The African American Press

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Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, chairman of the bipartisan Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, here presents an eloquent and fascinating account of the development of secrecy as a mode of regulation in American government since World War I - how it was born, how world events shaped it, how it has adversely affected momentous political decisions and events, and how it has eluded efforts to curtail or end it. Senator Moynihan begins with the intriguing story of the Venona project, the Soviet spy cables intercepted during World War II and decrypted by the U.S. Army - but never passed on to President Truman. The divisive Hiss perjury trial and the McCarthy era of suspicion might have had a far different impact on American society, says Moynihan, if government agencies had not kept secrets from one another as a means of shoring up their power. He discusses the Bay of Pigs, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, and, finally, the failure to forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union, suggesting the many of the tragedies resulting from these events could have been averted had the issues been clarified in an open exchange of ideas.

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Kevin Mumford

Newark’s volatile past is infamous. The city has become synonymous with the Black Power movement and urban crisis. Its history reveals a vibrant and contentious political culture punctuated by traditional civic pride and an understudied tradition of protest in the black community. Newark charts this important city's place in the nation, from its founding in 1666 by a dissident Puritan as a refuge from intolerance, through the days of Jim Crow and World War II civil rights activism, to the height of postwar integration and the election of its first black mayor. In this broad and balanced history of Newark, Kevin Mumford applies the concept of the public sphere to the problem of race relations, demonstrating how political ideas and print culture were instrumental in shaping African American consciousness. He draws on both public and personal archives, interpreting official documents - such as newspapers, commission testimony, and government records—alongside interviews, political flyers, meeting minutes, and rare photos. From the migration out of the South to the rise of public housing and ethnic conflict, Newark explains the impact of African Americans on the reconstruction of American cities in the twentieth century.

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Carlos de la Torre

"For anyone wishing a succinct and theoretically sophisticated concept-building analysis of populist rhetoric and leadership style ... this book should be one your shelf."--Latin American Research Review. "In this substantially expanded edition, Carolos de la Torre extends his insightful analysis of Latin American populism in general, and Ecuadorian populism in particular, to the current government of Rafael Correa. He skillfully demonstrates the ambiguities of populist experience, which combine political mass involvement and top-down control, and hover between authoriatarianism and democracy. An excellent book!"--Kurt Weyland, author of the Politics of Market Reform in Fragile Democracies. Is Latin America experiencing a resurgence of left-wing governments, or are we seeing a rebirth of national radical populism? Are the governments of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa becoming institutionalized as these leaders claim novel models of participatory and direct democracy? Or are they reenacting older tratditions that have favored plebiscitary acclamation and clientelist distribution of resources to loyal followers? Are we seeing authentic forms of expression of the popular will by leaders who have empowered those previously disenfranchised? Or are these governments as charismatic, authoritarian and messtanic as their populist prederessors? This new and expanded edition of Populist Seduction in Latin America explores the ambiguous relationships between democracy and populism and brings de la Torre's earlier work up to date, comparing classical nationalist populist regimes of the 1940s, as those of Juan Peron and Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra, whith their contemporary noeoliberal and radical successors, De la Torre explores their similarities and differences, focusing on their discourses and uses of political symbols and myths. --Book Jacket.

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Lucy S. Dawidowicz

The systematic annihilation of six million Jews during World War II is the single most horrifying event of the twentieth century. Though much has been written on this subject of overwhelming terror and tragedy, the basic question persists: how could a modern state carry out the systematic murder of a whole people for no other reason than that they were Jews? In The War Against the Jews 1933-1945, Lucy Dawidowicz answers this question in a vivid historical narrative, avoiding the moral and metaphysical abstractions that have bedeviled and obscured the subject. - Jacket flap.