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This is a growing list of books I have read that I feel may be of value to studying race, ethnicity, class and gender in America. There are traditional "white" canon texts as well as working-class, rural and immigrant white texts that I feel are worth (re)visiting because they provide insight or reveal problematic themes. There are books on African-American, Latinx-American, Asian-American and Native American history and culture. As well as books on gender theory. There are also readings on religious pluralism that I feel have important lessons to carry over into discussions of race and ethnicity.
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A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
| 1 |
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A People's History of the United States
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4.09 avg rating — 264,000 ratings
score: 164,
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2 people voted
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| 2 |
|
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
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4.05 avg rating — 94,561 ratings
score: 100,
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1 person voted
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| 2 |
|
Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen
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3.91 avg rating — 162 ratings
score: 100,
and
1 person voted
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| 4 |
|
Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, Updated Edition
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4.12 avg rating — 4,599 ratings
score: 99,
and
1 person voted
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| 4 |
|
The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The "Great Truth" About the “Lost Cause"
by
James W. Loewen (Editor)
4.32 avg rating — 182 ratings
score: 99,
and
1 person voted
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| 6 |
|
Teaching Social Studies that Matters: Curriculum for Active Learning
by
3.09 avg rating — 34 ratings
score: 98,
and
1 person voted
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| 6 |
|
Kindred
by
4.31 avg rating — 267,626 ratings
score: 98,
and
1 person voted
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| 8 |
|
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
by
4.30 avg rating — 38,798 ratings
score: 97,
and
1 person voted
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| 8 |
|
The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop
by
Kevin Coval (Editor)
4.28 avg rating — 609 ratings
score: 97,
and
1 person voted
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| 10 |
|
Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America
by
3.92 avg rating — 2,585 ratings
score: 96,
and
1 person voted
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| 10 |
|
The BreakBeat Poets, Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic
by
4.44 avg rating — 439 ratings
score: 96,
and
1 person voted
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| 12 |
|
The History of the American Indians
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3.55 avg rating — 33 ratings
score: 95,
and
1 person voted
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| 12 |
|
The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext
by
Felicia Rose Chavez (Editor)
4.44 avg rating — 238 ratings
score: 95,
and
1 person voted
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| 14 |
|
Educated
by
Tara Westover (Goodreads Author)
4.47 avg rating — 1,830,877 ratings
score: 94,
and
1 person voted
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| 14 |
|
Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
by
3.97 avg rating — 5,268 ratings
score: 94,
and
1 person voted
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| 16 |
|
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
by
4.04 avg rating — 7,350 ratings
score: 93,
and
1 person voted
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| 16 |
|
What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia
by
4.01 avg rating — 4,868 ratings
score: 93,
and
1 person voted
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| 18 |
|
Planet of Slums
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3,340 ratings
score: 92,
and
1 person voted
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| 18 |
|
Jubilee
by
4.37 avg rating — 6,941 ratings
score: 92,
and
1 person voted
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| 20 |
|
North American Indians: A Very Short Introduction
by
3.68 avg rating — 304 ratings
score: 91,
and
1 person voted
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| 20 |
|
Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen
by
4.13 avg rating — 282 ratings
score: 91,
and
1 person voted
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| 22 |
|
American Cultural History: A Very Short Introduction
by
3.57 avg rating — 103 ratings
score: 90,
and
1 person voted
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| 22 |
|
Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
by
4.17 avg rating — 787 ratings
score: 90,
and
1 person voted
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| 24 |
|
Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War
by
4.21 avg rating — 469 ratings
score: 89,
and
1 person voted
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| 24 |
|
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
by
4.29 avg rating — 1,997 ratings
score: 89,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 26 |
|
Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era
by
Tiya Miles (Goodreads Author)
4.24 avg rating — 396 ratings
score: 88,
and
1 person voted
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| 26 |
|
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
by
3.97 avg rating — 74,550 ratings
score: 88,
and
1 person voted
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| 28 |
|
The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
by
4.06 avg rating — 329 ratings
score: 87,
and
1 person voted
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| 28 |
|
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
by
James Forman Jr. (Goodreads Author)
4.37 avg rating — 4,528 ratings
score: 87,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 30 |
|
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
by
4.18 avg rating — 6,559 ratings
score: 86,
and
1 person voted
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| 30 |
