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"From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa Maria's deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to fantasies projected from without by the West, and viewed as a place to be consumed. It stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than 300 years. Its societies were shaped by mass migrations and forced labor from the 16th century onwards, imposed by European or latterly-American imperial...

"Alexander Herzen--philosopher, novelist, essayist, political agitator, and one of the leading Russian intellectuals of the nineteenth century--was as famous in his day as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. While he is remembered for his masterpiece 'My Past and Thoughts' and as the father of Russian socialism, his contributions to the history of ideas defy easy categorization because they are so numerous. Aileen M. Kelly presents the first fully rounded study...

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
 
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town,...

"From Helen Rappaport, the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes After the Romanovs, the story of the Russian aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals who sought freedom and refuge in the City of Light. Paris has always been a cityof cultural excellence, fine wine and food and the latest fashions. But it has also been a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution, never more so than before and after the Russian Revolution...

"On April 18th, 1941, twenty-two days after Virginia Woolf went for a walk near her weekend house and never returned, her body was reclaimed from the River Ouse. For more than half a century, Woolf's suicide has been attributed to alleged depression; bipolar disorder; her impaired mental state after two of her London apartments had been bombed during the Second World War's brutal Blitz. With Adeline--a stunning and provocative reimagining of the events...