Synopses & Reviews
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Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.
"A comprehensive collection of essays and narratives."
Ebony
"Readers will find this volume a helpful companion to capturing an underexplored area of black activism from the slavery era to the mid-twentieth century. These essays are especially helpful in assessing the rural historical experiences of African Americans and advancing our common historical understanding and knowledge on key aspects of this element of the black experience."
The Journal of Southern History
"An exciting and much needed anthology. Collectively, this astute selection of provocative essays and the powerful introduction effectively challenge worn frameworks and outmoded narratives of the civil rights movement. Pushing the time line back to before the Civil War, Charles M. Payne and Adam Green complicate our understanding of how everyday people transformed their own lives and changed this nation's history. This splendid volume is a vital contribution to African American history and underscores the importance of dissent in America."
Darlene Clark Hine, co-author, A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America
"The essays that make up Time Longer Than Rope skillfully express the variety, depth, and resilience of African Americans' resistance in the effort to achieve political freedom and greater economic opportunities and to maintain viable intraracial community associations to fight for equality. A useful tool that will facilitate student awareness of the varied and long-term struggle for black freedom in America."
The Journal of American History
The story of the civil rights movement is well-known, popularized by both the media and the academy. Yet the version of the story recounted time and again by both history books and PBS documentaries is a simplified one, reduced to an inspirational but ultimately facile narrative framed around Dr. King, the Kennedys, and the redemptive days of Montgomery and Memphis, in which black individuals become the rescued survivors. This story renders the mass of black people invisible, refusing to take seriously everyday people whose years of persistent struggle often made the big events possible.
Time Longer than Rope unearths the ordinary roots of extraordinary change, demonstrating the depth and breadth of black oppositional spirit and activity that preceded the civil rights movement. The diversity of activism covered by this collection extends from tenant farmers' labor reform campaign in the 1919 Elaine, Arkansas massacre to Harry T. Moore's leadership of a movement that registered 100,000 black Floridians years before Montgomery, and from women's participation in the Garvey movement to the changing meaning of the Lincoln Memorial. Concentrating on activist efforts in the South, key themes emerge, including the underappreciated importance of historical memory and community building, the divisive impact of class and sexism, and the shifting interplay between individual initiative and structural constraints.
More than simply illuminating a hitherto marginalized fragment of American history, Time Longer than Rope provides a crucial pre-history of the modern civil rights movement. In the process, it alters our entire understanding of African American activism and the very meaning of "civil rights."
Review
“The essays that make up Time Longer Than Rope skillfully express the variety, depth, and resilience of African Americans resistance in the effort to achieve political freedom and greater economic opportunities and to maintain viable intraracial community associations to fight for equality. A useful tool that will facilitate student awareness of the varied and long-term struggle for black freedom in America."-The Journal of American History,
Review
“An exciting and much needed anthology. Collectively, this astute selection of provocative essays and the powerful introduction effectively challenge worn frameworks and outmoded narratives of the civil rights movement. Pushing the time line back to before the Civil War, Charles M. Payne and Adam Green complicate our understanding of how everyday people transformed their own lives and changed this nations history. This splendid volume is a vital contribution to African American history and underscores the importance of dissent in America.”
-Darlene Clark Hine,co-author, A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America
Review
“A comprehensive collection of essays and narratives.”
-Ebony,
Review
“Readers will find this volume a helpful companion to capturing an under explored area of black activism from the slavery era to the mid-twentieth century. These essays are especially helpful in assessing the rural historical experiences of African Americans and advancing our common historical understanding and knowledge on key aspects of this element of the black experience.”
-The Journal of Southern History
Review
“An exciting and much needed anthology. Collectively, this astute selection of provocative essays and the powerful introduction effectively challenge worn frameworks and outmoded narratives of the civil rights movement. Pushing the time line back to before the Civil War, Charles M. Payne and Adam Green complicate our understanding of how everyday people transformed their own lives and changed this nation’s history. This splendid volume is a vital contribution to African American history and underscores the importance of dissent in America.”
“A comprehensive collection of essays and narratives.”
“Readers will find this volume a helpful companion to capturing an under explored area of black activism from the slavery era to the mid-twentieth century. These essays are especially helpful in assessing the rural historical experiences of African Americans and advancing our common historical understanding and knowledge on key aspects of this element of the black experience.”
