New Books in African American Studies
Episodes
Susan D. Carle, “Defining the Struggle: National Organizing for Racial Justice, 1880-1915” (Oxford UP, 2013)
02 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Historians tell stories, and stories have beginnings and ends. Most human eras, however, are not so neat. Their beginnings and ends tend to blend into...
Matthew L. Basso, “Meet Joe Copper: Maculinity and Race on Montana’s World War II Home Front” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
09 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, World War II is now called “The Good War,” as opposed to bad ones, I suppose, like Vietnam. Moreover, the Americans who foug...
Simon P. Newman, “A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
10 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Ask most educated people about the development of American slavery, and you’re likely to hear something about Virginia or, just maybe, South Carolin...
Robert Cassanello, “To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville” (University Press of Florida, 2013)
30 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the rise of Jim Crow in Jacksonville, Florida is in many ways illustrative of the challenges facing newly emancipated African Americans t...
W. Caleb McDaniel, “The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Transatlantic Reform” (LSU Press, 2013)
20 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
How could members of a movement committed to cosmopolitanism accommodate nationalism? How could men and women committed to non-resistance reconcile th...
John K. Thornton, “A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820” (Cambridge UP, 2012).
12 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks in no small part to John K. Thornton, professor of history at Boston University, the field of Atlantic history has emerged as one of the most e...
Brian Harker, “Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings” (Oxford UP, 2011)
02 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“The public don’t understand jazz music as we musicians do. A diminished seventh don’t mean a thing to them, but they go for high notes. After a...
Sikivu Hutchinson, “Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels” (Infidel Books, 2013)
12 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Why does it seem like everyone in the atheist movement is white and male? Are African-American women less interested in secularism? In her book, Godle...
Matthew W. Hughey, “White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race” (Stanford UP, 2012)
09 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Whiteness studies has confirmed that race is a social construction, even for whites, and that the identity we understand as white is also a social inv...
Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, “The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America” (UNC Press, 2012)
25 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Jesus has inspired millions of people to both strive for social justice and commit horrific acts of violence. In the United States, Jesus has remained...
Carmen Kynard, “Vernacular Insurrections: Race, Black Protest, and the New Century in Composition-Literacies Studies” (SUNY Press, 2013)
18 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You know you are not going to get the same old story about progressive literacies and education from Carmen Kynard, who ends the introduction to her b...
H. Paul Thompson Jr., “A Most Stirring and Significant Episode: Religion and the Rise and Fall of Prohibition in Black Atlanta, 1865-1887” (NIU Press, 2012)
08 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The American Temperance Movement remains an interesting and important topic. Considering the various attitudes that influenced laws about alcohol sale...
Keith Clark, “The Radical Fiction of Ann Petry” (Louisiana State UP, 2013)
23 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What do you do if you accompany a friend on her research trip to Boston University’s Gotlieb Archival Research Center and end up finding a treasure ...
Marc Mauer, “Race to Incarcerate” (New Press, 2013)
18 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The American penitentiary model began as not merely a physical construct, but as a philosophical and religious one. Prisoners were to use their time i...
Monica R. Miller, “Religion and Hip Hop” (Routledge, 2012)
03 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between music and religion is a site of increasing interest to scholars within Religious Studies. Monica Miller, Assistant Professor ...
Alexis Wilson, “Not So Black and White” (Tree Spirit Publishing, 2012)
03 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When I think of the name “Billy Wilson” certain things come to mind immediately. I think of his sparkling career as director and choreographer of ...
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, “Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston” (UNC Press, 2011)
31 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Mye...
Marcus Rediker “The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom” (Viking, 2012)
24 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
If the moniker of the slave ship Amistad brings to mind images of Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, and Morgan Freeman you are likely not alone. The mo...
Henry Wiencek, “Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves” (FSG, 2012)
15 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The Louisiana Purchase was a perfect illustration of the challenges, yet seemingly boundless opportunities that slavery presented statesmen like Thoma...
Andre Williams, “Dividing Lines: Social Class Anxiety and Postbellum Black Fiction” (University of Michigan, 2013)
08 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Andrei Williams‘ provocative new book on African American class divisions in Post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow America is sure to spark spirited deba...
