History Book List ·

For the Prevention of Cruelty

The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States

Animal rights. Those two words conjure diverse but powerful images and reactions. Some nod in agreement, while others roll their eyes in contempt. Most people fall somewhat uncomfortably in the middle, between endorsement and rejection, as they struggle with the profound moral, philosophical, and legal questions provoked by the debate.…

Forests of Gold

Essays on the Akan & the Kingdom of Asante

The Asante had unique conceptions of time and motion, and the relationships between the unborn, the living and the dead. This study suggests that awareness of their past has much to do with the survival of their culture in this century.…

The Forger’s Tale

The Search for Odeziaku

Between 1905 and 1939 a conspicuously tall white man with a shock of red hair, dressed in a silk shirt and white linen trousers, could be seen on the streets of Onitsha, in Eastern Nigeria. How was it possible for an unconventional, boy-loving Englishman to gain a social status among the local populace enjoyed by few other Europeans in colonial West Africa? In The Forger's Tale: The Search for Odeziaku Stephanie Newell charts the story of the English novelist and poet John Moray Stuart-Young (1881-1939) as he traveled from the slums of Manchester to West Africa in order to escape the homophobic prejudices of late-Victorian society.…

The Forgotten Frontier

Colonist and Khoisan on the Cape's Northern Frontier in the 18th Century

Traditionally, the Eastern Cape frontier of South Africa has been regarded as the preeminent contact zone between colonists and the Khoi—“Hottentots”—and San—“Bushmen.” But there was an earlier frontier in which the conflict between Dutch colonists and these indigenous herders and hunters was in many ways more decisive in its outcome, more brutal and violent in its manner, and just as significant in its effects on later South African history.…

Formerly British Honduras

A Profile of the New Nation of Belize

William Setzekorn weaves the folklore, facts, history, culture, economics and geography of Belize into an exciting mini-encyclopedia. His portrait of this proud new nation is painted with humor, gentleness, fact and empathy presenting a credible picture of modern day Belize.…

Forty Lost Years

The Apartheid State and the Politics of the National Party, 1948 to 1994

Forty Lost Years is a penetrating analysis of the rise and demise of the National Party’s long and violent rule in South Africa. Building on the author’s earlier study of Afrikaner nationalism (Volkskapitalisme), this pioneering new work is the first attempt to explain the ongoing conflicts inside the National Party in the context of the broader political struggles in and around the apartheid state.…

Framing the Polish Home

Postwar Cultural Constructions of Hearth, Nation, and Self

As the subject of ideological, aesthetic, and existential manipulations, the Polish home and its representation is an ever-changing phenomenon that absorbs new tendencies and, at the same time, retains its centrality to Polish literature, whether written in Poland or abroad.…

Freedom in Our Lifetime

Collected Writings of Anton Muziwakhe Lembede

When a group of young political activists met in 1944 to launch the African National Congress Youth League, it included the nucleus of a remarkable generation of leaders who forged the struggle for freedom and equality in South Africa for the next half century: Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Jordan Ngubane, Ellen Kuzwayo, Albertina Smith, A.…

From Blackjacks to Briefcases

A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States

From the beginning of the Industrial Age and continuing into the twenty-first century, companies faced with militant workers and organizers have often turned to agencies that specialized in ending strikes and breaking unions.…

From Civilization to Segregation

Social Ideals and Social Control in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1934

This study examines the social changes that took place in Southern Rhodesia after the arrival of the British South Africa Company in the 1890s. Summer’s work focuses on interactions among settlers, the officials of the British South America Company and the administration, missionaries, humanitarian groups in Britain, and the most vocal or noticeable groups of Africans.…

From Guerrillas to Government

The Eritrean People's Liberation Front

In 1991 the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) took over Asmara and completed the liberation of Eritrea; formal independence came two years later after a referendum in May 1993. It was the climax of a thirty-year struggle, though the EPLF itself was formed only in the early 1970s.…

From Jail to Jail

From Jail to Jail is the political autobiography of a central though enigmatic figure of the Indonesian Revolution. Variously labeled a communist, Trotskyite, and nationalist, Tan Malaka managed, during the several decades of his political activity, to run afoul of nearly every political group and faction involved in the Indonesian struggle for independence.…

From Kampung to City

A Social History of Kucing Malaysia, 1820-1970

One of the major processes in modern Southeast Asian history has been the development of ethnically heterogeneous towns and cities. Kucing, an intermediate-sized urban center in Sarawak, Malaysia, is today an institutionally complex, predominantly Chinese city of 100,000 led by modern political leaders.…

From Submarines to Suburbs

Selling a Better America, 1939–1959

During World War II, U.S. businesses devised marketing strategies that encouraged consumers to believe their country’s wartime experience would launch a better America. Advertisements and promotional articles celebrated the immense industrial output that corporations achieved during the war.…

Frontiers of Freedom

Cincinnati’s Black Community 1802–1868

Nineteenth-century Cincinnati was northern in its geography, southern in its economy and politics, and western in its commercial aspirations. While those identities presented a crossroad of opportunity for native whites and immigrants, African Americans endured economic repression and a denial of civil rights, compounded by extreme and frequent mob violence.…

Frozen in Silver

The Life and Frontier Photography of P. E. Larson

In 1898 men and women from all over the world converged on Alaska. Gold had been discovered. In the Yukon Territory, all winter long eager gold seekers struggled over the mountain passes connecting Canada with the United States.…

The Future City on the Inland Sea

A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior

Throughout the nineteenth century, the southern shores of Lake Superior held great promise for developers imagining the next great metropolis. These new territories were seen as expanses to be filled, first with romantic visions, then with scientific images, and later with vistas designed to entice settlement and economic development.…

The Game of Conservation

International Treaties to Protect the World’s Migratory Animals

The Game of Conservation is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable examination of nature protection around the world. Twentieth-century nature conservation treaties often originated as attempts to regulate the pace of killing rather than as attempts to protect animal habitat.…

Generations Past

Youth in East African History

Contemporary Africa is demographically characterized above all else by its youthfulness. In East Africa the median age of the population is now a striking 17.5 years, and more than 65 percent of the population is age 24 or under.…

George Kennan and the American-Russian Relationship, 1865–1924

George Kennan’s career as a specialist on Russian affairs began in 1865, with his first journey to the Russian empire. A twenty-year-old telegraphic engineer at the time, he was a member of the Russian-American Telegraph Expedition, a now virtually unknown but nevertheless remarkable nineteenth-century adventure story.…