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All-Black institutions and local community groups have been at the
forefront of the freedom struggle since the beginning. Lifting the
Chains is a history of the Black experience in America since the
Civil War, told by one of our most distinguished historians of
modern America, William H. Chafe. He argues that, despite the
wishes and arguments of many whites to the contrary, the struggle
for freedom has been carried out primarily by Black Americans, with
only occasional assistance from whites. Chafe highlights the role
of all-black institutions—especially the churches, lodges, local
gangs, neighborhood women's groups, and the Black college clubs
that gathered at local pool halls—that talked up the issues,
examined different courses of action, and then put their lives on
the line to make change happen. The book draws heavily on the
tremendous oral history archives at Duke that Chafe founded and
nurtured, much of which is previously unpublished. The the archives
are now a collection of more than 3,600 oral histories tracing the
evolution of Black activism, managed under the auspices of the Duke
Center for Documentary History. Taking its title from a phrase
coined by W.E.B. DuBois in 1903, the project uncovered the degree
to which Blacks never gave up the struggle against racism, even
during the height of Jim Crow segregation from 1900 to 1950. Chafe
draws on these valuable resources to build this definitive history
of African American activism, a history that can and should inform
Black Lives Matter and other contemporary social justice movements.
A timely paperback reissue of the stunning, prize-winning portrait
of the Jim Crow South through unique first-person accounts Praised
as "viscerally powerful" (Publishers Weekly), this remarkable work
of oral history captures the searing experience of the Jim Crow
years through first-person interviews carefully collected by
researchers at Duke University's Behind the Veil project. Newly
relevant today as Americans reckon with the legacies of slavery and
strive for racial equality, Remembering Jim Crow provides vivid,
compelling accounts by men and women from all walks of life, who
tell how their day-to-day lives were subjected to profound and
unrelenting racial oppression. "A shivering dose of reality and
inspiring stories of everyday resistance" (Library Journal),
Remembering Jim Crow is a testament to how Black Southerners fought
back against the system, raising children, building churches and
schools, running businesses, and struggling for respect in a
society that denied them the most basic rights. Collectively, these
narratives illuminate individual and community survival and tell a
powerful story of the American past that is crucial for us to
remember as we grapple with Jim Crow's legacies in the present.
"Thoughtful, well written, and thoroughly researched, it is a work of disciplined, committed scholarship that is likely to inspire imitation....It represents the sort of scholarly advocacy that honors the historian's calling."--The New Republic
In Bill and Hillary, one of our preeminent historians, William H.
Chafe, boldly argues that the trajectory of the Clintons' political
lives can be understood only through the prism of their personal
relationship. From the day they first met at Yale Law School, Bill
and Hillary were inseparable, even though their relationship was
inherently volatile. The personal dynamic between them would go on
to determine their political fates. Hillary was instrumental in
Bill's triumphs as Arkansas's governor, and she saved his
presidential candidacy in 1992 by standing with him during the
Gennifer Flowers sex scandal. He responded by delegating to her
powers that no other First Lady had ever exercised. Always
tempestuous, their relationship had as many lows as highs, from
near divorce to stunning electoral and political successes. Chafe's
penetrating insights-into subjects such as health care, Kenneth
Starr, welfare reform, and the extent to which the Lewinsky scandal
finally freed Hillary to become a politician in her own right-add
texture and depth to our understanding of the Clintons' experience
together. Bill and Hillary is the definitive account of the
Clintons' relationship and its far-reaching impact on American
political life.
From William H. Chafe, the best-selling author of The Unfinished
Journey, comes a new text that offers in-depth and enlightening
coverage of the history of the United States in the twentieth
century. The Rise and Fall of the American Century: The United
States from 1890-2010 describes the rise--and potential fall--of
the U.S., a nation more powerful, more wealthy, and more dominant
than any in human history. It also acknowledges the persistent
challenges the U.S. has faced and continues to face--inequalities
of race, gender, and income that contradict its vision of itself as
"a land of opportunity."
