From the moment the United States seized Puerto Rico, in 1898, to the 1950s, the islanders employed various forms of resistance against American colonial rule. Starting in the 1930s a group of Nationalists was determined to free Puerto Rico, by armed struggle if necessary. A Nationalist revolution took full force in 1950. A commando of men and women attacked the governor's residence and assaulted police stations throughout the island. Others attempted to assassinate President Truman In Washington. In 1954, Dolores Lebron led three male companions in an attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in which five congressmen were shot for keeping Puerto Rico in bondage. Massive arrests followed and forty-one women were detained, two of whom were sentenced to life in prison. While the male Nationalists have been celebrated as heroes in Puerto Rico, the women have gone unmentioned This book seeks to rescue the stories of the women who gave up their freedom in the quest to liberate their homeland.

The Revolutionary War was not a polite conflict between orderly troops and gentlemanly officers. Civilians on the home front suffered considerably. This account depicts the ugly side of the War for Independence, where roving bands of robbers, known as banditti, plagued the countryside in areas not fully under the control of either army.

Regardless of their political sympathies, American civilians lived in terror of these well-armed gangs of looters, who frequently engaged in torture, arson, and murder. The players in this sordid tale, chiefly motivated by greed, chose their victims indiscriminately and then returned to sanctuary. Many civilians fled their homes, leaving large sections of New York, Georgia, and the Carolinas as no-man's-land, where near anarchy and the complete disruption of civilian justice only abetted the success of the marauders.

Ward details the activities of the most prominent banditti and looks at the horrors and devastation of their actions. His account challenges readers to look beyond the set-piece battles and even past the guerrilla activities, to examine what life was like for those caught between the lines.

The Grenada Revolution in the Caribbean Present: Operation Urgent Memory is the first scholarly book from the humanities on the subject of the Grenada Revolution and the US intervention. It is simultaneously a critique, tribute, and memorial. It argues that in both its making and its fall, the 1979-1983 Revolution was a transnational event that deeply impacted politics and culture across the Caribbean and its diaspora during its life and in the decades since its fall. Drawing together studies of landscape, memorials, literature, music, painting, photographs, film and TV, cartoons, memorabilia traded on e-bay, interviews, everyday life, and government, journalistic, and scholarly accounts, the book assembles and analyzes an archive of divergent memories. In an analysis that is relevant to all micro-states, the book reflects on how Grenada's small size shapes memory, political and poetic practice, and efforts at reconciliation.

Fourteen wide-ranging chapters by distinguished international scholars treat key aspects of the rapidly changing political and cultural scene in France from the First Republic, through the Consulate and Empire to the death of Louis XVIII in 1824. Falling into two interlinked parts, this collection of original essays explores new developments as well as continuities characterizing the transition between the 18th and the 19th centuries. It includes chapters on feminism, politics and theater, elections and plebiscites, revolution and counter-revolution, patronage, universities and education, medicine, music, and science.

Conspiratorial views of events abound even in our modern, rational world. Often such theories serve to explain the inexplicable. Sometimes they are developed for motives of political expediency: it is simpler to see political opponents as conspirators and terrorists, putting them into one convenient basket, than to seek to understand and disentangle the complex motivations of opponents. So it is not surprising to see that just when the French Revolution was creating the modern political world, a constant obsession with conspiracies lay at the heart of the revolutionary conception of politics. The book considers the nature and development of the conspiracy obsession from the end of the old regime to the Directory. Chapters focus on conspiracy and fears of conspiracy in the old regime; in the Constituent Assembly; by the king and Marie Antoinette; amongst the people of Paris; on attitudes towards the peasantry and conspiracy; on Jacobin politics of the Year II and the 'foreign plot'; on counter-revolutionary plots and imaginary plots; on Babeuf and the 'conspiracy of equals'; and finally on fear of conspiracy as an intellectual impasse in the revolutionary mentality. Inspired by recent debates, this book is a comprehensive survey of the nature of conspiracy in the French Revolution, with each chapter written by a leading historian on the question. Each chapter is an original contribution to the topic, written however to include the wider issues for the area concerned. There is an emphasis throughout on clarity and accessibility, making the volume suitable for a wide readership as well as undergraduates and advanced researchers -- .

