Cultural Literature

The story of how a chemical weapon went from the battlefield to the streets More than a hundred years ago, French troops fired the first tear gas grenades at the German enemy. Designed to force people out from cover, tear gas causes tearing and gagging,...

The narrative spell cast over politics and societyPolitics is no longer the art of the possible, but of the fictive. Its aim is not to change the world as it exists, but to affect the way that it is perceived. In Storytelling Christian Salmon looks at...

Michael Jackson's closest sister pulls back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of the Jackson family, Michael's tortured soul, and her own love for her brother in this intimate portrait of a beloved, yet troubled, pop legend. In this shocking New...

Mapping the class divisions that run throughout Europe Over the last ten years - especially with the 'no' votes in the French and Dutch referendums in 2010, and the victory for Brexit in 2016 - the issue of Europe has been placed at the centre of major...

From 1963 to 1974, Portugal and its nationalist enemies fought an increasingly intense war for the independence of "Portuguese" Guinea, then a colony but now the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. For most of the conflict, Portugal enjoyed virtually unchallenged...

A distinguished anthropologist tells his life story as a wistful novelist would, watching himself as if he were someone elseThis memoir recaptures meaningful moments from the author's life: as his childhood on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, his...

Queen of Bebop brilliantly chronicles the life of jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the twentieth century and a pioneer of women's and civil rightsSarah Vaughan, a pivotal figure in the formation of bebop,...

In 2005, Uzodinma Iweala stunned readers and critics alike with Beasts of No Nation, his debut novel about child soldiers in West Africa. Now his return to his native continent has produced Our Kind of People, a nonfiction account of the AIDS crisis that...

In the early morning hours of December 8, 1969, three hundred officers of the newly created elite paramilitary tactical unit known as SWAT initiated a violent battle with a handful of Los Angeles-based members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense...

Less than three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, thirty-one-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested at a sit-in at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta. That day would lead to the first night King had ever spent in jail--and the time that...

She can be funny and sharp-tongued, warm and blunt, empathic and demanding. Who is the woman Barack Obama calls the boss? In Michelle, Washington Post writer Liza Mundy paints a revealing and intimate portrait, taking us inside the marriage of the most...

For guitarists, the technical learning curve for improvisation is fairly steep. For this reason, it is important to find multiple uses for the musical structures that you learn to execute. This approach decreases the learning curve considerably. This...

A unique tribute to often overlooked women who have left an indelible mark on Gospel Music--powerful talents who overcame racism and sexism to define the genre, establish its sound, and set the standard for good sangin' for generations.Nothing in the...

Winner of the 2017 American Book Award Flores Forbes, a former leader in the Black Panther Party, has been free from prison for twenty-five years. Unfortunately that makes him part of a group of black men without constituency who are all but invisible...

The Hall of Fame story of Grant Fuhr, the first black superstar in the National Hockey League and the last line of defense for the Edmonton Oilers dynasty, told through Fuhr's 10 most important games. Grant Fuhr was the best goalie in the league at a...

African Americans of Harrisburg documents the history of the African American community in this town.Harrisburg served as a refuge and passageway for many African Americans fleeing the South via the Underground Railroad and moving north in search of...