New Books in African American Studies
Episodes
Jeroen Dewulf, “The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves” (U. Press of Mississippi, 2016)
27 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) presents the ...
Amy Brown, “A Good Investment? Philanthropy and the Marketing of Race in an Urban Public School (U. Minnesota Press, 2015)
23 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There has been much talk in the news recently about funding for public education, the emergence of charter schools, and the potential of school vouche...
Kerry Pimblott, “Faith in Black Power: Religion, Race, and Resistance in Cairo, Illinois” (U. Press of Kentucky, 2016)
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When you think of black power, do you think about churches and religious institutions, or do you relate them more to the civil rights movement of the ...
Deborah Hopkinson “Steamboat School” (Jump At the Sun, 2016)
15 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Steamboat School (Jump at the Sun, 2016), an historical picture book based on true events, author Deborah Hopkinson recounts the story of Reverend ...
Carol Hardy-Fanta and Dianne Pinderhughes, “Contested Transformation: Race, Gender, and Political Leadership in 21st Century America” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
06 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the podcast, I speak with Carol Hardy-Fanta and Dianne Pinderhughes, the co-authors (along with Pei-te Lien and Christine Marie Sierra) o...
Eve Rosenhaft and Robbie Aitken, “Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884-1960” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
04 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
“There were black Germans?” My students are always surprised to learn that there were and are a community of African immigrants and Afro-Germans ...
Robyn C. Spencer, “The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender and the Black Panther Party in Oakland” (Duke UP, 2016)
01 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As the first substantive account of the birthplace of the Black Panther Party (BPP), Robyn C. Spencer’s The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender...
Holly Charles, “Velvet” (AuthorHouse, 2013)
25 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever wondered about your family history, and how family traditions or secrets through the years may affect you, your behavior, and major aspe...
Tom Rice, “White Robes, Silver Screens: Movies and the Making of the Ku Klux Klan” (Indiana U. Press, 2016)
23 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There has been much discussion recently in the United States about the contentious recent presidential election. Along with the election results, ther...
Toni Pressley-Sanon, “Zombifying a Nation: Race, Gender and the Haitian Loas on Screen” (McFarland, 2016)
18 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Zombifying a Nation: Race, Gender and the Haitian Loas on Screen (McFarland, 2016) dwells on the intersections of memory, history, and cultural produc...
Patrick Phillips, “Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America” (W.W. Norton, 2016)
16 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, far...
Ben Westhhoff, “Original Gangtas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap” (Hachette, 2016)
09 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The real story behind the origin of gangsta rap is difficult to discern. Between the bombastic rhetoric and imagery, the larger-than-life characters, ...
Manisha Sinha, “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition” (Yale UP, 2016).
06 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Manisha Sinha is the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut. She was born in India and received her Ph.D from Columbia Univ...
Sylvester Johnson, “African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
29 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When and where do African American religions begin? Sylvester Johnson, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Religious Studies at Northw...
Timothy S. Huebner, “Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism” (U. Press of Kansas, 2016)
19 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Timothy S. Huebner, the Irma O. Sternberg Professor of History at Rhodes College in Memphis, has written Liberty & Union: The Civil War Era and Americ...
Bill V. Mullen, “W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line,” (Pluto Press, 2016)
17 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Born just five years after the abolition of slavery, W. E. B. Du Bois died the night before Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speec...
Jane Eppinga, “Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate” (Wild Horse Press, 2015)
09 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The remarkable story of Henry Ossian Flipper, a young man born into slavery on the eve of the Civil War, and his struggle for recognition left its mar...
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, “Enduring Truths: Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance” (U. of Chicago Press, 2015)
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Runaway slave Sojourner Truth gained fame in the nineteenth century as an abolitionist, feminist, and orator and earned a living partly by selling pho...
Corey D. Fields, “Black Elephants in the Room: The Unexpected Politics of African American Republicans” (U. of California Press, 2016)
21 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The 2016 election cycle will be remembered as one for the history books. Many people are left asking questions as to what happened to lead to such an ...
Paul C. Taylor, “Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics” (Wiley Blackwell, 2016)
15 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Why is it controversial to cast light-skinned actress Zoe Saldana as the lead character in a film about the performer Nina Simone? How should we under...
Ashaki Jackson, “Surveillance” (Writ Large Press, 2016)
09 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Now in its fifth printing of a very short life, Ashaki Jackson’s Surveillance examines the relationship between acts of violence, the witnessing of ...
Susan Greenbaum, “Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images about Poverty” (Rutgers UP, 2015)
06 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick Moynihan’s Report on the Negro Family was a seminal document in Great Society-era racial politics and public policy. Join us as we talk with...
