both published and unpublished, including archives and letters, while also featuring, along the way, some illuminating close readings of texts by the featured women authors . . . I couldn't put it down!' - Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities, University of Delaware; 'This delightful and engaging book unfolds a much-needed account of the women connected to the Yellow Book and more widely the English fin de siecle. The author brings vividly to life this radical and experimental world, from which women, as so often, have been effaced, the importance of their contribution at best not recognized. Decadent Women provides a valuable corrective and an important addition to our picture of this 'decadent' world.' - Elizabeth Wilson, author of Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts and Unfolding the PastTable of ContentsPart One: Fin de Siecle 1 The Launch 2 Gabriela's Deceptions 3 The Forerunner 4 Yellow Book Types 5 'Hast thou slain the Yallerbock?' 6 Office Wars 7 A Paris Mystery 8 Mabel's Urge for Fame 9 Netta Syrett and the Flat of Girls 10 Menie Muriel Dowie's Celebrity 11 Evelyn Sharp and the Last Volume Part Two: Commence de Siecle 12 Family Battles 13 Charlotte Mew: Love Rebuffed 14 Ella D'Arcy: 'Not dead yet' 15 Netta Syrett's Drama Curtailed 16 Mabel's War 17 Unresting Dragonfly 18 George Egerton: 'This life is dry rot' 19 Suffragette Warrior 20 The Ship with Black Sails Appendix: List of All Women Writers for the Yellow Book References Select Bibliography Acknowledgements Photo Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisEvery Wrong Direction recreates and dissects the bitter education of Dan Burt, an American emigré who never found a home in America. It begins in the row homes of Jewish immigrants and working-class Italians on the mean streets of 1950s South Philadelphia. Every Wrong Direction follows the author from the rough, working-class childhood that groomed him to be a butcher or charter boat captain, through America, Britain, and Saudi Arabia as student, lawyer, spy, culture warrior, and expatriate, ending with a photo of his college rooms at St John's College, Cambridge. Between this beginning and end, through a Philadelphia commuter college, to Cambridge, then Yale Law School, across the working to upper classes, three countries, and seven cities over forty three years, it maps his pursuit of, realisation, disillusionment with, and abandonment of America and the American Dream.Trade Review'Dan Burt is a fine poet, and this memoir has all the sensitivity and vigilance you might expect from a writer with such a background. But his prose also has a robustness and documentary power that continually startles and engages.' - Sir Andrew Motion

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Book SynopsisThe book is a complete history of T-6/SNJ/HARVARD (Texans) Closed Course Pylon racing from Cleveland 1946 to Reno 2019 with details of all races, a who’s who of who raced, when, what aircraft they flew, who finished, who crashed and photos of every aircraft that carried a race number from #0 to #736. A narrative of each venue that held Texan racing is provide by location and dates races were held with race results and participants.

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Book SynopsisHeavy Radicals: The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists is a history of the Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party - the largest Maoist organization to arise in the US - from its origins in the explosive year of 1968, its expansion into a national organization in the early '70s, its extension into major industry throughout the early part of that decade, and the devastating schism in the aftermath of the death of Mao Tse-tung to its ultimate decline as the 1970s turned into the 1980s. From its beginnings the grouping was the focus of J. Edgar Hoover and other top FBI officials for an unrelenting array of operations: Informant penetration, setting organizations against each other, setting up phony communist collectives for infiltration and disruption, planting of phone taps and microphones in apartments, break-ins to steal membership lists, the use of FBI ‘friendly journalists’ such as Victor Riesel and Ed Montgomery to undermine the group, and much more. It is the story of a sizable section of the radicalized youth whose radicalism did not disappear at the end of the '60s, and of the FBI’s largest - and, up to now, untold - campaign against it.

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Book SynopsisThis short book calls to account the government misrulers and corporate criminals who made suffering from the global coronavirus pandemic more acute. Modeled on a famous 1940 bestseller--a pamphlet exposing appeasers of Nazi Germany--Guilty Men shows how the crisis has been stoked by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful men. The rogues gallery begins with Donald Trump, who deliberately downplayed the crisis despite knowing its dangers, as well as his international political allies, above all Boris Johnson. Billionaire politicians like Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler moved stocks at the same time they were telling Americans all was well . Political charlatans like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos undermined public safety in order to advance their agenda, Trump-controlled agencies, led by the ever-crooked Federal Reserve, bailed out Wall Street while failing to provide basic relief for workers. Libertarian "think tanks" like the Ayn Rand Institute decried public expenditures but were first in line to get bailout checks. Pharmaceutical companies gamed the vaccine race, and the most rapacious global corporations like Facebook, Visa, and Pfizer have found the pandemic to be very profitable indeed, vastly enriching the already grotesquely bloated fortunes of trillionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Charles Koch. Guilty Men closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, initiated by newly elected Franklin Roosevelt, that took aim at what FDR called "speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering" that stoked the Depression. The commission led to some of the most far-reaching reforms in US history, as well as sensational hearings that led to the fall of the leading bankers and financiers of that era.Trade ReviewOn The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: Henry Wallace is a political figure-one of the giants of the mid-twentieth century-who has kind of been pushed out of the national political discussion. Nichols [tells us] that one of the reasons Wallace was not renominated in 1944 was because of his opposition to racism. The segregationists didn't want him around. -- Senator Bernie SandersOn The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: More than a history book-this is an examination of what progressives must do to retake our democracy. Nichols points the way toward how we can build a party based on peace, liberty, and justice for all. -- Representative Ilhan OmarOn The 'S' Word: A chilling reminder of how much rich American history has been erased by shallow messaging. A crucial book. -- Naomi KleinOn The 'S' Word: The Tom Paine of our time. -- Bill MoyersSure to alarm as much as it angers and informs ... [Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers] will leave readers with a renewed hunger for justice regarding the pandemic. * Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) *

