1322 results for "American History"

Nationalism

Greenfeld, Liah
"Nationalism, often the scourge, always the basis of modern world politics, is spreading. In a way, all nations are willed into being. But a simple declaration, such as Grouvelle's, is not enough. As historian Liah Greenfeld shows in her new book, a sense of nation--nationalism--is the product of the complex distillation of ideas and beliefs, and the struggles over them. Greenfeld takes the reader on an intellectual journey through the origins of the concept "nation" and how national consciousness has changed over the centuries. From its emergence in sixteenth century England, nationalism has been behind nearly every significant development in world affairs over succeeding centuries, including the American and French revolutions of the late eighteenth centuries and the authoritarian communism and fascism of the twentieth century. Now it has arrived as a mass phenomenon in China as well as gaining new life in the United States and much of Europe in the guise of populism"--
Brookings Institution Press 2019-06-18 152 pages

The boxer: a novel

Becker, Jurek
"In this follow-up work to Jacob the Liar, Becker tells the story of a man named Aron Blank, tracing his life from his release from a concentration camp in the summer of 1945 through the next twenty or so years. Living in a ghetto at the start of the war, Aron had lost his wife who one day was arrested by the Nazis. In desperation, he turned over his two-year-old son, Mark, for safe-keeping to a neighbor just before he was deported. Now, having survived the war, Aron sets out, with the help of an American relief organization, to find his son."--Jacket.
Arcade Pub 2002 277 pages

Foreign Policy Breakthroughs: Cases in Successful Diplomacy

Robert L. Hutchings,Jeremi Suri
"Diplomacy is essential to the conduct of foreign policy and international business in the twenty-first century. Yet, few international actors are trained to understand or practice effective diplomacy. Poor diplomacy has contributed to repeated setbacks for the United States and other major powers in the last decade. Drawing on deep historical research, this book aims to 'reinvent' diplomacy for our current era. The original and comparative research provides a foundation for thinking about what successful outreach, negotiation, and relationship-building with foreign actors should look like. Instead of focusing only on failures, as most studies do, this one interrogates success. The book provides a framework for defining successful diplomacy and implementing it in diverse contexts. Chapters analyze the activities of diverse diplomats (including state and non-state actors) in enduring cases, including: post-WWII relief, the rise of the non-aligned movement, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. opening to China, the Camp David Accords, the reunification of Germany, the creation of the European Union, the completion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and relief aid to pre-2001 Afghanistan. The cases are diverse and historical, but they are written with an eye toward contemporary challenges and opportunities. The book closes with systematic reflections on how current diplomats can improve their activities abroad. Foreign Policy Breakthroughs offers rigorous historical insights for present policy"--
Oxford University Press 2015 284 pages

True Believer: Hubert Humphrey's Quest for a More Just America

Traub, James
A celebrated historian recounts Hubert Humphrey’s role as a liberal hero of twentieth-century America Hubert Humphrey was liberalism’s most dedicated defender, and its most public and tragic sacrifice. As a young politician in 1948, he defied segregationists and forced the Democratic Party to commit itself to civil rights. As a senator in 1964, he made good on that commitment by helping pass the Civil Rights Act. But as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president, his support for the war in Vietnam made him a target for both Right and Left, and he suffered a shattering loss in the presidential election of 1968. Though Humphrey’s defeat was widely seen as the end of America’s era of liberal optimism, he never gave up. Even after his humiliation on the most public stage, he crafted a new vision of economic justice to counter the yawning political divisions consuming American politics. This biography reveals a deep-dyed idealist willing to compromise and even fight ugly in pursuit of a better society. Elegantly crafted and strikingly relevant to the present, True Believer celebrates Hubert Humphrey’s long struggle for justice for all.
Basic Books 2026-02-17 528 pages

