Largely overshadowed by World War II's "greatest generation" and the more vocal veterans of the Vietnam era, Korean War veterans remain relatively invisible in the narratives of both war and its aftermath. Yet, just as the beaches of Normandy and the jungles of Vietnam worked profound changes on conflict participants, the Korean Peninsula chipped away at the beliefs, physical and mental well-being, and fortitude of Americans completing wartime tours of duty there. Upon returning home, Korean War veterans struggled with home front attitudes toward the war, faced employment and family dilemmas, and wrestled with readjustment. Not unlike other wars, Korea proved a formative and defining influence on the men and women stationed in theater, on their loved ones, and in some measure on American culture. In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation not only gives voice to those Americans who served in the "forgotten war" but chronicles the larger personal and collective consequences of waging war the American way.

The Social Context of the Mau Mau Movement in Kenya (1952-1960) explores the social aspects of the Mau Mau Movement, which have been relatively unexamined in scholarly studies of the movement. This work situates the Mau Mau in the context of "Social Movement" literature; and more importantly, blends theory and practice through the use of first-hand narrative from Muigai Kanyua, a fighter in the Mau Mau forest for at least three years. Muigai Kanyua describes the need for strong social networks, trust, faith, and determination in the community and how the Mau Mau provided this courage and perseverance. Through detailed research and Kanyua's narrative, author Kinuthia Macharia explores the social climate that united different clans and ethnic groups and sustained the Mau Mau Movement. The work also examines the role of women in the movement and combat, and the enduring relevance of the Mau Mau movement in Kenya's politics and economic development.

The role of the peasant in society has been fundamental throughout China's history, posing difficult, much-debated questions for Chinese modernity. Today, as China becomes an economic superpower, the issue continues to loom large. Can the peasantry be integrated into a new Chinese capitalism, or will it form an excluded and marginalized class? Alexander F. Day's highly original appraisal explores the role of the peasantry throughout Chinese history and its importance within the development of post-socialist-era politics. Examining the various ways in which the peasant is historicized, Day shows how different perceptions of the rural lie at the heart of the divergence of contemporary political stances and of new forms of social and political activism in China. Indispensable reading for all those wishing to understand Chinese history and politics, The Peasant in Post-Socialist China is a new point of departure in the debate as to the nature of tomorrow's China.

Lyndon Johnson made a life or death bet during his Presidential term, and lost. Intent upon fighting an extended war against a determined foe, he gambled that American society could also endure a vast array of domestic reforms. The result was the turmoil of the 1968 presidential election-a crisis more severe than any since the Civil War. With thousands killed in Vietnam, hundreds dead in civil rights riots, televised chaos at the Democratic National Convention, and two major assassinations, Americans responded by voting for the law and order message of Richard Nixon. In The Deadly Bet, distinguished historian Walter LaFeber explores the turbulent election of 1968 and its significance in the larger context of American history. Looking through the eyes of the year's most important players-including Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, Martin Luther King, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, Nguyen Van Thieu, and Lyndon Johnson-LaFeber argues that the domestic upheaval had more impact on the election than the war in Vietnam. Clear, concise, and engaging, this work sheds important light on the crucial year of 1968.

What have English terms such as 'civil society', 'democracy', 'development' or 'nationalism' come to mean in an Indian context and how have their meanings and uses changed over time? Why are they the subjects of so much debate - in their everyday uses as well as amongst scholars? How did a concept such as 'Hinduism' come to be framed, and what does it mean now? What is 'caste'? Does it have quite the same meaning now as in the past? Why is the idea of 'faction' so significant in modern India? Why has the idea of 'empowerment' come to be used so extensively? These are the sorts of questions that are addressed in this book. Keywords for Modern India is modelled after the classic exploration of English culture and society through the study of keywords - words that are 'strong, important and persuasive' - by Raymond Williams. The book, like Williams' Keywords, is not a dictionary or an encyclopaedia. Williams said that his was 'an inquiry into a vocabulary', and Keywords for Modern India presents just such an inquiry into the vocabulary deployed in writing in and about India in the English language - which has long been and is becoming ever more a critically important language in India's culture and society. Exploring the changing uses and contested meanings of common but significant words is a powerful and illuminating way of understanding contemporary India, for scholars and for students, and for general readers.

