Books like The Kingdom of Matthias by Sean Wilentz

Explores the history of sexuality through the lens of enslaved individuals, European immigrants, and urban middle-class Americans, shedding light on race, gender, class inequality, and the complex nature of sexuality in American history from the 19th to the 20th century.

Provenance follows the real‑life art fraud of John Drewe, who forged historic paintings with the help of artist John Myatt and then deceived the British art world into accepting the fakes as genuine, reshaping museum collections and the record of modern art.

Sojourner Truth: ex-slave and fiery abolitionist, figure of imposing physique, riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black women - indeed, for all strong women. Like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, she is regarded as a radical of immense and enduring influence; yet unlike them, what is remembered of her consists more of myth than of historical fact. Now, in a masterful blend of scholarship and sympathetic understanding, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter goes beyond the myths, words, and photographs to uncover the life of a complex woman who was born into slavery and died a legend. Inspired by religion, Truth transformed herself from a domestic servant named Isabella into an itinerant Pentecostal preacher; her words of empowerment have inspired black women and poor people the world over to this day. As an abolitionist and a feminist, Truth defied the stereotype of "the slave" as male and "the woman" as white - expounding a fact that still bears repeating: among blacks there are women; among women, there are blacks.

C. Vann Woodward’s classic 1955 study argues that Jim Crow segregation emerged only in the 1890s, showing the South’s racial relations were more mixed during slavery and Reconstruction.

An Albanian village dentist is hired to act as the double for the country's head of state at official engagements.