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The Black Book of the American Left: The Collected Conservative Writings of David Horowitz
by David HorowitzDavid Horowitz spent the first part of his life in the world of the Communist-progressive left, a politics he inherited from his mother and father, and later in the New Left as one of its founders. When the wreckage he and his comrades had created became clear to him in the mid-1970s, he left. Three decades of second thoughts then made him this movement's principal intellectual antagonist. "For better or worse," as Horowitz writes in the preface, "I have been condemned to spend the rest of my days attempting to understand how the left pursues the agendas from which I have separated myself, and why."When Horowitz began his odyssey, the left had already escaped the political ghetto to which his parents' generation and his own had been confined. Today, it has become the dominant force in America's academic and media cultures, electing a president and achieving a position from which it can shape America's future. How it achieved its present success and what that success portends are the overarching subjects of Horowitz's conservative writings. Through the unflinching focus of one singularly engaged witness, the identity of a destructive movement that constantly morphs itself in order to conceal its identity and mission becomes disturbingly clear.Horowitz reflects on the years he spent at war with his own country, collaborating with and confronting radical figures like Huey Newton, Tom Hayden and Billy Ayers, as he made his transition from what the writer Paul Berman described as the American left's "most important theorist" to its most determined enemy.
The Black Book on Red China: The Continuing Revolt
by Edward Hunter"The Black Book on Red China: The Continuing Revolt" delves deep into the turbulent history and ongoing unrest within the People's Republic of China. This compelling work provides a stark and unflinching analysis of the political, social, and economic upheavals that have shaped modern China and the establishment of the Communist regime.The book meticulously chronicles the key events and movements that have challenged the Communist Party's grip on power.Through a blend of historical documentation, personal accounts, and incisive commentary, "The Black Book on Red China: The Continuing Revolt" offers readers a comprehensive and thought-provoking examination of China's complex political landscape. The book sheds light on the resilience and courage of the Chinese people in their ongoing quest for justice and democracy, despite the formidable challenges they face.This work is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of rebellion and resistance in China, as well as the broader implications for global politics and human rights. "The Black Book on Red China" stands as a testament to the enduring spirit of those who dare to challenge authoritarianism and envision a better future.
The Black Box of Governmental Learning
by Raoul Blindenbacher Bidjan NashatThere are more poor people around the world than ever before. One of the missing factors in efforts to address poverty and increase sustainable development is adequate governmental capacity development. One effective means to improve the quality of democratic governance is by learning from the past and from others' experiences. 'The Black Box of Governmental Learning' introduces the Learning Spiral-a new concept for organizing effective learning events for governments in the 21st century. It helps governments to learn from each other. This theory-based concept has been applied successfully over the past decade in numerous conferences, training, and e-learning events all over the world. The book is directed toward practitioners in governments, such as members of cabinets, parliaments, and courts; civil servants and politicians; civil society organizations; and international organizations. It will help them understand the challenges of learning in governments and offers a concept for organizing effective learning events.
The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America
by Lawrence T. BrownHow can American cities promote racial equity, end redlining, and reverse the damaging health- and wealth-related effects of segregation?The world gasped in April 2015 as Baltimore erupted and Black Lives Matter activists, incensed by Freddie Gray's brutal death in police custody, shut down highways and marched on city streets. In The Black Butterfly—a reference to the fact that Baltimore's majority-Black population spreads out on both sides of the coveted strip of real estate running down the center of the city like a butterfly's wings—Lawrence T. Brown reveals that ongoing historical trauma caused by a combination of policies, practices, systems, and budgets is at the root of uprisings and crises in hypersegregated cities around the country. Putting Baltimore under a microscope, Brown looks closely at the causes of segregation, many of which exist in current legislation and regulatory policy despite the common belief that overtly racist policies are a thing of the past. Drawing on social science research, policy analysis, and archival materials, Brown reveals the long history of racial segregation's impact on health, from toxic pollution to police brutality. Beginning with an analysis of the current political moment, Brown delves into how Baltimore's history influenced actions in sister cities like St. Louis and Cleveland, as well as its adoption of increasingly oppressive techniques from cities like Chicago. But there is reason to hope. Throughout the book, Brown offers a clear five-step plan for activists, nonprofits, and public officials to achieve racial equity. Not content to simply describe and decry urban problems, Brown offers up a wide range of innovative solutions to help heal and restore redlined Black neighborhoods, including municipal reparations. Persuasively arguing that because urban apartheid was intentionally erected it can be intentionally dismantled, The Black Butterfly demonstrates that America cannot reflect that Black lives matter until we see how Black neighborhoods matter.
