“Engrossing and informative.” ―Zaakir Tameez, New York Times Book Review

From one of the most acclaimed and influential historians of the United States, an insightful guide to our history and why it matters.

Eric Foner has done more to shape the public and professional understanding of American history than any other scholar. The preeminent historian of the Civil War era, Foner’s keynote has been American freedom and the recurring battles over its meanings and boundaries. His award-winning works show that freedom has been a birthright for some and a struggle for others, that rights gained can also be lost, and that they must always be tended with knowledge and vigilance. The present political moment makes the importance of these themes abundantly clear.

This collection of Foner’s recent reviews and commentaries demonstrates the range of his interests and expertise, running from slavery and antislavery, through the disunion and remaking of the United States in the nineteenth century, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, and into our current politics. Each piece shows a master at work, melding historical knowledge and balanced judgment with crystalline prose. Foner takes up towering figures from Washington to Lincoln, Douglass, and Rosa Parks, pivotal events such as the Fugitive Slave Act and the Tulsa Race Massacre, and the fragility of constitutional guarantees to civil liberties, due process, and birthright citizenship, whether in times of war or peace. He also explores recent controversies over how to commemorate, and how to teach, our history.

An award-winning young scholar explores how Black women have remade―and continue to remake―our understanding of the past.

Across centuries, Black women have invented means to preserve what official history could not: friendship albums, kitchen-table philosophy, blogs, playlists, oral histories, and archives held in the mind. In The Light Keepers, Jessica Marie Johnson traces this radical tradition through the centuries-long prism of American empire, from the holds of slave ships to contemporary digital worlds, showing that there is nothing finished or settled about how Black women understand time, trauma, and survival.

Blending personal narrative, archival fragments, and ancestral wisdom, Johnson reframes Black women not as subjects of history but as archivists and historians. Against erasure, against shame, against death itself, Black women have transformed the bitterest waters of history into tools for living, loving, and imagining freedom. The Light Keepers offers readers a daring new way to think about the past―and a powerful lesson in how knowledge is made when survival demands it.

88 illustrations

Award-winning author Kai Ashante Wilson returns with a bold new vision of fantasy. The Fall of Elvenesse transforms the genre of Tolkien in the image of N. K. Jemisin, Marlon James, and Simon Jimenez.

Elves have ruined the world.

From their high mountain, the cruel knights of Elvenesse range out to conquer. They pillage, they enslave, they wreak genocide. Always the Elves have taken, never considered when the bill for their crimes will come due.

That time has come. The fury of the world has awoken. The victims will have their vengeance.

A divine scourge of fire sweeps across the land toward Elvenesse, and the last free people of the Nations flee before it. As the mountains char, rivers boil, and savannas burn, the Free Nations rely on the muscle and magic of their strong and runt freaks. But as their one remaining Saint assumes his power, he receives a prophecy: the Nations' only path to survival runs through Elvenesse. Only by navigating the Elven labyrinth can he win his people's lives.

A hidden history of twentieth-century American modernity that re-examines a mere twelve-block area on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with Thelonious Monk as its guiding star. 

The Jungles reclaims the largely forgotten world of San Juan Hill, a predominantly Black neighborhood on Manhattan’s West Side, was one of the most fertile centers of American cultural life in the twentieth century.

At once a biography, an urban history, and a cultural reckoning, Howard W. French’s The Jungles reveals how the neighborhood that would encompass Lincoln Center, previously known as the Jungles, fostered numerous pathbreaking Black artists, among them a young Thelonious Sphere Monk (1917–1982).

The story opens in Cuba in 1898, where we watch as Teddy Roosevelt’s forces triumph on San Juan Hill, with close to one-fifth of the overall invading force consisting of Black soldiers whose valor went largely unrecognized. After returning to the US, these veterans joined a broader wave of Black migrants moving northward, eventually settling in a Manhattan -neighborhood that would take the battle’s name. San Juan Hill became a lively, artistic Black community that preceded the Harlem Renaissance and inspired some of the highest twentieth- century creative triumphs―giving rise to the stride piano style and nurturing the genius of Monk, whose mold-breaking artistry struggled to gain traction in an industry then dominated by white producers.

As Robert Moses began tearing down the neighborhood under the guise of “urban renewal,” Monk became its most famous holdout, staying put in his cramped apartment in the Phipps Houses at 243 West 63rd Street, his upright piano protruding from his bedroom into the kitchen as he continued to make his iconic music.

By the late 1950s, Monk’s genius had finally been recognized, but the erasure already felt irreversible, extending even to the musical West Side Story, which reimagined the neighborhood’s streets as Latino gang territory, whitewashing the predominantly Black and Caribbean community that had actually lived there.

A compelling history from one of our finest American historians, The Jungles ultimately emerges as a new way of telling the history of music, of New York, and of America. The cradle of jazz was not only in New Orleans but also in San Juan Hill, and French’s magnificent recreation of that vanished world, and of the miraculous life of Thelonious Monk, restores to American cultural memory what erasure nearly stole for good.

