Cultural Literature

With vigor, wit, learning, common sense, and urgency, twenty-three essayist--including John Simon, Cynthia Ozick, Phillip Lopate, George F. Kennan, Sven Birkerts, Joseph Epstein, and Brad Leithauser--examine aspects of our pan-cultural dumbing down and...

Hip-Hop has changed the world. More than a genre of music, Hip-Hop is a style, an attitude, a way of life. So many brilliant and influential artists have shaped Hip-Hop over the years that a complete listing of them would be impossible. Only slightly...

A practical handbook for people who want to be safe and do something. Racial profiling does happen. And while cases where victims find themselves looking down the barrel of a policeman's gun make the six o'clock news, dozens of less extreme, yet...

Driving While Black demonstrates that the car--the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility--has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to...

It's hardly a secret that mobility has always been limited, if not impossible, for African Americans. Before the Civil War, masters confined their slaves to their property, while free black people found themselves regularly stopped, questioned, and even...

In her new memoir, "Driven To Succeed: Lessons Learned Through Faith, Family & Favor", Dr. Hattie N. Washington reveals how a country girl, from the backwoods of Meherrin, Virginia, succeeded through life with optimism, "drive", and a belief in God to...

In her new memoir, "Driven To Succeed: Lessons Learned Through Faith, Family & Favor", Dr. Hattie N. Washington reveals how a country girl, from the backwoods of Meherrin, Virginia, succeeded through life with optimism, "drive", and a belief in God to...

For fans of the blues, Drink Small is synonymous with South Carolina. Drink rose from the cotton fields of Bishopville to become a music legend in the Palmetto State and beyond. The self-taught guitarist has written hundreds of songs and recorded dozens...

For hundreds of years, skilled craftspeople in the Syrian centers of Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs produced intricately woven textiles for the royal courts, worldly merchants, and elite Bedouin families of the Ottoman Empire. City dwellers were renowned for...

Born in 1938 in rural Kenya, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o came of age in the shadow of World War II, amidst the terrible bloodshed in the war between the Mau Mau and the British. The son of a man whose four wives bore him more than a score of children,...

An explanation of the dream-interpretation principles of the Native American medicine wheel. The authors of The Medicine Wheel explore different views of dreamtime, both historic and contemporary, to provide an explanation of the dream-interpretation...

More than 40 years ago, three girls from the Detroit projects made the world 'Stop!' and take notice of their fresh harmonies and classy style. Cultivated by the Motown star machine, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, and Florence Ballard popped onto the charts...

On a Caribbean island, the morning after a full moon, Felix Hobain tears through the market in a drunken rage. Taken away to sober up in jail, all that night he is gripped by hallucinations: the impoverished hermit believes he has become a healer,...

From the acclaimed author of Last Train to Memphis, this is the definitive biography of Sam Cooke, one of most influential singers and songwriters of all time. Sam Cooke was among the first to blend gospel music and secular themes -- the early...

In this authoritative and passionately argued book, Robert Beckford explores the future of Black British Pentecostalism in a society where the notion of White supremacy--even in faith--is all too evident. Drawing on Black, womanist, and post-colonial...

Brown skin has a naturally warm, glowing complexion that ranges in shade from yellow to olive to dark brown and black (Asian, Latin, African-American, and Native American skin). The extra melanin that imparts these rich tones and helps protect skin from...