The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt
by Jill WattsAn in-depth history exploring the evolution, impact, and ultimate demise of what was known in the 1930s and ‘40s as FDR’s Black Cabinet.In 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency with the help of key African American defectors from the Republican Party. At the time, most African Americans lived in poverty, denied citizenship rights and terrorized by white violence. As the New Deal began, a “black Brain Trust” joined the administration and began documenting and addressing the economic hardship and systemic inequalities African Americans faced. They became known as the Black Cabinet, but the environment they faced was reluctant, often hostile, to change.“Will the New Deal be a square deal for the Negro?” The black press wondered. The Black Cabinet set out to devise solutions to the widespread exclusion of black people from its programs, whether by inventing tools to measure discrimination or by calling attention to the administration’s failures. Led by Mary McLeod Bethune, an educator and friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, they were instrumental to Roosevelt’s continued success with black voters. Operating mostly behind the scenes, they helped push Roosevelt to sign an executive order that outlawed discrimination in the defense industry. They saw victories?jobs and collective agriculture programs that lifted many from poverty?and defeats?the bulldozing of black neighborhoods to build public housing reserved only for whites; Roosevelt’s refusal to get behind federal anti-lynching legislation. The Black Cabinet never won official recognition from the president, and with his death, it disappeared from view. But it had changed history. Eventually, one of its members would go on to be the first African American Cabinet secretary; another, the first African American federal judge and mentor to Thurgood Marshall.Masterfully researched and dramatically told, The Black Cabinet brings to life a forgotten generation of leaders who fought post-Reconstruction racial apartheid and whose work served as a bridge that Civil Rights activists traveled to achieve the victories of the 1950s and ’60s.Praise for The Black Cabinet“A dramatic piece of nonfiction that recovers the history of a generation of leaders that helped create the environment for the civil rights battles in decades that followed Roosevelt’s death.” —Library Journal“Fascinating . . . revealing the hidden figures of a ‘brain trust’ that lobbied, hectored and strong-armed President Franklin Roosevelt to cut African Americans in on the New Deal. . . . Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The Black Cabinet is sprawling and epic, and Watts deftly re-creates whole scenes from archival material.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
by Henry Louis GatesFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and one of our most important voices on the African American experience comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. <P><P>The companion book to the upcoming PBS series. <P><P>For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. <P><P>In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. <P><P>But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community's most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear. <p><p><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
The Black Circle: A Life of Alexandre Kojève
by Jeff LoveAlexandre Kojève (1902–1968) was an important and provocative thinker. Born in Russia, he spent most of his life in France. His interpretation of Hegel and his notorious declaration that history had come to an end exerted great influence on French thinkers and writers such as Raymond Aron, Georges Bataille, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Lacan, and Raymond Queneau. An unorthodox Marxist, he was a critic of Martin Heidegger and interlocutor of Leo Strauss who played a significant role in establishing the European Economic Community; a polyglot with many unusual interests, he wrote works, mostly unpublished in his lifetime, on quantum physics, the problem of the infinite, Buddhism, atheism, and Vassily Kandinsky’s paintings.In The Black Circle, Jeff Love reinterprets Kojève’s works, showing him to be an essential thinker who challenged modern society and its valuation of individuality, self-interest, and freedom from death. Emphasizing Kojève’s neglected Russian roots, The Black Circle puts him in the context of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Russian debates over the proper ends of human life. Love explores notions of perfection, freedom, and finality in Kojève’s account of Hegel and his neglected later works, clarifying Kojève’s emancipatory thinking and the meaning of the oft-misinterpreted “end of history.” Combining intellectual history, close textual analysis, and philosophy, The Black Circle reveals Kojève’s thought as a profound critique of capitalist individualism and a timely meditation on human freedom.