12 illustrations

A landmark study of twentieth-century Black picture magazines and their impact on Black American life

From the late 1930s through the early 1970s, national publications such as Our World, Sepia, Color, Elegant, Flash, Brown, and Ebony framed emerging definitions of success for Black middle-class audiences. These magazines featured dynamic photo essays, sometimes by photographers as renowned as Gordon Parks and Moneta Sleet Jr., that shaped perspectives on Black cultural life and influenced the way millions of Americans understood the world through photography.

This history of Black picture magazines and their contribution to American photography, journalism, and cultural production is the first to consider these publications through a visual and scholarly lens. It features more than 250 illustrations, essays by prominent curators and thinkers, and thematic contributions by celebrity experts, including

• Tina Beyoncé Knowles, businesswoman and House of Deréon fashion designer, on beauty culture
• Doug Glanville, sports journalist and former MLB player, on sports
• Carla J. Williams, photographer and 2025 Guggenheim fellow, on pulp pinups
• Jason Moran, jazz musician and MacArthur “genius” award-winner, on music
• TAYLOR ALXNDR, activist and performer, on drag and queer/trans representation

With a comprehensive list of Black picture magazines and the photographers whose work appeared in them, this volume will serve as both a foundational reference and a compelling visual history that reveals the profound role these publications played in defining and circulating images of Black life, achievement, and aspiration in the United States.

Published in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Exhibition Schedule:

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(February 28 to May 31, 2027)

Portland Museum of Art, Maine
(October 8, 2027, to January 9, 2028)

New Orleans Museum of Art
(May 11 to August 6, 2028)

Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the David J. Langum Prize
Winner of the Merle Curti Social History Award
Finalist for the Cundill History Prize 2026

A revelatory history of the laws that conditioned the everyday lives of Chinese people in the American West―and of those who negotiated, circumvented, and resisted discrimination.

Legal discrimination against Chinese people in the United States began in 1852, with a California tax on foreign gold miners that was explicitly designed to exploit Chinese labor. In the ensuing decades, California, Oregon, Washington, and other western states instituted more than five thousand laws that marginalized and controlled Chinese residents. Long before the Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese immigration, these laws constrained the activities and opportunities of Chinese people already living in the United States.

In this eye-opening account, Beth Lew-Williams describes a legal architecture redolent of Jim Crow but tailored to the people whom official records often referred to only as “John Doe Chinaman” and “Mary Chinaman.” Enforced by police, tax collectors, schoolteachers, missionaries, and neighbors, these laws severely limited Chinese access to American society. Cementing stereotypes of Chinese as criminals, invaders, and predators, states regulated everything from healthcare and property ownership to business formation and kinship customs. Yet Chinese communities reacted resourcefully. Many fought, evaded, and manipulated racist laws, finding ways to maintain prohibited traditions, resist unfair treatment in court, and insist on their political rights.

Revealing the depth of anti-Chinese discrimination beyond federal exclusion, John Doe Chinaman tells the stories of those who refused to accept a conditional place in American life.

A comprehensive survey of Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui’s experimental prints and paper works

Acclaimed contemporary artist El Anatsui (b. 1944) is renowned for his intricate large-scale sculptures across a range of media―from clay and wood to discarded materials such as bottle caps and cassava graters. Less well known are his inventive prints and paper works, which share an important relationship to his sculptural practice. Examining the connection between the experimental quality of his prints and the radical compositions of his metal sculptures, this book uncovers the invaluable role of printmaking in the development of his artistic imagination and studio practice.

Beginning with Anatsui’s first encounter with printmaking at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, author Chika Okeke-Agulu traces the artist’s engagement with the techniques and modalities of the medium, investigating how this allowed him to explore line, color, texture, and form. Offering an overview of Anatsui’s six decades of work on paper and aluminum, the book also includes a comprehensive catalogue of his prints. An essay placing Anatsui’s print work within the context of contemporary collaborative studio practices enriches our understanding of the global field of printmaking, and the book is further enlivened by a conversation with the artist himself. 

Distributed for the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Exhibition schedule:

Philadelphia Museum of Art

(December 19, 2026–May 2, 2027)

Between ancient prophecies and breaking headlines, the end times can feel like a giant puzzle with missing pieces. In this book, the hosts of the Faith & Friction podcast dig into Scripture with curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of real talk, unpacking what's unfolding now and what could be coming next.

When the Faith and Friction crew were invited to witness the red heifer selection process (animals tied to an ancient prophecy that could ignite world-changing events), little did they know they stepped straight into a mystery thousands of years in the making. What could this sacrifice mean for believers now? And how close are we to seeing it unfold?

This book invites you into a story where the lines between ancient prophecy and modern life blur. With clear, modern language and gripping questions, it's designed to spark curiosity for anyone hungry for answers about the unseen forces shaping our time. The deeper you go, the harder it is to look away.

