ISSI Books

Black Liverpool. 'The real thing': West African, West Indian and Afro-American culture at the end of the twentieth century

Stephen Small
2026

By Stephen Small (Liverpool University Press, 2026): This book describes the Black community in Liverpool and the arrival, embrace and transformation of waves of transnational Black culture from Africa, the West Indies and the United States in the final three decades of the twentieth century. Transnational cultural influences were spread via the media, brought first-hand by visitors to Liverpool, and through Liverpool residents who travelled internationally.

Liverpool’s Black community was...

Fatema Mernissi for Our Times

Minoo Moallem
Paola Bacchetta
2026

Edited by Minoo Moallem and Paola Bacchetta

This volume pays tribute to the late Fatema Mernissi, a pioneering feminist sociologist and writer whose work profoundly influenced feminist and civic activism in Muslim and Arab societies and beyond. Bringing together an international group of scholars, the book explores pressing issues of women, gender, and sexuality in Muslim and Arab countries and their diasporas, engaging in a dynamic dialogue
with Mernissi’s work.

The collection examines Mernissi’s contributions through three...

Co-Motion: Re-Thinking Power, Subjects, and Feminist and Queer Alliances

Paola Bacchetta
2026

By: Paola Bacchetta

In Co-Motion, theorist Paola Bacchetta proposes a new lexicon for analyzing power, subjects and alliances. Employing what she calls ‘theory-assemblages’ to describe how diverse theoretical and political approaches inspire movements and produce different kinds of alliances, Bacchetta engages the inseparability of power relations—such as colonialism, capitalism, racism, caste, misogyny, and speciesism—and how their combinations, operability, and the analyses they require, shift in different...

Racialised Barriers: The Black Experience in the United States and England in the 1980's

Stephen Small
1994

Stephen Small- A systematic comparison of key differences and similarities in the experience of black people in the US and England amidst racial hostility. Small argues for an approach to combatting this built on shared racial identities.

Black Europe and the African Diaspora

Stephen Small
Trica Danielle Keaton
Darlene Clark Hine
2009

Edited by Darlene Clark Hine, Trica Danielle Keaton, and Stephen Small - The presence of Blacks in a number of European societies has drawn increasing interest from scholars, policymakers, and the general public. This interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary collection penetrates the multifaceted Black presence in Europe, and, in so doing, complicates the notions of race, belonging, desire, and identities assumed and presumed in revealing portraits of Black experiences in a European context. In focusing on contemporary intellectual currents and themes,...

New Perspectives on Slavery and Colonialism in the Caribbean

Stephen Small
2012

Stephen Small - This reader consists of 11 articles that focus on slavery and the legacy of slavery in Suriname and the Caribbean. Analysis of slavery in the Caribbean, including variations in the nature, functioning and legacies of slavery across territories with different imperial masters – including the English, Spanish and French – has a long history and has produced a very substantial literature. There is far less work on the Dutch Caribbean, including Suriname. This reader makes a contribution to increasing our attention on the Dutch Caribbean, as well as its...

Global Mixed Race

Stephen Small
Miri Song
Paul Spickard
Rebecca C. King-O’Rian
Minelle Mahtan
2014

By Stephen Small - Patterns of migration and the forces of globalization have brought the issues of mixed race to the public in far more visible, far more dramatic ways than ever before. Global Mixed Race examines the contemporary experiences of people of mixed descent in nations around the world, moving beyond US borders to explore the dynamics of racial mixing and multiple descent in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Okinawa, Australia, and New Zealand. In particular, the volume’s editors ask: how have new...

20 Questions and Answers on Dutch Slavery and its Legacy

Stephen Small
Sandew Hira
2015

By Stephen Small and Sandew HiraMost people in the Netherlands think of slavery and the slave trade as something that happened a long time ago, did not affect many people, and have little relevance to Dutch society today. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that politics, economics, religion, architecture and art in Amsterdam, Middelburg and other cities across the nation are inseparable and inextricable from Dutch slavery and the slave trade. This book details the history and legacy of Dutch slavery and the slave trade in the form of 20 questions...

20 Questions & Answers on Black Europe

Stephen Small
2017

By Stephen Small - Europe is made up of at least 46 nations, and a population of more than 770 million people. Black people of African descent are estimated at more than 7 million, with at least 90% of them in just 12 nations. Stephen Small offers an in-depth analysis of what exactly is Black Europe, and what are the experiences of Black people in Europe. He defines Black Europe and addresses questions about gender and demography; about history and the legacies of slavery, colonialism and imperialism; the politics of racism, political representation and community...

1981 – Black Liverpool Past and Present

Stephen Small
Jimi Jagne
2022

By Stephen Small and Jimi Jagne. 1981 – Black Liverpool Past and Present provides insight into the history of Liverpool’s Black communities through the eyes of two Liverpudlians: Jimi Jagne and Stephen Small. Centred around the 1981 Uprising as a pinnacle moment, the book contextualises Liverpool’s Black history before and after. In doing so, the book recognises the people who have shaped Liverpool and their stories of resistance and self-determination.