IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS:

Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control
by Kelly Lytle Hernández
W. W. Norton & Company, 2026

[‎Publication date: September 22, 2026]

 

A revolutionary new history that exposes the "whites-only" roots of the American immigration regime.

In Racist by Design, award-winning historian Kelly Lytle Hernández reveals how generations of lawmakers and law enforcers built the American immigration system to encourage white immigrants while targeting nonwhite migrants for exclusion, punishment, and removal. The goal, often explicitly stated by the system’s architects, was to create a permanent caste of undocumented and criminalized workers to provide cheap labor for the American economy.

Many Americans’ understanding of the immigration system begins with the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late nineteenth century. Lytle Hernández expands that history by a full century, showing how the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s inspired not only America’s first immigration bans (to prevent news of a free Black republic from reaching our shores) but also its first refugee resettlement program (to welcome and support Haiti’s evicted enslavers.) She explains how Chinese Exclusion led the Supreme Court to disconnect immigration laws from the constitution. She reveals how eugenicists and Jim Crow segregationists built much of our current immigration regime as expressly "whites-only," and shows how during the Civil Rights Movement, Congress amended this system but never abolished it, leaving many of the regime’s racist rules and rituals intact today.

Lytle Hernández calls Racist by Design "an act of sabotage," a book that will expose the blueprints of the system, so it can be dismantled. A nuanced, concise, and brilliant work that will outrage and inflame readers, Racist by Design is a major work by one of our most important historians.

REVIEWS:

"It is tempting to see this enormous crackdown as a distortion of immigration enforcement, a system bent to authoritarian purposes by a president unusually willing to test its limits. UCLA historian Kelly Lytle Hernández’s new book, Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control, offers a more disturbing explanation: Trump did not have to build this apparatus. America built it for him."― Jimmy So, The New Republic

"In her latest, MacArthur genius Kelly Lytle Hernández does her part to sabotage the machine of immigration and the white nationalism and racial capitalism intentionally baked into its components. Expertly researched and accessibly written, Racist By Design is a book for our times. It’s this month’s #RequiredReading."― Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine

"[A] landmark examination of the racist roots of the American immigration system... a definitive and forceful call for reform."― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Lytle Hernández’s narrative bursts with relevance… A disguised and convoluted history made decipherable and urgent."― Kirkus Reviews

"You can’t demolish something unless you know how it’s built. Kelly Lytle Hernández’s brilliant new book lays out a scathing blueprint to help us understand the key roles that racism and white supremacy have always played in our immigration system. As usual, Lytle Hernández gives us a history lesson that lives, breathes, and most importantly, fights back."― Jason De León, author of Soldiers and Kings

"At a moment when the punditry and politics of immigration so distresses the United States, award-winning historian Kelly Lytle Hernández makes it make sense. Racist by Design is a courageous call to conscience that encourages us to resist the forces of history and replace them with possibilities born of struggle."― Martha S. Jones, author of Birthright Citizens

"Based on original research and thinking, Kelly Lytle Hernández explains how America’s immigration law was founded on the racist premise that the country should be for white people. Black, Asian, and Latinx migrants and communities fought for the right to be in the U.S. and persisted in winning some reforms; but the hard truth is that the edifice remains. Lytle Hernández builds on a generation of immigration scholarship and takes it to another level. Important, accessible, and urgent."― Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question

"In Racist by Design, Kelly Lytle Hernández brings the same fire she has brought to her scholarship for twenty years, showing how white supremacy has shaped our immigration system. She details how that regime was built, brick by brick, law by law, decision by decision, through precedents, rules, enforcement, and operational protocols. But like anything built, this system can be unbuilt, and Lytle Hernandez gives us the blueprints."― Natalia Molina, author of The Other Immigrant Story

"Kelly Lytle Hernández is unparalleled at unearthing hidden histories of immigrant exclusion in the United States. Racist by Design reveals the depths of white supremacist policymaking and the creative resistance efforts that have challenged it. This illuminating and damning intervention in today’s immigration crisis narratives gives weight to the argument that there can be no migrant justice without racial justice."― Silky Shah, author of Unbuild Walls


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kelly Lytle Hernández is the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History at UCLA. She is a MacArthur "genius grant" recipient and the author of Racist by Design, Bad Mexicans, and several other award-winning books about race, immigration, policing, and the carceral state. She lives in Los Angeles.

