100 books like Blackness in the White Nation

By George Reid Andrews,

Here are 100 books that Blackness in the White Nation fans have personally recommended if you like Blackness in the White Nation. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World

Robert G. Parkinson Author Of Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier

From my list on the intersection of fiction and history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Fiction has a way of capturing people, places, and phenomena that often elude source-bound historians. As I say in my book, you feel the weight of all the terrible things Colonel Kurtz has done in central Africa far more by his whispering “the horror, the horror” than I, as a historian, could possibly convey by listing them out and analyzing them. That feel–especially what contingency feels like–is something historians should seek out and try to pull into their craft of writing. Getting used to and using fiction to help historians see and feel the past is a worthwhile endeavor. 

Robert's book list on the intersection of fiction and history

Robert G. Parkinson Why did Robert love this book?

Do you know how many gallons of blood are in a mature seal? That’s one of the many things you’ll find out in this gripping book about the true story that lies behind Herman Melville’s iconic short story, Benito Cereno.

It was the South Pacific in 1805, and a sealing vessel came upon a ship that they discovered was the result of an onboard slave insurrection. What happened, including the gushing of copious amounts of warm seal blood, is for you to discover. This is an amazing piece of history writing.  


By Greg Grandin,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Empire of Necessity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, Captain Amasa Delano, a New England seal hunter, climbed aboard a distressed Spanish ship carrying scores of West Africans he thought were slaves. They weren't. Having earlier seized control of the vessel and slaughtered most of the crew, they were staging an elaborate ruse, acting as if they were humble servants. When Delano, an idealistic, anti-slavery republican, finally realized the deception, he responded with explosive violence. Drawing on research on four continents, The Empire of Necessity explores the multiple forces that culminated in this extraordinary event-an event that…


Book cover of Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic

Alex Borucki Author Of From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la Plata

From my list on Black history in Argentina and Uruguay.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of the slave trade and slavery in the Rio de la Plata region (today’s Argentina and Uruguay) who then turned to the study of the traffic of captive Africans in the whole Spanish Americas. Yet, my love remains in the Rio de la Plata, what I call the “cold Caribbean.” Exciting books on the history of Africans and their descendants examine this region within the framework of Atlantic History, racial capitalism, gender, and the connections between twentieth-century Black culture and politics. As these recommendations are limited to English-language books, readers should note that much more has been published on this subject in Spanish and Portuguese.

Alex's book list on Black history in Argentina and Uruguay

Alex Borucki Why did Alex love this book?

Erika Edwards decenters the study of the African diaspora in Argentina from Buenos Aires by studying Cordoba, at the geographic heart of this country. The author employs gender as a structuring category of understanding conceptions of race, as she examines the actions of Black women who shaped their own sexual experiences and marriage patterns, creating new forms of identity based on the changing conceptions of race and law at the time, as Argentina was transitioning from colony to nation. In doing so, Edwards charters a process beginning in nineteenth-century Cordoba, which then became one of the keys to understanding a gendered conception of Blackness in modern Argentina. 

By Erika Denise Edwards,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hiding in Plain Sight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the African American Intellectual History Society's Best Black History Books of 2020

Details how African-descended women's societal, marital, and sexual decisions forever reshaped the racial makeup of Argentina

Argentina promotes itself as a country of European immigrants. This makes it an exception to other Latin American countries, which embrace a more mixed-African, Indian, European-heritage. Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic traces the origins of what some white Argentines mischaracterize as a "black disappearance" by delving into the intimate lives of black women and explaining how they contributed to…


Book cover of Black Legend: The Many Lives of Raúl Grigera and the Power of Racial Storytelling in Argentina

Alex Borucki Author Of From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la Plata

From my list on Black history in Argentina and Uruguay.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of the slave trade and slavery in the Rio de la Plata region (today’s Argentina and Uruguay) who then turned to the study of the traffic of captive Africans in the whole Spanish Americas. Yet, my love remains in the Rio de la Plata, what I call the “cold Caribbean.” Exciting books on the history of Africans and their descendants examine this region within the framework of Atlantic History, racial capitalism, gender, and the connections between twentieth-century Black culture and politics. As these recommendations are limited to English-language books, readers should note that much more has been published on this subject in Spanish and Portuguese.

Alex's book list on Black history in Argentina and Uruguay

Alex Borucki Why did Alex love this book?

