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From an acclaimed writer and journalist, essays containing “a brilliant overview of American history from the 1960s to the post 9/11 era” (Maura Stanton, author of Immortal Sofa: Poems by Maura Stanton). William O’Rourke’s singular view of American life over the past 40 years shines forth in these short essays on subjects personal, political, and literary, which reveal a man of keen intellect and wide-ranging interests. They embrace everything from the state of the nation after 9/11 to the author’s encounter with rap, from the masterminds of political makeovers to the rich variety of contemporary American writing. His reviews illuminate both the books themselves and the times in wh...
The story of New York in the Fifties—of Rat Pack cool and the fading of the Mob's glamour—brilliantly told through the prism of Madison Square Garden. New York in the Fifties was the most interesting and most vibrant city in the world. New York gave the world a couple of other things too: one bloody and brutal but the king of sports, the other simply bloody and brutal. The Fifties were boxing’s last real heyday. Never again would the sport be so glamorous or so popular. And that’s where New York’s other gift to the world—the Mob—came in. Gangsters have been around for boxing’s entire history, but this time it was special. Most of the decade’s major fights took place at boxing’s spiritual home, Madison Square Garden, and most of the deals that made or ruined the lives of the era’s many fine fighters were done on a famous strip of pavement across the road from the Garden: Jacobs Beach. And the man ruling that strip of pavement was a charming Italian murderer called Frankie Carbo.
We Fought the Road is the story of the building of the Alaska-Canada Highway during World War II. More than one third of the 10,607 builders were black; thought to be incapable of performing on a war front by many of their white commanding officers. Their task--which required punching through wilderness on a route blocked by the Rocky Mountains and deadly permafrost during the worst winter on record--has been likened to the building of the Panama Canal. Unlike most accounts that focus on the road's military planners, We Fought the Road is boots-on-the-ground and often personal, based in part on letters from the "Three Cent Romance," the successful courtship via mail discovered in the authors' family papers
In Search of Power is a history of the era of civil rights, decolonization, and Black Power. In the critical period from 1956 to 1974, the emergence of newly independent states worldwide and the struggles of the civil rights movement in the United States exposed the limits of racial integration and political freedom. Dissidents, leaders, and elites alike were linked in a struggle for power in a world where the rules of the game had changed. Brenda Gayle Plummer traces the detailed connections between African Americans' involvement in international affairs and how they shaped American foreign policy, integrating African American history, the history of the African Diaspora, and the history of United States foreign relations. These topics, usually treated separately, not only offer a unified view of the period but also reassess controversies and events that punctuated this colorful era of upheaval and change.
Today, the military is one the most racially diverse institutions in the United States. But for many decades African American soldiers battled racial discrimination and segregation within its ranks. In the years after World War II, the integration of the armed forces was a touchstone in the homefront struggle for equality—though its importance is often overlooked in contemporary histories of the civil rights movement. Drawing on a wide array of sources, from press reports and newspapers to organizational and presidential archives, historian Christine Knauer recounts the conflicts surrounding black military service and the fight for integration. Let Us Fight as Free Men shows that, even aft...
Long before it became the slogan of the presidential campaign for Barack Obama, Dorothy Ferebee (1898–1980) lived by the motto “Yes, we can.” An African American obstetrician and civil rights activist from Washington DC, she was descended from lawyers, journalists, politicians, and a judge. At a time when African Americans faced Jim Crow segregation, desperate poverty, and lynch mobs, she advised presidents on civil rights and assisted foreign governments on public health issues. Though articulate, visionary, talented, and skillful at managing her publicity, she was also tragically flawed. Ferebee was president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha black service sorority and later became the presid...
The word sovereignty means one who is above all. It is the supreme and highest power. The Christian defines the Sovereign Lord as unlimited, independent, with original authority. For fallen man, sovereignty belongs to the state because the state is the source of law. Since the Christian can have no other gods (Ex. 20:3), history is defined appropriately by Augustine as a conflict between the City of Man and the City of God. As in all conflicts, we must choose this day whom we will serve. Calvinists often limit the doctrine of sovereignty to a systematic theological definition of God. Much more work is needed in developing the implications of sovereignty for the Kingdom of God and its application in terms of the law-word of God. In this posthumously published volume, R. J. Rushdoony examines the comprehensive implications of God's sovereignty with a clear eye to critiquing the various places where man posits sovereignty-especially the sovereign state. This is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the crises of our times.
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Chronicles America's first African American military pilots, who fought againt two enemies, the Axis powers of World War II and Jim Crow racism in the United States.
On the eve of America's entry into World War II, African American leaders pushed for inclusion in the war effort and, after the war, they mounted a concerted effort to integrate the armed services. Harry S. Truman's decision to issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, which resulted in the integration of the armed forces, was an important event in twentieth Jon E. Taylor gives an account of the presidential order as an event which forever changed the U.S. armed forces, and set a political precedent for the burgeoning civil rights movement. Including press releases, newspaper articles, presidential speeches, and biographical sidebars, Freedom to Serve introduces students to an underexamined event while illuminating the period in a new way. Critical Moments in American History is a series of supplemental books designed specifically for undergraduate history courses, providing students with the opportunity to examine a specific event within the context of both narrative history and primary source documents.