Author: Alan M. Dershowitz
Publisher: Warner Books
Genre: History
Release: May 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Renowned attorney and bestselling author AlanM. Dershowitz reveals how notable trials throughout our history have helped to shape our nation. The Boston Massacre. The Dred Scott decision. The Chicago Seven. O.J.Simpson. These are some of the trials that have both shaped and fascinated American society since our nation began. Alan M. Dershowitz, who has been either a lawyer, consultant, or commentator on some of the most celebrated cases of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, highlights the trials he believes to be the most significant in our history, and discusses how they were central to the development of America's political and social structure. Offering insights into the human condition, these trials serve as a historical document, chronicling the struggles and passions of their time. Ultimately, AMERICA ON TRIAL reveals what America-and in turn, Americans-are truly about.
Publisher: Warner Books
Genre: History
Release: May 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Renowned attorney and bestselling author AlanM. Dershowitz reveals how notable trials throughout our history have helped to shape our nation. The Boston Massacre. The Dred Scott decision. The Chicago Seven. O.J.Simpson. These are some of the trials that have both shaped and fascinated American society since our nation began. Alan M. Dershowitz, who has been either a lawyer, consultant, or commentator on some of the most celebrated cases of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, highlights the trials he believes to be the most significant in our history, and discusses how they were central to the development of America's political and social structure. Offering insights into the human condition, these trials serve as a historical document, chronicling the struggles and passions of their time. Ultimately, AMERICA ON TRIAL reveals what America-and in turn, Americans-are truly about.
Author: Michael A. Bellesiles
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: While gun supporters use the nation's gun-toting history in defense of their way of life, and revolutionary enthusiasts replay skirmishes on historic battlefields, it now turns out that America has not always had a gun culture, and wide-scale gun ownership is much newer than we think. After a 10-year search for "a world that isn't there," professor and scholar Michael Bellesiles discovered that Americans not only rarely owned guns prior to the Civil War, they wouldn't even take them for free from a government that "wanted" to arm its reluctant public. No sharpshooters, no gun in every home, no children learning to hunt beside their fathers. Bellesiles--whose research methods have generated a great deal of controversy and even a subsequent investigation by Emory University--searched legal, probate, military, and business records; fiction and personal letters; hunting magazines; and legislation in his quest for the legendary gun-wielding frontiersman, only to discover that he is a myth. There are other revelations: gun ownership and storage was strictly legislated in colonial days, and frivolous shooting of a musket was backed by the death penalty; men rarely died in duels because the guns were far too inaccurate (duels were about honor, not murder); pioneers didn't hunt (they trapped and farmed); frontier folk loved books, not guns; and the militia never won a war (it was too inept). In fact, prior to the Civil War, when mass production of higher quality guns became a reality, the republic's greatest problem was a dearth of guns, and a public that was too peaceable to care about civil defense. As Bellesiles writes, "Probably the major reason why the American Revolution lasted eight years, longer than any war in American history before Vietnam, was that when that brave patriot reached above the mantel, he pulled down a rusty, decaying, unusable musket (not a rifle), or found no gun there at all." Strangely, the eagle-eye frontiersman was created by East Coast fiction writers, while the idea of a gun as a household necessity was an advertising ploy of gun maker Samuel Colt (both just prior to the Civil War). The former group fabricated a historic and heroic past while Colt preyed on overblown fears of Indians and blacks.
Bellesiles, who is highly knowledgeable about weapons and military history, never comes out against guns. He is more interested in discovering the truth than in taking sides. Nevertheless, his work shatters some time-honored myths and icons--including the usual reading of the Second Amendment--and will be hard to refute. This fascinating, eye-opening account is sure to both inform and inflame the already highly charged debate about guns in America. "--Lesly Reed"
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: While gun supporters use the nation's gun-toting history in defense of their way of life, and revolutionary enthusiasts replay skirmishes on historic battlefields, it now turns out that America has not always had a gun culture, and wide-scale gun ownership is much newer than we think. After a 10-year search for "a world that isn't there," professor and scholar Michael Bellesiles discovered that Americans not only rarely owned guns prior to the Civil War, they wouldn't even take them for free from a government that "wanted" to arm its reluctant public. No sharpshooters, no gun in every home, no children learning to hunt beside their fathers. Bellesiles--whose research methods have generated a great deal of controversy and even a subsequent investigation by Emory University--searched legal, probate, military, and business records; fiction and personal letters; hunting magazines; and legislation in his quest for the legendary gun-wielding frontiersman, only to discover that he is a myth. There are other revelations: gun ownership and storage was strictly legislated in colonial days, and frivolous shooting of a musket was backed by the death penalty; men rarely died in duels because the guns were far too inaccurate (duels were about honor, not murder); pioneers didn't hunt (they trapped and farmed); frontier folk loved books, not guns; and the militia never won a war (it was too inept). In fact, prior to the Civil War, when mass production of higher quality guns became a reality, the republic's greatest problem was a dearth of guns, and a public that was too peaceable to care about civil defense. As Bellesiles writes, "Probably the major reason why the American Revolution lasted eight years, longer than any war in American history before Vietnam, was that when that brave patriot reached above the mantel, he pulled down a rusty, decaying, unusable musket (not a rifle), or found no gun there at all." Strangely, the eagle-eye frontiersman was created by East Coast fiction writers, while the idea of a gun as a household necessity was an advertising ploy of gun maker Samuel Colt (both just prior to the Civil War). The former group fabricated a historic and heroic past while Colt preyed on overblown fears of Indians and blacks.
