Collection: Politics

A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the "long Civil Rights movement," Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality.

The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. In this book, Robin D. G. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.

After discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Kelley reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.

The largest edible fruit native to the United States tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango. It grows wild in twenty-six states, gracing Eastern forests each fall with sweet-smelling, tropical-flavored abundance. Historically, it fed and sustained Native Americans and European explorers, presidents, and enslaved African Americans, inspiring folk songs, poetry, and scores of place names from Georgia to Illinois. Its trees are an organic grower's dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered.

So why have so few people heard of the pawpaw, much less tasted one?

In Pawpaw--a 2016 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in the Writing & Literature category--author Andrew Moore explores the past, present, and future of this unique fruit, traveling from the Ozarks to Monticello; canoeing the lower Mississippi in search of wild fruit; drinking pawpaw beer in Durham, North Carolina; tracking down lost cultivars in Appalachian hollers; and helping out during harvest season in a Maryland orchard. Along the way, he gathers pawpaw lore and knowledge not only from the plant breeders and horticulturists working to bring pawpaws into the mainstream (including Neal Peterson, known in pawpaw circles as the fruit's own "Johnny Pawpawseed"), but also regular folks who remember eating them in the woods as kids, but haven't had one in over fifty years.

As much as Pawpaw is a compendium of pawpaw knowledge, it also plumbs deeper questions about American foodways--how economic, biologic, and cultural forces combine, leading us to eat what we eat, and sometimes to ignore the incredible, delicious food growing all around us. If you haven't yet eaten a pawpaw, this book won't let you rest until you do.

US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler collected an award cabinet full of medals for his battlefield bravery. But perhaps his bravest act of all was to declare, after his retirement in the early 1930s, who was really winning (and losing) during the bloody clashes.

It was business interests, he revealed, who commercially benefited from warfare. War Is a Racket is the title of the influential speech Butler delivered on a tour across the United States, as well the expanded version of the talk that was later published in 1935--and is now reprinted here. This seminal piece of writing rings as true today as it did during Butler's lifetime.

In his introduction, Jesse Ventura reviews Butler's original writings and relates them to our current political climate--explaining how right he was, and how wrong our current system is. With an insightful new foreword by Salon.com founder David Talbot, and a new afterword by activist Cindy Sheehan, this portable reference will appeal to anyone interested in the state of our country and the entire world.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

In this volume of the World Citizen Comics series, Ian Rosenberg and Mike Cavallaro create a practical framework for understanding and appreciating the First Amendment.

Freedom of speech is fiercely defended in America and has been since the First Amendment was written. But how does it work, and what laws shape it? Drawing on parallels between ten seminal Supreme Court cases and current events, Free Speech Handbook lays out the fundamentals of First Amendment law in an accessible and engaging way.

This book is part of the World Citizen Comics series, a bold line of civics-focused graphic novels that equip readers to be engaged citizens and informed voters.

This is a story about a dangerous idea--one which ignited revolutions in America, France, and Haiti; burst across Europe in the revolutions of 1848; and returned to inflame a new generation of intellectuals to lead the abolition movement--the idea that all men are created equal.

In their struggle against the slaveholding oligarchy of their time, America's antislavery leaders found their way back to the rationalist, secularist, and essentially atheist inspiration for the first American Revolution. Frederick Douglass's unusual interest in radical German philosophers and Abraham Lincoln's buried allusions to the same thinkers are but a few of the clues that underlie this propulsive philosophical detective story. With fresh takes on forgotten thinkers like Theodore Parker, the excommunicated Unitarian minister who is the original source of some of Lincoln's most famous lines, and a feisty band of German refugees, philosopher and historian Matthew Stewart tells a vivid and piercing story of the battle between America's philosophical radicals and the conservative counterrevolution that swept the American republic in the first decades of its existence and persists in new forms up to the present day. In exposing the role of Christian nationalism and the collusion between northern economic elites and slaveholding oligarchs, An Emancipation of the Mind demands a significant revision in our understanding of the origins and meaning of the struggle over slavery in America--and offers a fresh perspective on struggles between democracy and elite power today.

Countering recent hype around technology, a leading expert argues that the endurance of dictatorship in China owes less to facial recognition AI and GPS tracking than to the human resources of the Leninist surveillance state.

For decades China watchers argued that economic liberalization and increasing prosperity would bring democracy to the world's most populous country. Instead, the Communist Party's grip on power has only strengthened. Why? The answer, Minxin Pei argues, lies in the effectiveness of the Chinese surveillance state. And the source of that effectiveness is not just advanced technology like facial recognition AI and mobile phone tracking. These are important, but what matters more is China's vast, labor-intensive infrastructure of domestic spying.

Central government data on Chinese surveillance is confidential, so Pei turned to local reports, police gazettes, leaked documents, and interviews with exiled dissidents to provide a detailed look at the evolution, organization, and tactics of the surveillance state. Following the 1989 Tiananmen uprising, the Chinese Communist Party invested immense resources in a coercive apparatus operated by a relatively small number of secret police officers capable of mobilizing millions of citizen informants to spy on those suspected of disloyalty. The CCP's Leninist bureaucratic structure--whereby officials and party activists penetrate every sector of society and the economy, from universities and village committees to delivery companies, telecommunication firms, and Tibetan monasteries--ensures that Beijing's eyes and ears are truly everywhere.

