Cultural Literature

The dark heart of race science... and why it's nonsense. Racial differences are rooted in biological reality, right? That's certainly what a small group of anthropologists, psychologists and pundits would have you believe. Portraying themselves as brave...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. It's happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Rust takes on the many meanings of this oxidized substance, showing how...

New York Times BestsellerRising Star is the definitive account of Barack Obama's formative years that made him the man who became the forty-fourth president of the United States--from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the CrossBarack Obama's...

A powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the Innocence Movement--so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal In Rectify, a former Innocence Project director and journalist Lara Bazelon...

Together these two essays mark the philosophic cornerstone of democratic morality and represent a thought-provoking search for the true balance between the rights of the individual and the power of the state. Thoroughly schooled in the principles of the...

A powerful challenge to the way we understand the politics of race and the history of anti-racist struggleWhether class or race is the more important factor in modern politics is a question right at the heart of recent history's most contentious debates...

In her classic memoir, distinguished author, television executive, and activist Marita Golden beautifully recounts an astounding journey to Africa and back. Marita Golden was raised in Washington, D.C., by a mother who was a cleaning woman and a father...

There is no one quite like her. Michelle Obama. This is the first book to tell the astonishing story of a woman whose intellect, verbal flair, and poise are certain to make her one of the most influential First Ladies in history. A woman whose remark,...

On the streets of Brooklyn in the 1970s, Veronica Chambers mastered the whirling helixes of a double-dutch jump rope with the same finesse she brought to her schoolwork, her often troubled family life, and the demands of being overachieving and...

Anyone who wants to understand the United States' racial divisions will learn a lot from reading Kaplan's richly researched account of one of the worst periods in American history and its chilling effects today in our cities, legislative bodies, schools,...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Jet lag is a momentary condition resulting from the human body and its inner clock being pitched against the time-leaping effects of modern...

WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZEA New York Times Book Review and Atlantic Monthly Editors' ChoiceThomas Jefferson denied that whites and freed blacks could live together in harmony. His cousin, Richard Randolph, not only disagreed, but made it possible for...