Bellesiles, who is highly knowledgeable about weapons and military history, never comes out against guns. He is more interested in discovering the truth than in taking sides. Nevertheless, his work shatters some time-honored myths and icons--including the usual reading of the Second Amendment--and will be hard to refute. This fascinating, eye-opening account is sure to both inform and inflame the already highly charged debate about guns in America. "--Lesly Reed"
Author: P., Anna Johnson
Publisher: Lulu.com
Genre: History
Release: Oct 2006 My Rating: 0
Summary: A young couple decides to migrate from Boston to Australia in order to escape imminent nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. After only a few short weeks in Sydney, it comes as a surprise when they meet others who have also recently moved from North America and Europe for the same reason. The Australiam press refers to them as "nuclear migrants."
Publisher: Lulu.com
Genre: History
Release: Oct 2006 My Rating: 0
Summary: A young couple decides to migrate from Boston to Australia in order to escape imminent nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. After only a few short weeks in Sydney, it comes as a surprise when they meet others who have also recently moved from North America and Europe for the same reason. The Australiam press refers to them as "nuclear migrants."
Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books
Genre: History
Release: Feb 2002 My Rating: 0
Summary: Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or for centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. The analysis of this pattern is the purpose of "A Conflict of Visions. "its theme is that the enduring political controversies of the past two centuries reflect radically different visions of the nature of man. Issues as diverse as criminal justice, income distribution, or war and peace repeatedly show those with one vision lining up on one side and those with another vision lining up on the other.
Dr. Thomas Sowell describes "A Conflict of Visions "as "the culmination of thirty years of work in the history of ideas"--a field in which he established his professional reputation years before writing any of his well-known books on ethnicity and other social issues. Dr. Sowell and his books have received a nember of awards and honors, and have been translated into several languages. He has been a consultant to three administrations of both parties, as well as scholar-in-residence at three "think tanks." He is now a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, California.
Publisher: Basic Books
Genre: History
Release: Feb 2002 My Rating: 0
Summary: Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or for centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. The analysis of this pattern is the purpose of "A Conflict of Visions. "its theme is that the enduring political controversies of the past two centuries reflect radically different visions of the nature of man. Issues as diverse as criminal justice, income distribution, or war and peace repeatedly show those with one vision lining up on one side and those with another vision lining up on the other.
Dr. Thomas Sowell describes "A Conflict of Visions "as "the culmination of thirty years of work in the history of ideas"--a field in which he established his professional reputation years before writing any of his well-known books on ethnicity and other social issues. Dr. Sowell and his books have received a nember of awards and honors, and have been translated into several languages. He has been a consultant to three administrations of both parties, as well as scholar-in-residence at three "think tanks." He is now a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, California.
