My Life's Interesting Narrative: A Journey from Slave to Freedom (My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner/ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass/ The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African by Equiano)


Book Description

Book 1: Embark on the musical journey of a renowned composer with “My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner.” Richard Wagner, one of the most influential figures in the world of opera, provides readers with insights into his life, creative process, and the cultural milieu of 19th-century Europe. This autobiography offers a firsthand account of Wagner's experiences and reflections, shedding light on the man behind the music. Book 2: Witness the harrowing narrative of a courageous abolitionist with “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass.” Frederick Douglass recounts his journey from enslavement to freedom, offering a searing indictment of the institution of slavery. This powerful narrative serves as a testament to Douglass's resilience and his commitment to justice and equality. Book 3: Experience the remarkable life story of an African man who transcended enslavement with “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African by Equiano.” Olaudah Equiano shares his extraordinary journey from captivity to freedom, traversing continents and cultures. His narrative not only exposes the brutality of the slave trade but also reflects on the importance of education and the quest for personal liberation.




A History of African American Poetry


Book Description

Offers a critical history of African American poetry from the transatlantic slave trade to present day hip-hop.




Bars Fight


Book Description

Bars Fight, a ballad telling the tale of an ambush by Native Americans on two families in 1746 in a Massachusetts meadow, is the oldest known work by an African-American author. Passed on orally until it was recorded in Josiah Gilbert Holland’s History of Western Massachusetts in 1855, the ballad is a landmark in the history of literature that should be on every book lover’s shelves.




Subfloor Pits and the Archaeology of Slavery in Colonial Virginia


Book Description

This book discusses the daily life and culture of enslaved Africans and their descendants. Enslaved Africans and their descendants comprised a significant portion of colonial Virginia populations, with most living on rural slave quarters adjacent to the agricultural fields in which they labored. Archaeological excavations into these home sites have provided unique windows into the daily lifeways and culture of these early inhabitants. subfloor pits be-neath the houses. The most common explanations of the functions of these pits are as storage places for personal belongings or root vegetables, and some contextual and ethnohistoric data suggest they may have served as West African-style shrines. Through analysis of 103 subfloor pits dating from the 17th through mid-19th centuries, Samford reveals how data on shape, location, surface area, and depth, as well as contextual analysis of artifact assemblages, can show how subfloor pits functioned for the enslaved. Archaeology reveals the material circumstances of slaves' lives, which in turn opens the door to illuminating other aspects of life: spirituality, symbolic meanings assigned to material goods, social life, individual and group agency, and acts of resistance and accommodation. about how West African, possibly Igbo, cultural traditions were maintained and transformed in the Virginia Chesapeake.




Warfare in the American Homeland


Book Description

DIVA collection of writings by prisoners and scholars that documents the extension of the violence and the repression of the prison establishment into the larger society. /div




American Uprising


Book Description

A gripping and deeply revealing history of an infamous slave rebellion that nearly toppled New Orleans and changed the course of American history In January 1811, five hundred slaves, dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes, rose up from the plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city. Ethnically diverse, politically astute, and highly organized, this self-made army challenged not only the economic system of plantation agriculture but also American expansion. Their march represented the largest act of armed resistance against slavery in the history of the United States. American Uprising is the riveting and long-neglected story of this elaborate plot, the rebel army's dramatic march on the city, and its shocking conclusion. No North American slave uprising—not Gabriel Prosser's, not Denmark Vesey's, not Nat Turner's—has rivaled the scale of this rebellion either in terms of the number of the slaves involved or the number who were killed. More than one hundred slaves were slaughtered by federal troops and French planters, who then sought to write the event out of history and prevent the spread of the slaves' revolutionary philosophy. With the Haitian revolution a recent memory and the War of 1812 looming on the horizon, the revolt had epic consequences for America. Through groundbreaking original research, Daniel Rasmussen offers a window into the young, expansionist country, illuminating the early history of New Orleans and providing new insight into the path to the Civil War and the slave revolutionaries who fought and died for justice and the hope of freedom.




