History

Slavery is not and has never been a peculiar institution, but one that is deeply rooted in the history and economy of most countries. Although it has flourished in some periods and declined in others, human bondage for profit has never been eradicated...

Taking on decades of received wisdom, David Waldstreicher has written the first book to recognize slavery's place at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. Famously, the Constitution never mentions slavery. And yet, of its eighty-four clauses, six were...

Black Americans arrived in West Texas in the early sixteenth century and nearly five centuries later continue to contribute to the region that shares so many characteristics with the western United States. Despite that distinguishing feature, no...

Slavery is a tragic chapter in the history of Wilkes County with a lasting legacy. Prominent businessmen and celebrated civic leaders, like General William Lenoir and William Pitt Waugh, were among the county's largest slaveholders. Judith Williams...

This pathbreaking interpretation of the slaveholding South begins with the insight that slavery and freedom were not mutually exclusive but were intertwined in every dimension of life in the South. James Oakes traces the implications of this insight for...

Liberia's contributions to the world continue to be overlooked, including by Black Americans. Gebah Sekou Kamara, a native of Liberia migrated to the United States in 1998 after fleeing the Civil War in his country, he was granted asylum in 2001. Mr...

Quaker safe houses and freed slave communities were a fixture in North Carolina. The Coffin family in Greensboro helped develop safe zones and houses on the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. In the east, networks of freedmen and sympathizers aided...

'Engrossing and powerful . . . rich and thought-provoking'Fara Dabhoiwala, Guardian'Path-breaking . . . a major rewriting of history'Mihir Bose, Irish Times'Slave Empire is lucid, elegant and forensic. It deals with appalling horrors in cool and...

Skinny House-A Memoir of Family is a story of perseverance in the face of ruin and a glimpse into the past of the inventive, remarkable people who gracefully 'made it' despite overwhelming societal and financial hurdles. It is a granddaughter's story...

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...

John Bradley's compelling account of three decades living with the Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria and of how the elders revealed to him the ancient songlines of their DreamingAt the age of 20 John Bradley was posted to Borroloola Primary...

"THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE CAN GIVE OUR CHILDREN IS AN EDUCATION." --Mae Bertha Carter In 1965, the Carters, an African American sharecropping family with thirteen children, took public officials at their word when they were offered "Freedom of...

-The only account of this brutal ten year war that includes first-hand narratives from a wide array of the participants themselves -One of the most brutal and tragic events in recent African history, the Sierra Leone civil war is remembered in the West...

The Irish soldier has never been a stranger to fighting the enemy with the odds stacked against him. The notion of charging into adversity has been a cherished part of Ireland's military history. In September 1961, another chapter should have been...

When Danilo Docli, peace worker, organizer, educator, first arrived in 1952 in Trappeto, a village of peasants and fishermen in western Sicily, there were no streets, just mud and dust, not a single drugstore, not even a sewer. (In fact, the local...