Examining the evolution of the United States since 1890, The Rise
and Fall of the American Century chronicles the varying mood of the
country through its changing presidencies, from the rise of the
metropolis and Teddy Roosevelt in the 1890s to the turbulent era of
the Bush administration at the beginning of the twenty-first
century. By analyzing the shifting moods and social and political
upheavals (both at home and abroad) and the United States's
reactions to these events, the book seeks to understand how the
country both achieved its vision for itself in some ways but failed
to realize it in others. Working in a political framework, Chafe
also provides a strong balance of social and cultural history,
touching on the African-American, Latino, and Asian communities,
the west, and the changing status of women. The book's epilogue
discusses important economic and political events through 2008,
including the financial crisis and the 2008 Presidential Election.
In Hillary and Bill, William H. Chafe boldly argues that the
trajectory of the Clintons' political lives can be understood only
through the prism of their personal relationship. Inseparable from
the day they first met, their personal dynamic has determined their
political fates. Hillary was instrumental in Bill's triumphs as
Arkansas's governor, and she saved his presidential candidacy in
1992 during the Gennifer Flowers sex scandal. He responded by
delegating to her powers that no other First Lady had ever
exercised. Chafe's penetrating insights-into subjects such as
health care, Kenneth Starr, welfare reform, and the Lewinsky
scandal-add texture and depth to our understanding of the Clintons'
experience together. Hillary and Bill is the definitive account of
the Clintons' relationship and its far-reaching impact on American
political life. In this new edition, Chafe explores how Hillary
adopted a new persona as a U.S. senator, returning to the
consensus-oriented reformer she had been before she met Bill.
Listening to her constituents and building bridges to Republicans
in Congress, she left behind the us-against-them political
personality of her White House years. She kept this persona as
secretary of state, establishing personal ties with foreign leaders
and reaching out to average citizens in the countries she visited.
Still, she retained her obsession with her personal privacy and
permitted the Clinton Foundation to create potential conflicts of
interest with her government responsibilities. The key question, as
she approached the 2016 presidential race, was which Hillary would
be the presidential candidate-the person who reaches out to others
and seeks collaborators or the Hillary who demonizes the opposition
and fiercely protects her privacy and self-image.
When William Chafe's The American Woman was published in 1972, it
was hailed as a breakthrough in the study of women in this century.
Bella Abzug praised it as "a remarkable job of historical
research," and Alice Kessler-Harris called it "an extraordinarily
useful synthesis of material about 20th-century women." But much
has happened in the last two decades--both in terms of scholarship,
and in the lives of American women. With The Paradox of Change,
Chafe builds on his classic work, taking full account of the events
and scholarship of the last fifteen years, as he extends his
analysis into the 1990s with the rise of feminism and the New
Right.
Chafe conveys all the subtleties of women's paradoxical position
in the United States today, showing how women have gradually
entered more fully into economic and political life, but without
attaining complete social equality or economic justice. Despite the
gains achieved by feminist activists during the 1970s and 1980s,
the tensions continued to abound between public and private roles,
and the gap separating ideals of equal opportunity from the reality
of economic discrimination widened. Women may have gained some new
rights in the last two decades, but the feminization of poverty has
also soared, with women constituting 70% of the adult poor.
Moreover, a resurgence of conservatism, symbolized by the triumph
of Phyllis Schlafly's anti-ERA coalition, has cast in doubt even
some of the new rights of women, such as reproductive freedom.
Chafe captures these complexities and contradictions with a lively
combination of representative anecdotes and archival research, all
backed up by statistical studies. As in The American Woman, Chafe
once again examines "woman's place" throughout the 20th century,
but now with a more nuanced and inclusive approach. There are
insightful portraits of the continuities of women's political
activism from the Progressive era through the New Deal; of the
contradictory gains and losses of the World War II years; and of
the various kinds of feminism that emerged out of the tumult of the
1960s. Not least, there are narratives of all the significant
struggles in which women have engaged during these last ninety
years--for child care, for abortion rights, and for a chance to
have both a family and a career.
The Paradox of Change is a wide-ranging history of 20th-century
women, thoroughly researched and incisively argued. Anyone who
wants to learn more about how women have shaped, and been shaped
by, modern America will have to read this book.
THIS MODEST AND thoughtful little book, so entirely free from
polemics, is excellent evidence of what an unprejudiced study of
the past can contribute to the solution of contemporary impasses.'
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