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The African American Soldier: From Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell
by Lt. Col. Michael LanningMore than five thousand blacks joined the rebel Americans in the war as soldiers, sailors, and marines; many more supported the rebellion as laborers. Their service went largely unrecognized and unrecorded.Few letters, journals, or other narratives by blacks about the Revolution exist because whites had denied most African Americans an education. White historians of the period, and for years after the war, ignored the contributions and impact of thousands of blacks participants for several reasons. First of all, prejudices were so deeply ingrained that it did not even occur to most whites of the time that blacks had played a significant role either as individuals who fought or labored or as a segment of the population that affected decisions. Prejudices also prevented some who did witness the contributions of African Americans from honestly reporting that blacks could perform equally with whites on the battlefield if given the opportunity. Others did not mention blacks because of the difficulty of explaining why the United States kept half a million men, women, and children enslaved while fighting for independence and liberty." From Defenders of Liberty, by Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning (Ret.)
African American Perspectives on Political Science
by Rich Wilbur Hamilton CharlesRace matters in both national and international politics. Starting from this perspective, African American Perspectives on Political Science presents original essays from leading African American political scientists. Collectively, they evaluate the discipline, its subfields, the quality of race-related research, and omissions in the literature. They argue that because Americans do not fully understand the many-faceted issues of race in politics in their own country, they find it difficult to comprehend ethnic and racial disputes in other countries as well. In addition, partly because there are so few African Americans in the field, political science faces a danger of unconscious insularity in methodology and outlook. Contributors argue that the discipline needs multiple perspectives to prevent it from developing blind spots. Taken as a whole, these essays argue with great urgency that African American political scientists have a unique opportunity and a special responsibility to rethink the canon, the norms, and the directions of the discipline.
African-American Inventors: Lonnie Johnson, Frederick Mckinley Jones, Marjorie Stewart Joyner, Elijah Mccoy, Garrett Augustus Morgan
by Fred M. B. AmramProvides biographical profiles of five African American inventors including Lonnie Johnson, Frederick McKinley Jones, Marjorie Stewart Joyner, Elijah McCoy, and Garrett Augustus Morgan.
African American Firsts
by Joan PotterDid you know that. . . Ralph Bunche was the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Tony Dungy was the first African American NFL coach to win a Super Bowl game. Eric Holder became the first African American to serve as United States Attorney General. Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie were the first African Americans to win Grammy awards. An African American doctor performed the first open-heart surgery. Excluded from history books, overlooked in classrooms, and neglected by media, African Americans have long been denied an accurate picture of their contributions to our nation, from colonial days to the present. But times have changed and the record will be set straight. From the inventor of the traffic light and the gas mask to winners of an Oscar and the Olympic gold, this authoritative resource reveals over 450 "firsts" by African Americans--wonderful accomplishments achieved often despite poverty, discrimination, and racism. Leaders in government, entertainment, education, science and medicine, the law, military, and in the business world, African Americans have made their mark. African American Firsts is a clear reflection of that prideful legacy, and a signpost to an even greater future. "African American Firsts works, works well, and works brilliantly. " --St. Louis Post-Dispatch "For browsing or serious queries on great achievements by blacks in America. " --Booklist "Fascinating. . . an excellent source for browsing and for locating facts that are hard to find elsewhere. " --School Library Journal "Reveals African American history as Potter had never been taught in predominantly white schools. " --Publishers Weekly "I recommend this book, a tool with innumerable possibilities which will help individuals understand. . . the contributions and inventions of African Americans. " --The late Dr. Betty Shabazz Over 75 Pages of Photographs Fully Revised and Updated Joan Potters nonfiction writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, which published more than fifty of her articles. She is the co-author of two books: The Book of Adirondack Firsts, and the childrens book, African Americans Who Were First. Her personal essays appear in the anthologies Rooted in Rock, Living North Country, and Illness & Grace, Terror & Transformation, and in the Syracuse University literary journal, Stone Canoe. She has led writing workshops for Adirondack women and prison inmates, and has been teaching a memoir class since 1998 at the Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
African American Faces of the Civil War: An Album
by Ronald S. CoddingtonDiscover the men of color who fought for their freedom during the Civil War through profiles illustrated with original wartime photographs.A renowned collector of Civil War photographs and a prodigious researcher, Ronald S. Coddington combines compelling archival images with biographical stories that reveal the human side of the war. This third volume in his series on Civil War soldiers contains previously unpublished photographs of African American Civil War participants?many of whom fought to secure their freedom.During the Civil War, 200,000African American men enlisted in the Union army or navy. Some of them were free men and some escaped from slavery; others were released by sympathetic owners to serve the war effort. African American Faces of the Civil War tells the story of the Civil War through the images of men of color who served in roles that ranged from servants and laborers to enlisted men and junior officers.Coddington discovers these portraits?cartes de visite, ambrotypes, and tintypes?in museums, archives, and private collections. He has pieced together each individual’s life and fate based upon personal documents, military records, and pension files. These stories tell of ordinary men who became fighters, of the prejudice they faced, and of the challenges they endured. African American Faces of the Civil War makes an important contribution to a comparatively understudied aspect of the war and provides a fascinating look into lives that helped shape America.“It does nothing to diminish the depth and precision of Coddington’s research to say that each compelling vignette prompts the reader to hurriedly flip to the next one.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The African American Challenge to Just War Theory
by Ryan P. CummingIn this innovative treatment of the ethics of war, Ryan P. Cumming brings classical sources of just war theory into conversation with African American voices. The result is a new direction in just war thought that challenges dominant interpretations of just war theory by looking to the perspectives of those on the underside of history and politics.
