Category

Social and Cultural History

The 1619 Project
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty people stolen from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the...
Division Street : America
Viewing the inhabitants of a single city, Chicago, as a microcosm of the nation at large, Division Street chronicles the thoughts and feelings of some seventy people from widely varying backgrounds in terms of class, race, and personal history. From a mother and son who migrated from Appalachia to a...
Driving the Green Book
For countless Americans, the open road has long been a place where dangers lurk. In the era of Jim Crow, Black travelers experienced locked doors, hostile police, and potentially violent encounters almost everywhere, in both the South and the North. From 1936 to 1967, millions relied on The Negro...
Fifteen Cents on the Dollar
A sweeping, narrative history of Black wealth and the economic discrimination embedded in America’s financial system. The early 2020s will long be known as a period of racial reflection. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans of all backgrounds joined together in historic...
The Forbidden Daughter
The unforgettable true story of a girl born in the Kovno Ghetto, and the dangerous risk her parents faced in defying the barbarous Nazi law prohibiting childbirth. Elida Friedman was not supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth....
Four Red Sweaters
Jock Heidenstein, Anita Lasker, Chana Zumerkorn, and Regina Feldman all faced the Holocaust in different ways. While they did not know each other—in fact had never met—each had a red sweater that would play a major part in their lives. In this absorbing and deeply moving account, award-winning...
Gray Areas

Gray Areas 2025

Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work—from getting a job to workplace norms to advancement and mobility—ignored and failed Black people. While explicit discrimination no longer occurs, and organizations make internal and public...
The Holy and the Broken
Shaped by hundreds of conversations with ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, *The Holy and the Broken* is a shattering cry for peace amidst the holy stones and olive groves of the twice-promised land. Following the October 7 attack and the subsequent war that tore apart the lives of so many people...
How the Word Is Passed
It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the...
Humans

Humans 2026

Modern humans have come a long way in the seventy thousand years they’ve walked the earth. Art, science, culture, trade—on the evolutionary food chain, we’re true winners. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, and sometimes—just occasionally—we’ve managed to truly fck things up. Weaving...
Medicine River
From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but...
The Moment

The Moment 2024

In late May in 2020, while discussing the murder of George Floyd on CNN, Bakari Sellers spoke from the heart sharing devastating insight that touched millions around the world: “It’s just so much pain. You get so tired. We have black children. I have a 15-year-old daughter. I mean, what do I tell...
The Paranormal Ranger
As a Native American with parents of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, Stanley Milford Jr. grew up in a world where the supernatural was both expected and taboo, where shapeshifters roamed, witchcraft was a thing to be feared, and children were taught not to whistle at night. In his youth, Milford...
Sisters in Science
The extraordinary true story of four women pioneers in physics during World War II and their daring escape out of Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, Germany was a hotbed of scientific thought. But after the Nazis took power, Jewish and female citizens were forced out of their academic positions. Hedwig...
Slaveroad

Slaveroad 2024

John Edgar Wideman’s Slaveroad is a groundbreaking work of “bruising candor and obsessive originality” (The Wall Street Journal). For centuries, the buying and selling of human beings was legal, and millions of Africans were kidnapped then forcibly transported across the Atlantic Ocean to serve as...
The Survivors of the Clotilda
Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot’s *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks* and Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered classic *Barracoon*, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors—the last documented survivors...
The Traitors Circle
When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth. Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo. They form a circle of...
Two Ships

Two Ships 2026

In the bitterly polarized decades leading up to the American Civil War, it was commonplace to argue that America’s strife could be traced back to the arrival, less than a year apart, of two ships—the White Lion, which brought the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown in 1619, and the Mayflower, which...
The Unwomanly Face of War
Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, The Unwomanly Face of War is Svetlana Alexievich’s collection of stories of women’s experiences in World War II, both on the front lines, on the home front, and in occupied territories. This is a new version of the war we’re so familiar...
The Way to Rainy Mountain
Celebrating fifty years since its 1969 release, this new edition offers a moving new preface and invites a new generation of readers to explore the Kiowa myths, legends, and history with Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday.
The World

The World 2026

Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kind of world history, one that is genuinely global,...