While today's system is far more robust than that of years past, it is modeled after mass surveillance implemented under Mao Zedong and Chinese emperors centuries ago. Rigorously empirical and rich in historical insight, The Sentinel State is a singular contribution to our knowledge about coercion in the Chinese state and, more generally, the survival strategies of authoritarian regimes.

"It won't take you long to read this book, but it will linger in your heart and head for quite a while, and perhaps inspire you to join in the creative, blossoming movement to make this world work." -- Bill McKibben, environmentalist, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Nature, journalist, and founder of 350.org

"An inspiring story that will change the way all of us think about the climate crisis - and how we can solve it." -- Van Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Green Collar Economy and Rebuild the Dream, and co-founder of Dream Corps

"A hopeful, well-argued book on climate change written in a refreshing new voice."-- Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Martinez presents a meaningful, heartfelt call to action with content that reflects current issues. Additionally, the book's short length will appeal to reluctant readers. An essential purchase for any high school or public library."-- School Library Journal, starred review

In this personal, moving essay, environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez uses his art and his activism to show that climate change is a human issue that can't be ignored.

Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, Earth Guardians Youth Director and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez shows us how his music feeds his environmental activism and vice versa. Martinez visualizes a future that allows us to direct our anger, fear, and passion toward creating change. Because, at the end of the day, we all have a part to play.

In New York City back in April of 1874, a most unusual event took place. A severely abused nine-year-old girl named Mary Ellen Wilson became the first child in America to be rescued from an abusive home. She had been beaten, burned, slashed with scissors, locked in a closet, and had never been outside of her tenement home in over 7 years. Thanks to the concern and dedication of a missionary named Etta Wheeler, the child was finally saved from her cruel captors. Henry Bergh's ASPCA -- yes, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals -- was instrumental in securing her rescue. When no other agencies would become involved, the ASPCA used its power and influence to not only save Mary Ellen, but to charter the first organization of its kind to prevent cruelty to children, the NYSPCC -- the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. This book remains the ONLY book that tells the dramatic story of Mary Ellen's life and rescue.

The updated bestselling guide to laid-back beekeeping for all, naturally!

Are you a beginner beekeeper curious about bees or a practicing beekeeper looking for natural alternatives that work? Then this book is for you!

In the second edition of the bestselling beekeeping guide Keeping Bees with a Smile, Fedor Lazutin, one of Europe's most successful natural beekeepers, shares the bee-friendly approach to apiculture that is fun, healthful, rewarding, and accessible to all. This new edition includes dozens of color photographs, new hive management techniques, and an updated version of "Lazutin hive" plans. Additional coverage includes:

• Keeping bees naturally without interfering in their lives
• Starting an apiary for free by attracting local bee swarms
• Building low-maintenance hives that mimic how bees live in nature
• Keeping colonies healthy and strong without any drugs, sugar, or gimmickry
• Helping bees to overwinter successfully even in harsh climates
• Enhancing local nectar plant resources
• Producing truly natural honey without robbing the bees
• Reversing the global bee decline... right in your backyard!

Keeping Bees with a Smile is an invaluable resource for apiculture beginners and professionals alike, complete with plans for making bee-friendly, well-insulated horizontal hives with extra-deep frames, plus other fascinating beekeeping advice you won't find anywhere else.

Born into aristocracy, Churchill cut his teeth as a young army officer in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He rose in the ranks to First Lord of the Admiralty and was a staunch opponent of the encroaching German Nazis. Churchill served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, Churchill was also a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British Prime Minister to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

How much do grit and positive thinking matter when the world around you is starved of support and opportunity?

Finally, a book that explains why self-help gurus and motivational speakers mostly fail to deliver, and what really produces results.

"Michael Ungar's Change Your World shows that recovery, functioning and positive change in the face of adversity is not a lonely path trod by individuals; here lies the personal and social transformative power of resilience."
- Joel Reyes, Sr. Education and Institutional Development Specialist, World Bank

The entire self-improvement industry puts the responsibility for change on us as individuals, producing few if any long-term changes in our health or happiness. In this mind-bending look at what the science of resilience teaches us about success, Dr. Michael Ungar shows that individual growth depends very little on what we think, feel, or behave. Dr. Ungar is one of the world's leading experts on thriving through adversity. Delving into the latest research, he demonstrates that the ethic of rugged individualism and the victim-blaming politics that come with it are red herrings in the science of success.

Dr. Ungar explores reals lives, across age and culture, and discovers that the answers lie in the people and the support systems around us. Supportive spouses, caring families, nurturing employers, and effective governments are very often the difference between individual success and failure. The good news is that it is easier to change your environment than it is to change yourself. Indeed, Dr. Ungar has solid evidence that we can influence the world around us in ways that will make us more resilient both at home and on the job.

