General

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

The Woman Warrior is a pungent, bitter, but beautifully written memoir of growing up Chinese American in Stockton, California. Maxine Hong Kingston (China Men) distills the dire lessons of her mother's mesmerizing "talk-story" tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upward. The author's America is a landscape of confounding white "ghosts"--the policeman ghost, the social worker ghost--with equally rigid, but very different rules. Like the woman warrior of the title, Kingston carries the crimes against her family carved into her back by her parents in testimony to and defiance of the pain.

A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.

Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times

This new fourth edition of the classic introduction to Arab culture has been completely revised and updated to help readers understand the complex issues playing out on the world stage.

Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times is a handbook, intended to be read easily and quickly, by people who are not specialists. Written by highly-esteemed Arabist and academic Margaret Nydell, Understanding Arabs will bring about understanding about modern-day Arabs for foreigners—especially Westerners in America and Europe—without pushing a political agenda. Updated to reflect the complex events that are playing out on the world stage, new chapters include: Islamic Fundamentalism—This political and social issue is not a part of the mainstream Islamic religion. The efforts to follow and understand evolving Islamic social/religious thought have been completely overwhelmed by the notorious emergence of fundamentalism. Anti-Americanism: It needs to be made clear that Middle Eastern Muslims and Arabs do not "hate" America. Nor do they hate American people. But they are very angry at America's government and a perceived unfairness with the American foreign policy. Between 1980 and 2001, the United States engaged in fifteen direct military operations in the Middle East, all of them directed at Muslims. There were an equal number of non-military actions such as imposing punitive embargoes, threats through military build-up, policies in support of some regional states against others, support of selected opposition groups, and providing weapons (sometimes secretly). What matters here is not the diplomatic issue of who we supported or why, the result has been that these actions are seen by local people as American interference in their region, and resentment has continued to build. Updated and expanded chapter on Arabs and Muslims in the West

Strangers to These Shores: Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States (9th Edition) (MySocKit Series)

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America

Readers familiar with immigration history as told in books like Roger Daniels's Coming to America will experience a sense of déjà vu with Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez. The immigrant experience is a constant in American life; although the tides ebb and flow, it seems that there always has been an immigrant presence in the United States. What's different today, of course, is where the immigrants are coming from: half are Latin American.

Gonzalez, a columnist for the New York Daily News, studies these latest arrivals in a book that combines history and journalism. He has a keen understanding of Hispanic diversity, focusing not just on "Hispanics" as a monolithic category but as a variety of people from many nations. The politics in Harvest of Empire are often tendentious: Gonzalez unfavorably compares U.S. border control efforts to building the Great Wall in China, demands an end to Puerto Rico's "colonial status," insists that Spanish become an official language actively encouraged in the public schools, and so on. His agenda will no doubt appeal to a certain kind of reader, but at the cost of alienating many others, including, probably, a majority of Hispanics living in the United States. For those looking for a left-leaning account of Hispanic immigration, however, this book succeeds as an ambitious survey. --John J. Miller

Within the next decade, Hispanics will become the largest minority group in the United States. The new immigrants have ignited a vibrant Latin explosion in popular culture and deeply affected American society.

Spanning 500 years-from the first New World colonies to our nation's nineteenth-century westward expansion, from the days of gunboat diplomacy to the turn of the millennium-Harvest of Empire features family portraits of real-life immigrants along with sketches of the political events and social conditions that compelled them to leave their homeland. In addition, it gives a fascinating look at how these Latino pioneers have transformed the cultural landscape of the United States.

The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia

The Silk Road, a series of ancient trade routes stretching across Central Asia to Europe, evokes exotic images of camel trains laden with bales of fine Chinese silk, spices, and perfume, of desert oases surrounded by snow-capped mountains, of bustling markets thronging with travellers buying and selling grapes, coriander, Baltic amber, and Mediterranean coral. Along this route, silks were sent from China to ancient Rome; princesses were dispatched in marriage alliances across the deserts; bandits and thieves launched attacks throughout history.
Covering more than 5,000 years, this book, lavishly illustrated with photographs, manuscripts, and paintings from the collections of the British Library and other museums worldwide, presents an overall picture of the history and cultures of the Silk Road. It also contains many previously unpublished photographs by the great explorers Stein, Hedin, and Mannerheim.
More than just a trade route, the Silk Road witnessed the movement of cultural influences. Frances Wood traces the story of the civilizations and ideas that flourished and moved along its vast geographical expanse. Indian Buddhism was carried into China on the Silk Road, initiating a long history of pilgrimages along the lonely desert routes; Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam also made their way eastwards along its route.
The nineteenth century saw a new interest in Central Asia and the Silk Road, as Russia and Britain vied for power on the frontiers of Afghanistan. A new breed of explorer, part archaeologist, part cartographer, part spy, was seen on the Silk Road, while some of the ancient cities, long buried in sand-blown dunes, began to give up their secrets. This book brings the history of the Silk Road alive--from its beginnings to the present day, revealing a rich history still in the making.

The Wisdom of the Native Americans

Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

No Disrespect

Rapper, activist, and hip-hop rebel, Sister Souljah possesses the most passionate and articulate voice to emerge from the projects. Now she uses that voice to deliver what is at once a fiercely candid autobiography and a survival manual for any African American woman determined to keep her heart open and her integrity intact in 1990s America.

The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community

Though Lincoln, Nebraska, seems a strange gathering place for refugees from all corners of the globe, it is the setting for Mary Pipher's The Middle of Everywhere, an ardent, anecdotal, and at times moving study of some new arrivals to the United States. Pipher emphasizes the resiliency of the refugees--from Laos, Bosnia, Northern Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the former Soviet Union--whose homeland tales of death, privation, torture, and multi-pronged persecution vary only in the details. In America the refugees must learn a new language and pick their way among the temptations and wonders of a complex land. Does a Publishers Clearing House notice mean one is a millionaire? What is aluminum foil? Is an overdue library book a jailable offense? Pipher visits classrooms and homes and offers extended portraits of a female family of Kurds and a bewildered clan of Sudanese, as well as snapshots of many other refugees. She is a harsh critic of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and an advocate of "cultural brokers"--the social adjustment equivalent of practical nurses. --H. O'Billovich