Michael Eric Dyson

At the age of nineteen, Nasir "Nas" Jones began recording tracks for his debut album and changed the world forever. Released in 1994, Illmatic was hailed as a masterpiece and has proven itself one of the most influential albums in hip-hop history.

Whether along race, class or generational lines, hip-hop music has been a source of controversy since the beats got too big and the voices too loud for the block parties that spawned them. America has condemned and commended this music and the culture that inspires it.

In the final book in a collaborative series between the New York Public Library and Oxford University Press on the seven deadly sins, Dyson examines pride in its many iterations, invoking pop culture icons and events to lend accessibility to a potentially didactic subject.

When Bill Cosby, iconic figure of American fatherhood, began criticizing the child-raising attributes of the black urban poor, he provoked a storm of discussion within the black community. Dyson places the comedian in the tradition of black elites, referred to as "Afristocrats," who were highly critical of poor blacks for making the race look bad in front of white folks.

From Publishers Weekly

Michie's account of learning to teach in a big and often unwieldy public school system deals honestly with the critical moral issues all teachers must face. While not shying away from hard truths, he lends a measure of hope, humor, and practical insight about the difficult work of teaching for social justice.