Conceptualizes the genre of American assassination fiction as a dramatization of the tension between individualism and mass society in US culture. Vote with a Bullet is the first systematic study of assassination in American fiction. It proffers not only a fundamental overview of the genre but also an argument about its larger cultural, aesthetic, and political significance in the present moment as well as in the respective historical contexts of the works themselves. The study argues that American assassination fiction is a symbolic condensation of the larger conflict between individual and society that is at the heart of modern democracy, and that has been especially contested in the democratic culture of the US. Starting with Henry James's The Princess Casamassima (1886) and ending with Noah Hawley's The Good Father (2012), the chapters analyze twelve works ranging from canonical classics to popular genre fiction. A conclusion considers Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day (2006). The book describes the loose continuum of assassination fiction as an imaginary laboratory in which fantasies of individual empowerment and social unity play out in different ways, negotiating the tension between individualism and mass society in a democracy that is based on the former but must restrict it to preserve the latter. Furthermore, the study connects the imaginary of assassination with a variety of related themes such as hegemonic masculinity and whiteness, electoral and non-electoral political choice, agency panic, subjectivity, as well as conspiracies and conspiracy theory.

Richard Muller, a leading figure of the German Revolution in 1918, is unknown today. As the operator and unionist who represented Berlin's metalworkers, he was main organiser of the 'Revolutionary Stewards', a clandestine network that organised a series of mass strikes between 1916 and 1918. With strong support in the factories, the Revolutionary Stewards were the driving force of the Revolution. By telling Muller's story, this study gives a very different account of the revolutionary birth of the Weimar Republic. Using new archival sources and abandoning the traditional focus on the history of political parties, Ralf Hoffrogge zooms in on working class politics on the shop floor and its contribution to social change. First published in German by Karl Dietz Verlag as Richard Muller - Der Mann hinter der November Revolution, Berlin, 2008, this english edition was completerly revised for the english speaking audience and contains new sources and recent literature.

The Arab revolutions of 2011 were a transformative moment in the modern history of the Middle East, as people rose up against long-standing autocrats throughout the region to call for 'bread, freedom and dignity'. With the passage of time, results have been decidedly mixed, with initial success stories like Tunisia contrasting with the emergence of even more repressive dictatorships in places like Egypt, with the backing of several Gulf states. Focusing primarily on Egypt, this book considers a relatively understudied dimension of these revolutions: the role of prominent religious scholars. While pro-revolutionary ulama have justified activism against authoritarian regimes, counter-revolutionary scholars have provided religious backing for repression, and in some cases the mass murder of unarmed protestors. Usaama al-Azami traces the public engagements and religious pronouncements of several prominent ulama in the region, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ali Gomaa and Abdullah bin Bayyah, to explore their role in either championing the Arab revolutions or supporting their repression. He concludes that while a minority of noted scholars have enthusiastically endorsed the counter-revolutions, their approach is attributable less to premodern theology and more to their distinctly modern commitment to the authoritarian state.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Since at least the mid-seventeenth century, the concept of revolution has been an important tool both for those seeking to bring about political change and for those trying to understand it. And it is as relevant today as it has ever been. This volume re-evaluates our understanding of the history of revolutionary thought by examining a selection of key texts. These range from the 17th to the 20th century, and are carefully chosen to include both constitutional documents and theoretical works by figures such as James Harrington, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Maximilian Robespierre, Peter Kropotkin and Deng Xiaoping Each chapter engages with a particular revolutionary moment via a specific text, usually an extract of around 300 words, and considers the significance of the text for the history of revolutionary thought. The structure of the book allows readers to make connections and comparisons across the different revolutionary texts and moments, thereby providing a broader, deeper and more nuanced understanding of revolutions. Stimulating, accessible and interdisciplinary, Revolutionary Moments will appeal to students and researchers in the history of political thought and intellectual history, and beyond.