The Black Flag: A look back at the strange case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Routledge Revivals)
by Brian JacksonFirst published in 1981, this book reassesses the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists living in Boston in 1920. The pair were accused of a payroll robbery and the murder of two guards for which they were arrested and, after a long trial based on inadequate and prejudiced evidence, executed in 1927. In 1977, on the fiftieth anniversary of their deaths, the Commonwealth of Massachusettes issued a proclamation which acknowledged a miscarriage of justice. The Black Flag provides an account of the controversial trial and a re-evaluation of the celebrated case of the Commonwealth’s decision. Brian Jackson puts the trial in the social context of the period and exposes the nature of anarchism by looking at the lives of two of its exponents, resulting in a moving exploration of a series of events that continue to trouble the conscience of America.
The Black Hole of Public Administration (Governance Series)
by Gilles Paquet Ruth HubbardPublic administration in Canada needs to change. A handful of scholars across Canada have been sounding the alarm for years but to no avail. Talented young bureaucrats have been joining the public service with fresh ideas capable of creating real change, but the black hole consumes all. In The Black Hole of Public Administration, experienced public servant Ruth Hubbard and public administration iconoclast Gilles Paquet sound a wake-up call to the federal public service. They lament the lack of “serious play” going on in Canada’s public administration today and map some possible escape plans. They look to a more participatory governance model – “open source” governing or “small g” governance – as a way to liberate our public service from antiquated styles and systems of governing. In their recognizably rebellious style, Hubbard and Paquet demand that public administration scholars and senior level bureaucrats pull their heads out of the sand and confront the problems of the current system and develop a new system that can address the needs of Canada today.
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
by C.L.R. JamesA powerful and impassioned historical account of the largest successful revolt by enslaved people in history: the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1803&“One of the seminal texts about the history of slavery and abolition.... Provocative and empowering.&” —The New York Times Book ReviewThe Black Jacobins, by Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James, was the first major analysis of the uprising that began in the wake of the storming of the Bastille in France and became the model for liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, a place where the brutality of plantation owners toward enslaved people was horrifyingly severe. And it is the story of a charismatic and barely literate enslaved person named Toussaint L&’Ouverture, who successfully led the Black people of San Domingo against successive invasions by overwhelming French, Spanish, and English forces—and in the process helped form the first independent post-colonial nation in the Caribbean.With a new introduction (2023) by Professor David Scott.
The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State
by Basil Davidson Basil Risbridger DavidsonAn absorbing, highly acclaimed examination of Africa's transition from colonialism to revolution to the social turmoil of today.
The Black Man's Burden: African Colonial Labor On The Congo And Ubangi Rivers, 1880-1900
by William J. SamarinThis book is an enquiry into early European colonial expansion in Central Africa especially in upper Zaire (Congo) and Ubangi rivers. It explores the extent to which French and Belgian colonial enterprise were dependent on the African labor and their penetration into Zaire basin.