Steven Roby and Brad Schreiber, “Becoming Jimi Hendrix” (Da Capo, 2010)
03 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
After his incendiary performance at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, Jimi Hendrix almost immediately went from obscure musician to pop su...
Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen, “Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop” (W.W. Norton, 2012)
25 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The moral arguments in defense of slavery hinged on the claim that it was the best arrangement for all parties involved, especially the slaves. Thomas...
Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party” (University of California Press, 2013)
17 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
German military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz observed that many of the important variables in war exist in ‘clouds of great uncertainty’ which cre...
Vladimir Alexandrov, “The Black Russian” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013)
03 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Vladimir Alexandrov‘s new book The Black Russian (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013) tells the epic and often tragic story of Fredrick Bruce Thomas, an A...
Peter Benjaminson, “Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar” (Chicago Review Press, 2012)
09 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Who is Motown’s first real star? The answer, of course, is Mary Wells, singer of such classics as “My Guy,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “The One Who R...
Reiland Rabaka, “Hip Hop’s Amnesia: From Blues and the Black Women’s Club Movement to Rap and the Hip Hop Movement” (Lexington Books, 2012)
19 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In Hip Hop’s Amnesia: From Blues and the Black Women’s Club Movement to Rap and the Hip Hop Movement (Lexington Books, 2012), the second installme...
Michael P. Jeffries, “Paint the White House Black: Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America” (Stanford UP, 2013)
16 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last year, this podcast has featured several authors who’ve examined the presidency of Barack Obama. John Sides, Daniel Kriess, and Enid Lo...
Andra Gillespie, “The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America” (NYU Press, 2012)
08 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Andra Gillespie is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America (NYU Press, 2012). She is an Associate Profess...
Stephen G. Hall, “A Faithful Account of the Race: African American Historical Writing in Nineteenth-Century America” (UNC Press, 2009)
08 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Stephen Hall passionately engages in the history of nineteenth-century African American intellectual life in his first monograph, A Faithful...
Richard W. Leeman and Bernard Duffy, “The Will of a People: A Critical Anthology of Great African American Speeches (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012)
30 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The Will of a People: A Critical Anthology of Great African American Speeches (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) is a compendium of 22 oration...
Stephen Caliendo and Charlton McIlwain, “Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in US Political Campaigns” (Temple University Press 2011)
22 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Caliendo and Charlton McIlwain are the authors of Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in US Political Campaigns (Temple University Press 2...
Carla L. Peterson, “Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City (Yale UP, 2011)
18 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Digging up our roots seems to be the thing these days. There are a host of genealogy resources available for anyone who cares to (re)discover their...
Preston Lauterbach, “The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll” (W. W. Norton, 2011)
15 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Where does rock ‘n’ roll begin? In The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll (W. W. Norton, 2011), Preston Lauterbach makes a stro...
Marcia Alesan Dawkins, “Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity” (Baylor UP, 2012)
11 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Performance queen RuPaul once famously quipped that “we’re born naked; the rest is drag”–meaning everyone dons identity, performs one’s conc...
Yael Tamar Lewin, “Night’s Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins” (Wesleyan UP, 2011)
11 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean for a contemporary scholar to be trusted with the unfinished autobiography of a dance legend? How does one ensure that the integrity...
Meredith Roman, “Opposing Jim Crow: African Americans and the Soviet Indictment of US Racism, 1928-1937” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012)
21 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1958, US Senator Hubert H. Humphery recalled that at some point during an eight hour meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Premier “...
Sikivu Hutchinson, “Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars” (Infidel Books, 2011)
13 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Sikivu Hutchinson‘s book Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (Infidel Books, 2011) is a brave examination of African ...
Catherine Higgs, “Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa” (Ohio University Press, 2012)
14 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
With elegant and accessible prose, Catherine Higgs takes us on a journey in Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa (Ohio University Pr...
Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields, “Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life” (Verso Books, 2012)
11 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Racism is a process by which people are segregated and discriminated against based on their race, and race is defined as a set of physical characteris...
Peggy Schwartz and Murray Schwartz, “The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus” (Yale UP, 2012)
02 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
For some time now I’ve been in spaces with dancers and dance scholars who lament the amount of available research on some of the black luminaries in...
