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| Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War by Nicholas Lemann Nicholas Lemann opens his extraordinary new book with a riveting account of the horrific events of Easter 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana, where a white militia of Confederate veterans-turned-vigilantes attacked the black community there and massacred hundreds of people in a gruesome killing spree. For the next few years white Southern Democrats waged a campaign of political terrorism aiming to overturn the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and challenge President Grant’s support for the emergent structures of black political power. Redemption is the first book to describe in uncompromising detail this organized racial violence, which reached its apogee in Mississippi in 1875. ISBN: 0374248559 Hardcover $24.00 Farrar Straus Giroux |
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The Sounds of Slavery: Discover African American History through Songs, Sermons, and Speech by Shane White & Graham White Allowing us to eavesdrop on the past, The Sounds of Slavery is a fascinating, innovative, and accessible account of the aural dimension of slavery. From the quotidian sounds of a plantation at dawn to the baying of hounds on the trail of runaways to whistling in Richmond, Virginia, in the 1850s, this book is the closest we'll ever get to imagining and re-creating the diverse sounds of slavery. Enhancing the experience with an 18-track CD compilation-with most of the tracks recorded in the 1930s, White and White enable us to hear a complex history that for too long has been silent. ISBN: 080705027X $17.00 Beacon Press |
| At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 by Taylor Branch At Canaan's Edge concludes America in the King Years, a three-volume history that will endure as a masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy. Pulitzer Prize-winner and bestselling author Taylor Branch makes clear in this magisterial account of the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King, Jr., earned a place next to James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in the pantheon of American history. $20.00 ISBN 0684857138 Simon & Schuster |
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Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz When the peasants are deprived of fields to work, so goes the chorus of an old Irish ballad, "All that's left is a love of the land." In this exquisite rendering of her childhood in rural Oklahoma, from the Dust Bowl days to the end of the Eisenhower era, writer and journalist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz bears witness to a family and community that still clings to the dream of America as a republic of landowners. Drawing deeply on the stories, often biblical parables, she heard in her early years, Dunbar-Ortiz brings to life one of the least understood groups in US history: poor rural whites. They are the backbone of the national campaigns against abortion and for prayer in school. They are also the soldiers of the militia movement and the members of a group who will come to trial this spring for the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Red Dirt takes us into the minds of these people, allowing us to feel both their grievous sense of loss and their battered but still-clung-to faith. 0806137754 $14.95 University of Oklahoma Press |
| A Panther is a Black Cat: An Account of the Early Years of The Black Panther Party - Its Origins, Its Goals, and Its Struggle for Survival by Reginald Major An insider’s look at the formative years of the Black Panther Party, this raw, sympathetic portrayal is as fresh today as when first published in 1971. Reginald Major knew and worked with leaders of the Party prior to its organization, and from this intimate vantage point he captured events as the Panthers set the example for black resistance across the country. This edition includes a new introduction by the author. ISBN: 1574780379 $16.95 Black Classic Press Temporarily out of stock |
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Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975-1991 by Richard Edward Deleon Focusing on San Francisco's turbulent political history, non-conformist traditions, and ethnic and cultural diversity, political scientist Richard DeLeon analyzes the successes and failures of the progressive movement as it topples the business-dominated progrowth regime, imposes stringent controls on growth and development, and achieves political control of city hall. ISBN: 070060555X $14.95 University Press of Kansas Temporarily out of stock |
| A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution (Revised Ed.) by Peter Irons In the tradition of Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States, Peter Irons chronicles the decisions that have influenced virtually every aspect of our society, from the debates over judicial power to controversial rulings in the past regarding slavery, racial segregation, and abortion, as well as more current cases about school prayer, the Bush/Gore election results, and “enemy combatants.” A comprehensive history of the people and cases that have changed history, this is the definitive account of the nation’s highest court. $18.00 ISBN: 0143037382 Penguin |
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A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani From the rise of Island to the Palestinian issue, from the Prophet Mohammed to Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. A History of the Arab Peoples chronicles the rich spiritual, political, and cultural institutions of this civilization through thirteen centuries of war, peace, literature, and religion. 0446393924 $16.99 Warner Books |
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History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History by Dana Lindaman & Kyle Ward History Lessons offers a lighthearted and fascinating challenge to the biases we bring to our understanding of American history.By juxtaposing starkly contrasting versions of the historical events we take for granted, History Lessons affords us a sometimes hilarious, often sobering look at what the world learns about America's past. ISBN 1595580824 $17.95 New Press |