Neoconservatism: the autobiography of an idea

Kristol, Irving
Neoconservatism is the movement that has provided the intellectual foundation for the resurgence of American conservatism in our time. And if neoconservatism can be said to have a father or an architect, that person is Irving Kristol. Neoconservatism is the most comprehensive selection of Kristol's influential writings on politics and economics, as well as the best of his now-famous essays on society, religion, culture, literature, education, and - above all - the "values" issues that have come to define the neo-conservative critique of contemporary life. These essays provide an unparalleled insight into the 50-year development of Kristol's social and political ideas, from an uneasy socialism tempered with religious orthodoxy, to a vigilant optimism about the future of the American experiment. Those already familiar with Kristol's work will especially enjoy the new autobiographical essay that introduces this volume; it is sprinkled with personal recollections about such luminaries as Lionel Trilling, Leo Strauss, Saul Bellow, Sidney Hook, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and historian Gertrude Himmelfarb (who is also Mrs. Kristol). Those relatively new to Kristol's writings will be treated to some of the most lucid, insightful, entertaining, and intellectually challenging essays of our time.
Free 1995-09-20 493 pages

Exile and Return Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews

Ann M. Lesch,Ian S. Lustick
Exile and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews is a bold attempt to understand constructively and build upon the terrible irony of two peoples, each with a searing memory of displacement and exile, struggling for a return to a land each remembers, each claims, and from which each has sought to exclude the other. The Israeli, Palestinian, and American contributors to this volume consider the catastrophic failure of the Oslo peace process, the years of bloody violence that ensued, and a renewed awareness of the centrality of the Palestinian refugee question and the issues of demography and justice it raises with respect to any peace settlement. They explore the political meaning of the past delivered into the present by Palestinians whose personal and collective lives were forever transformed by the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, and by Israeli Jews whose sense of their own security and identity has been inseparably bound to centuries of persecution, culminating in the Holocaust, and a vividly constructed image as a people whose suffering arose from its exile from the Land of Israel twenty centuries ago. The contributors' work is honest and often as inspiring as it is provocative. This volume stands as a major contribution to the construction of a new intellectual infrastructure for decisive thinking about the refugee question, about the entire notion of the right of return (whether in Zionism or in Palestinian nationalism), and about the unavoidable obstacles and unappreciated opportunities that confront peacemakers. It offers formulas, categories, and approaches that can be used by both Palestinian and Israeli leaders to convince their peoples that the agreement being sought will destroy neither the state that Israeli Jews have built nor the deep yearnings for vindication and return that lie at the emotional core of the Palestinian struggle. The authors are leading scholars able to take full advantage of the flood of new work on these issues that the opening of various key archives has made possible. Their contributions here signal a shift toward a kind of reconciliation that is informed by the past, present, and future. Contributors : Elazar Barkan, Michael R. Fischbach, Sari Hanafi, Amal Jamal, Laleh Khalili, Ze'ev Khanin, Ann M. Lesch, Ian S. Lustick, Ilan Pappé, Elie Podeh, Nadim N. Rouhana, Gershon Shafir, Yehouda Shenhav, Salim Tamari.
University of Pennsylvania Press 2008-10-28 368 pages

