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A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood,…
a legacy erased from history—until now.&“This is the kind of history I wish I learned as a child dreaming of the stage!&” —Misty Copeland, author of Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy &“Utterly absorbing, flawlessly-researched…Vibrant, propulsive, and inspiring, The Swans of Harlem is a richly drawn portrait of five courageous women whose contributions have been silenced for too long!&” —Tia Williams, author of A Love Song for Ricki WildeAt the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lydia Abarca was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company—the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a troupe of women and men who became each other&’s chosen family. She was the first Black company ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star; she was cast in The Wiz and in a Bob Fosse production on Broadway. She performed in some of ballet&’s most iconic works with other trailblazing ballerinas, including the young women who became her closest friends—founding Dance Theatre of Harlem members Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan, as well as first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells.These Swans of Harlem performed for the Queen of England, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder, on the same bill as Josephine Baker, at the White House, and beyond. But decades later there was almost no record of their groundbreaking history to be found. Out of a sisterhood that had grown even deeper with the years, these Swans joined forces again—to share their story with the world.Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamour and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of both their historic careers and the sustaining, grounding power of female friendship, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months…
between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a simmering crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, People, Time, Los Angeles Times, Men&’s Health, New York Post, Lit Hub, Book Riot, ScreenrantOn November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln&’s election and the Confederacy&’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were &“so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.&”At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter&’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don&’t see a cataclysm coming until it&’s too late.This book chronicles a University of Alabama historian’s efforts to engage public history over the course of a decade, highlighting…
personal and educational experiences inside and outside of the classroom.Each chapter reveals how Sharony Green, her students, and collaborators used various public places and spaces in Alabama, including the University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa, where she teaches, as “labs” to learn more about our shared past. Inspired by her familiar beginnings in a historic community in Miami, Florida, the author, a descendant of people from the American South and the Bahamas, unveils her encounters with the built environment, old documents and objects, motion pictures, music, and all kinds of historical actors. The book shares a variety of projects including exhibits and displays, images, videos, songs, and poetry, that serve as manifestations of her encounters with the places around her and her students. Together, these stories uncover an unexpected journey into public history, offering new ways to think about the field and humanities more generally.Teaching Public History Creatively in Alabama is an enlightening resource to both intentional and unintentional practitioners of public history, including scholars, students, and general readers interested in connecting with the past.By Joanne Reitano. 2024
Now in its second edition, New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities is an accessibly written book that explores the…
ever-shifting dynamics of New York State history in a single volume.The text is organized both chronologically and topically, balancing political, economic, social, and cultural history. It discusses key figures, groups, movements, and controversies, upstate and downstate. Each chapter is divided into teachable, digestible sections that examine the major developments and challenges of that period, with timelines and lists of online resources to aid student understanding. The new edition brings New York State’s history into the present with coverage of recent political and economic developments, the Covid-19 pandemic, immigration, and global warming. Throughout the book, material was added concerning the American Revolution, the Civil War, women’s rights, and environmental justice. Artwork, maps, charts, and textboxes illuminate the state’s rich history. Analytical questions accompanying figures and texts encourage deeper engagement with the past.Designed for undergraduates, this book is a concise and updated account of New York State’s history over the centuries, with a wealth of resources to benefit students and instructors alike.By Robert Kagan. 2024
A chilling and clear-eyed warning about the threats to our democracy posed by the increasing radicalization of the Republican Party,…
