This book is a narrative history of the thirty-year struggle to outlaw slavery, starting with the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1834 and extending until the abolition of slavery in the United States at the end of the Civil War. The core of the book consists of two sections: 1) the 20-year political struggle to restrict slavery through a succession of anti-extensionist parties starting in 1840 with the founding of the Liberty Party, extending through the Free Soil Party (1848-54) and ending with Abraham Lincoln being elected president as a Republican on the same basic platform as the Liberty Party in 1844. 2) The struggle by abolitionists to use the outbreak of the Civil War as a chance to rid the country of slavery using the executive wartime powers of the presidency.

In settler societies, some conflicts have roots that are both ethnic and colonial in nature. These are conflicts between an indigenous ethnic group and groups and between an ethnic group and groups of settlers who have been transplanted to a territory by a colonial power as part of a colonizing effort. This study examines the role that liberal parties have played and can play in recent conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Typically, such parties reject the conventional wisdom of the settler population regarding the nature of the conflict. They also reject the radical thinking of the liberation movements and offer, instead, a third alternative. Mitchell hopes that this study will provide useful information for current liberal parties in Central and Eastern Europe and Israel.

Ultimately, many of the liberal party's ideas are adopted by the main settler parties, allowing for a resolution of the conflict, generally through a compromise between the liberal and indigenous positions. However, before such resolution can occur, the liberals must achieve an electoral breakthrough that gives them a minimum of between five and ten percent of votes; they must also obtain significant stable representation in parliament. Liberal leadership must be innovative, offering new solutions that depart from the conventional wisdom of both sides. Mitchell provides the most detailed account yet published on the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. He also includes extensive information on the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba of 1986 and analysis of the electoral fortunes of the Progressive Federal Party in South Africa.

This is a dispassionate examination of the viability of the two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the politics of Israel, Palestine and the United States, and includes case studies from South Africa in Namibia and the Irish claim to Northern Ireland. The results of Israeli elections from 2001 to 2009 are analysed (with the conclusion that the Likud will be in any government coalition for at least the midterm future, giving it a veto over policy). A chapter examining the history and ideology of the secular right over the last 90 years follows. There are three chapters of case studies: the Likud withdrawal from the Sinai in 1979-1982 and from Gaza in 2005, the withdrawal of South Africa from Namibia in 1988-1989, and the dropping of Ireland's constitutional claim to Northern Ireland in 1998 under a Fianna Fail government--the same party that wrote the constitution in 1937. A chapter examines Palestinian politics since the mandatory era and another chapter, the American-Israeli alliance and American politics. The conclusion draws lessons from the case studies and the analysis.

Settler-native conflicts in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and South Africa serve as excellent comparative cases as three areas linked to Britain where insurgencies occurred during roughly the same period. Important factors considered are settler parties, settler mythology, the role of native fighters, settler terror, the role of liberal parties, and the conduct of the war by security forces. Settlers and natives in each area share similar attitudes, liberal parties operate in similar fashions, and there are common explanations for the formation of splinter liberation groups. However, according to Mitchell, the key difference between the cases lies in the behavior of British security forces in comparison to South African and Israeli forces. Mitchell's chapter on liberal parties includes an independent account of the Progressive Federal Party of South Africa, the official parliamentary opposition from 1977 to 1987, along with the first major published account of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland. His study of splinter group formation contains the first major account since 1964 of the Pan-Africanist Party of Azania, including its insurgency campaign in the 1980s and 1990s. Mitchell also contrasts behavior among the Inkatha Party and Labour Party in South Africa with the Social Democrat and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.

The words "Indian fighter" recall Custer. "Indian fighter politician" brings to mind Andrew Jackson or William Henry Harrison. Yet politicians who rose to prominence by exploiting their participation in bloody campaigns against Native America were much more common than most Americans realize. This book will bring to light important facts and highlight controversial issues regarding well-known figures from American history and folklore, while situating the questionable actions of these politicians within their historical and political times. While most people know that Davy Crockett went to Congress and died at the Alamo, few realize that his only previous combat experience was in one conflict during the Creek War, which was more massacre than battle. Daniel Boone was a hunter and frontiersman who waged war against the Indians, but he was also a state legislator. Both Abe Lincoln and Jeff Davis were involved in pre-Civil War battles against Native Americans. How and why did the era of the Indian fighter turned politician begin? Which party was the party of the Indian fighters? Why did the era end just before the Civil War? Mitchell explores this American political phenomenon and reveals how it influenced politics in other nations around the world.

From 1949 to 2000, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Barak negotiated Israel's successful (and unsuccessful) talks with its Arab neighbors, from the armistice negotiations to Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, to Camp David I and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and finally the Oslo peace process. The stories of the four successful generals who became politicians are told in four separate biographies, covering the early life and military career of each subject, and his subsequent political career. Two other military politicians - Yigal Allon and Ezer Weizman - are covered within these four biographies. An overview of the phenomenon of military politicians in Israel is given and an appendix compares it with similar experiences in South Africa and the United States.