Joe Louis: World’s Greatest

Joe Louis’ mother wanted him to play the violin. After the future ...

Ralph Ellison In Progress

Ralph Ellison has often been cited by literary scholars as one of ...

Been Working on the Railroad

While we typically associate slavery in America with the plantation economies of ...

Book Giveaway: Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden at Monticello

Now that you’ve seen our sneak preview of Peter J. Hatch’s “A Rich Spot of Earth”: Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden at Monticello, we’re offering a chance to win a free copy of this beautifully illustrated volume, showcasing Jefferson’s amazing vegetable garden, its uniquely American characteristics, and its legacy. Here’s our Presidents’ Day Quiz: What crop [...]

Lucian Freud: 70 Years of Portraiture

The people portrayed in Lucian Freud’s portraits are not passive, flawless models, stuck in the imagined world of a framed canvas. They have lived—endured—with evidence of years past in their rough, wrinkled, worn, and scarred skin. Like his psychoanalyst grandfather Sigmund Freud, Lucian Freud explores his subjects’ inner troubles and longings. As Freud himself recognized, [...]

Forces of Geek Cartooning Contest

This month, the blog “Forces of Geek” is giving away four copies of Ivan Brunetti’s Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, a must-read for the cartoon aficionado. Using hand-drawn illustration accompanied by witty text, Brunetti guides the reader through the theory and terminology of cartooning and offers a series of easy lessons to make any layman (or [...]

Time to Study Rap in College?

Come Friday night, most college students put down their books and put on their favorite jeans before heading out to parties where hip-hop music blares in crowded clubs and living rooms—Kanye or Lil Wayne’s rhymes making it necessary to shout in order to be heard. The next day, the more diligent of these students will [...]

Lest We Forget: Segregated Communities, Integrated Division

Sarah Underwood— “Integration was one of the worst things to happen to black kids. We lost our community,” said a former student whose segregated Floridian high school closed in 1969. It’s nearly impossible to read that without feeling troubled. Weren’t black communities oppressed during Jim Crow? How could anyone feel nostalgic for his segregated high [...]

Brian Neher’s “You Be the Judge” Art Contest

Artist Brian Neher is a big fan of YUP’s books on John Singer Sargent, one of which is part of the grand prize package in the “You Be the Judge” art contest Neher is hosting on his blog. The book, John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1883-1899: The Complete Paintings, Volume 5, by Richard Ormond [...]

You Know You Wonder What Your Pet Thinks

Jenny Diski is not an animal expert. Yet in her book What I Don’t Know About Animals, Diski shows us the myriad ways in which animals are omnipresent in our culture—even for those of us who aren’t biologists, zookeepers, or lifelong pet-owners. The book, which the The Guardian has called “a wonderful and necessary read,” [...]

The Legacy of Pearl Primus

Although Pearl Primus was born in Trinidad and grew up in New York City, she identified strongly with her African heritage from a young age. When, in 1948, she was awarded a fellowship to pay for a trip, she wrote, “My soul hopped out of my body, swung on the lights, and kissed everyone present…” [...]

En Vanguard

Born in 1886, John Graham was a progressive promoter of surrealism, cubism, and abstraction, as well as a mentor and confidant to the likes of Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning (the four artists collectively called themselves the Four Musketeers in the ‘30s). Last week, an exhibition entitled “American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, [...]

Eminent Biography: Peter McPhee on Robespierre

Was Maximilien Robespierre (1758-94) a heroic martyr of the French Revolution, or a ruthless tyrant? In his new biography Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life, Peter McPhee combines new research and a deep understanding of the French Revolution to provide a fresh and nuanced portrait of one of history’s most controversial figures. Here the author discusses Robespierre, and explains the challenges in writing a “human” [...]