from a leading historian and intellectualThe 2024 election could be the last free election held in a unified America. So warns Robert Kagan in this brilliant and terrifying analysis of the perilous state of democracy in the United States today. If Donald Trump loses the upcoming election, as he did in 2020, but refuses to accept the result, as he also did in the last election, he is likely to call on his millions of followers to repudiate the election results. It will be a short step from there to Republican-dominated states rejecting the legitimacy of the federal government and effectively seceding. The United States at that point will cease to be united, with grave consequences for both Americans and the world.In Rebellion, Kagan dives deeper than the op-eds and think pieces to explore the historical forces that have brought us to this moment—in particular the long history of opposition to liberalism, and to government, that has shaped America&’s character from the time of the Revolution to today. Trump&’s unique capacity to tap into that tradition of dissent and circumvent the American system has brought us to the edge of dissolution—not for the first time in our history but possibly the last. This is an elegant and deeply informed synthesis of history, contemporary politics, and ideas that sheds light on this crucial moment.By Amber Smith. 2024
Our Woke Military Could Lose the Next WarWokeness used to be an annoying distraction in the U.S. military. Now it…
is a major threat to national security.Faster than most of us thought possible, our military has become a woke, dysfunctional bureaucracy focused not on winning wars but on identity politics, gender ideology, climate change, and other favored causes of the leftist elite.Don&’t think that China isn&’t watching. Don&’t think that Russia, Iran, and North Korea haven&’t noticed.But so has Amber Smith, a former U.S. Army combat helicopter pilot and Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense. In her riveting new book, Unfit to Fight, she sounds the alarm that our military and our nation are at grave risk.In Unfit to Fight, you&’ll learn:Why the military should not &“reflect American society,&” but be a select group of lethal professionalsHow the Pentagon rewards lowered standards for the sake of &“diversity&”Why failure often leads to promotion—if you have the right friendsWhy a return to combat merit, battlefield mission, and trust in leadership are essential—or we will lose our next warElections, as they say, have consequences, and catastrophic damage to national security is among the most important. Amber Smith&’s Unfit to Fight needs to be in the hands of everyone who cares about our military and our survival as a nation.By Emily Oster, Nathan Fox. 2024
From the New York Times bestselling author of Expecting Better, a guide to navigating a second pregnancy when the first…
did not go as planned—with Dr. Nathan Fox, maternal fetal medicine specialistIn Expecting Better, Emily Oster revolutionized the pregnancy landscape with her data-driven approach. In the years since, she kept hearing questions from readers on how to approach a second pregnancy when the first has not gone as planned.While The Unexpected is a book that Oster hopes no one needs, the reality is that 50 percent of pregnancies include complications, a fact we don&’t talk about. Preeclampsia, miscarriage, hyperemesis gravidarum, preterm birth, postpartum depression: these are lonely experiences, and that isolation makes treatment harder to access—and crucial research and policy change less likely to happen.The Unexpected lays out the data on recurrence and treatments shown to lower or mitigate risk for these conditions in subsequent pregnancies. It also provides readers road maps to facilitate productive conversations with their providers, with insights from lauded maternal fetal medicine specialist Dr. Nathan Fox.By bridging the knowledge gap and making space for difficult conversations, The Unexpected promises to make the hardest parts of pregnancy a little bit less so.By Stephanie Middleberg. 2024
The only guide you need to nourishing yourself and your baby from the first through fourth trimesters, from the bestselling…
author of The Big Book of Organic Baby FoodWhen you found out you were pregnant, you were probably given a long list of things you were no longer &“supposed&” to do. But what you really need is a practical guide to all the things you can do to feel as empowered and strong as possible. The Big Book of Pregnancy Nutrition is the comprehensive handbook to everything a mama-to-be needs to feel healthy and supported for her entire pregnancy—and beyond—from licensed nutritionist, registered dietitian, and mom-of-two Stephanie Middleberg.This one-of-a-kind resource covers everything from prenatal vitamins and supplements to foods that alleviate constipation and heartburn to preparing for your glucose test and what to cook and freeze before the baby comes. Learn which foods may help your baby&’s developing microbiome, decrease nausea, ease labor pains, and build your milk supply.Inside, you&’ll find more than forty delicious, easy, nutritious recipes to fit any preference, including:roasted red pepper and asparagus frittatabutternut squash and apple soupmiso salmon with bok choylemon coconut energy biteschocolate chip lactation cookiesPregnancy can be hard, but with Middleberg&’s expert guidance, you will find that fueling yourself and your growing baby doesn&’t have to be.By Sergio García-Magariño. 2024
This book offers a general theory of violent radicalization and uses case studies from a variety of different countries and…