Author: David Barsamian
Publisher: South End Press
Genre: History
Release: Jul 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary: Contents
"Dawn of Freedom" by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Map of South Asia
Biographical Sketch of Eqbal Ahmad
Introduction by David Barsamian
Foreword by Edward W. Said
Chapter 1 Think Critically and Take Risks
Chapter 2 Distorted HistoriesNotes
Chapter 3 Do Not Accept the Safe Haven
Selected Bibliography of Eqbal Ahmad's Writing
Index
Reviews
"Eqbal Ahmad, perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia and Africa…[was] a man of enormous charisma and incorruptible ideals…. He had an almost instinctive attraction to movements of the oppressed and the persecuted…[and] a formidable knowledge of history. Arabs, for example, learned more from him about the failures of Arab nationalism than from anyone else.… Ahmad was that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority."-Edward W. Said, author of "Culture and Imperialism", eulogizing Ahmad in "The Nation" and "The Guardian"
"[Eqbal Ahmad] was a shining example of what a true internationalist should be.… Eqbal was at home in the history of all the world's great civilizations. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of states past and present, and he knew that states had a rightful role to play. But he also knew that states existed to serve peoplenot the other way aroundand he had little to do with governments, except as a thorn in their side. To friends, colleagues, and students, however, he gave unstintingly of himself and his time.… His example and his memory will inspire many to carry on his work."-Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations
"A very dedicated and honorable activist, Eqbal was right in the middle of everything.… He was a student of revolution and imperialism and a very good one."-Noam Chomsky, MIT
"Eqbal Ahmad was unique in combining compassion for the dispossessed-en masse and one by one; the intellectual capacity to analyze cultural, political, and economic issues on a transnational level; and an ability to raise his always eloquent voice on behalf of constructive and original solutions."-Victory Navasky, Publisher and Editorial Director, "The Nation"
"Fighting words, wise words, from one of the most powerful activist intellectuals of ou
Publisher: South End Press
Genre: History
Release: Jul 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary: Contents
"Dawn of Freedom" by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Map of South Asia
Biographical Sketch of Eqbal Ahmad
Introduction by David Barsamian
Foreword by Edward W. Said
Chapter 1 Think Critically and Take Risks
Chapter 2 Distorted HistoriesNotes
Chapter 3 Do Not Accept the Safe Haven
Selected Bibliography of Eqbal Ahmad's Writing
Index
Reviews
"Eqbal Ahmad, perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia and Africa…[was] a man of enormous charisma and incorruptible ideals…. He had an almost instinctive attraction to movements of the oppressed and the persecuted…[and] a formidable knowledge of history. Arabs, for example, learned more from him about the failures of Arab nationalism than from anyone else.… Ahmad was that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority."-Edward W. Said, author of "Culture and Imperialism", eulogizing Ahmad in "The Nation" and "The Guardian"
"[Eqbal Ahmad] was a shining example of what a true internationalist should be.… Eqbal was at home in the history of all the world's great civilizations. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of states past and present, and he knew that states had a rightful role to play. But he also knew that states existed to serve peoplenot the other way aroundand he had little to do with governments, except as a thorn in their side. To friends, colleagues, and students, however, he gave unstintingly of himself and his time.… His example and his memory will inspire many to carry on his work."-Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations
"A very dedicated and honorable activist, Eqbal was right in the middle of everything.… He was a student of revolution and imperialism and a very good one."-Noam Chomsky, MIT
"Eqbal Ahmad was unique in combining compassion for the dispossessed-en masse and one by one; the intellectual capacity to analyze cultural, political, and economic issues on a transnational level; and an ability to raise his always eloquent voice on behalf of constructive and original solutions."-Victory Navasky, Publisher and Editorial Director, "The Nation"
"Fighting words, wise words, from one of the most powerful activist intellectuals of ou
Author: Edward W. Said, Christopher Bollas, Jacqueline Rose
Publisher: Verso
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Banned by the Freud Institute in Vienna, this controversial lecture became Edward Said's final book.
Using an impressive array of material from literature, archaeology and social theory, Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freud's "Moses and Monotheism" for Middle-East politics today. The resulting book reveals Said's abiding interest in Freud's work and its important influence on his own.
He proposes that Freud's assumption that Moses was an Egyptian undermines any simple ascription of a pure identity, and further that identity itself cannot be thought or worked through without the recognition of the limits inherent in it. Said suggests that such an unresolved, nuanced sense of identity might, if embodied in political reality, have formed, or might still form, the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. Instead, Israel's relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past.
"Quite differently from the spirit of Freud's deliberately provocative reminders that Judaism's founder was a non-Jew, and that Judaism begins in the realm of Egyptian, non-Jewish monotheism, Israeli legislation countervenes, represses, and even cancels Freud's carefully maintained opening out of Jewish identity toward its non-Jewish background."
Publisher: Verso
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Banned by the Freud Institute in Vienna, this controversial lecture became Edward Said's final book.
Using an impressive array of material from literature, archaeology and social theory, Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freud's "Moses and Monotheism" for Middle-East politics today. The resulting book reveals Said's abiding interest in Freud's work and its important influence on his own.
He proposes that Freud's assumption that Moses was an Egyptian undermines any simple ascription of a pure identity, and further that identity itself cannot be thought or worked through without the recognition of the limits inherent in it. Said suggests that such an unresolved, nuanced sense of identity might, if embodied in political reality, have formed, or might still form, the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. Instead, Israel's relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past.
"Quite differently from the spirit of Freud's deliberately provocative reminders that Judaism's founder was a non-Jew, and that Judaism begins in the realm of Egyptian, non-Jewish monotheism, Israeli legislation countervenes, represses, and even cancels Freud's carefully maintained opening out of Jewish identity toward its non-Jewish background."
Author: Cal Mccune
Publisher: C. McCune
Genre: History
Release: Jan 1996 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Publisher: C. McCune
Genre: History
Release: Jan 1996 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Author: Kenneth Pomeranz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Genre: History
Release: Dec 2001 My Rating: 0
Summary:
"The Great Divergence" brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.
Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.
Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Genre: History
Release: Dec 2001 My Rating: 0
Summary:
"The Great Divergence" brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.
Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.
Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas.
Author: Alexander Cockburn
Publisher: Verso
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: The war on Iraq didn't begin with the lethal pyrotechnics of Shock and Awe, and it didn't end with George W. Bush's made-for-TV aircraft landing. Undetected by the mainstream press, the US campaign against Iraq began many years before, featuring cruel sanctions, weekly bombardments, and assassinations. With Saddam deposed, the US now finds itself mired in a grinding occupation, its troops under constant attack with no exit in sight.
Iraq was just one of three major imperial crusades in the last decade, orchestrated by a new generation of American politicians, both Democrat and Republican, who backed pre-emptive strikes to overthrow unruly regimes in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan under the pretext of humanitarian intervention.
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair reported on these wars as they happened. Years ahead of the pack, they exposed the economic motives behind the wars and how fraudulent intelligence, a spaniel press corps, a servile United Nations, and corporate propaganda techniques were used to sell them to the public.
"Imperial Crusades" chronicles the lies that are now returning almost daily to haunt the liars in Washington and London, the secret agendas and the under-reported carnage of these wars. It is a ripely vivid, blow-by-blow commentary from Cockburn and St. Clair, and regular "CounterPunch" writers such as the late Edward Said, former marines Chris White and Scott Cossette, historians Gary Leupp and Doug Lummis, psychologist Carol Norris, economist Paul de Rooij, human rights lawyer Joanne Mariner, and former senior CIA analysts Bill Christison and Ray McGovern.
Publisher: Verso
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: The war on Iraq didn't begin with the lethal pyrotechnics of Shock and Awe, and it didn't end with George W. Bush's made-for-TV aircraft landing. Undetected by the mainstream press, the US campaign against Iraq began many years before, featuring cruel sanctions, weekly bombardments, and assassinations. With Saddam deposed, the US now finds itself mired in a grinding occupation, its troops under constant attack with no exit in sight.
Iraq was just one of three major imperial crusades in the last decade, orchestrated by a new generation of American politicians, both Democrat and Republican, who backed pre-emptive strikes to overthrow unruly regimes in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan under the pretext of humanitarian intervention.
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair reported on these wars as they happened. Years ahead of the pack, they exposed the economic motives behind the wars and how fraudulent intelligence, a spaniel press corps, a servile United Nations, and corporate propaganda techniques were used to sell them to the public.
"Imperial Crusades" chronicles the lies that are now returning almost daily to haunt the liars in Washington and London, the secret agendas and the under-reported carnage of these wars. It is a ripely vivid, blow-by-blow commentary from Cockburn and St. Clair, and regular "CounterPunch" writers such as the late Edward Said, former marines Chris White and Scott Cossette, historians Gary Leupp and Doug Lummis, psychologist Carol Norris, economist Paul de Rooij, human rights lawyer Joanne Mariner, and former senior CIA analysts Bill Christison and Ray McGovern.
Author: John Gribbin
Publisher: BCA
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2002 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Publisher: BCA
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2002 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Author: Howard Zinn
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Genre: History
Release: Oct 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Howard Zinn is famous primarily for "A People's History of the United States", the book in which he presented alternative versions of American milestones, including Columbus's "discovery" of the New World. "Voices of a People's History of the United States" is the follow-up to that original landmark work, but where "People's History" contained Zinn's interpretations of events, "Voices" turns the platform over to others, in a collection of first-hand accounts, journal entries, speeches, personal letters, and published opinion pieces from the nation's history.
The purpose of Zinn's work, "Voices" included, is to engage in an act of political dissidence and activism. "What is common to all of these voices," Zinn and co-editor Anthony Arnove write in the book's introduction, "is that they have mostly been shut out of the orthodox histories, the major media, the standard textbooks, the controlled culture ... to create a passive citizenry." With "Voices", Zinn and Arnove seek to address that malaise, showing that the impossible--slaves rising up against their slave masters, for example--is not only possible, but has occurred repeatedly throughout the country's history. "Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks and Native Americans given their due," they write, "it has been because 'unimportant' people spoke up, organized, protested, and brought democracy alive." The common thread throughout "Voices" is this mandate, and each selection is preceded by a brief introduction by the authors, written from a far-left perspective. (As an example, one section is titled "The Carter-Reagan-Bush Consensus.")
