Identity History

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.

This book examines how authority in the United States is organized, how it shifted over time, and why the system now feels unstable and adversarial regardless of which party holds power. It is not about elections or candidates. It is an examination of how the system itself works and how it drifted away from the balance it was designed to maintain. At its core, the book focuses on federalism.

A journalist and author of The Influence of Soros examines the history of Jewish people in America and explores their ever-evolving relationship to the nation’s culture and identity—and each other. What does it mean to be a Bad Jew? Many Jews use the term “Bad Jew” as a weapon against...

One was a tough junkman's son, the other a cosseted mama's boy, but they dreamed the same mighty dream: that the right movies could make a profit and change both the culture and individual lives. Sharing a religion and an evangelical zeal for film, Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957) and Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) were unlikely partners in one of the most significant collaborations in movie history. Over the course of their decade-long relationship, as key players at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and major players in Hollywood, they joined forces in redefining and mastering the template for the film industry.

Only one performance style has dominated the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: "Method acting." The first reception-based analysis of film acting, Imagining the Method investigates how popular understandings of the so-called Method—what its author Justin Rawlins calls "methodness"—created an exclusive brand for white, male actors while associating such actors with rebellion and marginalization. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book maps the forces giving shape to methodness and policing its boundaries.

'A remarkable story, a real page-turner' JOE DUFFY 'Powerfully written ... a gripping narrative' FINTAN O'TOOLE The remarkable story of one man's journey from the edge of death to the heart of a hidden past. Adopted at age three, Paul Cullen always felt like an outsider. After a near-fatal fall...

A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious lines In this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples...

In this incisive blend of personal narrative and philosophical inquiry, journalist and activist Barrett Holmes Pitner seeks a new way to talk about racism in America. Can new language reshape our understanding of the past and expand the possibilities of the future? The Crime Without a Name...

The inspiring true story of a nice Jewish boy who left the Church of Scientology to become the lovely lady she is today. In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a...

“Meet the future of African literature” (Mukoma Wa Ngugi, author of Nairobi Heat) with this “gorgeous, wildly funny, and, above all, profoundly moving and humane” (Peter Orner, author of Am I Alone Here) coming-of-age tale following a young man who is forced to flee his homeland of...

From the author of the highly acclaimed How High the Moon comes a moving and heartfelt novel about how a girl's family and friendships are turned upside down—just as the world is changing in 1970s Los Angeles. Stevie’s life is fluctuating rapidly. She's starting over in a brand new middle...

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth. Many have tried, but most have concluded that it is impossible to capture the true scope and significance of Africa’s most populous nation through words or images. Yet here, through personal essays from twenty-four of its writers, a more accurate...

From the groundbreaking trans scholar Susan Stryker, a provocative, genre-bending call to reconsider the story we tell about gender itself. That gender is a hotly contested topic becomes ever clearer as antigender ideology continues to be mobilized by the far right and transgender people's lives...

Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry Finalist for the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry Finalist for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Collection Postcolonial Love Poem, the brilliant second collection from Natalie Diaz, holds...

A rousing, beautifully observed, and tender-hearted debut poetry collection about identity, culture, home, and belonging—for fans of Jasmine Mans and Fatimah Asghar “We, children of plátanos, always gotta learn to play in everyone else’s backyard and somehow feel at home.” Poet...

“An important part of American history told with a clear-eyed and forceful brilliance.” —National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson “We Refuse to Forget reminds readers, on damn near every page, that we are collectively experiencing a brilliance we've seldom seen or imagined…We...

In American Awakening, Joshua Mitchell compares today’s secular politics of identity - skin tone, gender, and sexuality - to the religious awakenings of America’s past. The book asks where the clerisy of identity politics came from, how identity politics claimed a death grip on liberalism, and how can it be defeated.

A moving account of how war is remembered – and by whom 'Impressive. A hundred individual histories, skillfully assembled, built into a poignant meditation on why they still matter' David Olusoga 'Brilliant' Piers Morgan Bestselling historian Tessa Dunlop travels the length and breadth of the...

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...

A powerful exploration of the past and present arc of America’s white supremacy—from the country’s inception and Revolutionary years to its 19th century flashpoint of civil war; to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and today’s Black Lives Matter. “The most profoundly original...