History

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...

Booker T. Washington has long held an ambiguous position in the pantheon of black leadership. Lauded by some in his own lifetime as a black George Washington, he was also derided by others as a Benedict Arnold. In "The Education of Booker T. Washington,"...

Undoing Slavery excavates cultural, political, medical, and legal history to understand the abolitionist focus on the body on its own terms. Motivated by their conviction that the physical form of the human body was universal and faced with the growing...

The origins and influence of Jim, Mark Twain's beloved yet polarizing literary figure "Astute. . . . Sheds new light on a much-studied character."--Publishers Weekly Mark Twain's Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd,...

We Rode the Rhythms as One offers readers an immersive journey into the life and legacy of one of America's most unorthodox and inspiring poets. More than just a literary analysis, this book captures the pulse of Etheridge Knight's life, weaving together...

As a member of the integrated Women's Army Corps, Private First Class Sarah Keys served her country as a receptionist at Fort Dix, New Jersey. When she boarded a bus home to North Carolina in 1952, she never expected to be arrested and charged with...

A revolutionary work of erasure poetry that exposes the contradictions in Thomas Paine's Common Sense--calling for a new definition of citizenship that embraces all Americans In his famous cry for inhabitants of the thirteen colonies to seek independence...

As a member of the integrated Women's Army Corps, Private First Class Sarah Keys served her country as a receptionist at Fort Dix, New Jersey. When she boarded a bus home to North Carolina in 1952, she never expected to be arrested and charged with...

Never before has the disturbing story of blackface and its piercing reflection of American society been so comprehensively told. Darkology, from Princeton historian Rhae Lynn Barnes, meticulously unravels this complex, subterranean, and all-too-often...

The award-winning co-anchor of PBS NewsHour presents a sweeping and insightful retrospective on the history of Black comedy in America.Black comedians have long played a pivotal role in shaping the American sense of humor. The 1990s showcased a golden...

A magisterial, groundbreaking new study of the lives of enslaved Americans on the cusp of the Civil War that places them--and their hard-won political knowledge--rightly at the center of the fight for freedom The enduring image of American slavery has...