Collection: History

An instant New York Times Bestseller!

A no-holds-barred guidebook aimed at white women who want to stop being nice and start dismantling white supremacy from the team behind Race2Dinner and the documentary film, Deconstructing Karen

It's no secret that white women are conditioned to be "nice," but did you know that the desire to be perfect and to avoid conflict at all costs are characteristics of white supremacy culture?

As the founders of Race2Dinner, an organization which facilitates conversations between white women about racism and white supremacy, Regina Jackson and Saira Rao have noticed white women's tendency to maintain a veneer of niceness, and strive for perfection, even at the expense of anti-racism work.

In this book, Jackson and Rao pose these urgent questions: how has being "nice" helped Black women, Indigenous women and other women of color? How has being "nice" helped you in your quest to end sexism? Has being "nice" earned you economic parity with white men? Beginning with freeing white women from this oppressive need to be nice, they deconstruct and analyze nine aspects of traditional white woman behavior--from tone-policing to weaponizing tears--that uphold white supremacy society, and hurt all of us who are trying to live a freer, more equitable life.

White Women is a call to action to those of you who are looking to take the next steps in dismantling white supremacy. Your white supremacy. If you are in fact doing real anti-racism work, you will find few reasons to be nice, as other white people want to limit your membership in the club. If you are not ticking white people off on a regular basis, you are not doing it right.

A timely second edition of the classic text on transgender history, with a new introduction and updated material throughout

Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events. Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990, the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s.

Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.

A 2023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Nonfiction

An Electric Literature "Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of 2022" Selection

A love letter to the legendary Black and Latinx LGBTQ underground subculture, uncovering its abundant legacy and influence in popular culture.

What is Ballroom? Not a song, a documentary, a catchphrase, a TV show, or an individual pop star. It is an underground subculture founded over a century ago by LGBTQ African American and Latino men and women of Harlem. Arts-based and intersectional, it transcends identity, acting as a fearless response to the systemic marginalization of minority populations.

Ricky Tucker pulls from his years as a close friend of the community to reveal the complex cultural makeup and ongoing relevance of house and Ballroom, a space where trans lives are respected and applauded, and queer youth are able to find family and acceptance. With each chapter framed as a "category" (Vogue, Realness, Body, et al.), And the Category Is . . . offers an impressionistic point of entry into this subculture, its deeply integrated history, and how it's been appropriated for mainstream audiences. Each category features an exclusive interview with fierce LGBTQ/POC Ballroom members--Lee Soulja, Benjamin Ninja, Twiggy Pucci Garçon, and more--whose lives, work, and activism drive home that very category.

At the height of public intrigue and awareness about Ballroom, thanks to TV shows like FX's Pose, Tucker's compelling narratives help us understand its relevance in pop culture, dance, public policy with regard to queer communities, and so much more. Welcome to the norm-defying realness of Ballroom.

THE CLASSIC NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"A wonderful, splendid book--a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." -Howard Fast

Historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools--with its emphasis on great men in high places--to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace.

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, it is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of--and in the words of--America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles--the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality--were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.

Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. This edition also includes an introduction by Anthony Arnove, who wrote, directed, and produced The People Speak with Zinn and who coauthored, with Zinn, Voices of a People's History of the United States.

New York Times Bestseller

Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck

Recipient of the American Book Award

The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them."

Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.

NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE * AMAZON'S TOP 20 HISTORY BOOKS OF 2023 * B&N BEST OF EDUCATIONAL HISTORY * THE ROOT'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.

America's backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington's cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln's log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story.

It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights--after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie.

In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history. Combining unapologetically provocative storytelling with meticulous research based on primary sources as well as the work of pioneering Black historians, scholars, and journalists, Harriot removes the white sugarcoating from the American story, placing Black people squarely at the center. With incisive wit, Harriot speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power, subverting conventional historical narratives with little-known stories about the experiences of Black Americans. From the African Americans who arrived before 1619 to the unenslavable bandit who inspired America's first police force, this long overdue corrective provides a revealing look into our past that is as urgent as it is necessary. For too long, we have refused to acknowledge that American history is white history. Not this one. This history is Black AF.

"Espinoza's book stands out as a beacon for future queer writers, thinkers, and activists. Reading these accounts, I felt myself drawn into a past both wonderful and strange, a world I hope we will continue to celebrate and preserve." --Garrard Conley
Acclaimed author Alex Espinoza takes readers on an uncensored journey through the underground, to reveal the timeless art of cruising. Combining historical research and oral history with his own personal experience, Espinoza examines the political and cultural forces behind this radical pastime. From Greek antiquity to the notorious Molly houses of 18th century England, the raucous 1970s to the algorithms of Grindr, Oscar Wilde to George Michael, cruising remains at once a reclamation of public space and the creation of its own unique locale--one in which men of all races and classes interact, even in the shadow of repressive governments. In Uganda and Russia, we meet activists for whom cruising can be a matter of life and death; while in the West he shows how cruising circumvents the inequalities and abuses of power that plague heterosexual encounters. Ultimately, Espinoza illustrates how cruising functions as a powerful rebuke to patriarchy and capitalism--unless you are cruising the department store restroom, of course.

"It deserves prominent placement on LGBTQ history bookshelves. . . . An indelible collection of wise voices resonating with experience, pride, resilience, and revolution." --Kirkus starred review

Foreword by Kate Bornstein and Barbara Carrellas

In The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging, sexuality researcher Jane Fleishman shares the stories of fearless elders in the LGBTQ community who came of age around the time of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. In candid interviews, they lay bare their struggles, strengths, activism, and sexual liberation in the context of the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s and today. Each of these inspiring figures has spent a lifetime fighting for the right to live, love, and be free, facing challenges arising from their sexual orientation, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, disabilities, kinkiness, non-monogamy, and other identities. These are the stories of those whose lives were changed forever by Stonewall and who in turn became agents of change themselves.

A sex-positive and unapologetic depiction of LGBTQ culture and identity, The Stonewall Generation includes the voices of those frequently marginalized in mainstream tellings of LGBTQ history, lifting up the voices of people of color, transgender people, bisexual people, drag queens, and sex workers. We need to hear these voices, particularly at a time when our country is in the middle of a crisis that puts hard-won civil and human rights at risk, values we've fought for again and again in our nation's history.

For anyone committed to intersectional activism and social justice, The Stonewall Generation provides a much-needed resource for empowerment, education, and renewal.

Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize

The story of art collective Gran Fury--which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda--offers lessons in love and grief.

In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an art collective that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the epidemic.

Writer Jack Lowery examines Gran Fury's art and activism from iconic images like the "Kissing Doesn't Kill" poster to the act of dropping piles of fake bills onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Lowery offers a complex, moving portrait of a collective and its members, who built essential solidarities with each other and whose lives evidenced the profound trauma of enduring the AIDS crisis.

Gran Fury and ACT UP's strategies are still used frequently by the activists leading contemporary movements. In an era when structural violence and the devastation of COVID-19 continue to target the most vulnerable, this belief in the power of public art and action persists.

A fresh cultural analysis of female monsters from Greek mythology, and an invitation for all women to reclaim these stories as inspiration for a more wild, more "monstrous" version of feminism

The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In our language, in our stories (many written by men), we underline the idea that women who step out of bounds--who are angry or greedy or ambitious, who are overtly sexual or not sexy enough--aren't just outside the norm. They're unnatural. Monstrous. But maybe, the traits we've been told make us dangerous and undesirable are actually our greatest strengths.

Through fresh analysis of 11 female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, Jess Zimmerman takes us on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. She guides women (and others) to reexamine their relationships with traits like hunger, anger, ugliness, and ambition, teaching readers to embrace a new image of the female hero: one that looks a lot like a monster, with the agency and power to match.

