Collection: History

From one of our most acclaimed contemporary writers, an urgent and essential collection of poems illuminating the visionary presence of Palestinians. Fady Joudah's powerful sixth...

A photographic celebration and exploration of Black identity and experience through the twentieth century from the founder and curator of the hit multimedia platform Black...

A sweeping global history that looks beyond European urban centers to show how slavery, colonialism, and war propelled the development of modern medicine. Most stories...

Jefferson's candor, and the courage and rigor of her critic's mind, recall a number of America's greatest thinkers. --Tracy K. Smith, The New York Times Book...

Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict's most vexing challenges have been...

Social justice leader Tamika D. Mallory states her case for action in this searing indictment of America’s historical, deadly, and continuing assault on Black and...

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have...

Black queer women have shaped American culture since long before the era of gay liberation. Decades prior to the Stonewall Uprising, in the 1920s and...

The debut collection from a 2021 Whiting Award and Guggenheim Fellow recipient whose "astounding, dolorous, rejoicing voice is indispensable" (Tracy K. Smith)The Sobbing School, Joshua...

  The Evidence of Things Not Seen, award-winning author James Baldwin's searing 1985 indictment of the nation's racial stagnation, is contextualized anew by an introduction...

This book honors the voices of African Americans of the Civil War era through their letters, inviting readers to engage personally with the Black historical...

The groundbreaking debut by the award-winning author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, revised and updated. Saidiya Hartman has been praised as “one of our most brilliant...

“It is staggering that there is no date commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.” ―Annette Gordon-Reed The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth’s...

In 1945, Ebony's legendary founder John H. Johnson set out to create a magazine for Black America much like that of the trailblazing Life Magazine,...

America’s foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of...

Black women have been credited for Democratic wins in a number of recent consequential elections. Yet outside of the post-election glow, Black women's interests tend...

A groundbreaking collection of photographs and essays that shed new light on the history of Black America, from the Picturing Black History project. "An astonishing...

A stunning visual homage to Black bookstores around the country along with profiles and essays that celebrate the history, community, activism, and culture these spaces...

"Profound and revelatory, Racial Innocence tackles head-on the insidious grip of white supremacy on our communities and how we all might free ourselves from its predation. Tanya...

"Césaire's essay stands as an important document in the development of third world consciousness--a process in which [he] played a prominent role." --Library Journal This classic work, first published...

Following the success of Jazz Covers, this epic volume of groove assembles over 500 legendary covers from a golden era in African American music. Psychedelia...

“We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era Black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of...

Against the backdrop of America's escalating urban rebellions in the 1960s, an unexpected cohort of New York radicals unleashed a series of urban guerrilla actions...

A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the "long Civil Rights movement," Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took...