groups to illustrate this.The first and fundamental objective of the book is to provide an explanatory framework to understand phenomena related to violent radicalization, deradicalization, the prevention of radicalization and to political violence; in particular, that inspired by religion. The second objective follows from the first. Understanding violent radicalization of religious inspiration implies delving into two key concepts: violent radicalization and religion. This second objective is indeed elusive, since, on the one hand, many liberal democracies have undergone processes of secularization or, at least, have lost interest in examining religion in public debates. Therefore, rigorously exploring social problems where religion seems to be involved, in one way or another, is complicated. Moreover, the notion of violent radicalization, in turn, is highly contested and confused with other ideas, such as polarization, extremism, terrorism or nonviolent radicalization. Finally, the book aims to bring theory into dialogue with empirical phenomena, and to test it against concrete cases related to violent radicalization and its prevention, on the one hand, and religion, on the other. The book’s originality comes from both its innovative, methodological approach and its breadth, with cases from several countries (Spain, the United States, Ireland, India, Israel, Russia and Colombia) and different ideological groups (revolutionary communists, nationalist movements, Jihadist groups, white and black supremacists).This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, radicalization, sociology and international relations in general.By Daniel Greenfield. 2024
The secret history of the American Left.The Left is America&’s oldest enemy. It was here long before the 1960s, calling…
for the execution of George Washington, plotting to stop the ratification of the Constitution, and collaborating with foreign enemies. Stolen elections, fake news, race riots, globalism, and socialism aren&’t new problems; Americans faced them from the very beginning. Domestic Enemies reveals the true origins of the Democratic Party and its radicals, who—even two centuries ago—were calling for the redistribution of wealth, the end of marriage, and the use of schools for political indoctrination. From political battles to street fights, Domestic Enemies takes you into the heart of a century of forgotten struggles between America&’s greatest heroes—such as Washington, Hamilton, Davy Crockett, and Abraham Lincoln—and radical villains like Aaron Burr. This is a 1619 Project for the American Left: a history of the Democrats as you&’ve never heard it before, told through the political debates, naval battles, race riots, scandals, secret societies, and domestic terrorism that made the Left what it is today. Learn how the Founding Fathers defeated the Left before, and how we can beat it again.By Null Anna Brinkman. 2024
What is the relationship between seapower, law, and strategy? Anna Brinkman uses in-depth analysis of cases brought before the Court…
of Prize Appeal during the Seven Years' War to explore how Britain worked to shape maritime international law to its strategic advantage. Within the court, government officials and naval and legal minds came together to shape legal decisions from the perspectives of both legal philosophy and maritime strategic aims. As a result, neutrality and the negotiation of rights became critical to maritime warfare. Balancing Strategy unpicks a complex web of competing priorities: deals struck with the Dutch Republic and Spain; imperial rivalry; mercantilism; colonial trade; and the relationships between metropoles and colonies, trade, and the navy. Ultimately, influencing and shaping international law of the sea allows a nation to create the norms and rules that constrain or enable the use of seapower during war.By Nicole Pensak. 2024
matrescence noun /mæ'tres.?nts/ the process of becoming a mother: The physical, psychological, and emotional changes you go through after the birth…
of your child . . . largely unexplored in the medical community. —Cambridge Dictionary Most new mothers bring their infants to the doctor but ignore any distressing feelings or sensations they might themselves have—that sense of being “rattled” at many moments throughout the day and night. In Rattled, Dr. Nicole Pensak shares her own experiences and those of her patients to help new mothers feel informed, validated, and guided through matrescence. After giving birth, a woman often feels like a completely different person. It may sound dramatic, but the rollercoaster of physical and psychological changes affects brain and body in a similar way that adolescence changes us. To compound that, many women hide these feelings, worrying that something is wrong with them. Dr. Nicole Pensak is here to reassure us that being “rattled” is normal, and not at all surprising. After all, seismic changes in identity and emotion have occurred. Research shows that a woman’s brain shifts in real, biological ways very quickly after giving birth. Many women become hypervigilant, for good reason: the brain is telling her to stay alert because she has a human to keep alive and safe. While these brainpower boosts can cause anxious feelings, they can also help to manage the distress and harness the advantages of the postpartum brain. In fact, this is a time of neuroplasticity, when the brain is more receptive to positive reinforcement. Trained at Yale and Harvard and certified in perinatal mental health, Dr. Pensak provides practical and emotional support, helping to relieve the anxiety and pressure for perfection in motherhood and paving the way for a better beginning for families and babies. She discusses mental health treatment and the upside of therapy during this changing time, and offers accessible scientific information, relatable anecdotes, and strategies for self-care. The result is a reassuring and practical handbook that new mothers and their families will refer to time and again.This book is an international history of the foundation of modern arms control, highlighting the fact that the instrument is…
