31 results for "World History"

The American Dream in the Information Age

Otto Newman,R. De Zoysa,Richard De Zoysa
America's current transformation from an industrial to a new information-based culture presents new challenges as well as new perspectives on old debates. This book offers a comprehensive survey of America's changing values. It examines notions of American exceptionalism and how the 'melting pot' is coping with race relations and changing demographics; it assesses the agenda of government, the domestic and global constraints, and how social exclusion can be tackled. Current changes in the US are likely to be a harbinger for other societies, and the authors examine new models of civic society, of learning and of reconfiguring social values for a fast-changing world.
Palgrave Macmillan UK 1999-01-01 229 pages

The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader

Ellen Meiksins Wood
Ellen Meiksins Wood is a leading contemporary political theorist who has been described as the founder, together with Robert Brenner, of Political Marxism,' a distinct version of historical materialism which has inspired a research program that spans a number of academic disciplines. Organized thematically, this Reader provides an overview of her original interpretations of capitalism, and many different topics.
Haymarket Books 2013-11-05 368 pages

Socialism from Below

Hal Draper
The divisions running through the history of the socialist movement between reformists and revolutionaries, authoritarians and democrats, putschists and gradualists-the divisions and disputes which have provided the categories in terms of which the history of the movement has been written-are secondary. The important distinction is between those socialists who looked for some outside authority which would hand down salvation to the grateful masses from above and those who saw the key to the reform of existing society in the struggle from below for self-emancipation. Behind the question: "What do we mean by socialism?" lies a more important question. What do we mean by democracy?
Center for Socialist History 2002 386 pages

The First Five Years of the Communist International

Leon Trotsky
Following the October Revolution of 1917, a revolutionary wave swept across Europe. In this period, Leon Trotsky, along with Lenin, was pivotal in setting up the Third (Communist) International, which represented a world party of the working class. The International could not be conjured out of thin air. Much like the Bolshevik Party, it had to be built through struggle against many different tendencies and ideas. This book collects all of Trotsky's writings and speeches related to the first five years of the Communist International. Highlighting the task he and Lenin faced in trying to educate the young communist parties of Germany, France and elsewhere, it deals with many problems that the working-class movement still comes up against today. This includes the question of the United Front, the national question, the consciousness of the working class and how it changes and much more. Today, the capitalist system faces the deepest crisis in its history. However, we are faced with the same problem Trotsky outlined in 1924: there is no mass international organisation of the working class with a clear understanding of the task at hand. Therefore, this work is not just of historical interest, but should be read as a guide to action for all workers and youth seeking a revolutionary way out of the present crisis. This edition contains a new introduction by Fred Weston, editor of Marxist.com, which outlines some of the key debates and decisions as well as an outline of the development of the International in this period.
Wellred Publications 2020-06-27 806 pages

Voices in a Revolution: The Collapse of East German Communism

Lasky, Melvin J.
Afeatured article in Die Zeit, the leading German weekly, begins with "Melvin, du hast gewonnen"--Mel, you have won! In his extraordinary account of the final days of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) we see the reckoning of a regime, and also the vindication of a life-long devotee of European democracy. It is unlikely that any comparable memoir will be written, since Lasky's career spanned the entire history of wartime and postwar Germany, especially in divided and Wall-torn Berlin.Voices in a Revolution, now in paperback, offers an in-depth portrayal of the Communist police state before the breakdown, followed by a blow-by-blow account of the drama of breakdown and regime transformation. Characters in the everyday cultural world of Germany come alive as harbingers and heralds of the end of the old and the necessity of the new.Lasky understands the role of accident as well as of necessity. The West Germans had all but abandoned the slogan of One People, One Nation when they were faced with the immense task of supervising just such a reintegration. The work ends with the awakening conscience at the very point that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. This is a memorable work--one likely to sear the conscience of lovers of freedom and analysts of tyranny alike.
[distributor] Taylor & Francis, c/o Bookpoint 2017-10-30 124 pages

The Rulers of Belgian Africa, 1884-1914

Lewis Henry Gann
In this comprehensive picture of Belgian colonialism in the Congo, Lewis Gann and Peter Duignan trace the formation of the colonial state that became Zaire, considering it in the light of colonial experience in other African territories. Whereas most studies have focused on the conquest and subjugation of the African population, this study probes the colonial apparatus itself, investigating the attitudes and behavior of the civil servants and soldiers who built the empire. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Princeton University Press 2016-04-19 284 pages

History in My Life A Memoir of Three Eras

Ivan T. Berend
Ivan T. Berend is Distinguished Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Director of the European Studies Program. He was one of the masterminds of regime change in Hungary. He made a career in Hungary as a university professor, Rector of the University of Economics (1973–79), and President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1985–90). He was President of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (1995–2000), and Vice-President of the International Economic History Association (1986–1994). His research interests are the complex economic, social, ideological, and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th–20th century; economic modernization; problems of European backwardness; transition from state socialism to capitalism. He published and 26 books and more than 120 studies. Before he became a professor at UCLA, Ivan Berend had survived five regime changes and two revolutions in Hungary, had been in prison and German concentration camp in 1944–45. His memoir offers an interesting case study, a subjective addition to the "objective" historical works on Central and Eastern European state socialism. It describes the hard choices of intellectuals in a dictatorial state: 1. remain in isolation, concentrate on scholarly works, and exclude politics in your personal life; 2. be in opposition, criticize and unveil the regime, accept discrimination and exclusion; 3. remain within the establishment and work for reforming the country using legal possibilities to criticize the regime and to achieve changes from within. Berend’s book raises basic historical questions and debates, compares East European and American higher education systems, and presents an eyewitness’ insights on life in the United States.
Central European University Press 2023-09-15 286 pages

Paradoxes of power: reflections on the Thatcher interlude

Sherman, Alfred.
Thumb through the index of almost any study of the Thatcher years -- biographical, scholarly or journalistic -- and you will come across the name of Sir Alfred Sherman. In her memoirs Lady Thatcher herself pays tribute to Sherman's 'brilliance', the 'force and clarity of his mind', his 'breadth of reading and his skills as a ruthless polemicist'. She credits him with a central role in her achievements, especially as Leader of the Opposition but also after she became Prime Minister. Born in 1919 in London's East End, until 1948 Sherman was a Communist and fought in the Spanish Civil War. But he ended up an indefatigable free-market crusader. The book describes his early relationship with Sir Keith Joseph and his own role in the formation of the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. Sherman examines the origins and development of 'Thatcherism', but concludes that the Conservative administrations of the 1980s were, for the most part, an 'interlude' and that the post-war consensus remains largely unscathed -- 'we are back to where we started'.
Imprint Academic 2005 200 pages