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Cold War Photographic Diplomacy: The US Information Agency and Africa
By Darren Newbury. 2024
The emergence of newly independent African nations onto the world stage in the mid-twentieth century precipitated a contest for influence…
among Cold War superpowers, leading the United States to mount an international campaign of photographic diplomacy underpinned by a faith in the medium’s capacity to cross cultural boundaries. However, the increasing global visibility of racial injustice undermined US claims that the nation had transcended colonial racism.Drawing on extensive research in the archives of the United States Information Agency (USIA) and concentrating on the period from the mid-1950s through to the late 1960s, Darren Newbury traces the role of photography in the United States’ appeal to Africa. Newbury shows how photographing the political, cultural, and educational visits of Africans to the United States provided a space for the imagination of international cooperation and friendship; how the United States presented the civil rights struggle as an example of democracy in action; and how it pictured a world of integration and racial coexistence. Cold War Photographic Diplomacy chronicles this careful scripting of images and picture stories and details the cultural and pedagogical work that photography was expected to perform as it was inserted into the visual culture of African cities through magazines, posters, pamphlets, and window displays.Locating photography at the intersection of African decolonization, racial conflict in the United States, and the cultural Cold War, this study will especially appeal to students and scholars of the history of photography, American studies, and Africana studies.Reterritorializing the Spaces of Violence in Colombia: Collective Efforts
By Constanza López López Baquero. 2024
This volume examines how violence and resilience is experienced in urban spaces, and explores the history of a variety of…
people told from the perspective of the margins. Reterritorializing the Spaces of Violence in Colombia provides critical and empirical examples of individuals and groups who believe in their collective power, reject war and violence, and manifest their resistance through art and activism in ways that rethread the social fabric. This book is the result of extensive fieldwork conducted over ten years in Medellín and Bogotá and it brings into focus the ways that hip hop, poetry, urban art, and the creation of communities and shared experiences bring about new ways to dignify life and inhabit the city. It analyses the contemporary history of Colombia by drawing on the critical perspectives and tools of various disciplines. It also puts into dialogue the diverse and innovative scholarship from the North and the South that addresses inequality, violence, trauma and resilience. Most importantly, it focuses on the challenges that women and young people face today in situations of conflict and post-conflict. This book will be of interest for researchers and students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as readers interested in issues of human rights and the history of the Americas.Latin American History Goes to the Movies: Understanding Latin America's Past through Film
By Stewart Brewer. 2024
This new edition of Latin American History Goes to the Movies uses a variety of feature films as a method…
of studying key historical themes in Latin America, from pre-Columbian cultures to contemporary debates. The book provides historical context as a way of interpreting Latin American filmography, offering multiple classroom viewing options per chapter theme. Each chapter is dedicated to a central concept or issue, such as stereotypes, conquest and colonialism, revolution, religion, gender, and politics. The second edition includes four additional chapters on dictatorships, LGBTQIA+ issues, the environment, and Indigenous peoples. Twenty new films, including La Fiesta del Chivo, Fresa y Chocolate, Embrace of the Serpent, and Roma appear throughout this edition, presenting additional perspectives and updates for today’s readers. The discussions of films and the history behind them offer a flexible and nuanced approach to understanding Latin American cultures, differentiating between stereotypical depictions and the realities of history. Concise and accessible, Latin American History Goes to the Movies is a unique resource for students and instructors in Latin American history and film studies to analyse developments in Latin America throughout previous centuries.The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster
By John O’Connor. 2024
"A winning portrait of America at its weirdest." — Publishers Weekly STARRED ReviewFrom the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest…
