An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England
Explores how Black New Englanders maintained a sense of belonging among their kin in the face of slavery As winter turned to spring in the year 1699, Sebastian and Jane embarked on a campaign of persuasion. The two wished to marry, and they sought the backing of their community in Boston. Nothing, however, could induce Jane's enslaver to consent. ......
The Trickster Tales of Al-?ariri in an Age of Commentary
An account of Arabic literary history through the lens of the reception of the Maqamat of al-?ariri, a twelfth-century collection of fifty trickster stories Before World Literature offers an account of Arabic literary history through the lens of the reception of one of the most widely read Arabic texts of the postclassical period: the Maqamat of ......
Liberal Protestants, Human Rights, and the Polarization of the United States
When we think about religion and politics in the United States today, we think of conservative evangelicals. But for much of the twentieth century it was liberal Protestants who most profoundly shaped American politics. Leaders of this religious community wielded their influence to fight for social justice by lobbying for the New Deal, marching ......
Fiction has become nearly synonymous with literature itself, as if Homer and Dante and Pynchon were all engaged in the same basic activity. But one difficulty with this view is simply that a literature trafficking in openly invented characters is a quite recent development. Novelists before the nineteenth century ceaselessly asserted that their ......
A literary, legal, and cultural history of disability, race, and citizenship between the Revolution and the Civil War The history of disability rights is often told as a recent one, but it is not. In the wake of the American Revolution, many of the differences we now call disabilities could be accommodated into citizenship--and for some even ......
Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492
Demonstrating that Columbus's voyage was a new step in a centuries-old process of European expansion, Fernandez-Armesto provides a stimulating account of the broadening of Europe's physical and mental horizons in the Middle Ages. He shows how the techniques and institutions of medieval colonial expansion that were applied to the New World made ......
Though Michel Foucault is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, little is known about his early life. Even Foucault's biographers have neglected this period, preferring instead to start the story when the future philosopher arrives in Paris. Becoming Foucault is a historical reconstruction of the world in which Foucault ......
The Impact of American Democracy Upon Great Britain, 183-187
The faith of a people in their greater destiny has been a propelling force of considerable power in the history of the world. In it s more perfect form, this ideal has spurred on the American people to their own higher good and, at the same time, been an inspiration for good on the efforts of others as well. By the end of the eighteenth century, ......
Staging Race Between Early Modern England and Spain
Bad Blood explores representations of race in early modern English and Spanish literature, especially drama. It addresses two different forms of racial ideology: one concerned with racialized religious difference-that is, the notion of having Jewish or Muslim "blood"-and one concerned with Blackness and whiteness. Shakespeare's Othello tells us ......