LaShawn Harris, “Sex Workers, Psychics and Number Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy” (U. of Illinois Press, 2016)
03 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
LaShawn Harris is an assistant professor of history at Michigan State University. Sex Workers, Psychics and Number Runners: Black Women in New York Ci...
Ethan Michaeli, “The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016)
27 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), Ethan Michaeli charts the riveting ...
Natalie Byfield, “Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story” (Temple UP, 2014)
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story (Temple University Press, 2014) offers a timely reminder of how racial bias and prej...
Damien M. Sojoyner, “First Strike: Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2016)
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Damien M. Sojoyner, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, joins the New Books Network to discuss his recent...
Thomas Aiello, “The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: W.E.B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, and the Debate that Shaped the Course of Civil Rights” (ABC-CLIO, 2016)
14 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Aiello is associate professor of history and African American studies at Valdosta State University. In The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: ...
Jack Hamilton, “Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination” (Harvard UP, 2016)
11 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2016), Jack Hamilton examines major American and British ...
Elizabeth Reich, “Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema” (Rutgers UP, 2016)
10 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, an...
Eric Gardner, “Black Print Unbound: The Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture” (Oxford UP, 2015)
07 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Gardner’s new study Black Print Unbound: the Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture (Oxford University Press, ...
Marisa J. Fuentes, “Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive” (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2016)
19 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Marisa J. Fuentes’, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) is an important new book t...
Ibram X. Kendi, “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” (Nation Books, 2016)
08 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ibram X. Kendi is an assistant professor of African American history at the University of Florida. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History ...
Loki Mulholland, et.al. “She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland” (Shadow Mountain, 2016)
08 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
“Anyone can make a difference. Find a problem, get some friends together, and go fix it. Remember you don’t have to change the world, just change ...
Carol McCabe Booker, ed. “Alone Atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan” (U. of Georgia Press, 2015)
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Carol McCabe Booker is a Washington, D.C. attorney and former journalist. In the 1960s and 70s, she covered civil rights for the Voice of America, fre...
Benjamin Fagan, “The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation” (U. of Georgia Press, 2016)
30 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, antebellum African Americans elites turned to the newspaper as a means of translating their belief in blac...
Russell Rickford, “We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power and the Radical Imagination” (Oxford UP, 2016)
31 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Russell Rickford is an assistant professor of history at Cornell University. We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power and the Radi...
Jon Hale, “The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement” (Columbia UP, 2016)
28 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Jon Hale, Assistant Professor of Educational History, Department of Teacher Education, College of Charleston, joins the New Books Network to discu...
Susan Cahan, “Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power” (Duke UP, 2016)
21 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The struggle for representation within the art museum is the focus of a timely and important new book by Susan Cahan, Associate Dean for the Arts at Y...
April R. Haynes, “Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice in Nineteenth-Century America” (University of Chicago Press, 2015)
16 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
April R. Haynes is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vic...
Anthea Kraut, “Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance” (Oxford UP, 2015)
23 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Is it possible to lay claim to ownership of a dance? Is choreography intellectual property? How have shifting conceptions of race and gender shaped th...
Bert Ashe, “Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles” (Agate Bolden, 2015)
23 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What’s missing from contemporary discussions of aesthetics and representation within the natural hair movement? Bert Ashe generously offers a respon...
Ed Berlin, “King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era” (Oxford UP, 2016)
15 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Few composers dominate a genre of music as completely as did Scott Joplin. From the publication of his iconic Maple Leaf Rag in 1899 onward his ragtim...
Gabriel Mendes, “Under the Strain of Color: Harlem’s Lafargue Clinic and the Promise of an Antiracist Psychiatry” (Cornell University Press, 2015)
15 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his 1948 essay, “Harlem is Nowhere,” Ralph Ellison decried the psychological disparity between formal equality and discrimination faced by Blac...
Edlie Wong, “Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chinese Exclusion, and the Fictions of Citizenship” (NYU Press, 2015)
15 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The dialectical configuration of black inclusion/Chinese exclusion is at the center of Edlie Wong‘s book Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chi...
Laurent Dubois, “The Banjo: America’s African Instrument” (Harvard UP, 2016)
02 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Most scholars of popular music use songs, artists, and clubs as the key texts and sites in their exploration of the social, cultural, political, and e...
Alfred Frankowski, “The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization: Towards a Political Sense of Mourning” (Lexington Press, 2015)
02 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How are cultural practices that suggest social inclusion at the root of marginalizing social suffering? In The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization: ...
Jason Bivins, “Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion” (Oxford UP, 2015)
31 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jazz is often dubbed the greatest American original art form. This claim might be difficult to contend. But a close exploration of the folks who creat...
Jonathon S. Kahn and Vincent W. Lloyd, editors, “Race And Secularism in America” (Columbia UP, 2016)
28 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathon S. Kahn is an associate professor of religion at Vassar College. He is co-editor with Vincent W. Lloyd of a collection of essays entitled Rac...