to off-the-wall cryptozoological conventions, one man searches high and low for the answer to the question: real or not, why do we want to believe?Bigfoot is an instantly recognizable figure. Through the decades, this elusive primate has been featured in movies and books, on coffee mugs, beer koozies, car polish, and CBD oil. Which begs the question: what is it about Bigfoot that's caught hold of our imaginations?Journalist and self-diagnosed skeptic John O'Connor is fascinated by Sasquatch. Curious to learn more, he embarks on a quest through the North American wilds in search of Bigfoot, its myth and meaning. Alongside an eccentric cast of characters, he explores the zany and secretive world of "cryptozoology," tracking Bigfoot through ancient folklore to Harry and the Hendersons, while examining the forces behind our ever-widening belief in the supernatural. As O'Connor treks through the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest, listens to firsthand accounts, and attends Bigfoot conventions, he's left wondering—what happens when the lines between myth and reality blur? Perfect for fans of Bill Bryson and Douglas Preston, and with sharp wit and an adventurous spirit, this heartfelt exploration of a cornerstone of American folklore unpacks why we believe in the things that we do, what that says about us, and how it shapes our world.Iran's prison system is a foundational institution of Iranian political modernity. The Incarcerated Modern traces the transformation of Iran from…
a decentralized empire with few imprisoned persons at the turn of the twentieth century into a modern nation-state with over a quarter million prisoners today. In policing the line between "bad criminal" and "good citizen," the carceral system has shaped and reshaped Iranian understandings of citizenship, freedom, and political belonging. Golnar Nikpour explores the interplay between the concrete space of the Iranian prison and the role of prisons in producing new public cultures and political languages in Iran. From prison writings of 1920s leftist prisoners and communiqués of 1950s militant Islamists, to paintings of 1970s revolutionary guerrillas and mapping projects organized by contemporary dissident prisoners, carceral confinement has shaped modern Iranian political movements. Today, mass incarceration is a global phenomenon. The Incarcerated Modern connects Iranian history to transnational carceral histories to illuminate the shared architectures, economies, and techniques of modern punishment.Lincoln's Legacy: Ethics and Politics
By William Miller, Mark E. Neely Jr., Phillip S. Paludan, Mark Summers. 2007
The four new essays in Lincoln's Legacy describe major ethical problems that the sixteenth president navigated what can be learned…
from how he did so. The distinguished and award-winning Lincoln scholars William Miller, Mark E. Neely Jr., Phillip Shaw Paludan, and Mark Summers describe Lincoln’s attitudes and actions during encounters with questions of politics, law, constitutionalism, patronage, and democracy. The remarkably focused essays include an assessment of Lincoln's virtues in the presidency, the first study on Lincoln and patronage in more than a decade, a challenge to the cliché of Lincoln the democrat, and a study of habeas corpus, Lincoln, and state courts. On the eve of the bicentennial celebration of Lincoln’s birth, Lincoln’s Legacy highlights his enduring importance in contemporary conversations about law, politics, and democracy.Moses and the Monster and Miss Anne
By Carole C. Marks. 2008
This engaging history presents the extraordinary lives of Patty Cannon, Anna Ella Carroll, and Harriet Tubman, three "dangerous" women who…
grew up in early-nineteenth-century Maryland and were vigorously enmeshed in the social and political maelstrom of antebellum America. The "monstrous" Patty Cannon was a reputed thief, murderer, and leader of a ruthless gang who kidnapped free blacks and sold them back into slavery, whereas Miss Anna Ella Carroll, a relatively genteel unmarried slaveholder, foisted herself into state and national politics by exerting influence on legislators and conspiring with Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks to keep Maryland in the Union when many state legislators clamored to join the Confederacy. And, of course, Harriet Tubman--slave rescuer, abolitionist, and later women's suffragist--was both hailed as "the Moses of her people" and hunted as an outlaw with a price on her head worth at least ten thousand dollars. All three women lived for a time in close proximity on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, an isolated region that thrived on tobacco and then lost it, procured slaves and then lost them, and produced strong-minded women and then condemned them. Though they never actually met, and their backgrounds and beliefs differed drastically, these women's lives converged through their active experiences of the conflict over slavery in Maryland and beyond, the uncertainties of economic transformation, the struggles in the legal foundation of slavery and, most of all, the growing dispute in gender relations in America. Throughout this book, Carole C. Marks gleans historical fact and sociological insight from the persistent myths and exaggerations that color the women's legacies, and she investigates the common roots and motivations of three remarkable figures who bucked the era's expectations for women. She also considers how each woman's public identity reflected changing ideas of domesticity and the public sphere, spirituality, and legal rights and limitations. Cannon, Carroll, and Tubman, each in her own way, passionately fought for the future of Maryland and the United States, and from these unique vantage points, Moses and the Monster and Miss Anne portrays the intersecting and conflicting forces of race, economics, and gender that threatened to rend a nation apart.Lincoln's Political Generals
