December 2012 Long Distance Revolutionary: a Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal, is a compelling documentary about a riveting historical figure—a passionate, partisan, and persuasive intervention in the not at all “free marketplace of ideas.” Mumia Abu Jamal is the most famous...

Preface to the review which follows below: My work on Stephen Spielberg's film, Lincoln has been transformative. I have gone back to read W. E. B. Dubois’ Black Reconstruction in America, Doris Kearns Goodman’s Band of Rivals, and Fawn Brodie’s...

My thesis is that the film does a great historical disservice by portraying the Civil War as a debate among white people about Black people, who, in the film, hardly exist. I am especially disappointed and baffled by the decisions...