464 results for "American History"

Facing Black and Jew: literature as public space in twentieth-century America

Newton, Adam Zachary
A reading of African American and Jewish American writers from Henry Roth and Ralph Ellison to Philip Roth and David Bradley. Reading the work of such writers alongside and through one another, Newton's book offers an original way of juxtaposing two major traditions in modern American literature, and rethinking the sometimes vexed relationship between two constituencies ordinarily confined to sociopolitical or media commentary alone. Newton combines Emmanuel Levinas's ethical philosophy and Walter Benjamin's theory of allegory in shaping an innovative kind of ethical-political criticism. Through artful, dialogical readings of Saul Bellow and Chester Himes, David Mamet and Anna Deavere Smith, and others, Newton seeks to represent American Blacks and Jews outside the distorting mirror of 'Black-Jewish Relations', and restrictive literary histories alike. A final chapter addresses the Black/Jewish dimension of the O. J. Simpson trial.
Cambridge University Press 1999-07-15 218 pages

Love in black and white: a memoir of race, religion, and romance

Cohen, William S.
Streaming Video on Love In Black & White now available at Expandedbooks.com Most Americans regard the World War II period as belonging to the "greatest generation," but it was also a time when religious intolerance and racial violence flourished. Shamefully, it was commonplace to see signs that read "Whites Only" or "Jews Not Allowed." It is within this world that this compelling memoir is set. William Cohen, born in Bangor, Maine, was the eldest son of a Jewish father and a Protestant Irish mother. Janet Langhart, an African-American, was raised in Indianapolis, Indiana by her single parent mother, a Southern Baptist. The book draws fascinating parallels between the histories of two people from different regions, races, and religions, as both are witnesses to and targets of the social tensions of the day. Throughout Love in Black and White, readers accompany Bill and Janet in their struggle to overcome to the barriers of ethnic and racial bigotry and hatred. The stories are rich and profound. At times they are amusing. Other times, harrowing. Against impossible odds, Bill would be elected to serve his country as a U.S. Congressman and Senator, and Janet would become a prominent television personality, activist, and highly respected businesswoman and author. Opposites in so many ways―in color, faith and culture―seemingly a bundle of contradictions, they meet in 1974, become friends, and eventually fall in love. They decide to marry on Valentine's Day 1996 in the very place that once harbored some of the nation's most prominent racists-the U.S. Capitol. They receive the surprise of a lifetime when Bill is asked by President Bill Clinton to serve as the nation's 20th Secretary of Defense. It is a calling that proves to be life transforming for both him and Janet, as they lead, inspire and bring comfort to the men and women who defend our nation. It is at the Pentagon where they witness just how powerful our nation ca
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2007 373 pages

Antisemitism and the American far left

Norwood, Stephen H.
"Stephen H. Norwood has written the first systematic study of the American far left's role in both propagating and combating antisemitism. This book covers Communists from 1920 onward, Trotskyists, the New Left and its black nationalist allies, and the contemporary remnants of the New Left. Professor Norwood analyzes the deficiencies of the American far left's explanations of Nazism and the Holocaust. He explores far left approaches to militant Islam, from condemnation of its fierce antisemitism in the 1930s to recent apologies for jihad. Norwood discusses the far left's use of long-standing theological and economic antisemitic stereotypes that the far right also embraced. The study analyzes the far left's antipathy to Jewish culture, as well as its occasional efforts to promote it. He considers how early Marxist and Bolshevik paradigms continued to shape American far left views of Jewish identity, Zionism, Israel, and antisemitism"--
Cambridge University Press 2013-08-19 318 pages

Cry Havoc! The Great American Bring-down and how it Happened

Ralph de Toledano
In Cry Havoc!, legendary journalist Ralph de Toledano documents in chilling detail how a cabal of intellectuals, educrats, and politicians, manipulated by a well-financed, world-wide conspiracy, organized a strategy to undermine the American system -- and how this has been accomplished."Cry Havoc is must-reading." -- William F. Buckley, Jr."Cry Havoc is not only well written, but absolutely right." -- Prof. Herbert London
Anthem Books 2006 254 pages

The paradox of American democracy: elites, special interests, and the betrayal of the public trust

Judis, John B.
John B. Judis, one of our most insightful political commentators, most rational and careful thinkers, and most engaged witnesses in Washington, has taken on a challenge that even the most concerned American citizens shrink from: forecasting the American political climate at the turn of the century. The Paradox of American Democracy is a penetrating examination of our democracy that illuminates the forces and institutions that once enlivened it and now threaten to undermine it. It is the well-reasoned discussion we need in this era of unrestrained expert opinions and ideologically biased testimony. The disenchantment with our political system can be seen in decreasing voter turnout, political parties co-opted by consultants and large contributors, the corrupting influence of "soft money," and concern for national welfare subverted by lobbying organizations and special-interest groups. Judis revisits particular moments -- the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the 1960s -- to discover what makes democracy the most efficacious and, consequently, most inefficacious. What has worked in the past is a balancing act between groups of elites --- trade commissions, labor relations boards, policy groups -- whose mandates are to act in the national interest and whose actions are governed by a disinterested pursuit of the common good. Judis explains how the displacment of such elites by a new lobbying community in Whashington has given rise to the cynicism that corrodes the current political system. The Paradox of American Democracy goes straight to the heart of every political debate in this country.
Pantheon Books 2000-02-15 305 pages

The dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: culture, politics, and the formation of a modern diaspora

Beinin, Joel
Egypt's indigenous Jewish population comprised Arabic-speaking Rabbanite and Karaite Jews, some of whom had been in the country since the early Islamic era. Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 took refuge in Egypt, and their numbers were augmented in the mid-nineteenth century by Sephardic immigrants. Originally welcomed elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, these Spanish Jews came to Egypt seeking economic opportunity in the era of Suez Canal construction and the cotton boom. The late nineteenth century brought Ashkenazi Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. The different groups formed a heterogeneous community of cosmopolitan hybrids, which was both an element of strength and a factor in its eventual demise. The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry examines the history of the Egyptian Jewish community after 1948, focusing on three major areas: the life of the majority of the community, which remained in Egypt from the1948 Arab-Israeli War until the aftermath of the 1956 Suez/Sinai War; the dispersion and reestablishment of Egyptian Jewish communities in the United states, France, and Israel; and contested memories of Jewish life in Egypt since President Anwar al-Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977. Beinin argues that the experiences of Egyptian Jews cannot be adequately accounted for by either Egyptian nationalist or Zionist narratives. Fusing history, ethnography, literary analysis, and autobiography, Joel Beinin conducts an interdisciplinary investigation into identity, dispersion, and the retrieval of identity that is relevant for anyone interested in Egypt, the Jewish diaspora, or the formation of cultures and identities.
American University in Cairo Press 2005 329 pages

Commies A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left (Large Print 16pt)

Ronald Radosh
Ronald Radosh's earliest memory is of being trundled off to May Day celebrations by his communist parents with a Soviet flag stuck in his baby carriage. Then came education at New York's ''little red schoolhouse.'' Summers at ''commie camp.'' And college at the University of Wisconsin where he became a founding father of the New Left. Commies is a brilliant memoir of growing up in the culture of radicalism. But it also about the hard decisions faced by those professing a radical faith. For Radosh himself, the crisis came when he concluded in his authoritative book on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg that the couple (on whose behalf he had demonstrated as a boy) had indeed been guilty of spying. Attacked as a ''traitor,'' Radosh began to question his political commitments. His disillusionment climaxed in the 1980s when he traveled through Central America as a journalist and historian and ran into his old comrades there still searching for the revolution. One journalist calls Ronald Radosh ''the Zelig of the American Left, seen everywhere and knowing everyone.'' Humorous and tragic, filled with anecdote and personality, Commies is a trip log of his journey, the most intimate look yet at the experience of a radical generation.
ReadHowYouWant.com 2010-06 332 pages

Aerograms across the ocean: a love story in letters

Biale, David,Biale, Rachel
"In August 1970, David Biale, a 21-year-old American Jewish student, arrived at Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin in Israel's Bet She'an Valley as a volunteer. There, he met Rachel Korati, nine days shy of her eighteenth birthday. They began an intense dialogue about how a secular Jew might be Jewish and what the role of Israel and kibbutz ought to be in modern Jewish life. They also found a common language in the counter-culture of the 1960s to which both were drawn. Upon David's return to university studies in Berkeley and Rachel's first steps into independent adulthood - living in a town near Tel Aviv and working as a youth movement counselor -- the two commenced a correspondence in which they continued their intellectual and ideological discussions from the summer, engaging Jewish sources on the one hand, and contemporary events on the other. Gradually, the letters became more intimate and so began an epistolary romance, which one might associate more with the nineteenth century and which would be inconceivable in today's world of texting and email. Over the next two years, the correspondence continued, often on a daily basis. Twice, David's plans to come to Israel were dashed. The two struggled to hold onto a relationship composed primarily of written words. In the fall of 1971, Rachel was drafted into the Israeli Army and David had his own brush with the American draft in the last phase of the Vietnam War. Aerograms Across the Ocean: A Love Story in Letters opens a rare window into the lives and thoughts of two passionate young people, trying to find their identities and life trajectories in the tumultuous early 1970s. By turns philosophical and playful, poetic and prosaic, idealistic and uncertain, pensive and erotic, this jointly-written memoir is a coming-of-age story in Israel after the Six Day War and in America in the shadow of the Vietnam War. The book is organized around the 258 letters the authors exchanged, a correspondence that takes readers back into a different age, half a century ago." --
Wildcat Books 2021-12-15 232 pages

Paul Krassner's Impolite interviews

Krassner, Paul
Krassner's Impolite Interviews delivers 21 of the most compelling encounters you will ever witness, from a 1959 interview with author Alan Watts to Timothy Leary in 1995 just weeks before he died, from Norman Mailer talking about sex to Jerry Garcia recounting what it was like to play the Pyramids. Each interview gives a unique take on major issues: Communism, segregation, the Cold War, the sexual revolution, the drug culture, by major personalities. Impolite Interviews presents perspectives as diverse as George Lincoln Rockwell (then head of the American Nazi Party) and spiritual master Ram Dass. Krassner offers readers an illuminating look at some of the most important figures of the second half of this century through the eyes of one of this era's most innovative journalists.
Seven Stories Press 1999-09-07 340 pages