Betina Cutaia Wilkinson, “Power and Latino, Black, and White Relations in the Twenty-First Century” (U of Virginia Press, 2015)
23 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Betina Cutaia Wilkinson is the author of Partners or Rivals? Power and Latino, Black, and White Relations in the Twenty-First Century (University of V...
Lester K. Spence, “Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics” (Punctum Books, 2016)
16 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Lester K. Spence is the author of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics (Punctum Books, 2016). Spence is associate profes...
Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, “Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X” (Basic Books, 2016)
30 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Is there a figure in sports more admired and beloved than Muhammad Ali? Widely revered not only as one of boxing’s greatest champions but also as on...
Keenanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” (Haymarket Books, 2016)
20 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Few social justice struggles have captivated recent political history like the broad Black Lives Matter movement. From the streets of Ferguson and Bal...
Kimberly Fain, “Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changing Role of African American Men in the Movies” (Praeger, 2015)
03 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
While black men have been portrayed in film for over a hundred years, they have often been stereotyped or portrayed very badly. In her book Black Holl...
Steve Phillips, “Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority” (The New Press, 2016)
21 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Phillips is the author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (The New Press, 2016). Phil...
James Davis, “Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harlem Renaissance and the Transatlantic Caribbean” (Columbia University Press, 2015)
24 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This terrific book follows the itinerary of Eric Walrond’s peripatetic life. Born in Guyana in 1898, Walrond lived in Barbados, Panama, New York, Pa...
Jessica Parr, “Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon” (UP of Mississippi, 2015)
22 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
George Whitefield was a complex man driven by a simple idea, the new birth that brought salvation. Because of such passion, Whitefield received both e...
Aisha Durham, “Home With Hip Hop Feminism” (Peter Lang, 2014)
14 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Is hip hop defined by its artists or by its audience? In Home With Hip Hop Feminism, Aisha Durham returns hip hop scholarship to its roots by engaging...
Eric Foner, “Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad” (Norton, 2015)
05 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I talk with Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University about his book, Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden Hist...
Neil Roberts, “Freedom as Marronage” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be free? How can paying attention to the relationship between freedom and slavery help construct a concept and practice of freedo...
Jodi Eichler-Levine, “Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children’s Literature” (NYU Press, 2013)
14 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children’s Literature (New York University Press, 2013), Jodi Eichler...
Phil Ford, “Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture” (Oxford UP, 2013)
10 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What is hip? Can a piece of music be hip? Or is hipness primarily a way of engaging with music which recognizes the hip potential of the music? Or pri...
Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, “Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights” (UNC Press, 2015)
09 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), Kimberly ...
Kimberly Fain, “Colson Whitehead: The Postracial Voice of Contemporary Literature” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015)
30 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Colson Whitehead’s fiction has drawn varied criticism. On the one hand, there’s the scholarship of the African diaspora, a tradition that takes th...
Daniel Geary, “Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Geary is the Mark Pigott Associate Professor in U.S. History at Trinity College Dublin. His book Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and I...
Debra Majeed, “Polygyny: What it Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands” (UP of Florida, 2015)
30 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In her wonderful new book Polygyny: What it Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands (University Press of Florida, 2015), Debra M...
Gregory O’Malley, “Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807” (UNC Press for the Omohundro Institute, 2014)
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Gregory E. O’Malley examines a crucial, but almost universally overlooked, aspect of the African slave trade in his new book Final Passages: The Int...
Sonja D. Williams “Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom” (U of Illinois Press, 2015)
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja D. Williams‘ book Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom (University of Illinois Press, 2015) connects its subject to some of the mo...
Leah Wright Rigueur, “The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power” (Princeton UP, 2015)
16 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Leah Wright Rigueur is an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her book The Loneliness of the Black Repub...
Preston Lauterbach, “Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis” (Norton, 2015)
04 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Following the Civil War, Memphis emerged a center of black progress, optimism, and cultural ferment, after a period of turmoil. Preston Lauterbach joi...
Laura F. Edwards, “A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
26 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War ...
Mia E. Bay, et al., “Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women” (UNC Press, 2015)
26 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mia Bay is a professor of history at Rutgers University, and Director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity. She is co-editor of Toward an Intellectual...
David George Surdham, “The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989” (U of Illinois Press, 2015)
24 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
David George Surdham is the author of The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989 (University of Illinois Press, 2015)....
Carlos Kevin Blanton, “George I. Sanchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration” (Yale UP, 2015)
12 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Although the designation now applies to American citizens of Mexican ethnicity writ large, the term Mexican American (hyphenated or not) also refers t...