"Voices" often works better as a reference book than a sit-down-to-read title. Its early chapters--on Columbus, slavery, the War of Independence, and the early women's movement--tend to be more engaging than later excerpts, largely because a contrary point of view to mainstream mythology has been so rarely heard. The modern sections have a haphazard, "greatest hits of the left" feeling, as the book jumps from an Abbie Hoffman speech to the lyrics of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." The problem may be inherent in the format of the book. Everything is treated equally, and a speech by Danny Glover is given as much weight as an excerpt from W.E.B. DuBois's "The Souls of Black Folk". For context and background, it's best to stick with the original "People's History", but to hear the words right from the speakers' mouths, there's no better resource than "Voices". "--Jennifer Buckendorff"
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Genre: History
Release: Oct 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Howard Zinn is famous primarily for "A People's History of the United States", the book in which he presented alternative versions of American milestones, including Columbus's "discovery" of the New World. "Voices of a People's History of the United States" is the follow-up to that original landmark work, but where "People's History" contained Zinn's interpretations of events, "Voices" turns the platform over to others, in a collection of first-hand accounts, journal entries, speeches, personal letters, and published opinion pieces from the nation's history.
The purpose of Zinn's work, "Voices" included, is to engage in an act of political dissidence and activism. "What is common to all of these voices," Zinn and co-editor Anthony Arnove write in the book's introduction, "is that they have mostly been shut out of the orthodox histories, the major media, the standard textbooks, the controlled culture ... to create a passive citizenry." With "Voices", Zinn and Arnove seek to address that malaise, showing that the impossible--slaves rising up against their slave masters, for example--is not only possible, but has occurred repeatedly throughout the country's history. "Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks and Native Americans given their due," they write, "it has been because 'unimportant' people spoke up, organized, protested, and brought democracy alive." The common thread throughout "Voices" is this mandate, and each selection is preceded by a brief introduction by the authors, written from a far-left perspective. (As an example, one section is titled "The Carter-Reagan-Bush Consensus.")
"Voices" often works better as a reference book than a sit-down-to-read title. Its early chapters--on Columbus, slavery, the War of Independence, and the early women's movement--tend to be more engaging than later excerpts, largely because a contrary point of view to mainstream mythology has been so rarely heard. The modern sections have a haphazard, "greatest hits of the left" feeling, as the book jumps from an Abbie Hoffman speech to the lyrics of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." The problem may be inherent in the format of the book. Everything is treated equally, and a speech by Danny Glover is given as much weight as an excerpt from W.E.B. DuBois's "The Souls of Black Folk". For context and background, it's best to stick with the original "People's History", but to hear the words right from the speakers' mouths, there's no better resource than "Voices". "--Jennifer Buckendorff"
Author: David Brinkley
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: History
Release: Jun 1989 My Rating: 0
Summary: This book of the just-retired newsman's reminiscences of Washington at the dawn of America's involvement in World War II is no mere historical curiosity shop. It's very instructive about the way Washington "still" works. For instance, Brinkley tells us that in September 1941, while FDR was still wavering about where to put the military's new headquarters building, an Army general told the contractor to get started. By the time Roosevelt found out about this a month later, the foundations for the Pentagon had already been put in place.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: History
Release: Jun 1989 My Rating: 0
Summary: This book of the just-retired newsman's reminiscences of Washington at the dawn of America's involvement in World War II is no mere historical curiosity shop. It's very instructive about the way Washington "still" works. For instance, Brinkley tells us that in September 1941, while FDR was still wavering about where to put the military's new headquarters building, an Army general told the contractor to get started. By the time Roosevelt found out about this a month later, the foundations for the Pentagon had already been put in place.
Author:
Publisher: American Friends Service Committee
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Publisher: American Friends Service Committee
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Verso
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2001 My Rating: 3
Summary: 1999 saw two major international crises which, looked at side-by-side by Noam Chomsky, starkly illuminate the strategies of the Western powers in the new century. In this volume Chomsky convincingly argues that humanitarianism was not the moving force behind NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia, and that there, as in East Timor, strategic concerns were dominant and the fate of civilian populations incidental.
Publisher: Verso
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2001 My Rating: 3
Summary: 1999 saw two major international crises which, looked at side-by-side by Noam Chomsky, starkly illuminate the strategies of the Western powers in the new century. In this volume Chomsky convincingly argues that humanitarianism was not the moving force behind NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia, and that there, as in East Timor, strategic concerns were dominant and the fate of civilian populations incidental.
Author: Jared Diamond
Publisher: W.W. Norton and Company
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2005 My Rating: 4
Summary: How did the West grow rich and conquer the world? It wasn't
racial superiority, as the Victorians thought - indeed, Diamond
gives evidence that the average New Guinean may well be smarter
than the average European. His own one-sentence summary of the
book is: "History followed different courses for different peoples
because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of
biological differences among the peoples themselves"[clunk]. Or, it's the
environment, stupid. Or, the West got lucky.
