The Mind Of The African Strongman

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The Mind of the African Strongman

Author : Herman J. Cohen
Publisher : Vellum
ISBN 13 : 9780986435317
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (353 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mind of the African Strongman by : Herman J. Cohen

Download or read book The Mind of the African Strongman written by Herman J. Cohen and published by Vellum. This book was released on 2015 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a colorful and penetrating look at African cultural norms and imperatives at the core of African political and economic performance over the past half-century. The author served in five US embassies in Africa and as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, this provided him with unique opportunities to engage in private conversations with African heads of state. Despite billions of dollars of international development assistance poured into Africa since 1955, and despite huge earnings from commodity sales, Africa has lagged far behind most other emerging nations in economic growth and poverty reduction. Through these conversations, Cohen provides an opportunity to the African leaders he knew to tell us personally why the initial enthusiasm that accompanied independence went so badly awry. A new third generation of African leadership is now coming to the fore. The key question is, can they and the international donor community learn from and overcome the negative legacies of their predecessors? ¿Hank Cohen¿s experience in Africa and access to a wide array of historic African leaders are unparalleled. This unique book provides important lessons from the continent¿s past and insights for its future.¿ ¿KENNETH L. BROWN, formerly U.S. ambassador to Cote d¿Ivoire, Ghana, and Republic of Congo and president, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training ¿That individuals often do make a difference is the thesis of The Mind of the African Strong Man. Based upon his unrivaled experience as an American diplomat in Africa, Hank Cohen's collection of conversations with Africa¿s Big Men is invaluable to anyone interested in that continent and its tumultuous modern history.¿¬¬ ¿EDWARD MARKS, Minister-Counselor (ret.), U.S. Foreign Service ¿Secretary Cohen is a master storyteller who has made it easier for Africans to form a broad historical perspective through his revealing tales about their rulers.¿ ¿AHMADU ABUBAKER, Nigerian Lawyer active in sub-Saharan Africa development issues.

The Mind of the African Strongman

Author : Herman J. Cohen
Publisher : Vellum
ISBN 13 : 9780986435300
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (353 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mind of the African Strongman by : Herman J. Cohen

Download or read book The Mind of the African Strongman written by Herman J. Cohen and published by Vellum. This book was released on 2015-05 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a colorful and penetrating look at African cultural norms and imperatives at the core of African political and economic performance over the past half-century. The author served in five US embassies in Africa and as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, this provided him with unique opportunities to engage in private conversations with African heads of state. Despite billions of dollars of international development assistance poured into Africa since 1955, and despite huge earnings from commodity sales, Africa has lagged far behind most other emerging nations in economic growth and poverty reduction. Through these conversations, Cohen provides an opportunity to the African leaders he knew to tell us personally why the initial enthusiasm that accompanied independence went so badly awry. A new third generation of African leadership is now coming to the fore. The key question is, can they and the international donor community learn from and overcome the negative legacies of their predecessors? "Hank Cohen's experience in Africa and access to a wide array of historic African leaders are unparalleled. This unique book provides important lessons from the continent's past and insights for its future." -KENNETH L. BROWN, formerly U.S. ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Republic of Congo and president, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training "That individuals often do make a difference is the thesis of The Mind of the African Strong Man. Based upon his unrivaled experience as an American diplomat in Africa, Hank Cohen's collection of conversations with Africa's Big Men is invaluable to anyone interested in that continent and its tumultuous modern history."-- -EDWARD MARKS, Minister-Counselor (ret.), U.S. Foreign Service "Secretary Cohen is a master storyteller who has made it easier for Africans to form a broad historical perspective through his revealing tales about their rulers." -AHMADU ABUBAKER, Nigerian Lawyer active in sub-Saharan Africa development issues."

Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

Author : Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324001550
Total Pages : 446 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by : Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Download or read book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present written by Ruth Ben-Ghiat and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What modern authoritarian leaders have in common (and how they can be stopped). Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin—enabling her to predict with uncanny accuracy the recent experience in America and Europe. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future. For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power. Vladimir Putin and Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocracies, Augusto Pinochet’s torture sites, Benito Mussolini and Muammar Gaddafi’s systems of sexual exploitation, and Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump’s relentless misinformation: all show how authoritarian rule, far from ensuring stability, is marked by destructive chaos. No other type of leader is so transparent about prioritizing self-interest over the public good. As one country after another has discovered, the strongman is at his worst when true guidance is most needed by his country. Recounting the acts of solidarity and dignity that have undone strongmen over the past 100 years, Ben-Ghiat makes vividly clear that only by seeing the strongman for what he is—and by valuing one another as he is unable to do—can we stop him, now and in the future.

Queering Black Atlantic Religions

Author : Roberto Strongman
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 1478003456
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Queering Black Atlantic Religions by : Roberto Strongman

Download or read book Queering Black Atlantic Religions written by Roberto Strongman and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-14 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Queering Black Atlantic Religions Roberto Strongman examines Haitian Vodou, Cuban Lucumí/Santería, and Brazilian Candomblé to demonstrate how religious rituals of trance possession allow humans to understand themselves as embodiments of the divine. In these rituals, the commingling of humans and the divine produces gender identities that are independent of biological sex. As opposed to the Cartesian view of the spirit as locked within the body, the body in Afro-diasporic religions is an open receptacle. Showing how trance possession is a primary aspect of almost all Afro-diasporic cultural production, Strongman articulates transcorporeality as a black, trans-Atlantic understanding of the human psyche, soul, and gender as multiple, removable, and external to the body.

Strongmen

Author : Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 1782834788
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (828 download)

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Book Synopsis Strongmen by : Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Download or read book Strongmen written by Ruth Ben-Ghiat and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A gripping and illuminating picture of how strongmen have deployed violence, seduction, and corruption' Daniel Ziblatt, co-author of How Democracies Die 'A timely analysis of how a certain kind of charisma delivers political disaster' Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny Ours is the age of the strongman. Countries from Russia to India, Turkey to America are ruled by men who combine populist appeal with authoritarian policy. They have reshaped their countries around them, creating cults of personality which earn the loyalty of millions. And they do so by drawing on a playbook of behaviour established by figures such as Benito Mussolini, Muammar Gaddafi and Adolf Hitler. So why - despite the evidence of history - do strongmen still hold such appeal for us? Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat draws on analysis of everything from gender to corruption and propaganda to explain who these political figures are - and how they manipulate our own history, fears and desires in search of power at any cost. Strongmen is a fierce and perceptive history, and a vital step in understanding how to combat the forces which seek to derail democracy and seize our rights.

Fighting for Honor

Author : T. J. Desch-Obi
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1643361937
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (433 download)

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Book Synopsis Fighting for Honor by : T. J. Desch-Obi

Download or read book Fighting for Honor written by T. J. Desch-Obi and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2021-04-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking investigation into the migration of martial arts techniques across continents and centuries The presence of African influence and tradition in the Americas has long been recognized in art, music, language, agriculture, and religion. T. J. Desch-Obi explores another cultural continuity that is as old as eighteenth-century slave settlements in South America and as contemporary as hip-hop culture. In this thorough survey of the history of African martial arts techniques, Desch-Obi maps the translation of numerous physical combat techniques across three continents and several centuries to illustrate how these practices evolved over time and are still recognizable in American culture today. Some of these art traditions were part of African military training while others were for self-defense and spiritual discipline. Grounded in historical and cultural anthropological methodologies, Desch-Obi's investigation traces the influence of well-delineated African traditions on long-observed but misunderstood African and African American cultural activities in North America, Brazil, and the Caribbean. He links the Brazilian martial art capoeira to reports of slave activities recorded in colonial and antebellum North America. Likewise Desch-Obi connects images of the kalenda African stick-fighting techniques to the Haitian Revolution. Throughout the study Desch-Obi examines the ties between physical mastery of these arts and changing perceptions of honor. Including forty-five illustrations, this rich history of the arrival and dissemination of African martial arts in the Atlantic world offers a new vantage for furthering our understanding of the powerful influence of enslaved populations on our collective social history.

