Sunday, December 6, 2009

Worlds Wine Markets or Cultural Resistance

World's Wine Markets: Globalization at Work

Author: Kym Anderson

"The World's Wine Markets includes an in-depth look at the growth and impact of New World wine production on the Old World producers, revealing that between 1990 and 2001, the New World's combined share of world wine exports grew from 4 to 18 per cent, or from 10 to 35 per cent when intra-European Union trade is excluded. Original essays, by economists from each of the major wine producing and consuming regions in the world, analyse recent developments and future trends, and conclude that globalization of the industry is set to continue for the forseeable future. Furthermore they argue that with increasing globalization, there is a greater need than ever for systematic analysis of the world's wine markets." This work will appeal to students enrolled in wine marketing and business courses, those studying industrial organization, and economists and other social scientists interested in case studies of globalization at work. As well, wine industry participants interested in understanding the reasons behind the recent dramatic developments in the industry will find this book of great value.



Go to: Food in History or The Cooks Encyclopaedia

Cultural Resistance: A Reader

Author: Stephen Duncomb

From the Diggers seizing St. Georges Hill in 1649 to Hacktivists staging virtual sit-ins in the 21st century, from the retributive fantasies of Robin Hoods to those of gangsta rappers, culture has long been used as a political weapon. This expansive and carefully crafted reader brings together many of the classic texts that help to define culture as a tool of resistance. With illuminating introductions throughout, it presents a range of theoretical and historical writings that have influenced contemporary debate, providing tools for the reader's own interventions. In these pages can be found the work of Karl Marx, Matthew Arnold, Antonio Gramsci, C.L.R. James, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Virginia Woolf, Mikhail Bakhtin, Stuart Hall, Christopher Hill, Janice Radway, Eric Hobsbawm, Abbie Hoffman, Mahatma Gandhi, Dick Hebdige, Hakim Bey, Raymond Williams, Robin Kelley, Tom Frank and more than a dozen others—including a number of new activists/authors published here for the first time.

Cultural Resistance: A Reader will be an invaluable resource for instructors teaching courses in cultural studies, communications and politics. The book is also a tool for cultural activists and political organizers. But most importantly, Cultural Resistance will inspire everyday readers to resist.

Author Biography: Stephen Duncombe teaches the history and politics of media and culture at the Gallatin School of New York University. He is the author of Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture, as well as a life-long political activist, most recently working with the Lower East Side Collective and Reclaim the Streets/New York City.



Table of Contents:
Christopher Hill, "Levellers and True Levellers," from The World Turned Upside Down
Raymond Williams, "Culture," from Keywords
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, from The German Ideology
Matthew Arnold, from Culture and Anarchy
Antonio Gramsci, from The Prison Notebooks
Walter Benjamin, "The Author as Producer"
Mikhail Bakhtin, from Rabelais and His World
James C. Scott, from Weapons of the Weak
Robin D.G. Kelley, from Race Rebels
Adolph Reed Jr., "Why Is There No Black Political Movement"
Jean Baudrillard, "The Masses: The Implosion of the Social Media"
Hakim Bey, from TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone
Simon Reynolds, from Generation Ecstasy
"Huge Mob Tortures Negro," account of a lynching in 1920
E.J. Hobsbawm, from Primitive Rebels
Robin D.G. Kelley, "OGs in Postindustiral Los Angeles," from Race Rebels
Stuart Cosgrove, 'The Zoot-suit and Style Warfare"
Dick Hebdige, "The Meaning of Mod"
John Clarke, "The Skinheads and the Magical Recovery of Community"
Riot Grrrl, "The Riot Grrrl Is..."
Kathleen Hanna, interview in Punk Planet
Bertold Brecht, "Emphasis on Sport"
Stuart Hall, "Notes on Deconstructing 'the Popular'"
Elaine Goodale Eastman "The Ghost Dance War," from Sister to the Sioux
Mahatma Gandhi, from Hind Swaraj
C.L.R. James, from Beyond a Boundary
Lawrence Levine, "Slave Songs and Slave Consciousness"
George Lipsitz, "Immigration and Assimilation: Rai, Reggae, and Bhangramuffin," from Dangerous Crossroads
Virginia Woolf, from A Room of One's Own
Radicalesbians, "The Woman-Identified Woman"
Jean Railla, A Broom of One's Own, from Bust
Janice A. Radway, from Reading the Romance
John Fiske, "Shopping for Pleasure" from Reading the Popular
Theordor Adorno, "On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening"
Richard Hoggart, from The Uses of Literacy
Malcolm Cowley, from Exile's Return
Thomas Frank, "Why Johnny Can't Dissent"
Abbie Hoffman, from Revolution for the Hell of It
Jerry Rubin, from Do It!
Barbara Epstein, "The Politics of Prefigurative Community"
John Jordan, "The Art of Necessity: The Subversive Imagination of Anti-road Protest and Reclaim the Streets"
Jason Grote, "The God that People Who Do Not Believe in God Believe In: Taking a Bust with Reverend Billy"
Andrew Boyd, "Truth Is A Virus; Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)"
Ricardo Dominguez, 'Electronic Disturbance: An Interview"

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Ever Closer Union or Immigration Questions and Answers

Ever Closer Union: An Introduction to Eruopean Integration

Author: Desmond Dinan

Ever Closer Union clearly explains the complexities of European integration from the 1950s to the present. This new edition retains the familiar three-part structure - history, institutions, and policies - but incorporates expanded coverage of both enlargement issues and constitutional change. New policy and institutional developments are thoroughly explored, and an entirely new chapter examines the decisionmaking dynamics among the Commission, Council, and Parliament. The completely revised chapter on the complicated EU-U.S. relationship includes discussions of the Bush administration's worldview, the broad repercussions of the terrorist attacks in the United States and Spain, and the ongoing fallout from the war in Iraq.



Interesting textbook: Moo Baa La La La or The Cat in the Hat

Immigration Questions and Answers

Author: Carl R Baldwin

Immigration Questions and Answers is a complete introduction to immigration law that will help immigrants become aware of their rights and know when and how to seek legal assistance. If you have a question or problem, this book offers detailed instructions on how to file petitions and applications successfully in order to get an immigration benefit - ranging from asylum, to a green card, to citizenship. Easy-to-understand answers are given to questions about working legally, job discrimination, temporary stays, the visa lottery, access to public benefits, and much more. Taking sharp issue with today's critics of both legal and illegal immigration, the book argues that we in the United States could not be competitive in the new global economy, or staff our hospitals, or care for our children, much less cut sugar cane and harvest apples, without the skill and hard work of men and women from all over the world.

Library Journal

Using a question-and-answer format, this helpful book provides detailed information on many issues facing immigrants, e.g., obtaining a green card, avoiding employment discrimination, and applying for citizenship and political asylum. Written in clear, straightforward language; for the general public.Jose M. Fornes



Table of Contents:
Preface5
1Is Immigration Good for the U.S.?9
2Green Card Defined15
3Obtaining a Short Term Visa21
4Will the I.N.S. Keep You Out?45
5Political Asylum57
6Temporary Protected Status71
7The Visa Lottery77
8Helping Your Spouse Get a Green Card83
9Removing Conditional Residence95
10If You Are Battered99
11If You Are a Widow or Widower103
12Helping Your Child Get a Green Card105
13Visa Processing113
14How Employers Stay Legal117
15Can Your Employer Help You?123
16Labor Certification133
17Fighting Job Discrimination139
18Special Cases and Parole143
19If You Need Public Benefits151
20Ways To Become a Citizen157
Appendix169
Index173

Friday, December 4, 2009

Structures of Memory or Martin Luther King JR and the Civil Rights Movement

Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond

Author: Jennifer A Jordan

“This is an original and fascinating work that will be a welcome addition to the ever-growing conversation on the cultural functions of memorialization, official and vernacular memorial processes, and the relation between remembering and forgetting. Jordan reminds us, as well she should, that what does not gain a place in the landscape is as revealing as what does finally gain the prestige of a public site.”—Edward T. Linenthal, Indiana University



Look this: Trading for a Living or Harvest for Hope

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Controversies and Debates

Author: John A Kirk

Combining the latest scholarship with John Kirk's informed commentary, this sourcebook throws a powerful light on the civil rights movement and its most influential leader. Debates that until now have been carried out across a range of books and journals are here brought together for the first time in a clear, helpful volume which introduces readers to key topics, debates and scholars in the field. Essential reading for all those with an interest in the man and the movement.



Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Speeders Guide to Avoiding Tickets or The Middle East and the United States

Speeder's Guide to Avoiding Tickets

Author: James M Eagan

Regardless of your record as a driver, everyone speeds sometimes. You are on the open road, no one around for miles, and so you step on the gas pedal. Then you experience a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach -- and in your wallet -- when you see a flashing red light in the rearview mirror. Now you can ease on down the road without paying the high price of traffic tickets, inflated insurance premiums and expensive lawyer's fees. Former New York State Trooper James M. Eagan tells you how-with invaluable tips and trade secrets that the police don't want you to know.