The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality
by Michael BurlingameFrederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president&” as well as &“the first who rose above the prejudice of his times and country.&” This narrative history of Lincoln&’s personal interchange with Black people over the course his career reveals a side of the sixteenth president that, until now, has not been fully explored or understood.In a little-noted eulogy delivered shortly after Lincoln's assassination, Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president," the "first to show any respect for their rights as men.&” To justify that description, Douglass pointed not just to Lincoln's official acts and utterances, like the Emancipation Proclamation or the Second Inaugural Address, but also to the president&’s own personal experiences with Black people. Referring to one of his White House visits, Douglass said: "In daring to invite a Negro to an audience at the White House, Mr. Lincoln was saying to the country: I am President of the black people as well as the white, and I mean to respect their rights and feelings as men and as citizens.&” But Lincoln&’s description as &“emphatically the black man&’s president&” rests on more than his relationship with Douglass or on his official words and deeds. Lincoln interacted with many other African Americans during his presidency His unfailing cordiality to them, his willingness to meet with them in the White House, to honor their requests, to invite them to consult on public policy, to treat them with respect whether they were kitchen servants or leaders of the Black community, to invite them to attend receptions, to sing and pray with them in their neighborhoods—all those manifestations of an egalitarian spirit fully justified the tributes paid to him by Frederick Douglass and other African Americans like Sojourner Truth, who said: "I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln.&” Historian David S. Reynolds observed recently that only by examining Lincoln&’s &“personal interchange with Black people do we see the complete falsity of the charges of innate racism that some have leveled against him over the years.&”
The Black Marxist Feminism of bell hooks: Towards an Intersectional Theory of White-Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms)
by Hue WoodsonThis book explores bell hooks' trajectory of work and cohesiveness of thought about the meaning and meaningfulness of black womanhood in terms of a Black Marxist feminism, which uniquely confronts the dimensions of feminism and womanism; the relations between the secular and the religious; the problems of gender and sexism; and the structural and systemic issues of oppression, domination, white supremacy, and capitalism. In making sense of black womanhood in its philosophical, social, cultural, institutional, and historical complexities, hooks' Black Marxist feminism constructs an intersectional theory about what hooks describes as white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. In this sense, hooks' Black Marxist feminism conceptualizes the ways and means by which white supremacist capitalist patriarchy imposes intersectional predicaments upon black womanhood, drawing foundationally on Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, working within the purview of a host of Marxisms in Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Karl Kautsky, Nikolai Bukharin, and Georgi Plekhanov, and speaking to the Marxist proclivities of Cedric Robinson, Cornel West, Charles W. Mills, James H. Cone, Stuart Hall, and Angela Y. Davis.
The Black Nile
by Dan MorrisonA spectacular modern-day adventure along the Nile River from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea Inspired by Alan Moorehead's classic river chronicles, The Blue Nileand The White Nile, foreign correspondent Dan Morrison bought a plank-board boat, summoned a childhood buddy who'd never been off American soil, and set out from Uganda, paddling the White Nile on a quest across Sudan toward Cairo. In the vein of Redmond O'Hanlon and Ryszard Kapuscinski, the story of Morrison's four-thousandmile trip is a gripping blend of travel narrative and reportage that reveals this vast region's riches, troubles, and paradoxes. Morrison follows the river as the locals do-by boat, bus, and on foot-past the contested borderlands of Sudan, where a hidden oil war still rages, to the air-conditioned cafés of Khartoum and through modern Cairo, where control of the Nile outranks the Iranian nuclear program as a national security issue. By turns funny and frightening, The Black Nileis an engrossing and thoughtful contemporary portrait of a complex region in profound transition.
The Black Panther
by David Hilliard"We knew from the beginning how critical it was to have our own publication, to set forth our agenda for freedom...to urge change, to use the pen alongside the sword," writes David Hilliard in the preface to this stunning collection of pages from the original groundbreaking editions of the Black Panther Party's official news organ and original essays by Hilliard, Elaine Brown, Dr. Stan Oden, Craig Laurence Rice, Kumasi, and Joshua Bloom. First called The Black Panther Community News Service and then The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service (BPINS), the weekly periodical was nationally and internationally distributed. It was "sold in small stores in black communities, through subscriptions, and, mostly, on the streets by dedicated Party members," writes Brown, a party leader and author of A Taste of Power, in this edition. In its heyday, the Party sold several hundred thousand copies of the newspaper per week and was highly regarded for the quality of its content by media professionals and its legion of readers alike. It ultimately became the most influential independent black newspaper in the United States, known not only for its fearless reportage and analysis but its stunning photographs and illustrations, including provocative and humorous political cartoons. Published in time to mark the 40th anniversary of the BPINS, this book is, at once, an invaluable document of a little-known aspect of American history and a celebration of one of the most stunning accomplishments of a cultural and political movement that changed the nation. The original DVD, included in the back of the book, makes this a multimedia package that readers across generations can appreciate, documenting events and leaders of the past who still resonate and influence culture and politics today.
