All Titles

Law and Society in Islam
Stewart, Devin J., Baber Johansen, and Amy Singer

Subject: Religion

This book covers significant themes explaining the practice of Islamic law.

The first essay treats taqiyyah (literally, “caution”), the concealment of one’s religion when to reveal it would incur danger, which is based on a Koranic passage. The author provides …

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The Letters and Other Writings of Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano, the African): Documenting Abolition of the Slave Trade
Sapoznik, Karlee Anne, editor (foreword by Paul Lovejoy)

Subject: African Studies, Caribbean Studies, History of Slavery

Gustavus Vassa (alias Olaudah Equiano, the African) was on the vanguard of the anti-slavery movement in England at the end of the eighteenth century. He provided a voice for people of African descent in the British Atlantic world. His …

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The Levant: A Fractured Mosaic
Harris, William

Subject: Middle East: Israel/Palestine/Levant, World History

One of the “10 Must-Read Books on the Evolution of Terrorism in the Middle East” — The Wall Street Journal

In the wake of the November terrorist attack in Paris, the Wall Street Journal asked several experts for book recommendations …

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Libète: A Haiti Anthology
Arthur, Charles and Michael Dash, editors

Subject: Caribbean

Haiti’s dramatic history, pressing social problems, and rich culture make it one of the most fascinating nations in the Americas. This book aims to reflect some of Haiti’s extraordinary diversity through the best of writing. While many journalistic accounts are …

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The Life and Times of General China: Mau Mau and the End of Empire in Kenya
Osborne, Myles (editor)

Subject: Colonial Africa, Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean

An important addition to the corpus on Mau Mau, this book will be a wonderful asset in the classroom, and will be welcomed by all those interested in Africa’s modern history.” — David M. Anderson, Professor of African History, University …

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Life in a Haitian Valley
Herskovits, Melville J. (introduction by Sidney W. Mintz)

Subject: Caribbean

This book is a precious document in the intellectual history of the black Americas. Its author was surely the first academically respectable white scholar to take seriously the cultural achievements of Afro-Americans, throughout the hemisphere. His influence is still keenly …

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Lost Illusions: Latin America’s Struggle for Democracy, as Recounted by Its Leaders
Boeker, Paul

Subject: Latin America

This book opens and concludes with a critical appraisal of the durability of Latin American democracy and the role of the United States in this democratic revival by author Paul Boeker, a respected commentator on international events and a former …

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The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine: The Kunstkammer and the Evolution of Nature, Art and Technology
Bredekamp, Horst (introduction by Anthony T. Grafton; translated by Allison Brown)

Subject: Europe

Translated into six languages

The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler …

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Massacre Averted: An Armenian Town, An American Nurse, and the Turkish Army They Resisted
Super, Mary (edited by Nancy Klancher)

Subject: Europe, Middle East

Between 1920 and 1923, American relief workers managed to prevent the massacre of three hundred Armenian orphans at the hands of Turkish and Kurdish troops. One of them, a nurse, kept a diary that illuminated in dramatic detail the struggle …

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Medieval West Africa: Views from Arab Scholars and Merchants
Levtzion, Nehemiah and Jay Spaulding, editors

Subject: Africa

This book tells the story of West Africa south of the Sahara from the ninth to the fourteenth century from the viewpoint of Arab geographers, historians, and travelers. The first reports in written Arabic sources deal with urban west African …

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