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Book SynopsisWhen the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no 'white' people there; nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. Historical debate about the origin of racial slavery has focused on the status of the Negro in seventeenth-century Virginia and Maryland. However, as Theodore W. Allen argues in this magisterial work, what needs to be studied is the transformation of English, Scottish, Irish and other European colonists from their various statuses as servants, tenants, planters or merchants into a single new all-inclusive status: that of whites. This is the key to the paradox of American history, of a democracy resting on race assumptions.Volume One of this two-volume work attempts to escape the 'white blind spot' which has distorted consecutive studies of the issue. It does so by looking in the mirror of Irish history for a definition of racial oppression and for an explanation of that phenomenon in terms of social control, free from the absurdities of classification by skin color. Compelling analogies are presented between the history of Anglo-Irish and British rule in Ireland and American White Supremacist oppression of Indians and African-Americans. But the relativity of race is shown in the sea change it entailed, whereby emigrating Irish haters of racial oppression were transformed into White Americans who defended it. The reasons for the differing outcomes of Catholic Emancipation and Negro Emancipation are considered and occasion is made to demonstrate Allen's distinction between racial and national oppression.Trade ReviewA meticulous study. -- AkalaSeminal -- Emma Dabiri

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Book SynopsisBlack Communist women throughout the early to mid-twentieth century fought for and led mass campaigns in the service of building collective power in the fight for liberation. Through concrete materialist analysis of the conditions of Black workers, these women argued that racial and economic equality can only be achieved by overthrowing capitalism.The first collection of its kind, Organize, Fight, Win brings together three decades of Black Communist women's political writings. In doing so, it highlights the link between Communism and Black liberation. Likewise, it makes clear how Black women fundamentally shaped, and were shaped by, Communist praxis in the twentieth century.Organize, Fight, Win includes writings from card-carrying Communists like Dorothy Burnham, Williana Burroughs, Grace P. Campbell, Alice Childress, Marvel Cooke, Esther Cooper Jackson, Thelma Dale Perkins, Vicki Garvin, Yvonne Gregory, Claudia Jones, Maude White Katz, and Louise Thompson Patterson, and writings by those who organized alongside the Communist Party, like Ella Baker, Charlotta Bass, Thyra Edwards, Lorraine Hansberry, and Dorothy Hunton.Trade ReviewCharisse Burden-Stelly is a sharp engaged radical thinker, representing the best of the Black radical tradition. Along with co-editor Jodi Dean, Burden-Stelly has curated a powerful and enormously valuable collection of writings by Black socialist and communist women, rightly placing their voices at the center of U.S. and international left histories. A great teaching tool and a much needed source of inspiration for contemporary activists. -- Barbara Ransby, historian, author and activistThe women whose voices are collected in Organize, Fight, Win are some of the principal radical thinkers and activists of the 20th century making this collection a must-read for researchers, teachers, and students of freedom struggles. Burden-Stelly and Dean have brought together some of the most significant women in the struggles for equality and their essential contribution to theorizing emancipation, including anticipating how we understand intersectionality and its relevance to political organization. These sources are an important corrective to the history of the Black Freedom Struggle and the women's rights movement putting radical Black women at the forefront of those histories. -- Denise M LynnIn this brilliantly curated anthology, Burden-Stelly and Dean celebrate the voices of Black and communist women whose struggles against capitalism were confluential with their struggles against sexism and white supremacy. The thoughtful collection of articles, reports, proclamations, and personal reflections provides an invaluable glimpse of the essential political role that Black women played between 1919 and 1956, an era which encompassed the first Red Scare, the Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the second Red Scare instigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joseph R. McCarthy. Organize, Fight, Win reminds us that anticommunism remains a key ideological bludgeon of American white supremacists to this day and provides relevant theoretical tools for continued resistance. -- Kristen Ghodsee, Author of Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary WomenCharisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi Dean have assembled a fascinating archive of writings by Black women in and around the CPUSA. These militants provide us with an important model for how to be anticapitalist, antiracist, antisexist, anti-imperialist, and antimilitarist all at once. -- Kathi WeeksBurden-Stelly and Dean have compiled a unique, much-needed volume on the lives and thought of black women communists. The voices of Williana Burroughs, Louise Thompson Patterson, Thyra Edwards, Lorraine Hansberry and many others ring out here, resonating with rich historical insights and political inspiration. Organize, Fight, Win is a proper tonic against those who mischaracterize and impugn left anti-capitalist struggle as some whites-only political project. -- Cedric Johnson, author of The Panthers Can't Save Us Now: Debating Left Politics and Black Lives MatterThis is an essential and beautifully curated collection that provides an important foundation for understanding the Black radical tradition. -- Vijay PrashadThis book returns the voices of Black women Communists to their rightful place in histories of labor, race, and gender in the 20th century. Libraries serving historians or general readers interested in Black women's history and activism need to add this to their shelves. * Library Journal *In their new collection Organize, Fight, Win, which gathers the writings of Black Communist women starting in the 1920s, Jodi Dean and Charisse Burden-Stelly provide a genealogy for the strains of Black feminism that emerged as part of the radicalization of the 1960s. -- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor * The New York Review of Books *In this groundbreaking collection, Burden-Stelly and Dean have compiled a treasure trove of historical, political and seminal writings about Communism from Black women's perspectives. Includes pieces by Claudia Jones, Charlotta Bass, Alice Childress, Dorothy Burnham and so many more. * Ms. Magazine *Organize, Fight, Win brings to light to the theories and tactics activists used to build successful coalition movements at the beginning of the 20th century, and their enduring relevance in today's political climate. -- Morgan Forde * The Nation *This text is an important addition to the history of the United States, especially as regards the struggle for Black residents' freedom and equality. The fact that all of the work included in this book is written by communists is also important in that it proves the important role they played in the struggle during the period represented. However, more than just a look at that legacy, Organize, Fight, Win is also a working textbook for the current and future state of the fight for liberation and against the economic system of capitalism; a system that is the basis of most every other oppression, especially those targeting Black and Brown people. -- Ron Jacobs * Counterpunch *[Organize, Fight, Win] confounds decades of obfuscation and contemporary misconceptions, uncovering a hidden history of black women's leadership of and struggle within communist parties and movements in the twentieth century. Debates around theory and strategy take on a new vibrancy in these writings and paint a picture of left-wing party building that challenges stale caricature. -- Chris Dite * Jacobin *Urgent and passionate ... the editors' careful work has not only corrected the historical narrative but achieved something inspiring. -- Helen Mercer * Morning Star *[An] essential collection. -- Andy Hines * Public Books *Table of ContentsIntroductionCharisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi DeanSection 1: The Early YearsEditors' introduction Grace P. Campbell, "Women Offenders and the Day Court" Williana Burroughs, "Negro Work Has Not Been Entirely Successful"Grace P. Campbell (writing as Grace Lamb), "How Shall the Negro Woman Vote?"Williana Burroughs, "Trade Union Work Report"Williana Burroughs, "Work Among Negro Women", "Woman and Child Labor in the Colonies", "Negro Women in Industry"Section 2: Labor, Militancy and OrganizingEditors' introductionMaude White, "Special Negro Demands" Thyra Edwards, "Let Us Have More Like Mr. Sopkins" Williana Burroughs, "Women's Department"Ella Baker & Marvel Cooke, "The Bronx Slave Market" Louise Thompson, "Toward a Brighter Dawn" Thyra Edwards, "Attitudes of Negro Families On Relief - Another Opinion" Marvel Cooke, "She Was in Paris and Forgot Chanel"Louise Thompson, "Negro Women in Our Party"Thyra Edwards, "Food Gets Scarcer and Scarcer On Spanish Front, Says Writer Miss Thyra Edwards Tells Dramatic Story of Experiences in the War-Torn Country; Winter Rushing On"Louise Thompson Patterson, "Excerpt from Memoirs on Scottsboro Boys Organizing"Esther Cooper Jackson, "The Negro Women Domestic Worker in Relation to Trade Unionism" Section 3: Against FascismEditors' introductionEsther Cooper Jackson, "Negro Youth Organizing for Victory" Thelma Dale, "Reconversion and the Negro People" Claudia Jones, "On the Right to Self-Determination for the Negro People in the Black Belt" Thelma Dale, "The Status of Negro Women in the United States of America"Claudia Jones, "For New Approaches to Our Work Among Women" Claudia Jones, "International Women's Day and the Struggle for Peace" Section 4: International Peace ActivismEditors' introductionVicki Garvin, "Union Leader Challenges Progressive American" Sojourners for Truth and Justice, "Proclamation of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice"Dorothy Hunton, "Where Are YOU Hiding" Lorraine Hansberry, "Egyptian People Fight for Freedom" Sojourners for Truth and Justice, "Our Cup Runneth Over"Lorraine Hansberry, "'Illegal' Conference Shows Peace Is the Key to Freedom" Eslanda Goode Robeson, "Southern Officers Treat Korean POWS Like Negroes in the South" Dorothy Burnham, "Southern Tenants and 'Croppers Talk About Need for Organizing"Yvonne Gregory, "Pearl Bailey Incident Recalls Life and Death of Bessie Smith"Charlotta Bass, "Acceptance Speech of Mrs. Bass"Esther Cooper Jackson, "This is My Husband: Fighter for His People, Political Refugee"Section 5: Struggling Against White Supremacy and Anti-CommunismEditors' introductionEslanda Goode Robeson, "Unrest in Africa Due to Oppression"Dorothy Burnham, "American Women Join World Peace Crusade"Alice Childress, "A Conversation From Life"Eslanda Goode Robeson, Introduction to Ben Davis: Fighter for FreedomClaudia Jones, Excerpt from Ben Davis: Fighter for FreedomVicki Garvin, "White Advocates of Negro Freedom Continue Tradition of John Brown"Vicki Garvin, "New Hope for Negro Labor"Dorothy Hunton, "Prison: The Bail Fund Affair"Charlotta Bass, "In Retrospect: An Attack - An Answer"