The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History
by David F. WalkerWINNER OF THE EISNER AWARD • A bold and fascinating graphic novel history of the revolutionary Black Panther Party.Founded in Oakland, California, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a radical political organization that stood in defiant contrast to the mainstream civil rights movement. This gripping illustrated history explores the impact and significance of the Panthers, from their social, educational, and healthcare programs that were designed to uplift the Black community to their battle against police brutality through citizen patrols and frequent clashes with the FBI, which targeted the Party from its outset. Using dramatic comic book-style retellings and illustrated profiles of key figures, The Black Panther Party captures the major events, people, and actions of the party, as well as their cultural and political influence and enduring legacy.
The Black Path: Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders – Now a Major TV Series
by Åsa LarssonThe novels that inspired Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders - the major TV seriesOne of The Times' "Best Crime Novels by Women since 2000" "Rebecka Martinsson: the new Scandi-noir heroine to rival Saga Noren and Sarah Lund" iNews "In a television world now awash in female coppers, there aren't many as interesting and human as Rebecka" Wall Street JournalThe frozen body of a woman is found in a fishing ark on the ice near Torneträsk in northern Sweden. She has been brutally tortured, but the killing blow was clumsy, almost amateur. The body is quickly identified, raising hopes of an open-and-shut solution. But when a six-month-old suicide is disinterred, Rebecka Martinsson and Anna-Maria Mella find themselves investigating shocking corruption at the heart of one of Sweden's most successful mining companies. One that has powerful enemies of its own.
The Black Path: Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders – Now a Major TV Series (The Arctic Murders)
by Åsa LarssonThe novels that inspired Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders - the major TV series One of The Times' "Best Crime Novels by Women since 2000" "Rebecka Martinsson: the new Scandi-noir heroine to rival Saga Noren and Sarah Lund" iNews "In a television world now awash in female coppers, there aren't many as interesting and human as Rebecka" Wall Street JournalThe frozen body of a woman is found in a fishing ark on the ice near Torneträsk in northern Sweden. She has been brutally tortured, but the killing blow was clumsy, almost amateur. The body is quickly identified, raising hopes of an open-and-shut solution. But when a six-month-old suicide is disinterred, Rebecka Martinsson and Anna-Maria Mella find themselves investigating shocking corruption at the heart of one of Sweden's most successful mining companies. One that has powerful enemies of its own.
The Black Path: The Arctic Murders – A gripping and atmospheric murder mystery (The Arctic Murders #1)
by Åsa LarssonA woman's body is found on a frozen lake, bearing the marks of grisly torture. Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help with the case - the woman was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe. Lawyer Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her both physically and emotionally. Soon she is delving into the affairs of the victim's boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with the dead woman was complex and obsessive. Martinsson and Mella are about to uncover a dark and tangled drama of family secrets, twisted sexuality, and corruption on a massive scale. Set against a haunting, icy backdrop and packed with suspense, The Black Path is a menacing and evocative psychological crime novel.(P)2014 WF Howes Ltd
The Black Pearl: The Morland Dynasty, Book 5 (Morland Dynasty #5)
by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles1659: Cromwell's protectorate is drawing to a close, and the restoration of the monarchy can only improve the fortunes of the Morland family.The years of civil war and their aftermath have left Morland Place in dire straits, but with the return of the King, Ralph Morland believes he can rebuild the family estates. For his beautiful and ambitious cousin, Annunciata, the Restoration means a journey to London - one that leads to the amours and intrigues of Charles's court and to the unlocking of her mysterious past.A new and kinder age is dawning - a time for healing wounds - but more uncertainty, conflict and sorrow await both Ralph and Annunciata before they can find peace and forgiveness...
The Black Pearl: The Morland Dynasty, Book 5 (Morland Dynasty #5)
by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles1659: Cromwell's protectorate is drawing to a close, and the restoration of the monarchy can only improve the fortunes of the Morland family. The years of civil war and their aftermath have left Morland Place in dire straits, but with the return of the King, Ralph Morland believes he can rebuild the family estates. For his beautiful and ambitious cousin, Annunciata, the Restoration means a journey to London - one that leads to the amours and intriges of Charles's court and to the unlocking of her mysterious past.A new and kinder age is dawning - a time for healing wounds - but more uncertainty, conflict and sorrow await both Ralph and Annunciata before they can find peace and forgiveness.
The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America
by Michael Eric DysonA provocative and lively examination of the meaning of America's first black presidency, by the New York Times-bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop. Michael Eric Dyson explores the powerful, surprising way the politics of race have shaped Barack Obama&’s identity and groundbreaking presidency. How has President Obama dealt publicly with race—as the national traumas of Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and Walter Scott have played out during his tenure? What can we learn from Obama's major race speeches about his approach to racial conflict and the black criticism it provokes? Dyson explores whether Obama&’s use of his own biracialism as a radiant symbol has been driven by the president&’s desire to avoid a painful moral reckoning on race. And he sheds light on identity issues within the black power structure, telling the fascinating story of how Obama has spurned traditional black power brokers, significantly reducing their leverage. President Obama&’s own voice—from an Oval Office interview granted to Dyson for this book—along with those of Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, and Maxine Waters, among others, add unique depth to this profound tour of the nation&’s first black presidency. &“Dyson proves…that he is without peer when it comes to contextualizing race in twenty-first-century America… A must-read for anyone who wants to better understand America&’s racial past, present, and future.&”—Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Devil in the Grove&“No one understands the American dilemma of race—and Barack Obama&’s confounding and yet wondrous grappling with it—better than [Dyson.]&”—Douglas Blackmon, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Slavery by Another Name
The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama
by Claude A. Clegg IIIThe first sweeping, legacy-defining history of the entire Obama presidency.In The Black President, the first interpretative, grand-narrative history of Barack Obama's presidency in its entirety, Claude A. Clegg III situates the former president in his dynamic, inspirational, yet contentious political context. He captures the America that made Obama's White House years possible, while insightfully rendering the America that resolutely resisted the idea of a Black chief executive, thus making conceivable the ascent of the most unlikely of his successors. In elucidating the Obama moment in American politics and culture, this book is also, at its core, a sweeping exploration of the Obama presidency's historical environment, impact, and meaning for African Americans—the tens of millions of people from every walk of life who collectively were his staunchest group of supporters and who most starkly experienced both the euphoric triumphs and dispiriting shortcomings of his years in office. In Obama's own words, his White House years were "the best of times and worst of times" for Black America. Clegg is vitally concerned with the veracity of this claim, along with how Obama engaged the aspirations, struggles, and disappointments of his most loyal constituency and how representative segments of Black America engaged, experienced, and interpreted his historic presidency. Clegg draws on an expansive archive of materials, including government records and reports, interviews, speeches, memoirs, and insider accounts, in order to examine Obama's complicated upbringing and early political ambitions, his delicate navigation of matters of race, the nature and impacts of his administration's policies and politics, the inspired but also carefully choreographed symbolism of his presidency (and Michelle Obama's role), and the spectrum of allies and enemies that he made along the way. The successes and the aspirations of the Obama era, Clegg argues, are explicitly connected to our current racist, toxic political discourse. Combining lively prose with a balanced, nonpartisan portrait of Obama's successes and failures, The Black President will be required reading not only for historians, politics junkies, and Obama fans but also for anyone seeking to understand America's contemporary struggles with inequality, prejudice, and fear.
The Black Prince
by David GreenOne of the most charismatic and enigmatic personalities of the High Middle Ages, Edward the 'Black Prince' commanded an English division at the battle of Crecy at just 16 years old. But despite his battlefield exploits, romantic reputation, and popularity among the people, Edward has become notorious as a proponent of 'scorched earth' campaigns, or chevauchee. These expeditions amounted to little more than the licensed plunder of undefended towns and the murder of non-combatants. The premature death of Edward saw his infant son ascend to the throne and led, eventually, to the fraticidal chaos of the Wars of the Roses and the emergence of the Tudor dynasty. In this startling reappraisal of the prince's life, David Green assesses his actions in their historical context and examines what might have been had Edward the Black Prince become King Edward IV.