 

The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts
by Alex Wagner
Flatiron Books, 2026

[Publication date: September 15, 2026]

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From celebrated news anchor, journalist, and host of Crooked Media's "Runaway Country," Alex Wagner, the wild and true story of how a group of right-wing raiders changed the American judiciary forever.

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was a sharp right turn for American governance. After decades on the fringes, the conservative right had risen to power, finally poised to fashion some of the country's most pressing issues in its image. Tax cuts, aggressive foreign policy, and law and order would soon become the cornerstones of Reagan's agenda. But, behind the scenes, a select group of administration officials and ideological allies had their eyes set on something much more valuable: an institution with the power to shape the country's legal, cultural and existential identity, long after any presidential term ended.

Ed Meese, a native Californian, former DA, and aide to Reagan from his days as governor, knew exactly what he had to do to seize the Supreme Court: get as many judges on the bench as possible, and make sure they were as conservative as he was on issues like abortion rights, taxes, and criminal justice. Working in parallel to achieve the same goal were a band of fellow true-believers: Paul Weyrich, the firebrand organizer; Joe Coors, the beer magnate whose fortune funded many of Weyrich’s efforts; and Robert Bork, the towering legal intellect of the right, and an important mentor to a few young law students starting a new organization called The Federalist Society. By the end of the decade, these men would change the face of the American judiciary forever. Told with a pitch-perfect blend of journalistic rigor and propulsive storytelling, The Steal takes readers into the closed-door meetings, public nomination hearings, and back rooms of American political power to reveal the true story behind one of the most significant moments in American history, and how it affects us to this day.

REVIEWS:

“This fascinating history will help readers better understand how history is reflected in current judicial decisions.” –Library Journal

“A penetrating look at how a political fringe makes itself mainstream through force of law.” –Kirkus Reviews

"The Steal answers the question that haunts American politics right now: How did we get here? Alex Wagner has written the origin story of the decades-long plot to capture the courts―from Berkeley in the sixties to the fall of Roe―and makes you understand it not as an inevitability, but as a choice, made by a small group of men, that most of us never saw coming. Riveting, meticulous, and infuriating in equal measure, The Steal is a book that everyone should read." ―Jon Favreau, New York Times bestselling author of Democracy or Else and co-founder of Crooked Media


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alex Wagner is the host of the podcast Runaway Country, a contributor to Pod Save America (both on Crooked Media), a Senior Political Analyst at MS NOW, and the author of “How the Hell… with Alex Wagner” on Substack. She was previously a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, an Executive Producer and Co-host of “The Circus” on Showtime, and a special correspondent with CBS News. Her critically acclaimed memoir, Futureface, was published in 2018.

 

 

Coltrane: The Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend
by Ravi Coltrane, (Editor & Contributor)

With Contributors:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Wayne Coyne 
Dev Hynes 
Phil Lesh 
Julie Mehretu 
Carlos Santana 
Patti Smith

Ten Speed Press, 2026

[Publication date: September 1, 2026]

 

The definitive photographic celebration of John Coltrane's life and music, featuring exclusive contributions written by Ravi Coltrane, Wayne Coyne, Dev Hynes, Phil Lesh, Julie Mehretu, Carlos Santana, and Patti Smith.

John Coltrane's impact on music and culture endures far beyond his prolific career and untimely death in 1967 at age forty. His masterful saxophone style and groundbreaking jazz compositions had a profound effect on the evolution of music through the decades, and it continues to resonate across styles and genres to this day.

This beautiful photography book offers an intimate and in-depth look at his life with over one hundred expertly curated images taken by renowned photographers such as Chuck Stewart and Francis Wolff. The selection includes outtakes from the album cover photoshoot for Ascension, in-studio candid shots taken during the recording of Blue Train, a glimpse backstage with Alice Coltrane before their first performance together, and more. Coltrane is a visual celebration of John Coltrane's musical legacy, complete with an introduction by his son and fellow musician Ravi Coltrane, along with personal stories from other musicians, artists, and writers who have been moved by his work.

