15 results for "World History"

The John Carlos story: the sports moment that changed the world

Carlos, John,Zirin, Dave
2012 NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Work--Biography/Autobiography "A powerful and poignant memoir."--Cornel West, from the foreword "John Carlos is an American hero. And finally he has written a memoir to tell us his story--and a powerful story it is. I couldn't put this book down."--Michael Moore Seen around the world, John Carlos and Tommie Smith's Black Power salute on the 1968 Olympic podium sparked controversy and career fallout. Yet their show of defiance remains one of the most iconic images of Olympic history and the Black Power movement. Here is the remarkable story of one of the men behind the salute, lifelong activist John Carlos. John Carlos is a former track and field athlete and professional football player, and a founding member of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. He won the bronze medal in the 200-meter race at the 1968 Olympics, where his Black Power salute on the podium with Tommie Smith caused much political controversy. Dave Zirin is the author of four books, including Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love , A Peoples' History of Sports in the United States , and What's My Name, Fool?
Haymarket Books 2021-09-13 226 pages

Condi vs. Hillary: the next great presidential race

Morris, Dick
Who will be president in 2008? Many believe that the White House is Hillary Clinton's to lose. As long-time strategists Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal in Condi vs. Hillary , however, Hillary's plans for higher office are vulnerable to a challenge from a most unexpected quarter: the Bush administration's secretary of state and former national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice. Rice is the only figure on the national scene who has the credentials, the credibility, and the charisma to lead the GOP in 2008. And, as this first book on the subject demonstrates, a race between these two commanding, but very different, women is a very real possibility -- and would inevitably prove one of the most fascinating and important races in American history. Blending insider insight and political foresight, Condi vs. Hillary surveys the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates, finding persuasive clues about what we might expect from each of them as a chief executive. It traces their very different childhoods -- Hillary Rodham's in unchallenging suburban comfort, Condi Rice's in Birmingham, Alabama, during the civil rights era -- and finds in each the roots of their latter-day selves. It explores their career in public life -- Hillary's as an ambitious liberal who attached herself to a governor on the rise, Condi's as a woman of broad and deep talents who has earned her own way. It turns a discerning eye on how each has spent her time in government, contrasting Condi's growth and maturation in office with Hillary's record of underachievement as both first lady and senator from New York. And it reveals how a draft-Condi movement could sweep the secretary of state into the presidency even as she forgoes campaigning to address her responsibilities as secretary of state. America, in short, may be on the verge of a perfect storm of twenty-first-century politics, pitting two of America's most popular -- and controversial -- women against each other, and offering Americans a choice between fulfilling the ambitions of one of our most polarizing figures . . . or changing history by electing not just the first woman, but also the first African American woman, to lead the free world into the future.
ReganBooks 2006-10-10 336 pages

After the miracle: the political crusades of Helen Keller

Wallace, Max
In this "stunning" new history, New York Times bestselling author Max Wallace draws on groundbreaking research to reframe Helen Keller's journey after the miracle at the water pump, vividly bringing to light her rarely discussed, lifelong fight for social justice across gender, class, race, and ability (Rosemary Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author). Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of 2023 Raised in Alabama, she sent shockwaves through the South when she launched a public broadside against Jim Crow and donated to the NAACP. She used her fame to oppose American intervention in WWI. She spoke out against Hitler the month he took power in 1933 and embraced the anti-fascist cause during the Spanish Civil War. She was one of the first public figures to alert the world to the evils of Apartheid, raising money to defend Nelson Mandela when he faced the death penalty for High Treason, and she lambasted Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Cold War, even as her contemporaries shied away from his notorious witch hunt. But who was this revolutionary figure? She was Helen Keller. From books to movies to Barbie dolls, most mainstream portrayals of Keller focus heavily on her struggles as a deafblind child--portraying her Teacher, Annie Sullivan, as a miracle worker. This narrative--which has often made Keller a secondary character in her own story--has resulted in few people knowing that her greatest accomplishment was not learning to speak, but what she did with her voice when she found it. After the Miracle is a much-needed corrective to this antiquated narrative. In this first major biography of Keller in decades, Max Wallace reveals that the lionization of Sullivan at the expense of her famous pupil was no accident, and calls attention to Keller's efforts as a card-carrying socialist, fierce anti-racist, and progressive disability advocate. Despite being raised in an era when eugenics and discrimination were commonplace, Keller consistently challenged the media for its ableist coverage and was one of the first activists to highlight the links between disability and capitalism, even as she struggled against the expectations and prejudices of those closest to her. Peeling back the curtain that obscured Keller's political crusades in favor of her "inspirational" childhood, After the Miracle chronicles the complete legacy of one of the 20th century's most extraordinary figures.
Grand Central Publishing 2024-04-09 416 pages

