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Before the Nazis came to power in Germany, Soviet officials had already labeled the United States the most racist country in the world. Photographs, children’s stories, films, newspaper articles, political education campaigns, and court proceedings exposed the hypocrisy of America’s racial democracy. In contrast the Soviets represented the USSR itself as a superior society where racism was absent and identified African Americans as valued allies in resisting an imminent imperialist war against the first workers’ state. Meredith L. Roman’s Opposing Jim Crow examines the period between 1928 and 1937, when the promotion of antiracism by party and trade union officials in Moscow became a...
Like snapshots of everyday life in the past, the compelling biographies in this book document the making of the Black Atlantic world since the sixteenth century from the point of view of those who were part of it. Centering on the diaspora caused by the forced migration of Africans to Europe and across the Atlantic to the Americas, the chapters explore the slave trade, enslavement, resistance, adaptation, cultural transformations, and the quest for citizenship rights. The variety of experiences, constraints and choices depicted in the book and their changes across time and space defy the idea of a unified "black experience." At the same time, it is clear that in the twentieth century, "black...
Unique account of how ordinary people shaped Soviet-American relations in the 1930s told through the adventures of two Russian humourists.
A magisterial comparative study, Proud to Punish recenters our understanding of modern punishment through a sweeping analysis of the global phenomenon of "rough justice": the use of force to settle accounts and enforce legal and moral norms outside the formal framework of the law. While taking many forms, including vigilantism, lynch mobs, people's courts, and death squads, all seekers of rough justice thrive on the deliberate blurring of lines between law enforcers and troublemakers. Digital networks have provided a profitable arena for vigilantes, who use social media to build a following and publicize their work, as they debase the bodies of the accused for purposes of edification and entertainment. It is this unabashed pride to punish, and the new punitive celebrations that actualize, publicize, and commercialize it, that this book brings into focus. Recounted in lively prose, Proud to Punish is both a global map of rough justice today and an insight into the deeper nature of punishment as a social and political phenomenon.
Comintern Aesthetics shows how the cultural and political networks emerging from the Comintern have continued, even after its demise in 1943.
Fresh perspectives on the black diaspora's global histories
"This edited volume takes a distinct approach to the study of soft power in history, moving beyond the framework of the nation-state. The editors of this volume use "soft power" as a broad label to refer to the processes through which persuasion, the search for influence and power, and public opinion as an actor in foreign affairs, converge in the international arena. The book has been organized around three central themes: the circulation of knowledge and strategies across borders; collaboration of intermediary actors who have their own agencies and interests; and non-national identities, such as gender and race. The book also broadens the typical temporal and geographic understanding of soft power, starting in the nineteenth century and including cases from the Global South. It argues that the pursuit of soft power has been a global phenomenon, including regions that have been neglected in the general debates on the subject, such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These arguments and themes are explored through ten chapters that offer a powerful new interdisciplinary perspective on soft power for scholars and students of history and international relations"--
Black people in the British Empire have long challenged the notion that "there ain't no black in the Union Jack." For the post-World War II wave of Afro-Caribbean migrants, many of whom had long been subjects of the Empire, claims to a British identity and imperial citizenship were considered to be theirs by birthright. However, while Britain was internationally touted as a paragon of fair play and equal justice, they arrived in a nation that was frequently hostile and unwilling to incorporate Black people into its concept of what it meant to be British. Black Britons therefore confronted the racial politics of British citizenship and became active political agents in challenging anti-Black ...
The Southern Negro Youth Congress and the Council on African Affairs were two organizations created as part of the early civil rights efforts to address race and labor issues during the Great Depression. They fought within a leftist, Pan-African framework against disenfranchisement, segregation, labor exploitation, and colonialism. By situating the development of the SNYC and the Council on African Affairs within the scope of the long civil rights movement, Lindsey Swindall reveals how these groups conceptualized the U.S. South as being central to their vision of a global African diaspora. Both organizations illustrate well the progressive collaborations that maintained an international awareness during World War II. Cleavages from anti-radical repression in the postwar years are also evident in the dismantling of these groups when they became casualties of the early Cold War. By highlighting the cooperation that occurred between progressive activists from the Popular Front to the 1960s, Swindall adds to our understanding of the intergenerational nature of civil rights and anticolonial organizing.
Scholarship on lynching has typically been confined to the extralegal execution of African Americans in the American South. The nine essays collected here look at lynching in the context of world history, encouraging a complete rethinking of the history of collective violence. Employing a diverse range of case studies, the volume’s contributors work to refute the notion that the various acts of group homicide called "lynching" in American history are unique or exceptional. Some essays consider the practice of lynching in a global context, confounding the popular perception that Americans were alone in their behavior and suggesting a wide range of approaches to studying extralegal collectiv...