A brilliant study of violent self-defense in the struggle for liberation by an award-winning philosopher

Is violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies "worthy of defending" and those who have been disarmed and rendered defenseless. In 1685, for example, France's infamous "Code Noir" forbade slaves from carrying weapons, under penalty of the whip. In nineteenth-century Algeria, the colonial state outlawed the use of arms by Algerians, but granted French settlers the right to bear arms.

Today, some lives are seen to be worth so little that Black teenagers can be shot in the back for appearing "threatening" while their killers are understood, by the state, to be justified. That those subject to the most violence have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, the question of using violence in the interest of self-defense.

Here, philosopher Elsa Dorlin looks across the global history of the left - from slave revolts to the knitting women of the French Revolution and British suffragists' training in ju-jitsu, from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the Black Panther Party, from queer neighborhood patrols to Black Lives Matter, to trace the politics, philosophy, and ethics of self defense.

In this history she finds a "martial ethics of the self" a practice in which violent self defense is the only means for the oppressed to ensure survival and to build a liveable future. In this sparkling and provocative book, drawing on theorists from Thomas Hobbes to Fred Hampton, Frantz Fanon to Judith Butler, Michel Foucault to June Jordan, Dorlin has reworked the very idea of modern governance and political subjectivity.

Translated from the French by Kieran Aarons.

If you think art history has to be pale, male and stale - think again.
Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonise' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall?

From the stolen Wakandan art in Black Panther, to Emmanuel Macron's recent commitment to art restitution, and Beyoncé and Jay Z's provocative music video filmed in the Louvre, the question of decolonising our relationship with the art around us is quickly gaining traction. People are waking up to the seedy history of the world's art collections, and are starting to ask difficult questions about what the future of museums should look like.

In The Whole Picture, art historian and Uncomfortable Art Tour guide Alice Procter provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art, and fills in the blanks with the stories that have been left out of the art history canon for centuries.

The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space:
The Palace
The Classroom
The Memorial
The Playground

Each section tackles the fascinating and often shocking stories of five different art pieces, including the propaganda painting that the East India Company used to justify its control in India; the Maori mokomokai skulls that were traded and collected by Europeans as 'art objects'; and Kara Walker's controversial contemporary sculpture A Subtlety, which raised questions about 'appropriate' interactions with art. Through these stories, Alice brings out the underlying colonial narrative lurking beneath the art industry today, and suggests different ways of seeing and thinking about art in the modern world.

The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.

Be an active citizen. Know your Constitution!

Ever wonder why the president has a Cabinet? Why there's such thing as trial by jury? Why someday you'll have to pay income tax, or why there are no Dukes, Duchesses, Counts, or Countesses in the United States? Because the Constitution says so--and so much more. And now, in The Constitution Decoded, the ideas, concepts, and rules that make America are unpacked and explained in detail to help all of us, kids and parents too, become more informed citizens.

Written with impeccable clarity and illustrated in a style that brings America's early days to life, this fascinating guide goes through the Constitution literally word by word, sentence by sentence, and idea by idea to give readers a true understanding of not only how the Framers envisioned the United States, but also why they made the choices they did. Here's why, for example, the United States has three branches of government--legislative, executive, and judicial. It explains how bills become laws, why we have the right to free speech, how we can change the Constitution as our country evolves, and so much more.

Packed with historical context and figures, vocabulary, anecdotes, and trivia, this book is an accessible yet richly layered work that belongs in every family library.

This handsome hardback brings together a selection of the most influential essays from The Federalists Papers, presented in a elegant pocket edition with gilded page edges and a striking gold-embossed cover design.

Written by Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, these essays originated as a series of articles published in New York City's newspapers, seeking to explain and defend the proposed Constitution of the United States. Together they form The Federalist Papers, now hailed as the most important American contribution to the literature of constitutional law making.

This beautiful gift edition brings together 18 of most influential of these essays, selected and introduced by constitutional historian R. B. Bernstein.

Includes:
- No. 10 - The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection by Madison
- No. 39 - The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles by Madison
- No. 51 - The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments by Madison
- No. 78 - The Judiciary Department by Hamilton
- No. 84 - Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered by Hamilton

This ornate edition features gilded-page edges, patterned endpapers, and a beautiful gold-embossed cover design, making a wonderful gift or collectible for any history enthusiast.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Arcturus Ornate Classics are beautifully bound editions of iconic literary works across history. These compact, foil-embossed hardbacks are printed using deluxe ivory paper and make the perfect gift.

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
WINNER OF THE RIDENHOUR PRIZE

Anand Gopal's No Good Men Among the Living stunningly lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony.

Essential reading for anyone concerned about how America got Afghanistan so wrong. A devastating, well-honed prosecution detailing how our government bungled the initial salvo in the so-called war on terror, ignored attempts by top Taliban leaders to surrender, trusted the wrong people, and backed a feckless and corrupt Afghan regime . . . It is ultimately the most compelling account I've read of how Afghans themselves see the war. --The New York Times Book Review

In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a U.S.-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality. Through their dramatic stories emerges a stunning tale of how the United States had triumph in sight in Afghanistan--and then brought the Taliban back from the dead.