Michele Elam, “The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics and Aesthetics in the New Millennium” (Stanford UP, 2011)
31 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“What are you?” The question can often comes out of nowhere One can be going about her quotidian activities, or she might have just finished a mee...
Donald Spivey, “‘If You Were Only White’: The Life of Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige” (University of Missouri Press, 2012)
25 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Of all American sports, baseball has contributed the greater number of folk heroes to the larger culture. Fictional characters of awe-inspiring abilit...
David Kirby, “Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Continuum, 2009)
02 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop, a-lop-bam-boom!”And so rock and roll was born. And so American culture changed forever. So says David Kirby in Little Richar...
Peter Hoffer, “Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739” (Oxford, 2010)
26 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 (Oxford, 2010), Peter C. Hoffer offers a succinct and refreshing new look at the Stono s...
Theresa Runstedtler, “Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line” (University of California Press, 2012)
24 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the history of American sports, few athletes were as famous and hated in their day as Jack Johnson. The first African American boxing champion, Joh...
Reiland Rabaka, “Hip Hop’s Inheritance: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Hip Hop Feminist Movement” (Lexington Books, 2011)
11 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Cultural movements don’t exist in vacuums. Consciously or not, all movements borrow from, and sometimes reject, those that came before. In Hip Hop’...
Brenda Dixon Gottschild, “Joan Myers Brown and the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011)
29 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
For the launch of the Dance Channel, I thought long and hard about what the first author interview would be. I felt that it was critically important t...
Minkah Makalani, “In the Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism from Harlem to London, 1917-1939” (UNC Press, 2011)
15 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Minkah Makalani is the author of a new intellectual history on the efforts of early twentieth century black radicals to organize an international move...
Charlotte Pierce-Baker, “This Fragile Life: A Mother’s Story of a Bipolar Son” (Lawrence Hill Books, 2012)
30 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
When a mother listens to the beats of her own heart, where angst, fear and fortitude compete, and then beautifully weaves emotion into a story about h...
Erica R. Edwards, “Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership” (University of Minnesota Press, 2012)
29 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Picture the familiar scene: the visiting pastor thanks the local pastor for granting him the use of his pulpit; he sends out the call (“Can I just s...
Koritha Mitchell, “Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930” (University of Illinois Press, 2012)
29 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Koritha Mitchell‘s Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930 (University of Illinois Press, 201...
Kelly Baker, “Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930” (University Press of Kansas, 2011)
24 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
If images of white robes, pointed hoods, and a burning cross represent racism and violence for you then you are not alone. But do they also evoke idea...
David J. Leonard, “After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness” (SUNY Press, 2012)
15 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The NBA Finals are under way, with the Oklahoma City Thunder facing the Miami Heat. Network executives and the sports punditocracy are elated with the...
Enid Logan, “At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama’s Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race” (NYU Press, 2011)
08 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Enid Logan‘s At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama: Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race (NYU Press, 2011) examines the campaign and ...
Erin D. Chapman, “Prove It On Me: New Negroes, Sex, and Popular Culture in the 1920s” (Oxford University Press, 2012)
29 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Whoever states the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words” grossly underestimates. So Erin D. Chapman shows in Prove It On Me: New Negroe...
Kevin Whitehead, “Why Jazz? A Concise Guide” (Oxford UP, 2011)
21 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Whitehead‘s highly readable, informative and entertaining Why Jazz? A Concise Guide (Oxford University Press, 2011) is bookshelf “must have”...
Kathryn Lofton, “Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon” (University of California Press, 2011)
17 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In December of 2011, Oprah Winfrey appeared on The Dr. Oz Show to talk about her new big plans and her inspirations for the future. Oprah replied, “...
Vershawn Young, “From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances” (Wayne State UP, 2011)
07 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be black? In From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances (Wayne State University Press, 2011) editor Vershawn Ashan...
Manning Marable, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” (Penguin, 2011)
01 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly 50 years after his death, Malcolm X remains a controversial figure. An 8th grade dropout (he ditched school when a white teacher told him it wa...
Matthew Delmont, “The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia” (University of California Press, 2011)
20 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Delmont‘s The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia (Universit...
Elizabeth West, “African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature, and Being” (Lexington Books, 2011)
09 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth West has written an insightful study about the presence of African spirituality in the autobiographies, poetry, speeches and novels of Afric...
Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, “Dorothy West’s Paradise: A Biography of Class and Color” (Rutgers UP, 2012)
09 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
One lesson that the ever-present trickster figure in African American folklore teaches is how to use signifying to protect one’s intimate self. A ch...
Mia Bay, “To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells” (Hill and Wang, 2009)
24 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
I can’t remember when I first saw one of those horrible photographs of a lynching, with crowds of white people, kids included, laughing and pointing...
Vorris Nunley, “Keepin’ It Hushed: The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric” (Wayne State UP, 2011)
16 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Vorris Nunley‘s Keepin it Hushed: The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric (Wayne State University Press, 2011), uses the black barb...
Randy Roberts, “Joe Louis: Hard Times Man” (Yale UP, 2010)
17 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“I’m sure if it wasn’t for Joe Louis,” acknowledged Jackie Robinson, “the color line in baseball would not have been broken for another ten ...
Keith Gilyard, “True to the Language Game: African American Discourse, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy” (Routledge, 2011)
22 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In the preface to this book, Keith Gilyard describes his career as 30 years of roaming the areas of rhetoric, composition, sociolinguistics, creative ...
Jerald Walker, “Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption” (Bantam Books, 2010)
17 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Jerald Walker‘s critical autobiography, Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption (Bantam, 2010), is a sheer pleasure to read. A b...
Kitty Kelley, “Oprah: A Biography” (Three Rivers Press, 2011)
15 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
When she emerged triumphant in a legal battle with the Texas beef industry, Oprah Winfrey took to the steps of the Amarillo court house and declared: ...
Daniel Sharfstein, “The Invisible line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White” (Penguin, 2011)
01 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Sharfstein‘s The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press, 2011) is the latest and p...
Lester K. Spence, “Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
25 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Hip-hop has, within a short time span, moved from a free-flowing expression of urban youth to a global–and highly marketable–musical genre. Its in...
Pierre W. Orelus, “The Agony of Masculinity: Race, Gender, and Education in the Age of the ‘New’ Racism and Patriarchy” (Peter Lang, 2010)
17 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Agony of Masculinity: Race, Gender, and Education in the Age of the “New” Racism and Patriarchy (Peter Lang, 2010), Pierre Or...
Dave Zirin, “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment that Changed the World” (Haymarket Books, 2011)
04 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
There are beautiful sports photos, and dramatic sports photos. There are sports photos that are funny, and others that are poignant. There are photos ...
Ron Christie, “Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur” (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010)
26 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In his new bookActing White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010), former White House aide Ron Christie recounts the histor...
Scott Brooks, “Black Men Can’t Shoot” (University of Chicago Press, 2009)
19 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
With the NBA in the midst of a labor disagreement, players from the world’s premier basketball league are scattering in different directions to main...
Charles McKinney, Jr., “Greater Freedom: The Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina” (UPA, 2010)
16 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
When I was an undergraduate, I noticed that there were certain books that seemed to be unavoidable (at least at my liberal arts college). They were as...
James Unnever and Shaun L. Gabbidon, “A Theory of African American Offending: Race, Racism, and Crime” (Routledge, 2011)
15 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Is comedian and cultural critic Bill Cosby right–that black youth suffer from a cultural pathology that leads them to commit more crimes than their ...
Miriam Thaggert, “Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem Renaissance” (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010)
31 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Miriam Thaggert’s study Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem Renaissance (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010)...
Daniel Black, “Perfect Peace” (St. Martin’s Press, 2010)
24 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
If a mother raises her biologically male child as a daughter instead of a son, what would be the effects on the family, the community, the church? Ind...
Robert Thurston, “Lynching: American Mob Murder in Global Perspective” (Ashgate, 2011)
05 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
It takes a brave historian to take on the orthodoxy regarding the rise and fall of lynching in the United States. That orthodoxy holds that lynching i...
Houston A. Baker, “Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era” (Columbia UP, 2008)
04 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era (Columbia University Press, 2008), Houston A. Ba...
Frank Dobson, Jr., “Rendered Invisible: Stories of Blacks and Whites, Love and Death” (Plain View Press, 2010)
21 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Dobson, Jr.‘s Rendered Invisible: Stories of Blacks and Whites, Love and Death (Plain View Press, 2010) is a single-authored collection of fi...