The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country
by Cornel West Henry Louis Gates Jr.In a highly original and historic celebration of black Americans and their contributions to culture, the authors select 100 outstanding men and women and use their lives and accomplishments to create a fascinating portrait of the last century. Their selections are drawn from the worlds of politics and business, literature, sports, music, science, and cultural criticism. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
African-American Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs
by Rachel KranzTo fill a gap in US history, an author/documentary film producer specializing in racial issues profiles a broad spectrum of African-American business leaders from the colonial period to the present. Entries are listed by type of business and individual's year of birth. Among the figures featured on the cover are Maggie L. Walker (1867-1934), the first US woman bank president, and Omar Wasow, who created a black-oriented Web site. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
African-American Aviators
by Stanley P. JonesBriefly describes the lives and accomplishments of five African-American pilots: James Banning, Bessie Coleman, Daniel James, Benjamin Davis, and William Powell.
African-American Astronauts
by Stanley P. Jones L. Octavia TrippDescribes the lives and accomplishments of five African-American astronauts including Guion S. Bluford Jr., Charles F. Bolden Jr., Frederick D. Gregory, Bernard A. Harris Jr., and Mae C. Jemison.
The African
by J. M. G. Le ClézioThe African is a short autobiographical account of a pivotal moment in Nobel-Prize-winning author J. M. G. Le Clézio's childhood. In 1948, young Le Clézio, with his mother and brother, left behind a still-devastated Europe to join his father, a military doctor in Nigeria, from whom he'd been separated by the war. In Le Clézio's characteristically intimate, poetic voice, the narrative relates both the dazzled enthusiasm the child feels at discovering newfound freedom in the African savannah and his torment at discovering the rigid authoritarian nature of his father. The power and beauty of the book reside in the fact that both discoveries occur simultaneously.
Africa Speaks, America Answers
by Robin D. G. KelleyIn Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, pianist Randy Weston and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik celebrated with song the revolutions spreading across Africa. In Ghana and South Africa, drummer Guy Warren and vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin fused local musical forms with the dizzying innovations of modern jazz. These four were among hundreds of musicians in the 1950s and ’60s who forged connections between jazz and Africa that definitively reshaped both their music and the world. Each artist identified in particular ways with Africa’s struggle for liberation and made music dedicated to, or inspired by, demands for independence and self-determination. That music was the wild, boundary-breaking exultation of modern jazz. The result was an abundance of conversation, collaboration, and tension between African and African American musicians during the era of decolonization. This collective biography demonstrates how modern Africa reshaped jazz, how modern jazz helped form a new African identity, and how musical convergences and crossings altered politics and culture on both continents. In a crucial moment when freedom electrified the African diaspora, these black artists sought one another out to create new modes of expression. Documenting individuals and places, from Lagos to Chicago, from New York to Cape Town, Robin Kelley gives us a meditation on modernity: we see innovation not as an imposition from the West but rather as indigenous, multilingual, and messy, the result of innumerable exchanges across a breadth of cultures.