  • What makes a cop "tick" -- and how to use it to your advantage
  • What dates and times are safest to step on the gas and when you are most likely to get caught
  • How to avoid talking yourself into tickets
  • What stories and excuses will often work
  • How to spot an unmarked car
  • Clipping the wings off "The Bear in the Air"
  • And much more!

Whether you drive for business or pleasure -- or simply suffer from occasional leadfoot -- you cannot afford to be without this book!



Books about: Unlimited Power or How to Master the Art of Selling

The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political Reassessment, Vol. 4

Author: David W Lesch

The fourth edition of the acclaimed The Middle East and the United States brings together scholars and diplomats from the Middle East, Europe, and North America to provide an objective, cross-cultural assessment of US policy toward the Middle East. The new edition has been thoroughly and thoughtfully reorganized, revised, and updated to include five new chapters on topics such as the 2003 war in Iraq and its aftermath, the US promotion of democracy in the region, and recent developments in the Arab-Israeli arena.

Booknews

An explication of Indian communalism directed primarily to a US audience and representing the current state of research on Hindu nationalism. The 12 essays, culled from a seminar collaboration, combine methods in anthropology, history, political science and religious studies to develop the ideas of communal mobilization, and the genealogies of colonialism and conflict among both the Hindu and Muslim populations. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on the Text
Introduction1
1The Ironic Legacy of the King-Crane Commission11
2The "Ambassador for the Arabs": The Locke Mission and the Unmaking of U.S. Development Diplomacy in the Near East, 1952-195329
3U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Iran During the Mussadiq Era51
4Iranian Perceptions of the United States and the Mussadiq Period67
5The Mussadiq Era in Iran, 1951-1953: A Contemporary Diplomat's View79
6National Security Concerns in U.S. Policy Toward Egypt, 1949-195691
7The United States and King Hussein103
8The Jekyll-and-Hyde Origins of the U.S.-Jordanian Strategic Relationship117
9The 1957 American-Syrian Crisis: Globalist Policy in a Regional Reality131
10U.S. Policy and Military Intervention in the 1958 Lebanon Crisis147
11The United States and Nasserist Pan-Arabism167
12The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: U.S. Actions and Arab Perceptions189
13Flawed Strategies and Missed Signals: Crisis Bargaining Between the Superpowers, October 1973209
14The United States and Israel: The Nature of a Special Relationship233
15The U.S.-PLO Relationship: From Dialogue to the White House Lawn249
16The Specifics of the Meaning of Peace in the Middle East265
17Kuwait and the United States: The Reluctant Ally and U.S. Policy Toward the Gulf279
18From "Over the Horizon" to "Into the Backyard": The U.S.-Saudi Relationship and the Gulf War299
19The Invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War: Dilemmas Facing the Israeli-Iraqi-U.S. Relationship313
20U.S. Input into Iraqi Decisionmaking, 1988-1990325
21The U.S.-GCC Relationship: Is It a Glass Leaking or a Glass Filling?355
22The Soviet Union, the Gulf War, and Its Aftermath: A Case Study in Limited Superpower Cooperation379
23The Soviet Perception of the U.S. Threat403
24New U.S. Policies for a New Middle East?413
25Islamist Perceptions of U.S. Policy in the Middle East419
About the Book439
About the Editor and Contributors441
Index445

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Reconciliation or Fighting Terrorism

Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu

Author: Michael Jesse Battl

Reconciliation is Michael Battle's highly original analysis of Bishop Tutu's theology of ubuntu - an African concept recognizing that persons and groups form their identities in relation to one another. This model proved successful in opposing the apartheid racism in South Africa, but it also offers a Christian paradigm for resisting oppression wherever it appears. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including Tutu's unpublished speeches and sermons, as well as many secondary sources, Battle portrays the Nobel Peace Prize winner as a theologian who embraces Anglican orthodoxy and who has consistently applied that framework to issues of race in South Africa. Yet Tutu is much more than a conventional theologian. He is, as Battle shows, not only an articulate preacher and at times an unwilling politician, but a genuinely committed theologian whose deepest roots are in prayer and protest.



Table of Contents:
Foreword
Preface
1Introduction: Holding Back a Tide of Violence1
2A Milk-and-Honey Land of Oppression11
3Delicate Networks of Interdependence35
4Filled with the Fullness of God54
5Inspired by Worship and Adoration of God83
6An African Spirituality of Passionate Concern123
7Conclusion: God and a Political Priest154
Notes183
Bibliography217

New interesting textbook: Nasty Bits or The Machu Picchu Guidebook

Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat the International Terrorist Network

Author: Benjamin Netanyahu

The growth of terrorism has been accompanied by a steady escalation in the means of violence, from small arms used to assassinate individuals, to automatic weapons used to mow down groups, to car bombs now capable of bringing down entire buildings, to lethal chemicals that (as in Japan) can threaten entire cities. The very real possibility that terrorist states and organizations may soon acquire horrific weapons of destruction and use them to escalate terrorism beyond our wildest nightmares has not been addressed properly by Western governments. It mus be recognized that barring firm and resolute action by the United States and the West, terrorism in the 1990s will expand dramatically both domestically and internationally. Today's tragedies can either be the harbingers of much greater calamities yet to come or the turning point in which free societies once again mobilize their resources, their ingenuity, and their will to wipe out this evil from our midst. Fighting terrorism is not a "policy option"; it is a necessity for the survival of our democratic society and our freedoms. Showing how this battle can be won is the purpose of this book.

New York Times - Richard Bernstein

Vigorous . . . Mr.Netanyahu's argument, which is soberly and clearly made, cannot be taken lightly.

Washington Post Book World - Peter W. Rodman

Netanyahu has produced a small volume updating the story of international terrorism and his advice on how to defeat it.

Washington Times - Bill Gertz

An excellent primer on the groups, motives and methods of the current terrorist threat.

Detroit News - Berl Faulbaum

. . . makes a strong case that the west has not prepared itself properly for increased domestic and international terrorism.



Monday, November 30, 2009

Broken Promises Broken Dreams or George Washingtons Expense Account

Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: The Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience

Author: Alice Rothchild


The tragedies of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians are never far from the pages of the mainstream press. Yet it is rare to hear about the reality of life on the ground, and it is rarer still when these voices belong to women. This book records the intimate journey of a Jewish-American physician travelling and working within Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Alice Rothchild grew up in a family grounded by the traumas of the Holocaust and passionately devoted to Israel. This book recounts her experiences as she grapples with the reality of life in Israel, the complexity of Jewish Israeli attitudes, and the hardships of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.

Through her work with a medical and human rights project, Rothchild is able to offer a unique personal insight into the conflict. Based on interviews with a number of different women, she examines their diverse perspectives and the complexities of Jewish Israeli identity. Rothchild's memorable account brings to life the voices of people mutually entwined in trauma, and explores individual examples of resilience and resistance.

Ultimately, the book raises troubling questions regarding U.S. policy and the insistence of the mainstream Jewish community on giving unquestioning support to all Israeli policy.

Alice Rothchild, M.D., serves on the steering committee of Jewish Voice for Peace, Boston. She has worked with medical delegations to Israel and the Occupied Territories with the JVP Health and Human Rights Project. A Boston-based physician, she has sought to build alliances between Israelis and Palestinians in opposition to Israeli policies of occupation and to promote a morehonest dialogue within the Jewish community in the United States.

Visit the author's website at brokenpromisesbrokendreams.com



See also: Food in Missouri or The BLT Cookbook

George Washington's Expense Account: General George Washington and Marvin Kitman, PFC (Ret.)

Author: Marvin Kitman

In George Washington's Expense Account — the best-selling expense account in history — Kitman shows how Washington brilliantly turned his noble gesture of refusing payment for his services as commander in chief of the Continental Army into an opportunity to indulge his insatiable lust for fine food and drink, extravagant clothing, and lavish accommodations. In a close analysis of the document that financed our Revolution, Kitman uncovers more scandals than you can shake a Nixon Cabinet member at — and serves each up with verve and wit.



Sunday, November 29, 2009

Please Dont Remain Calm or Free Lunch

Please Don't Remain Calm: Provocations and Commentaries

Author: Michael Kinsley

A lucid deconstruction of the politics and public figures shaping the social, financial, and military disasters of our times.

This selection of Michael Kinsley's trenchant editorial writing in Slate (and elsewhere) since 1995 covers the end of the Clinton era (Monica, impeachment, etc.) and two terms of George W. Bush (9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq, etc.).

During this time Kinsley left Washington for Seattle and founded Slate, was opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times, underwent brain surgery for Parkinson's disease, and had other adventures that are reflected here. Although mostly about politics, there are articles and essays about other things, such as the future of newspapers, the existence of God, and why power women love Law and Order.

This is the work of a writer at the top of his form. Kinsley's wit is a weapon that any talk-show host or elected blowhard should envy and fear, and the reader will cherish his sense of humor, which enlivens even the toughest subject matter.