By David Work. 2012
At the beginning of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln sought to bind important political leaders to the Union by…
appointing them as generals. The task was formidable: he had to find enough qualified officers to command a military that would fight along a front that stretched halfway across the continent. West Point hadn't graduated enough officers, and many of its best chose to fight for the Confederacy. Lincoln needed loyal men accustomed to organization, administration, and command. He also needed soldiers, and political generals brought with them their constituents and patronage power. As the war proceeded, the value of the political generals became a matter of serious dispute. Could politicians make the shift from a political campaign to a military one? Could they be trusted to fight? Could they avoid destructive jealousies and the temptations of corruption? And with several of the generals being Irish or German immigrants, what effect would ethnic prejudices have on their success or failure? In this book, David Work examines Lincoln's policy of appointing political generals to build a national coalition to fight and win the Civil War. Work follows the careers of sixteen generals through the war to assess their contributions and to ascertain how Lincoln assessed them as commander-in-chief. Eight of the generals began the war as Republicans and eight as Democrats. Some commanded armies, some regiments. Among them were some of the most famous generals of the Union--such as Francis P. Blair Jr., John A. Dix, John A. Logan, James S. Wadsworth--and others whose importance has been obscured by more dramatic personalities. Work finds that Lincoln's policy was ultimately successful, as these generals provided effective political support and made important contributions in military administration and on the battlefield. Although several of them proved to be poor commanders, others were effective in exercising influence on military administration and recruitment, slavery policy, and national politics.Forbes Burnham: The Life and Times of the Comrade Leader (Critical Caribbean Studies)
By Linden F. Lewis. 2024
It is virtually impossible to understand the history of modern Guyana without understanding the role played by Forbes Burnham. As premier…
of British Guiana, he led the country to independence in 1966 and spent two decades as its head of state until his death in 1985. An intensely charismatic politician, Burnham helped steer a new course for the former colony, but he was also a quintessential strongman leader, venerated by some of his citizens yet feared and despised by others. Forbes Burnham: The Life and Times of the Comrade Leader is the first political biography of this complex and influential figure. It charts how the political party he founded, the People’s National Congress, combined nationalist rhetoric, socialist policies, and Pan-Africanist philosophies. It also explores how, in a country already deeply divided between the descendants of African slaves and Indian indentured servants, Burnham consolidated political power by intensifying ethnic polarizations. Drawing from historical archives as well as new interviews with the people who knew Burnham best, sociologist Linden F. Lewis examines how his dictatorial tendencies coexisted with his progressive convictions. Forbes Burnham is a compelling study of the nature of postcolonial leadership and its pitfalls.Happy Days: Images of the Pre-Sixties Past in Seventies America
By Benjamin L. Alpers. 2024
After the techno-futurism of the 1950s and the utopian 1960s vision of a “great society,” the 1970s saw Americans turning…
to the past as a source for both nostalgic escapism and serious reflection on the nation’s history. While some popular works like Grease presented the relatively recent past as a more innocent time, far away from the nation’s post-Vietnam, post-Watergate malaise, others like Roots used America’s bicentennial as an occasion for deep soul-searching. Happy Days investigates how 1970s popular culture was obsessed with America’s past but often offered radically different interpretations of the same historical events and icons. Even the figure of the greaser, once an icon of juvenile delinquency, was made family-friendly by Henry Winkler’s Fonzie at the same time that he was being appropriated in more threatening ways by punk and gay subcultures. The cultural historian Benjamin Alpers discovers similar levels of ambivalence toward the past in 1970s neo-noir films, representations of America’s founding, and neo-slave narratives by Alex Haley and Octavia Butler. By exploring how Americans used the 1970s to construct divergent representations of their shared history, he identifies it as a pivotal moment in the nation’s ideological fracturing.Where Is Jerusalem? (Where Is?)
