“As intrinsic to the identity of the United States as New England villages, national parks, and leafy suburbs, ghettos nevertheless remain unique in their social and physical isolation from the nation’s mainstream. Semiruined, discarded, and dangerous, ghettos are rarely visited by outsiders. The New American Ghetto provides an exploration, spanning over nearly two decades, of ghettos in New York, Newark, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and smaller cities. Camilo José Vergara chronicles, through photographs and text, the profound transformations experienced by these places since the riots of the 1960s. He provides direct observations of urban landscapes and interiors, from residential areas and institutions to vacant lots and abandoned factories. He takes successive photographs of the same places, tracking change over time, changes that have made the conditions of today’s ghettos very different from those of an earlier era. Vergara’s interviews with residents and historical research contribute to his unique view of the nature and meaning of the inner city. Termed ‘a photographic forecast of the demise of urban America,’ The New American Ghetto brings to light a world of forgotten ruin and struggling reconstruction.”

Publisher: Rutgers University
Hardback: 235 pages
Illustrated

More exploding bombshell than polemic—”Written by an acknowledged Nigger about the experience of Niggers, addressed and directed exclusively to my Nigger people for whom it was purposely conceived”—The Nigger Bible (1967) is an incendiary call for racial independence written in a tone that clocks in somewhere between Farrakhan and Jehovah. Unashamedly racist (“SEPARATION IS ‘THE NIGGER SALVATION’”), rabidly anti-Judeo-Chrisitian, deCoy contends, with dizzying repetition (via sermons, proverbs and parables), that the reclamation of spiritual and political black truths can only occur outside the manipulating sphere of the Caucasian oppressor where the “Negro” (“prostitutes of Black Spirit”) can construct his own world, define his own terms and think for himself—in short, discover his true “Niggerness.” Continually veering between acumen and bombast, insight and screed, it’s difficult to know if deCoy is at any point being ironic. Either way, he’ll leave the reader (even, or especially, white readers) reeling and spent. MDG

Publisher: Holloway House
Paperback: 304 pages

“The largest, and only successful, slave revolt in history took place in Haiti shortly after the French Revolution. First organized by a voodoo priest, the rebellion soon came under the leadership of an educated, devoutly Catholic slave named Toussaint L’Ouverture—a man of such military and political skill that he was referred to by contemporaries as ‘The Black Napoleon.’”

Publisher: Sarpedon
Hardback: 224 pages
Illustrated

“Traces occult influences in politics and statecraft from ancient Egypt to the present era. Explores the influences in government and in the lives of many well-known figures, including Benjamin Franklin, Rasputin, Woodrow Wilson and more. The societies explored include the Nazis, the British security forces, the founding fathers of America, and the Vatican.”

Publisher: Destiny
Paperback: 192 pages
Illustrated

“In this volume, Bellant tallies some of the moral and political costs of our government’s recent and disquieting alliance with Nazi collaborators and fascists. He follows the trail from the Waffen SS to the ethnic outreach arm of the Republican party—and even to the White House briefing rooms.”

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 150 pages

All in all, everything you would expect from a volume featuring the word “subhuman” in one of its many subtitles. Seems that the problem with the fundamentalist Creationists is that they’re nothing more than Evolutionists in sheep’s clothing—how could they actually believe that the various races could have possibly descended from Adam and Eve, when, according to medieval and renaissance artists, the primal couple was white? Weisman views the non-white races as “pre-Adamic” practice runs, as our Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon ancestors are also thought to be. In fact, the serpent of Eden turns out himself to be a treacherous member of one of the non-Adamic races, hence the “enmity” God places between him and the “children of Eve” is actually divinely ordained racism. The repopulation of the earth after the flood through the lineage of Noah is another fundamentalist lie. The flood was a localized event having no effect on the pre-existing non-white races. The Ark actually landed in Northern India, and Noah’s Aryan genes obviously made their way westward in the cultural advancements of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Chaldeans and Phoenicians, the last of which sailed to the Americas to become Aztecs, Incas, etc. Somehow, however, Weisman still clings to the Old Testament’s stories of the Hebrew god’s jealous protection of the Israelites against some their “Aryan” siblings (like the Egyptians) as a primary narrative of the “white race.” The New Testament is good news for whites only, and since the “wandering Jew” did not lay claim to the sort of “mighty nation” promised Abraham, Weisman awards the title of “True Israelites” to more active players in recent Western history such as “America, Canada, Australia, and South Africa” (!). And speaking of South Africa, it soon becomes clear that the author’s most virulent hatred is reserved for the black man, who in the book’s obsessive cataloging of physiological differences is distinguished by his “sooty complexion,” “fetid scent,” and “prominent muzzle.” These remarks, and in fact roughly a quarter of this 1990 publication, are drawn directly from 19th-century sources, including some of the book’s most memorable pages devoted to illustrations of “comparative anatomy” juxtaposing non-whites with apes, opossums, and rats. RA

