Restless Classics presents The Souls of Black Folk: W. E. B. Du Bois's seminal work of sociology, with searing insights into our complex, corrosive relationship with race and the African-American consciousness. Reconsidered for the era of Obama, Trump, and Black Lives Matter, the new edition includes an incisive introduction from rising cultural critic Vann R. Newkirk II and stunning illustrations by the artist Steve Prince. Published in 1903, exactly...

The Great Depression was a terrible blow for the Bay Area's thriving art community. A few private art projects kept a small number of sculptors working, but for the majority, prospects of finding new commissions were grim. By the mid-1930's, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program had gathered steam, and assistance was provided to the nation's art community. Salvation came from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which employed thousands...

"Honorable Mention for the James Russell Lowell Prize, Modern Language Association" "Shortlisted for the MSA Book Prize, Modern Studies Association" Sara Blair is the Patricia S. Yaeger Collegiate Professor of English and a faculty associate in the Department of American Culture and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. Her books include Harlem Crossroads: Black Writers and the Photograph in the Twentieth Century (Princeton)...

There's no such thing as the middle of nowhere. Everywhere is the middle of somewhere for some living being. That was Suzanne Stryk's mantra as she journeyed through her home state on a mission to re-create Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia. The founding father's work surveys the region's natural history and, as one might expect from a philosopher-statesman living more than 230 years ago, is fact packed and formally written. The Middle...

""The first thing I can remember," Ben said, "I drew." As an observant young child growing up in Lithuania, Ben Shahn yearns to draw everything he sees-and, after seeing his father banished by the Czar for demanding workers' rights, he develops a keen sense of justice, too. So when Ben and the rest of his family make their way to America, Ben brings with him both his sharp artistic eye and his desire to fight for what's right. As he grows, he speaks...

A biography of the artist and first African American man to become a professional conservator for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Felrath Hines was born in 1913 and raised in the segregated Midwest after his parents left the South to find a better life in Indianapolis. While growing up, he was encouraged by his seamstress mother to pursue his early passion for art by taking Saturday classes at Herron Art Institute. In 1937, he moved to...