Ambassador Morgenthau's Story A Personal Account of the Armenian Genocide

Henry Morgenthau
The evocative, first-hand accounts of American ambassador Henry Morgenthau regarding the Armenian genocide are one of the most thorough, authoritative sources on the atrocities. This book contains the full accounts of Henry Morgenthau throughout his posting in Constantinople, Turkey. At the time the Ottoman Empire was on the brink of collapse; amid the chaos and upheaval began the Armenian genocide, a ruthless campaign of targeted killing which occurred over eight years, from 1915 to 1923. In his role as ambassador, Henry Morgenthau would receive regular, commonly excruciating reports of mass murders and forced deportations; revulsed, he moved to prevent further such atrocities taking place. Despite the efforts of Henry Morgenthau to convince his superiors in Washington to intervene on humanitarian grounds, his pleas fell on deaf ears. The masses of evidence he personally reviewed and verified are related in this book, as are many of the high-level meetings Morgenthau personally held with Ottoman leaders in an attempt to stem the holocaust of the Armenian people. Stonewalled, dismissed and waved away at every turn, the frustrations Morgenthau felt at the futility are amply expressed in this emotional and sometimes harrowing chronicle. The many obstructions he encountered with the Ottoman leadership led Morgenthau to resign his post in 1916. He spent the final three decades of his life tirelessly campaigning on behalf of the oppressed and victimized Ottoman peoples. As well as publishing this book plus hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, Henry Morgenthau Sr. raised enormous sums for the displaced Armenians reeling from the horrific genocide. Recognized and lauded for his humanitarian work, he would represent the United States at the Second Geneva Conference in 1932.
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform 2017-04-11 204 pages

Opening doors: the unlikely alliance between the Irish and the Jews in America

Diner, Hasia R.
"The extraordinary untold story of how Irish and Jewish immigrants worked together to secure legitimacy in America. Popular belief holds that the various ethnic groups that emigrated to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century regarded one another with open hostility, fiercely competing for limited resources and even coming to blows in the crowded neighborhoods of major cities. One of the most enduring stereotypes is that of rabidly anti-Semitic Irish Catholics, like Father Charles Coughlin of Boston and the sensationalized Gangs of New York trope of Irish street thugs attacking defenseless Jewish immigrants. In Opening Doors, Hasia Diner, one of the world's preeminent historians of immigration, tells a very different story; far from confrontational, the prevailing relationships between Jewish and Irish Americans were overwhelmingly cooperative, and the two groups were dependent upon one another to secure stable and upwardly mobile lives in their new home. The Irish had emigrated to American cities en masse a generation before the first major wave of Jewish immigrants arrived, and had already entrenched themselves in positions of influence in urban governments, public education, and the labor movement. Jewish newcomers recognized the value of aligning themselves with another group of religious outsiders who were able to stand up and demand rights and respect despite widespread discrimination from the Protestant establishment, and the Irish realized that they could protect their political influence by mentoring their new neighbors in the intricacies of American life. Opening Doors draws from a deep well of historical sources to show how Irish and Jewish Americans became steadfast allies in classrooms, picket lines, and political machines, and ultimately helped one another become key power players in shaping America's future. In the wake of rising anti-Semitism and xenophobia today, this informative and accessible work offers an inspiring look at a time when two very different groups were able to find common ground and work together to overcome bigotry, gain representation, and move the country in a more inclusive direction"--
St. Martin's Press 2024 277 pages

Moynihan's moment: America's fight against Zionism as racism

Troy, Gil
On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism. The move shocked millions, especially in the United States-- the country largely responsible for founding the UN. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the American Ambassador to the UN, denounced this attack on Israel as an anti-Semitic assault on democracy and stood up to the Soviet-backed alliance of Communist dictatorships and Third World autocracies that supported the resolution. His eloquent stand brought him celebrity in the U.S., but ultimately shortened his tenure at the UN by alienating American allies, adversaries, and much of the foreign policy establishment--including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Nevertheless, Moynihan's moment was a turning point: a harbinger of a shift in American culture and politics that would culminate in the Reagan Revolution. Moynihan paved the way for a more muscular, idealistic, neoconservative foreign policy and for a new style of defiant "cowboy" diplomacy. In this book, Gil Troy argues that America's idea of itself--still torn, in the mid-'70s, between post-Vietnam and -Watergate defeatism and a growing sense of optimism--changed with Moynihan, altering both the left and the right in ways that continue to play out in the 21st century. Much of the rhetoric of this era survives in domestic foreign policy debates and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, suggesting that Moynihan's struggle has much to reveal about American politics and its position on the world stage--Publisher's summary.
Oxford University Press 2013 357 pages