The New York Times - Jonathan Freedland

Most columnists would be sufficiently self-aware to admit that collections like this shouldn't really work: an op-ed article is written for that week rather than posterity. Yet Kinsley pulls it off, thanks chiefly to a personality that you want to spend more, not less, time with. He is honest, admitting that he didn't read all the books when judging the National Book Award; generous, giving the credit for Slate's achievements to his successor; and self-deprecating, even when fessing up to his years in denial about his own Parkinson's disease, about which he is plain-spoken and never mawkish. So you find yourself like a couch potato with a bar of chocolate, polishing off a piece only to indulge yourself with just one more. You're left with a strong sense of what a turbulent, even gloomy decade this has been since Kinsley headed west—yet somehow you've enjoyed reliving it.

Publishers Weekly

Partisan political writing generally enjoys the life expectancy of a weather report, but this collection of Kinsley's trenchant commentary is worth preserving. Kingsley has assembled 127 essays on the American political scene from the Clinton administration to the present. He eschews deep analysis in favor of poking fun at the foibles, evasions, contradictions and hypocrisies of American public figures and the media that feed off them, with occasional detours into his personal life. Inevitably, some pieces show their age, but readers will relish his skewering of the 2000 and 2004 elections. Kinsley is irresistible when he steps back from reporting to pose his trademark provocative-often humorous-questions: Why is it admirable for scientists to love science and businessmen to love business, but political candidates must proclaim how much they hate politics? Is Pat Robertson anti-Semitic or simply nuts? Does President Bush really believe his claim that all Muslims and Jews are going to hell because they don't accept Jesus? While essays from recent years naturally feel more relevant, every essay in this collection sparkles with Kinsley's trademark brand of wit. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.



Table of Contents:

Introduction     xiii
1995-1999
Long Sentence     3
Confessions of a Buckraker     6
EDITORIAL: A Dangerous Medium     11
Slate: A Policy Statement     13
Bill Clinton's Browser     14
In Defense of Matt Drudge     15
Lies, Damned Lies, and Impeachment     17
The Trouble with Scoops     21
Easy Answers     23
Internet Envy     28
Go to Hell     32
2000
Six Degrees of America Online     36
McCain's High Horse     38
Republicans for Hillary     41
The Secret Shame of the Professional Politician     43
McCain for Veep: It's Not Too Late!     45
It's an Outrage (Never Mind What)     48
Frankly, My Dear     51
Voters to Decide Election     53
My Plan's Better than Your Plan     56
The Emperor's New Brain     58
Fun with Numbers     61
Democracy Is Approximate: Live with It     62
No Contest     65
W and Justice     67
Equal Protection of Whom? From What?     70
Reasonable People Can Differ?     72
2001
God Bless YouAnd...     75
Reagan's Record     77
Reagan's Record II     80
O'Reilly among the Snobs     82
The Mystery of the Departing Guests     84
Confessions of a McCain-Feingold Criminal     87
It's Not Just the Internet     89
Triumph of the Right-Wing Dorks     92
Trent Lott's Stages of Grief     94
Pandora's Cable Box     96
Shining C     99
Equality at the Airport, I     101
What Is Terrorism?     104
New York Becomes Seattle     106
An Agenda for Victory     109
Is Disappearing     111
Osama Done Told Me     113
The Genius of Ari Fleischer     116
Forgetting Afghanistan     118
In Defense of Denial     121
2002
Listening to Our Inner Ashcroft     125
The Goldberg Variations     127
Are Conservatives Brainier?     132
Davos for Beginners     134
What Is Terrorism, Continued     137
Social Hypochondria     139
Equality at the Airport, II     141
The Justice's Wife's Tale     144
An Ode to Managers      146
Lying in Style     149
Some Kind Words for Cardinal Law     151
This Throne of Kings     153
The Hindsight Saga     155
Blame the Accountant     158
King George     160
Disabilities and Inabilities     163
It's Good Enough     165
Who Wants This War?     167
Government by Osmosis     169
What Time Is It?     172
Ours Not to Reason Why     174
The Secret Vice of Power Women     178
Curse You, Robert Caro!     180
Computers Go Too Far     183
Why Innocent People Confess     185
How Reaganomics Became Rubinomics     188
Lott's Adventures in Gaffeland     190
2003
Pious Pair     193
Morally Unserious     195
Desert Shields     198
J'Accuse, Sort Of     200
Unauthorized Entry     203
Unsettled     205
Bush's War     208
Bill Bennett's Bad Bet     210
The Fabulist     213
Sympathy for the New York Times     215
Supreme Court Fudge     218
Abolish Marriage     220
Who Is Buried in Bush's Speech?     223
At Least Say You're Sorry     225
Just Supposin'     228
Filter Tips     230
Taking Bush Personally     232
The Religious Superiority Complex     235
Attack Geography     237
When Good News Is Bad News     240
2004
Novak Agonistes     243
Blind, Deaf, and Lame     246
"I'm Not a Quitter!"     248
Take This Column, Please     251
Paradise Lost     253
The Trouble with Optimism     259
A Good Editorial     262
The Case against George W. Bush     267
Social Security Privatization Won't Work     270
2005
The Century's Greatest Love Story     272
No Smoking Gun     274
Niger-Scooter-Plame-Gate     277
How Conservative Is "Too Conservative"?     280
Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner?     282
Cheney Weighs In     285
The New Corruption     287
2006
Wendy     290
The Future of Newspapers     292
Give Me Liberty or Let Me Think about It     295
Why Lawyers Are Liars     297
The Ayatollah Joke Book     300
What's Your Theory?     303
M1 and Me     305
The Twilight of Objectivity     308
Win a Date with E. J. Dionne     311
Above the Law     314
Please Don't Remain Calm     317
How I Spent My Summer Vacation     320
Yrotciv in Iraq     323
War and Embryos     325
2007
In God, Distrust     328
We Try Harder (but What's the Point?)     332
How Many Divisions Has the Congress?     334
Index     337

Read also Among Warriors in Iraq or Contrary Notions

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)

Author: David Cay Johnston

The bestselling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new exposé.

Kirkus Reviews

An exhaustive litany of federal, state and even local giveaways to the very wealthy, described in agonizing and depressing detail. Beginning in the Reagan years, the U.S. government has placed a growing economic burden onto those least able to bear it, declares Johnston (Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich-and Cheat Everybody Else, 2003, etc.). It subsidizes the prosperous through tax breaks and other giveaways while stripping away protections for consumers, retirees, workers and investors. Starting with the sordid story of an exclusive Oregon golf course whose wealthy patrons enjoy recreation indirectly paid for by taxpayers, Johnston details dozens of giveaways, demonstrating beyond doubt that while government policies have made life much easier for those at the very top of the income pyramid, the great majority have it much worse than ever before. Examples range from the infamous-electricity deregulation, the collapse of Enron and the resulting astronomical spikes in the cost of power-to the obscure. In the latter category is Cabela's, a sporting-goods behemoth that convinced the citizens of tiny Hamburg, Pa., to grant it an exemption from property and sales taxes in exchange for locating a new megastore in their community. The total subsidy: some $8,000 for each man, woman and child in the community. Stories like these are no longer shocking, and Johnston fails to reach beyond sensationalism to solutions. In a final chapter, he suggests that citizens embrace democratic principles, but is disappointingly vague on how that might manifest itself in policies that would right the sinking ship he so vividly describes. Without solutions, thisremains little more than a list of grievances.

What People Are Saying


"If you're concerned about congressional earmarks, stock options (especially backdated options), hedge fund tax breaks, abuse of eminent domain, subsidies to sports teams, K Street lobbyists, the state of our health-care system, to say nothing of the cavernous gap between rich and poor, you'll read this fine book—as I did—with a growing sense of outrage. Free Lunch makes it clear that it's high time for 'We the People' to stand up and be counted."
—John C. Bogle, founder and former chairman, The Vanguard Group

"With clarity, conciseness, and cool, fact-saturated analysis, Mr. Johnston, the premier investigative reporter on how industry and commerce shift risks and costs to taxpayers, sends the ultimate message to all Americans—either we demand to have a say or we will continue to pay, pay, and pay."
—Ralph Nader




Friday, November 27, 2009

One Nation Underground or American Made

One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture

Author: Kenneth Ros

"Kenneth Rose's One Nation Underground explores U.S. nuclear history from the bottom up—literally. . . . Rose deserves credit for not trivializing this period of our history, as so many retrospectives of the Cold War era have tended to do."
Journal of Cold War Studies

"Important . . . One Nation Underground is an elegant account of the issues involved in the nuclear age."
Pacific Northwest Quarterly

"This is a fine compilation of a massive amount of research, well founded in the existing literature, and presented in a readable narrative."
Journal of Illinois History

"A readable short history of the fallout shelters and the broader political debate over civil defense. . . . Mr. Rose is a good storyteller, and One Nation Underground is engagingly writen, with an array of evocative photgraphs."
The Wall Street Journal

"Rose writes well, with a good eye for the telling phrase and revealing example."—Journal of Social History

For the half-century duration of the Cold War, the fallout shelter was a curiously American preoccupation. Triggered in 1961 by a hawkish speech by John F. Kennedy, the fallout shelter controversy—"to dig or not to dig," as Business Week put it at the time—forced many Americans to grapple with deeply disturbing dilemmas that went to the very heart of their self-image about what it meant to be an American, an upstanding citizen, and a moral human being.