This revisionist study of Allied diplomacy from 1941 to 1946 challenges Americocentric views of the period and highlights Europe's neglected role. Fraser J. Harbutt, drawing on international sources, shows that in planning for the future Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and others self-consciously operated into 1945, not on 'East/West' lines but within a 'Europe/America' political framework characterized by the plausible prospect of Anglo-Russian collaboration and persisting American detachment. Harbutt then explains the destabilizing transformation around the time of the pivotal Yalta conference of February 1945, when a sudden series of provocative initiatives, manipulations, and miscues interacted with events to produce the breakdown of European solidarity and the Anglo-Soviet nexus, an evolving Anglo-American alignment, and new tensions that led finally to the Cold War. This fresh perspective, stressing structural, geopolitical, and traditional impulses and constraints, raises important new questions about the enduringly controversial transition from World War II to a cold war that no statesman wanted.

Wife of one president and mother of another, Barbara Bush was an outspoken first lady who looked more like her constituents than did her predecessors. A White House resident for only four years, she nevertheless became and remains one of the most admired women in the world.

This new look at Barbara Bush draws on recently opened records at the Bush library, the first lady's many speeches, interviews with the first lady's staff, and an exclusive interview with Mrs. Bush to impart a new appreciation for this beloved former first lady. And while other biographies-and her own memoir-have hinted at seeming contradictions in the Barbara Bush persona, Myra Gutin looks squarely at her White House years to set the record straight and show that she was more than "America's Grandmother" in faux pearls.

Gutin's portrait reveals a woman who was more of a success as first lady than her husband was as president-who in many ways was the public face of the George H. W. Bush administration. And while she wasn't an innovator as presidential wife, Gutin shows how the "Silver Fox" used her rich experience in politics to master the public relations side of first ladyship with as much skill as any White House spouse.

Gutin argues that Barbara was more politically astute than George-even though she denied any input into policymaking and maintained an apolitical image. In fact, she played an integral role in campaigning, fund-raising, and other activities that often blurred the line between the humanitarian and the political. Piercing through the first lady's public persona, Gutin reveals Barbara's backstage political skills in action-along with her closely held views on social issues like gun control and abortion.

From behind the faade of an ideal American family, Gutin also includes frank accounts of George H. W. Bush's alleged adultery and of the death of the Bushes' daughter Robin. In addition, she lends new insight into Barbara's relationship with her mother, her role as entertainer, and her role in wartime.

Gutin gives us a vibrant woman who lent warmth to her husband's cool image and whose legacy lives in the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and several best-selling books. It is a richly textured narrative that depicts a woman of loyalty, candor, and common sense, who knew when and how to apply those qualities in the service of her husband.

During the 1970s, the United States became the world's preeminent postindustrial society. The new conditions changed the way Americans lived and worked, and even their perceptions of reality. Americans struggled to find their place in a world where symbol became more important than fact, appearance more important than reality, where image supplanted essence. In this reassessment of a little studied decade, J. David Hoeveler, Jr., finds that the sense of detachment and dislocation that characterizes the postindustrial society serves as a paradigm for American thought and culture in the 1970s. The book examines major developments in literary theory, philosophy, architecture, and painting as expressions of a 1970s consciousness. Hoeveler also explores the rival "political" readings of these subjects and considers the postmodernist phenomenon as it became an ideological battleground in the decade. Clear and engaging, the work will be of great interest to historians, theorists, and everyone who wants to further explore the 1970s.

With the rise to power of the fifth generation in 2012, Xi Jinping became the undisputed leader of China. For the first time, the descendant of a Communist hero, a "red princeling," has reached the highest rungs of power in the Middle Kingdom. His personality a study in contrasts, Xi is the archetypal "son of" the lost generation. A chaotic path has led him from the sweetness of Zhongnanhai, the seat of Chinese political power, to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. He experienced both honors and disgraces in his succession to the head of the Party. Xi's return to Zhongnanhai raises many questions. Will he be an "ephemeral" president? Will he give priority to Reform, turn toward a Western form of government or fall in line with the approach of his elders? As he begins his first term, Xi Jinping knows that many challenges lie ahead, with the absolute imperative to keep China "as stable as Mount Taishan."