Colored travelers: mobility and the fight for citizenship before the Civil War

Pryor, Elizabeth Stordeur
"Americans have long regarded the freedom of travel a central tenet of citizenship. Yet, in the United States, freedom of movement has historically been a right reserved for whites. In this book, Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor shows that African Americans fought obstructions to their mobility over 100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. These were "colored travelers," activists who relied on steamships, stagecoaches, and railroads to expand their networks and to fight slavery and racism. This book tells the story of how the basic act of traveling emerged as a front line in the battle for African American equal rights before the Civil War"--
The University of North Carolina Press 2016 218 pages

Financing the Flames How Tax-Exempt and Public Money Fuel a Culture of Confrontation and Terror in Israel

Edwin Black
Edwin Black s latest book, Financing the Flames: How Tax-Exempt and Public Money Fuel a Culture of Confrontation and Terrorism in Israel, pulls the cover off the robust use of US tax-exempt, tax-subsidized, and public monies to foment agitation, systematically destabilize the Israel Defense Forces, and finance terrorists in Israel. In a far-flung investigation in the United States, Israel and the West Bank, human-rights investigative reporter Edwin Black documents that it is actually the highly politicized human rights organizations and NGOs themselves all American taxpayer supported which are financing the flames that make peace in Israel difficult if not impossible. Black spotlights key charitable organizations such as the Ford Foundation, George Soros s Open Society Foundations, the New Israel Fund, and many others, as well as American taxpayers as a group. Instead of promoting peace and reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis, a variety of taxpayer-subsidized organizations have funded a culture where peace does not pay, but warfare and confrontation do. Ironically, several Jewish organizations, scooping up millions in tax-subsidized donations, stand at the forefront of the problem. At the same time, the author details at great length the laudable and helpful activities of such groups as the New Israel Fund; he chronicles a heartbreaking conflict between stated intent and true impact on the ground. In addition to documenting questionable 501(c)(3) activity, Black documents the direct relationship between taxpayer assistance to the Palestinian Authority and individuals engaged in terrorism against civilians.
Dialog Press 2018-12-29 288 pages

Benedict's Rule The Rise of Ethnicity and the Fall of Rome

E. Michael Jones
Living at a time of unprecedented upheaval and social chaos, Benedict of Nursia could not save the Roman Empire from collapse, but he did something more remarkable: he created Europe to take its place. It didn't happen overnight but instead over centuries. Benedict took the best that classical culture had to offer, combined it with Christianity, and came up with a very specific way to live in a world where chaos was the rule. The Rule of St. Benedict proposed in specific terms, down to the amount of beer a monk was allowed to drink, how to live in a world where the empire had failed. Benedict's Rule became, in Dawson's words, "the Roman standard of the monastic life and finally the universal type of Western monasticism." It brought order and classical coherence to the chaotic ethnic existence of the Germanic tribes, as well as the formation of new centers of culture in Ireland, Northumbria, and ultimately the Carolingian Empire.The Europe Benedict created is now facing another kind of threat. Europe has lost contact with its roots. The Enlightenment separates Europe's contemporary inhabitants from the man who made their culture possible. Cut off from his roots and disillusioned by one failed utopian experiment after another, European Man has contracted a spiritual disease whose clearest manifestation is his inability to reproduce. If this sickness is not cured within the the next generation, Europe will almost certainly reach the demographic tipping point and become a Muslim continent. The same is true of America. Cities like New York are fast on their way to losing their European character. And they are losing it for much the same reason: those of European descent are not having children. Benedict's vision of the small community is now more relevant than ever. At a time of American imperial over-extension and the threat of imminent collapse, at a time when "citizen" is a euphemism for taxpayer, or cannon fodder, or both, everyone needs a supportive community. At a time of demographic collapse, young people need to know that these small communities will support them so they can marry and raise families. When they fail to receive that assurance from the Church, the young simply fail to marry and have children, creating a sense of doom based on the feeling that there is no future. And they are right. Without children there is no future. Their fears have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cut off from Europe's Benedictine past, the Europeans and their American cousins also find themselves cut off from the future by their fear-driven refusal to have children.Renowned cultural critic E. Michael Jones is the editor of Culture Wars magazine and the author of The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal As Ethnic Cleansing.
Independently Published 2017-08-11 98 pages