Given the much-touted nuclear threat throughout the 1960s and the fact that 4 out of 5 Americans expressed a preference for nuclear war over living under communism,what's perhaps most striking is how few American actually built backyard shelters. Tracing the ways in which the fallout shelter became an icon of popular culture, Kenneth D. Rose also investigates the troubling issues the shelters raised: Would a post-war world even be worth living in? Would shelter construction send the Soviets a message of national resolve, or rather encourage political and military leaders to think in terms of a "winnable" war?

Investigating the role of schools, television, government bureaucracies, civil defense, and literature, and rich in fascinating detail—including a detailed tour of the vast fallout shelter in Greenbriar, Virginia, built to harbor the entire United States Congress in the event of nuclear armageddon—One Nation, Underground goes to the very heart of America's Cold War experience.

Wall Street Journal, Nov 13, 2001 - Melanie Kirkpatrick

Mr. Rose is a good storyteller, and "One Nation Underground" is engagingly written, with an array of evocative photographs.

Washington Monthly

"A broad-ranging narrative that covers the politics, culture, religion, and even engineering of the Cold War era."

Christian Science Monitor

An interesting and amply illustrate dcommentary on cold war concerns.

Library Journal

Although Rose (history, California State Univ., Chico; American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition) might have wished his popular history of the Cold War to work from below ground on up, his excavation of the great fear of the Fifties reveals a discourse overwhelmingly top-down. Government and civic elites propagandized for shelters built from theoretical funds that mostly were never appropriated; average citizens fretted that their neighbors were building bunkers to exclude them come Armageddon, yet apparently very few private spaces were ever erected. Rose demonstrates that the shelter was the leading if least visible icon of a civil defense debate that questioned whether nuclear wars were confinable, hence survivable, but also whether shelter was more practical or at least not incompatible with mass evacuation. Rose reconstructs Herman Kahn, the pro-limited nuclear war physicist/Dr. Strangelove model, as the most intriguing if possibly insane personage in his account but leaves much possibly fertile soil unturned. (What did history's most famous shelterists, the World War II British, think of their Yankee cousins' official mania only a few years later?) This book fails to live up to the originality promised by the subject but as a first-of-area undertaking should be acquired by academic libraries. Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Treating the fallout shelter as an American icon, this history discusses its significance in the context of the Cold War. It considers the implications of the fallout shelter<-->and the fact that so few Americans actually built them<-->for the national self-image, the ideals of citizenship, and moral thinking. The book examines the role schools, film, government bureaucracies, civil defense efforts, and literature each played in forming the fallout shelter culture. Rose teaches history at California State University, Chico. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



New interesting book: Microsoft Office System Step by Step 2003 or Start Your Own Business On eBay

American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work

Author: Nick Taylor

Seventy-five years after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, here for the first time is the remarkable story of one of its enduring cornerstones, the Works Progress Administration (WPA): its passionate believers, its furious critics, and its amazing accomplishments.

The WPA is American history that could not be more current, from providing economic stimulus to renewing a broken infrastructure. Introduced in 1935 at the height of the Great Depression, when unemployment and desperation ruled the land, this controversial nationwide jobs program would forever change the physical landscape and social policies of the United States. The WPA lasted eight years, spent $11 billion, employed 8½ million men and women, and gave the country not only a renewed spirit but a fresh face. Now this fascinating and informative book chronicles the WPA from its tumultuous beginnings to its lasting presence, and gives us cues for future action.

The Washington Post - H. W. Brands

Taylor's American-Made is bigger than its title suggests; he provides a succinct survey of the Great Depression and particularly its consequences for workers…he interweaves personal stories with explanations of policy. His manner is brisk; chapters of four and five pages fly by. He treats Roosevelt sympathetically, but his hero is Harry Hopkins, the WPA's founding director.

Publishers Weekly

Launched in 1935, at the bottom of the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) served as a linchpin of FDR's "New Deal." Through the WPA, Roosevelt put millions of unemployed Americans to work on public construction projects, from dams and courthouses to parks and roads. The WPA's Federal Writers Project employed a host of artists and writers (among them Jackson Pollock, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Studs Terkel); theater and musical artists also received funding. Taylor (Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church) vividly and painstakingly paints the full story of the WPA from its inception to its shutdown by Congress in 1943, at which point the war boom in manufacturing had made it unnecessary. In an eloquent and balanced appraisal, Taylor not only chronicles the WPA's numerous triumphs (including New York's LaGuardia Airport) but also its failures, most notably graft and other chicanery at the local level. Taylor details as well the dicey intramural politics in Congress over which states and districts would get the largest slice of the WPA pie. All told, Taylor's volume makes for a splendid appreciation of the WPA with which to celebrate the upcoming 75th anniversary of the New Deal's beginnings in 1933. (Mar. 4)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Frederick J. Augustyn Jr. - Library Journal

Taylor (coauthor, John Glenn: A Memoir) acknowledges 2008's 75th anniversary of the New Deal (dated to FDR's first inaugural), followed in 2010 by that of the Works Progress Administration (1935-42)-later called the Work Projects Administration (WPA). His is a balanced summary of one of FDR's most prolific agencies. Although introductive for general readers and younger scholars on the subject of what a government can accomplish in a time of need, it is also informative for professional historians. The WPA's famous first commissioner, Harry Hopkins, was reassigned from the Civil Works Administration, later to move to the Commerce Department and then to become a presidential adviser. Taylor shows that the WPA also evolved from diverse programs to those focused on construction. The post office murals; the Federal Writers, Theater, and Music programs; what is now known as Camp David; and numerous parks, zoos, recreational areas, and airports are iconic products of the WPA. It also did work in the library field and offered a pavilion at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. Its follies and triumphs are praised and critiqued here in a readable, often investigative, and apparently first full retrospective. Lavishly illustrated, the book also has a list of New Deal organizations, a partial list of construction projects, a New Deal chronology, and endnotes. It will be a boon to all 20th-century history collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ11/1/07.]

Kirkus Reviews

Breezy but well-considered account of the Works Progress Administration, the New Deal's signature jobs program. Taylor (Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War, 2000, etc.) writes popular history, which means that academics may find his fast-paced narrative lacking in complex ideas. He peppers descriptions of major policy clashes with profiles of destitute people whose lives were literally saved by going on the workforce program. The book is filled with plucky, fast-talking characters who by dint of charm and grit pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to participate in the nationwide effort to put the jobless to work. Taylor's principal hero is Harry Hopkins, the tireless, charismatic FDR aide who steamrolled bureaucratic opposition to get the WPA up and running, then saw it through to the end, at the expense of his health and personal political ambitions, until it was ultimately derailed by the onset of World War II. The author paints a colorful, compelling picture of how miserable life was for most Americans after the stock market crash of 1929; his portrait of government competence and visionary goals contrasts pointedly with the radically restricted ambitions of today's politicians. He gives airtime to critics who found the WPA anti-business and anti-American, who invented the term "boondoggle" to describe the government's sometimes wasteful methods for getting people back to work. He also shows those voices drowned out by the concerns of starving citizens and reminds us that the WPA built some of the nation's most beloved pieces of infrastructure, from San Francisco's Cow Palace to New York's LaGuardia Airport. Readable and vividly rendered-anear-definitive account of one of the most massive government interventions into domestic affairs in American history. Agent: Lynn Nesbit/Janklow & Nesbit Associates



Thursday, November 26, 2009

Irans Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities or Land Mosaics

Iran's Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities: The Threat in the Northern Gulf

Author: Anthony H Cordesman

Nations around the world are uncertain and anxious about Iran's intentions in the Middle East and the wider global arena. Its current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made no secret of his opposition to Western society, particularly Israel, and his desire to acquire nuclear weapons. However, as Anthony Cordesman and Martin Kleiber point out, Ahmadinejad does not necessarily speak for the Iranian clerical regime, who operate in a cloud of secrecy and also directly control Iran's military. Given the ambiguous nature of Iran's global objectives, this new study focuses on the tangible aspects of Iran's military forces and takes an objective look at the realistic threats that Iran poses the region and the world. The authors systematically assess each aspect of Iranian military forces from their conventional armies to their asymmetric threat via proxy wars in the region.



New interesting book: Cannibal Island or Inclusion

Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions

Author: Richard T T Forman

Animals, water, wind, and people flow at different rates according to spatial patterns common to almost all landscapes and regions. This up-to-date synthesis explores the ecology of heterogeneous land areas, where natural processes and human activities interact to produce an ever changing mosaic. The subject has great relevance to contemporary society and this book reflects the breadth of this importance: there are many ideas and applications for planning, conservation, design, management, sustainability and policy. Spatial solutions are provided for society's land-use objectives. Students and professionals alike will be drawn by the attractive and informative illustrations, the conceptual synthesis, the wide international perspective, and the range of topics and research covered.