|
White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation
by
Lauren Michele Jackson (Goodreads Author)
4.13 avg rating — 1,668 ratings
score: 86,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 32 |
|
Nature's Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia
by
3.85 avg rating — 34 ratings
score: 85,
and
1 person voted
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| 32 |
|
We Speak for Ourselves: How Woke Culture Prohibits Progress
by
4.47 avg rating — 546 ratings
score: 85,
and
1 person voted
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| 34 |
|
Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War
by
4.10 avg rating — 222 ratings
score: 84,
and
1 person voted
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| 34 |
|
Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry
by
Camille T. Dungy (Editor)
4.60 avg rating — 483 ratings
score: 84,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 36 |
|
Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America
by
3.77 avg rating — 302 ratings
score: 83,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 36 |
|
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South
by
3.87 avg rating — 8,114 ratings
score: 83,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 38 |
|
Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England
by
4.10 avg rating — 3,986 ratings
score: 82,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 38 |
|
As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock
by
4.36 avg rating — 2,285 ratings
score: 82,
and
1 person voted
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| 40 |
|
White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture
by
4.35 avg rating — 26 ratings
score: 81,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 40 |
|
We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance
by
4.42 avg rating — 1,107 ratings
score: 81,
and
1 person voted
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| 42 |
|
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
by
4.45 avg rating — 5,210 ratings
score: 80,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 42 |
|
American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise
by
3.91 avg rating — 266 ratings
score: 80,
and
1 person voted
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| 44 |
|
The Ramapo Mountain People
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 44 ratings
score: 79,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 44 |
|
Rachel
by
3.91 avg rating — 330 ratings
score: 79,
and
1 person voted
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| 46 |
|
Playing Indian (Yale Historical Publications Series)
by
4.08 avg rating — 609 ratings
score: 78,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 46 |
|
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
by
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Editor)
4.47 avg rating — 4,686 ratings
score: 78,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 48 |
|
Democracy at the Point of Bayonets
by
3.60 avg rating — 10 ratings
score: 77,
and
1 person voted
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| 48 |
|
Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems
by
4.57 avg rating — 484 ratings
score: 77,
and
1 person voted
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| 50 |
|
The Souls of Black Folk
by
4.31 avg rating — 44,702 ratings
score: 76,
and
1 person voted
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| 50 |
|
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
by
Janisse Ray (Goodreads Author)
4.03 avg rating — 3,610 ratings
score: 76,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 52 |
|
'Tis
by
3.74 avg rating — 66,018 ratings
score: 75,
and
1 person voted
|
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| 52 |
|
The Yellow House
by
3.89 avg rating — 25,285 ratings
score: 75,
and
1 person voted
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| 54 |
|
Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt, #1)
by
4.15 avg rating — 656,030 ratings
score: 74,
and
1 person voted
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| 54 |
|
Cockroaches
by
4.42 avg rating — 1,801 ratings
score: 74,
and
1 person voted
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| 56 |
|
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven
by
4.09 avg rating — 26,802 ratings
score: 73,
and
1 person voted
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| 56 |
|
Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880
by
4.52 avg rating — 3,288 ratings
score: 73,
and
1 person voted
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| 58 |
|
Geographies of Home: A Novel
by
3.68 avg rating — 310 ratings
score: 72,
and
1 person voted
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| 58 |
|
Brown Girl in the Ring
by
3.85 avg rating — 7,485 ratings
score: 72,
and
1 person voted
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| 60 |
|
Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism)
by
Hertha Dawn Sweet Wong (Editor)
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 11 ratings
score: 71,
and
1 person voted
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| 60 |
|
Look: Poems
by
4.31 avg rating — 2,700 ratings
score: 71,
and
1 person voted
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| 62 |
|
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
by
3.76 avg rating — 24,943 ratings
score: 70,
and
1 person voted
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| 62 |
|
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns
by
Dohra Ahmad (Editor)
4.19 avg rating — 313 ratings
score: 70,
and
1 person voted
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| 64 |
|
Faith Ed: Teaching About Religion in an Age of Intolerance
by
Linda K. Wertheimer (Goodreads Author)
3.96 avg rating — 96 ratings
score: 69,
and
1 person voted
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| 64 |
|
Cowboys and East Indians
by
Nina McConigley (Goodreads Author)
4.22 avg rating — 459 ratings
score: 69,
and
1 person voted
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| 66 |
|
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
by
3.84 avg rating — 499,739 ratings
score: 68,
and
1 person voted
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| 66 |
|
Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
by
Adrienne Maree Brown (Editor/Contributor)
3.93 avg rating — 4,293 ratings
score: 68,
and
1 person voted
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| 68 |
|
The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation
by
