The past is never dead. It's not even past
The Price for their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved men, women, and children in the American domestic slave trade, from before they were born until after their death, in both public and private market transactions and appraisals.
By Peter Kunze In a recent interview with Fusion about how Hamilton (2015) “revolutionized” Broadway for performers of color, the Tony Award-winning lead, Leslie Odom, Jr., recalled, “I saw a reading of Hamilton at Vassar. There’s four men of color on stage, singing a song about friendship and brotherhood, and it undid me. I had never seen […]
Originally posted on the blog of The American Prospect, January 6, 2017. By Laurie Green For those who believe Donald Trump’s election has further legitimized hatred and even violence, a “Women’s March on Washington” scheduled for January 21 offers an outlet to demonstrate mass solidarity across lines of race, religion, age, gender, national identity, and […]
By Guy Raffa “We breathe freer. The country will be saved.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s response to the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in 1864 is a timely reminder of how, while they all matter, some presidential elections matter much more than others. Five years earlier Longfellow was one of many who believed the time for peace […]
“They killing people everywhere for no reason at all but being black.” —Cherry (the wife of Nat Turner played by Aja Naomi King) By Ronald Davis The number of books, novels, articles, plays and movies committed to the life and times of Nat Turner is vast. None of these sources is without controversy. It should […]
We have reported on Cuba regularly over the years and link below to all the articles in our archive.
By Peter Worger Tucked into the pages of Nikolai Punin’s diary is a sliver of silver paper made into the shape of a fish. Its scales have been drawn with what appears to be black marker or charcoal in an Impressionist style on one side and in a Cubist style on the other. The fish […]
By Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra Andrew Torget’s Seeds of Empire places the early history of nineteenth-century Texas squarely within the political economy of slavery, cotton, and geopolitics. Torget shows that Spanish Texas had become an utterly dysfunctional polity. A royalist bloody response to the creation of autonomous creole juntas almost led to the annihilation of the Tejano […]
By Alejandra Garza and Maria Esther Hammack Controversies surrounding textbooks are nothing new, especially in Texas. For years, textbook selection in Texas has grabbed headlines and generated great discontent and debate. Textbooks adopted by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) are unusually important because they are also adopted for use in classrooms across the country. Whatever Texas adopts, students across […]