This is the acclaimed biography of the great actor, singer, political radical, and advocate of racial equality. Compelling subject: Passionate, enormously talented, and, at times, seemingly larger than life, Paul Robeson has remained of enormous interest New preface: Featuring an update from the author on the legacy of Robeson, and controversies arising since the printing of the first book. Paul Robeson was one of this century's most notable performers, political radicals, and champions of racial equality. Drawing on a vast archive of family papers, interviews with friends and relatives, as well as FBI files, the book charts the heroic and tragic course of Robeson's life: from his early days as the son of a former slave to his rise to unprecedented, international acclaim as a stage actor and singer; from his political awakening to his downfall as a victim of McCarthyism and the efforts of the U.S. government to destroy him. With a new preface by the author.

In December 1995, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the release of protease inhibitors, the first effective treatment for AIDS. For countless people, the drug offered a reprieve from what had been a death sentence; for others, it was too late. In the United States alone, more than 318,000 people had already died from AIDS-related complications--among them the singer Michael Callen and the poet Essex Hemphill. "Relevant and heartbreaking" ( Bay Area Reporter ), "incisive, passionate, and poetic" ( New York Journal of Books ), and "powerful" ( Kirkus Reviews ), Hold Tight Gently is Martin Duberman's poignant memorial to two of the great unsung heroes of the early years of the epidemic. Callen, the author of How to Have Sex in an Epidemic , was a leading figure in the fight against AIDS in the face of willful denial under the Reagan administration. Hemphill, a passionate activist and the author of the celebrated Ceremonies , was a critically acclaimed openly gay African American poet of searing intensity and introspection. A profound exploration of the intersection of race, sexuality, class, and identity, Hold Tight Gently captures both a generation struggling to cope with the deadly disease and the extraordinary refusal of two men to give in to despair.

"Fifteen years after her death, Andrea Dworkin remains one of the most important and challenging figures in second-wave feminism. Although frequently relegated to its more radical fringes, Dworkin was without doubt a formidable and influential writer, a philosopher, and an activist-a brilliant figure who inspired and infuriated in equal measure. Her many detractors were eager to reduce her to the caricature of the angry, man-hating feminist who believed that all sex was rape, and as a result, her work has long been misunderstood. It is in recent years, especially with the rise of the #MeToo movement, that there has been a resurgence of interest in her ideas. This biography is the perfect complement to the widely reviewed anthology of her writing, Last Days at Hot Slit, published in 2019, providing much-needed context to her work. Given exclusive access to never-before-published photographs and archives, including her letters to many of the major figures of second-wave feminism, award-winning biographer Martin Duberman traces Dworkin's life, from her abusive first marriage through her central role in the sex and pornography wars of the following decades. This is a vital, complex, and long overdue reassessment of the life and work of one of the towering figures of second-wave feminism"--

Finalist, 2008 Pulitzer Prize Lincoln Kirstein was a tireless champion of the arts in America. Working behind the scenes to provide artists with money, space, audiences, and, at times, emotional support, he helped found such landmark cultural institutions as the New York City Ballet, the School of American Ballet, New York’s Lincoln Center and Stratford's American Shakespeare Festival. Duberman's biography sheds light on this lamentably neglected cultural figure. Though best known as a benefactor of the arts, Kirstein was also an adept critic, poet and novelist who published some fifteen books in his lifetime. From his undergraduate years at Harvard, where he established the influential literary magazine Hound and Horn , as well as the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art (precursor to the Modern Museum of Art), to his complex and historically significant relationship with George Balanchine, Kirstein's contributions were indespensible to the development of the arts in America. Authoritative and elegant, Duberman's biography utilizes previously unavailable documents, including Kirstein's diaries, to reveal the keen eye, incessant self-doubt, and enormous ambition that drove Kirstein's relentless advocacy. The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein brings attention to an important, but until-now unappreciated figure whose individual contribution to the arts was one of the greatest of the twentieth century.

A portrait of the life and achievements of the progressive activist, author, and teacher examines his roles as an anti-war veteran, an iconic contributor to the civil rights movement, and dedicated white professor at a historically black college.

"One would be hard-pressed to name a more admirable contemporary American example of the intellectual engage than Martin Duberman. Historian, playwright, memoirist, biographer, social commentator, teacher, activist and assured podium performer, Duberman is an unapologetic, uncategorizable and nonsectarian radical whose constant questioning of conventional wisdoms - even on the left - has made him one of this country's pre-eminent participants in the political and cultural wars that have riven public life."â__In These Times"A marvelous collection of a lifetime of courageous writing by a deeply moral and reflective man who has engaged the greatest struggles of our times with an unflinching nerve, a wise heart and a brilliant intellect informed at all times by compassion."â__Jonathan KozolThe lives of â__outsidersâ__ have been the focus of Martin Duberman's work as a public intellectual for the past four decades. Best known for his biography of Paul Robeson, Duberman highlights the "banding together" of the excluded in Left Out. These identity-based movementsâ__black power, gay liberation, feminismâ__have created a vital and controversial change in American consciousness in recent decades. Duberman's collected essays trace this evolution of thought to the history of dissent from abolitionism through the New Left to today's organizing.Presenting summations of Duberman's views on such matters as race, foreign policy, gender and sexuality, Left Out offers incisive analyses of the split between class-based and identity-based politics on the Left. The "godfather" of the gay studies movement, Duberman has taken many brave and prescient stands. His writing shows why he is considered a deeply moral and wise man. For the first time available in paperback, this edition, updated through 2002, includes three new essays: "The State of Gay Studies," "Queer Economic Justice," and "Jewish Radicals, Effeminacy, and the Rise of Gay Chauvinism".