The Politics Book


Book Description

Learn about how the world of government and power works in The Politics Book. Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Politics in this overview guide to the subject, great for novices looking to find out more and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Politics Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in. This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Politics, with: - More than 100 groundbreaking ideas in the history of political thought - Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts - A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout - Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understanding The Politics Book is a captivating introduction to the world's greatest thinkers and their political big ideas that continue to shape our lives today, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Delve into the development of long-running themes, like attitudes to democracy and violence, developed by thinkers from Confucius in ancient China to Mahatma Gandhi in 20th-century India, all through exciting text and bold graphics. Your Politics Questions, Simply Explained This engaging overview explores the big political ideas such as capitalism, communism, and fascism, exploring their beginnings and social contexts - and the political thinkers who have made significant contributions. If you thought it was difficult to learn about governing bodies and affairs, The Politics Book presents key information in a clear layout. Learn about the ideas of ancient and medieval philosophers and statesmen, as well as the key personalities of the 16th to the 21st centuries that have shaped political thinking, policy, and statecraft. The Big Ideas Series With millions of copies sold worldwide, The Politics Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.




Hegel and the Third World


Book Description

Hegel, more than any other modern Western philosopher, produced the most systematic case for the superiority of Western white Protestant bourgeois modernity. He established a racially structured ladder of gradation of the peoples of the world, putting Germanic people at the top of the racial pyramid, people of Asia in the middle, and Africans and Indigenous people of the Americas and Pacific Islands at the bottom. In Hegel and the Third World Tibebu guides the reader through Hegel’s presentation on universalism to argue that such a classification flows in part from Hegel's philosophy of the development of human consciousness. Hegel classified Africans as people arrested at the lowest and most immediate stage of consciousness, that of the senses; Asians as people with divided consciousness, that of the understanding; and Europeans as people of reason. Tibebu demonstrates that Hegel’s views were not his alone but reflected the fundamental beliefs of other major figures of Western thought at the time. With detailed analysis and thorough research Hegel and the Third World challenges the central idea of Hegel's philosophy of history: progress. In addition, Tibebu succeeds in providing a fascinating critique of the Western philosopher’s rationalization of the gradual decline suffered by the people of the Third World in the context of modern world history.




African Kings and Black Slaves


Book Description

A thought-provoking reappraisal of the first European encounters with Africa As early as 1441, and well before other European countries encountered Africa, small Portuguese and Spanish trading vessels were plying the coast of West Africa, where they conducted business with African kingdoms that possessed significant territory and power. In the process, Iberians developed an understanding of Africa's political landscape in which they recognized specific sovereigns, plotted the extent and nature of their polities, and grouped subjects according to their ruler. In African Kings and Black Slaves, Herman L. Bennett mines the historical archives of Europe and Africa to reinterpret the first century of sustained African-European interaction. These encounters were not simple economic transactions. Rather, according to Bennett, they involved clashing understandings of diplomacy, sovereignty, and politics. Bennett unearths the ways in which Africa's kings required Iberian traders to participate in elaborate diplomatic rituals, establish treaties, and negotiate trade practices with autonomous territories. And he shows how Iberians based their interpretations of African sovereignty on medieval European political precepts grounded in Roman civil and canon law. In the eyes of Iberians, the extent to which Africa's polities conformed to these norms played a significant role in determining who was, and who was not, a sovereign people—a judgment that shaped who could legitimately be enslaved. Through an examination of early modern African-European encounters, African Kings and Black Slaves offers a reappraisal of the dominant depiction of these exchanges as being solely mediated through the slave trade and racial difference. By asking in what manner did Europeans and Africans configure sovereignty, polities, and subject status, Bennett offers a new depiction of the diasporic identities that had implications for slaves' experiences in the Americas.




Forced Passages


Book Description

With the US having the highest incarceration rate in the world, prisons have become sites of radical political discourse and resistance. Dylan Rodriguez examines the work of a number of imprisoned intellectuals, such as Angela Davis and Leonard Peltier, and looks at how imprisonment has shaped their writing.