As the authors pull back the curtain on ancient prophecy and today's headlines, you'll:

* uncover the ancient rituals that could unlock the mysteries of the End Times;
* connect Christian and Jewish perspectives to see prophecy come alive both in history and modern day;
* dive into scripture and controversy surrounding the Third Temple, the Antichrist, the Rapture, and Tribulation;
* get sharp, modern answers to the questions that many are too afraid, or too confused, to ask;
* and step into the investigation yourself: dig deeper, challenge what you thought you knew, and gain confidence in the end times conversation.

Jesus is coming back. Do you know what to expect? Are you ready to dig into the truth and find out what's next in the cosmic story? The countdown has already started.

A sweeping history of the African American struggle against police brutality, exposing how state violence underpins the capitalist economy and tracing the long resistance movement in pursuit of racial justice and freedom for all

Rekia Boyd, Timothy Thomas, Jonathan Sanders, Breonna Taylor, Jordan Neely, and Michael Brown were casualties of war. Whether we call it a war on crime, a war on militants, or a war on drugs, law enforcement at every level has made Black neighborhoods across the country into killing fields and open-air prisons, stripping vulnerable people of equal rights, freedom of movement, and even protection from torture. In a smoldering indictment, Robin D. G. Kelley excavates the deep history of this war through the lives of the victims and their communities, drawing a direct line from today’s fatalities to the “blood at the root”―the racial terror at the heart of America’s system of exploitation and wealth accumulation.

It is a system, Kelley shows, that depends on racial and economic inequality and is maintained through not only tools of force but also tools of wealth extraction, from lynch law in Georgia to segregated housing in St. Louis to gentrification, predatory lending, civil forfeiture, and even today’s militarization of ICE.

At the same time, Making a Killing is a history of the counterwar, the legacy of collective Black resistance―the movements, tactics, thinkers, and leaders―that has long been a catalyst for change and the tip of the spear in a broader fight against rising fascism. Demanding not only justice for Black victims but also vast and visionary social transformation, these movements, from Reconstruction to the present day, hold out the possibility that we may lay to rest the America we know so that a new world may be born.

Written by an engineer who has worked for the FBI and the White House, this STEMinist picture book biography tells the story of Bessie Blount, a groundbreaking Black inventor.

What do you do when people tell you no? This is a true story of what happens when you tell yourself yes!

When a teacher said she couldn’t write with her left hand, Bessie taught herself to be right-handed. At a time when many people were unfairly denied more education, Bessie studied hard and became a nurse and physical therapist. And when her patients—injured World War II soldiers—couldn’t feed themselves, Bessie invented a device to assist them. Bessie‘s determination allowed her to help others in so many ways.

From celebrated STEMinist (STEM-feminist) Afua Bruce and award-winning artist Laura Freeman comes the inspiring true story of the extraordinary Bessie Blount.

* A trailblazing inventor who overcame oppression to succeed
* Informational back matter, including a timeline, author’s note, and guide to inventing
* Inspiring true story for fans of Maya’s Song, Ketanji, and Because Claudette

A bold and singularly funny novel about a young Ethiopian American woman whose twenty-first-century life collides spectacularly with Ethiopian legends that she knows can’t possibly be real, and yet...

“Remember when we were children The storyteller would shout, Teret teret, meaning a tale, a tale, and we would yell back Yelam beret! We didn’t know this meant a cow’s house, just that it rhymed. And then the story would begin.”

Belaynesh Tessema, an Ethiopian American journalist working at the independent travel magazine aptly named Trivial Pursuits, isn’t exactly pleased when her overbearing boss insists she travel to Washington, DC, to cover a story about a newly incorporated, all-Ethiopian town. When she starts packing to leave, things start to get…strange. First, there are the huge lapses in Belaynesh’s memory and sense of place and time. Perhaps more alarming, she realizes that every morning when she wakes up, she begins the same day again: September 10, 2007, which also happens to be the last day of the Ethiopian calendar year. Or, more to the point, the day before the world is set to end.

Enter Teret, a talking parrot who reveals an ambitious plan to un-stick time, sending him and Belaynesh deep into the world of Ethiopian mythology. At its center is the star of the apocryphal Book of Enoch, the mysterious Henok, who’s none too happy at the many ways Belaynesh’s arrival on this strange, surreal scene has disrupted the book he’s dedicated his life to composing. As Belaynesh and Teret dodge contemporary reinventions of the book’s grandest flourishes, from fallen angels to time traveling giants, and even Henok himself, Belaynesh learns that sometimes moving forward requires looking back.

Irreverently funny and wildly inventive, Teret Teret is modern magical realism at its best. It blends some of Ethiopia’s oldest stories with a heroine for our current moment, for a mold-breaking, epic tale about identity, love, and writing new stories when the old ones don’t serve us anymore.