Paulina Alberto wrote a binge-reading biography of Raúl Grigera, a Black legend of Buenos Aires during the golden age of tango. While Alberto reconstructs the family’s history of Grigera since the times of slavery in early nineteenth-century Argentina, the narrative arc of the book is the unequal power to control narratives about the self, which affected Grigera and other Black men and women who suffered the dominant and racist narratives about Blackness in Argentina, particularly on the disappearance of Afro-Argentines. This book illustrates the biographical turn in African Diaspora Studies combined with an exquisite interdisciplinary approach, which Alberto employs in her examination of “racial stories” as a methodology.

By Paulina L. Alberto,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Legend as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Celebrities live their lives in constant dialogue with stories about them. But when these stories are shaped by durable racist myths, they wield undue power to ruin lives and obliterate communities. Black Legend is the haunting story of an Afro-Argentine, Raul Grigera ('el negro Raul'), who in the early 1900s audaciously fashioned himself into an alluring Black icon of Buenos Aires' bohemian nightlife, only to have defamatory storytellers unmake him. In this gripping history, Paulina Alberto exposes the destructive power of racial storytelling and narrates a new history of Black Argentina and Argentine Blackness across two centuries. With the extraordinary…


Book cover of Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina

Alex Borucki Author Of From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la Plata

From my list on Black history in Argentina and Uruguay.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of the slave trade and slavery in the Rio de la Plata region (today’s Argentina and Uruguay) who then turned to the study of the traffic of captive Africans in the whole Spanish Americas. Yet, my love remains in the Rio de la Plata, what I call the “cold Caribbean.” Exciting books on the history of Africans and their descendants examine this region within the framework of Atlantic History, racial capitalism, gender, and the connections between twentieth-century Black culture and politics. As these recommendations are limited to English-language books, readers should note that much more has been published on this subject in Spanish and Portuguese.

Alex's book list on Black history in Argentina and Uruguay

Alex Borucki Why did Alex love this book?

This edited volume does a lot of things, allowing authors who have published in Spanish to advance their arguments in English as well as establishing conversations among historians, literary scholars, and anthropologists. Some authors focus on the production and consumption of culture, like Matthew Karush with his examination of the Afro-Argentinean guitar player Oscar Alemán, and Rebekah Pite’s chapter on food history. Ezequiel Adamovsky and Eduardo Elena essays center on race and class during the foundation of Peronism as a political movement, and representations of skin color in politics since mid-twentieth century. While Peronism has never openly challenged conceptions of a White Argentina, some non-white Argentineans sought Peronism as a space to challenge ideas of whiteness.

By Paulina L. Alberto (editor), Eduardo Elena (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book reconsiders the relationship between race and nation in Argentina during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and places Argentina firmly in dialog with the literature on race and nation in Latin America, from where it has long been excluded or marginalized for being a white, European exception in a mixed-race region. The contributors, based both in North America and Argentina, hail from the fields of history, anthropology, and literary and cultural studies. Their essays collectively destabilize widespread certainties about Argentina, showing that whiteness in that country has more in common with practices and ideologies of Mestizaje and 'racial democracy'…


Book cover of Slave and Citizen: The Classic Comparative Study of Race Relations in the Americas

Eric Nellis Author Of Shaping the New World: African Slavery in the Americas, 1500-1888

From my list on African slavery in the Americas.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught American, European, and World History at the University of British Columbia for over 30 years. I was constantly reminded of the dynamics and consequences of slavery and how a history of black America should be more prevalent in understanding the development of American culture, institutions, and identity over time. In writing two books on colonial America and the American Revolution, the roots of America’s racial divide became clearer and the logic of permanence seemed irresistible. My Shaping the New World was inspired by a course I taught for years on slavery in the Americas. Compiling the bibliography and writing the chapters on slave women and families helped to refine my understanding of the “peculiar institution” in all its both common and varied characteristics throughout the Americas.

Eric's book list on African slavery in the Americas

Eric Nellis Why did Eric love this book?

This is a comparative short study of slave societies in the Americas with an emphasis on how the Brazilian system was more legally and morally fluid than the more rigid North American system. The importance of this book lies in its originality and influence as a model for generations of historians.  Tannenbaum’s legalistic themes have been superseded by enriched data sources and social science theories and models. An additional characteristic of this comparative model was the introduction of the work of controversial Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre, his thesis of miscegenation and its role in defining Brazilian national character. Tannenbaum’s optimistic closing prediction about racial harmony has not yet occurred.