Booknews

A state-of-the-art synthesis that explores the ecology of heterogeneous land areas, where natural processes and human activities spatially interact to produce a continually changing mosaic. The foundations of landscape and regional ecology are first introduced. Early chapters then explore the array of patch, corridor, and matrix types, plus movements and flows between adjacent elements, as the essential building blocks of land mosaics. Middle chapters fit these spatial elements together, and explore movements and flows through the resulting mosaics. Later chapters then explore the mosaics changing over time, including alternative pattern sequences in planning or managing landscapes or regions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Confronting Iran or Personal Memoirs of U S Grant

Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy and the Next Great Crisis in the Middle East

Author: Ali M Ansari

Iran refuses to relent in developing nuclear technology, despite U.N. sanctions. Rumors persist that Israel is drawing up plans for military strikes. Neither the emboldened Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nor the embattled President Bush has relented in his war of words. How did we get here? Iran expert Ali Ansari sets the current crisis in the context of a long history of mutual antagonism. From the overthrow of Mosaddeq in 1953 to the hostage crisis in 1979 and, more recently, the Gulf War and the War in Iraq, both Iranian and American politicians have forged conflicting narratives about an "evil empire" lying half a world away-resulting in a mutual mistrust that may ultimately lead to war. An authoritative account of failed foreign policy, this book will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this explosive region.



Table of Contents:
Chronology     ix
Introduction     1
Imperial Hubris     7
1953     19
1979     55
The United States and the Islamic Republic     93
Khatami and the Reform Movement     147
Iran-US Relations in the Shadow of 9/11     165
Nuclear Politics     197
Conclusion     233
Afterword     243
Acknowledgments     257
Notes     259
Glossary     275
Sources and Guide to Further Reading     278
Index     281

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Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant

Author: Ulysses S Grant

After three deadly years of fighting, President Abraham Lincoln had seen a little progress in the West against the Confederacy, but in the main theater of operations, Virginia, the lines were almost exactly where they had been when the American Civil War started. The war was at a stalemate with northern public support rapidly fading. Then, Lincoln summoned General Ulysses S. Grant, victor of the Vicksburg campaign, to come East. In little over a year, America's most catastrophic armed conflict ended, the Union was preserved, and slavery was abolished. This book details how these triumphs were achieved and in the telling earned international acclaim as a superb example of an English-language personal chronicle.

About the Author
Ulysses S. Grant remains one of the giants in American history, revered and respected by his contemporaries, but viewed ever after as one of the country's most controversial figures. He graduated from West Point in 1843 and went on to have a successful military career before becoming the 18th President of the United States for two terms. These grand accomplishments stand in stark contrast with his failures. He became an alcoholic, a failed businessman, and the administration during his presidency is regarded as one of the most corrupt in U.S. history. While other prominent Americans look to publishing their recollections as a crowning event undertaken in the leisure of retirement, Grant had to write his 1885 memoir as a means to pay his debts and support his family.

Booknews

**** Reprint of the 1885-86 edition (cited in BCL3) with a selection of Matthew Brady photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



Saturday, February 21, 2009

Last Campaign or Blueprint for Action

Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election

Author: Zachary Karabell

In The Last Campaign, Zachary Karabell rescues the 1948 presidential campaign from the annals of political folklore ("Dewey Defeats Truman," the Chicago Tribune memorably and erroneously heralded), to give us a fresh look at perhaps the last time the American people could truly distinguish what the candidates stood for.

In 1948, Harry Truman, the feisty working-class Democratic incumbent was one of the most unpopular presidents the country had ever known. His Republican rival, the aloof Thomas Dewey, was widely thought to be a shoe-in. These two major party candidates were flanked on the far left by the Progressive Henry Wallace, and on the far right by white supremacist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. The Last Campaign exposes the fascinating story behind Truman’s legendary victory and turns a probing eye toward a by-gone era of political earnestness, when, for “the last time in this century, an entire spectrum of ideologies was represented,” a time before television fundamentally altered the political landscape.

Library Journal

Dewey defeats Truman! claims Karabell (Architects of Intervention) in this engaging narrative of the 1948 presidential election. It was the final contest in which voters could choose from four candidates representing quite distinct political ideologies and the final campaign before television "worked its destructive magic." Incumbent President Harry Truman and Tom Dewey, his Republican opponent, offered voters moderate choices, while Progressive Henry Wallace and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond were extreme alternatives. The author is strongest discussing the impact of the press, polls, and radio and describing the importance of the convention, which was then "a mix of high politics, low politics and entertainment." Truman was the last candidate to verbally savage his opponents, especially Dewey, who instead ran a civil but dull campaign--the kind future voters would come to expect. Dewey's campaign and not Truman's "Give-'em-Hell-Harry" strategy became the model for following elections. In this respect, the author concludes, Dewey did indeed defeat Truman. Along with Gary Donaldson's more analytical Truman Defeats Dewey (LJ 10/15/98), Karabell provides an intriguing overview of this watershed election. Recommended for all libraries.--Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twsp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Michael Tomasky

…frank and suggestive…Tikkun

NY Times Book Review

Brings all four candidates to life skillfully recreating a tumultuous time... A vivid, entertaining book.

Boston Globe Magazine

The perfect antidote to this year's pale imitation of a political campaign.

What People Are Saying

Michael Beschloss
An absorbing, intelligent, sometimes startling account of the outsized personalities & drama and the larger forces behind a legendary campaign.




See also: Why Didnt I Think of That or Chemistry and Application of Green Tea

Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating

Author: Thomas P M Barnett

The strategically crucial sequel to the New York Times bestseller.

The Pentagon's New Map was one of the most talked-about books of the year-a fundamental reexamination of war and peace in the post-9/11 world that provided a compelling vision of the future. Now, senior advisor and military analyst Thomas P.M. Barnett explores our possible long-and short-term relations with such nations and regions as Iran, Iraq, and the Middle East, China and North Korea, Latin America and Africa, while outlining the strategies to pursue, the entities to create, and the pitfalls to overcome. Barnett's new book is something more-a powerful road map through a chaotic and uncertain world to "a future worth creating."



Friday, February 20, 2009

Ready for Revolution or Memos to the Governor

Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)

Author: Stokely Carmichael

By any measure, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) fundamentally altered the course of history. Published at the fifth anniversary of Carmichael's death, this long-awaited autobiography fills a yawning gap in the American historical record as it chronicles the legendary civil rights leader's work as chairman of SNCC, patriarch of Black Power, Pan-African activist, and social revolutionary. It is an unflinching, searing, often visionary testament to the man's legacy and joins the works of Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Nelson Mandela as a crucial and colorful contribution to contemporary history.

As in life, the Carmichael in these pages is the definition of charisma and determination. In sharp prose full of Carmichael's candor, wit, irrepressible sense of irony, and undying love for his people, Ready for Revolution relates with clear-eyed intelligence the epic struggle for human liberation in our time. Carmichael -- who in 1978 changed his name to Kwame Ture in honor of his mentors, the revolutionary African leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure -- recounts the course of his own experience and struggles, ranging from the prison farms and lynch mobs of Mississippi through the firefights and political intrigue of the African liberation wars to Black Power and Pan-Africanism. His transformation from immigrant child to impassioned activist is spellbinding. Populated with an international cast of luminaries, including James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Miriam Makeba, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Toni Morrison, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro, Ready for Revolution captures, as few books ever have, the pulse of the cultural upheavals that define the modern world.

More than the sum of its parts, this book is the personal testimony of a supremely courageous and committed African-American freedom fighter, radical thinker, and warm and engaging human being. Regardless of whether one subscribes to Carmichael's politics and ideas, there is no denying the overwhelming influence he had on American lives and history. And his view from the eye of the black-struggle storm is invaluable.

