"Paul Hirsch's revelatory book opens the archives to show the complex relationships between comic books and American foreign relations in the mid-twentieth century. Scourged and repressed on the one hand, yet co-opted and deployed as propaganda on the other, violent, sexist comic books were both vital expressions of American freedom and upsetting depictions of the American id. Hirsch draws on previously classified material and newly available personal...

"The definitive collection of nonfiction-from war reporting to literary criticism to the sharpest political writing-from the 'legend of American letters' (Vanity Fair)"--

"For more than thirty years, Michael Eric Dyson has played a prominent role in the nation as a public intellectual, university professor, cultural critic, social activist and ordained Baptist minister. He has presented a rich and resourceful set of ideas about American history and culture. Now for the first time he brings together the various components of his multihued identity and eclectic pursuits. Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson's consistent...

A toast: To the complete series! For six buzzworthy seasons, host Derek Waters heard from actors and comedians about history's most riveting chapters and produced star-studded reenactments of these events. Some of the stories are silly; others are sobering. Some have been taught far and wide, and others highlight the history of marginalized communities that many textbooks omit. All were worth talking about over a few drinks. (OK, sometimes it was...

Her image appeared in periodicals and advertisements roughly twenty times daily; she rivaled FDR and Edward VIII as the most photographed person in the world. Her portrait brightened the homes of countless admirers: from a black laborer's cabin in South Carolina to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's recreation room in Washington, DC. A few years later her smile cheered the secret bedchamber of Anne Frank in Amsterdam. For four consecutive years Shirley...

Discusses the optimism and good cheer that surrounded the adored, young, Depression-era, box office star whose singing, acting and charming smile helped revive the American spirit during the 1930s and for many decades after.

"The animating idea of The 1619 Project is that our national narrative is more accurately told if we begin not on July 4, 1776, but in late August of 1619, when a ship arrived in Jamestown bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival inaugurated a barbaric and unprecedented system of chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country's original sin, but it is more...

Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. This mass-produced game crossed the Pacific, creating waves of popularity over the twentieth century. Mahjong narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and...