Transformed

Author : Remi Adeleke
Publisher : Thomas Nelson
ISBN 13 : 0785219749
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (852 download)

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Book Synopsis Transformed by : Remi Adeleke

Download or read book Transformed written by Remi Adeleke and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would it take for one young Black man not only to rise above statistics but also become a Navy SEAL, actor, entrepreneur, writer, and successful husband and father? In Transformed, Remi Adeleke takes you back to stories from his childhood, from living as Nigerian royalty to losing his father early in life and being stripped financially of everything by the Nigerian government. Following his father’s death, he and his mother and brother relocated permanently to the Bronx where his single mother struggled to provide for the family. Statistics tell us that African American males who grow up in a single-parent household are nine times more likely to drop out of high school and twenty times more likely to end up in prison than any other demographic. While it would have been easy to believe that he could never beat those odds, Remi Adeleke refused to fall victim to that premise. Sharing his incredible journey through the struggles of his life, Remi doesn’t shy away from his illegal activities as a young man that threatened to derail his future as a Navy SEAL. He shares: How perseverance transformed his life despite all odds How taking ownership of his mistakes and shortcomings led him to success His hard-earned wisdom gained over years of struggle Belief that the adversities, trials, and tribulations he went through were specific moves by God At every turn, including throughout his naval career, Adeleke found a way to overcome the odds, even when it didn’t make sense. Remi Adeleke’s journey of following God’s voice, rising above statistics, and experiencing true personal transformation will inspire and move you.

Barbarism to Decadence

Author : Abudu Rasheed Oki
Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 166321915X
Total Pages : 808 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (632 download)

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Book Synopsis Barbarism to Decadence by : Abudu Rasheed Oki

Download or read book Barbarism to Decadence written by Abudu Rasheed Oki and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2021-08-06 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since independence in 1960, Nigeria’s successor leaderships and the private sector manifestly failed to dispense good governance and corporate social responsibility. Both sectors, tacitly aided by foreign institutions and corporations have perverted the ends of government and justice. Ergo, in Barbarism to Decadence, Abudu Rasheed “Richard” Oki offers an encompassing but cursory evaluation of each successor corrupting maladministration, participatory industry roles, and systemic debaucheries, along with the vast derivative adverse impacts on the citizenry. Through research, eyewitness accounts, personal experience, etc., the book presents an assessment of the devastating decades of adventitious effects of otherworldly corruption on the nation, and a look at the overall septic effects of the vice on the rest of other black African nations. Ab initio, it delves in on characteristic fractious leaderships; past immiserating military decades; compromised judiciary/law enforcement; fraudulent elections; decrepit power supply and infrastructure; human health and educational fetidness, duplicitous and complicit local and international media; natural resource curse and colossal environmental pollution; modern-day religious chicanery and radicalized Islamic terrorism; elites’ otherworldly and authoritative brigandage; and ever-present suffocating misfeasance and malfeasance in the private sector. There are also the overall, undermining roles from overseas nations, institutions, and corporations; and, sui generis, China’s hegemonic role. These are part of vast interrelated factors that hermetically immure and immolate her lumpen masses in the bonds of anomie. That correlative societal demise is portrayed in marasmus and spectral looks, along with mass spiritual and mental atrophies. Yet her affluent minority and foreign expropriation of its raw wealth and assets remain at exhilarating boil. The grim hard facts and figures indicate that Nigeria absolutely needs to be set on the right path for the long-term needs of her marred population. Meanwhile, the masses intrinsically remain restive with brutish thoughts, here and there. To wit, the crystallization of that armed mass revolutionary mettle should never be discounted in her future. So, the book provides crosscurrents, and propounds on ways to sustainably adjust her venal course mainstream. Pithily, it seeks to provide a clarion call to jettison present, and block future, serially rogue leaderships for the summum bonum.