Often, women try to avoid the feeling of monstrousness, of being grotesquely alien, by tamping down those qualities that we're told fall outside the bounds of natural femininity. But monsters also get to do what other female characters--damsels, love interests, and even most heroines--do not. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life. Today, women are becoming increasingly aware of the ways rules and socially constructed expectations have diminished us. After seeing where compliance gets us--harassed, shut out, and ruled by predators--women have never been more ready to become repellent, fearsome, and ravenous.

A New York Times Bestseller

By the author of Showtime--the source for HBO's Winning Time--the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson.

"A legendary tome on a legendary athlete." --Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden

From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character--and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America's most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth.

Then, almost overnight, he was gone.

He was Bo Jackson.

Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University's transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous "Bo Knows" Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or ... maybe.)

Bo Jackson isn't Jim Thorpe.

He's not Deion Sanders, either.

No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan.

The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only "master storyteller" (NPR.org) Jeff Pearlman could tell.

A fascinating, vivid global history of witch trials across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, told through thirteen distinct trials that illuminate the pattern of demonization and conspiratorial thinking that has profoundly shaped human history.

Witchcraft is a dramatic journey through thirteen witch trials across history, some famous--like the Salem witch trials--and some lesser-known: on Vard island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country's last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Pennsylvania in 1929 where a magical healer was labelled a "witch"; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft became feared, decriminalized, reimagined, and eventually reframed as gendered persecution, Witchcraft takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, and political conspiracy and individual resistance.

Offering a striking, dramatic story, unspooling through centuries, about the men and women who were accused--some of whom survived their trials, and some who did not--Witchcraft empowers the people who were and are victimized and marginalized, giving a voice to those who were silenced by history.

Activist, teacher, author and icon of the Black Power movement Angela Davis talks Ferguson, Palestine, and prison abolition.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "Meditations offers a glimpse into [Marcus Aurelius's] mind, his habits, and his approach to life. . . . I think any reader would find something useful to take away from it."--James Clear, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Atomic Habits

"To me, this is the greatest book ever written. . . . It is the definitive text on self-discipline, personal ethics, humility, self-actualization, and strength. . . . If you're going to read it, you absolutely have to go with the Gregory Hays translation."--Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle Is the Way

"It is unbelievable to see how the emperor's words have stood the test of time. . . . Read a page or two anytime you feel like the world is too much."--Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Wall Street Journal

Nearly two thousand years after it was written, Meditations remains profoundly relevant for anyone seeking to lead a meaningful life.

Your ability to control your thoughts--treat it with respect. It's all that protects your mind from false perceptions--false to your nature, and that of all rational beings.

A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. With bite-size insights and advice on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others, Meditations has become required reading not only for statesmen and philosophers alike, but also for generations of readers who responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style.

In Gregory Hays's translation--the first in nearly four decades--Marcus's thoughts speak with a new immediacy. In fresh and unencumbered English, Hays vividly conveys the spareness and compression of the original Greek text. Never before have Marcus's insights been so directly and powerfully presented.

With an Introduction that outlines Marcus's life and career, the essentials of Stoic doctrine, the style and construction of the Meditations, and the work's ongoing influence, this edition makes it possible to fully rediscover the thoughts of one of the most enlightened and intelligent leaders of any era.

Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney

The #1 New York Times-bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany--from the author of Facing the Mountain.

For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times--the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.

It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington's eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys' own journals and vivid memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man's personal quest.

THE BOOK OF PRIDE captures the true story of the gay rights movement from the 1960s to the present, through richly detailed, stunning interviews with the leaders, activists, and ordinary people who witnessed the movement and made it happen. These individuals fought battles both personal and political, often without the support of family or friends, frequently under the threat of violence and persecution. By shining a light on these remarkable stories of bravery and determination, THE BOOK OF PRIDE not only honors an important chapter in American history, but also empowers young people today (both LGBTQ and straight) to discover their own courage in order to create positive change. Furthermore, it serves a critically important role in ensuring the history of the LGBTQ movement can never be erased, inspiring us to resist all forms of oppression with ferocity, community, and, most importantly, pride