History

The founding Fathers based the American system on principles of equality and freedom, but often people who made America their home faced inequality, injustice, and legal discrimination. The Free and the Unfree documents what happened when Native...

The banjo has been called by many names over its history, but they all refer to the same sound--strings humming over skin--that has eased souls and electrified crowds for centuries. The Banjo invites us to hear that sound afresh in a biography of one of...

Stetson Kennedy collected folklore and oral histories throughout Florida for the WPA between 1937 and 1942. The result was this classic Florida book, back in print for the first time in more than twenty years with an Afterword update and dozens of...

Mechanic Accents is a widely acclaimed study of American popular fiction and working-class culture. Combining Marxist literary theory with American labor history, Michael Denning explores what happened when, in the nineteenth century, working people...

It is said that Cuban food reflects the Cuban spirit--a hearty appetite for the sweetness and richness of life, and a respect for tradition spiced with the spark of adventure. Here are enticing spiced fish and seafood dishes: sweet, creamy flans; savory...

In the age of decentralization, instant communications, and the subordination of locality to the demands of a globalizing market, contemporary cities have taken on place-less or a-geographic characters. They have become phantasmagorical landscapes...

Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Stokely Carmichael, Louis Farakhan--the roster of immigrants from the Caribbean who have made a profound impact on the development of radical politics in the United States is extensive. In this...

Only Ernest Withers, a key figure in the civil rights movement, could have delivered such iconic photographs--and the kind of information the FBI wanted . . . Renowned photographer Ernest Withers captured some of the most stunning moments of the civil...

The violence that has ravaged Algeria has often defied explanation. Regularly invoked in debates about political Islam, transitions to democracy, globalization, and the right of humanitarian interference, Algeria's tragedy has been reduced to a clash of...

The controversial thesis at the center of this study is that, despite the importance of slavery in Athenian society, the most distinctive characteristic of Athenian democracy was the unprecedented prominence it gave to free labor. Wood argues that the...

Trace the progress of humanity--from prehistoric times to the present day--through 1,001 ideas that changed how we connect to each other and the world around us. From the ability to control fire to augmented reality, the power of humanity's ideas has...

The story of the bravest battle ever fought. On 22nd January 1879 a force of 20,000 Zulus overwhelmed and destroyed the British invading force at Isandlwana, killing and ritually disemboweling over 1200 troops. That afternoon, the same Zulu force turned...

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Kenya is your in-depth guide to the very best of Kenya. Whether you want to go on a safari adventure and come within feet of this country's spectacular wildlife in its world-famous national parks, lounge on superb beaches, or...

New York Times bestselling author David Talbot and New Yorker journalist Margaret Talbot illuminate "America's second revolutionary generation" in this gripping history of one of the most dynamic eras of the twentieth century--brought to life through...

The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Beginning in 1803, many free states enacted laws that discouraged free African Americans from settling within their boundaries and restricted their rights to...

With decades of research to draw from, Philip Jowett explores this extraordinary David-and-Goliath conflict, where the rag-tag Igbo tribal army of secessionist Biafra faced off against the Nigerian Federal forces. It was an African war that captured the...