“Unstable Ground” looks at the human impact of climate change and its potential to provoke some of the most troubling crimes against humanity-ethnic conflict, war, and genocide. Alex Alvarez provides an essential overview of what science has shown to be true about climate change and examines how our warming world will challenge and stress societies and heighten the risk of mass violence. Drawing on a number of recent and historic examples, including...

A history with sweeping implications, American Messiahs challenges our previous misconceptions about "cult" leaders and their messianic power. Mania surrounding messianic prophets has defined the national consciousness since the American Revolution. From Civil War veteran and virulent anticapitalistic Cyrus Teed, to the dapper and overlooked civil rights pioneer Father Divine, to even the megalomaniacal Jim Jones, these figures have routinely been...

"A literary, psychological novel imbued with social commentary, Not Yet reflects on the depressive conditions that lead to suicide. This introspective, in-depth character study of a single father, who is utterly surrounded by women, details the emotional struggle of raising a teenage daughter while confronting the imminent demise of his grandmother slowly engulfed by Alzheimer's. The dark theme of suicide is uplifted by musings on race, religion,...

Did Native Americans suffer genocide? This controversial question lies at the heart of Native America and the Question of Genocide. After reviewing the various meanings of the word genocide, author Alex Alvarez examines a range of well-known examples, such as the Sand Creek Massacre and the Long Walk of the Navajo, to determine where genocide occurred and where it did not. The book explores the destructive beliefs of the European settlers, and then...

"When Joseph Nathaniel Beckles registered for the draft in the 1942, he rejected the racial categories presented to him and persuaded the registrar to cross out the check mark she had placed next to Negro and substitute "Ethiopian Hebrew." "God did not make us Negroes," declared religious leaders in black communities of the early twentieth-century urban North. They insisted that so-called Negroes are, in reality, Ethiopian Hebrews, Asiatic Muslims,...

"Chronicles the rich history of an institution at the heart of the African American experience. Beginning with enslavement, traveling through Emancipation, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights movement, and ending in the present-day, Gates takes viewers on a journey through time, focusing on the key events, charismatic figures, political debates, and musical traditions that have shaped, and been shaped by, the Black Church. The series also...