By Ellen Morgan, Who Hq. 2024
Learn all about Jerusalem--a sacred city in the Middle East that has existed for over five thousand years.From the #1…
New York Times Best-Selling Who Was? series comes Where Is?, a series that tells the stories of world-famous landmarks and natural wonders and features a fold-out map!In 2005, a group of construction workers in Jerusalem made an incredible discovery. Underneath the parking lot they were digging up lay an ancient city that was built in the tenth century! Three years later, gold coins from an even earlier century were found at the site. The city of Jerusalem is like a layer cake of history—more than five thousand years of complicated history—all of which author Ellen Morgan explains clearly and objectively in this illustrated book.The History of England's Cathedrals
By Nicholas Orme. 2017
The first history of all the English cathedrals, from Birmingham and Bury St Edmunds to Worcester and York Minster …
England&’s sixty-two Anglican and Catholic cathedrals are some of our most iconic buildings, attracting millions of worshippers and visitors every year. Yet although much has been written about their architecture, there is no complete history of their life and activities. This is the first such book to provide one, stretching from Roman times to the present day. The History of England&’s Cathedrals explains where and why they were founded, who staffed them, and how their structures evolved. It describes their worship and how this changed over the centuries, their schools and libraries, and their links with the outside world. The history of these astonishing buildings is the history of England. Reading this book will bring you face to face with the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Reformation, Civil War, Victorian England, World War Two, and finally modern democracy.What role did Laura Ingalls Wilder&’s Christian faith play in her life and writing? The beloved Little House books by Laura…
Ingalls Wilder have sold over 60 million copies since their publication in the first half of the twentieth century. Even her unpolished memoir, Pioneer Girl, which tells the true story behind the children&’s books, was widely embraced upon its release in 2014. Despite Wilder&’s enduring popularity, few fans know much about her Christian beliefs and practice. John J. Fry shines a light on Wilder&’s quiet faith in this unique biography. Fry surveys the Little House books, Pioneer Girl, and Wilder&’s lesser-known writings, including her letters, poems, and newspaper columns. Analyzing this wealth of sources, he reveals how Wilder&’s down-to-earth faith and Christian morality influenced her life and work. Interweaving these investigations with Wilder&’s perennially interesting life story, A Prairie Faith illustrates the Christian practices of pioneers and rural farmers during this dynamic period of American history.A Woman in the Polar Night (Pushkin Press Classics)
By Christiane Ritter. 2019
&“An epic story, elegantly told and full of mystery.&” — Maggie Shipstead, author of Great CircleA rediscovered classic memoir -…
the mesmerizingly beautiful account of one woman's year spent living in a remote hut in the ArcticThis rediscovered classic memoir tells the incredible tale of a woman defying society's expectations to find freedom and peace in the adventure of a lifetime.In 1934, the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable life in Austria and travels to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen, to spend a year there with her husband. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to 'read thick books in the remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content', but when Christiane arrives she is shocked to realize that they are to live in a tiny ramshackle hut on the shores of a lonely fjord, hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement, battling the elements every day, just to survive.At first, Christiane is horrified by the freezing cold, the bleak landscape the lack of equipment and supplies... But as time passes, after encounters with bears and seals, long treks over the ice and months on end of perpetual night, she finds herself falling in love with the Arctic's harsh, otherworldly beauty, gaining a great sense of inner peace and a new appreciation for the sanctity of life.Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society: Social Histories of Accommodation
By Neil Roos. 2024
How were whites implicated in and shaped by apartheid culture and society, and how did they contribute to it? In…
Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society, historian Neil Roos traces the lives of ordinary white people in South Africa during the apartheid years, beginning in 1948 when the National Party swept into power on the back of its catchall apartheid slogan. Drawing on his own family's story and others, Roos explores how working-class whites frequently defied particular aspects of the apartheid state but seldom opposed or even acknowledged the idea of racial supremacy, which lay at the heart of the apartheid society. This cognitive dissonance afforded them a way to simultaneously accommodate and oppose apartheid and allowed them to later claim they never supported the apartheid system. Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society offers a telling reminder that the politics and practice of race, in this case apartheid-era whiteness, derive not only from the top, but also from the bottom.Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society: Social Histories of Accommodation
