Three meticulously researched works—including Pulitzer Prize winner Bearing the Cross—spanning the life of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. This collection from professor and historian David J. Garrow provides a multidimensional and fascinating portrait of Martin Luther King Jr., and his mission to upend deeply entrenched prejudices in society, and enact legal change that would achieve equality for African Americans one hundred years after their emancipation from slavery. Bearing the Cross traces King’s evolution from the young pastor who spearheaded the 1955–56 bus boycott in Montgomery to the inspirational leader of America’s civil rights movement, focusing on King’s crucial role at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Garrow captures King’s charisma, his moral obligation to lead a nonviolent crusade against racism and inequality—and the toll this calling took on his life. Garrow delves deeper into one of the civil rights movement’s most decisive moments in Protest at Selma. These demonstrations led to the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 that, along with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, remains a key aspect of King’s legacy. Garrow analyzes King’s political strategy and understanding of how media coverage—especially reports of white violence against peaceful African American protestors—elicited sympathy for the cause. King’s fierce determination to overturn the status quo of racial relations antagonized FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. follows Hoover’s personal obsession to destroy the civil rights leader. In an unprecedented abuse of governmental power, Hoover led one of the most invasive surveillance operations in American history, desperately trying to mar King’s image. As a collection, these utterly engrossing books are a key to understanding King’s inner life, his public persona, and his legacy, and are a testament to his impact in forcing America to confront intolerance and bigotry at a critical time in the nation’s history.

This powerful book on racism in the United States argues that a threatening narrative originating in slavery continues to link Black people to inferiority, dangerousness, and crime, causing them to be presumed guilty by society and U.S. legal systems. Why are Black people stopped, arrested, and shot by police at such a high rate? Why are they portrayed in the media as gangbangers and urban thugs? D. Marvin Jones writes that the problem of race lies in the way Blackness has been inextricably knotted together in our culture with presumptions. In the era of segregation this was a presumption of inferiority, but in our era, it is primarily a presumption of dangerousness or criminality. In chapters on slavery, urban spaces, the drug war, media portrayals, and white spaces, he shows how the presumption of guilt continues to shape the treatment of Black people in the United States. Arguing that this presumption is not simply a matter of hate on the part of individuals, but instead a social process linked to a widely shared racial ideology, The Presumption points out the continuation of racial caste in the United States as a crisis for democracy and provides a blueprint for a kind of second Reconstruction.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall. Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America hasa new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home. It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.

Transnationalism and genealogy is an emerging subfield of genealogy which intersects with other fields. The last two to three decades have witnessed a significant growth in this subfield, especially in the areas of transnationalism and family arrangements, transnational marriage, transnational adoption, transnational parenting, and transnational care for elderly parents. However, large gaps remain, especially with regard to the impact of transnationalism on lineage. In filling some lacunas in the current literature, Transnationalism and Genealogy represents an initial attempt to frame the relationship between transnationalism and genealogy. The articles included in this book cover various aspects of transnationalism and genealogy from historical periods until the present, with perspectives from anthropology, sociology, history, and African studies. The topics stretch from transnationalism and the emancipation of black kinship to the transformation of a Chinese immigrant family from traditional to transnational as well as the impact of this transformation on its family relations and lineage, a family history of transnational migration across four nation/city states in four generations, the role of social media platforms (Facebook in particular) in facilitating transnational care chains in the Trinidadian diasporic community, and a comparison between Chinese immigrants in the United States and Singapore in transnational parenting. The introductory essay offers a laconic assessment of the subfield of transnationalism and genealogy.

In The State of State Theory: State Projects, Repression, and Multi-Sites of Power, Glasberg, Willis, and Shannon argue that state theories should be amended to account both for theoretical developments broadly in the contemporary period as well as the multiple sites of power along which the state governs. Using state projects and policies around political economy, sexuality and family, food, welfare policy, racial formation, and social movements as narrative accounts in how the state operates, the authors argue for a complex and intersectional approach to state theory. In doing so, they expand outside of the canon to engage with perspectives within critical race theory, queer theory, and beyond to build theoretical tools for a contemporary and critical state theory capable of providing the foundations for understanding how the state governs, what is at stake in its governance, and, importantly, how people resist and engage with state power.

The author of Bearing the Cross, the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr., exposes the government’s massive surveillance campaign against the civil rights leader When US attorney general Robert F. Kennedy authorized a wiretap of Martin Luther King Jr.’s phones by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he set in motion one of the most invasive surveillance operations in American history. Sparked by informant reports of King’s alleged involvement with communists, the FBI amassed a trove of information on the civil rights leader. Their findings failed to turn up any evidence of communist influence, but they did expose sensitive aspects of King’s personal life that the FBI went on to use in its attempts to mar his public image. Based on meticulous research into the agency’s surveillance records, historian David Garrow illustrates how the FBI followed King’s movements throughout the country, bugging his hotel rooms and tapping his phones wherever he went, in an obsessive quest to destroy his growing influence. Garrow uncovers the voyeurism and racism within J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI while unmasking Hoover’s personal desire to destroy King. The spying only intensified once King publicly denounced the Vietnam War, and the FBI continued to surveil him until his death. The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. clearly demonstrates an unprecedented abuse of power by the FBI and the government as a whole.

A brutal, bloody, and at times hopeful history of the vote; a primer on the opponents fighting to take it away; and a playbook for how we can save our democracy before it’s too late—from the former U.S. Attorney General on the front lines of this fight Voting is our most important right as Americans—“the right that protects all the others,” as Lyndon Johnson famously said when he signed the Voting Rights Act—but it’s also the one most violently contested throughout U.S. history. Since the gutting of the act in the landmark Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013, many states have passed laws restricting the vote. After the 2020 election, President Trump’s effort to overturn the vote has evolved into a slow-motion coup, with many Republicans launching an all-out assault on our democracy. The vote seems to be in unprecedented peril. But the peril is not at all unprecedented. America is a fragile democracy, Eric Holder argues, whose citizens have only had unfettered access to the ballot since the 1960s. He takes readers through three dramatic stories of how the vote was won: first by white men, through violence and insurrection; then by white women, through protests and mass imprisonments; and finally by African Americans, in the face of lynchings and terrorism. Next, he dives into how the vote has been stripped away since Shelby—a case in which Holder was one of the parties. He ends with visionary chapters on how we can reverse this tide of voter suppression and become a true democracy where every voice is heard and every vote is counted. Full of surprising history, intensive analysis, and actionable plans for the future, this is a powerful primer on our most urgent political struggle from one of the country's leading advocates.