I'm uncomfortable with history-as-polemics, but Diamond (usually)
keeps his facts and interpretations pretty well separated. And this is a
wonderful one-volume history of the human race. It is unusual, and
refreshing, to read a history written by a distinguished and literate
biological scientist. History isn't generally considered to be science -
"it's just one damn fact after another." But then, you could say the
same for large parts of astronomy, biology & geology.
13,000 years ago, the most recent Ice Age was ending, and people
everywhere still made their living as hunter-gatherers. Diamond starts
his story at the dawn of civilization. By Chapter 3, he's recounting
Pizarro's conquest of the Inca empire in 1532. In an afternoon, 168
Spanish soldiers routed an army of 80,000, killed 7,000, and captured
the Inca emperor. It's not surprising that the Spaniards would feel
superior. But the conquistadores' invisible allies had been at work
since 1492 - smallpox from Spain had killed the previous Inca emperor
and his heir, setting off a war of succession that fatally weakened the
empire. Diseases from Europe would ultimately kill up to 95% of the
native peoples of the Americas, often before they saw their first
European. The old American cultures were doomed from first contact,
even if the Old World visitors had been peaceful explorers and traders.
12,000 years of isolation had left native Americans with no resistance to
the lethal European microbes.
Where did these diseases come from, and why didn't the Indians
return the favor by infecting Eurasia? Many came originally from
domestic animals (for example, measles and smallpox from cattle), and
required large, dense populations to evolve. The Indians had few
domestic animals - one reason why they were poorer than Eurasians,
and those (fortuitously) had no diseases that "made the jump" from
animals to humans - good evidence for Diamond's "history as luck"
hypothesis.
Diamond's history is wonderful, full of new science, strange facts, and
great anecdotes. The polemics get repetitious and a bit defensive at
times, but can be safely skimmed. This would have been a better book
had it been written as straight history, letting the facts speak for
themselves - but it's still well worth reading. Recommended.
Diamond, a professor of physiology at UCLA, is a frequent
contributor to Discover, Natural History, and Geo magazines.
Review copyright 1998, 2006 by Peter D. Tillman
Peter D. Tillman is a consulting geologist based in Arizona.
Publisher: W.W. Norton and Company
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2005 My Rating: 4
Summary: How did the West grow rich and conquer the world? It wasn't
racial superiority, as the Victorians thought - indeed, Diamond
gives evidence that the average New Guinean may well be smarter
than the average European. His own one-sentence summary of the
book is: "History followed different courses for different peoples
because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of
biological differences among the peoples themselves"[clunk]. Or, it's the
environment, stupid. Or, the West got lucky.
I'm uncomfortable with history-as-polemics, but Diamond (usually)
keeps his facts and interpretations pretty well separated. And this is a
wonderful one-volume history of the human race. It is unusual, and
refreshing, to read a history written by a distinguished and literate
biological scientist. History isn't generally considered to be science -
"it's just one damn fact after another." But then, you could say the
same for large parts of astronomy, biology & geology.
13,000 years ago, the most recent Ice Age was ending, and people
everywhere still made their living as hunter-gatherers. Diamond starts
his story at the dawn of civilization. By Chapter 3, he's recounting
Pizarro's conquest of the Inca empire in 1532. In an afternoon, 168
Spanish soldiers routed an army of 80,000, killed 7,000, and captured
the Inca emperor. It's not surprising that the Spaniards would feel
superior. But the conquistadores' invisible allies had been at work
since 1492 - smallpox from Spain had killed the previous Inca emperor
and his heir, setting off a war of succession that fatally weakened the
empire. Diseases from Europe would ultimately kill up to 95% of the
native peoples of the Americas, often before they saw their first
European. The old American cultures were doomed from first contact,
even if the Old World visitors had been peaceful explorers and traders.
12,000 years of isolation had left native Americans with no resistance to
the lethal European microbes.
Where did these diseases come from, and why didn't the Indians
return the favor by infecting Eurasia? Many came originally from
domestic animals (for example, measles and smallpox from cattle), and
required large, dense populations to evolve. The Indians had few
domestic animals - one reason why they were poorer than Eurasians,
and those (fortuitously) had no diseases that "made the jump" from
animals to humans - good evidence for Diamond's "history as luck"
hypothesis.
Diamond's history is wonderful, full of new science, strange facts, and
great anecdotes. The polemics get repetitious and a bit defensive at
times, but can be safely skimmed. This would have been a better book
had it been written as straight history, letting the facts speak for
themselves - but it's still well worth reading. Recommended.
Diamond, a professor of physiology at UCLA, is a frequent
contributor to Discover, Natural History, and Geo magazines.
Review copyright 1998, 2006 by Peter D. Tillman
Peter D. Tillman is a consulting geologist based in Arizona.
