Gringo Nightmare: A Young American Framed for Murder in Nicaragua


Eric Volz - 2010
    He and a friend cofounded a bilingual magazine, "El Puente, " and it proved more successful than they ever expected. Then Volz met Doris Jimenez, an incomparable beauty from a small Nicaraguan beach town, and they began a passionate and meaningful relationship. Though the relationship ended amicably less than a year later and Volz moved his business to the capital city of Managua, a close bond between the two endured.Nothing prepared him for the phone call he received on November 21, 2006, when he learned that Doris had been found dead---murdered---in her seaside clothing boutique. He rushed from Managua to be with her friends and family, and before he knew it, he found himself accused of her murder, arrested, and imprisoned.Decried in the press and vilified by his onetime friends, Volz suffered horrific conditions, illness, deadly inmates, an angry lynch mob, sadistic guards, and the merciless treatment of government officials. It was only through his dogged persistence, the tireless support of his friends and family, and the assistance of a former intelligence operative that Eric was released, in December 2007, after more than a year in prison.A story that made national and international headlines, this is the first and only book to tell Eric's absorbing, moving account in his own words."Visit the companion Exhibit Hall at the Gringo Nightmare website for additional photos, audio clips, video, case files, and more."

JUST BORIS: A Tale of Blond Ambition


Sonia Purnell - 2011
    Full description

The ABCs of Capitalism


Vivek Chibber - 2018
    A series of three ~40-page pamphlets written by Jacobin and Catalyst Magazine explaining capitalism and it's relationship to the state and class struggle.

Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism


Roger Wilkins - 2001
    and demythologizes founding fathers Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Mason by studying their attitudes towards race with an understanding of the political and social contexts of the time.

Big Shots: The Men Behind the Booze


A.J. Baime - 2003
    Now, a former Senior Editor for "Maxim gives a crash course on the men behind our favorite labels, including:

Jews Don't Count


David Baddiel - 2021
    People fighting the good fight against homophobia, disablism, transphobia and, particularly, racism. People, possibly, like you.It is the comedian and writer David Baddiel’s contention that one type of racism has been left out of this fight. In his unique combination of reasoning, polemic, personal experience and jokes, Baddiel argues that those who think of themselves as on the right side of history have often ignored the history of anti-Semitism. He outlines why and how, in a time of intensely heightened awareness of minorities, Jews don’t count as a real minority.

India: The Siege Within: Challenges to a Nation's Unity


M.J. Akbar - 1985
    

American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow


Jerrold M. Packard - 2002
    Together with its rigidly enforced canon of racial "etiquette," these rules governed nearly every aspect of life—and outlined draconian punishments for infractions.The purpose of Jim Crow was to keep African Americans subjugated at a level as close as possible to their former slave status. Exceeding even South Africa's notorious apartheid in the humiliation, degradation, and suffering it brought, Jim Crow left scars on the American psyche that are still felt today. American Nightmare examines and explains Jim Crow from its beginnings to its end: how it came into being, how it was lived, how it was justified, and how, at long last, it was overcome only a few short decades ago. Most importantly, this book reveals how a nation founded on principles of equality and freedom came to enact as law a pervasive system of inequality and virtual slavery.Although America has finally consigned Jim Crow to the historical graveyard, Jerrold Packard shows why it is important that this scourge—and an understanding of how it happened—remain alive in the nation's collective memory.