For much of his half-century career in the House of Commons, Tony Benn has been the most loved and loathed man in British politics. He has been idolized by the left, and reviled with equal measure by the Westminster establishment, not least by New Labour. Once tipped to lead the Labour Party, Benn's growing disillusionment with what he regarded as the democratic deficit infecting politics, reinforced his resolve to continue playing the role he valued most, as a good House of Commons Man.David Powell's fascinating new biography traces Tony Benn's extraordinary fifty year political career from the day he first entered the House in 1950. He argues that Benn's commitment to the House of Commons was fortified by his experiences during the thirty months when he fought to renounce his peerage and remain an MP; then during the twelve years he spent in government, and finally during the two decades he spent on the back benches, having been defeated in the bruising campaign for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party. Each was to provide him with an insight into the workings of power and cumulatively they were to convince him of the charade that passed for democracy not only in Westminster and in the Labour Party, but in the European Union and in the wider in the global context, with democratic ideals subordinated to the political and economic power of the United States. Benn has always a controversial figure. He was widely caricatured as Bogey Benn by the Tories during the 1970s and was more recently anathematised by Tony Blair as the man who almost knocked the Labour party over the edge of the cliff into extinction. Nonetheless many of the policies he championed, and for which he was widely belittled, have since entered the statute books. Indeed, if history is a chronicle of ironies, there can have been little more ironic than when, following Benn's valedictory speech in the Commons in 2001, a Tory backbencher commended him to fellow MPs as Britain's greatest living Parliamentarian.

This authoritative exploration of the ethnic history of the former Yugoslavia traces the roots of the conflicts that convulsed the region in the 1990s. At the end of the 20th century, interregional conflicts in the former Yugoslavia culminated with Slobodon Miloflevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing, which led to NATO intervention and ultimately revolution. What ignited these conflicts? What can we learn from them about introducing democracy in multiethnic regions? What does the future hold for the region? To answer these questions, this timely volume examines the ethnic history of the former Yugoslavia. From the settlement of the South Slavs in the 6th century to the present-paying special attention to the post-World War II era, the crisis and democratization in the 1980s, and the disintegration of the country in the early 1990s. This comprehensive single volume traces the bloody history of the region through to the fragile alliances of its present-day countries. An in-depth survey of the ethnic history of the former Yugoslavia, organized into three main parts: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Dozens of tables and maps showing ethnic composition, demographics, and settlement patterns

The Guide aims to demystify and clarify one of the key conflicts of our time, explaining who, what, where, and why in a balanced manner. "The Arab-Israeli Conflict" explains what the term "Arab-Israeli Conflict" refers to, providing an accurate and dispassionate description of the current situation, its origins, as well as the people involved and their motivations. It outlines in an accessible manner the past and present events that have led to the current divisions and hostilities. Using a thematic approach, the work examines key questions such as the importance of Jerusalem, borders and the West Bank, settlements, terrorism, Palestinian and Israeli political structures and internal divisions, the role of the United States (and other countries), the significance of ethnic identity and religion, and more. "The Arab-Israeli Conflict" illuminates the nature and course of the conflict, fostering a better understanding of the current situation and what we hear in the news almost daily. Written by an expert in the field, the guide will appeal to anyone perplexed by this ongoing and seemingly intractable conflict. "Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material.

In this magisterial new work, Bancroft Prize-winning historian David Kyvig chronicles the rise of a culture of impeachment since 1960-one that extends far beyond the infamous scandals surrounding Presidents Richard Nixon (Watergate) and Bill Clinton (Monica Lewinsky) and has dramatically altered the face of American politics.

A buzz word in today's public life, "impeachment" was anything but that before 1960. Since then it has been transformed from a historically little-known and little-used tool of last resort into a political weapon of choice. By examining the details and consequences of impeachment episodes involving three Supreme Court justices, a vice president, five federal judges, and four presidents, Kyvig explores this seismic shift in our constitutional culture and gauges its ongoing implications for American political life.

