As chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in the seventies, Arthur Burns had a unique view of the Nixon administration. Burns first joined the Nixon administration as an advisor in 1969 and was privy to the dynamics of the president's coterie over the course of six tumultuous years. Now the recently released secret diary of this top-level economist offers a surprisingly candid inside look at Richard Nixon's fall. The diary tracks Burns's growing awareness of Nixon's behind-the-scenes maneuverings and worrisome behavior (such as "insane shouting") and reveals how such things undermined his respect and enthusiasm for the president. Perhaps even more telling, Burns's evaluations of his colleagues provide piercing insights into the president's inner circle, including Henry Kissinger ("a brilliant political analyst, but admittedly ignorant of economics"), George Schultz ("a no less confused amateur economist"), John Connally ("a thoroughly confused politician"), and the "vulgarians" H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman-the only people he thought Nixon felt relaxed around. The Burns diary also offers rare and telling glimpses into the era's economy--particularly an account of how Nixon exerted political pressure to shape monetary policies that helped to fuel the stagflation of the 1970s. The administration sought to close the so-called gold window, an approximate valuation of dollars with gold bullion, by floating the dollar, and the consensus over many years has been that Nixon himself arranged this-speculation now confirmed by Burns's diary. It also underscores the growing pressure Burns felt to serve the needs of Nixon's reelection bid rather than the economic welfare of the nation. Sequestered for decades and unavailable until 2008, this document reveals an honest and relatively apolitical man surrounded by partisans in top administrative positions who were dishonest, inept-or both. "The President has many shortcomings," wrote Burns. "He has few convictions, but now and then he gets into a euphoric mood where he wants to persuade himself that he's a statesman. But his sycophantic advisers cannot even recognize that." Deftly annotated by distinguished historian Robert Ferrell, who provides effective historical context and perspective, the Burns diary is a potent-and poignant-testament to the Machiavellian and often Byzantine world of American presidential politics.

Drawing from a broad range of articles, speeches, short stories, pamphlets, sermons, debates, laws, public statements, Supreme Court decisions and conventions, this documentary history demonstrates the persistence of a humanist, if not an anti-racist, pulse in American society in the face of discriminatory government policy and prevalent anti-Asian ideology and treatment. Focusing on support for the rights of Japanese and Chinese immigrants and their descendants, the book traces a 130-year period, culminating with the governmental redress for survivors of the Japanese evacuation and internment during WWII. Foner and Rosenberg highlight expressions from the clergy, the labor movement, the abolitionists, and public figures such as Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, John Stuart Mill, Norman Thomas and Carey McWilliams. It includes material never before published showing Black support for Asian rights and demonstrates the consistency of the Industrial Worker of the World's solidarity with Chinese and Japanese-American workers. It is also the first work to give serious treatment to clergymen's efforts against anti-Asian discrimination. After the introduction, Foner discusses law and dissent. The next four sections are devoted to statements by public figures, the views of the clergy, the labor movement and African-Americans. The final section covers relocation and protest. The book provides a valuable contribution to the debates on American dissent in general and against racism in particular, the meaning of American nationality, the criminality of the evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the immigration policies of the United States government.

This volume is a documented history of the Jewish people in North America from the late 16th century. It chronicles the evolving domestic, religious and political experiences of Jews in the American colonies and later the United States.

Medical Progress and Social Reality is an anthology of nineteenth-century literature on medicine and medical practice. Situated at the interdisciplinary juncture of medicine, history, and literature, it includes mostly fictional but also some nonfictional works by British, French, American, and Russian writers that describe the day-to-day social realities of medicine during a period of momentous change. Issues addressed in these works include the hierarchy in the profession, the use of new instruments such as the stethoscope, the advent of women doctors, the function of the hospital, and the shifting balance of power between physicians and patients. The volume provides an introductory overview of the most important aspects of medical progress in the nineteenth century, and it includes an annotated bibliography of further readings in medical history and literature. Selections from Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Gustave Flaubert, Sarah Orne Jewett, Sinclair Lewis, Mikhail Bulgakov, and others are included, as well as the American Medical Association's 1847 Code of Ethics.