The New York Times

Ready for Revolution captures Carmichael's electrifying moments in the national spotlight and his emblematic journey from nonviolent integrationist to advocate of black power and Pan-African revolution. His faith in ultimate justice further buoys his memoir, as does his abiding gratitude at ''being part of a uniquely favored historical generation'' that ''presented black youth with an unprecedented opportunity to engage society militantly.'' —Robert Weisbrot

The Washington Post

The segment on the early 1960s, in which Carmichael relates his first-hand experience of key events of the times, are the most absorbing. Though the story of the Freedom Rides and SNCC's organizing in Mississippi have been told often, Carmichael's recounting is still gripping. The violence directed at activists was horrific, the sadism of white supremacists chilling, the determination of black Southerners inspiring. These chapters are especially timely as an antidote to contemporary rhetoric. As today's White House paints terrorism as a creation of foreigners with dark skins, Ready for Revolution reminds us of a much longer history of terrorism's white American face. — John D'Emilio

Publishers Weekly

The firebrand civil rights leader who led the call for Black Power in the 1960s looks back on nearly five decades of protests and freedom fighting in this passionate, posthumous autobiography. In collaboration with his friend Thelwell (a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts), Carmichael, who died in Guinea in 1998, traces his path from immigrant child of Trinidad to charismatic U.S. student activist and unrepentant revolutionary. The story is told largely in Carmichael's own stylish, often thunderous, first-person words and is named for the telephone greeting that the author used for much of his life. It covers the full sweep of events that shaped Carmichael's life: his years at the elite Bronx High School of Science and Howard University; summers spent registering black voters in Mississippi and Alabama; personal encounters with such leaders as Martin Luther King, James Baldwin and Malcolm X; and his sudden decision in 1969 to relocate to Africa and change his name to Kwame Ture. Carmichael also addresses controversial issues that surrounded him as a young civil rights activist: his splits with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panthers, and reports of ideological struggles with the pacifist King all "[u]tter, utter nonsense," he insists. While Carmichael's love for the African community and its traditions are infectiously passionate, the book's singular perspective, despite being intercut with other interviewees and sources, won't sustain every reader. The book is at its strongest when Carmichael recounts powerful I-was-there anecdotes (most notably from his days as a SNCC organizer in Mississippi) that civil rights historians will devour. At its best, this is a compelling portrait of a radical thinker who radiated charisma and practiced revolution to the end. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Dictated as autobiography before he succumbed to cancer, this is the story of the enlarging life of Stokely Carmichael (1941- 98), with Thelwell (Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst, Afro-American studies) arranging the transcription for publication. Perhaps best known as the voice of the radical call "Black Power" while he headed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1966-67, Carmichael cast himself then and ever as a freedom fighter. He promoted a vision of radical change throughout the black diaspora, with an aim not of moving from the margin to the mainstream but of moving the mainstream past its contradictions and complacency with the products of materiality into the moral process of justice. His theme harkens back to his 1971 Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. He further embraced his affinity in changing his name in 1978 to honor revolutionary West African leaders Kwame Nhrumah of Ghana and Sekou Toure of Guinea. Eschewing reductionism, this profound and expansive work demands reading by all with any interest in the Civil Rights Movement, African American or Pan-African history, biography, or modern U.S. history and politics. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/03.]-Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Howard Zinn
I knew Stokely as a brilliant, charismatic, and courageous figure in the Southern movement against racism. He was a thinker of extraordinary vision and a fighter of unequalled courage. We should welcome his autobiography as told to his friend Mike Thelwell.


Mary King
Located midway between Gandhi and Lenin, Stokely engendered fierce love from his fellow SNCC workers — something inexplicable to onlookers who reviled him. No one seriously interested in the U.S. civil rights movement should be without this book. The provocative is made plain, the enigmatic clarified, and the elusive becomes sensible — with Stokely's unique voice, wit, and verve.


William Julius Wilson
Fascinating...one of the most engaging and interesting autobiographies I have ever read. The struggles of the civil rights movement and Carmichael's vision of social justice come alive in this important contribution to social history.


Manisha Sinha
One of the most historically significant autobiographies from the civil rights era. No historian of the civil rights movement will be able to write about this period without consulting this indispensable book. Written in the language and from the heart of African America, it is also an immense stylistic achievement.


Robert A. Hill
Stokely Carmichael has bequeathed to us what is sure to become one of the great American autobiographies — the story...of a time when Americans, black and white, men and women, believed they could remake their America. With amazing humor, tempered by real humility, Ready for Revolution represents...what is surely the defining story of the American century.




Table of Contents:
Collaborator's Note
Introduction

I. Oriki: Ancestors and Roots
II. The House at the Forty-Two Steps
III. A Tale of Two Cities
IV. "A Better Neighborhood"
V. Bronx Science: Young Manhood
VI. Howard University: Everything and Its Opposite
VII. NAG and the Birth of SNCC
VIII. Nonviolence -- Apprenticeship in Struggle
IX. The Great Leap Forward: The Freedom Rides
X. Nashville: A New Direction
XI. To School or Not to School
XII. The Hearts and Minds of the Student Body
XIII. Mississippi (1961-65): Going Home
XIV. A Band of Brothers, a Circle of Trust
XV. Of Marches, Coalitions, Dreams, and Ambulance Chasing
XVI. Summer '64: Ten Dollars a Day and All the Sex You Can Handle
XVII. They Still Didn't Get It
XVIII. The Unforeseen Pitfalls of "Success" American Style
XIX. Selma: Crisis, Chaos, Opportunity
XX. Lowndes County: The Roar of the Panther
XXI. "Magnified, Scrutinized, Criticized..."
XXII. "We Gotta Make This Our Mississippi"
XXIII. Black Power and Its Consequences
XXIV. Around the World in Eighty Days
XXV. Mother Africa and Her Suffering Children
XXVI. In That Ol' Brier Patch
XXVII. Conakry, 1968: Home to Africa
XXVIII. Cancer Brings Out the Best in People
XXIX. A Struggle on Two Fronts

Postscript
Afterword: In the Tradition
Acknowledgments
Index

Read an Excerpt

Ready for Revolution

The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)
By Stokely Carmichael Michael Ekwueme Thelwell

Scribner

Copyright © 2003 Kwame Ture and Ekwueme Michael Thelwel
All right reserved.

ISBN: 0-684-85004-4


Chapter One

"A Better Neighborhood"

My father's announcement took us children by surprise. My mother was part of the announcing, standing next to my father, her face a study in pride and determination. Any apprehension in her expression was held firmly in check beneath the weight of the first two.

My father explained to us that even before we'd arrived from Trinidad, he had been searching everywhere for a better home for us. Now, with the help of the Lord and our good mother, he had found what he was looking for. We would be moving in about two weeks, for our parents had bought us a house.

"Praise the Lord," Mummy Olga sighed audibly. "Praise His holy name."

It would be a better neighborhood, my mom said. We would have more living space. The streets would be quieter, less crowded, and the children would have more freedom. It was close to a school. My mother really emphasized that we would be moving to a "good neighborhood." I do not recall if she mentioned that it would be a white neighborhood, but it was.

The house was farther up in the Bronx, on Amethyst Street, in the Morris Park/White Plains Road area, not far from the Bronx Zoo. We would discover that the neighborhood was heavily Italian with a strong admixture of Irish. It was respectable working class, "ethnic," and very, very Catholic. On one side it bordered Pelham Parkway, across which was a predominantly Jewish enclave.

Ours would be the first, and for much of my youth, the only African family in that immediate neighborhood.

Because we were children, it never occurred to us to wonder why or how my father had been allowed to buy into that block. Nor how, on a single income - my father's, for our parents were very clear that my mother would stay home and mother us full-time - they could have scraped together the down payment. Or from what reserves of inner will and determination these two young immigrants had summoned the optimism and courage to take this major first step in pursuit of the American Dream.

I do recall the excitement of packing for the move, my sisters' and my gleeful anticipation of the promised space and freedom. How big would our house be? How fancy? Would we have our own rooms? This excitement lasted until we actually saw our new home.

It was a dump. I mean, it was a serious, serious dump. In fact, it was the local eyesore, and the reason - I now understand clearly - my father had been able to get the house with no visible opposition was because it was, hands down, the worst house on the block. It was so run-down, beat-up, and ill kept that no one wanted it. If that house were a horse, it would have been described as "hard rode and put up wet." A creature in dire need of a little care and nurturing. My dad was the "sucker" the owners had "seen coming" on whom to unload their white elephant. Which is one reason, I'm sure, the race question was overlooked. Who else could have been expected to buy such a wreck?

When we first saw it, we children were shocked. We looked around the house and at each other. I mean, even the cramped quarters at Stebbins looked like a mansion compared to what we were moving into. I mean, small, little, squinched-up rooms, dark, sunless interiors, filthy baseboards, a total mess and not at all inviting.

But our initial disappointment did not, of course, take into account my father - his supreme confidence in his skills and resourcefulness. He had indeed spent a long time looking for just such a house. Seeing not what was, but what could be. The neighborhood was quieter, and the house just three houses down from a school, and by the grace of God, sufficiently derelict and decrepit as to be available and affordable. Perfect. The Lord do move in mysterious ways.

My father had cased the joint purposefully and assured himself that the foundations were solid enough to afford him a base on which to build. He'd figured out exactly what he was going to do with this house.

Immediately when we moved in - my mother used to tease him fondly that he unpacked his tools before he unpacked his bed - my father set to work, even though it was January and cold. The remake took a long time, continuing in some way as long as he lived there. On those happy days when he had a construction job, my father worked on our house at night. On those all too many days when the union hiring hall failed to refer him to a job, he worked on our home day and night. Before he was through he had added rooms upstairs and down, knocked out walls to create more space, put in windows and doors. In a word, he completely transformed that wreck.

We learned later that as the neighbors looked on, amusement turned to skepticism, skepticism to wonder, and wonder to respect. They were, after all, working men and respected industry and competence. And as they watched the transformation from eyesore to one of the more attractive and well-maintained homes on the block, the neighbors recognized that because of my father the value of their property had not, as expected, plummeted by reason of our black presence, but had instead been enhanced.