Beginning with the John Birch Society's campaign against Chief Justice Earl Warren, impeachment efforts became far more frequent after 1960, with eight actually ending in resignation or removal. In describing these efforts, Kyvig recounts stories and subplots about key political actors and the controversies they inspired. He argues that judicial cases are as important as the better-known presidential ones and shows why those cases that did not proceed-against not only Warren, but also Abe Fortas, William O. Douglas, Spiro Agnew, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush-are as illuminating as those that did.

Kyvig demonstrates that impeachment has been the bellwether of a changing-and increasingly toxic-political climate. Perhaps most important and ominous, the increasing threat of impeachment has encouraged presidents to hide potentially impeachable actions behind a thick veil of executive secrecy, while dramatically expanding executive power beyond the reach of either Congress or the courts.

Combining political and legal history at their best, Kyvig also explores the cultural impact of journalist David Frost, editorial cartoonist Herblock, and filmmakers Alan Pakula, Robert Altman, and Oliver Stone. A gifted storyteller, he presents a cautionary tale that should be read by all who care about our national government and its ability to survive and thrive in perilous times.

"Dramatic and startling" -- The Guardian. Witness Barack Obama as you've never seen him before -- as feminist, communist, fashion model, Jew, Muslim terrorist, Messiah, Superman, George Washington, President Roosevelt, Julius Caesar and Hindu deity Lord Shiva. Obama: 101 Best Covers shows America's ex-president in all these guises and more, on the front pages of the world's leading print publications. NEW BARACK PHOTO BIOGRAPHY During his two terms in the White House, former US President Barack Obama amassed more newspaper and magazine covers than any other in history. This new post-presidency legacy book brings you the best 101 examples from around the world, in a special commemorative edition celebrating the startling event that was the 2008 election of America's first African American leader. It presents a unique visual biography of the background and accomplishments of his historic presidential campaign. OBAMA & NEW YORK TIMES Featured titles within this definitive collection include Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Esquire, Ebony, Essence, Vibe, The Guardian and The New York Times, amongst others. Many of the covers featuring the 44th US president were flattering. He never looked better than when he featured on the front of The New York Times or Rolling Stone. (See pages 40 and 69 of the Obama book). DREAMS OF AUDACITY & HOPE Many Barack Obama biography and legacy books have been written by different authors in recent years. His autobiography, Dreams Of My Father, as well as his memoir, The Audacity Of Hope, detail Obama's life story better than any biography by another author could, while the photographic portraits offered in Obama books by Pete Souza and Peter Baker reveal the intimate access they had to the White House's first African American president during his two administrations. But this new legacy book enters the Barack Obama story in 2004 with his very first cover, for Black Enterprise, and then tracks Obama's US presidential campaigns and elections of 2008 and 2012 through a further 100 amazing covers. THE CALL OF HISTORY 2008 Amongst the print media, Barack Obama was a publishing sensation - a fact borne out by the volume of covers his portrait graced during his eight-year American presidency. They range from graphic illustrations to photographs of Obama giving speeches while on the campaign trail, right through to intimate studio portraits. Many depict him as the chosen one, the Messiah even. Obama was the one who, out of the many, answered the call of history many thought would never come, while exercising power that no other African American leader before him has ever wielded on the political and presidential stage. OBAMA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT IN WORDS The text for the Obama covers book discusses the design, typography, photography and political context of each cover portrait, bringing to life this unique portrait of the world's most famous man. BARACK: 4 COVERS FOR NO. 44 Obama: 101 Best Covers, is available in FOUR collectable editions, each with a different cover. As a souvenir, gift or inspirational Black History Month purchase for 2018, this is one the best Obama books with which to celebrate the former US president's tenure in the White House. NEW OBAMA BOOK: SUMMARY - Available in FOUR editions. - A bespoke souvenir -- EIGHT years in the making. - Features amazing covers you've never seen before. ONLINE BOOK CATEGORIES 2020 Biography & Autobiography History - African American Art, Architecture & Photography

