College History

Throughout the NCAA Tournament’s history, underdogs, Cinderella stories, and upsets have captured the attention and imagination of fans. Making March Madness is the story of this premiere tournament, from its early days in Kansas City, to its move to Madison Square Garden, to its surviving a point-shaving scandal in New York and taking its games to different sites across the country.

Told through the lenses of specific people who both influenced the process and were impacted by the results, The Electoral College looks at how the Electoral College has changed US history and why it endures.

Inheriting a gay bar from your secretive great-uncle? Awkward. Trying to save it while catching feelings for the wrong girl? Complicated. From the author of She Drives Me Crazy comes an exuberant YA novel about queer joy, found family, and standing your ground. When eighteen-year-old Louisa Wade...

Part memoir by the daughter of the iconic comedian Richard Pryor, part exploration of the historical and contemporary use of the N-word, this hybrid book peels back the curtain on the life of Pryor and interrogates the most perplexing word in the American lexicon, a word he helped popularize...

In this moving work, part clear-eyed assessment, part memoir, the son of iconic African American Congressman John Conyers Jr. shines a spotlight on his father and his political legacy, and reveals how, as his son, he eventually learned to leverage his own voice in a world that his father helped...

From their founding, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) educated as many as 90 percent of Black college students in the United States. Although many are aware of the significance of HBCUs in expanding Black Americans' educational opportunities, much less attention has been paid to the vital role that they have played in expanding American democracy. In The Power of Black Excellence, Deondra Rose provides an authoritative history of HBCUs and the unique role they have played in shaping American democracy since 1865.

A deeply reported and personal exploration of identity, resilience, and belonging from one of the most influential Spanish-language journalists in the world, Essential offers a nuanced, urgent portrait of what it means to be Latino in today’s America and the contradictions of being vital to a...

*ONE OF THE NEW YORKERS BEST BOOKS OF 2024* “A powerful argument for reforming this system.”—The New York Times An urgent investigation of student debt in America revealing the corrupt systems, rotten policies, and bad actors that have created a $1.7 trillion crisis. College costs more...

A poetic coming-of-age memoir that probes the legacies and myths of family, race, and religion—from Nigeria to England to America Mary-Alice Daniel’s family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the Nigerian...

The inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation’s first HBCUs In The Devil’s Half Acre, New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice For decades, affirmative action reshaped not just American higher education but the broader society, opening doors that had been closed for centuries and transforming who entered the pathways to power. But the Supreme Court in 2023 killed...

The Bharatiya Janata Party is an idea that was seeded into the minds of nationalist Jana Sangh leaders when they began to envision India after Independence. Much like the very core the freedom struggle was built on, they saw India as a demographically, culturally and historically cohesive and...

Presented by the National Constitution Center, an inspirational collection of essays exploring the founding principles that continue to shape American democracy from the nation’s leading constitutional scholars across the political spectrum. The Declaration was just the beginning. The...

“A deeply felt meditation on the vital role of passion in good teaching”—with useful samples, interviews, and advice (Anthony Rotundo, The Washington Post) Every teacher can be a passionate teacher—one who engages young people in the excitement of learning and ideas—if teaching is not...

A TIME AND WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A stunning personal manifesto on memory, family, and history that explores how we in America might—together—come to a new view of our shared past “A vulnerable, honest look at a life...

Discover why you were always afraid of a monster under your childhood bed, why people truly believe in their “lucky” lotto numbers, and more with hundreds of quick facts, research-based explanations, and challenging quiz questions on everything from the psychology of our ancient ancestors to...

The extraordinary World War II story of shipwreck and survival that paved John F. Kennedy's path to power – hailed as a “breathtaking account” by James Patterson, “masterfully written” by historian Douglas Brinkley, and “the finest book” ever written on the subject by Lt. Commander...

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY San Francisco Chronicle The Plain Dealer The inspiring true story of a group of young men whose lives were changed by a visionary mentor On April 4, 1968, the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., shocked the nation. Later that month, the Reverend...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Simmons’s evocative account of her remarkable trajectory from Jim Crow Texas, where she was the youngest of twelve children in a sharecropping family, to the presidencies of Smith College and Brown University shines with tenderness and dignity.”—The New...

Includes an audiobook-exclusive interview with Guvna B by TV and radio presenter Nihal Arthanayake! Men are bold. Men are brave. Men are strong in the face of fear. But what happens when that strength crumbles? Growing up on a council estate in East London, rapper Guvna B thought he knew...