The school three houses away on Hamilton Avenue was P.S. 34, where I and my three hearing sisters were immediately enrolled. The eldest, Umilta, who was deaf, attended a special school downtown. Naturally, for us, there would be the necessary period of adjustment - the new-kids-on-the-block syndrome. That we were African undoubtedly contributed something to this tension at first, but I must say clearly that I can remember no instances of overt racism from the neighborhood kids.

Whatever their elders' attitudes might have been, once we were accepted in "da hood" by the other kids, that was it. Once we became familiar presences on the turf, so to say, citizens in good standing of the neighborhood, we were to be defended against any strangers from outside, whatever their color. But there would be a period of adjustment.

Our mother was always at home and overwatchful with one eye tuned in on the street. She at first tried to keep us at home as much as possible, and for a long time she was never really completely comfortable with our visiting other children's homes. For this reason, my father built a clubhouse in our backyard for my friends. Our backyard became a focus of youth activity, which made my mother happy, as most of my time was spent where she could watch my movements and make sure I was not being subjected to racist insults.

I believe my status among the boys was determined early by my mom and a stocky, muscular kid named Paulie Henry. Paulie was Italian/Irish, and most bellicose. He would, as they say, fight at the drop of a hat - and drop the hat himself. One day early on, Paulie slapped around a friend of mine called Billy. I mean, ol' Paulie, like Stack O' Lee in the blues, had laid a hurtin' on poor Billy.

According to my mom, she came out and found me crying along with Billy. I guess, sensitive kid that I was, I was comforting Billy by helping him cry. Billy explained what Paulie had done and added that Paulie had promised to come back and beat me up too. In fact, he had gone to round up his boys to help him administer said beating.

"And where's this Paulie now?" my mother asked.

"Over in the school yard," Billy sobbed.

Before the words were well out of his mouth, my mother stormed into the school yard, trailed a little hesitantly by me and Billy.

"Which one of you is Paulie?" she demanded. Whereupon she declared in a loud and carrying voice - obviously she was sending a message beyond just the school yard - that I was not Billy. And she was not Billy's mother. So everybody, I mean, everybody, better understand that if they laid a finger on her son, she would come back with her husband's ax and set to chopping.

Upon which a chastened, deeply impressed Paulie hastened to assure her that this did not involve her son at all. That they had absolutely no intention in the world of touching her son. This was purely between them and Billy.

It had been a dramatic performance on my mom's part, and quite convincing. It certainly convinced Paulie and his gang, and even I was not entirely sure whether my mother had been serious. Which, I suppose, is exactly what she intended.

For it sure worked. I was probably the only kid on that block Paulie never fought with. In fact, he became a friend, and later, something of an influence.

In all of P.S. 34, there was but one other African family, the Stovalls. But they lived farther down in the Bronx, on the edge of the district. The oldest Stovall was a good athlete and, by reputation, rough, a "real toughie." I suppose as only the second African boy to come through, I basked in some of his reflected valor. Strangely enough, I never became real close with the Stovalls, perhaps because they didn't live in our immediate neighborhood. A case of the dominance of geography, "turf" over race, I presume.

In my class, the fifth grade, the acknowledged baddest dude was an Italian kid named Nicky. I had not been in school two weeks when, for some reason, Nicky challenged me. Again, the teacher gets wind of it and lets me out early. This time, though, there was no uncertainty on my part. I had learned with Jay precisely how to work this one.

In the end, it was almost a total rerun of P.S. 39 and Jay, as Nicky also decided it best that we not fight. Unlike Jay, however, we never became friends. Our relationship remained cool, but correct, a kind of peaceful school-yard coexistence.

Here at P.S. 34 I would find my peers undisciplined, less so than at Stebbins, but undisciplined nonetheless. Also just as destructive, breaking pens and pencils to throw at each other, dashing their books to the ground to fight each other. Which again raised the same question for me: Why were American children so undisciplined and even self-destructive? I still have no answer for that, but as I got more and more into the neighborhood, I would get to see this self-destructiveness at close hand.

By constantly reminding us that we were going to a better neighborhood, my mother had created certain expectations. Yet I would discover that just as much stealing was occurring in the "better" neighborhood, and this would come to touch me quite poignantly.

Despite my mother's efforts to keep us at home or in the backyard, inevitably, my being a boy and older, I would eventually begin to roam the neighborhood. This was almost always in the company of my new and close friend John DiMilio. John and I were inseparable, so close that the neighbors called us the Bobbsey Twins - one being fair and the other dark. They said, "Wherever you see one, you look for the other, he won't be far." We were constantly in and out of each other's home, and before long I was deeply immersed in the ambient local Italian culture.

What little sponges children can be. I loved the food, both the taste and the sound of it, those final vowels and rolling consonants: spaghetti, macaroni, pizza, calamari, antipasto, mozzarella, and so forth. Because of Umilta's deafness, our family had learned to sign to communicate with her. This might explain my fascination with the expressive vocabulary of gestures that was so much a part of Italian conversation. I picked up these gestures naturally, and soon I could curse fluently in Italian to the accompaniment of eloquent gestures, much to the amusement of the adults. "Yo, kid, wad-daw-yah, a wise guy? Gi-dudah-heyah!"

I must in truth have been a sight, a pint-size paisano in blackface. A real wise guy. Everyone knew me even if they did not know my name. The street name they gave me, because I was dark, was Sichie, short for Sicilian. (Later I would learn from Malcolm X the role of Africans in the history of that island and the extent to which the Moors had left their indelible imprint on Sicilian architecture and on the complexion of the populace.)

Naturally, I also picked up the prevalent political attitudes of the Italian community. They did not particularly trust the government, in particular the FBI and the IRS. Of the two agencies, the IRS was truly to be feared while the FBI, in vernacular translation "Forever Bugging Italians," was bush league. My neighbors had scant respect for either that agency or its director, noting that it had consistently failed to make a single racketeering charge against Al Capone stick, while the IRS had busted him on tax evasion.

In the Harlem barbershop where my hair was cut, I would hear an African version of this conventional street wisdom. "Better you kill someone than cheat on them taxes, baby. Yo kin get away with murder easier than taxes. Mes wit his taxes an' Uncle Sam will git you. Yes he will, swear befo' God. Look what happened to Capone."

I know my mother regarded my integration into the local culture with considerable ambivalence. On the one hand, she was pleased with my easy acceptance and local popularity. On the other, a caveat. Her mantra became "Remember now, you can't be doing like these little white boys. Something happen out there in the street and you know who will get the blame." And that familiar nostrum of black parents: "Your little white friends got it made. For you to make it, you will have to be three times better than them. You best remember that, now." That, as it turned out, proved not all that accurate, failing as it did to take into account the serious consequences of class, culture, and gender.

However, my mother's misgivings were well founded, for the youth culture of that block was even then at considerable odds with the values and expectations of the parents.

When I began to hang out after sunset, she imposed a 9:00 P.M.. curfew, which, of course, I stretched as much as was prudent, which did not escape her notice. There would be frequent confrontation. Whenever I pulled in at 9:20 or 9:30, I'd hear about it in no uncertain terms.

One evening, fortunately for me, nothing very interesting was going down in the street. I went home early and retired quietly upstairs to my room. I read some and fell asleep.

At nine o'clock, my mother became incensed, "I know that boy's been running the streets. Well, when he comes in tonight, I am going to catch him. And he will hear me."

Whereupon she fetches up some of my Dad's two by fours and nails and proceeds to batten down the front door as though in preparation for a hurricane. I mean it was a sho'nuff barricade, Jack. By about ten, she's worried. Ten thirty she's besides herself. She rouses my father. "That son of yours is out running the streets again. You better go find him."

"Course I'll go. But, May, you done nailed up the door," my father pointed out.

I hear my name and call down. "Did someone call me?"

"You upstairs?" my mother cried. "Stokely, you upstairs?"

"Yes, ma'am. Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing. Nothing at all," she cries. "Stay in your bed." But by then I'm coming downstairs, trying (without great success) to keep a straight face at the sight of the door.

"Oh, what happened to the door?" I ask innocently. "Is a hurricane coming?"

"Yes, Mr. Man. You go ahead and laugh. But the night I catch you, we'll see how you laugh then."

Did my mother have reason to worry? Absolutely. More reason to worry, in fact, than she ever suspected, even though she tried everything possible to keep me out of trouble. Everything possible. Just like John DiMilio's mother; just like Cookie Delappio's mother; just like Paulie Henry's mother. And many, many other mothers like them. They do their best to keep their children out of trouble in this society ... and fail. They do all in their power to keep them out of jail, to keep them off drugs, away from the many dangers that are out there in America, and too often they fail.

That's why I laugh when I hear people say that it is the parents who are to blame. It's not the parents, it's the society, stupid. The society with its venal, backward, and predatory values. This is what must be changed.