Deborah Whaley, “Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities” (SUNY, 2010)
15 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Deborah Whaley’s new book Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities (SUNY Press,...
Nikky Finney, “Head Off and Split: Poems” (TriQuarterly/Northwestern UP, 2010)
06 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
UPDATE: Nikky Finney’s Head Off and Split has been named a finalist for a National Book Award. Congratulations, Nikky, from the folks at New Boo...
Harvey Young, “Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body” (University of Michigan, 2010)
20 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
With the election of Barack Obama, the first U.S. president of African descent, many people believed that America had ushered in an era of post-racial...
Eric C. Schneider, “Smack: Heroin and the American City” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)
15 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
When I arrived at college in the early 1980s, drugs were cool, music was cool, and drug-music was especially cool. The coolest of the cool drug-music ...
Kwasi Konadu, “The Akan Diaspora in the Americas” (Oxford UP, 2010)
09 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
How can those in African, Africana, and African American Studies strengthen their disciplinary ties? What do these connections have to do with Kwasi K...
Elizabeth Abel, “Signs of the Times: The Visual Politics of Jim Crow” (University of California Press, 2010)
07 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
I think this is really interesting. Among the thousands of iconic and easily recognizable photographs of segregated water fountains in the American So...
Alan Nadel, “August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle” (University of Iowa Press, 2010)
30 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Many scholars consider August Wilson to be the premier American playwright of the 20th Century. Alan Nadel is surely one of their number. In the early...
Blair Ruble, “Washington’s U Street: A Biography” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2010)
18 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
I used to live in Washington DC, not far from a place I learned to call the “U Street Corridor.” I really had no idea why it was a “corridor” ...
Chad L. Williams, “Torchbearers of Democracy: African-American Soldiers in the World War I Era” (The University of North Carolina Press, 2010)
13 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
One of the great “grey” areas of World War I historiography concerns the African-American experience. Even as the war was ending, white historians...
Jonathan Metzl, “The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease” (Beacon Press, 2010)
04 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Schizophrenia is a real, frightening, debilitating disease. But what are we to make of the fact that several studies show that African Americans are t...
Charles Lane, “The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction” (Henry Holt, 2008)
11 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Why did Reconstruction fail? Why didn’t the post-war Federal government protect the civil rights of the newly freed slaves? And why did it take Wash...
Nell Irvin Painter, “The History of White People” (Norton, 2010)
14 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
We in the West tend to classify people by the color of their skin, or what we casually call “race.” But, as Nell Irvin Painter shows in her fascin...
Kyra Hicks, “This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilt and Other Pieces” (Black Threads Press, 2009)
19 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
I’ll tell you something I’ve never really understood: the difference between “art” and “craft.” Yes, I get the sociological difference (“...
Aram Goudsouzian, “King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution” (University of California, 2010)
12 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
I imagine the guys who first faced Bill Russell felt like I did when I had to guard Antoine Carr in high school. I “held” Carr to 32 points. But n...
Todd Moye, “Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II” (Oxford UP, 2010)
23 Jul 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1940s, the United States military performed an “experiment,” the substance of which was the formation of an all-black aviation unit known t...
Amy Bass, “Those About Him Remained Silent: The Battle Over W. E. B. Du Bois” (Minnesota UP, 2009)
15 Apr 2010
Contributed by Lukas
I asked my wife if she knew who W. E. B. Du Bois was. She did, as would most Americans. I then asked her if she knew where Du Bois was born and raised...
Jack Greene and Philip Morgan, “Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal” (Oxford UP, 2008)
02 Oct 2009
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first in a series of podcasts that New Books in History is offering in conjunction with the National History Center. The NHC and Oxford Un...
Leslie Schwalm, “Emancipation’s Diaspora: Race and Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest” (University of North Carolina Press, 2009)
31 Jul 2009
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve heard of “Reconstruction,” that is, the reform of the South after the Civil War. But have you heard of “Northern Reconstruction?” Pro...
Matt Wasniewski, et al., “Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007” (U.S. House of Representatives, 2008)
15 Jan 2009
Contributed by Lukas
In just a few days, the United States will inaugurate its first black president, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. And though it’s a momentous day f...