114: Penguin African Library, part IV
August 13, 2012
I guess will start this week off with one of the darker—in content and color—covers for the Penguin African Library. Reginald H. Green and Ann Seidman’s Unity of Poverty: The…
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Judging Books by Their Covers
Judging Books by Their Covers is Josh MacPhee's ongoing series of writings and image collections of book covers. Although sometimes they feel marginal today, books have been a primary form of information and cultural exchange for almost 400 years. Book covers are often a person's first contact with the ideas inside, and in the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, cover designs are even more likely to shape the opinions of those that pick them up since many of us are too busy to ever read the entirety of the books. Judging Books by Their Covers largely focuses on—but is not exclusive to—the book covers and design coming out of the Left.
Josh is always looking for more book covers to feature. If you've got some gems he missed, or have ideas, drop him an email at josh (at) justseeds.org 
113: Penguin African Library, part III
August 6, 2012
This week we’ll pick up with the fifteenth title in the Penguin African Library (PAL), Peter Mansfield’s Nasser’s Egypt (AP16: 1965). With this book the separation of the three sections…
112: Penguin African Library, part II
July 30, 2012
This week I’m going to continue working through the covers of the Penguin African Library, started last week HERE. Once again, one of the things I find so compelling about…
111: Penguin African Library, part I
July 23, 2012
In 1962, British paperback publisher Penguin launched a new book series, the Penguin African Library (PAL). Along with the Heinemann African Writers Series, it is one of the most ambitious…
110: Frantz Fanon, part X
July 16, 2012
Here is the final post in this long-running Fanon series. Thanks to all that have been with me for the entire ride! You can see all the covers (133 different…
109: Frantz Fanon, part IX
July 9, 2012
Let’s start off the second installment of Fanon biographies with Jock McColloch’s Black Soul, White Artifact (Cambridge University, 1983), which takes the African mask metaphor further than any of the…
108: Frantz Fanon, part VIII
July 2, 2012
This week I’m going to dig into the biographies and books about Frantz Fanon. I’m going to start with three of the most popular biographies: Irene L. Gendzier’s Fanon: A…
107: Frantz Fanon, part VII
June 25, 2012
Now that I’ve gone through all the Fanon titles proper, here is a collection of strange odds and ends, books that contain Fanon’s writing, but aren’t standard editions. To start…
106: Frantz Fanon, part VI
June 18, 2012
Toward the African Revolution was first published in 1964, after Fanon’s death. It is a broad collection of his short essays, many written while he was traveling across Africa as…
105: Frantz Fanon, part V
May 28, 2012
The second book written by Fanon was A Dying Colonialism. The book was originally published in 1959 by Maspero in France as Year Five of the Algerian Revolution, then later…
104: Frantz Fanon, part IV
May 21, 2012
Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks was initially published in 1952 by Editions Du Seuil. I’ve been digging around and have yet to find a cover for that first edition,…
103: Frantz Fanon, part III
May 14, 2012
If Wretched of the Earth is Fanon’s manual for anti-colonial revolt, Black Skin, White Masks is the intellectual backbone behind it. Originally published in 1952, and based on his rejected…
102: Frantz Fanon, part II
April 2, 2012
Let’s start off part two of the covers of Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (read part one HERE) with this beautiful cover from the 1961 Portuguese edition published by Editora…
101: Frantz Fanon, part I
March 26, 2012
I can’t quite remember exactly when and where I was first introduced to Frantz Fanon. I do remember pulling down the pocket paperback to the right (Grove Press, 1968) off…
100: B. Traven, part X
March 12, 2012
What better way to celebrate 100 posts about book covers than another batch of B. Traven designs! Here’s part ten of my features on Traven, this time adding 34 more…
99: Hammers & Sickles, part I
March 5, 2012
One of the most compelling political symbols of the 20th century is the hammer and sickle. Although it was created during the Russian Revolution, and became the official symbol of…
98: Black Power
February 27, 2012
Working on the Angela Davis covers has got me thinking about representations of Black liberation. In particular, I’ve been trying to sort out and understand the surprisingly successful cover to…
97: Angela Davis, part III
February 13, 2012
Here’s the last hurrah of the Angela Davis covers (pending any great ones y’all might send in to me!), a collection of books by other authors about Davis and her…
96: Angela Davis, part II
February 6, 2012
Onward to the Angela Davis pamphlets! Because these have been produced by a diverse collection of publishers and activist groups, the design is much broader and more interesting than the…
95: Angela Davis, part I
January 30, 2012
While working on my posts about the covers of books about prisons (JBbTC 39–45, 52), I started a folder of Angela Davis covers, which has now grown large enough to…