African American Studies

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Hope, as Emily Dickinson famously wrote, is the thing with feathers. Erik Anderson, on the other hand, regards our obsession with birds as too...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The extraordinary true story of four men who take the law into their own hands. This is the story of four young boys. Four lifelong friends. Intelligent, fun-loving, wise beyond their years, they are inseparable. Their...

There are over 200 negative words associated with the word 'black' and over 100 positive meanings or synonyms attributed to the word 'white'. This analysis of semantics and semiotics illustrates how words are not racially neutral and can convey negative...

Published in 1859, this title presents an eloquent defense of individual freedom in nineteenth-century social and political philosophy. It offers a liberal argument in support of the value of liberty.

A collection of essays that blend the personal and the social, from the celebrated literary critic and novelist In these twenty-five essays, Darryl Pinckney has given us a view of our recent racial history that blends the social and the personal and...

From Afua Hirsch - co-presenter of Samuel L. Jackson's major BBC TV series Enslaved - the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals the uncomfortable truth about race and identity in Britain today. You're British. Your parents are British. Your partner, your...

A dramatic and moving tribute to the military s unsung heroes, American Patriots tells the story of the black servicemen and women who defended American ideals on the battlefield, even as they faced racism in the ranks and segregation on the home front...

Can the police strip-search a woman who has been arrested for a minor traffic violation? Can a magazine publish an embarrassing photo of you without your permission? Does your boss have the right to read your email? Can a company monitor its employees'...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. For as long as people have traveled to distant lands, they have brought home objects to certify the journey. More than mere merchandise, these...

An "immersive, humanizing, and demystifying" (Charles Blow, New York Times) look at the final hours of Dr. King's life as he seeks to revive the non-violent civil rights movement and push to end poverty in America. At 10:33 a.m. on April 3, 1968, Dr...

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR AND PASTE MAGAZINE An intimate account of life in a West African fishing village, tugged by currents ancient and modern, and dependent on an ocean that is being radically transformed. The sea...

Es'kia Mphahlele's seminal memoir of life in apartheid South Africa--available for the first time in Penguin Classics Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1969, Es'kia Mphahlele is considered the Dean of African Letters and the father of black South African...

In the late nineteenth century, Charles Booth's landmark social and economic survey found that 35 percent of Londoners were living in abject poverty. Booth's team of social investigators interviewed Londoners from all walks of life, recording their...

"One of our true superstars of nonfiction" (David Foster Wallace), Lewis Hyde offers a playful and inspiring defense of forgetfulness by exploring the healing effect it can have on the human psyche. We live in a culture that prizes memory--how much we...

What happens to a little girl who grows up without a father? Can she ever feel truly loved and fully alive? Does she ever heal--or is she doomed to live a wounded, fragmented life and to pass her wounds down to her own children? Fatherlessness afflicts...

- Revised and expanded with recently uncovered information - Detailed maps of escape routes and networks - Eyewitness accounts of fugitives Organized in antebellum America to help slaves escape to freedom, the Underground Railroad was cloaked in secrecy...