Speaking wisely and provocatively about the political economy of race, Glenn Loury has become one of our most prominent black intellectuals--and, because of his challenges to the orthodoxies of both left and right, one of the most controversial. A major statement of a position developed over the past decade, this book both epitomizes and explains Loury's understanding of the depressed conditions of so much of black society today--and the origins, consequences, and implications for the future of these conditions. Using an economist's approach, Loury describes a vicious cycle of tainted social information that has resulted in a self-replicating pattern of racial stereotypes that rationalize and sustain discrimination. His analysis shows how the restrictions placed on black development by stereotypical and stigmatizing racial thinking deny a whole segment of the population the possibility of self-actualization that American society reveres--something that many contend would be undermined by remedies such as affirmative action. On the contrary, this book persuasively argues that the promise of fairness and individual freedom and dignity will remain unfulfilled without some forms of intervention based on race. Brilliant in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and how they resonate through the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic life of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives us a new way of seeing--and, perhaps, seeing beyond--the damning categorization of race in America.

Clothing the body is one of the most complicated acts of daily existence. When a nun ponders red shoes, an architect knots his bowtie, a lesbian laces her Doc Marten’s, or a nude model disrobes, each is engaging in a process of identity-making that is both intensely personal and deeply social. In an increasingly material world, negotiating dress codes is a nuanced art, informed by shifting patterns of power and authority, play and performance, as well as gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and race. Drawing on ethnographic knowledge to connect theory and practice, authors reveal links between material culture, social and economic forces and personal performance -- from trade beads to Barbie, and from Taiwanese producer to Nike consumer -- to explain clothing choices through time and across cultures. Conventional understandings of the self, subject and society are shown to be inadequate when examining the interconnections of cultural and transnational economic systems of production and consumption that have a profound effect on human choice. Social climates in which dress accrues meaning are increasingly global climates, where women’s bodies are commodified, gender categories are rigidly bound, and sweatshop labourers are slaves to boundless consumer appetite. This interdisciplinary book represents an important contribution to a fascinating and contested realm of human experience, and will be indispensable for anyone interested in the sociology, anthropology and psychology of fashion, cultural studies or the fashion industry.

The author returns to his hometown of Oxford, North Carolina, to make sense of the thirty-year-old murder of a black man by a Klansman, and the Klansman's subsequent acquittal by an all-white jury.

The learning experiences of adolescents in the Manus society of New Guinea are studied and used as the framework for a discussion of the education of the young in different societies and the ways in which young people grow into full participants in their culture. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

A panoramic history of Palestine under the British mandate chronicles a turbulent thirty-year history, from 1917 to 1948, that set the stage for the conflict between Arabs and Jews that still haunts the region today, profiling the key figures and documenting the important events, that shaped Palestine. 25,000 first printing.

A portrait of four generations of Cuban women, members of the the Revuelta family, is set against the backdrop of twentieth-century Cuban history, describing the impact of familial obligation, illicit romance, and revolution on the Revuelta women. Reprint. 30,000 first printing. Tour. NYT.

Argues that disproportionate rewards are distorting society

2004 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's unanimous decision to end segregation in public schools. Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the litigation, exclaimed later, "I was so happy, I was numb." The novelist Ralph Ellison wrote, "another battle of the Civil War has been won. The rest is up to us and I'm very glad. What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children!" Here, in a concise, moving narrative, Bancroft Prize-winning historian James T. Patterson takes readers through the dramatic case and its fifty-year aftermath. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits (at great personal cost); to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision. Others include segregationist politicians like Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas; Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon; and controversial Supreme Court justices such as William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas. Most Americans still see Brown as a triumph--but was it? Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. Could the Court--or President Eisenhower--have done more to ensure compliance with Brown? Did the decision touch off the modern civil rights movement? How useful are court-ordered busing and affirmative action against racial segregation? To what extent has racial mixing affected the academic achievement of black children? Where indeed do we go from here to realize the expectations of Marshall, Ellison, and others in 1954?

At the height of the Great Migration and the Progressive era, interracial sex districts began to appear in the urban American landscape. Interzones weaves the growth of cities and the development of commercialized leisure into an account of how the sexual color line was drawn - and how it was crossed. From black female prostitution to homosexual couples, from taxi dance halls to speakeasies, Kevin J. Mumford reconstructs the mixed-race underworld to reveal how these subcultures transformed not only race relations, but American culture as well.