varied, resilient, successful, and enduring.The narrative begins after the Napoleonic wars when newly arisen peace movements focused on arbitration as a path to “ending the war system.” It moves on to the international community’s embrace of “total and complete disarmament” and then to its acceptance of more limited measures by 1968, including the agreements that remain in force today. The book connects the past to the present of multiple negotiations, successful and failed, and underlines how the peace movement increasingly influenced the national policy of the major Western powers, especially the United States. It also highlights the increasing diversification of arms control players, including women and people of color as well as the countries they represented. Based on original research in multinational records and the latest scholarship, the book illustrates the reasons multilateral arms control remains a key instrument of international relations. The chapters are organized both chronologically and thematically, with the result that they cover different amounts of time in order to encompass a given issue and to capture the development of particular threads. The main narrative evolves into a decadeslong quest for a global treaty on “general and complete disarmament,” which otherwise paces the book and shapes its chapters.This book will be of much interest to students of arms control, global governance, peace studies, and International Relations.By Geoff G. Burrows. 2024
An important New Deal program that shaped the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States This book explores the history…
and impact of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), the most important New Deal agency to operate in Puerto Rico and the largest created for any United States territory. Geoff Burrows demonstrates how the PRRA improved living conditions across the island in the wake of destructive hurricanes and the Great Depression, while at the same time producing a reformed, strengthened, and lasting colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States.Using previously untapped archival sources and a wide range of primary and secondary texts, Burrows follows the agency from its founding by President Roosevelt in 1935 to its ending in 1955, situating its public works program in both Puerto Rican and New Deal contexts. The PRRA built the Caribbean’s first modern cement plant; implemented widespread rural electrification through the building of seven hydroelectric dams; constructed hurricane-proof houses, schools, and hospitals; and improved transportation and communication across the island. Puerto Rican engineers, planners, and officials took a leading role in these initiatives, which provided them social mobility and transformed the island’s economy from agricultural to industrial.The first institutional history and critical examination of the agency, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration engages questions about the New Deal’s global reach. It investigates how New Deal agendas refashioned U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico and indirectly contributed to the island’s current debt crisis and response to recent natural disasters such as Hurricane María.By Dennis Gaffin. 2024
An intimate and personal account of the profound roles birds play in the lives of some Indigenous peopleFor many hours…
over a period of years, white anthropologist Dennis Gaffin and two Indigenous friends, Michael Bastine and John Volpe, recorded their conversations about a shared passion: the birds of upstate New York and southern Ontario. In these lively, informal talks, Bastine (a healer and naturalist of Algonquin descent) and Volpe (a naturalist and animal rehabilitator of Ojibwe and Métis descent) shared their experiences of, and beliefs about, birds, describing the profound spiritual, psychological, and social roles of birds in the lives of some Indigenous people. Birds through Indigenous Eyes presents highlights of these conversations, placing them in context and showing how Native understandings of birds contrast with conventional Western views.Bastine and Volpe bring to life Algonquin, Ojibwe, and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) beliefs about birds. They reveal how specific birds and bird species are seamlessly integrated into spirituality and everyday thought and action, how birds bring important messages to individual people, how a bird species can become associated with a person, and how birds provide warnings about our endangered environment. Over the course of the book, birds such as the house sparrow, Eastern phoebe, Northern flicker, belted kingfisher, gray catbird, cedar waxwing, and black-capped chickadee are shown in a new light—as spiritual and practical helpers that can teach humans how to live well.An original work of ethno-ornithology that offers a rare close-up look at some Native views on birds, Birds through Indigenous Eyes opens rich new perspectives on the deep connections between birds and humans.By Sean Patrick Cooper. 2024
