Books in Lucent Library of Historical Eras series

Inventiveness and boldness were the chief hallmarks of the greatest and most influential of the Elizabethan playwrights. John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, George Peele, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson, whose lives and works are explored in volume, used their extraordinary talents to give everyday people of all classes entertainment of a scale and quality they had never known before. And in so doing, they created the English-speaking theater practically overnight.

When people are routinely and systematically oppressed for years, it is only logical that they eventually rise up against their oppressors. For African slaves in North America, these rebellions were largely unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the anger and uprisings that came from people who wanted their freedom and were willing to fight for it are important parts of the story of the fight to end slavery. Readers get a deeper understanding of crucial slave rebellions throughout history through thoroughly researched text, primary sources, and topical photographs.

This survey of African-American inventors includes some familiar names, but more whose names are less recognizable than their work. The stories of these bright and ambitious individuals are about science, technology, and individual discovery, but also about what it means — and what it has meant — to be black in the United States. Profiles of the most prominent inventors during each era of American history illustrate how blacks were viewed in society, as well as how they perceived themselves and how they functioned as a community through time.