The Long Shadow Culture and Politics in the Middle East

Daniel Pipes
This is a book about politics by a historian. Though the subject matter closely resembles that of a political scientist, policy analyst, or journalist, the approach and treatment reflect the perspective available only to someone versed in the long shadow of the past. Daniel Pipes, a well-known writer on Middle East issues, offers the larger perspective so often missing. His study of the languages, religions, and culture, supplemented by years of personal experience in the region, give this book unusual depth. The Long Shadow concentrates on 5 vivid and critical topics of the Middle East. 1. The Islam and Public Life. Pipes, author of two books on Islam in politics and a recognized authority, assesses Islam in Iran, Iraq, and the Soviet Union, as well as Islam's role in anti-Semitism. 2. The Persian Gulf. Here Pipes examines the origins of the Iraq-Iran war, the curse of oil wealth, and shares insights gained from an unusual visit to Kuwait. 3. The Arab-Israeli Conflict. In some of his most original work Pipes argues that the struggle between Arabs on the question of Palestine is actually more central than the struggle between the Arabs and Israel. He sees the PLO as little more than a tool of the Arab states, and perceives the deep division between Jews and Arabs in Israel today is likely to be permanent. 4. Iranian, Lebanese, and Libyan Terrorism have greatly affected the tenor of Middle East politics. Pipes shows how they differ and why the Iranians pose the greatest threat to the United States. 5. The United States in the Middle East. Pipes examines U.S. policy toward the area and American media coverage, arguing that both follow idiosyncratic rhythms, and explaining these peculiarities against the backdrop of larger American interests in the region. While a number of Middle East specialists have written books or essays on the subjects addressed by Pipes, his book is distinguished both by its scope and its focus on the general reader as well as the specialist.
Transaction Publishers 1989 303 pages

Shackled Warrior Israel and the Global Jihad

Caroline Glick
Islamic supremacism, European cultural disaggregation, American vacillation, and Israeli timidity and confusion. These are the main social contexts that inform political and strategic developments of global and national affairs in our times. In her biweekly commentaries, Caroline B. Glick, the formidable Jerusalem Post columnist, highlights these underlying trends while analyzing events as they unfold both globally and in Israel. This extraordinary collection of her probing and eloquent work is a must read for all who care about winning the war against the multifarious forces of global jihad.
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform 2008-04-20 448 pages

The rational public: fifty years of trends in Americans' policy preferences

Page, Benjamin I.
This monumental study is a comprehensive critical survey of the policy preferences of the American public, and will be the definitive work on American public opinion for some time to come. Drawing on an enormous body of public opinion data, Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro provide the richest available portrait of the political views of Americans, from the 1930's to 1990. They not only cover all types of domestic and foreign policy issues, but also consider how opinions vary by age, gender, race, region, and the like. The authors unequivocally demonstrate that, notwithstanding fluctuations in the opinions of individuals, collective public opinion is remarkably coherent: it reflects a stable system of values shared by the majority of Americans and it responds sensitively to new events, arguments, and information reported in the mass media. While documenting some alarming case of manipulation, Page and Shapiro solidly establish the soundness and value of collective political opinion. The Rational Public provides a wealth of information about what we as a nation have wanted from government, how we have changed our minds over the years, and why. For anyone interested in the short- and long-term trends in Americans' policy preferences, or eager to learn what Americans have thought about issues ranging from racial equality to the MX missile, welfare to abortion, this book offers by far the most sophisticated and detailed treatment available.
University of Chicago Press 1992 489 pages

