A History of Nigeria


Toyin Falola - 1999
    Toyin Falola, a leading historian intimately acquainted with the region, and Matthew Heaton, who has worked extensively on African science and culture, combine their expertise to explain the context to Nigeria's recent troubles through an exploration of its pre-colonial and colonial past, and its journey from independence to statehood. By examining key themes such as colonialism, religion, slavery, nationalism and the economy, the authors show how Nigeria's history has been swayed by the vicissitudes of the world around it, and how Nigerians have adapted to meet these challenges. This book offers a unique portrayal of a resilient people living in a country with immense, but unrealized, potential.

Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839


Fanny Kemble - 1863
    During a tour of America in the 1830s she met and married a wealthy Philadelphian, Pierce Butler, part of whose fortune derived from his family's vast cotton and rice plantation on the Sea Islands of Georgia. After their marriage she spent several months living on the plantation. Profoundly shocked by what she saw, she recorded her observations of plantation life in a series of journal entries written as letters to a friend. But she never sent the letters, and not until the Civil War was on and Fanny was divorced from Pierce Butler and living in England were they published.This Brown Thrasher edition incorporates the valuable introduction written by John A. Scott for the 1961 edition published by Alfred A. Knopf, together with the editor's appendices to that edition. It provides the modern reader with the historical and biographical background to move freely and with ease in Mrs. Kemble's world.

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror


Mahmood Mamdani - 2004
    In this brilliant look at the rise of political Islam, the distinguished political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani brings his expertise and insight to bear on a question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen? Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a provocative and important book that will profoundly change our understanding both of Islamist politics and the way America is perceived in the world today.

The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other


Tzvetan Todorov - 1982
    The book offers an original interpretation of the Spaniards’ conquest, colonization, and destruction of pre-Columbian cultures in Mexico and the Caribbean. Using sixteenth-century sources, the distinguished French writer and critic Tzvetan Todorov examines the beliefs and behavior of the Spanish conquistadors and of the Aztecs, adversaries in a clash of cultures that resulted in the near extermination of Mesoamerica’s Indian population.

What Does It Mean to Be White?; Developing White Racial Literacy


Robin DiAngelo - 2012
    These factors contribute to what she terms white racial illiteracy.Speaking as a white person to other white people, Dr. DiAngelo clearly and compellingly takes readers through an analysis of white socialization. She describes how race shapes the lives of white people, explains what makes racism so hard for whites to see, identifies common white racial patterns, and speaks back to popular white narratives that work to deny racism.Written as an accessible introduction to white identity from an anti-racist framework, What Does It Mean To Be White? is an invaluable resource for members of diversity and anti-racism programs and study groups and students of sociology, psychology, education, and other disciplines.

Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure


Michael Asher - 2005
    The story begins with the massacre of the 11,000 strong Hicks Pasha column in 1883. Sent to evacuate the country, British hero General Gordon was surrounded and murdered in Khartoum by an army of dervishes led by the Mahdi. The relief mission arrived 2 days too late. The result was a national scandal that shocked the Queen and led to the fall of the British government. Twelve years later it was the brilliant Herbert Kitchener who struck back. Achieving the impossible he built a railway across the desert to transport his troops to the final devastating confrontation at Omdurman in 1898. Desert explorer and author Michael Asher has reconstructed this classic tale in vivid detail. Having covered every inch of the ground and examined all eyewitness reports, he brings to bear new evidence questioning several accepted aspects of the story. The result is an account that sheds new light on the most riveting tale of honour, courage, revenge and savagery of late Victorian times.

The Racist's Guide to the People of South Africa


Simon Kilpatrick - 2010
    After sorting out the labels Black, English Whites, Afrikaners, and Coloreds, the discussion pushes on to more difficult questions: Why should you never give a White woman a white-gold engagement ring? Why do Indian men always play sports in jeans? and How do Colored gangsters fare in the navy?

Capoeira: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game


Nestor Capoeira - 2002
    Created by the Africans brought to Brazil as slaves beginning in 1500, capoeira was forbidden by law but survived underground. When open practice was allowed in the 1930s it soon became very popular. Capoeira came to America around 1975, and has become widely recognized by dancers and martial artists. The author discusses capoeira's evolution from Brazilian street play into a way of life. The philosophy of capoeira, and the practical and spiritual benefits of this philosophy, are also discussed. Instructions and exercises in intermediate and advanced skills take up where the author's previous book left off. The book includes 100 black-and-white photos and illustrations.

Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons


Ann Rinaldi - 1996
    Phillis Wheatley--as she comes to be known--has an eager mind and it leads her on an unusual path for a slave--she becomes America’s first published black poet. “Strong characterization and perceptive realism mark this thoughtful portrayal.”--Booklist

In the Wake: On Blackness and Being


Christina Sharpe - 2016
    Initiating and describing a theory and method of reading the metaphors and materiality of "the wake," "the ship," "the hold," and "the weather," Sharpe shows how the sign of the slave ship marks and haunts contemporary Black life in the diaspora and how the specter of the hold produces conditions of containment, regulation, and punishment, but also something in excess of them. In the weather, Sharpe situates anti-Blackness and white supremacy as the total climate that produces premature Black death as normative. Formulating the wake and "wake work" as sites of artistic production, resistance, consciousness, and possibility for living in diaspora, In the Wake offers a way forward.

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America


Melissa V. Harris-Perry - 2011
    Hurtful and dishonest, such representations force African American women to navigate a virtual crooked room that shames them and shapes their experiences as citizens. Many respond by assuming a mantle of strength that may convince others, and even themselves, that they do not need help. But as a result, the unique political issues of black women are often ignored and marginalized.In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images. Not a traditional political science work concerned with office-seeking, voting, or ideology, Sister Citizen instead explores how African American women understand themselves as citizens and what they expect from political organizing. Harris-Perry shows that the shared struggle to preserve an authentic self and secure recognition as a citizen links together black women in America, from the anonymous survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the current First Lady of the United States.

Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race


Patrick Wolfe - 2015
    Bringing a historical perspective to bear on the regimes of race that colonizers have sought to impose on Aboriginal people in Australia, on Blacks and Native Americans in the United States, on Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe, on Arab Jews in Israel/Palestine, and on people of African descent in Brazil, this book shows how race marks and reproduces the different relationships of inequality into which Europeans have coopted subaltern populations: territorial dispossession, enslavement, confinement, assimilation, and removal. Charting the different modes of domination that engender specific regimes of race and the strategies of anti-colonial resistance they entail, the book powerfully argues for cross-racial solidarities that respect these historical differences.From the Trade Paperback edition.

France and England in North America, Volume 1


Francis Parkman - 1983
    Parkman conceived the project in 1841, when he was a Harvard sophomore, and persisted in it despite chronic disorders that affected his eyes. The last volume of what he called his “history of the American forest” appeared almost thirty years after the first. Deservedly compared as a literary achievement to Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Parkman’s accomplishment is hardly less awesome than the explorations and adventures he so vividly describes. His own indomitable spirit is reflected in two of the history’s most fiercely resolute figures: La Salle, obsessed with colonizing the Mississippi Valley, and Frontenac, determined to bolster France’s tottering position in the New World. He tells a story of great empires maneuvering in an unfamiliar and hostile terrain with all the guile, sophistication, and ingenuity learned from centuries of European rivalry.Pioneers of France in the New World (1865) begins with the early and tragic settlement of the French Huguenots in Florida, then shifts to the northern reaches of the continent and follows the expeditions of Samuel de Champlain up the St. Lawrence River and into the Great Lakes as he mapped the wilderness, organized the fur trade, promoted Christianity among the natives, and waged a savage forest campaign against the Iroquois.The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867) traces the zealous efforts of the Jesuits and other Roman Catholic orders to convert the Native American tribes of North America. Jean de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues, Marguerite Bourgeoys, Marie de l’Incarnation, and Joseph Bressani represent only a few of that resolute company, many of whom suffered captivity, torture, and martyrdom in the far corners of the wilderness.La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1869) records that explorer’s voyages on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and his treks, often alone, across the vast western prairies and through the labyrinthine swamps of Louisiana. Although he won the respect and admiration of the Native Americans, La Salle often distrusted and alienated his associates. He survived two attempts to poison him before he was finally assassinated by his own men in a lonely Texas outpost.The Old Régime in Canada (1874) recounts the political struggles among the religious sects, colonial officials, feudal chiefs, royal ministers, and military commanders of Canada. Their bitter fights over the monopoly of the fur trade, the sale of brandy to the natives, the importation of wives from the orphanages and poorhouses of France, and the bizarre fanaticism of religious extremists and their “incessant supernaturalism” animate this pioneering social history of early Canada.Parkman’s chronicle of nearly two and a half centuries of conflict will permanently transform our image of the American landscape. Written with verve, suppleness, and wit, this grand narrative history of political and theological conflict, of feats of physical endurance, of courtly manners practiced with comic disproportion against the backdrop of a looming wilderness, is itself one of the still-undiscovered treasures of our national and of world literature.

American Education: A History


Wayne J. Urban - 1995
    Chronologically organized, it provides an objective overview of each major period in the development of American education, setting the discussion against the broader backdrop of national and world events. The first text to explore Native American traditions (including education) prior to colonization, it also offers strong, ongoing coverage of minorities and women.Key points that define the fourth edition of this volume include:Balanced Perspective - The authors provide contrasting views of American educational traditions, reforms, and theories in order to maintain a balanced view of events. They focus on conflicts, compromises and outcomes (positive and negative) that have defined America's educational past and that shape its future options. They also set discussions against the broader backdrop of national and world events.Pre-colonial Focus - A unique and much praised opening chapter discusses the educational traditions of Native Americans and the two-way learning exchanges that occurred between two distinct "old world" cultures, that is, between Native American and European cultures. The Indians taught as well as learned from the colonists. No other text has this feature.Cultural Conflict Focus - Throughout the text attention is paid to the cultural conflicts embedded in the majority-minority struggles of Native Americans and various immigrant groups throughout the nation's history. Chapter 5: Class, Caste and Education in the South provides an in-depth analysis of the educational legacy of Southern culture throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.Readability - Reviewers have labeled this the "best written text on the market" in terms of style, clarity and interest. "It's clarity and readability differentiate it from other books."Changes - The fourth edition will include more visual illustrations as well as substantial new material. A new epilogue adds closing comments on the present and future prospects for American education.

Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization


William Powers - 2006
    CNN and the New York Times have shown images of Aymara women in bowler hats standing down tanks; citizen protests have ousted multinationals and two pro-globalization presidents. In Whispering in the Giant's Ear, Powers brings alive the recent struggles of the Bolivian people. When he arrives in the rainforest, he meets an extraordinary Chiquitano Indian named Salvador who is fighting the extinction of his people. At the same time, the clock ticks for three multinational energy companies forced to curb the global warming. Both goals depend upon the survival of a stretch of pristine jungle. But as Indians and oil giants join to launch the world's largest Kyoto project - using forests to absorb dangerous planetary greenhouse gasses - Salvador's life is threatened by loggers collaborating with a racist Bolivian oligarchy. The quest for a single rainforest is subsumed in a movement of national liberation. Whispering in the Giant's Ear goes beneath the headlines, gracefully weaving memoir, travel, history, and reportage into an unforgettable chronicle of a "poor little rich country" attempting to engage the world without losing its soul.