Julian E. Zelizer, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society” (Penguin, 2015)
06 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Julian E. Zelizer is the author of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (Penguin Press, 2015). Ze...
Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, “Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics” (Oxford UP, 2015)
28 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox are the authors of Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics (Oxford UP,2015). Lawles...
Ted A. Smith, “Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics” (Stanford UP, 2014)
23 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
People living in the modern west generally have no problem criticizing religiously-justified violence. It’s therefore always interesting when I disc...
Philip A. Wallach, “To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis” (Brookings, 2015)
22 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Philip A. Wallach is the author of To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (Brookings Institution Press, 201...
Akinyele Omowale Umoja, “We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement” (NYU Press, 2013)
20 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The historiography of the southern Civil Rights Movement has long focused on the tactic of non-violence. With only a few notable exceptions, most scho...
Andrew Hartman, “The War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
20 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Hartman is associate professor of history at Illinois State University. His book A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (...
Rory Carroll, “Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela” (Penguin Books, 2013)
09 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Historically, Venezuela is known as one of the most stable Latin American nations of the twentieth century. The subsequent discovery of oil transform...
Charis Thompson, “Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research” (MIT Press, 2013)
08 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Charis Thompson‘s Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research (MIT Press, 2013) is an important book. Good Science explores the “...
Kevin M. Schultz, “Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship that Shaped the Sixties” (W. W. Norton, 2015)
02 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship that Shaped the Sixties (W.W. Norton, 2015), Kevin M. Schultz has given us a lively and colorful narra...
Michael Gould-Wartofsky, “The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement” (Oxford UP, 2015)
01 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Gould-Wartofsky is the author of The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is a PhD candidate i...
Miriam Pawel, “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez” (Bloomsbury Press, 2014)
29 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Cesar Chavez founded a labor union. Launched a movement. And inspired a generation. Two Decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant L...
Michelle Ann Stephens, “Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and the Black Male Performer” (Duke UP, 2014)
28 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Why would Bert Williams, famous African-American vaudeville performer of the early twentieth century, feel it necessary to apply burnt cork blackface...
Beatrix Hoffman, “Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930” (U of Chicago, 2012)
28 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Disputes over the definitions or legality of ‘rights’ and ‘rationing’ in their various guises have animated much of the debate around the Unit...
Julian E. Zelizer, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society” (Penguin Press, 2015)
22 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In recent decades, as Democrats and Republicans have grown more and more polarized ideologically, and gridlock has becoming increasingly standard in C...
Lawrence Jacobs, “Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation” (U Chicago Press, 2015)
18 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Lawrence Jacobs is the author (with James Druckman) of Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (University of Chicago Press, 2015). ...
Mariana Candido, “An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
17 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mariana Candido‘s book An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World. Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge University Press, 2013) is a powerful ...
Kirt von Daacke, “Freedom Has a Face: Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia” (UVA Press, 2012)
16 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I talk to Kirt von Daacke about his 2012 work, Freedom Has a Face:Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia (University ...
Paula T. Connolly, “Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010” (U of Iowa Press, 2013)
26 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The “peculiar institution” upon which the US nation was founded is still rich for examination.Perhaps this is why it is a subject to which 21st ce...
Carolyn Finney, “Black Faces, White Spaces” (UNC Press, 2014)
17 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Geographer Carolyn Finney wrote Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors (University of Nort...
Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos, “Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America” (Oxford UP 2014)
15 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos are the authors of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 2014...
Kaeten Mistry, “The United States, Italy, and the Origins of Cold War: Waging Political Warfare” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In the annals of cold war history Italy is rarely seen as a crucial locale. In his stimulating new book, The United States, Italy, and the Origins o...
David Krugler, “1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
13 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back (Cambridge University Press, 2014), David Krugler chronicles the origins and d...
Randy J. Sparks, “Where the Negroes Are Masters” (Harvard UP, 2014)
01 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A kind of biography of the town of Annamaboe, a major slave trading port on Africa’s Gold Coast, Randy J. Sparks‘s book Where the Negroes Are Mast...
Sarah Mayorga-Gallo, “Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood” (UNC Press 2014)
29 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Mayorga-Gallo is the author of Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood (UNC Press 2014). She is assista...
Jeff Smith, “Ferguson in Black and White” (Kindle Single, 2014)
22 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Smith is the author of Ferguson in Black and White (Kindle Single, 2014). Smith is assistant professor of political science at The New School’s...
Dick Lehr, “The Birth of a Nation” (PublicAffairs, 2014)
19 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Many books on film discuss the artistic aspects of movies, often as they relate to social and political events that affected the filmmakers. In his bo...
Jason Sokol, “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn” (Basic Books, 2014)
17 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When it came to race relations, the post-World War Two North was different — better — than the South. Or so white people in the northeast told the...