San Antonio College Library

With a rare blend of learning, economy, and cutting insight, George Fredrickson surveys the history of Western racism from its emergence in the late Middle Ages to the present. Beginning with the medieval antisemitism that put Jews beyond the pale of humanity, he traces the spread of racist thinking in the wake of European expansionism and the beginnings of the African slave trade. And he examines how the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century romantic...

The term 5th Paragraph Invalids referred to a long-standing discrimination faced by Soviet Jews, who were denied access to higher education and certain jobs due to suspicions of dual loyalty. In March 2020, filmmaker Boris Maftsir conducted Zoom interviews with 20 Israeli immigrants who left the Soviet Union in 1990/1991 from Moscow, Leningrad, and Kyiv. The film reveals the stark contrast between the Soviet propaganda and the reality faced by Soviet...

Bram Dijkstra's new book, ten years in work, is a stunning inquiry into the idea of woman as seductress: how, in many areas of twentieth-century high and popular culture, the female came to be portrayed as a regressive, primitive force whose sexuality could destroy the social order, undermining the supremacy of the white male - and shows the devastating historical effects of this portrayal. Dijkstra begins his analysis with the 1915 silent film A...

"In the century after emancipation, the long shadow of slavery left African Americans well short of the freedom promised to them. Sharecropping and debt peonage entrapped Black people in the South and, across the world, European colonialism had bred a new slavery that menaced the liberty of even more Africans. A core group of Black freedom movement leaders, including Ida B. Wells and W. E. B. Du Bois, followed their nineteenth-century predecessors...

In the third installment of the series, "Killing at a Distance or ... How I Thoroughly Enjoyed the Outing", filmmaker Raoul Peck looks back at human migration, trade, and weaponry, and shows how Europeans used industrialized steel to conduct warfare from ever-greater distances. Then, he explores the endless cycle of militarization throughout the centuries - from George Washington's efforts to jumpstart American arms manufacturing, to the horrors of...

In the series premiere, "The Disturbing Confidence of Ignorance", filmmaker Raoul Peck sets out to illuminate the intertwined currents of hate and bigotry running through history. Focusing on the United States' legacy as a colonial power, Peck explores how race first became institutionalized, the Nazi program of "elimination" and its antecedents in the West, and the looting of the African continent in a "gentlemen's agreement."

In the second episode, "Who the F*** is Columbus", filmmaker Raoul Peck revisits the stories of Christopher Columbus, the Alamo, and the Trail of Tears from an indigenous perspective, showing how "official" history is shaped by those in power and solidified by myth and popular culture. Next, he examines the "doctrine of discovery" used to justify the enslavement of millions of Africans and questions his own story within these narratives.

Activist, international statesman, reluctant black leader, scholar, icon, father and husband, Ralph Bunche is one of the more complicated and fascinating figures in the history of twentieth-century America. For nearly a decade, he was the most celebrated contemporary African American both domestically and abroad. Today he is virtually forgotten. Charles P. Henry's penetrating biography restores Bunche to his rightful place, recapturing the essence...