A journey through heaven and earth for the questing mind. Navigating from the clockwork music of the spheres to the “melismatic celebration of disaster” that is the blues, these are poems that map the places where orderly cosmic harmony and dissonance converge.“If only the world were as orderly as Bach, if there were no need for gospel, no need for jazz, no need for the blues.” As Anthony Walton writes, centuries ago, Johannes Kepler observed that the univ...

A powerful wartime saga recounting the extraordinary story of the 761st Tank Battalion, the first all-black armored unit to see combat in World War II.“More than a combat story . . . it’s also the story of how black soldiers had to fight (literally and figuratively) for the right to fight the Germans.”—USA TodayKareem Abdul-Jabbar first became immersed in the history of the 761st Battalion through family friend Leonard “Smitty” Smi...

To most Americans, Mississippi is not a state but a scar, the place where segregation took its ugliest form and struck most savagely at its challengers. But to many Americans, Mississippi is also home. And it is this paradox, with all its overtones of history and heartache, that Anthony Walton—whose parents escaped Mississippi for the relative civility of the Midwest—explores in this resonant and disquieting work of travel writing, history, and memoir.Traveling from the Natchez Tra...

American Blacks are entering a new phase in the struggle against white supremacy. Standing firmly in the African American tradition, Walton believes in the possibility of reconciliation with those whites who desire it, offering a hand of friendship and pragmatic ideas for paths forward.Born into the Civil Rights Movement, author Anthony Walton observed firsthand the opening of opportunity for racial reconciliation. He also saw systemic racism and the vicious backla...

American Blacks are entering a new phase in the struggle against white supremacy. Standing firmly in the African American tradition, Walton believes in the possibility of reconciliation with those whites who desire it, offering a hand of friendship and pragmatic ideas for paths forward.Born into the Civil Rights Movement, author Anthony Walton observed firsthand the opening of opportunity for racial reconciliation. He also saw systemic racism and the vicious backla...

Discover the unique mind and humane vision of an under-recognized American author. Encompassing themes of race, education, fame, law, and America’s past and future, these essays are James Alan McPherson at his most prescient and invaluable.Born in segregated 1940s Georgia, McPherson graduated from Harvard Law School only to give up law and become a writer. In 1978, he became the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But all the while, McPherson ...

In The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, editors Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton present the definitive collection of black verse in the United States--200 years of vision, struggle, power, beauty, and triumph from 52 outstanding poets.From the neoclassical stylings of slave-born Phillis Wheatley to the wistful lyricism of Paul Lawrence Dunbar . . . the rigorous wisdom of Gwendolyn Brooks...the chiseled modernism of Robert Hayden...the extraordinary pro...

Discover the unique mind and humane vision of an under-recognized American author. Encompassing themes of race, education, fame, law, and America’s past and future, these essays are James Alan McPherson at his most prescient and invaluable.Born in segregated 1940s Georgia, McPherson graduated from Harvard Law School only to give up law and become a writer. In 1978, he became the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But all the while, McPherson ...

A powerful wartime saga recounting the extraordinary story of the 761st Tank Battalion, the first all-black armored unit to see combat in World War II.“More than a combat story . . . it’s also the story of how black soldiers had to fight (literally and figuratively) for the right to fight the Germans.”—USA TodayKareem Abdul-Jabbar first became immersed in the history of the 761st Battalion through family friend Leonard “Smitty” Smi...

A powerful wartime saga recounting the extraordinary story of the 761st Tank Battalion, the first all-black armored unit to see combat in World War II.“More than a combat story . . . it’s also the story of how black soldiers had to fight (literally and figuratively) for the right to fight the Germans.”—USA TodayKareem Abdul-Jabbar first became immersed in the history of the 761st Battalion through family friend Leonard “Smitty” Smi...

In combating terror, America can no longer depend on its conventional military superiority and the use of sophisticated technology. More than ever, we need men like those of the Army Special Forces—the legendary Green Berets.In Chosen Soldier, Dick Couch draws on nearly a year spent at Special Forces training facilities and offers an unprecedented view of the education of these men.Following the experiences of one class of soldiers as they endure this physically an...

Their names were Bob Palmer, Gordy Cox, Tim McCoy, and Chuck Vervalin, and in 1941, when they joined the navy, they were not trying to prove their patriotism—they were just looking for a job that would provide "three hots and a cot."But on April 22, 1943, the war took a terrible turn for them. While on patrol deep in enemy waters, their submarine, the USS Grenadier, was torpedoed and sent crashing to the ocean floor. Listed as lost in action and given up for dead, all four...