Cultural Literature

Dubbed "the Hip-Hop Intellectual" by critics and fans for his pioneering explorations of rap music in the academy and beyond, Dyson probes the most compelling and controversial dimensions of hip-hop culture. Whether along race, class or generational...

Robinson explores the singularly curious and inimitable tragic history of the island nation of Haiti, beginning with the present anarchic disrepair of it modern state. From one revolution to another, Haiti has changed the fate of empires yet has not been...

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...

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...

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,...

Easy finally believes he can lead a simple life and leave his haunted past behind him--until he meets a woman who changes everything. November 1963: Easy's settled into a steady gig as a school custodian. It's a quiet, simple existence--but a few moments...

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...