Defenders of the Motherland studies how the most powerful social groups in tsarist Russia reacted to the challenges posed by the Russian Revolutions of 1917. Arguing that elite groups-especially nobles, landowners, and officers-played an important role in these events, Matthew Rendle shows how the alienation of tsarist elites from the tsar during the First World War and their support for the new Provisional Government in February 1917 secured the initial success of the revolution.
Elites engaged actively with revolutionary politics, serving in the government and forming unions to promote their interests and gather wider support. In doing so, they fostered fears of counter-revolution amongst the lower social classes, radicalizing the popular mood and paving the way for the Bolsheviks.
Although increasingly disillusioned with events, elites were not solely counter-revolutionary and were far from united. A poorly-supported military revolt in August 1917 demonstrated different aspirations for the future, whilst as many served the Bolshevik regime after October 1917 as opposed it. The divisions that had existed prior to 1917, exacerbated by the revolution, consequently undermined the White armies' opposition to Bolshevism during Russia's civil war. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks' fear of "class enemies" was endemic, and their obsession with removing the threat that former elites posed laid the foundations of the violent and repressive Soviet regime

The Cuban Revolution presents a mixed record of achievements and failures. In this comprehensive study of Cuban politics, Rhoda Rabkin examines the institutions, policies, and performance of revolutionary Cuba. The study, part of the Politics in Latin America Hoover Institution Series, concisely and thoroughly addresses the major issues debated by scholars concerning the Cuban revolutionary experience. These include: the development impasse of pre-revolutionary Cuba, rates of revolutionary socio-economic progress, elite factionalism, the role of the military, succession politics, respect for human rights, and the relevance of the Cuban model to other developing countries. Rabkin analyzes with particular care Cuban efforts to reconcile revolutionary leadership (including the special role of Fidel Castro) with popular participation in institutions of government and mass organizations. The study also analyzes in depth the likely implications of the Gorbachev era for Cuban socialism. The meticulous inclusion of source references to the scholarly literature allows readers to pursue controversial issues in greater depth. In a field too often dominated by polemics, Rabkin provides her readers with an honest, objective synthesis of contemporary scholarship on the Cuban Revolution. Chapters cover: background to the revolution; communism Fidel-style (1959-1970); institutions and policy (1970-1986); the socialist economic system; Cuban foreign policy; the rectification period (1986 to the present); and a concluding assessment of the Cuban revolutionary socialist development model.

This book examines the 'turn to the East' by the international communist movement in fostering world revolution after the success in Russia in 1917, which led to communism's greatest gains after the Second World War. Based on a theorisation of the building of revolutionary movements, this study critically assesses communist strategy and tactics using three key cases, China, India and Brazil, drawing out implications for possible future developments in less-developed countries.

This work examines the mechanisms of the Irish revolutionary Fenian Brotherhood in the early years of its existence. Drawing on a wide range of material from places as diverse as Rome and Toronto, it seeks to set the Fenian struggle within the context of competing Church and state influence in mid-19th century Irish society. It is particularly strong on the transatlantic comparative dimensions of Church, state and Fenian activity, and demonstrates how the Fenians managed to change, forever, the terms of Irish political and social debate.

The 'Cominternians' who staffed the Communist International in Moscow from its establishment in 1919 to its dissolution in 1943 led transnational lives and formed a cosmopolitan but closed and privileged world. The book tells of their experience in the Soviet Union through the decades of hope and terror.

The Defence of Terrorism, originally written in 1920 on a military train during the Russian Civil War, represents one of Trotsky's most wide-ranging and original contributions to the debates that dominated the 1920s and '30s. Trotsky's intention is "far away from any thought of defending terrorism in general". Rather, he seeks to promote an historical justification for the Revolution, by demonstrating that history has set up the 'revolutionary violence of the progressive class' against the 'conservative violence of the outworn classes'. The argument is developed in response to the influential Marxist intellectual Karl Kautsky, who refuted Trotsky's 'militarisation of labour' and Lenin's wholesale rejection of a 'bloodless revolution'. The introduction, written for the second edition of 1935, presents Trotsky's reflections on the similarities between Kautsky and the burgeoning British Labour Party: specifically, it recapitulates Trotsky's belief that revolution conducted according to the norms of Parliamentarianism is no revolution at all.

This special issue is a key text in the current study of social movements. It introduces new analytical concepts for understanding visuals in social movements and examines case studies from across the globe; such as analysis of the symbols used in the Egyptian uprising, and contested images from anti-surveillance protests in Europe.

