Category: Excerpts

Faith in Democracy: An Excerpt from “Public Confessions”

The following is an excerpt from Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics by Rebecca L. Davis, now available in paperback wherever books are sold. “A sterling history of mid-20th-century religious conversions and the social issues surrounding them. . . . This impressive work captures a fraught period in American political and religious history with a clear eye… Continue Reading Faith in Democracy: An Excerpt from “Public Confessions”

Undocumented and Irish: An Excerpt from “Dreamland”

The following is an excerpt from Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction by Carly Goodman, available now wherever books are sold. Phenomenally well-researched and wide-ranging . . . . a feat . . . . Goodman hops smoothly from topics as diverse as the history of Irish immigration to the impacts of structural adjustment in West Africa… Continue Reading Undocumented and Irish: An Excerpt from “Dreamland”

A Tactic of Silence: An Excerpt from “An Army Afire”

The following is an excerpt from An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era by Beth Bailey, available everywhere books are sold. Bailey’s account of the way the army responded to the growing crisis is original and informative. Eric Foner, London Review of Books A TACTIC OF SILENCE On a humid afternoon in mid-October… Continue Reading A Tactic of Silence: An Excerpt from “An Army Afire”

Jerry Housel at Heart Mountain in Wyoming: An Excerpt from “Lawyer, Jailer, Ally Foe”

The following is an excerpt from Lawyer, Jailer, Ally, Foe: Complicity and Conscience in America’s World War II Concentration Camps by Eric L. Muller, which is available now wherever books are sold. It’s also available in Audiobook format from Audible and Libro.fm. “A fascinating and detailed account of one of America’s darkest chapters. Through the eyes and work of three… Continue Reading Jerry Housel at Heart Mountain in Wyoming: An Excerpt from “Lawyer, Jailer, Ally Foe”

Magic Tricks: An Excerpt from “Living Queer History”

The following is an excerpt from Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City by Gregory Samantha Rosenthal. Living Queer History tells the story of an LGBTQ community in Roanoke, Virginia, a small city on the edge of Appalachia. Interweaving  historical analysis, theory, and memoir, Gregory Samantha Rosenthal tells the story of their own journey—coming out and transitioning as… Continue Reading Magic Tricks: An Excerpt from “Living Queer History”

Phantoms of Freedom: An Excerpt From “Illusions of Emancipation”

Happy Juneteenth! Celebrate and reflect on the emancipation of slavery with this excerpt from Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery by Joseph P. Reidy. In this sweeping reappraisal of slavery’s end during the Civil War era, Joseph P. Reidy employs the lenses of time, space, and individuals’ sense of personal and social… Continue Reading Phantoms of Freedom: An Excerpt From “Illusions of Emancipation”

Becoming the Future of Rock and Roll

The following is an excerpt of The Future of Rock and Roll: 97X WOXY and the Fight for True Independence by Robin James, which is available wherever books are sold. Becoming the Future of Rock and Roll 1981-1989 Between 1988 and 2010, “The Future of Rock and Roll” was 97X’s “liner” or recorded station ID. Broadcast on air and printed… Continue Reading Becoming the Future of Rock and Roll

The Contexts of Faith-Based Community Organizing an excerpt from “Making Moral Citizens”

The following is an excerpt from Making Moral Citizens: How Faith-Based Organizers Use Vocation for Public Action by Jack Delehanty, which is available now wherever books are sold. The Contexts of Faith-Based Community Organizing The streets were full of police as I walked south through Philadelphia toward Center City. With the pope due to arrive in town later that day,… Continue Reading The Contexts of Faith-Based Community Organizing an excerpt from “Making Moral Citizens”

Circulating Specters: An Excerpt from “Seeing Things”

The following is an excerpt from Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism by Mason Kamana Allred which is available wherever books are sold. Allred articulates in this ambitious entry some fascinating connections between Latter-day Saint theology, technology, and identity formation . . . . Deeply conversant in critical theory, the author establishes inventive arguments supported by… Continue Reading Circulating Specters: An Excerpt from “Seeing Things”

A New Form of Collective Action? An Excerpt from “Indigenous Civil Society in Latin America”