By Frank Tannenbaum,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Slave and Citizen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Originally published in 1947, Slave and Citizen is a classic in the field of comparative slave history and race relations.


Book cover of Britain's Black Past

Susie Steinbach Author Of Understanding the Victorians: Politics, Culture and Society in Nineteenth-Century Britain

From my list on will make you love Victorian Britain.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a historian. But I’ve never been interested in Parliamentary debates, or important politicians. I’m much more interested in things like gender and entertainment. I always say that a lot more people have sex than become prime minister, so it makes more sense to study marriage than high politics! I like to learn about ordinary people, living their lives and loving their families, working and surviving, and trying to have a little fun along the way. I also love history of more fun and glamorous things—celebrities and scandals and spectacles and causes célèbres, hit plays, and best-selling novels. I have history degrees from Harvard and Yale and I’ve been publishing on nineteenth-century British history since 2000.

Susie's book list on will make you love Victorian Britain

Susie Steinbach Why did Susie love this book?

As some reactions to the first season of the television show Bridgerton have made clear, many people need to believe that Black people first arrived in Britain after World War II, and that Britain + the past = whites only. But it wasn’t so!

Black people have been British, and part of British history, for hundreds of years. I’m embarrassed how little I learned about Black Britons in studying British history in college and graduate school; this book has been a fantastic way to learn more.

By Gretchen H. Gerzina (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Britain's Black Past as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Expanding upon the 2017 Radio 4 series 'Britain's Black Past', this book presents those stories and analyses through the lens of a recovered past. Even those who may be familiar with some of the materials will find much that they had not previously known, and will be introduced to people, places, and stories brought to light by new research. In a time of international racial unrest and migration, it is important not to lose sight of similar situations that took place in an earlier time. In chapters written by scholars, artists, and independent researchers, readers will learn of an early…


Book cover of Black and British: A Forgotten History

Corinne Fowler Author Of The Countryside: Ten Rural Walks Through Britain and Its Hidden History of Empire

From my list on the British Empire, by a UK historian.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by British colonial history for decades. Learning little about it as a child, I was shocked to learn, as a university student, how little I’d been taught about the British Empire at school. So, I set out to study it. Inevitably, this academic interest later combined with my fondness for country walking. I once trekked 1000 miles from the tip of Scotland–John O’Groats–to the southernmost part of England, called Land’s End. This took me 2 months. I’ve since explored the UK countryside’s colonial past in a humane history book called The Countryside, recounting my rambles through these lovely landscapes with ten walking companions.

Corinne's book list on the British Empire, by a UK historian

Corinne Fowler Why did Corinne love this book?

David Olusoga is a leading British historian. Though he modestly says all he’s done is to examine “domestic” British—its established but insular island story—through the lens of empire, the result has been revelatory for the British. He’s more responsible than anyone else for resourcing an informed public conversation about empire, particularly Britain’s centuries-long involvement in transatlantic slavery.

This was the first book I read that really looked at British history from the outside, from places like Bunce island on the African West Coast, from which the British transported enslaved Africans, and the broad and unfamiliar range of colonial activities that this book accessibly captures, telling accurate, evidence-based stories with respect and compassion.

By David Olusoga,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Black and British as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'[A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion.' - Kwasi Kwarteng, Sunday Times

In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean.

This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black…


Book cover of Killers of the Dream

Kristina DuRocher Author Of Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South

From my list on understanding racial violence in the South after the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I remember when I saw the photograph of the lynching of Rubin Stacy, his corpse surrounded by white girls in their Sunday best dresses. For me the immediate question was, why would white parents take their children on an outing to this? What purpose is this memorial photograph serving? I have spent over twenty years exploring the answers, learning how cultures persist by teaching their dominant beliefs to the next generation, and considering the perpetuation of white supremacy from generation to generation.

Kristina's book list on understanding racial violence in the South after the Civil War

Kristina DuRocher Why did Kristina love this book?

This autobiography of white Civil Rights activist Lillian Smith unpacks the society that shaped her as she struggled against her childhood lessons about how to interact with Whites and Blacks in the South. Smith deftly immerses you into her world with anecdotes, leading the reader through the interactions that shaped her and other white children across the South, including her experiences with racial violence and racism. Despite being written more than half a century ago, connections remain to our world. My recommendation is to read the 1994 version with an updated introduction placing the work into context.

