Cultural Literature

They're Not Pets, Susan, says a stern father who has just shot a bumblebee, its wings sparkling in the evening sunlight. A lone office worker, less than an inch high, looks out over the river in his lunch break, Dreaming of Packing it All In. A tiny man...

Throughout the past two decades, Renita J. Weems has been noted and praised for her writing, galvanizing national speaking, and pioneering scholarship in the field of Old Testament studies. Yet in the midst of her celebrated work, she was experiencing a...

Listen To This If You Love Great Music is a must read for anyone with even a passing interest in music. Featuring 100 of the best albums from the last four decades, clashmusic.com​ editor Robin Murray shares his passion for exceptional music and...

Here is Nat Hentoff's deeply felt exploration of jazz, blues, country, and gospel -- and the musicians who bring the music to life. Hentoff has not only loved music all his life, he has lived it by being friends with many of the musicians he writes about...

Lincoln University was founded in 1866 for the education of freed blacks after the Civil War. This book focuses on the years between 1920 and 1970, a span of time during which many of the university'smost signifi cant developments occurred. During this...

First published in 1962, Lincoln and the Negro was the first book to examine in detail how Lincoln faced the problem of the status of black people in American democracy, and it remains unsurpassed. Starting with Lincoln's childhood attitudes, Benjamin...

The Limba are rice farmers living in the hills of northern Sierra Leone who have, until recently, been somewhat despised by their neighbours. Yet they possess a subtle and fascinating literature, as illustrated by this detailed study of their stories,...

Francis Davis is one of this nation's savviest and most admired music and cultural critics. In this collection of essays he observes the modern jazz and pop that have reached middle age at the same moment as many of their listeners, including the author...

The year 1964 produced a watershed in American race relations. In one of the civil rights movement's most dramatic initiatives, thousands of Northern white college students were recruited to come south that summer in an effort to "break" Mississippi and...

2011 ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research for Best History By the time of his death in 1982, Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins was likely the most recorded blues artist in history. This brilliant biography illuminates the many...

From NPR correspondent and New York Times bestselling author, Kwame Alexander, comes a powerful and provocative collection of poems that cut to the heart of the entrenched racism and oppression in America and eloquently explores ongoing events. A book in...