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Book SynopsisThe last generation of Americans with a living memory of Jim Crow will soon disappear. They leave behind a collective memory of segregation shaped increasingly by its horrors and heroic defeat but not a nuanced understanding of everyday life in Jim Crow America. In The South, Adolph L. Reed Jr. - New Orleanian, political scientist, and according to Cornel West, "the greatest democratic theorist of his generation" - takes up the urgent task of recounting the granular realities of life in the last decades of the Jim Crow South.Reed illuminates the multifaceted structures of the segregationist order. Through his personal history and political acumen, we see America's apartheid system from the ground up, not just its legal framework or systems of power, but the way these systems structured the day-to-day interactions, lives, and ambitions of ordinary working people. The South unravels the personal and political dimensions of the Jim Crow order, revealing the sources and objectives of this unstable regime, its contradictions and precarity, and the social order that would replace it. The South is more than a memoir or a history. Filled with analysis and fascinating firsthand accounts of the operation of the system that codified and enshrined racial inequality, this book is required reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of America's second peculiar institution the future created in its wake. With a foreword from Barbara Fields, co-author of the acclaimed Racecraft.Trade ReviewErasing the Color Line -- Christopher Hitchens * New York Times *[A] trenchant history of the Jim Crow South....This spare, earnest recollection shines a unique light on the fight for racial equality in America. * Publishers Weekly *A remembrance of the author's early life below the Mason-Dixon line, while also making a case for class-based inequality as a historical constant -- Aaron Bogart * White Review, Best Books 2022 *Reed seeks to delineate exactly what Jim Crow was and wasn't. He is speaking directly to the errors of today, which threaten to calcify the reality of the past into doctrinaire historical misunderstandings. -- Jeremy Ray Jewell * Arts Fuse *If some observers today are tempted to look at the racial injustices that still abound... and claim that little has changed since the days of Jim Crow, Reed shows the folly of such a conclusion -- Jason Sokol * Washington Post *Part memoir, part history, and part political treatise, The South chronicles Reed's life under Jim Crow to correct what he sees as misleading representations of the past. -- Elias Rodriques * Bookforum *In The South, Reed recounts growing up in New Orleans while blending in his analysis of segregation. Like his criticisms of Obama or The 1619 Project, Reed's perspectives on Jim Crow are both incisive and incendiary. -- Jonah Goldman Kay * Los Angeles Review of Books *Reed has added nuance and insight to understanding the segregated South as it came to a formal end. -- Steve Suitts * Southern Spaces *