By Neil Roos. 2024
How were whites implicated in and shaped by apartheid culture and society, and how did they contribute to it? In…
Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society, historian Neil Roos traces the lives of ordinary white people in South Africa during the apartheid years, beginning in 1948 when the National Party swept into power on the back of its catchall apartheid slogan. Drawing on his own family's story and others, Roos explores how working-class whites frequently defied particular aspects of the apartheid state but seldom opposed or even acknowledged the idea of racial supremacy, which lay at the heart of the apartheid society. This cognitive dissonance afforded them a way to simultaneously accommodate and oppose apartheid and allowed them to later claim they never supported the apartheid system. Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society offers a telling reminder that the politics and practice of race, in this case apartheid-era whiteness, derive not only from the top, but also from the bottom.A History of Britain: 1945 through Brexit
By Jeremy Black. 2024
The British vote to leave the European Union stunned everyone 2016, but was it really a surprise? In this revised…
and updated edition of A History of Britain: 1945 Through Brexit, award-winning historian Jeremy Black expands his reexamination of modern British history to include the Brexit process, the tumultuous administrations of Theresa May and Boris Johnson, the spectacular failure of Liz Truss, and the early days of Rishi Sunak's premiership.This sweeping and engaging book traces Britain's path through the destruction left behind by World War II, Thatcherism, the threats of the IRA, the Scottish referendum, and on to the impact of waves of immigration from the European Union. A History of Britain: 1945 Through Brexit overturns many conventional interpretations of significant historical events, provides context for current developments, and encourages the reader to question why we think the way we do about Britain's past.Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell
By Jason P. Chambers. 2024
The ad exec who revolutionized the image of Black Americans in advertising Over a forty-year career, Chicagoan Tom Burrell changed…
the face of advertising and revolutionized the industry’s approach to African Americans as human beings and consumers. Jason P. Chambers offers a biography of the groundbreaking creator and entrepreneur that explores Burrell’s role in building brands like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola within a deeply felt vision of folding positive images of Black people into mainstream American life. While detailing Burrell’s successes, Chambers tells a parallel story of what Burrell tried to do that sheds light on the motivations of advertising creators who viewed their work as being about more than just selling. Chambers also highlights how Burrell used his entrepreneurial gifts to build an agency that opened the door for Black artists, copywriters, directors, and other professionals to earn livings, build careers, and become leaders within the industry. Compelling and multidimensional, Advertising Revolutionary combines archival research and interviews with Burrell and his colleagues to provide a long overdue portrait of an advertising industry legend and his times.Displays of Jewish ritual objects in public, non-Jewish settings by Jews are a comparatively recent phenomenon. So too is the…
establishment of Jewish museums. This volume explores the origins of the Jewish Museum of New York and its evolution from collecting and displaying Jewish ritual objects, to Jewish art, to exhibiting avant-garde art devoid of Jewish content, created by non-Jews. Established within a rabbinic seminary, the museum’s formation and development reflect changes in Jewish society over the twentieth century as it grappled with choices between religion and secularism, particularism and universalism, and ethnic pride and assimilation.Women at the Beginning: Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary
By Patrick J. Geary. 2006
In these four artfully crafted essays, Patrick Geary explores the way ancient and medieval authors wrote about women. Geary describes…
the often marginal role women played in origin legends from antiquity until the twelfth century. Not confining himself to one religious tradition or region, he probes the tensions between women in biblical, classical, and medieval myths (such as Eve, Mary, Amazons, princesses, and countesses), and actual women in ancient and medieval societies. Using these legends as a lens through which to study patriarchal societies, Geary chooses moments and texts that illustrate how ancient authors (all of whom were male) confronted the place of women in their society. Unlike other books on the subject, Women at the Beginning attempts to understand not only the place of women in these legends, but also the ideologies of the men who wrote about them. The book concludes that the authors of these stories were themselves struggling with ambivalence about women in their own worlds and that this struggle manifested itself in their writings.