So, what was it that my mother did not really know? Well ... start with the bellicose Paulie, he of the ax-lady incident. Among his age group on the block, Paulie was a leader, in fighting, in stealing, in breaking into neighborhood stores, and such like antisocial actions. All potentially self-destructive. A nice friend otherwise, but this was just his undisciplined streak. Something I found so rampant in America.

(Continues...)



Excerpted from Ready for Revolution by Stokely Carmichael Michael Ekwueme Thelwell Copyright © 2003 by Kwame Ture and Ekwueme Michael Thelwel. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Interesting book: Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns or CINEMA 4D

Memos to the Governor: An Introduction to State Budgeting

Author: Dall W Forsyth

This revised and updated edition of Memos to the Governor goes behind governmental fiscal gobbledygook to clearly explain the technical, economic, and political dynamics of budget making. Dall Forsythe untangles the knotty processes of budget preparation and implementation, outlining the budgeting process through a series of memos from a budget director to a newly elected governor -- a format that guides the neophyte through the complicated financial processes involved in state governance. Forsythe covers all of the steps of budget preparation, from strategy to execution, explaining technical vocabulary, and discussing key topics including baseline budgeting, revenue forecasting, and gap-closing options. Memos to the Governor is a painless, practical introduction to budget preparation for students of and practitioners in public administration and public-sector financial management.



Thursday, February 19, 2009

Vernacular Voices or Song of Faith and Hope

Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres

Author: Gerard A Hauser

Democracy is grounded on the principle that public opinion should influence the course of society. Yet this opinion, its content, and its representation are difficult to define and interpret. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres discusses the role of citizen voices in steering a democracy through an examination of the rhetoric of publics - active segments of society that influence the "general climate" of public dialogue - and of the associated public spheres and public opinion.



Table of Contents:
List of Tables
Series Editor's Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Forgotten Publics1
Ch. 1The Public Voice of Vernacular Rhetoric13
Ch. 2Discourse, Rhetorical Discourse, and the Public Sphere37
Ch. 3Civic Conversation and the Reticulate Public Sphere57
Ch. 4Reading Public Opinion from Vernacular Rhetoric82
Ch. 5Narrative, Cultural Memory, and the Appropriation of Historicity111
Ch. 6Reshaping Publics and Public Spheres: The Meese Commission's Report on Pornography161
Ch. 7Technologizing Public Opinion: Opinion Polls, the Iranian Hostages, and the Presidential Election189
Ch. 8Democracy's Narrative: Living in Roosevelt's America232
Ch. 9The Rhetoric of Publicness: Theory and Method268
App. IChronology of Hostage Developments283
App. IIChronology of the 1980 Campaign289
Notes293
Bibliography311
Index329

New interesting textbook: Corporations and Other Business Associations or Human Value Management

Song of Faith and Hope: The Life of Frankie Muse Freeman

Author: Frankie Muse Muse Freeman

Growing up in the Jim Crow-era South, Frankie Freeman learned lessons about discrimination. She walked places instead of taking the segregated streetcar; she felt hurts and vowed privately never to forget. But in her loving family, she also learned positive lessons about living: work hard, get an education, fight injustice, and make a difference. Freeman took all these lessons to Hampton Institute, to Howard University law school, then to her career as a St. Louis civil rights attorney, winning a landmark victory in the area of fair housing. In 1964, she became the first woman appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, leaving in 1979 to serve as inspector general of the Community Services Administration. During these years, she was also St. Louis Housing Authority general counsel—and lost her job amid bitter controversy stirred up by a commission hearing in St. Louis County. This memoir tells the story of Frankie Freeman's life and career. There were high points, such as meetings with President Lyndon Johnson, historic commission hearings, and her national presidency of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. There were also difficult events, such as the illness and death of her husband and son. Through it all, she continued to fight for what she believed in; she kept her faith—and carried on.



Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Eternally Vigilant or Black Marxism

Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era

Author: Lee C Bollinger

While freedom of speech has been guaranteed us for centuries, the First Amendment as we know it today is largely a creation of the past eighty years. Eternally Vigilant brings together a group of distinguished legal scholars to reflect boldly on its past, its present shape, and what forms our understanding of it might take in the future. The result is a unique volume spanning the entire spectrum of First Amendment issues, from its philosophical underpinnings to specific issues like campaign regulation, obscenity, and the new media.
"With group efforts, such as this collection of essays, it is almost inevitable that there will be a couple—and often several—duds among the bunch, or at least a dismaying repetition of ideas. Such is not the case here. . . . Whether one agrees with a given author or not (and it is possible to do both with any of the essays), each has something to add. Overall, Eternally Vigilant is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book, consistently intelligent and, at times, brilliant."—Richard J. Mollot, New York Law Journal
Contributors:
Lillian R. BeVier
Vincent Blasi
Lee C. Bollinger
Stanley Fish
Owen M. Fiss
R. Kent Greenawalt
Richard A. Posner
Robert C. Post
Frederick Schauer
Geoffrey R. Stone
David A. Strauss
Cass R. Sunstein



New interesting book: The Best of Coffee or Pasta Verde

Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition

Author: Cedric J Robinson

In this influential work, first published in 1993, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses, he shows, tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of black people and black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of blacks on western continents, Robinson argues, and any analysis of African American history needs to acknowledge this.

Library Journal

Robinson rejects previous studies of black radicalism on the basis that they are founded on European history, which does not include blacks. Although he does trace European Marxism, for him the path of black resistance lies in other areas. A must-have volume for any black studies curriculum, this volume is also something public libraries will want. This edition of the 1983 original sports a new preface by Robinson. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.



Table of Contents:
CONTENTS
Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley
Preface to the 1999 Edition
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction 1

Part I. The Emergence and Limitations of European Radicalism 1. Racial Capitalism: The Nonobjective Character of Capitalist Development
Europe's Formation
The First Bourgeoisie
The Modern World Bourgeoisie
The Lower Orders
The Effects of Western Civilization on Capitalism
2. The English Working Class as the Mirror of Production
Poverty and Industrial Capitalism
The Reaction of English Labor
The Colonization of Ireland
English Working-Class Consciousness and the Irish Worker
The Proletariat and the English Working Class
3. Socialist Theory and Nationalism
Socialist Thought: Negation of Feudalism or Capitalism?
From Babeuf to Marx: A Curious Historiography
Marx, Engels, and Nationalism
Marxism and Nationalism
Conclusion

Part II. The Roots of Black Radicalism 4. The Process and Consequences of Africa's Transmutation
The Diminution of the Diaspora
The Primary Colors of American Historical Thought
The Destruction of the African Past
Premodern Relations between Africa and Europe
The Mediterranean: Egypt, Greece, and Rome
The Dark Ages: Europe and Africa
Islam, Africa, and Europe
Europe and the Eastern Trade
Islam and the Making of Portugal
Islam and Eurocentrism
5. The Atlantic Slave Trade and African Labor
The Genoese Bourgeoisie and the Age of Discovery
Genoese Capital, the Atlantic, and a Legend
African Labor as Capital
The Ledgers of a World System
The Column Marked "British Capitalism"
6. The Historical Archaeology of the Black Radical Tradition
History and the Mere Slave
Reds, Whites, and Blacks
Black for Red
Black Resistance: The Sixteenth Century
Palmares and Seventeenth-Century Marronage
Black Resistance in North America
The Haitian Revolution
Black Brazil and Resistance
Resistance in the British West Indies
Africa: Revolt at the Source
7. The Nature of the Black Radical Tradition

Part III. Black Radicalism and Marxist Theory 8. The Formation of an Intelligentsia
Capitalism, Imperialism, and the Black Middle Classes
Western Civilization and the Renegade Black Intelligentsia
9. Historiography and the Black Radical Tradition
Du Bois and the Myths of National History
Du Bois and the Reconstruction of History and American Political Thought
Slavery and Capitalism
Labor, Capitalism, and Slavery
Slavery and Democracy
Reconstruction and the Black Elite
Du Bois, Marx, and Marxism
Bolshevism and American Communism
Black Nationalism
Blacks and Communism
Du Bois and Radical Theory
10. C. L. R. James and the Black Radical Tradition
Black Labor and the Black Middle Classes in Trinidad
The Black Victorian Becomes a Black Jacobin
British Socialism
Black Radicals in the Metropole
The Theory of the Black Jacobin
Coming to Terms with the Marxist Tradition
11. Richard Wright and the Critique of Class Theory
Marxist Theory and the Black Radical Intellectual
The Novel as Politics
Wright's Social Theory
Blacks as the Negation of Capitalism
The Outsider as a Critique of Christianity and Marxism
12. An Ending
Notes
Bibliography
Index
WEB REVIEWS: "Robinson demonstrates very clearly . . . the ability of the black tradition to transcend national boundaries and accommodate cultural, religious and 'racial' differences. Indeed, he shows that, in a sense, it has emerged out of the transformation of these differences."--Race and Class

"A towering achievement. There is simply nothing like it in the history of black radical thought."--Cornel West, Monthly Review AUTHOR BIO: Cedric J. Robinson is professor of black studies and professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include The Terms of Order, Black Movements in America, and the forthcoming Anthropology of Marxism.