The following is an excerpt from Indigenous Civil Society in Latin America: Collective Action in the Digital Age by Pascal Lupien, which is available now wherever books are sold. This is a thoughtful and impressive study. Lupien sheds important light on twenty-first century Indigenous political dynamics in the Andes, teaching us sobering lessons about the limits of digital technologies and… Continue Reading A New Form of Collective Action? An Excerpt from “Indigenous Civil Society in Latin America”

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Election of Chicago’s first Black Mayor: An Excerpt from “The Multiracial Promise”

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Harold Washington’s election as the first Black mayor of Chicago. Washington’s victory 40 years ago was unlikely not just because America’s second city was one of the nation’s most racially balkanized but also because it came at a time when Ronald Reagan and other political conservatives seemed resurgent. In The Multiracial Promise: Harold Washington’s… Continue Reading Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Election of Chicago’s first Black Mayor: An Excerpt from “The Multiracial Promise”

Below the Plow Zone: An Excerpt from “Oconaluftee”

The following is an excerpt from Oconaluftee: The History of a Smoky Mountain Valley by Elizabeth Giddens, which is available everywhere books are sold. A deep dive into one valley of the mountain borderlands of the antebellum South, the Civil War, and industrialization. Giddens makes this amazing place come alive by connecting the stories of prosperous and less prosperous people… Continue Reading Below the Plow Zone: An Excerpt from “Oconaluftee”

Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America: An Excerpt

The following is an excerpt of Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America by Leslie A. Schwalm, available wherever books are sold. Race and the U.S. Military: Black Soldiering Early in the war, congress, the Lincoln administration, and the War Department’s leadership first rejected then moved very cautiously toward Black enlistment. By 1863, it was military necessity and… Continue Reading Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America: An Excerpt

Recasting the Vote: Introduction

Happy Women’s History Month! If you’re looking for Women’s History Titles to read this month, you can browse our previous Women’s History Blog Post’s, check out books in our Gender and American Culture series, and learn more about our new Black Women’s History series. The following is an excerpt from the introduction of Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage… Continue Reading Recasting the Vote: Introduction

The Women of Kerman

Happy Women’s History Month! Originating in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week,” and after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, in 1987, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.” Between… Continue Reading The Women of Kerman

Ordinary Violence

The following is an excerpt from Consent in the Presence of Force: Sexual Violence and Black Women’s Survival in Antebellum New Orleans by Emily A. Owens, available wherever books are sold. In histories of enslavement and in Black women’s history, coercion looms large in any discussion of sex and sexuality. At a time when sexual violence against Black women was… Continue Reading Ordinary Violence

Seawall’s Secret: The Selling of More Than Two Dozen Black Africans

The following is an excerpt from Before Equiano: A Prehistory of the North American Slave Narrative by Zachary McLeod Hutchins, available wherever books are sold. In the antebellum United States, formerly enslaved men and women who told their stories and advocated for abolition helped establish a new genre with widely recognized tropes: the slave narrative. This book investigates how enslaved… Continue Reading Seawall’s Secret: The Selling of More Than Two Dozen Black Africans

Social Metabolisms: Precious Metal Mining and it’s Demands on Local Environments and People

The following is an excerpt from The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town, by Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, available now wherever books are sold. Social Metabolisms As the rate and scale of precious metal mining increased with each cycle of extractivist mining, its demands on local environments and people rose proportionally.… Continue Reading Social Metabolisms: Precious Metal Mining and it’s Demands on Local Environments and People

Defining Indigeneity

The following is an excerpt from On Our Own Terms: Development and Indigeneity in Cold War Guatemala by Sarah Foss, available wherever books are sold. Defining Indigeneity In 1945, the newly created IING sent surveys to the directors of national schools in sixteen of Guatemala’s twenty-two departments, selecting those with substantial Indigenous populations. Because a large majority of responders were… Continue Reading Defining Indigeneity

Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists

The following is an excerpt from Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists: Queer Women in the Urban South by La Shonda Mims, available wherever books are sold. Writing candidly about her struggles to understand sexuality, Carson McCullers identified herself as a sexual invert. She sought inspiration in the work of sexologist Havelock Ellis, who was active in an early twentieth-century community of… Continue Reading Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists