History

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. "A towering achievement. . . . Reading this book is like...

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. "A towering achievement. . . . Reading this book is like...

In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass promised African Americans that serving in the military offered a sure path to freedom. More than 180,000 black men heeded his call to defend the Union, only to find that the path to equality...

In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass promised African Americans that serving in the military offered a sure path to freedom. Once a black man became a soldier, Douglass declared, "there is no power on earth or under the earth which...

Memphis is equal parts music and food--the products of a community marked with grit and resilience.The city's blues and soul music have lifted spirits, while barbecue has been a serious business ever since pork first entered the culin

WINNER OF THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 2018In the 1950s and 1960s, Memphis, Tennessee, was the launch pad of musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Isaac Hayes, and by 1968 was a city synonymous with soul...

A "brassy yet deeply respectful book" (Publishers Weekly), this is a lively social history based on first-hand accounts of the legendary Hotel Theresa--one of the New York landmarks that established Harlem as a mecca of black culture. In mid-twentieth...

Masked Raiders follows the wild exploits of legendary brigands like the McKeone brothers and 'One Armed Jack' McLoughlin, who ravaged the subcontinent, from the mining towns of Barberton, Kimberley and Johannesburg, to the borders of Basotholand,...

Born in 1873 as the first free child in a family of former slaves, Mary McLeod Bethune would become an adviser to American presidents, an important civil rights leader, and founder of what is now Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida...

Martin Luther King left an indelible mark on 20th-century American history through his leadership of the non-violent civil rights campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s. The election of Barack Obama as America's first black president in November 2008 has...

This groundbreaking and highly acclaimed work examines the two most influential African-American leaders of this century. While Martin Luther King, Jr., saw America as essentially a dream . . . as yet unfulfilled, Malcolm X viewed America as a realized...

The compelling story of Marjorie, a courageous woman who sailed to South Africa with ten children during WWII. "[Marjorie's] life and her own words bring us intimately into a very special world, one that was initially dangerous for her and the children,...