“An exciting and much needed anthology. Collectively, this astute selection of provocative essays and the powerful introduction effectively challenge worn frameworks and outmoded narratives of the civil rights movement. Pushing the time line back to before the Civil War, Charles M. Payne and Adam Green complicate our understanding of how everyday people transformed their own lives and changed this nation’s history. This splendid volume is a vital contribution to African American history and underscores the importance of dissent in America.”
“The essays that make up Time Longer Than Rope skillfully express the variety, depth, and resilience of African Americans’ resistance in the effort to achieve political freedom and greater economic opportunities and to maintain viable intraracial community associations to fight for equality. A useful tool that will facilitate student awareness of the varied and long-term struggle for black freedom in America."
Review
“A convincing case for Stanton's significance as a central figure in the American political tradition.”
-Women's Review of Books,
Review
“Davis does a brilliant job of analyzing (while not excusing) the political tactics—and often, political Machiavelliism—that the early feminist employed during her long, active life.”
-Feminist Review,
Review
“In this thoroughly researched, well-written, and engaging study, Davis reveals how Cady Stanton drew upon liberalism, republicanism, ascriptive forms of Americanism, and radicalism in advancing the cause of women's rights. Daviss historical institutionalist approach to the topic is most suited for demonstrating not only the way in which Cady Stanton, as a political actor, adjusted her arguments because of strategic consideration of the way they were received, but also the normative theoretical commitments that shaped the thinking of Cady Stanton as a political philosopher. The book is a must read for scholars of the history of political thought, feminist theory, and women's studies who wish to understand the full significance of Cady Stantons intellectual and political legacy for American political thought. . . . Highly recommended.”
-Choice,
Review
“Scholars of American political thought have often failed to appreciate the significance of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Scholars of Cady Stanton have often not been deeply immersed in broader studies of American political thought. Daviss outstanding book rectifies both these deficiencies in ways that will have enduring value.”
-Rogers M. Smith,author of Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Membership
Review
“Davis admirably succeeds in this book that integrates the conceptual and political legacy of Elizabeth Cady Stanton with current scholarship on heritage of the American liberal state. A must-read for students of American political development, womens rights, and legal theory.”
-Eileen McDonagh,author of Breaking the Abortion Deadlock
Synopsis
The story of the civil rights movement is well-known, popularized by both the media and the academy. Yet the version of the story recounted time and again by both history books and PBS documentaries is a simplified one, reduced to an inspirational but ultimately facile narrative framed around Dr. King, the Kennedys, and the redemptive days of Montgomery and Memphis, in which black individuals become the rescued survivors. This story renders the mass of black people invisible, refusing to take seriously everyday people whose years of persistent struggle often made the big events possible.
Time Longer than Rope unearths the ordinary roots of extraordinary change, demonstrating the depth and breadth of black oppositional spirit and activity that preceded the civil rights movement. The diversity of activism covered by this collection extends from tenant farmers' labor reform campaign in the 1919 Elaine, Arkansas massacre to Harry T. Moores leadership of a movement that registered 100,000 black Floridians years before Montgomery, and from women's participation in the Garvey movement to the changing meaning of the Lincoln Memorial. Concentrating on activist efforts in the South, key themes emerge, including the under appreciated importance of historical memory and community building, the divisive impact of class and sexism, and the shifting interplay between individual initiative and structural constraints.
More than simply illuminating a hitherto marginalized fragment of American history, Time Longer than Rope provides a crucial pre-history of the modern civil rights movement. In the process, it alters our entire understanding of African American activism and the very meaning of “civil rights.”
Synopsis
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleElizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was not only one of the most important leaders of the nineteenth century womens rights movement but was also the movements principal philosopher. Her ideas both drew from and challenged the conventions that so severely constrained womens choices and excluded them from public life.
In The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sue Davis argues that Cady Stantons work reflects the rich tapestry of American political culture in the second half of the nineteenth century and that she deserves recognition as a major figure in the history of political ideas. Davis reveals the way that Cady Stantons work drew from different political traditions ranging from liberalism, republicanism, inegalitarian ascriptivism, and radicalism. Cady Stantons arguments for womens rights combined approaches that in contemporary feminist theory are perceived to involve conflicting strategies and visions. Nevertheless, her ideas had a major impact on the development of the varieties of feminism in the twentieth century.
Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton draws on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources and promises to fill a gap in the literature on the history of political ideas in the United States as well as womens history and feminist theory.
About the Author
Charles M. Payne is the Sally Dalton Robinson Professor of African American studies, History and Sociology at Duke University. He is the author of the prize-winning
Ive Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement.
Adam Green is Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at New York University.