The New York Times praised Communist Party reporter John L. Spivak's shocking 1932 novel Georgia Nigger as having "the weight and authority of a sociological investigation." This Southern Classics edition makes Spivak's narrative available to modern readers, augmented with a new introduction by David A. Davis as well as additional documents Spivak gathered during his investigation into the abuses of the Depression-era Southern prison system.
Georgia Nigger exposes the institutionalized system of sharecropping, debt peonage, and exorbitant chain gang sentences that trapped many southern black men in a cycle of labor exploitation. Spivak (1897-1981) gained unlikely access to chain gangs through the Georgia Prison Commission, and his book combines elements of muckraking reportage and proletarian fiction to offer a sensational and damning case for prison reform.
The plot follows David Jackson, the son of black sharecroppers, who is released from a chain gang then almost immediately re-arrested and bound over to a white planter as a peon. Jackson escapes peonage only to be arrested again as a vagrant and sentenced to another chain gang. He tries to escape again with the help of an older inmate, but they are both captured and suffer torturous punishments. Spivak's novel has merit both as revealing historical account of sharecropping and chain gangs and as a compelling literary allegory of an individual confronted by sweeping social forces.
For Depression-era readers, Georgia Nigger provided outrage beyond its obvious depictions of inhumanity and torture. The book hinges on the crime of vagrancy, a charge often used to force into labor persons without obvious means of income. In this particular arrangement, being unemployed was a crime in itself, which allowed for the exploitation of the economically vulnerable. Like many writers and intellectuals of his era, Spivak sought to expose the abuses committed against the nation's most impoverished. His book combines elements of labor rabble-rousing, radical fiction, and documentary photography to depict the lives of black Southerners and to indict a flawed system of labor and justice.

This is a new release of the original 1939 edition.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

The material in this small volume just barely scratches the surface of a problem which is becoming increasingly grave: the activities of Nazi agents in the United States, Mexico, and Central America. During the years John Spivak observed some of them, watching the original, crudely organized and directed propaganda machine develop, grow and leave an influence for wider than most people seem to realize. What at first appeared to be merely a distasteful attempt by Nazi Government officials at direct interference in the affairs of the American people and their Government, has now assumed the more sinister aspect of also seeking American naval and military secrets. Further studies in Central America, Mexico and the Panama Canal Zone disclosed an espionage network directed by the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis and operating against the peace and security of the United States. A scrutiny of the Nazi Fifth Column in a few European countries, especially in Czechoslovakia just before that Republic was turned over to Germany's mercy by the Munich "peach" and in France where Nazi and Italian agents build an amazing secret underground army, has made the fascist activities in the Western Hemisphere somewhat clearer. Included in one chapter are detailed events which cannot, as far as the author is able to discover, be traced to Nazi espionage; but it shows the influence of Nazi ideology upon England's now notorious "Cliveden set," which maneuvered the betrayal of Austria, sacrificed Czechoslovakia and is working in devious ways to strengthen Hitler in Europe. The "Cliveden set" has already had so profound an effect upon the growth and influence of fascism throughout the world, that the author felt it advisable to include it.

Within recent years new forces have swept over great nations, crashing against the established order and, in some cases, obliterating it. The old forces, which survived the centuries, are struggling desperately to maintain themselves against the tides sweeping in from several different seas. In country after country, the old form of democratic government has been supplanted by the new order called Fascism. In many countries where Fascism has not been victorious, powerful movements are under way to establish it and equally powerful movements are struggling bitterly to prevent it. Millions of earnest and honest citizens, tired of the disordered state of economic and political affairs, have turned to Fascism as the only obstacle to prevent the disintegration of what we know as civilization and a resultant chaos. Other equally earnest and honest citizens regard this new order as the most intolerable form of government imaginable and are fighting this new force with all the energy they can muster, as in France and in Spain. There the anti-Fascist forces developed tremendous power by uniting with their own political enemies to save themselves and their countries from Fascism.

This book is the entire complete work of John L. Spivak. The New Technique of Nazi Warfare. Exposing Hitler's Undeclared War on Americans. The material in this small volume just barely scratches the surface of a problem which is becoming increasingly grave: the activities of Nazi agents in the United States, Mexico, and Central America. During the past five years I have observed some of them, watching the original, crudely organized and directed propaganda machine develop, grow and leave an influence far wider than most people seem to realize. What at first appeared to be merely a distasteful attempt by Nazi Government officials at direct interference in the affairs of the American people and their Government, has now assumed the more sinister aspect of also seeking American naval and military secrets. Further studies in Central America, Mexico and the Panama Canal Zone disclosed an espionage network directed by the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis and operating against the peace and security of the United States. A scrutiny of the Nazi Fifth Column in a few European countries, especially in Czechoslovakia just before that Republic was turned over to Germany's mercy by the Munich "peace" and in France where Nazi and Italian agents built an amazing secret underground army, has made the fascist activities in the Western Hemisphere somewhat clearer to me.

America Faces The Barricade by John L. Spivak. AFTER talking with all kinds of people throughout the country, I am convinced that the American worker does not want to overthrow the government. All he wants is food. But if the government will not make it possible for him to earn it or will not give it to him, then he will overthrow the government, without realizing that he is doing so. Under the present economic system it is impossible for our farms and factories ever to absorb all the millions of unemployed. The tendency, since the curtailment of the working hours, has been for manufacturers to mechanize their plants more highly in order to make up for the reduced working hours where they cannot be made up by the "speed-up" system. Thus, for years, millions will be permanently on relief rolls, whom the government will have to support, since private charity can no longer do it.

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!