4.08 avg rating — 40 ratings
score: 67,
and
1 person voted
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| 68 |
|
The Blurry Years
by
3.98 avg rating — 597 ratings
score: 67,
and
1 person voted
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| 70 |
|
Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults
by
3.88 avg rating — 266 ratings
score: 66,
and
1 person voted
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| 70 |
|
Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction
by
Grace L. Dillon (Editor)
3.80 avg rating — 477 ratings
score: 66,
and
1 person voted
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| 72 |
|
Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't
by
3.64 avg rating — 2,256 ratings
score: 65,
and
1 person voted
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| 72 |
|
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities
by
4.25 avg rating — 4,290 ratings
score: 65,
and
1 person voted
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| 74 |
|
Beauty's Daughter, Monster, The Gimmick: Three Plays
by
4.21 avg rating — 28 ratings
score: 64,
and
1 person voted
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| 75 |
|
Title IX: A Brief History with Documents
by
3.48 avg rating — 25 ratings
score: 63,
and
1 person voted
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| 75 |
|
Water by the Spoonful
by
Quiara Alegría Hudes (Goodreads Author)
3.97 avg rating — 2,407 ratings
score: 63,
and
1 person voted
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| 77 |
|
White Racism
by
3.98 avg rating — 50 ratings
score: 62,
and
1 person voted
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| 77 |
|
Strangers at My Door: A True Story of Finding Jesus in Unexpected Guests
by
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (Goodreads Author)
4.22 avg rating — 224 ratings
score: 62,
and
1 person voted
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| 79 |
|
Ramapough Mountain Indians: People Places and Cultural Traditions
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating
score: 61,
and
1 person voted
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| 79 |
|
New Poets of Native Nations
by
4.40 avg rating — 671 ratings
score: 61,
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1 person voted
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| 81 |
|
Black Skin, White Masks
by
4.26 avg rating — 18,857 ratings
score: 60,
and
1 person voted
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| 81 |
|
Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama
by
4.21 avg rating — 157 ratings
score: 60,
and
1 person voted
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| 83 |
|
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
by
4.35 avg rating — 29,185 ratings
score: 59,
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1 person voted
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| 83 |
|
Bilingual Blues: Poems, 1981-1994
by
Gustavo Perez Firmat (Goodreads Author)
4.10 avg rating — 29 ratings
score: 59,
and
1 person voted
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| 85 |
|
Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (Harc Global Change Studies; 1)
by
Catherine Clinton (Editor)
3.71 avg rating — 97 ratings
score: 58,
and
1 person voted
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| 85 |
|
American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time
by
Tracy K. Smith (Editor)
4.14 avg rating — 672 ratings
score: 58,
and
1 person voted
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| 87 |
|
Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America
by
4.31 avg rating — 3,514 ratings
score: 57,
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1 person voted
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| 87 |
|
A Disability History of the United States
by
Kim E. Nielsen (Goodreads Author)
4.07 avg rating — 1,635 ratings
score: 57,
and
1 person voted
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| 89 |
|
New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America
by
3.89 avg rating — 464 ratings
score: 56,
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1 person voted
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| 89 |
|
There There
by
Tommy Orange (Goodreads Author)
3.97 avg rating — 222,011 ratings
score: 56,
and
1 person voted
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| 91 |
|
Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage (New Black Studies Series)
by
4.16 avg rating — 249 ratings
score: 55,
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1 person voted
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| 91 |
|
Anybody: Poems
by
4.05 avg rating — 239 ratings
score: 55,
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1 person voted
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| 93 |
|
Twelve Years a Slave: A Norton Critical Edition
by
4.23 avg rating — 124,456 ratings
score: 54,
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1 person voted
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| 93 |
|
La Perdida
by
Jessica Abel (Goodreads Author)
3.31 avg rating — 2,187 ratings
score: 54,
and
1 person voted
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| 95 |
|
American Slavery: A Very Short Introduction
by
4.10 avg rating — 183 ratings
score: 53,
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1 person voted
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| 95 |
|
If Beale Street Could Talk
by
4.27 avg rating — 80,194 ratings
score: 53,
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1 person voted
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| 97 |
|
Slaverys Constitution By Waldstreicher David
by
3.70 avg rating — 243 ratings
score: 52,
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1 person voted
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| 97 |
|
Islandborn
by
4.45 avg rating — 4,732 ratings
score: 52,
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1 person voted
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| 99 |
|
Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War On "Illegals" and the Remaking of the U.S. – Mexico Boundary
by
3.89 avg rating — 74 ratings
score: 51,
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1 person voted
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| 99 |
|
The Hidden Wound
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167 books ·
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list created June 19th, 2020
by Stephen McDonald (votes) .
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