Identity History

"Know thyself" - this fundamental imperative appeared for the first time in ancient Greece. For the Greeks, self-knowledge and identity were the basics of their civilization and their sources were to be found in where one was born and into which social group. These determined who you were and what your duties were. In this book the independent scholar Ingrid Rossellini surveys the major ideas that, from Greek and Roman antiquity through the Christian medieval era up to the dawn of modernity in the Renaissance, have guided the Western project of self-knowledge.

A witty, inspiring reckoning with the ancient Greek and Roman myths and their legacy, from what they can illuminate about #MeToo to the radical imagery of Beyoncé. The picture of classical antiquity most of us learned in school is framed in certain ways -- glossing over misogyny while omitting...

An absorbing investigation into a little-known historical tragedy—an insurrection which upended a resilient and wealthy Black community who found themselves in the clutches of an insurrection at the turn of the twentieth century in Laurinburg, North Carolina. In the late nineteenth century...

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST A transgender reporter's "powerful, profoundly moving" narrative tour through the surprisingly vibrant queer communities sprouting up in red states (New York Times Book Review), offering a vision of a stronger, more humane America. Ten years ago, Samantha Allen was...

A reckoning with the way we choose to see and define ourselves, Self-Portrait in Black and White is the searching story of one American family's multigenerational transformation from what is called Black to what is assumed to be White. Thomas Chatterton Williams, the son of a "Black" father from the segregated South and a "White" mother from the West, spent his whole life believing the dictum that a single drop of "Black blood" makes a person Black. This was so fundamental to his self-conception that he'd never rigorously reflected on its foundations....

This volume offers an accessible investigation of the Naassene discourse embedded in the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies (completed about 222 CE), in order to understand the theology and ritual life of the Naassene Christian movement in the late second and early third centuries CE. The work provides basic data on the date, genre, and provenance of the Naassene discourse as summarized by the author of the Refutation (or Refutator).

The rise of China and its great power competition with the U.S. will be one of the defining issues of our generation. But to understand modern China, one has to understand the people who live there–and the way the Chinese state is trying to control them along lines of identity and free expression. In vivid, cinematic detail, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom tells the stories of nearly two dozen people who are pushing back.

An exuberant and insightful work of popular history of how streets got their names, houses their numbers, and what it reveals about class, race, power, and identity. When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won’t get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class.

“Powerful and transcendent" —Chigozie Obioma "Both epic and intimate" —​Margo Jefferson A deeply moving, lyrical journey through the author’s homeland of Nigeria, in search of the truth about his disappeared uncle and the history of a war that shaped him, his family, and a nation In...

In Teaching White Supremacy, Donald Yacovone shows us the clear and damning evidence of white supremacy’s deep-seated roots in our nation’s education system in a fascinating, in-depth examination of America’s wide assortment of texts, from primary readers to college textbooks and other higher-ed course materials. Sifting through a wealth of materials, from the colonial era to today, Yacovone reveals the systematic ways in which white supremacist ideology has infiltrated American culture and how it has been at the heart of our collective national identity.

A new audiobook by the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity. "Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of...

A great many Jewish holidays and practices, in their earliest understanding, reflect the great innovation of Biblical religion. The Bible emphasized historical events in contrast to nature. Other ancient Near Eastern religions stressed the latter. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel noted, in the Jewish tradition, faith is memory. The observances of Jewish holidays and various Jewish practices articulate theological ideas reflective of collective Jewish memory.

Richard Hanania has emerged as one of the most talked-about writers in the nation, and in this book, he puts forward a stunning new theory about the culture war that could turn our debates upside down. Richard Hanania has come out of nowhere to become one of the best-known writers in the nation...

With profound implications for our most foundational assumptions about gender, Gender Mosaic explains why there is no such thing as a male or female brain. For generations, we've been taught that women and men differ in profound and important ways. Women are more sensitive and emotional, whereas...

Emmy Award-winning international journalist Hala Gorani weaves stories from her time as a globe-trotting anchor and correspondent with her own lifelong search for identity as the daughter of Syrian immigrants. What is it like to have no clear identity in a world full of labels? How can people...

Now updated with groundbreaking research, this award-winning classic examines the construction of sexual identity in biology, society, and history. Why do some people prefer heterosexual love while others fancy the same sex? Is sexual identity biologically determined or a product of convention?...

A Bustle Most Anticipated Debut of the Year From The Guardian’s Georgina Lawton, a moving examination of how racial identity is constructed—through the author’s own journey grappling with secrets and stereotypes, having been raised by white parents with no explanation as to why she...

Not many people peer over the abyss, but Elke Babicki's family did. Her German grandfather objected to Hitler and as a result, ended up in a concentration camp while her mother’s family became destitute. Elke's father, Alex, who was born into a well-educated and wealthy Jewish family in Poland, spent five years in concentration camps before making his escape just before the end of the war.

The first-ever biography of the most pivotal Justice on the Supreme Court whose decisions, like the overturning of Roe, will drive the reshaping of America, by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Peter Canellos. When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, the landmark...

King Philip's War, the excruciating racial war - colonists against Indians - that erupted in New England in 1675, was, in proportion to population, the bloodiest in American history. Some even argued that the massacres and outrages on both sides were too horrific to "deserve the name of a war". Telling the story of what may have been the bitterest of American conflicts, and its reverberations over the centuries, Lepore has enabled us to see how the ways in which we remember past events are as important in their effect on our history as were the events themselves.