Cultural Literature

A history of the distinctive, U.S. Capital sound that fuses hip-hop, funk, and soul

Available 10/15/2009New York Times­ best-selling author Cornel West is one of America’s most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Whether in the classroom, the streets, the prisons, or the church, Dr. West’s uncluttered brilliance has been a...

In this first comparative history of race relations in the United States and South Africa, George M. Fredrickson uncovers parallels and differences in the origin and expression of white supremacy in the two countries.

He is one of the great voices in African-American history: Booker T. Washington rose from a boyhood in shackles in West Virginia-he was eight when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution freed all slaves in 1865-to the status of national hero. In...

Since its original publication in 1984, Manning Marable's Race, Reform, and Rebellion has become widely known as the most crucial political and social history of African Americans since World War II. Aimed at students of contemporary American politics...

Black Genders and Sexualities provides a survey of new work by scholars who grapple with the ways gender and sexuality constellate with race. Cutting across the humanities and social sciences, and situated in sites across the black diaspora, the works...

In I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes vividly recalls the most dramatic and intimate moments of his life in the turbulent 1930s. His wanderlust leads him to Cuba, Haiti, Russia, Soviet Central Asia, Japan, Spain (during its Civil War), through...

From the acclaimed bestselling author of the Easy Rawlins series, deemed "one of America's best mystery writers" (The New York Times Book Review), comes a tale about a murdered man who does not want to go to heaven or hell--he'd rather have his old life...

With a compassionate eloquence reminiscent of James Baldwin's Letter to My Nephew, Ellis Cose presents a realistic examination of the challenges facing black men in modern America.Black men have never had more opportunity for success than today -- yet,...

This lively study unpacks the intersecting racial, sexual, and gender politics underlying the representations of racialized bodies, masculinities, and femininities in early 1970s black action films, with particular focus on the representation of black...

Historian, journalist, educator, and civil rights advocate W. E. B. Du Bois was perhaps most accomplished as a sociologist of race relations and of the black community in the United States. This volume collects his most important sociological writings...

This absorbing book is a systematic analysis of the litigation in "Brown v. Mississippi," in which the Supreme Court made a pathbreaking decision in 1936 showing the unconstitutionality of coerced confessions. The case exonerated Ed Brown, Henry Shields,...