In 2011, a series of anti-government uprisings shook the Middle East and North Africa in what would become known as the Arab Spring. Few could predict that these convulsions, initially hailed in the West as a triumph of democracy, would give way to brutal civil war, the terrors of the Islamic State, and a global refugee crisis. But, as New York Times bestselling author Scott Anderson shows, the seeds of catastrophe had been sown long before. In this gripping account, Anderson examines the myriad complex causes of the region's profound unraveling, tracing the ideological conflicts of the present to their origins in the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 and beyond. From this investigation emerges a rare view into a land in upheaval through the eyes of six individuals-the matriarch of a dissident Egyptian family; a Libyan Air Force cadet with divided loyalties; a Kurdish physician from a prominent warrior clan; a Syrian university student caught in civil war; an Iraqi activist for women's rights; and an Iraqi day laborer-turned-ISIS fighter. A probing and insightful work of reportage, Fractured Lands offers a penetrating portrait of the contemporary Arab world and brings the stunning realities of an unprecedented geopolitical tragedy into crystalline focus.

The Cuban Revolution offers a reflective account of what the Revolution has meant to various actors (the dominant powers, the Third World, fellow revolutionaries, intellectuals and Cuban citizens) at different periods in its history. Rather than offer a simple narrative of events, Geraldine Lievesley addresses significant themes with which the Revolution has engaged and the problems it has encountered.

The Alcoholic Empire examines the prevalance of alcohol in Russian social, economic, religious, and political life. Herlihy looks at how the state, the church, the military, doctors, lay societies, and the czar all tried to battle the problem of overconsumption of alcohol in the late imperial period. Since vodka produced essential government revenue and was a backbone of the state economy, many who fought for a sober Russia believed that the only way to save the country was through Revolutionary change. This book traces temperance activity and politics side by side with the end of the tsarist regime, while showing how the problem of alcoholism continued to pervade Soviet and post-Soviet society. Illustrated by timeless and incisive sayings about the Russian love of vodka and by poster art and paintings, this book will appeal to Russian and European historians and those interested in temperance history.

This book explores the constitutional debates of the Year 3 of the French Revolution (also known as Year 1 of the French Republic) and the drafts for the Declaration and the Constitution of 1793. It presents the revolutionaries' distinct view on human rights and the rights of the peoples, as well as their philosophical underpinnings. After discussing how contemporary legal history and theory, and political philosophy approached the revolutionary period, the book tackles the main topics covered during the debates and proposals. Starting with the issue of external relations and the sovereignty of the people and ending with natural rights and Republicanism, this book shows how apparently technical questions (such as what procedure should be implemented to declare a war) are intertwined with philosophical reflections on rights and with problems that were urgent at the time.

This project compares rebel media use in three Mesoamerican rebellions: the Nicaraguan Revolution, the Salvadoran civil war and the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. The three conflicts were waged under similar conditions over a twenty-year period, but with notably different types of media from which the rebels could choose as the primary focus of their communication strategy. In the three cases, the insurgents utilized a variety of media, but one of those became the official or dominant medium. The project explains how each rebel group used its respective primary communication medium and the possibilities and limitations that the choice offered as well as the demands it made. Directly comparing media use in all three rebellions provides a richer understanding of the role of media in social change, particularly violent change.

In the spring of 1989, millions of citizens across China took to the streets in a nationwide uprising against government corruption and authoritarian rule. What began with widespread hope for political reform ended with the People's Liberation Army firing on unarmed citizens in the capital city of Beijing, and those leaders who survived the crackdown became wanted criminals overnight. Among the witnesses to this unprecedented popular movement was Rowena Xiaoqing He, who would later join former student leaders and other exiles in North America, where she has worked tirelessly for over a decade to keep the memory of the Tiananmen Movement alive. This moving oral history interweaves He's own experiences with the accounts of three student leaders exiled from China. Here, in their own words, they describe their childhoods during Mao's Cultural Revolution, their political activism, the bitter disappointments of 1989, and the profound contradictions and challenges they face as exiles. Variously labeled as heroes, victims, and traitors in the years after Tiananmen, these individuals tell difficult stories of thwarted ideals and disconnection, but that nonetheless embody the hope for a freer China and a more just world.