A Good Man in Africa

Author : William Boyd
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307787796
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis A Good Man in Africa by : William Boyd

Download or read book A Good Man in Africa written by William Boyd and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-07-06 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the small African republic of Kinjanja, British diplomat Morgan Leafy bumbles heavily through his job. His love of women, his fondness for drink, and his loathing for the country prove formidable obstacles on his road to any kind of success. But when he becomes an operative in Operation Kingpin and is charged with monitoring the front runner in Kinjanja’s national elections, Morgan senses an opportunity to achieve real professional recognition and, more importantly, reassignment. After he finds himself being blackmailed, diagnosed with a venereal disease, attempting bribery, and confounded with a dead body, Morgan realizes that very little is going according to plan.

Africa, You Have a Friend in Washington

Author : Herman J. Cohen
Publisher : New Acdemia+ORM
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 137 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Africa, You Have a Friend in Washington by : Herman J. Cohen

Download or read book Africa, You Have a Friend in Washington written by Herman J. Cohen and published by New Acdemia+ORM. This book was released on 2023-07-25 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During nineteen years of overseas duty in the Foreign Service, the author served in five U.S. embassies in Africa, including a term as ambassador to the Republic of Senegal. The book highlights the author’s experiences south of the Sahara, both as Foreign Service officer and as assistant secretary of state for Africa in the George H. W. Bush administration. It is a source of useful information for American university students or recent graduates who are considering pursuing careers in the international sector.

The Mind of Black Africa

Author : Dickson Mungazi
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 031339055X
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (133 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mind of Black Africa by : Dickson Mungazi

Download or read book The Mind of Black Africa written by Dickson Mungazi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-02-28 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The violent colonization of Africa by European nations toward the end of the 19th century—a colonization justified by theories about the African Mind promulgated in the Age of Reason—had a profound impact upon the mind of Black Africa. After World War II, the mind of Black Africa rebelled; this rebellion led to a struggle for the self. After Africans achieved political independence, the new African leaders betrayed their own people. Africans now have the responsibility of restoring and reaffirming their true inheritance—the mind of Black Africa.

Prelude to Genocide

Author : David Rawson
Publisher : Ohio University Press
ISBN 13 : 0821446509
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Prelude to Genocide by : David Rawson

Download or read book Prelude to Genocide written by David Rawson and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the initial US observer, David Rawson participated in the 1993 Rwandan peace talks at Arusha, Tanzania. Later, he served as US ambassador to Rwanda during the last months of the doomed effort to make them hold. Despite the intervention of concerned states in establishing a peace process and the presence of an international mission, UNAMIR, the promise of the Arusha Peace Accords could not be realized. Instead, the downing of Rwandan president Habyarimana’s plane in April 1994 rekindled the civil war and opened the door to genocide. In Prelude to Genocide, Rawson draws on declassified documents and his own experiences to seek out what went wrong. How did the course of political negotiations in Arusha and party wrangling in Kigali, Rwanda, bring to naught a concentrated international effort to establish peace? And what lessons are there for other international humanitarian interventions? The result is a commanding blend of diplomatic history and analysis that is a milestone read on the Rwandan crisis and on what happens when conflict resolution and diplomacy fall short. Published in partnership with the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series.

US Policy Toward Africa

Author : Herman J. Cohen
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781626378698
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (786 download)

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Book Synopsis US Policy Toward Africa by : Herman J. Cohen

Download or read book US Policy Toward Africa written by Herman J. Cohen and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herman Cohen draws on both the documentary record and his years of on-the-ground experience to provide a uniquely comprehensive survey and interpretation of nearly eight decades of US policy toward Africa. Tracing how this policy has evolved across successive administrations since 1942 (beginning with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third term in office), Cohen illuminates the debates that have taken place at the highest levels of government; shows how policy toward Africa has been affected over the years by US relations with Europe, the Soviet Union, the Middle East, and most recently China; and points to the increasing reliance of Western economic interests on Africa's natural resources. His deeply informed narrative reveals the roles not only of circumstance and ideology, but also of personalities, in the formulation and implementation of US foreign policy.