By Lillian Smith,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Killers of the Dream as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Published to wide controversy, it became the source (acknowledged or unacknowledged) of much of our thinking about race relations and was for many a catalyst for the civil rights movement. It remains the most courageous, insightful, and eloquent critique of the pre-1960s South.

"I began to see racism and its rituals of segregation as a symptom of a grave illness," Smith wrote. "When people think more of their skin color than of their souls, something has happened to them." Today, readers are rediscovering in Smith's writings a forceful analysis of the dynamics of racism, as well as her prophetic understanding…


Book cover of Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic

Ariel Mae Lambe Author Of No Barrier Can Contain It: Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War

From my list on understanding Cuba’s turbulent 1930s.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a history major when I left for a Havana study abroad semester in 2003, but I had not studied Cuba. My introduction was a University of Havana class on the period of the Cuban Republic, in which I sat surrounded by Cuban students. My classroom learning was aided by the public history representations all around me in the city. I was hooked. I wrote my undergraduate thesis at Yale on Cuban activist intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and a few years later went on the begin my doctorate in Latin American History at Columbia. I have been a historian of Cuba ever since, 20 years.

Ariel's book list on understanding Cuba’s turbulent 1930s

Ariel Mae Lambe Why did Ariel love this book?

In Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic, Melina Pappademos studies the participation in and contributions to Cuban politics by Cubans of African descent, particularly those of relatively elite status, during the entire period of the Cuban Republic (1902–1958). This work is not primarily about popular politics in the manner of Whitney or Farber; rather, it examines the impressive ingenuity of the tiny Black elite at working the patronage system embedded in formal politics in Cuba to gain advantages for itself (and sometimes causing gains to trickle down to the Black masses in the form of vote-buying). Although she does not focus on broader areas of Black popular mobilization, Pappademos acknowledges the importance to this end of mass organizations such as labor unions and the Cuban Communist Party and discusses challenges to the Black elite by non-elite Black voices. 

By Melina Pappademos,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

While it was not until 1871 that slavery in Cuba was finally abolished, African-descended people had high hopes for legal, social, and economic advancement as the republican period started. In Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic , Melina Pappademos analyzes the racial politics and culture of black civic and political activists during the Cuban Republic. The path to equality, Pappademos reveals, was often stymied by successive political and economic crises, patronage politics, and profound racial tensions. In the face of these issues, black political leaders and members of black social clubs developed strategies for expanding their political authority and…


Book cover of Communities of Resistance: Writings on Black Struggles for Socialism

Arun Kundnani Author Of The Muslims Are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror

From my list on racism in Britain.

Why am I passionate about this?

Kundnani writes about racial capitalism and Islamophobia, surveillance and political violence, and Black radical movements. He is the author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic War on Terror and The End of Tolerance: racism in 21st century Britain, which was selected as a New Statesman book of the year. He has written for the Nation, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Vice, and The Intercept. Born in London, he moved to New York in 2010. A former editor of the journal Race & Class, he was miseducated at Cambridge University, and holds a PhD from London Metropolitan University. He has been an Open Society fellow and a scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

Arun's book list on racism in Britain

Arun Kundnani Why did Arun love this book?

A. Sivanandan was a key intellectual of the Asian and African-Caribbean working-class movements in Britain during their insurgent heyday from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. The essays collected in this volume, written between 1982 and 1990, are about how those movements were disaggregated and undermined – laying the ground for today’s racist Britain. The son of a rural postal clerk from the hinterland of a minor colonial territory, Sivanandan fled Sri Lanka after the anti-Tamil pogroms of 1958 and arrived in London as a refugee. The socialism the book advocates is poetic, loving, joyful, and centered upon the experiences of Third World peoples. Not a single sentence of Communities of Resistance is clunky or lacking in feeling.

By A. Sivanandan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Communities of Resistance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ambalavaner Sivanandan was one of Britain's most influential radical thinkers. As Director of the Institute of Race Relations for forty years, his work changed the way that we think about race, racism, globalisation and resistance. Communities of Resistance collects together some of his most famous essays, including his excoriating polemic on Thatcherism and the left "The Hokum of New Times".

This updated edition contains a new preface by Gary Younge and an introduction by Arun Kundnani.


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