  

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ravi Coltrane is a critically acclaimed Grammy-nominated saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Born on Long Island, the second son of John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane, Ravi was named after Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar. He was raised in Los Angeles, where his family moved after his father's death in 1967. Ravi maintains a fast-paced touring, recording, composing, and performance schedule. He leads the effort to restore the John Coltrane Home in Dix Hills, Long Island, and presides over important reissues of his parents' recordings.

 
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

John Coltrane's Music Spoke My Words
by Kareen Abdul-Jabbar

When I was about fourteen years old living in New York City, I used to tune into WJZ (later WABC) and listen to “the dean of jazz radio,” Symphony Sid, a Jewish DJ who was responsible for introducing and promoting some of the greatest jazz musicians, including Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughn, Charlie Parker, and Billie Eckstine. Symphony Sid, whose real name was Sid Torin, had such an infectious passion for jazz that he is credited with popularizing bebop through his show, which reached thirty states.

I didn’t know about any of that. I tuned in to hear John Coltrane’s album My Favorite Things, which Symphony Sid played every night. And every night I eagerly tuned the radio dial to eighty so I could be transported by the edgy energy of Coltrane’s sassy saxophone.

This was not my first exposure to jazz. My father was a jazz musician who had graduated from Juilliard. And even though he was an imposing transit cop by day, he was still a swinging musician by night, playing with the likes of Sonny Rollins and Bill Lee (director Spike Lee’s father). Sometimes he took me with him to a gig and introduced me to his fellow musicians, including Tito Puente, Kenny Durham, and Ernie Henry. Ordinarily, my father was a quiet man, miserly with words as if each one cost him money. But when he played his music, he was speaking all the words he’d stored in his emotional vault. And the notes he bent and blasted spoke in a way that words could never quite equal. I heard what he had to say.

I, too, was a quiet person. My attempts at being a musician didn’t bear any sweet fruit, just some sour notes. If I couldn’t speak through music, listening to jazz was like hearing all my inner thoughts and feelings being spoken aloud. And no one spoke the mystical language of young Kareem better than John Coltrane.

I don’t think I was aware at the time that the title song from that album, My Favorite Things, originated in the 1959 Broadway musical. So when I first heard Julie Andrews’s chipper version, which has become a perennial Christmas hit, it was nothing like my experience with Coltrane’s version. Andrews’s song was whimsical and childlike (as befits lyrics about “whiskers on kittens”), while Coltrane blared a much more mature song that conveyed both longing and celebration. When Andrews’s version ended, the musical experience was over. But when Coltrane’s ended, the listener was still riding the aftermath as it lingered in their minds and bodies.

I finally met Coltrane when I was a freshman at UCLA at the famous It Club on West Washington Boulevard. I’d already heard of the It Club from Thelonious Monk’s 1964 album Live at the It Club. And I knew Miles Davis, another of my favorites, played there. There were also rumors that the owner, John McClain, had been friends with gangster “Bugsy” Siegel. For a college freshman, that just made it hipper.

After their set, I approached the band because the drummer, Elvin Jones, was friends with my uncle Steve. Elvin was happy to see me and introduced me to the boys in the band, including John Coltrane, who was as gracious as I could have hoped for. Jimmy Garrison, the bass player, even gave me an impromptu bass lesson, which, for white kids my age, would be akin to having Paul McCartney pull you onstage for a bass lesson.

That was the only time I saw him in person, though I did see his band several times again. A year and a half later, on July 17, 1967, John Coltrane died of liver cancer. He was only forty years old.

For me, fifty-four years have passed since I saw him, yet he still has the same power over me that he had when I was fourteen and tuning in nightly to Symphony Sid. In those five and a half decades, I’ve had time to reflect on why Coltrane had such an enduring effect on me and on his many fans.

To me, the essence of Coltrane is that he elevated every song he covered to a richer, more complex level. He took songs that were merely entertaining and made them inspiring. And his own compositions had that same innovative DNA that left the listener feeling like they’d descended deeper into a song than was possible and yet came out uplifted and invigorated. Those feelings are what inspired me to name my autobiography after one of his iconic compositions, “Giant Steps.”

