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November 1, 2022

Global Christianity and the Cold War

The following is an excerpt from Global Faith, Worldly Power: Evangelical Internationalism and U.S. Empire edited by John Corrigan, Melani McAlister, Axel R. Schäfer. Global Christianity and the Cold War The military and economic footprint of the U.S. abroad expanded rapidly after World War II. The growth of evangelical mission and humanitarian aid activities needs to be viewed in this context. The… Continue Reading Global Christianity and the Cold War

Categories American Studies/Excerpts/Religion
October 25, 2022

Refugees or Asylum-Seekers

The following is an excerpt from Detention Empire: Reagan’s War on Immigrants & the Seeds of Resistance by Kristina Shull, available now everywhere books are sold. Refugees or Asylum-Seekers The massive scope and devastations of the Vietnam War indelibly scarred US political and social life, reshaping subsequent US refugee politics. Growing public divisions over the war also help to explain the seeming paradox… Continue Reading Refugees or Asylum-Seekers

Categories Excerpts/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Political Science
October 5, 2022

Lula’s Rise From Metalworker to President of Brazil

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva commonly known as “Lula,” has won the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections by 48.4%, much tighter than many had expected. As we await the second round of election please enjoy this excerpt of Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil by John D. French, which was the winner of… Continue Reading Lula’s Rise From Metalworker to President of Brazil

Categories Excerpts/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Political Science
September 23, 2022

Opposition and Misperceptions of Black Reparations

The following is an excerpt from the new preface of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, Second Edition by William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen, available now from your favorite bookstore. Opposition to Black Reparations Two major strands of raw opposition to reparations arise out of misperceptions. One category of misperceptions involves the… Continue Reading Opposition and Misperceptions of Black Reparations

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Excerpts
September 15, 2022

The Peculiar Passion Surrounding Team Sports

The following is an excerpt from Passion Plays: How Religion Shaped Sports in North America by Randall Balmer, available everywhere books and e-books are sold. To Everything a Season The Peculiar Passion Surrounding Team Sports Competitive team sports developed in North America at a time of rapid social, economic, political, demographic—and religious—change. From the emergence of baseball in the 1840s to… Continue Reading The Peculiar Passion Surrounding Team Sports

Categories Excerpts/Religion/Sports
September 2, 2022

Remembering the Arab Scare: America’s Response to the Munich Olympic Attacks 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago, on September 5, 1972, Palestinian nationalist militants from the Black September organization stunned the world with an attack on Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany. Satellite television turned the hostage-taking siege into an international live-action news drama, which reached a bloody climax in the deaths of a police officer, five militants, and all… Continue Reading Remembering the Arab Scare: America’s Response to the Munich Olympic Attacks 50 Years Later

Categories American History/Excerpts
August 31, 2022

Child-Saving During World War II

The following is an excerpt from Suffer the Little Children: Child Migration and the Geopolitics of Compassion in the United States by Anita Casavantes Bradford, available everywhere books and e-books are sold. Collateral Humanitarianism Child-Saving during World War II Between 1940 and 1945, concerned Americans continued to improvise child evacuation programs to safeguard endangered children across the Atlantic. The nonsectarian coalition brought… Continue Reading Child-Saving During World War II

Categories Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Excerpts/Sociology
August 29, 2022

How Starving Soldiers Survived

The following is an excerpt from Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778 by Ricardo A. Herrera available everywhere books and e-books are sold. Faced with the collapse of the commissariat and the all too real potential of scattering the army across eastern Pennsylvania so that it might feed itself, Washington was on the horns of a dilemma.… Continue Reading How Starving Soldiers Survived

Categories Colonial, Revolutionary Era & Early American History/Excerpts/Military History
August 22, 2022

The Emergence of Russian America on Alaska’s Coast

The following is an excerpt from Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867–1945 by Andrea Geiger. Russian America In 1783, four decades after Vitus Bering’s first foray along the Aleutian Islands in 1741, Russia established what would become the center of its commercial operations in “Aliaska” on what Russians called Kodiak Island midway along the southern… Continue Reading The Emergence of Russian America on Alaska’s Coast

Categories American Studies/Canadian Studies/Excerpts/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
August 19, 2022

Looking Back: A Year After Taliban Regains Control in Afghanistan

In August of 2021, twenty years after the US-led-invasion ousted them from power, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. In Us Versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat, Second Edition acclaimed historian of U.S.–Middle East foreign relations, Douglas Little, examines how American presidents, policy makers, and diplomats dealt with the rise of Islamic… Continue Reading Looking Back: A Year After Taliban Regains Control in Afghanistan