This book is a history of the Cold War in Mexico, and Mexico in the Cold War. Renata Keller draws on declassified Mexican and US intelligence sources and Cuban diplomatic records to challenge earlier interpretations that depicted Mexico as a peaceful haven and a weak neighbor forced to submit to US pressure. Mexico did in fact suffer from the political and social turbulence that characterized the Cold War era in general, and by maintaining relations with Cuba it played a unique, and heretofore overlooked, role in the hemispheric Cold War. The Cuban Revolution was an especially destabilizing force in Mexico because Fidel Castro's dedication to many of the same nationalist and populist causes that the Mexican revolutionaries had originally pursued in the early twentieth century called attention to the fact that the government had abandoned those promises. A dynamic combination of domestic and international pressures thus initiated Mexico's Cold War and shaped its distinct evolution and outcomes.

From the first free elections in post-Soviet Russia in 1989 to the end of the Yeltsin period in 1999, Russia's parliament was the site of great political upheavals. Conflicts between communists and reformers generated constant turmoil, and twice parliamentary institutions broke down in violence. This book offers the first full account of the inaugural decade of Russia's parliament. Thomas F. Remington, a leading scholar of Russian politics, describes in unique detail the Gorbachev-era parliament of 1989-91, the interim parliament of 1990-93, and the current Federal Assembly.

Focusing particularly on the emergence of parliamentary parties and bicameralism, Remington explores how the organization of the Russian parliament changed, why some changes failed while others were accepted, and why the current parliament is more effective and viable than its predecessors. He links the story of parliamentary evolution in Russia to contemporary theories of institutional development and concludes that, notwithstanding the turbulence of Russia's first postcommunist decade, parliament has served as a stabilizing influence in Russian political life.

South Africa came late to television; when it finally arrived in the late 1970s the rest of the world had already begun to shun the country because of apartheid. While the ruling National Party feared the integrative effects of television, they did not foresee how exclusion from globally unifying broadcasts would gradually erode their power.

Throughout the apartheid-era, South Africa was barred from participating in some of television’s greatest global attractions, including sporting events such as the Olympics and contests such as Miss World. After apartheid, and with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison – itself one of the world’s most memorable media events, came a proliferation of large-scale live broadcasts that attracted the admiration of the rest of the world. At the same time, the country was permitted to return to international competition. These events were pivotal in shaping and consolidating the country’s emerging post-apartheid national identity.

Broadcasting the End of Apartheid assesses the socio-political effect of live broadcasting on South Africa’s transition to democracy. Martha Evans argues that just as print media had a powerful influence on the development of Afrikaner nationalism, so the “liveness” of television helped to consolidate the “newness” of the post-apartheid South African national identity.

This comprehensive text provides a balanced survey of the Cold War in a genuinely global framework. Presenting not only Soviet and Western perspectives, but also the outlooks of peoples and leaders throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, Edward H. Judge and John W. Langdon offer in-depth treatment of imperialism, anti-imperialism, decolonization, national liberation struggles, and their Cold War connections. The authors explore the background and context for all major developments during the era, as well as capsule biographies and character analyses of key figures. Tracing the Cold War from its roots in East-West tensions before and during World War II through its origins in the immediate postwar era, the book concludes with the Cold War's legacy, which continues today. Written in a clear and lively style, this compelling text will bring the era to life for readers who didn't experience its dramas and crises directly.

Political Scandals: The Consequences of Temporary Gratification questions whether the consequences associated with non-sex-based scandals carry greater penalties than sex-based political scandals in the twenty-first century. Featuring a detailed analysis of over 50 political scandals, this book examines the impact those events have on the lives of political officials, their families, and public trust. Political Scandals diminishes the typical sensationalism associated with scandal coverage and dissects what happens when human beings yield to greed, power, sex, lust, and theft in their personal and professional lives.

West German Industrialists and the Making of the Economic Miracle investigates the mentality of post-war German (heavy) industrialists through an analysis of their attitudes, thinking and views on social, political and, of course, economic matters at the time, including the 'social market economy' and how they saw their own role in society, with this investigation taking place against the backdrop of the 'economic miracle' and the Cold War of the 1950s and 60s. The book also includes an assessment of whether the self-declared, new 'aristocracy of merit' justified its place in society and carried out its actions in a new spirit of political responsibility. This is an important text for all students interested in the history of Germany and the modern economic history of Europe.