Author: Richard Manning
Publisher: North Point Press
Genre: History
Release: Feb 2005 My Rating: 5
Summary: In this provocative, wide-ranging book, Richard Manning offers a dramatically revisionist view of recent human evolution, beginning with the vast increase in brain size that set us apart from our primate relatives and brought an accompanying increase in our need for nourishment. For 290,000 years, we managed to meet that need as hunter-gatherers, a state in which Manning believes we were at our most human: at our smartest, strongest, most sensually alive. But our reliance on food made a secure supply deeply attractive, and eventually we embarked upon the agricultural experiment that has been the history of our past 10,000 years.
The evolutionary road is littered with failed experiments, however, and Manning suggests that agriculture as we have practiced it runs against both our grain and nature's. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and philosophers, along with his own travels, he argues that not only our ecological ills-overpopulation, erosion, pollution-but our social and emotional malaise are rooted in the devil's bargain we made in our not-so-distant past. And he offers personal, achievable ways we might re-contour the path we have taken to resurrect what is most sustainable and sustaining in our own nature and the planet's.
Publisher: North Point Press
Genre: History
Release: Feb 2005 My Rating: 5
Summary: In this provocative, wide-ranging book, Richard Manning offers a dramatically revisionist view of recent human evolution, beginning with the vast increase in brain size that set us apart from our primate relatives and brought an accompanying increase in our need for nourishment. For 290,000 years, we managed to meet that need as hunter-gatherers, a state in which Manning believes we were at our most human: at our smartest, strongest, most sensually alive. But our reliance on food made a secure supply deeply attractive, and eventually we embarked upon the agricultural experiment that has been the history of our past 10,000 years.
The evolutionary road is littered with failed experiments, however, and Manning suggests that agriculture as we have practiced it runs against both our grain and nature's. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and philosophers, along with his own travels, he argues that not only our ecological ills-overpopulation, erosion, pollution-but our social and emotional malaise are rooted in the devil's bargain we made in our not-so-distant past. And he offers personal, achievable ways we might re-contour the path we have taken to resurrect what is most sustainable and sustaining in our own nature and the planet's.
Author:
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Genre: History
Release: Jul 1998 My Rating: 5
Summary: The Declaration of Independence was the promise of a representative government; the Constitution was the fulfillment of that promise.
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued a unanimous declaration: the thirteen North American colonies would be the thirteen United States of America, free and independent of Great Britain. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration set forth the terms of a new form of government with the following words: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Framed in 1787 and in effect since March 1789, the Constitution of the United States of America fulfilled the promise of the Declaration by establishing a republican form of government with separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, became part of the Constitution on December 15, 1791. Among the rights guaranteed by these amendments are freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to trial by jury. Written so that it could be adapted to endure for years to come, the Constitution has been amended only seventeen times since 1791 and has lasted longer than any other written form of government.
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Genre: History
Release: Jul 1998 My Rating: 5
Summary: The Declaration of Independence was the promise of a representative government; the Constitution was the fulfillment of that promise.
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued a unanimous declaration: the thirteen North American colonies would be the thirteen United States of America, free and independent of Great Britain. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration set forth the terms of a new form of government with the following words: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Framed in 1787 and in effect since March 1789, the Constitution of the United States of America fulfilled the promise of the Declaration by establishing a republican form of government with separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, became part of the Constitution on December 15, 1791. Among the rights guaranteed by these amendments are freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to trial by jury. Written so that it could be adapted to endure for years to come, the Constitution has been amended only seventeen times since 1791 and has lasted longer than any other written form of government.
Author: Alfred W. Crosby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 5
Summary: People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world--North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain because in many cases they were achieved by using firearms against spears. Alfred Crosby, however, explains that the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest. Now in a new edition with a new preface, Crosby revisits his classic work and again evaluates the ecological reasons for European expansion. Alfred W. Crosby is the author of the widely popular and ground-breaking books,The Measure of Reality (Cambridge, 1996), and America's Forgotten Pandemic (Cambridge, 1990). His books have received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, the Medical Writers Association Prize and been named by the Los Angeles Times as among the best books of the year. He taught at the University of Texas, Austin for over 20 years. First Edition Hb (1986): 0-521-32009-7 First Edition Pb (1987): 0-521-33613-9
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 5
Summary: People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world--North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain because in many cases they were achieved by using firearms against spears. Alfred Crosby, however, explains that the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest. Now in a new edition with a new preface, Crosby revisits his classic work and again evaluates the ecological reasons for European expansion. Alfred W. Crosby is the author of the widely popular and ground-breaking books,The Measure of Reality (Cambridge, 1996), and America's Forgotten Pandemic (Cambridge, 1990). His books have received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, the Medical Writers Association Prize and been named by the Los Angeles Times as among the best books of the year. He taught at the University of Texas, Austin for over 20 years. First Edition Hb (1986): 0-521-32009-7 First Edition Pb (1987): 0-521-33613-9
Author: Tzvetan Todorov
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 1995 My Rating: 5
Summary:
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 1995 My Rating: 5
Summary:
Author: Paul F. Boller
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Genre: History
Release: Oct 1995 My Rating: 5
Summary: Paul Boller explores a number of myths and misconceptions about the American past. The book covers a range of American history, from whether Columbus knew the world was round when he left to discover America to the "president-bashing" of Bill Clinton.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Genre: History
Release: Oct 1995 My Rating: 5
Summary: Paul Boller explores a number of myths and misconceptions about the American past. The book covers a range of American history, from whether Columbus knew the world was round when he left to discover America to the "president-bashing" of Bill Clinton.