Algiers, Third World capital: freedom fighters, revolutionaries, Black Panthers

Mokhtefi, Elaine
A fascinating portrait of life with the Black Panthers in Algiers: a story of liberation and radical politics Following the Algerian war for independence and the defeat of France in 1962, Algiers became the liberation capital of the Third World. Elaine Mokhtefi, a young American woman immersed in the struggle and working with leaders of the Algerian Revolution, found a home here. A journalist and translator, she lived among guerrillas, revolutionaries, exiles, and visionaries, witnessing historical political formations and present at the filming of The Battle of Algiers. Mokhtefi crossed paths with some of the era's brightest stars: Frantz Fanon, Stokely Carmichael, Timothy Leary, Ahmed Ben Bella, Jomo Kenyatta, and Eldridge Cleaver. She was instrumental in the establishment of the International Section of the Black Panther Party in Algiers and close at hand as the group became involved in intrigue, murder, and international hijackings. She traveled with the Panthers and organized Cleaver's clandestine departure for France. Algiers, Third World Capital is an unforgettable story of an era of passion and promise.
Verso Books 2018 242 pages

Go-betweens for Hitler

Urbach, Karina
This is the untold story of how some of Germany's top aristocrats contributed to Hitler's secret diplomacy during the Third Reich, providing a direct line to their influential contacts and relations across Europe, especially in Britain, where their contacts included the press baron and Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere and the future King Edward VIII. Using previously unexplored sources from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and the USA, this book unravels the story of top-level go-betweens such as the Duke of Coburg, grandson of Queen Victoria, and the seductive Stephanie von Hohenlohe, who rose from a life of poverty in Vienna to become a princess and an intimate of Adolf Hitler. As Urbach shows, Coburg and other senior aristocrats were tasked with some of Germany's most secret foreign policy missions from the First World War onwards, culminating in their role as Hitler's trusted go-betweens, as he readied Germany for conflict during the 1930s and later, in the Second World War. Tracing what became of these high-level go-betweens in the years after the Nazi collapse in 1945, from prominent media careers to sunny retirements in Marbella, the book concludes with an assessment of their overall significance in the foreign policy of the Third Reich.
Oxford University Press 2015 389 pages

Political pilgrims: Western intellectuals in search of the good society

Hollander, Paul
Why did so many distinguished Western Intellectuals--from G.B. Shaw to J.P. Sartre, and. closer to home, from Edmund Wilson to Susan Sontag-- admire various communist systems, often in their most repressive historical phases? How could Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, or Castro's Cuba appear at one time as both successful modernizing societies and the fulfillments of the boldest dreams of social justice? Why, at the same time, had these intellectuals so mercilessly judged and rejected their own Western, liberal cultures? What Impulses and beliefs prompted them to seek the realization of their ideals in distant, poorly known lands? How do their journeys fit into long-standing Western traditions of looking for new meaning In the non-Western world? These are some of the questions Paul Hollander sought to answer In his massive study that covers much of our century. His success is attested by the fact that the phrase "political pilgrim" has become a part of intellectual discourse. Even in the post-communist era the questions raised by this book remain relevant as many Western, and especially American intellectuals seek to come to terms with a world which offers few models of secular fulfillment and has tarnished the reputation of political Utopias. His new and lengthy introduction updates the pilgrimages and examines current attempts to find substitutes for the emotional and political energy that used to be invested in them.
Transaction Publishers 1998 526 pages

Learning on the left: political profiles of Brandeis University

Whitfield, Stephen J.
Brandeis University is the United States' only Jewish-sponsored nonsectarian university, and while only being established after World War II, it has risen to become one of the most respected universities in the nation. The faculty and alumni of the university have made exceptional contributions to myriad disciplines, but they have played a surprising formidable role in American politics. Stephen J. Whitfield makes the case for the pertinence of Brandeis University in understanding the vicissitudes of American liberalism since the mid-twentieth century. Founded to serve as a refuge for qualified professors and students haunted by academic antisemitism, Brandeis University attracted those who generally envisioned the republic as worthy of betterment. Whether as liberals or as radicals, figures associated with the university typically adopted a critical stance toward American society and sometimes acted upon their reformist or militant beliefs. This volume is not an institutional history, but instead shows how one university, over the course of seven decades, employed and taught remarkable men and women who belong in our accounts of the evolution of American politics, especially on the left. In vivid prose, Whitfield invites readers to appreciate a singular case of the linkage of political influence with the fate of a particular university in modern America.
Brandeis University Press 2020-09-15 581 pages

Ballots, babies, and banners of peace: American Jewish women's activism, 1890-1940

Klapper, Melissa R.
Uncovers the powerful effects of 20th-century Jewish women's social and political activism on contemporary American life Winner of the 2013 National Jewish Book Award, Women's Studies Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace explores the social and political activism of American Jewish women from 1890 to the beginnings of World War II. Written in an engaging style, the book demonstrates that no history of the birth control, suffrage, or peace movements in the United States is complete without analyzing the impact of Jewish women's presence. The volume is based on years of extensive primary source research in more than a dozen archives and among hundreds of primary sources, many of which have previously never been seen. Voluminous personal papers and institutional records paint a vivid picture of a world in which both middle-class and working-class American Jewish women were consistently and publicly engaged in all the major issues of their day and worked closely with their non-Jewish counterparts on behalf of activist causes. This extraordinarily well-researched volume makes a unique contribution to the study of modern women's history, modern Jewish history, and the history of American social movements.
New York University Press 2014-08-22 290 pages

