Four Hundred Souls by Ibram X. Kendi and Kiesha N. Blain

Last year marked the four hundredth anniversary of the first African presence in the Americas-and also launched the Four Hundred Souls project, spearheaded by Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracism Institute of American University, and Keisha Blain, editor of The North Star.

They've gathered together eighty black writers from all disciplines-historians and artists, journalists and novelists-each of whom has contributed an entry about one five-year period to create a dynamic multi voiced single-volume history of black people in America.