White Studies

Written in the tradition of works by Joan Didion, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, and Eve Ensler, this “profoundly insightful and brilliantly inciting” (Dominique Morisseau, Obie Award-winning playwright) exploration of the soul of the United States - the past, the present, and the future Kevin Powell wants for us all, through the lens and lives of three major figures: his mother, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

What Black and White People Must Do Now explores the complexity of race and culture in the United States. In his third book, renowned conservative entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist Armstrong Williams discusses his prescription for healing and atonement amidst today’s current social upheaval. Race and racism are America's original sin, and 400 years later, they still plague the nation, pitting groups against each other.

It’s 1970, and Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of a church whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. Composed of a hodgepodge of requirements and restrictions—including a prohibition against doctors and hospitals—the underpinning tenet of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God was that its members were divinely chosen and all others would soon perish in rivers of flames.

In Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South, author Kristina DuRocher reveals how white adults in the late 19th and early 20th centuries continually reinforced race and gender roles to maintain white supremacy. DuRocher examines the practices, mores, and traditions that trained white children to fear, dehumanize, and disdain their black neighbors.

A breakout media and political analyst delivers a sweeping snapshot of American democracy and the role that African Americans have played in its shaping while offering concrete information to help harness the electoral power of the country’s rising majority and exposing political forces aligned to subvert and suppress black voters.

Rediscover the "most important book on black-white relationships" in America in this special 50th anniversary edition.

As the modern era transitions into postmodern turbulence, we too find ourselves in serious times. There is a great movement of God that has been set loose in the world. In this book, James Emery White explores what it means to be in the front lines of what God is doing. It's about action. But more than that, it's about character and our connectedness with God. Come and discover a life of significance.

In We Can’t Breathe, Jabari Asim disrupts what Toni Morrison has exposed as the “Master Narrative” and replaces it with a story of black survival and persistence through art and community in the face of centuries of racism. In eight wide-ranging and penetrating essays, he explores such topics as the twisted legacy of jokes and falsehoods in black life; the importance of black fathers and community; the significance of black writers and stories; and the beauty and pain of the black body.

Talking about race relations is never easy. Bruce A. Jacobs has written a book that shows us how we can begin - not with lofty abstractions or policy arguments, but with practicality and directness. Completely revised and updated, this is a candid assessment of, and guide to, improving race relations, a book Kirkus Reviews called "shocking" and Publishers Weekly termed "a frank, intelligent guide".

Archaeologist Joshua Agar's excavation team unearths an ancient ossuary, untouched since the day it was buried. Evidence and analysis reveals that the contents of the find appear to be the six of the seven seals mentioned in the Bible's Book of Revelations. The seventh is missing. An ancient society known as the Keepers awakens, and they are after the seven seals. It has been told that whosoever breaks the seven seals will have unimaginable power and control over the new world promised through the second coming of Christ.

Clyde W. Ford uses the lives of individual Black men and women as a lens to explore the role they have played in creating American institutions of power and wealth—in agriculture, politics, jurisprudence, law enforcement, culture, medicine, financial services, and many other fields—while not being allowed to fully participate or share in the rewards. Today, activists have taken the struggle for racial equity and justice to the streets.

This must-listen book for students of worship is now revised and updated for the first time in more than twenty years. Author Ed Phillips, one of White's graduate students, is joined by practitioners and teachers from emerging generations, who contribute timely and well-researched material from their own areas of expertise. This new content brings the original up to date, filling significant gaps since the original publication on topics like technology, arts, embodiment in and of worship, pluralism and multiculturalism, denominational changes, and more.

With the raging culture war, the underlying "race war" is rarely addressed in a more reasoned way. Roderick Edwards, author of many taboo-challenging books, takes on the controversial topic of what part other White people played in colonization and slavery. The Other White People is a detailed look into the history and contributions of peoples such as the Vikings and the Russians: White people who did not participate in the colonization of the Americas nor the Atlantic slave trade of Africans.

In Lost, medical historian Shannon Withycombe weaves together women’s personal writings and doctors’ publications from the 1820s through the 1910s to investigate the transformative changes in how Americans conceptualized pregnancy, understood miscarriage, and interpreted fetal tissue over the course of the 19th century. Withycombe’s pathbreaking research reveals how Americans construed, and continue to understand, miscarriage within a context of reproductive desires, expectations, and abilities.

What made the San Diego Comic-Con a Hollywood destination? How does the industry’s presence at Comic-Con shape our ideas about what it means to be a fan? And what can this single event tell us about the relationship between media industries and their fans, past and present? Only at Comic-Con answers these questions and more as it examines the connection between exclusivity and the proliferation of media industry promotion at the longest-running comic convention in North America.

Excerpt from Blood in the Streets: The world is smaller than it used to be. We all live closer together, brushing elbows more often, getting on each other's nerves, causing confrontation to happen more and more. It is inevitable. When the pool gets crowded, people bump elbows. Sometimes I wonder what has become of America. When I grew up, we didn't even lock our doors at night. Only a fool would do that now. I suspect that the breakdown of society was caused by a combination of many things. Our families are no longer healthy and intact.

Originally published in 1904, Quiet Talks on Prayer focuses on the importance of prayer and how we are unaware of the power of prayer and this most intimate way of communicating with God.

Ben Lindsay offers eye-opening insights into the black religious experience, challenging the status quo in white majority churches. Filled with examples from real-life stories, including his own, and insightful questions, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of race relations in the Church in the UK and shows us how we can work together to create a truly inclusive church community.

No one has ever been in a position to see the presidents, and the presidency, so intimately, over so many years. They called him in for photo opportunities. They called for comfort. They asked about death and salvation; about sin and forgiveness. At a time when the nation is increasingly split over the place of religion in public life, The Preacher and the Presidents reveals how the world's most powerful men and world's most famous evangelist, Billy Graham, knit faith and politics together.

Every day across the US, 66 million poor white people pay the price for failing whiteness. In this sweeping debut, activist and chaplain Cedar Monroe writes indelibly about and for poor white people: about unlearning the American dream, untangling from white supremacy, and working for liberation alongside other poor folks.