In 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War, centrist Congressman Melvin Laird (R-WI) agreed to serve as Richard Nixon's secretary of defense. It was not, Laird knew, a move likely to endear him to the American public - but as he later said, ""Nixon couldn't find anybody else who wanted the damn job."" For the next four years, Laird deftly navigated the morass of the war he had inherited. Lampooned as a ""missile head,"" but decisive in crafting an exit strategy, he doggedly pursued his program of Vietnamization, initiating the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel and gradually ceding combat responsibilities to South Vietnam. In fighting to bring the troops home faster, pressing for more humane treatment of POWs, and helping to end the draft, Laird employed a powerful blend of disarming midwestern candor and Washington savvy, as he sought a high moral road bent on Nixon's oft-stated (and politically instrumental) goal of peace with honor.The first book ever to focus on Laird's legacy, this authorized biography reveals his central and often unrecognized role in managing the crisis of national identity sparked by the Vietnam War - and the challenges, ethical and political, that confronted him along the way. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Laird, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, and numerous others, author Dale Van Atta offers a sympathetic portrait of a man striving for open government in an atmosphere fraught with secrecy. Van Atta illuminates the inner workings of high politics: Laird's behind-the-scenes sparring with Kissinger over policy, his decisions to ignore Nixon's wilder directives, his formative impact on arms control and health care, his key role in the selection of Ford for vice president, his frustration with the country's abandonment of Vietnamization, and, in later years, his unheeded warning to Donald Rumsfeld that ""it's a helluva lot easier to get into a war than to get out of one.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2002

"Frost has created a usable past capable of enriching our understanding of the difficulties of democracy and the tough realities of American politics."
--"Peace & Change"

"The finest study to date on the ill-fated Economic research and Action Projecta].An outstanding work."
--"Choice"

"Frost contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the era and pushes past stereotypes of the sixties."
--"Journal of Social History"

"Frost has provided a coherent examination of the role of American women during the poor people's movement of the 1960s...there are many different things for scholars to admire about this book."
--"American Historical Review"

"I highly recommend this very accessible book...[it] includes rich archival and oral historical detail that should appeal to historians of the 1960s. For those of us interested in a more complex and intersectional analysis of the 1960s, this book is a welcome addition to the historical record."
-- "Contemporary Sociology"

.,."A solid contribution to the literature on the history of community organizing and radical resistance, one that can also add to contemporary debates about rebuilding public life and reviving democratic dissent and practice in America."
-- "The Journal of American History"

Community organizing became an integral part of the activist repertoire of the New Left in the 1960s. Students for a Democratic Society, the organization that came to be seen as synonymous with the white New Left, began community organizing in 1963, hoping to build an interracial movement of the poor through which to demand social and political change. SDS sought nothing less thanto abolish poverty and extend democratic participation in America.

Over the next five years, organizers established a strong presence in numerous low-income, racially diverse urban neighborhoods in Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, and Boston, as well as other cities. Rejecting the strategies of the old left and labor movement and inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, activists sought to combine a number of single issues into a broader, more powerful coalition. Organizers never limited themselves to today's simple dichotomies of race vs. class or of identity politics vs. economic inequality. They actively synthesized emerging identity politics with class and coalition politics and with a drive for a more participatory welfare state, treating these diverse political approaches as inextricably intertwined. While common wisdom holds that the New Left rejected all state involvement as cooptative at best, Jennifer Frost traces the ways in which New Left and community activists did in fact put forward a prescriptive, even visionary, alternative to the welfare state.

After Students for a Democratic Society and its community organizing unit, the Economic Research and Action Project, disbanded, New Left and community participants went on to apply their strategies and goals to the welfare rights, women's liberation, and the antiwar movements. In her study of activism before the age of identity politics, Frost has given us the first full-fledged history of what was arguably the most innovative community organizing campaign in post-war American history.