Robert Perkinson is a professor of American studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His writing has appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, and Boston Review, among other venues. Texas Tough is his first book.

Drawing on convict accounts, official records, and interviews with prisoners, guards, and lawmakers, Robert reveals the Southern roots of our present-day prison colossus. While conventional histories emphasize the North’s rehabilitative approach, he shows how the retributive and profit-driven regime of the South ultimately triumphed. Most provocatively, he argues that just as convict leasing and segregation emerged in response to Reconstruction, so today’s mass incarceration, with its vast racial disparities, must be seen as a backlash against civil rights. Illuminating for the first time the origins of America’s prison juggernaut, Texas Tough points toward a more just and humane future.

Arthur Lefkowitz currently serves on the Board of Governors of the American Revolution Round Table. Arthur lectures extensively for The New Jersey Council for the Humanities on the subject of The American Revolution. His lecture credits also include various National Park Service historical sites and The Fraunces Tavern Museum in Manhattan famous as the site where George Washington bid farewell to his officers.

His latest book, Benedict Arnold’s Army: The 1775 American Invasion of Canada During the Revolutionary War, is a fascinating account of scholarship. In one of the greatest exploits in American military history, Arnold led his famished corps through the early winter snow up and over the Appalachian Mountains to the St. Lawrence River. On the distant riverbank, Quebec beckoned. Arnold crossed his corps and besieged the British. When the second prong of the invasion arrived under General Montgomery, the officers launched a daring assault on the last day of the year upon the walled city. The objective of Arnold and his heroic corps was the fortress city of Quebec, the capital of British-held Canada. Based upon extensive primary sources and a keen understanding of the terrain, Benedict Arnold's Army examines in fascinating detail a largely unknown but important period of both the Revolution and Arnold's fascinating life.

Arthur provides key insights into Arnold's character during the earliest phase of his military career, revealing his aggressive nature, his need for recognition, his experience as a competitive businessman, and his obsession with honor. When readers close this book, they will understand for the first time what started one of Washington's favorite and most capable officers down the fateful path to treason.

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