The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins: The Life and Legacy That Shaped an American City


Antero Pietila - 2018
    One of America's richest men and the largest single shareholder of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Hopkins was also one of the city's defining developers. In The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins, Antero Pietila weaves together a biography of the man with a portrait of how the institutions he founded have shaped the racial legacy of an industrial city from its heyday to its decline and revitalization. From the destruction of neighborhoods to make way for the mercantile buildings that dominated Baltimore's downtown through much of the 19th century to the role that the president of Johns Hopkins University played in government sponsored "Negro Removal" that unleashed the migration patterns that created Baltimore's existing racial patchwork, Pietila tells the story of how one man's wealth shaped and reshaped the life of a city long after his lifetime.--Klaus Philipsen, architect and author of Baltimore: Reinventing an Industrial Legacy City

Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain


Sathnam Sanghera - 2021
    In prose that is, at once, both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how our past is everywhere: from how we live to how we think, from the foundation of the NHS to the nature of our racism, from our distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit and the government's early response to the Covid crisis. And yet empire is a subject, weirdly hidden from view.The British Empire ran for centuries and covered vast swathes of the world. It is, as Sanghera reveals, fundamental to understanding Britain. However, even among those who celebrate the empire there seems to be a desire not to look at it too closely - not to include the subject in our school history books, not to emphasize it too much in our favourite museums.At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Sanghera's book urges us to address this bewildering contradiction. For, it is only by stepping back and seeing where we really come from, that we can begin to understand who we are, and what unites us.

Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Texas Narratives, Part 1


Work Projects Administration - 2010
    

Diana vs. Charles: Royal Blood Feud


James Whitaker - 1993
    until now. Their breakup sent shock waves around the world, as growing suspicions were officially confirmed: Their fairy-tale marriage was just that - a fairy tale. Not only was the lily-white veil stripped away from their private lives, but the British monarchy itself was suddenly under scathing scrutiny. After all the headlines, the whispers, the rumors, the damaging claims and counterclaims by intimate friends of each, the full inside story of Diana, Charles, and their doomed union is now revealed - by the one person uniquely qualified to tell the lurid and fascinating tale of royal romance, rivalry, and scandal. James Whitaker is famous in England as the authority on the Royal Family - the only journalist to have had access to all the members of the House of Windsor for more than two decades of exclusive reportage. At the same time, he knew the teenage Lady Diana Spencer long before the royal wedding bells. With vivid personality profiles of an awe-inspiring gallery of characters, with unblushing and authentic depictions of how the Royals live and love, with utter honesty about both the monarchy and the girl now exiled from its charmed circle, Diana vs. Charles offers the most staggering, far-reaching disclosures about the greatest personal crisis ever to shake the Royal Family.

North Korea: The Country We Love to Hate


Loretta Napoleoni - 2018
    Like China's Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung - North Korea's leader from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994 - washed away the humiliation caused by Japanese colonisation and re-created an ancient nation. He consolidated and protected the country with strict principles of unity and isolation. His grandson Kim Jong-un is following in the footsteps of Chinese revolutionary politics by modernising the country using the economy as the main tool of transformation. This short, informative book is an account of a country central to world politics and yet little understood. Further, it presents insider narratives of its people, whose self-image is radically different to the image we have of them.

Amistad


Alexs D. Pate - 1997
    Amistad is the story of Cinque, the illegally enslaved son of a Mende chief who led an uprising full of fury and courage. It is also the story of John Quincy Adams, the former American president, who reluctantly heeded the call to justice and defended Cinque in a Supreme Court trial that would alter the nation's history. And it is the story of men and women searching to find truth and to uphold the basic tenets of the American Constitution. Brilliantly narrated by award-winning novelist Alexs Pate, Amistad celebrates the human spirit's profound determination to fight, hope, and to be free.

Over a Hot Stove


Flo Wadlow - 2007
    At the age of sixteen, Flo Wadlow left her family to begin what would become a distinguished life 'in service'. Starting as a kitchen maid in London, she soon rose through the ranks and worked at many of England's great houses including Woodhall in Hilgay where she met scullery maid Mollie Moran, author of Aprons and Silver Spoons; Hatfield House and Blicking Hall. By her early twenties, Flo was in charge of the kitchen and cooked for prime ministers and royalty. Including some of Flo's cherished recipes and photographs from her life, Over a Hot Stove is a must-read for fans of Downton Abbey.