"This is a work of genuine discovery that uses both the methods and sources of first-rate scholarship. It is a valuable addition to the 'new thinking' about the Middle East, [although] there are many who will refute its contribution without so much as a glance at its first page because it was written by Elmer Berger. The loss is theirs. Who will gain are those, like Berger himself, with an open mind and a willingness to become familiar with new perspectives on an ancient controversy."--From the Foreword by Don Peretz, professor of political science, SUNY-Binghamton At the outset of the 1949 armistice negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, acting UN mediator Ralph Bunche expressed his hope that the talks would "chart the road to a peace for Palestine," an outcome apparently as elusive today as when he spoke those words more than forty years ago. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this meticulously documented analysis of those negotiations is its relevance for today's headlines. Relating the proposals and counterproposals, the conspiracies and power plays to present-day Israeli and Middle East policies, Berger suggests that the basic negotiating strategies of the main players have persisted almost unchanged into the present, a "near rigidity" that has defeated all efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East's central conflict. Berger is a controversial rabbi, an avowed anti-Zionist who proves himself capable of examining highly flammable issues and events with objectivity, insight, and rigorous scholarship. Drawing upon newly released material from official Israeli and U.S. archives, Berger manages to paint both the large picture and the telling detail--the frustrations of the conscientious and highly respected Bunche, the pathetically unprepared Arab negotiators, the well-informed Israeli diplomats, the intrigue of the Israel-Transjordan alliance. The work will serve serious observers of the prolonged conflict over Palestine as a guide to applicable international law and to the attitudes and negotiating policies of the countries involved. Elmer Berger has for twenty-five years been president of American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism, Inc., and has written and edited a number of books on Judaism and Jewish nationalism. At the outset of the 1949 armistice negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, acting UN mediator Ralph Bunche expressed his hope that the talks would "chart the road to a peace for Palestine," an outcome apparently as elusive today as when he spoke those words more than forty years ago. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this meticulously documented analysis of those negotiations is its relevance for today's headlines. Relating the proposals and counterproposals, the conspiracies and power plays to present-day Israeli and Middle East policies, Berger suggests that the basic negotiating strategies of the main players have persisted almost unchanged into the present, a "near rigidity" that has defeated all efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East's central conflict. Berger is a controversial rabbi, an avowed anti-Zionist who proves himself capable of examining highly flammable issues and events with objectivity, insight, and rigorous scholarship. Drawing upon newly released material from official Israeli and U.S. archives, Berger manages to paint both the large picture and the telling detail--the frustrations of the conscientious and highly respected Bunche, the pathetically unprepared Arab negotiators, the well-informed Israeli diplomats, the intrigue of the Israel-Transjordan alliance. The work will serve serious observers of the prolonged conflict over Palestine as a guide to applicable international law and to the attitudes and negotiating policies of the countries involved. Elmer Berger has for twenty-five years been president of American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism, Inc., and has written and edited a number of books on Judaism and Jewish nationalism.

The changed situation of Western Jewry in the 19th-20th centuries caused Jews to revise their conceptions of Jewry as a community and of its place in the world. Six Judaic systems emerged. Discusses each one in detail. While the 19th-century trends (Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative) developed in response to the needs of integration with the non-Jewish world, the 20th-century Judaisms (Zionism, Jewish Socialism and Yiddishism, and the American Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption) were a response to aggressive antisemitism and to the crisis caused by the rapid social and economic restructuring of Central and Eastern Europe. The events of May-June 1967 in the Middle East brought about a new trend - Holocaust and Redemption Judaism, in the center of which are the Holocaust (mythicized and perceived as a metaphor for absolute evil) and the State of Israel (perceived as the redemption for the Holocaust). This Judaism contains a salvific myth and possesses all the traits of a religious system. The exposition is accompanied by excerpts from books and articles.

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) devoted his life to improving the conditions of American workers through better wages, shorter workdays, and safer workplaces, achieved through common effort, democratic organization, and practical action. His objective was betterment, or, as he often said, "more." His moral vision was grounded in a commitment to social justice and a passion for service. A cigar maker by trade, he became the American Federation of Labor's first president in 1886 and, except for one year, remained its president until his death, guiding it through prosperity and recession, war and peacetime. By the time Gompers died, the AFL was a major force on the national scene and had claimed over four million members. Gompers was a tireless writer and impassioned speaker, and he left behind an immense archive of articles and editorials, addresses and testimony before a variety of audiences, and extensive correspondence with allies and adversaries alike. His correspondents included trade unionists and political leaders, reformers and radicals, captains of industry defending their positions, and workers asking for help or advice. The twelve volumes of The Samuel Gompers Papers, edited by Stuart B. Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, and Grace Palladino, for the first time make Gompers' wide-ranging and complex documentary legacy accessible to scholars, students, historians, and serious readers in the labor movement and among the public at large. This invaluable comprehensive index provides a key to the Gompers volumes. It not only allows quick reference to individual documents but permits scholars to see at a glance the contours and emphases in subject matter and locate the substantive annotations of key individuals and unions, strikes and lockouts, conferences and meetings, and legislation and key concepts in the history of the Gompers era.

When Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph was published in 1995, it was acclaimed as the first comprehensive history of black women’s struggles and achievements. This companion volume contains the original source materials that Ruthe Winegarten uncovered during her extensive research. Like a time capsule of black women’s history, A Sourcebook includes petitions from free women of color, lawsuits, slave testimonies, wills, plantation journals, club minutes, autobiographies, ads, congressional reports, contracts, prison records, college catalogues, newspaper clippings, protest letters, and much more. In addition to the documents, a biographical section highlights the lives of women from various walks of life. The book concludes with a timeline that begins in 1777 and reaches to 1992. This wealth of original material will be a treasure trove for scholars and general readers interested in the emerging field of black women’s history.