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Book SynopsisAn enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of the antebellum US and our present crisis. Roediger shows that in a nation pledged to independence, but less and less able to avoid the harsh realities of wage labor, the identity of "white" came to allow many Northern workers to see themselves as having something in common with their bosses. Projecting onto enslaved people and free Blacks the preindustrial closeness to pleasure that regimented labor denied them, "white workers" consumed blackface popular culture, reshaped languages of class, and embraced racist practices on and off the job. Far from simply preserving economic advantage, white working-class racism derived its terrible force from a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforced stereotypes and helped to forge the very identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks. Full of insight regarding the precarious positions of not-quite-white Irish immigrants to the US and the fate of working class abolitionism, Wages of Whiteness contributes mightily and soberly to debates over the 1619 Project and critical race theory.Trade ReviewThe Celestine Prophecy of whiteness studies. * SPIN *An extremely important and insightful book. * The Nation *A brilliant account of how white workers in antebellum America constructed a social identity fundamentally premised on their 'whiteness.' -- Steve Fraser * American Historical Review *Compelling. -- John White * Times Higher Education Supplement *Delivers powerful insights into the collective psyche of the U.S. working class. Striking. -- Chris Searle * Morning Star *An important contribution to our understanding of what has often been called 'American exceptionalism.' Sensitive and detailed handling of a wide range of original sources. -- Louis Kushnick * Race and Class *Brilliant. Remarkable for its subtlety, its penetrating and honest analysis. -- Fred Whitehead * People's Culture *Scholarly and thoroughly documented, The Wages of Whiteness is nonetheless a highly readable, compact and compelling narrative. A provocative illumination of the long and tortuous history of racism in the U.S. -- Franklin Rosemont * Heartland Journal *Casts a new light on a broad social, cultural and political landscape. -- Iver Bernstein * Journal of American History *Far and away the best treatment of white working-class racial attitudes in the nineteenth century that I have seen. -- George M. FredricksonAn indispensable addition to our knowledge of American working class formation. -- Joe W. Trotter * Journal of Social History *In this penetrating study of the origins of white working-class racial attitudes, Roediger profoundly illuminates the new labor history. A distinctive extension of the scholarly studies that locate the nexus of American society in race and labor. -- Joseph Boskin * Choice *A timely and important intervention in the current debates over 'race' and ethnicity. Roediger has opened up the question of white identity. -- Catherine Hall * New Left Review *Interesting and useful. Reconstructs how labor in America made racism part of its very being. -- John DeBrizzi * Telos *A brilliant, authoritative, carefully researched study of major importance. -- Michael Rogin * Radical History Review *A real contribution to the study of the dynamic relationship that exists between the variables of race and class. A very engaging and compelling book. Wages of Whiteness will have a broad appeal to students and researchers across a wide array of disciplines. -- Lisa Reilly and Cameron McCarthy * European Journal of Intercultural Studies *A welcome challenge to the old and new mythmakers. -- Noel Ignatiev * Labor [Le Travail] *A significant contribution, particularly necessary for those who want to see the struggle for labor unity across racial lines move forward. -- Paul Mishler * Science and Society *Roediger's lasting contribution ensures that the history of race and class can no longer be written from the perspective of romantic working class heroes, nor can it be written in a spirit of self-righteous 'anger.' -- Barry Goldberg * New Politics *Subtle, serious, commands our attention -- J. Milton Yinger * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Roediger's excellent book is must reading for those interested in American working-class formation. -- Andrew Kim * Critical Sociology *In The Wages of Whiteness David Roediger takes a courageous look at the development of white working-class racism and attempts to unravel its complex skein of economic, cultural, and psycho-political issues. -- Soledad Santiago * Foundation News *Of great originality and yet firmly grounded in a rich and diverse scholarship. There is no denying the enormous achievement of this book. Henceforth there will be no evading the question of racism in our contemplation of working-class formation in America. -- David Brody * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *Offers a compelling understanding of working-class racism. A rich and detailed history that traces notions of whiteness from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth. -- Rhonda Levine * Contemporary Sociology *Much has been written about the sources of racism and the wellsprings of racial conflict but few historians have shown David Roediger's sensitivity to the process by which race figured in defining the very nature of American society. The author's most important contribution is to elucidate how racial identity was critical to the formation of the working class during the nineteenth century. Roediger's central argument is most compelling. -- Ronald Mendel * Labour History Review *David Roediger's fascinating and vital study will satisfy even the most jaded intellectual palate and deserves the widest circulation. -- Martin Crawford * History *The book speaks so clearly to what historians know about the American working class, but with enormous originality. Broadly accessible to a wide audience, it connects the histories of slave labor and free labor thus providing a more profound understanding of American working class formation. Theoretically sophisticated, pulling together subtle but significant connections among race, class and gender. Blindingly revealing and of lasting scholarly value. * Organization of American Historians Prize Committee on awarding Wages the 1992 Merle Curti Prize *At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to those who are not white. -- Neil Irvin PainterPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Although long dismissed as irrelevant or biased, African American views on whiteness are in fact crucial to any intelligent discussion on race. By documenting the history of these views, David Roediger is not only addressing a compelling need, he is enriching the ?eld of Race Studies. -- Toni MorrisonPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a brilliantly disturbing collection of work by black authors who are the often unappreciated foreparents of contemporary debates about the fallacies and functions of whiteness. These writings throw generous light on Fannie Lou Hamer's deliciously cryptic claim: the mistake that whites made with blacks is that they put us behind them leaving blacks little choice, for survival's sake, but to learn and master white culture. Black on White is proof that not only was Hamer right, but that if white Americans are to survive the madness of whiteness, they must now listen to and learn from those who made a glorious art out of a painful necessity. -- Michael Eric Dyson author of Race RulesPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Brilliant, wide-ranging and beautifully executed, Black on White puts to rest any claims that 'whiteness' is a passing fad meant to put white folks at the center again. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Yet another ?ash of brilliance illuminates and largely defines a vital subject area. Black on White deserves the widest reading. -- Sterling Stuckey, Presidential Chair, University of California Riverside and author of Slave CulturePraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:This valuable collection provides a new and badly-needed perspective on America's deep seated problems of racial inequality and antagonism. Much has been written and anthologized to show what whites thought and felt about blacks. This is the ?rst effort to present a range of black opinion on the meaning of whiteness, and it is a notably successful one. -- George M. Fredrickson, Edgar E. Robinson Professor of United States History, Stanford UniversityPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a superb collection of writings by African Americans about the nature of White identity in the United States. David Roediger's informed and inspired introduction and the eloquent and insightful works he has collected expose the ideas, attitudes, and actions that transform the ?ction of white racial identity into an all too real social fact. At a time when white politicians, pundits, and private citizens base many public policies and even more private decisions in the knowledge they claim to have about black people, whiteness seems to disappear. Black on White redirects our focus to the way white people appear to blacks, to the insights, analyses, and interpretations emanating from people who became experts on whiteness out of dire necessity. -- George Lipsitz, University of California, San DiegoPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:An incisive, timely, clear-eyed analysis of race and class in America. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:Brilliant and Insightful [it] explores the ways in which appeals to save the middle class in electoral politics harm the very constituencies they purport to help. -- George LipsitzPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:No contemporary intellectual has better illuminated the interwoven social histories and conceptual dimensions of race and class domination. With this stunning new collection of essays, David Roediger once again demonstrates that he is a vital thinker for all of us seeking to bridge the imperatives of economic and social justice. -- Nikhil Singh, New York UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger's work is always as learned as it is profoundly engaged with the pursuit of social justice. From his signature study of the 'wages of whiteness,' to the analysis of links between settler colonial dispossession, gendered social reproduction, plantation management, and immigrant labor in the making of modern racial capitalism-Roediger's bold commitments to demonstrating the historical and ongoing implications of race and class in the United States are timely, and more necessary than ever. -- Lisa Lowe, Tufts UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:These bracing essays express hard truths and grounded hopes as they help us to rethink a past too much with us still. Portraying a history of oppression and resistance made at the intersections of social identities, Roediger makes sophisticated analyses of culture and political economy accessible to scholars and to activists. -- Kimberlé Crenshaw, Columbia University School of LawPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:When it comes to thinking about the history of racism, anti-racism and the US working class, David Roediger has no peer. Incisive, provocative, and uncannily timely, Class, Race, and Marxism reckons honestly with the challenges of building class solidarity across the fissures of race, the difficulties of writing about it, and the ways in which the two are entwined. If there is a single lesson here, it is that solidarity is not forever-it is elusive, fragile, and hard as hell. -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great DepressionPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger wades into the fray with refreshing nuance and generosity. * In These Times *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger's book couldn't have appeared at a more timely moment. * Brooklyn Rail *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:A scintillating compilation . Roediger's book explains exactly why even the most sickening atavisms of racism are fully compatible with the capitalist order, with ramifications into the 21st century. -- Alan Wald * Against the Current *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger addresses the challenges that class and race continue to present for U.S. radicals . should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the era of Trumpian politics. This is an important book, with lessons that some way wish to ignore, but at their peril. * Working Class Studies Association C.L.R. James Award *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Studying, understanding, struggling against, and ultimately replacing this centuries-old, foundational, and deep societal reality remains essential, as Roediger, a consistently pathbreaking historian, makes clear in these insightful essays. * Monthly Review *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Amid the cacophony of competing perspectives, David Roediger's Class, Race and Marxism not only expertly evaluates the historical, theoretical, and political stakes of contemporary debates on race and class, but also significantly contributes to scholarship that 'refus[es] to place race outside of the logic of capital.' * Black Scholar Journal *Praise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom persuasively documents the self-emancipation of the enslaved Black folk of the American South. A meticulously researched book, it offers close readings of verbal and