A fresh portrayal of one of the architects of the African American intellectual tradition, whose faith in the subversive power of education will inspire teachers and learners today. Black education was a subversive act from its inception. African Americans pursued education through clandestine means, often in defiance of law and custom, even under threat of violence. They developed what Jarvis Givens calls a tradition of “fugitive pedagogy”—a theory and practice of Black education in America. The enslaved learned to read in spite of widespread prohibitions; newly emancipated people braved the dangers of integrating all-White schools and the hardships of building Black schools. Teachers developed covert instructional strategies, creative responses to the persistence of White opposition. From slavery through the Jim Crow era, Black people passed down this educational heritage. There is perhaps no better exemplar of this heritage than Carter G. Woodson—groundbreaking historian, founder of Black History Month, and legendary educator under Jim Crow. Givens shows that Woodson succeeded because of the world of Black teachers to which he belonged: Woodson’s first teachers were his formerly enslaved uncles; he himself taught for nearly thirty years; and he spent his life partnering with educators to transform the lives of Black students. Fugitive Pedagogy chronicles Woodson’s efforts to fight against the “mis-education of the Negro” by helping teachers and students to see themselves and their mission as set apart from an anti-Black world. Teachers, students, families, and communities worked together, using Woodson’s materials and methods as they fought for power in schools and continued the work of fugitive pedagogy. Forged in slavery, embodied by Woodson, this tradition of escape remains essential for teachers and students today.

Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms. Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza. Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.

A Reason to Read is the culminating work of the ArtsLiteracy Project, an ambitious and wide-ranging collaborative that aims to promote literacy through rich and sustained instruction in the arts. At the heart of the book is the "Performance Cycle," a flexible framework for curriculum and lesson planning that can be adapted to all content areas and age groups. Each of the book's main chapters delineates and explores a particular component of the cycle. A practical, readable, and inspiring book, A Reason to Read will be of immeasurable help to school teachers, education leaders, and all who have a stake in promoting literacy and the arts in today's schools. "This is both a profound and wonderfully practical book. In clear and helpful chapters, the authors show how teachers can use multiple art forms to help students probe and comprehend classic literary texts and create personally meaningful works of their own. The 'For the Classroom' sections at the end of each chapter are superb." -- Richard J. Deasy, former director, Arts Education Partnership "This shining book reminds us that the 'reason to read'--truly, the desire to learn anything well--springs from the same ineffable emotions summoned by the arts. Those who seek the key to academic motivation and mastery can do no better than to study the secrets Landay and Wootton unlock here with simplicity, practicality, and wisdom." -- Kathleen Cushman, author, Fires in the Mind "For over a decade, Landay, Wootton, and their many colleagues at the ArtsLiteracy Project have been exploring the rich possibilities at the intersection of arts and literacy development for deep learning and teaching. It has been visionary work, and this book provides vivid pictures of how to bring those possibilities into any classroom." -- Steve Seidel, faculty director, Arts in Education Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education Eileen Landay is cofounder and codirector of the ArtsLiteracy Project. She is the former Clinical Professor of English Education at Brown University and director of Brown's MAT Program in English Education. Kurt Wootton is cofounder and codirector of the ArtsLiteracy Project. He leads ArtsLiteracy initiatives in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, and is the director of Habla, a lab school in Merida, Mexico.