Publisher: Weisman
Paperback: 176 pages
Illustrated

History for the most part has not recognized the many women who, dressed as men, fought on both sides during the Civil War. Sometimes their true sex was discovered only after they had been injured or killed in the line of fire. Others were hastily buried where they fell on the battleground, thus taking their secret with them to the grave. Some survived the war and wrote of their exploits, while regimental histories recalled still others. Author Richard Hall turned to the latter two sources to write this mostly anecdotal yet worthwhile narrative of these “patriots in disguise.” While memoirs such as those of Union soldier and spy Sarah Emma Edmonds (a.k.a. “Franklin Thompson”) or Confederate soldier and spy Loreta Janeta Velazquez (who fought as “Lieutenant Henry T. Buford”) are colorfully interesting, it is the stories of women who chose not to publicize their exploits that are truly fascinating. Consider the case of Jennie Hodgers, who joined the Union army as “Albert D.J. Cashier,” and maintained her disguise throughout a three-year term of enlistment. She then dressed and lived as a man until a 1913 accident exposed her gender. While this work cannot match the depth of research provided by a primary-sourced analysis, it remains a fascinating overview of a little-known area of Civil War history. LP

Publisher: Marlowe
Paperback: 225 pages
Illustrated

Marcus Garvey has been called everything from a John the Baptist to a con man. This book sets out to present Garvey’s philosophy/political theory of self-determination for the African peoples. Garvey’s influence is crucial for understanding such diverse groups as Rastafarians, Black Muslims and Black Jews. Garvey was at times a politician, a prophet and a social thinker, and once in political life he was always a force to be reckoned with in his dealings with the white establishment. SC

Publisher: Majority
Paperback: 417 pages
Illustrated

Count de Gobineau is vaguely known as the originator of the doctrines of “Aryan Superiority” and “Scientific Racism.” However, he was also one of the most interesting and influential figures of the 19th century. De Gobineau was an aristocrat who fought democratic trends his entire life. He was also pessimistic and little inclined to believe in progress, as he reacted against 18th-century Rationalism and its abstract notion of man. SC

Publisher: Scott-Townsend
Paperback: 304 pages

Imagine a world where, instead of being ruthless thieves of the high seas with no scruples, prone to carrying off others to work in bondage, pirates were rebellious sorts who consciously shunned the traditional European world with its stratified class system. This is the world Wilson depicts, and surprisingly it is ours. Wilson very successfully proves his case that pirates were consciously bucking the system. Pirates had their own Moorish republic of Sale, an Ottoman protectorate, where instead of having to languish like the downtrodden masses, they could rise to a position of wealth and prestige through their ability to survive. “In theory—and for the most part even in practice—a recruit rose up through the ranks at the rate of one every three years. If he survived long enough, he’d serve as commander in chief… All this had nothing to do with “merit” but with time served. The lowliest Albanian slaveboy or peasant lad from the Anatolian outback, and the outcast converted European captive sailor, could equally hope one day to participate in government—simply by staying alive and serving the ‘Corsair Republic’… “ Many pirate captives joined their captors, renounced their Christian faith and embraced Islam. Wilson supports his central thesis well with plenty of documentation, which includes many accounts from primary sources. This is a delightfully well-written gem of a history which pulls apart the pirate myth and reveals something new and wondrous. MM

Publisher: Autonomedia
Paperback: 208 pages
Illustrated