Synopses & Reviews
"Disturbingly accessible...Presents the ideas, platforms and screeds of extremists of both left and right in their own words."
The Washington Post Book World
"A demonstrative primer of the intricate complex of themes and views that make up the modern history if American extremism."
The Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Essential reading for anyone interested in the dark side of American politics."
Michael Barkun, author of Religion and the Racist Right
"An objective and credible collection from America's political extremes. The selections celebrate the range and diversity of political opinion in our country."
John George and Laird Wilcox, co-authors of Nazis, Communists, Klansmen and Others on the Fringe
"This reader provides a sobering antidote to the complacent belief that democracy nurtures rationality, tolerance and civilised values. Sargent's judicious choice of texts illustrates how both left and right-wing extremists commandeer democratic principles, moral language and logic itself for their own ends. The book is an invaluable resource for students of ideology and politics."
Professor Barbara Goodwin, author of Using Political Ideas and Justice by Lottery
Sargent gives an excellent knife-edge sketch of all extremists and extremists ideologies and philosophies in this excellent book - from Jacob Coxey to Father Charles Coughlin, to Phyllis Schlafly, COYOTE, FSP, Posse Comitatus. All are here. This book is a sane reminder of the need for eternal vigilance in our democracy."
Journal of American Culture
Extremism takes many forms: racial, political, religious, economic. Despite the diversity of extremist thought, this collection of extremist ideologies and writings highlights the one thread that unites the various brands of extremism, whether leftist or rightist, historical or contemporary. The unifying motif is that there is always an enemy. The enemy can take the form of the government, communism, the patriarchy, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, men, welfare recipients, Jews, or corporations, but the presence of a clearcut ideological foe is always an intrinsic component of extremism.
Providing a panoramic perspective on American extremism from the earliest days of the republic, the book is divided into thematic chapters, communism and anti- communism; race; social concerns, such as the family, education, and gender relations; economic matters, such as taxes and welfare; intentional communities, such as The Covenant The Sword and The Arm of the Lord; and organizations or individuals advocating radical decentralization, such as the Left Green Network or the Students for a Democratic Society. Familiar extremist forces--the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, Phyllis Schlaflyhere meet lesser-known forces to paint a vivid and powerful portrait of life and thought on the political fringe.
Review
"Disturbingly accessible...Presents the ideas, platforms and screeds of extremists of both left and right in their own words."
"A demonstrative primer of the intricate complex of themes and views that make up the modern history if American extremism."
"Essential reading for anyone interested in the dark side of American politics."
"An objective and credible collection from America's political extremes. The selections celebrate the range and diversity of political opinion in our country."
"This reader provides a sobering antidote to the complacent belief that democracy nurtures rationality, tolerance and civilised values. Sargent's judicious choice of texts illustrates how both left and right-wing extremists commandeer democratic principles, moral language and logic itself for their own ends. The book is an invaluable resource for students of ideology and politics."
Review
"Harvard has played a curiously central role in the American cultural imagination, a role that is fraught with ambiguity. In no part of our society is this more the case than in black America. This important book brings together for the first time two hundred years of reflection on the curious relation of black culture to Harvard, and Harvard's complex relation to black people. A fascinating collection, extraordinarily well-researched, an essential text for all who are interested in the history of African-Americans in higher education."-Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,
Review
"A demonstrative primer of the intricate complex of themes and views that make up the modern history if American extremism."-The Los Angeles Times Book Review,
Review
"Essential reading for anyone interested in the dark side of American politics." -Michael Barkun,author of Religion and the Racist Right
Review
"An objective and credible collection from America's political extremes. The selections celebrate the range and diversity of political opinion in our country."-John George and Laird Wilcox,co-authors of Nazis, Communists, Klansmen and Others on the Fringe
Review
"This reader provides a sobering antidote to the complacent belief that democracy nurtures rationality, tolerance and civilised values. Sargent's judicious choice of texts illustrates how both left and right-wing extremists commandeer democratic principles, moral language and logic itself for their own ends. The book is an invaluable resource for students of ideology and politics."-Professor Barbara Goodwin,author of Using Political Ideas and Justice by Lottery
Synopsis
Extremism takes many forms: racial, political, religious, economic. Despite the diversity of extremist thought, this collection of extremist ideologies and writings highlights the one thread that unites the various brands of extremism, whether leftist or rightist, historical or contemporary. The unifying motif is that there is always an enemy. The enemy can take the form of the government, communism, the patriarchy, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, men, welfare recipients, Jews, or corporations, but the presence of a clearcut ideological foe is always an intrinsic component of extremism.
Providing a panoramic perspective on American extremism from the earliest days of the republic, the book is divided into thematic chapters, communism and anti- communism; race; social concerns, such as the family, education, and gender relations; economic matters, such as taxes and welfare; intentional communities, such as The Covenant The Sword and The Arm of the Lord; and organizations or individuals advocating radical decentralization, such as the Left Green Network or the Students for a Democratic Society. Familiar extremist forces--the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, Phyllis Schlaflyhere meet lesser-known forces to paint a vivid and powerful portrait of life and thought on the political fringe.
Synopsis
The history of blacks at Harvard mirrors, for better or for worse, the history of blacks in the United States. Harvard, too, has been indelibly scarred by slavery, exclusion, segregation, and other forms of racist oppression. At the same time, the nation's oldest university has also, at various times, stimulated, supported, or allowed itself to be influenced by the various reform movements that have dramatically changed the nature of race relations across the nation. The story of blacks at Harvard is thus inspiring but painful, instructive but ambiguousa paradoxical episode in the most vexing controversy of American life: the "race question."
The first and only book on its subject, Blacks at Harvard is distinguished by the rich variety of its sources. Included in this documentary history are scholarly overviews, poems, short stories, speeches, well-known memoirs by the famous, previously unpublished memoirs by the lesser known, newspaper accounts, letters, official papers of the university, and transcripts of debates. Among Harvard's black alumni and alumnae are such illustrious figures as W.E.B. Du Bois, Monroe Trotter, and Alain Locke; Countee Cullen and Sterling Brown both received graduate degrees. The editors have collected here writings as diverse as those of Booker T. Washington, William Hastie, Malcolm X, and Muriel Snowden to convey the complex ways in which Harvard has affected the thinking of African Americans and the ways, in turn, in which African Americans have influenced the traditions of Harvard and Radcliffe.
Notable among the contributors are significant figures in African American letters: Phyllis Wheatley, William Melvin Kelley, Marita Bonner, James Alan McPherson and Andrea Lee. Equally prominent in the book are some of the nation's leading historians: Carter Woodson, Rayford Logan, John Hope Franklin, and Nathan I. Huggins. A vital sourcebook, Blacks at Harvard is certain to nourish scholarly inquiry into the social and intellectual history of African Americans at elite national institutions and serves as a telling metaphor of this nation's past.
About the Author
Werner Sollors is Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of Afro-American Studies and Chair of the History of American Civilization Program at Harvard University. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including
The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature,
Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader, and
Multilingual America: Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and the Languages of American Literature, all available from NYU Press.
Caldwell Titcomb is Professor Emeritus of Music at Brandeis University and has for many years written widely on aspects of black culture.
Thomas Underwood received his Ph.D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University.
Randall Kennedy is Professor at Harvard Law School and the editor of Reconstruction magazine.
Thomas Underwood received his Ph.D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University.
Randall Kennedy is Professor at Harvard Law School and the editor of Reconstruction magazine.
Randall Kennedy is Professor at Harvard Law School and the editor of Reconstruction magazine.