The inheritance: how three families and America moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and beyond

Freedman, Samuel G.
Orphan in the new world (Silvio Burigo) -- Liverpool on the Hudson (Lizzie Sanford Garrett) -- The dreamer and his son (Joseph Obrycki) -- The sewing room (Lizzie Garrett) -- The physics of cynicism (Joseph Obrycki) -- Worth two (Silvio Burigo) -- Voices from downstairs (Richie Garrett) -- Recessive genes (Silvio Burigo/Lorraine and Frank Trotta) -- Address as destiny (Vilma and Jack Maeby) -- Fence and basement (Silvio Burigo/Lorraine and Frank Trotta) -- Senator Clearwater (Richie Garrett) -- Uncle Paulie's Porch (Frank Trotta Jr.) -- The State Street Gang (Leslie Maeby) -- Poor snob (Tim Carey) -- Enchantment and its opposite (Frank Trotta Jr.) -- Incumbent protection (Leslie Maeby) -- Red suspenders (Tim Carey).
Simon & Schuster 1996 464 pages

The Kasrils affair: Jews and minority politics in post-apartheid South Africa

Pollak, Joel B.
In 2001, on the heels of the disastrous Durban racism conference and the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States, South African cabinet minister Ronnie Kasrils launched a declaration calling on South Africans of Jewish descent to protest against Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. In so doing, he launched a furious debate within the Jewish community. The debate caused the leadership of the Jewish community to shift its political strategy, from the politics of open debate towards the politics of influence. The Jewish experience resembled that of other minorities and interest groups whose leaders came to be seen as 'representing government in their respective communities rather than the community addressing themselves to government', in the words of historian Hermann Giliomee. The Kasrils Affair: Jews and minority politics in post-apartheid South Africa: Documents the Kasrils declaration and its implications both for the Jewish community and South African politics in general. Places the Kasrils affair in the context of South African Jewish history and of the 'new antisemitism' facing Jews around the world. Gives an 'embedded' account of events, based on public commentary and interviews with South African Jewish leaders.
UCT Press 2009 198 pages

The modern school movement: anarchism and education in the United States

Avrich, Paul
"In 1909 Francisco Ferrer founded La Escuela Moderna with a curriculum based on the natural sciences and moral rationalism, freed of all religious dogma and political bias. Although students received systematic instruction, there were no prizes for scholarship, no marks or examinations, indeed no atmosphere of competition, coercion, or humiliation. The classes, in Ferrer's words, were guided by the "principle of solidarity and equality." For this he was murdered in 1909 by the combined forces of Spain's ruling Church and State." "Outraged by Ferrer's execution and influenced by his teaching methods, anarchists, artists, and educators joined forces to carry on his work. Between 1910 and 1960 anarchists across the United States established more than twenty schools where children might study in an atmosphere of freedom and self-reliance in contrast to the formality and discipline of the traditional classroom. These "Modern Schools" sought to abolish all forms of authority, political and economic as well as educational, and to usher in a new society based on the voluntary cooperation of free individuals. Their object, during an era of war, social ferment, and government repression, was to create not only a new type of school, but also a new culture, a new life, a new world." "Among the participants in the Modern School Movement were anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, feminist Margaret Sanger, authors Will and Ariel Durant, and groundbreaking artists Robert Henri, George Bellows, and Man Ray. Based on extensive interviews with former pupils and teachers, this work is an investigation into the potential of educational alternatives."--BOOK JACKET.
AK Press 2006 434 pages

The World Jewish Congress, 1936-2016

World Jewish Congress
"A history of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) from its founding in 1936 through 2016. Among the topics covered are the WJC's role during World War II; the WJC's contribution to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg; post-WWII attitudes to and relationships with Jews living in Germany; the WJC's relationship and interaction with the State of Israel; the WJc's role and impact at the United Nations; the WJC's diplomatic efforts on behalf of North African Jewry during the 1950's and 1960's; materialization of the Holocaust at Auschwitz-Birkenau; the WJC's role in launching the Jewish-Vatican dialogue; advocacy on behalf of Soviet Jewry; the WJC's role in the campaign to repeal the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution; forcing Swiss banks to disgorge Holocaust-era assets belonging to Jews; the Kurt Walheim Affair; the WJC's interaction with communist countries; the WJC's role regarding terrorist attacks on Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires; the World Jewish Congress today; and WJC President Ronald S. Lauder's vision of the Jewish future"--
World Jewish Congress 2017 341 pages