Periods and Movements Books

Freedom North contains some of the breakthroughs in new scholarship on the black freedom movement. On the one hand there is cutting edge research assessing the dynamics of the Illinois Black Panther Party, the legal, health, and political gains made by the New York Young Lords Party, the political contours of the controversial Los Angeles US Organization, gender relations in the Nation of Islam, and the development of Detroit's Shrine of the Black Madonna. On the other hand, the book traces the rise of grassroots movements such as the 1940s March on Washington Movement in Detroit, the freedom movement in Oakland before the Black Panther Party, the protest dynamics of the National Welfare Organization, the rise of Black Power politics in Newark, and the strength of black women's leadership in the Boston Busing Crisis. Did you know that parallel to the Little Rock Nine, there was a Harlem Nine school movement led by women in the 1950s? That history, and more, is in Freedom North. Not only does this volume explore the power of local movements, but it also examines the public policy impact of Grassroots organizing. Above all, we learn that the freedom movement in the North was not an afterthought of the Southern movement, and there was no Chinese Wall between civil rights and black power. Freedom North is a glimpse of the new paradigms being developed to understand the black liberation movement.

Extremely well written book about John Brown and the history surrounding his life. The author brings the Civil War era (and Mr. Brown) to life, even to those readers who may not be particularly interested in this time period. Thumbs up. I am eagerly awaiting more works by this author.

This is by far the best work every on Hitler's secruity and the various assassination plots against him. It's especially strong in the early, seminal years of the Nazi party and there are some extremely rare photographs of Hitler in Munich in the mid to late 20's. Hoffman's research is extensive and he unearths material not found in other books. He relies on primary sources for many of his arguments and these interviews enhance an already strong book. If you have an interest in Hitler's incredible knack in evading assassinations, this is the preeminent book on that subject.

Kardon's 3-volume set is a magnificent addition to any library--but this book in particular helps us understand the evolution of craft. I am particularly interested in the Arts and Crafts movement and the effect the Industrial Revolution had on craftspeople. This book is a must-read to understand why our homes look the way they do, and what goes into the work of craft vs the work of machine to make life livable.

In this work, David Grayson Allen examines how Puritan communities brought the economic and social structures of towns in Old England to towns in New England. Allen details how different English communities rebuilt themselves in America. Allen then briefly outlines what factors ultimately encouraged a degree of homogeneity among these distinctive New England towns.

For even more statistical and personal detail on the migration to New England, see Roger Thompson, Mobility and Migration: East Anglian Founders of New England, 1629-1640. See also David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, which examines the transference of four different regional cultures of England to four different regions of America. Fischer studies Puritan Massachusetts as the seedbed of one such regional American culture. On the Puritans, consult any number of books on the subject by Edmund S. Morgan.

Very Important Book!! It Helped me to understand how Christain thought shaped early American history, especially the American Revolution. A great read!!!!!!

Peter Coleman wrote ?gIn June 1950, as the Cold War grew more intense in Europe and North Korea invaded South Korea, more than a hundred European and American writers and intellectuals met in Berlin and established the Congress for Cultural Freedom to resist the Kremlin's sustained assault on liberal democratic values. In the 1950s the Congress spread throughout the world, successfully creating magazines, organizing protests, establishing a network of affiliated national committees and fostering international contacts. The Congress continued into the 1960s, broadening its focus to lay the basis of an international community of liberal and democratic intellectuals. It was America's principal attempt to win over the world's intellectuals to the liberal democratic cause.?h

The Great War of 1914-18 was a great evil but it spawned another that turned out to be far worse. This was the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Red takeover in the aftermath of the revolution. For the remainder of the century the Soviet empire spread devastation across the globe, not only in it's own domain but in every other country where its agents and its ideology polluted both politics and the world of ideas.

Peter Coleman has provided an invaluable account of the counter-attack by liberal intellectuals in the battle of ideas with communism. At the time that this story begins, Arthur Koestler was convinced that the future of civilisation would be decided by the outcome of the battle between communists and ex-communists like himself. He believed that others could not comprehend the true nature of their adversary, with its capacity to recruit both the best of people and the worst of people. He was mistaken. The thin anti-red line was held by a mix of ex-communists and others who had not drunk from that poisoned cup.

The Liberal Conspiracy is the story of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the loose-knit world-wide confederation of groups and people who attempted to match the influence of the communists and their fellow travellers in the cultural and educational arenas. It is a proud and heroic tale, although it was mostly just slogging, old-fashioned hard work. Few of the protagonists would claim the mantle of heroism but they deserve high praise for their courage and their fortitude.

"Then, in an era of the Vietnam War, a New Left, a new Conservatism and an emerging detente, the Congress began to falter in its purpose. It was finally dissolved in 1967 amidst disclosures of its funding by the CIA".

The opponents of the Congress, the ?guseful idiots?h in the west who helped to prop up the Soviet empire, attempted to claim a moral victory when it transpired that the CIA was contributing funds to the movement. This scandalous story has not yet run its full course, however the information emerging from the Eastern European archives should ensure that eventually the full story of the treason of the communist fellow travellers will be told. This book is a mirror image of that dismal tale, the story of men and women who beat against the intellectual tide in defence of freedom and dignity.

Not too many in America recognize the name of James Connolly, but before the 1916 Uprising in Dublin he was a labor organizer here in America with the IWW. This book is a collection of writings that provide some insight into the political thought of the day. You must begin this journey with the understanding that the use of the language is a little different from now.

I read this autobiography in college, and it took my breath away. White, who was executive secretary of the NAACP until his death in the mid 1950s, writes candidly of his work and life in the fight for civil rights. The book title is a play on his last name and the fact that his mixed ancestry left him with light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. He used his appearance to help him get evidence in lynching investigations, and was successful because the lynchers thought he was white (being born and raised in Atlanta didn't hurt either!) The man was no saint (ditched his wife to marry another woman, a practice I don't endorse) but you cannot read this book without having some kind of change in your thinking on race relations--then or now.

Margaret Bourke-White was a leading photojournalist whose work for Fortune, among others, celebrated the machine age and whose later work for Life featured more of an interest in humanitarian concerns. MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE: THE EARLY WORK, 1992-1930 provides a new gathering with a focus on her earliest work, when she was an amateur. Her first photos were still lifes and images more characteristic of her times rather than her talents: one can see the transitions to her personal style in the photos made from 1928-30, and it's also notable that the some eighty photos reproduced here have seldom been seen outside their archives. A 'must' for any in-depth art library.