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The Wretched of the Earth
by Frantz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other. ISBN: 0802150837 $12.00 Grove Press |
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Martin Luther King, Jr. by Marshall Frady Marshall Frady, the reporter who became the unofficial chronicler of the civil rights movement, here re- creates the life and turbulent times of its inspirational leader. Deftly interweaving the story of King’s quest with a history of the African American struggle for equality, Frady offers fascinating insights into his subject’s magnetic character, with its mixture of piety and ambition. He explores the complexities of King’s relationships with other civil rights leaders, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, who conducted a relentless vendetta against him. ISBN: 0143036483 $13.00 Penguin |
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A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
by Howard Zinn Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is one of the few books to tell America's story from the point of view of – and in the words of – America's women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. ISBN: 0060528370 $18.95 HarperCollins |
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New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan by Jill Lepore A gripping tale and groundbreaking investigation of a mysterious, and largely forgotten, eighteenth-century slave plot to destroy New York City. Over a few weeks in 1741, ten fires blazed across Manhattan. With each new fire, panicked whites saw more evidence of a slave uprising. Tried and convicted before the colony’s Supreme Court, thirteen black men were burned at the stake and seventeen were hanged. Lucid, probing, captivatingly written, New York Burning is a revelatory study of the ways in which slavery both destabilized and created American politics. $15.95 ISBN: 1400032261 Vintage |
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Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad And The War For The Soul Of America
by Fergus M. Bordewich Bound for Canaan tells the stories of men and women like David Ruggles, who invented the black underground in New York City; bold Quakers like Isaac Hopper and Levi Coffin, who risked their lives to build the Underground Railroad; and the inimitable Harriet Tubman. Interweaving thrilling personal stories with the politics of slavery and abolition, Bound for Canaan shows how the Underground Railroad gave birth to this country's first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for social change. $14.95 ISBN: 0060524316 HarperCollins |
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Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey J. Kaye Thomas Paine was one of the most remarkable political writers of the modern world and the greatest radical of a radical age. Through writings like Common Sense he not only turned America’s colonial rebellion into a revolutionary war but, as Harvey J. Kaye demonstrates, articulated an American identity charged with exceptional purpose and promise. ISBN: 0809093448 $14.00 Hill and Wang |
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Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making And Unmaking of the Black Panther Party
by Curtis J. Austin Curtis J. Austin chronicles how violence brought about the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, dominated its policies, and brought about the party's destruction as one member after another—Eldridge Cleaver, Fred Hampton, Alex Rackley—left the party, was killed, or was imprisoned. Austin shows how the party's early emphasis in the 1960s on self-defense, though sorely needed in black communities at the time, left it open to mischaracterization, infiltration, and devastation by local, state, and federal police forces and government agencies. Austin carefully highlights the internal tension between advocates of a more radical position than the Panthers took, who insisted on military confrontation with the state and those, such as Newton and David Hilliard, who believed in making community organizing and alliance building their first priorities. Hardcover $34.95 ISBN: 1557288275 University of Arkansas Press |
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1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann This is an important book. Mann presents such a massive amount of new material that it represents an absolute return to square-one for Western Hemisphere studies. Easy to understand, even charming, 1491 is the beginning of what we might know about the past. $14.95 ISBN 1400032059 Knopf |
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Huey: Spirit of the Panther
by David Hilliard, Keith Zimmerman & Kent Zimmerman Raised in poverty in Oakland, California, and named for corrupt Louisiana governor Huey P. Long, Newton embodied both the passions and the contradictions of the civil rights movement he sought to advance. In this first authorized biography, Newton's former chief of staff David Hilliard and best-selling authors Keith and Kent Zimmerman team up to tell the whole story of the man behind the organization that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover infamously dubbed "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." ISBN: 1560258977 $14.95 Thunder's Mouth Press |
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Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation by Paul Kriwaczek Tracking the movements of the Jewish people from the time of their expulsion from Rome and Western Europe, Kriwaczek uncovers a civilization that was once at the very heart of Europe, before Christianity and long before the modern nation-state. Here, he outlines the formation of Yiddish culture through the last millenia, and follows it to its peak, through its slow decline, short-lived rebirth, and evisceration in Europe in the last century. $15.95 ISBN: 1400033772 Knopf |
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Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves
by Adam Hochschild From the author of the prize-winning King Leopold's Ghost comes a taut, thrilling account of the first grass-roots human rights campaign, which freed hundreds of thousands of slaves around the world. In 1787, twelve men gathered in a London printing shop to pursue a seemingly impossible goal: ending slavery in the largest empire on earth. Along the way, they would pioneer most of the tools citizen activists still rely on today, from wall posters and mass mailings to boycotts and lapel pins. $16.00 ISBN 0618619070 Houghton Mifflin |
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The Declaration of Independence & Other Great Documents of American History 13 compelling and influential documents: Monroe Doctrine, U.S. Constitution, Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, and more. See just how radical the founders of American democracy were, and how far they've been let down. $2.00 ISBN: 0486411249 Dover |
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Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
by Tom Holland As America takes its first tentative steps towards becoming a militaristic imperial power, the parallels to the Roman Empire become difficult to avoid. For anyone wishing to see how this scenario played out 2,000 years ago, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The power struggles in the Senate, the divide between rich and poor, the constitutional crises; all are portrayed with the immediacy of contemporary history $15.00 ISBN: 1400078970 Knopf |
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The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz Acclaimed as the definitive study of the period by one of the greatest American historians, The Rise of American Democracy traces a historical arc from the earliest days of the republic to the opening shots of the Civil War. Ferocious clashes among the Founders over the role of ordinary citizens in a government of "we, the people" were eventually resolved in the triumph of Andrew Jackson. Thereafter, Sean Wilentz shows, a fateful division arose between two starkly opposed democracies–a division contained until the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked its bloody resolution. Winner of the Bancroft Award, shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2005 and best book of New York magazine and The Economist. 75 illustrations. $19.95 ISBN: 0393329216 W. W. Norton & Co. |
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She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
by Herbert Kohl Hailed by the New York Times Book Review when it was first published as having "the transcendent power that allows us to see…alternate ways of viewing our history and understanding what is going on in our classrooms," this expanded version of Kohl's original groundbreaking discussion "deftly catalogs problems with the prevailing presentations of Parks and offers [a] more historically accurate, politically pointed and age-appropriate alternative" (Chicago Tribune). $14.95 ISBN 1595581278 New Press |
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John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds Bancroft Prize-winning cultural historian David S. Reynolds presents an informative and richly considered new exploration of the paradox of a man steeped in the Bible but more than willing to kill for his abolitionist cause. Reynolds locates Brown within the currents of nineteenth-century life and compares him to modern terrorists, civil-rights activists, and freedom fighters. Ultimately, he finds neither a wild-eyed fanatic nor a Christ-like martyr, but a passionate opponent of racism so dedicated to eradicating slavery that he realized only blood could scour it from the country he loved. By stiffening the backbone of Northerners and showing Southerners there were those who would fight for their cause, he hastened the coming of the Civil War. This is a vivid and startling story of a man and an age on the verge of calamity. ISBN: 0375726152 $16.95 Vintage |
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Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism
by Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) In the speeches and articles collected in this book, the black activist, organizer, and freedom fighter Stokely Carmichael traces the dramatic changes in his own consciousness and that of black Americans that took place during the evolving movements of Civil Rights, Black Power, and Pan-Africanism. Unique in his belief that the destiny of African Americans could not be separated from that of oppressed people the world over, Carmichael's Black Power principles insisted that blacks resist white brainwashing and redefine themselves. $14.95 ISBN: 1556526490 Lawrence Hill Books |
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Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael Honey Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic "plantation mentality" embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up like garbage in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a public employee strike that brought to a boil long-simmering issues of racial injustice. Hardcover $35.00 ISBN: 0393043398 W. W. Norton |
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Chinese America: The Untold Story of America's Oldest New Community
by Peter Kwong & Dusanka Miscevic Described by the Washington Post Book World upon its initial release as "shocking, depressing but ultimately uplifting," Chinese America is award-winning author Peter Kwong and Dusanka Miscevic's definitive portrait of one of the oldest immigrant groups and fastest-growing communities in the United States. $21.95 ISBN: 1595581197 New Press |
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Art in Crisis: W. E. B. Du Bois And the Struggle For African American Identity and Memory by Amy Helene Kirschke The Crisis was an integral part of the struggle to combat racism in America. As editor of the magazine (1910–1934), W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the important issues facing African Americans. Visual imagery was central to bringing his message to the homes of readers and emphasizing the importance of the cause. Art was integral to his political program. Art in Crisis: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Art of The Crisis Magazine is an exploration of how W. E. B. Du Bois created a "visual vocabulary" to define a new collective memory and historical identity for African Americans. $24.95 ISBN: 0253218136 Indiana University Press |
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