visual texts, unfailingly attentive to issues of race, gender, and labor coming together and falling apart. It brilliantly brings together disability studies, race in the Civil War, and the disappearance of the gold standard. A worthy supplement to Du Bois's Black Reconstruction. -- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:This sparkling book does more than merely restore and underscore the agency of bold worker-slaves in attempts to make the US democratic and free. It aims artfully at the underlying mechanisms of revolutionary transformation: imagination and solidarity, time, labor and the human body, gender, class and race. In Roediger's hands, these are neither dry nor overly abstract categories. The insurgent history of abolition gets resuscitated and used vividly to address a host of stalled contemporary debates and ossified styles of thought. -- Paul Gilroy, King's College LondonPraise for Seizing Freedom:Sweeping in its scope and filled with brilliant and original insights, this book reminds us of how little still is our appreciation both for what slaves accomplished between 1860 and 1865 and how beholden the national labor movement and the woman suffrage campaigns were to the 'general strike' they won...Evocative and inspiring, Seizing Freedom represents a landmark study by one of the foremost scholars of the history of race and labor in our time that will fundamentally challenge the way we understand the moral and practical power of emancipation. -- Thavolia Glymph, Duke UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom, David Roediger's spellbinding account of black self-emancipation and the array of movements accelerated by this 'general strike of the slaves' as DuBois put it, reminds us that it is never too late to take up the democratic promise of Radical Reconstruction. -- Angela Y. Davis, University of California, Santa CruzPraise for How Race Survived US History:Sometime in the US of the past quarter-century, calling policies and the people who dream them up racist became a worse offense than for them to be racist. This inversion, always dressed in self-righteous indignation, is actually part of the social evolution of white supremacy. David Roediger's book details in sharp and readable prose how race survived US history. It is a must-read for all who strive to understand-and abolish-what underlies the strangely strident rhetoric enveloping everything from presidential contests to prison expansion. -- Ruth Wilson GilmorePraise for How Race Survived US History:In a trenchant, broad-ranging analysis, the leading US historian of racism, David Roediger, demonstrates white supremacy's incredible staying power against major societal forces that should long ago have dismantled it. Not capitalism, not emancipation, not labor movements, not mass immigration, not the civil rights movement, not colorblind liberalism, and not the Barack Obama presidential campaign-not one of these forces separately, and not all of them together-have been able to destroy the deep structures of white racism in the United States. -- Joe R. FeaginPraise for How Race Survived US History:David Roediger's bold and brilliant book presents an extraordinary new framework for understanding the persistence of racism in the history of the United States. This book is a wake-up call and a warning, an appeal for understanding and action. It offers a clear and convincing demonstration that white supremacy is not merely a relic of the past but rather a perpetually renewed and infinitely renewable resource for inequality and injustice in the present. -- George LipsitzPraise for How Race Survived US History:A staggering re-interpretation of the whole course of American history in which the skeletons in the closet walk again. From genocide and massacre to lynching to the coded tongue of liberalism, the bankruptcy of white supremacy is found in the racialized structures maintained by the enclosures of incarceration and the foreclosures of impignoration -- Peter LinebaughPraise for How Race Survived US History:An extremely timely argument about the enduring significance of 'race' in American society, as well as a sophisticated polemic against the complacent assumption that the Obama phenomenon spells the end of American racism. -- Richard SeymourPraise for Colored White:David Roediger has been showing us all for years how whiteness is a marked and not a neutral color in the history of the United States. Colored White . . . marks yet another advance. In the burgeoning literature on whiteness this book stands out for its groundedness, its analytic clarity, and its scope. -- Michael RoginPraise for Colored White:No other writer on whiteness can match Roediger's historical breadth and depth; his grasp of the formative role played by race in the making of the nineteenth-century working class, in defining the contours of twentieth-century US citizenship, and in shaping the meaning of emerging social identities and cultural practices in the twenty-first century. -- George LipsitzPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Whiteness Studies can enable us to see American history in a wholly new light, and for the development of the field we must thank Roediger . . . full of thought-provoking observations. * Boston Globe *Praise for Working toward Whiteness:A tour de force. Roediger marshals vast knowledge extending from social and labor history to popular culture and the role of the state. This book will be the point of departure for future studies of whiteness. -- Rudolph J. VecoliPraise for Working toward Whiteness:This book is a major achievement by all standard. A more than worthy successor to Roediger's groundbreaking The Wages of Whiteness, this new book tells in rich detail how the 'new immigrants' from eastern and southern Europe . . . went from being an 'in-between' racial group to to one that was unequivocally white. -- George FredricksonPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Roediger has given us another of our most compelling, incisive, and elegant analyses of racial subjugation and privilege-in-the-making in the US. A brilliant investigation of that historical zone where institutions, ideas, and street-level experiences meet and give form to one another. It may be Roediger's most powerful contribution yet. -- Matthew Frye JacobsonPraise for History against Misery:This wonderful collection of essays is not only a powerful indictment of late capitalism . . . but also a fascinating survey of resistance voices, from the IWW to the Surrealists, from the Chicago Idea Anarchists to Black Liberation. -- Michael LöwyPraise for History against Misery:It is to the summer of our discontent that the surrealist brings us a wintry elation: humor, a poetics of resistance, purposeful deviance motivated by genuine compassion and a love of truth. -- Blake Schwarzenbach

