Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The American Newness | 1986 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 2 | Highbrow/Lowbrow | 1988 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 3 | Revolutions | 1990 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 4 | Playing in the Dark | 1992 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 5 | The Southern Tradition | 1994 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 6 | Writing Was Everything | 1998 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 7 | The Dissent of the Governed | 1998 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 8 | Achieving Our Country | 1999 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 9 | The Real American Dream | 1999 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 10 | To Be the Poet | 2002 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 11 | Reporting the Universe | 2003 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 12 | Circles and Lines | 2004 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 13 | Architecture as Signs and Systems | 2004 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 14 | Reshaping the Work-Family Debate | 2010 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 15 | Tiger Writing | 2013 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 16 | Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations | 2015 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
| 17 | Just a Journalist | 2017 | Toni Morrison | Buy |
The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization bring a different scholar or public figure to Harvard each year to deliver lectures on some aspect of American life. The seventeen published volumes span from 1986 to 2017 and cover literature, politics, race, architecture, journalism, and more.
Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark (1992) is the best-known volume, examining the role of Blackness in the American literary imagination. Other notable entries include Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country and Maxine Hong Kingston’s To Be the Poet. The series gives each lecturer room to develop an extended argument while keeping the books short enough for a general audience.