Memories: my life as an international leader in health, suffrage, and peace

Jacobs, Aletta H.
"The first of Aletta Jacobs's major works available in English, Memories introduces American readers to a remarkable woman-a key Dutch feminist who herself broke new ground, and who worked alongside world-renowned leaders in the progressive movements of the early twentieth century. Aletta Jacobs learned to lvoe the medical profession from her physician father, who took her on his rounds. Despite a sex-segregated education system, she became the nations's first woman to earn a medical degree. Jacobs's experiences as a doctor led her to pioneering health care reforms for prostitutes and saleswomen, as well as campaigns for the acceptance and availability of reliable birth control. Aletta Jacob's career included equally remarkable achievements in the international woman's suffrage and peace movements, where she worked closely with U.S. activists Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt. Jacobs and Catt made frequent lecture tours together, culminating in a tour of Africa and Asia that combined avid sightseeing with speaking engagements in every country they visited. In Memories, Jacobs recounts all of these experiences, and spiritedly imparts her opinions-such as her disdain for the customs that restricted women to theater balcony seats and chastised them for walking alone at night. By turns witty, impassioned, and poignant, Memories brings to life a time of enormous changes for women-and one of the women who helped bring about the changes."--Book desc. via amazon.ca.
Feminist Press 1996 248 pages

Red army: the radical network that must be defeated to save America

Klein, Aaron
In this original investigative work, the bestselling authors of The Manchurian President expose one of the most important untold stories of the decade: how a nexus of radical socialist groups have seized political power, shaped Obama’s presidential agenda, and threaten the very future of our country. For decades, a radical socialist movement has been quietly infiltrating the major institutions of American power: our schools, our military, our economy, our media, and Congress itself. This progressive Red Army is an organized network consisting of numerous specialized groups that target specific policy areas while cooperating more broadly in a concerted decades-long campaign to transform America. Now, for the first time, investigative reporters Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott not only expose the key players, organizations, and relationships in this radical network but chart their spheres of influence, their nefarious objectives, their role in shaping Barack Obama’s agenda, and their long-term plans for the nation. Among some of their finds, Klein and Elliott reveal the existence of a powerful “Marxist-socialist” bloc in Congress (explicitly formed as an arm of the Democratic Socialists of America) and examine its far-reaching goals in policy areas that affect all Americans, including the complete socialization of health care and comprehensive immigration reform, which seeks to change the very nature of the American electorate. The authors expose the shocking misinformation campaign behind Obama’s economic policies, discussing the crafting of the massive “stimulus” legislation, as well as his plans for future economic “reform.” In two chapters that every American must read, entirely new information is laid bare on the left’s unprecedented assault on our already over-liberalized education system. And in just one astonishing discovery, Klein and Elliott bring to light how federal stimulus money was used to fund an education group tied to radical educator (and unrepentant Pentagon bomber) Bill Ayers. The authors also expose the multipronged policy offensive aimed at disarming America by emboldening our enemies within and without, spurning traditional allies, subjecting us to the authority of foreign tribunals, and systematically dismantling the U.S. military. The authors also detail how elements of the news media not only collude with these radical groups, but are in some cases members of the very same extremist organizations they ought to be investigating. This radical network runs far deeper than the Obama administration and, if not stopped, will far outlast his presidency. From health care and manufacturing to immigration and environmental policy, Red Army documents how these radical groups are working to spread America’s wealth and transform the country into their vision of a socialist utopia.
Broadside Books 2011-10-25 485 pages

The turbulent years: a history of the American worker, 1933-1941

Bernstein, Irving
"A broad panorama in brilliant prose." -- American Historical Review In this groundbreaking work of labor history, Irving Bernstein uncovers a period when industrial trade unionism, working-class power, and socialism became the rallying cry for millions of workers in the fields, mills, mines, and factories of America. With an introduction by Frances Fox Piven.
Haymarket Books 2010 873 pages