Although Herman Melville's masterworks Moby-Dick and Benito Cereno have long been the subject of vigorous scholarly examination, the impact of African culture on these works has received surprisingly little critical attention. Presenting a groundbreaking reappraisal of these two powerful pieces of fiction, Sterling Stuckey reveals how African customs and rituals heavily influenced one of America's greatest novelists. The Melville that emerges in this innovative, intertex...

Twenty-five years after its original publication, Oxford has released a new edition of Sterling Stuckey's ground-breaking study, Slave Culture. A leading cultural historian and authority on slavery, Stuckey explains how different African peoples interacted on the plantations of the South to achieve a common culture. He argues that at the time of emancipation, slaves still remained essentially African in culture, a conclusion that has had profound implications for theories of black...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham, “a big, grand, absorbing exploration of not just Jefferson and his role in history but also Jefferson the man, humanized as never before” (Entertainment Weekly)“Probably the best single-volume biography of Jefferson ever written.”—Gordon S. WoodA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Entertai...

"What has cast such a shadow upon you?""The Negro."With its intense mix of mystery, adventure, and a surprise ending, Benito Cereno at first seems merely a provocative example from the genre Herman Melville created with his early best-selling novels of the sea. However, most Melville scholars consider it his most sophisticated work, and many, such as novelist Ralph Ellison, have hailed it as the most piercing look at slavery in all of American liter...

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER **• NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A landmark work of history explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals—Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison—confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation.“A splendid book—humane, learned, written with flair and radiant with a calm intelligence and wit.” —The New York Times Book Review**The United States was m...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe "masterful chronicle" of the discovery of the legendary lost civilization of the Maya and the quest to unlock their secrets.Featuring a history and description of the major Maya sites, including **Chichen Itza, Tulum,**Palenque, Uxmal, Copan, and more. Illustrated with a map and more than 100 images.In 1839, rumors of extraordinary yet baffling ...

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER Following Thomas Jefferson from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Joseph J. Ellis unravels the contradictions of the Jeffersonian character. He gives us the slaveholding libertarian who was capable of decrying mescegenation while maintaing an intimate relationship with his slave, Sally Hemmings; the enemy of government power who exercisdd it audaciously as president; the visionarty who remained curio...

In 1773, the slave Phillis Wheatley literally wrote her way to freedom. The first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in English, she was emancipated by her owners in recognition of her literary achievement. For a time, Wheatley was the most famous black woman in the West. But Thomas Jefferson, unlike his contemporaries Ben Franklin and George Washington, refused to acknowledge her gifts as a writer -- a repudiation that eventually inspired generations of black writers to ...

David Brion Davis has long been recognized as the leading authority on slavery in the Western World. His books have won every major history award--including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award--and he has been universally praised for his prodigious research, his brilliant analytical skill, and his rich and powerful prose. Now, in Inhuman Bondage, Davis sums up a lifetime of insight in what Stanley L. Engerman calls "a monumental and magisterial book, the essential work ...

The harrowing story of one of America's first and costliest wars—featuring a new foreword by bestselling author Nathaniel PhilbrickAt once an in-depth history of this pivotal war and a guide to the historical sites where the ambushes, raids, and battles took place, King Philip's War expands our understanding of American history and provides insight into the nature of colonial and ethnic wars in general. Through a careful reconstruction of events, first-per...

An absorbing, insightful profile of the revolutionary leader, president, husband, and father from one of our best historians, now in a beautiful new package.John Adams was unique among the nation’s founders in leaving a record of his most intimate thoughts and feelings. Instinctively candid and politically incisive, Adams offers the clearest view of the ambitions and principles that drove the revolutionary generation. Passionate Sage offers a brilliant int...

A testament to the power of the human spirit under conditions of extreme oppression, this landmark history of slavery in the South challenged conventional views by illuminating the many forms of resistance to dehumanization that developed in slave society.Displaying keen insight into the minds of both enslaved persons and slaveholders, historian Eugene Genovese investigates the ways that enslaved persons forced their owners to acknowledge their humanity through cul...