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The World

The World June 30, 2026

Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kind of world history, one that is genuinely global,...
Medicine River

Medicine River June 30, 2026

From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but...
Two Ships

Two Ships June 9, 2026

In the bitterly polarized decades leading up to the American Civil War, it was commonplace to argue that America’s strife could be traced back to the arrival, less than a year apart, of two ships—the White Lion, which brought the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown in 1619, and the Mayflower, which...
Humans

Humans April 28, 2026

Modern humans have come a long way in the seventy thousand years they’ve walked the earth. Art, science, culture, trade—on the evolutionary food chain, we’re true winners. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, and sometimes—just occasionally—we’ve managed to truly fck things up. Weaving...
The Traitors Circle

The Traitors Circle October 28, 2025

When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth. Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo. They form a circle of...
Gray Areas

Gray Areas October 14, 2025

Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work—from getting a job to workplace norms to advancement and mobility—ignored and failed Black people. While explicit discrimination no longer occurs, and organizations make internal and public...
The Holy and the Broken

The Holy and the Broken April 15, 2025

Shaped by hundreds of conversations with ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, *The Holy and the Broken* is a shattering cry for peace amidst the holy stones and olive groves of the twice-promised land. Following the October 7 attack and the subsequent war that tore apart the lives of so many people...
Four Red Sweaters

Four Red Sweaters March 18, 2025

Jock Heidenstein, Anita Lasker, Chana Zumerkorn, and Regina Feldman all faced the Holocaust in different ways. While they did not know each other—in fact had never met—each had a red sweater that would play a major part in their lives. In this absorbing and deeply moving account, award-winning...
Sisters in Science

Sisters in Science December 31, 2024

The extraordinary true story of four women pioneers in physics during World War II and their daring escape out of Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, Germany was a hotbed of scientific thought. But after the Nazis took power, Jewish and female citizens were forced out of their academic positions. Hedwig...
Slaveroad

Slaveroad October 8, 2024

John Edgar Wideman’s Slaveroad is a groundbreaking work of “bruising candor and obsessive originality” (The Wall Street Journal). For centuries, the buying and selling of human beings was legal, and millions of Africans were kidnapped then forcibly transported across the Atlantic Ocean to serve as...
The Paranormal Ranger

The Paranormal Ranger October 1, 2024

As a Native American with parents of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, Stanley Milford Jr. grew up in a world where the supernatural was both expected and taboo, where shapeshifters roamed, witchcraft was a thing to be feared, and children were taught not to whistle at night. In his youth, Milford...
Fifteen Cents on the Dollar
A sweeping, narrative history of Black wealth and the economic discrimination embedded in America’s financial system. The early 2020s will long be known as a period of racial reflection. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans of all backgrounds joined together in historic...
The 1619 Project

The 1619 Project June 4, 2024

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty people stolen from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the...
The Moment

The Moment April 23, 2024

In late May in 2020, while discussing the murder of George Floyd on CNN, Bakari Sellers spoke from the heart sharing devastating insight that touched millions around the world: “It’s just so much pain. You get so tired. We have black children. I have a 15-year-old daughter. I mean, what do I tell...
The Forbidden Daughter

The Forbidden Daughter April 23, 2024

The unforgettable true story of a girl born in the Kovno Ghetto, and the dangerous risk her parents faced in defying the barbarous Nazi law prohibiting childbirth. Elida Friedman was not supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth....
Driving the Green Book

Driving the Green Book February 13, 2024

For countless Americans, the open road has long been a place where dangers lurk. In the era of Jim Crow, Black travelers experienced locked doors, hostile police, and potentially violent encounters almost everywhere, in both the South and the North. From 1936 to 1967, millions relied on The Negro...
The Survivors of the Clotilda
Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot’s *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks* and Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered classic *Barracoon*, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors—the last documented survivors...
How the Word Is Passed

How the Word Is Passed December 27, 2022

It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the...
The Way to Rainy Mountain

The Way to Rainy Mountain August 15, 2019

Celebrating fifty years since its 1969 release, this new edition offers a moving new preface and invites a new generation of readers to explore the Kiowa myths, legends, and history with Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday.
The Unwomanly Face of War
Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, The Unwomanly Face of War is Svetlana Alexievich’s collection of stories of women’s experiences in World War II, both on the front lines, on the home front, and in occupied territories. This is a new version of the war we’re so familiar...
Division Street : America

Division Street : America April 17, 2006

Viewing the inhabitants of a single city, Chicago, as a microcosm of the nation at large, Division Street chronicles the thoughts and feelings of some seventy people from widely varying backgrounds in terms of class, race, and personal history. From a mother and son who migrated from Appalachia to a...