Author: Howard Zinn
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Genre: History
Release: Aug 2005 My Rating: 5
Summary: Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of "A People's History of the United States" turns traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher Columbus's arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.
Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher, historian, and social activist for more than 20 years--explains, "My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)--that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."
If your last experience of American history was brought to you by junior high school textbooks--or even if you're a specialist--get ready for the other side of stories you may not even have heard. With its vivid descriptions of rarely noted events, "A People's History of the United States" is required reading for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at the rich, rocky history of America.
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Genre: History
Release: Aug 2005 My Rating: 5
Summary: Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of "A People's History of the United States" turns traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher Columbus's arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.
Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher, historian, and social activist for more than 20 years--explains, "My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)--that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."
If your last experience of American history was brought to you by junior high school textbooks--or even if you're a specialist--get ready for the other side of stories you may not even have heard. With its vivid descriptions of rarely noted events, "A People's History of the United States" is required reading for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at the rich, rocky history of America.
Author: Alan Wolfe
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2005 My Rating: 5
Summary:
Has America, in its quest for goodness, sacrificed its sense of greatness? In this sharp-witted, historically informed book, veteran political observer Alan Wolfe argues that most Americans show greater concern with saving the country's soul than with making the nation great.
Wolfe castigates both conservatives and liberals for opting for small-mindedness over greatness. Liberals, who at their best insisted on policies of national solidarity, have convinced themselves that small is beautiful, prefer multiculturalism to one nation, and are mistrustful of executive political power. Conservatives, who once embraced strong, active central government and an ideal of national citizenship, now support huge tax cuts that undermine America's future ability to undertake any ambitious, long-term project at home or abroad.
No great society, in Wolfe's view, has ever been built on the cheap. Wolfe notes that neither the conservatives' call for small-scale faith-based initiatives nor the recent embrace on the left of a grassroots "civil society" can provide health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans or ensure national security in an age of terrorism.
To find better solutions, Wolfe looks back at specific moments in our national experience, when, in the face of sharp resistance, aspirations for the idea of national greatness shaped American history. He demonstrates how a bold and ambitious political agenda, championed at various times by Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts, steered the country toward periods of national strength and unity.
Steeped in a colorful, panoramic reading of history, "Return to Greatness" offers a fresh take on American national identity and purpose. A call to action for a renewed embrace of the ideal of an activist federal government and bold policy agendas, it is sure to become a centerpiece of national debate.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Genre: History
Release: Jan 2005 My Rating: 5
Summary:
Has America, in its quest for goodness, sacrificed its sense of greatness? In this sharp-witted, historically informed book, veteran political observer Alan Wolfe argues that most Americans show greater concern with saving the country's soul than with making the nation great.
Wolfe castigates both conservatives and liberals for opting for small-mindedness over greatness. Liberals, who at their best insisted on policies of national solidarity, have convinced themselves that small is beautiful, prefer multiculturalism to one nation, and are mistrustful of executive political power. Conservatives, who once embraced strong, active central government and an ideal of national citizenship, now support huge tax cuts that undermine America's future ability to undertake any ambitious, long-term project at home or abroad.
No great society, in Wolfe's view, has ever been built on the cheap. Wolfe notes that neither the conservatives' call for small-scale faith-based initiatives nor the recent embrace on the left of a grassroots "civil society" can provide health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans or ensure national security in an age of terrorism.
To find better solutions, Wolfe looks back at specific moments in our national experience, when, in the face of sharp resistance, aspirations for the idea of national greatness shaped American history. He demonstrates how a bold and ambitious political agenda, championed at various times by Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts, steered the country toward periods of national strength and unity.
Steeped in a colorful, panoramic reading of history, "Return to Greatness" offers a fresh take on American national identity and purpose. A call to action for a renewed embrace of the ideal of an activist federal government and bold policy agendas, it is sure to become a centerpiece of national debate.