Thomas Sankara

Author : Brian J. Peterson
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253053773
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Thomas Sankara by : Brian J. Peterson

Download or read book Thomas Sankara written by Brian J. Peterson and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa offers the first complete biography in English of the dynamic revolutionary leader from Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara. Coming to power in 1983, Sankara set his sights on combating social injustice, poverty, and corruption in his country, fighting for women's rights, direct forms of democracy, economic sovereignty, and environmental justice. Drawing on government archival sources and over a hundred interviews with Sankara's family members, friends, and closest revolutionary colleagues, Brian J. Peterson details Sankara's political career and rise to power, as well as his assassination at age 37 in 1987, in a plot led by his close friend Blaise Compaoré. Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa offers a unique, critical appraisal of Sankara and explores why he generated such enthusiasm and hope in Burkina Faso and beyond, why he was such a polarizing figure, how his rivals seized power from him, and why T-shirts sporting his image still appear on the streets today.

Strong as Sandow

Author : Don Tate
Publisher : Charlesbridge Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1607348861
Total Pages : 47 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Strong as Sandow by : Don Tate

Download or read book Strong as Sandow written by Don Tate and published by Charlesbridge Publishing. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little Friedrich Müller was a puny weakling who longed to be athletic and strong like the ancient Roman gladiators. He exercised and exercised. But he to no avail. As a young man, he found himself under the tutelage of a professional body builder. Friedrich worked and worked. He changed his name to Eugen Sandow and he got bigger and stronger. Everyone wanted to become “as strong as Sandow.” Inspired by his own experiences body-building, Don Tate tells the story of how Eugen Sandow changed the way people think about strength and exercise and made it a part of everyday life. Backmatter includes more information about Sandow, suggestions for exercise, an author’s note, and a bibliography.

From Hope to Horror

Author : Joyce E. Leader
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1640123237
Total Pages : 521 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis From Hope to Horror by : Joyce E. Leader

Download or read book From Hope to Horror written by Joyce E. Leader and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-03 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title As deputy to the U.S. ambassador in Rwanda, Joyce E. Leader witnessed the tumultuous prelude to genocide--a period of political wrangling, human rights abuses, and many levels of ominous, ever-escalating violence. From Hope to Horror offers her insider's account of the nation's efforts to move toward democracy and peace and analyzes the challenges of conducting diplomacy in settings prone to--or engaged in--armed conflict. Leader traces the three-way struggle for control among Rwanda's ethnic and regional factions. Each sought to shape democratization and peacemaking to its own advantage. The United States, hoping to encourage a peaceful transition, midwifed negotiations toward an accord. The result: a revolutionary blueprint for political and military power-sharing among Rwanda's competing factions that met categorical rejection by the "losers" and a downward spiral into mass atrocities. Drawing on the Rwandan experience, Leader proposes ways diplomacy can more effectively avert the escalation of violence by identifying the unintended consequences of policies and emphasizing conflict prevention over crisis response. Compelling and expert, From Hope to Horror fills in the forgotten history of the diplomats who tried but failed to prevent a human rights catastrophe.

The Black Book

Author : Middleton A. Harris
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1400068487
Total Pages : 214 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Black Book by : Middleton A. Harris

Download or read book The Black Book written by Middleton A. Harris and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of the classic New York Times bestseller edited by Toni Morrison, offering an encyclopedic look at the black experience in America from 1619 through the 1940s with the original cover restored. “I am so pleased the book is alive again. I still think there is no other work that tells and visualizes a story of such misery with seriousness, humor, grace and triumph.”—Toni Morrison Seventeenth-century sketches of Africans as they appeared to marauding European traders. Nineteenth-century slave auction notices. Twentieth-century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants. Photographs of war heroes, regal in uniform. Antebellum reward posters for capturing runaway slaves. An 1856 article titled “A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.” In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison led a team of gifted, passionate collectors in compiling these images and nearly five hundred others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America—The Black Book. Now in a newly restored hardcover edition, The Black Book remains a breathtaking testament to the legendary wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom. Prominent collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith joined Harris and Morrison (then a Random House editor, ultimately a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning Nobel Laureate) to spend months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials—transcripts from fugitive slaves’ trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and celebrated abolitionists, as well as chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century, and vibrant posters from “Black Hollywood” films of the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, it was an article she found while researching this project that provided the inspiration for Morrison’s masterpiece, Beloved. A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented and featuring a foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.