The harrowing true story of a cold-blooded murder and the campaign to bring justice to a suffering Midwestern townOn a…
November night in 1990, Cathy Robertson is murdered in her home outside Chillicothe, Missouri. After law enforcement conduct a haphazard investigation, the sheriff&’s office puts the case in the hands of a Kansas City private eye with his own agenda. In a close-knit town still reeling from the aftereffects of the farming crisis, friends and neighbors abruptly fracture into opposing camps. Mark Woodworth, a Robertson family neighbor, eventually receives four life sentences for a crime that a growing group of local supporters believe he didn&’t commit.In a surprising, dramatic narrative that spans decades, Mark&’s family turns to Robert Ramsey, an attorney willing to take on a corrupt political machine suppressing the truth. But the community&’s way of life is irrevocably damaged by the parallel tragedies of the farming crisis and Cathy&’s unsolved murder, in a gripping story about the fault-lines of a fracturing America that continue to cut across the farm belt today.Mexican American women reached across generations to develop a bridging activism that drew on different methods and ideologies to pursue…
their goals. Marisela R. Chávez uses a wealth of untapped oral histories to reveal the diverse ways activist Mexican American women in Los Angeles claimed their own voices and space while seeking to leverage power. Chávez tells the stories of the people who honed beliefs and practices before the advent of the Chicano movement and the participants in the movement after its launch in the late 1960s. As she shows, Chicanas across generations challenged societal traditions that at first assumed their place on the sidelines and then assigned them second-class status within political structures built on their work. Fueled by a surging pride in their Mexican heritage and indigenous roots, these activists created spaces for themselves that acknowledged their lives as Mexicans and women. Vivid and compelling, Chicana Liberation reveals the remarkable range of political beliefs and life experiences behind a new activism and feminism shaped by Mexican American women.By Jonathan Scott Holloway. 2023
What does it mean to be an American? The story of the African American past demonstrates the difficulty of answering…
this seemingly simple question. This book illuminates the US's core paradoxes, inviting profound questions about what it means to be an American, a citizen, and a human being. This book considers how, for centuries, African Americans have fought for what the black feminist intellectual Anna Julia Cooper called "the cause of freedom." It begins in Jamestown in 1619, when the first shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in that settlement. It narrates the creation of a system of racialized chattel slavery, the eventual dismantling of that system in the national bloodletting of the Civil War, and the ways that civil rights disputes have continued to erupt in the more than 150 years since Emancipation. This Very Short Introduction carries forward to the Black Lives Matter movement, a grass-roots activist convulsion that declared that African Americans' present and past have value and meaning. At a moment when political debates grapple with the nation's obligation to acknowledge and perhaps even repair its original sin of racialized slavery, author Jonathan Scott Holloway tells a story about American citizens' capacity and willingness to realize the ideal articulated in America's founding document, namely, that all people were created equalBy Beth Bailey. 2023
By the late 1960s, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in United States history was…
descending into crisis as the Vietnam War raged without end. Morale was tanking. AWOL rates were rising. And in August 1968, a group of Black soldiers seized control of the infamous Long Binh Jail, burned buildings, and beat a white inmate to death with a shovel. The days of "same mud, same blood" were over, and a new generation of Black GIs had decisively rejected the slights and institutional racism their forefathers had endured. As Black and white soldiers fought in barracks and bars, with violence spilling into surrounding towns within the United States and in West Germany, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan, army leaders grew convinced that the growing racial crisis undermined the army's ability to defend the nation. Acclaimed military historian Beth Bailey shows how the United States Army tried to solve that racial crisis (in army terms, "the problem of race"). Army leaders were surprisingly creative in confronting demands for racial justice, even willing to challenge fundamental army principles of discipline, order, hierarchy, and authority. Bailey traces a frustrating yet fascinating story, as a massive, conservative institution came to terms with demands for changeBy Jill Biden. 2022
Mémoires de l'épouse de Joe Biden, qu'elle épouse en secondes noces en 1977. Enseignante d'anglais et d'histoire au lycée, elle…
conserve son métier lors de la vice-présidence de son mari sous les mandats d'Obama puis lorsque Biden accède lui-même au bureau ovale. Elle retrace son parcours, ses liens avec son mari et les enfants issus de son premier mariage, dont Beau, décédé en 2015