Of course, today I recognize the irony that, while I’d used the title to poke fun at my height as well as my progress through life, it was really Coltrane who was taking giant steps and that with each massive stride forward, he was taking jazz and Black culture with him. He had been my voice when I was growing up, but he was also the voice of jazz as it too grew up from post–World War II to the modern era. His influence wasn’t just from his solo compositions and performances but also from his collaborations with other greats like Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis who produced the famous “sheets of sound” rush of notes.

John Coltrane’s music is the soundtrack to the Black experience in America. In his “Song of the Underground Railroad,” one can hear the sense of triumph, the elation of survival, and even the insistent chuffing of the drums urging us forward. The lively riffs in “Afro Blue” link the past with the present for African Americans. As I mention specific songs, I feel a rush of all his work filling me up with pride in who I am, and joy in being part of a larger, richer culture. I am fourteen, I am forty-five, I am seventy-two—all at the same time—and I am hearing my innermost thoughts and feelings floating through the air on the clouds of notes of John Coltrane.

 

Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century
by Margaret Busby
Hamish Hamilton UK, 2026

[Publication date: ‎ September 29, 2026]

'This fascinating and simply fantastic book is a comprehensive record of Margaret Busby's exceptional life story . . . A true trailblazer, we all walk in the deep imprints of her footsteps' Bernardine Evaristo

This rare self-portrait from pioneering publisher, writer and cultural activist Margaret Busby underscores her powerful legacy and celebrates some of the people and places that have shaped her exceptional life

Margaret Busby has been at the heart of cultural life in the UK for over 50 years. From becoming Britain's youngest and first Black woman publisher when she founded publishing house Allison & Busby, to editing the ground-breaking international anthologies Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa, her many achievements are testament to her dedication to championing the lives and stories of others, particularly those throughout the world who have been marginalised by the mainstream.

With little attention previously given to her own skills as a writer, Part of the Story is a unique opportunity to enjoy her own remarkable literary output. It brings together her writings on people, places, politics and publishing, and provides a rich insight into the many elements that have contributed to shaping her life, from her childhood in Ghana to the Black writers, intellectuals, artists and activists she has worked with, befriended, supported and championed for over half a century.

REVIEW:

'Margaret has been a cheerleader, instigator, organiser, defender and celebrator of black arts for the past 50 years . . . She helped change the landscape of both UK publishing and arts coverage and so many Black British artists owe her a debt. I know I do' –Zadie Smith

Land of Our Own: Malcolm X and the Evolution of Black Nationalism
by Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar
Polity,  2026

[Publication date: ‎September 8, 2026]

 

Black nationalist ideas have been debated over centuries, and have shaped black religious, cultural, economic, and intellectual thought. But how is black nationalism popularly understood? And how should we reckon with the unique position of black people in the United States, where black nationalism has been fundamentally shaped by the white nationalism expressed before the Civil War?

In this illuminating new book, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar sheds much-needed light on black community, unity, and identity. The story of black nationalism is not limited to "back-to-Africa" Garveyites or to the religious nationalism of the Nation of Islam. By retelling the story of Malcolm X, Ogbar reveals how black nationalist thought has shaped ideas centered on internationalism, self-determination, self-defense, and electoral empowerment. More than "racial solidarity" or racial pride, black nationalism seeks territorial and political sovereignty – and the (often transnational) efforts to achieve nationhood have brought disparate communities together under the single banner of nationalism.

Offering both a panoramic and meticulous history, this lively book is essential reading for anyone who has been curious about the extraordinary impact of black nationalism in contemporary America.

REVIEWS:

"Today, more than ever, we need Malcolm's model of a revolutionary spirit, his love for oppressed people, his commitment to self-determination, and his belief in political sovereignty. Land of Our Own is brilliantly argued, and in many ways undeniable."
Kellie Carter Jackson, Wellesley College and author of We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance

"For many, black nationalism evokes iconic images of Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. In Land of Our Own, Jeffrey Ogbar broadens this familiar narrative. A masterful synthesis of history and political thought, this book is essential reading for newcomers and established students of black nationalism alike."
Ashley D. Farmer, author of Queen Mother, Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Connecticut.