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Book SynopsisGood Trouble is the story of the strong connection between the Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the Catholic Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland specifically, the influence of the Montgomery to Selma march on the 1969 Belfast to Derry march through oral history.

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Book SynopsisNative Americans make up less than one per cent of the total US population but represent half the nation's languages and cultures. Here, in one grand sweep, is the full story of Native American society, culture and religion. Here is everything from the land-based spirituality of their early creation myths and the late rise of Indian Pride, to the 88 uses to which the Sioux put the flesh and bones of the buffalo and the practice of berdache (men adopted as women). The book offers a chronological history of America's indigenous peoples. It covers their dramatic early entry into North America, out of the now submerged continent of Beringia, then in more recent times the 'forgotten wars' of the 16th and 17th centuries, which wiped many tribes from the face of the East Coast, and finally describes to the last struggles of the Cheyenne and the Comanche. Celebrating these peoples' way of life rather than focusing narrowly on the manner of their genocide, it does not ignore uncomfortable facts of the Amerindian past - including the cannibalism believed to have been practised by some tribes and the Native Americans' part in the decimation of North America's buffalo herds.

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Book SynopsisOn a scorching June Sunday in 1876, thousands of Indian warriors - Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho - converged on a grassy ridge above the valley of Montana's Little Bighorn River. On the ridge five companies of United States cavalry - 262 soldiers, comprising officers and troopers - fought desperately but hopelessly. When the guns fell silent, no soldier - including their commanding officer, Lt Col. George Armstrong Custer - had survived. Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history - 130 years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S. Connell, whom Joyce Carol Oates has described as 'one of our most interesting and intelligent American writers', wrote what continues to be the most reliable - and compulsively readable - account of the subject. Connell makes good use of his research and novelist's eye for story and detail to re-create the heroism, foolishness and savagery of this crucial chapter in the history of the West.

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Book Synopsis• Translator is well known Japan expert, with over 50K sales, incl. Manga! Manga! (Kodansha, 0870117521, 30,000 cps), America and the Four Japans (1-880656-06-X, 3,500 cps), and Dreamland Japan (1-880656-23-X, 9,000+ cps) both Stone Bridge Press • Documentary comic book narrative on serious subject (cf Art Spiegelman’s Maus) • Large Asian-American population throughout US • Also shows uneasy relationship between early Japanese and Chinese immigrants • Reprint from 1931 original. This is a rediscovery. The author died in the1950’s. • Based on actual events from the early 20th century.

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Book Synopsis'An incredibly moving, truly inspiring story of the power of determination. An absolutely stunning read.' Katharine Birbalsingh'Fascinating and poignant... an astoundingly honest and intimate memoir.' Angela PetchPerhaps it's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps it's true that you only know what you truly love when you no longer have it. But I wouldn't have known any of this if I hadn't left it all behind to discover where my home truly was...Growing up in British Guiana in the 1950s, Sharon Maas has everything a shy child with a vivid imagination could wish for. She spends her days studying bugs in the backyard, eating fresh mangos straight from the tree and tucked up on her granny's lap losing herself in books.But with her father campaigning for the country's independence and her mother away for work, there's a void in Sharon's heart, and she craves rules and structure. The books she devours give her a glimpse of life in a faraway country: England. And although none of the characters in these books look like her, her insatiable curiosity leads Sharon to beg to be sent to boarding school.Life at a conservative, Christian school is quite different from Sharon's liberal, atheist upbringing. Girls march silently and single file along corridors and earn badges for deportment. There are twice-daily hymns, grace before and after meals and mandatory bedside prayers. And, all the girls are posh and white, while Sharon is the only one with dark skin. Will she ever fulfil her dream of horseback riding over green hills and going on adventures like her literary heroes? And has she truly found what she was looking for in this chilly corner of the world, thousands of miles away from home?You will be swept off your feet by the unputdownable story of Sharon Maas's extraordinary childhood in British Guiana and England, a beautiful and inspiring coming-of-age tale of self-discovery, determination and chasing your dreams.Praise for The Girl from Lamaha Street:'Beautiful. Poignant. Phenomenal. This was a beautiful read and I learnt so much. I cried and I smiled and there was nothing more that I wanted from this book. Truly a gem.' Goodreads reviewer'To say this story was inspirational would be an understatement. I was utterly mesmerized... As a woman of color, I recognized myself and my experiences in the pages of this memoir... powerful, moving, and heartwarming... I devoured this book, and it is no doubt a five-star read.' Goodreads reviewer'Enlightening... powerful... Beautifully written... I found myself turning and turning, immersed in the story. A wonderful, evocative read.' Nicki's Book Blog'Engaging and intriguing... so good that I was completely enthralled from beginning to end.' NetGalley reviewer

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Book Synopsis1996 And The End of History examines the year as it panned out in the UK not just in politics but in music, light entertainment and sport. It was the zenith of a decade which will go down as remarkably untroubled bymodern standards; following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, prior to 9/11, in which political conditions of peace and apparent economic prosperity created an overall mood of frivolity, postmodern anti-seriousness and a desire to get back to sunnier times before the grim onset of the strife-ridden 70's and 80's.

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Book SynopsisWestern slavery goes back 10,000 years to Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq, where a male slave was worth an orchard of date palms. Female slaves were called on for sexual services, gaining freedom only when their masters died. This book traces slavery from classical times to the present. It shows how the enforced movement of more than 12 million Africans on to the Atlantic slave ships, and the scattering of more 11 million survivors across the colonies of the Americas between the late 16th and early 19th centuries, transformed the face of the Americas. Though they were not its pioneers, it was the British who came to dominate Atlantic slavery, helping to consolidate the country’s status as a world power before it became the first major country to abolish slavery. James Walvin explores the moral and economic issues slavery raises, examines how it worked and describes the lives of individual slaves, their resilience in the face of a brutal institution, and the depths to which white owners and their overseers could on occasion sink in their treatment of them.

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