Identity History

One was a tough junkman's son, the other a cosseted mama's boy, but they dreamed the same mighty dream: that the right movies could make a profit and change both the culture and individual lives. Sharing a religion and an evangelical zeal for film, Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957) and Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) were unlikely partners in one of the most significant collaborations in movie history. Over the course of their decade-long relationship, as key players at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and major players in Hollywood, they joined forces in redefining and mastering the template for the film industry.

The rise of China and its great power competition with the U.S. will be one of the defining issues of our generation. But to understand modern China, one has to understand the people who live there–and the way the Chinese state is trying to control them along lines of identity and free expression. In vivid, cinematic detail, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom tells the stories of nearly two dozen people who are pushing back.

In The Red Mirror, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova uses social identity theory to explain Putin's leadership. The main source of Putin's political influence, she finds, lies in how he articulates the shared collective perspective that unites many Russian citizens. Under his tenure, the Kremlin's media machine has tapped into powerful group emotions of shame and humiliation - derived from the Soviet transition in the 1990s - and has politicized national identity to transform these emotions into pride and patriotism.

A historical non-fiction book set in California during its transformation from indigenous tribes to American statehood. Discover the rich tapestry of California's past in "Tribes and Priests Early California." This captivating exploration takes you from the ancient traditions of indigenous tribes through the tumultuous changes brought by Spanish colonization and the American gold rush. Experience the vibrant history that shaped California's unique identity, filled with ambition, cultural clashes, and the relentless pursuit of economic prosperity. The narrative intricately weaves together ...

Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC-Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans. The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary question: What does the outsider mean to literary writing?

Independent filmmaker Mary Haverstick thought she’d stumbled onto the project of a lifetime—a biopic of aviation pioneer Jerrie Cobb, the key figure in a group of extraordinary women who in 1960 passed the same tests as the legendary male astronauts of the Mercury 7 but never went to space. Just as casting was set to begin, Haverstick received a mysterious warning from a government agent; soon she began to suspect that there was more to Jerrie’s story than what met the eye. As she dug deeper, she discovered that Jerrie’s life shadowed that of a mysterious CIA agent named June Cobb.

The Balkan area has historically been one of the world’s most combustible regions. Home to several national groups and at a crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the Balkans have exerted an outsized role on world affairs. Infamously, the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, was the final straw that led to World War I. The Balkans, however, had been flammable long before Princip’s bullets murdered the Austrian monarch-in-waiting.

A young teacher navigates the politics of a territory continually “annexed:” Memel/Klaipeda. A raw, short account of what happened to a serious teacher of physical education when the Germans took over Memel and parts of Lithuania in 1939. He struggles with his multicultural identity in face of life-threatening politics, and continually weighs his convictions in choosing citizenship and jobs. The story is a fictionalized memoir written in the third person.

With her father murdered and her home burned, lovely Alyx Blackelt fled to the woods - and sanctuary in the camp of Raine Montgomery, a nobleman outlawed by the king's edict. There she hid her beauty in the guise of a boy and her sorrow in her work as Montgomery's squire. But how long could such loveliness as hers be hidden? How long could such a gallant man's desires be blind?

Hardship is now equated with victimhood. Outward displays of vulnerability in defeat are celebrated over winning unabashedly. The pursuit of excellence and exceptionalism are at the heart of American identity, and the disappearance of these ideals in our country leaves a deep moral and cultural vacuum in its wake. But the solution isn’t to simply complain about it. It’s to revive a new cultural movement in America that puts excellence first again.

In The Invisible History of the Human Race, Christine Kenneally draws on cutting-edge research to reveal how both historical artifacts and DNA tell us where we come from and where we may be going. While some books explore our genetic inheritance and some popular television shows celebrate ancestry, this is the first book to explore how everything from DNA to emotions to names and the stories that form our lives are all part of our human legacy.

An exuberant and insightful work of popular history of how streets got their names, houses their numbers, and what it reveals about class, race, power, and identity. When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won’t get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class.

An unprecedented examination of the ways in which the uninhibited urban sexuality, sexual experimentation, and medical advances of pre-Weimar Berlin created and molded our modern understanding of sexual orientation and gay identity.

King Philip's War, the excruciating racial war - colonists against Indians - that erupted in New England in 1675, was, in proportion to population, the bloodiest in American history. Some even argued that the massacres and outrages on both sides were too horrific to "deserve the name of a war". Telling the story of what may have been the bitterest of American conflicts, and its reverberations over the centuries, Lepore has enabled us to see how the ways in which we remember past events are as important in their effect on our history as were the events themselves.

We all know how identities - notably, those of nationality, class, culture, race, and religion - are at the root of global conflict, but the more elusive truth is that these identities are created by conflict in the first place. In provocative, entertaining chapters, Kwame Anthony Appiah interweaves keen-edged argument with engrossing historical tales and reveals the tangled contradictions within the stories that define us.

A thrilling Western adventure novel set in Oklahoma Territory during the late 19th century. Join Leo Montgomery on a breathtaking journey as he traverses the rugged landscape of Oklahoma Territory, newly bestowed with a fortune and dreams of adventure. But when the terrifying outlaw known as Black Peter casts a dark shadow over the land with his unforgiving crimes, Leo finds himself in a deadly game of cat and mouse, where every encounter with danger could cost him everything. Will he uncover the truth and clear his name, or will he be lost forever in the chaos? As Leo sets off westward ...

The newest title in the Emergent Strategy Series, Liberated to the Bone, addresses the intersections between healing our physical bodies and healing our social relations which are shaped by violence. Bodyworker and cultural worker Susan Raffo addresses intergenerational trauma, social justice, organizing, and how all of these things are relevant to our bodies. The book illuminates three different approaches to healing: ending violence, the significance of being rooted in the present, and creating the conditions to address unfinished histories and generational trauma.

The Event: Southern USA, mid-1980s: In the last desperate gasps of the Cold War, Sonny Leeds lost track of time and place. How did she get here? When she tries to remember, severe headaches block out most of it. Glimpses. Bits and pieces. But she has long bouts of fitful dreaming too that last so long that sometimes she wakes up days later . . . in a different place . . . and doesn’t recall a thing in between. All she has left are these odd images in her head like the flash of a camera revealing something hidden in the darkness. What she knows for sure: She had to escape the high-tech ...

How do you find a way to fit in when you don't really feel you belong? Hunter follows the stories of Eric, a teenage boy, and two men, one a Nazi from Austria and the other a Nazi from northern Germany. Eric has just moved from the country to the coastal town of Crescent Bay and has difficulty adjusting. To earn some money, he begins doing odd jobs for seniors and comes into contact with the two old men. Of Germany descent himself, Eric becomes fascinated by the men and the stories they tell. Are they Nazis? Should he contact the police? He discovers that one of the men has damning evidence...

How did the Vietnam War change the way we think of ourselves as a people and a nation? Christian G. Appy now examines the relationship between the war's realities and myths and its impact on our national identity, conscience, pride, shame, popular culture, and postwar foreign policy.