Categories Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Excerpts/Middle Eastern Studies
March 25, 2022

The Gendered Anatomy of “Negro Crime”

The following is an excerpt from Talitha L. LeFlouria’s Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South. In 1868, the state of Georgia began to make its rapidly growing population of prisoners available for hire. The resulting convict leasing system ensnared not only men but also African American women, who were forced to labor in camps… Continue Reading The Gendered Anatomy of “Negro Crime”

Categories African American Studies/Excerpts/History/Labor Studies/Southern/Women's Studies
March 24, 2022

Built on Women’s Bodies

The following is an excerpt from Anne Gray Fischer’s The Streets Belong To Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification. Police power was built on women’s bodies. Men, especially Black men, often stand in as the ultimate symbol of the mass incarceration crisis in the United States. Women are treated as marginal, if not overlooked altogether, in… Continue Reading Built on Women’s Bodies

Categories African American Studies/Excerpts/Gender Studies/Political Science
March 22, 2022

A Photobiography of A Time and Place

The following is an excerpt from O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South, written by professor Berkley Hudson. Photographer O. N. Pruitt (1891–1967) was for some forty years the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Columbus–known to locals as “Possum Town.” His body of work recalls many FSA photographers, but… Continue Reading A Photobiography of A Time and Place

Categories American Studies/Excerpts/History/Photography/Southern
March 17, 2022

Racial Capitalism: The Nonobjective Character of Capitalist Development

The following is an excerpt from Cedric J. Robinson’s Black Marxism, Revised and Updated Third Edition: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand Black people’s history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European… Continue Reading Racial Capitalism: The Nonobjective Character of Capitalist Development

Categories African American Studies/Excerpts/Political Science
March 15, 2022

Putinomics: Putin’s Economic Inheritance

The following is an excerpt from Chris Miller’s Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia. When Vladimir Putin first took power in 1999, he was a little-known figure ruling a country that was reeling from a decade and a half of crisis. In the years since, he has reestablished Russia as a great power. How did he do it? What… Continue Reading Putinomics: Putin’s Economic Inheritance

Categories Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Economics/European History/Excerpts/History
March 1, 2022

Class Interruptions: The Wrong Side of The Tracks

Happy Women’s History Month! Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration 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.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.”… Continue Reading Class Interruptions: The Wrong Side of The Tracks

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American Studies/Excerpts/Literature/Women's Studies
February 24, 2022

Birth of the New Afrikan Independence Movement: A Historical Overview

The following is an excerpt from Edward Onaci’s Free the Land: The Republic of New Afrika and the Pursuit of a Black Nation-State. On March 31, 1968, over 500 Black nationalists convened in Detroit to begin the process of securing independence from the United States. Many concluded that Black Americans’ best remaining hope for liberation was the creation of a… Continue Reading Birth of the New Afrikan Independence Movement: A Historical Overview

Categories African American Studies/Excerpts/Political Science
February 23, 2022

Race and Class Identities in Early American Department Stores

The following is an excerpt form Traci Parker’s Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s. In this book, Traci Parker examines the movement to racially integrate white-collar work and consumption in American department stores, and broadens our understanding of historical transformations in African American class and labor formation. Built… Continue Reading Race and Class Identities in Early American Department Stores

Categories African American Studies/Excerpts/Labor Studies
February 17, 2022

Reimagining Africa: How Black Women Invented the Language of Soul in the 1950s

The following is an excerpt from Tanisha C. Ford’s Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul. From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s through antiapartheid activism in the 1980s and beyond, black women have used their clothing, hair, and style not simply as a fashion statement but as a powerful tool of… Continue Reading Reimagining Africa: How Black Women Invented the Language of Soul in the 1950s

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American Studies/American Studies/Excerpts/Gender Studies/Women's Studies
January 31, 2022

Negotiating Paradise: Mass Tourism, Empire, and Soft Power

The following is an excerpt from Dennis Merrill’s Negotiating Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America. Accounts of U.S. empire building in Latin America typically portray politically and economically powerful North Americans descending on their southerly neighbors to engage in lopsided negotiations. Dennis Merrill’s comparative history of U.S. tourism in Latin America in the twentieth century demonstrates that… Continue Reading Negotiating Paradise: Mass Tourism, Empire, and Soft Power

Categories Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Excerpts/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Political Science