In his 1903 hit “Congo Love Song,” James Weldon Johnson recounts a sweet if seemingly generic romance between two young Africans. While the song’s title may appear consistent with that narrative, it also invokes the site of King Leopold II of Belgium’s brutal colonial regime at a time when African Americans were playing a central role in a growing Congo reform movement. In an era when popular vaudeville music frequently trafficked in racist language and imagery, “Congo Love Song” emerges a...

An updated edition of a classic African American autobiography, with new supplementary materialsThe preeminent American slave narrative first published in 1845, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838, how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and driver, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man w...

This daring collaborative effort showcases dialogues between international scholars engaged with the United States from abroad. The writers investigate the analytic methods and choices that label certain talk, images, behaviors, and allusions as "American" and how to read the data on such material. The editors present the essays in pairs that overlap in theme or region. Each author subsequently comments on the other's work. A third scholar or team of scholars from a different discipline or...

A “meticulously researched and comprehensive” (Financial Times) history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa’s CongoAt the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of western Europe. It borders nine other nations, and since 1996 it has been racked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply reported...

"Walk barefoot and the thorns will hurt you…" —Iraqi-Turkmen proverbA riveting story of hope and despair, of elation and longing, Barefoot in Baghdad takes you to the front lines of a different kind of battle, where the unsung freedom fighters are strong, vibrant—and female.An American aid worker of Arab descent, Manal Omar moves to Iraq to help as many women as she can rebuild their lives. She quickly finds herself drawn into the saga of a people determin...

Here are some key concepts and ideas from "On Liberty":Harm Principle: Mill introduces the "harm principle," which asserts that the only justification for limiting an individual's freedom is to prevent harm to others. This principle sets the boundary for the legitimate scope of government intervention, allowing individuals to pursue their own happiness and make their own choices as long as they do not harm others.Freedom of Thought and Expression: Mill strongly advocates for the freedom of...

Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama“A powerhouse drama. . . . Lynn Nottage’s beautiful, hideous and unpretentiously important play [is] a shattering, intimate journey into faraway news reports.”—Linda Winer, Newsday“An intense and gripping new drama . . . the kind of new play we desperately need: well-informed and unafraid of the world’s brutalities. Nottage is one of our finest playwrights, a smart, empathetic and daring storyteller who te...

Now in paperback, the national bestselling riches-to-rags true story of an advertising executive who had it all, then lost it all—and was finally redeemed by his new job, and his twenty-eight-year-old boss, at Starbucks.In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a mansion in the suburbs, a wife and loving children, a six-figure salary, and an Ivy League education. But in a few short years, he lost his job, got divorced, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Wit...

In a story that travels beyond borders and between families, acclaimed Dominican novelist and poet Julia Alvarez reflects on the joys and burdens of love—for her parents, for her husband, and for a young Haitian boy known as Piti.**“[A] beguiling memoir of family and culture.”—**O, The Oprah MagazineIn this intimate true account of a promise kept, Alvarez takes us on a journey into experiences that challenge our way of thinking abo...

Told through the voices of those who have suffered, this illuminating exposé examines how a forgotten region of one of Africa's most promising nations—Uganda, dubbed "the pearl of Africa" by Winston Churchill—has been systematically destroyed by a bloody, senseless, and seemingly endless war that has gone largely unnoticed by the rest of the world. For the past 20 years, the Lord's Resistance Army has ravaged northern Uganda and has been led by the reclusive Joseph Kony, a former witch doc...

Pure Land is the story of the most brutal murder in the history of the Grand Canyon and how McGivney's quest to investigate the victim's life and death wound up guiding the author through her own life-threatening crisis. On this journey stretching from the southern tip of Japan to the bottom of Grand Canyon, and into the ugliest aspects of human behavior, Pure Land offers proof of the healing power of nature and of the resiliency of the human spirit.Tomomi Hanamure, a Japanese citi...

Winner of the Award for Excellence in Government and Political Science (AAP)The Rwandan genocide has become a touchstone for debates about the causes of mass violence and the responsibilities of the international community. Yet a number of key questions about this tragedy remain unanswered: How did the violence spread from community to community and so rapidly engulf the nation? Why did individuals make decisions that led them to take up machetes against their neighbors? And what w...