Africa, My Passion
by Corinne HofmannIn an exquisite personal pilgrimage, Corinne Hofmann delves into the slums of Nairobi to uncover the heart-warming and heart-breaking stories of unforgettable people and places, then treks 500 miles across the Namibian desert to discover the lives of the nomadic Himba people. Joined by her half-Kenyan daughter, Napirai, they travel to Nairobi together for the first time to discover Napirai s roots and finally meet her father and half-siblings. Africa, My Passion is a poignant, touching and exciting story about one woman's love affair with a unique man, which led to a lifelong obsession with Africa. Moving, vividly recounted, eye-opening and, above all, filled with passionate hope and unparalleled detail, this is an extraordinary sequel to a bestselling series of memoirs.
Africa, My Passion
by Corinne HofmannIn an exquisite personal pilgrimage, Corinne Hofmann delves into the slums of Nairobi to uncover the heart-warming and heart-breaking stories of unforgettable people and places, then treks 500 miles across the Namibian desert to discover the lives of the nomadic Himba people. Joined by her half-Kenyan daughter, Napirai, they travel to Nairobi together for the first time to discover Napirai s roots and finally meet her father and half-siblings. Africa, My Passion is a poignant, touching and exciting story about one woman's love affair with a unique man, which led to a lifelong obsession with Africa. Moving, vividly recounted, eye-opening and, above all, filled with passionate hope and unparalleled detail, this is an extraordinary sequel to a bestselling series of memoirs.
Africa Askew - Traversing The Continent
by Peter BoehmAFRICA ASKEW was in the Top Ten of the German Amazon Travel&Adventure section for almost a year.Peter Boehm travelled right across Africa, in speeding SUVs, rickety buses and dilapidated trains. He travelled for almost six months, over 6,000 miles, through nine countries – Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Mali and Senegal.The journey was breathtaking and nerve-shattering, but never dull. The people he met were exciting, bizarre and pathetic, but they never leave you cold. In Somali, Peter Boehm describes psychiatrists who consider all their compatriots to be mad – as do the Somalis themselves and, in the end, even the author thinks he’s mad too! In Sudan, he meets doctors who re-seal women; in Chad there are street kids already sitting on their suitcases, awaiting the journey to Germany; in Mali he meets traditional healers who are, at the same time, GPs, best friends, and agony aunts; in Nigeria there are traditional leaders whose subjects throw themselves on the ground before them, and Islamic judges who savour the whippings they’ve ordered as one would a high-quality wine.For good measure, Peter Boehm has kept a record of the troubles and transformations of a European in Africa.Peter Boehm’s tone is laconic, and free of any sentimentality. You’ll never have read about Africa like this before.
Afraid to Tell
by Heidi Harding Tom Harding Chloe HardingHe was our abusive father.We were just children.No one could know.Heidi was 18 when she read her little sister Chloe’s diary, and discovered that they shared a terrible secret: they had both been abused by their father. After years of fear and isolation, Heidi knew she had to go to the police. For a long time, Chloe resented Heidi for forcing her to disclose what had happened when she wasn’t ready, while their brother, Tom, couldn’t understand how he had so misjudged his father, and at first he didn’t believe their tale. The truth threatened to destroy them all. This is the very honest story of three siblings, and how a man they trusted threatened to tear their family apart.
Aforismos
by Leonardo Da VinciAforismos Leonardo Da Vinci Aforismos ofrece al lector una amplia y diversa colección de observaciones, pensamientos y máximas que recopilan el conocimiento e inteligencia de un genio como Leonardo da Vincicon su minucioso lenguaje descriptivo. "Pero la pintura tiene maravillosos artificios y sutilìsimas especulaciones que faltan a la escultura, la cual es de muy menguado discurso."
An Afghanistan Picture Show
by William T. VollmannNever before available in paperback and all but invisible for twenty years, a personal account of the origins of America's longest war.In 1982, the young William Vollmann worked odd jobs, including as a secretary at an insurance company, until he'd saved up enough money to go to Afghanistan, where he wanted to join the mujahedeen to fight the Soviets. The resulting book wasn't published until 1992, and Library Journal wrote: "The wrong book written at the wrong time. . . . With the situation in Afghanistan rapidly heading toward resolution . . . libraries may safely skip this."Thirty years later--and with the United States still mired in the longest war of its history--it's time for a reassessment of Vollmann's heartfelt tale of idealism and its terrifying betrayals.An alloy of documentary and autobiographical elements characteristic of Vollmann's later nonfiction, An Afghanistan Picture Show is not a work of conventional reportage; instead, it's an account of a subtle and stubborn consciousness grappling with the limits of will and idealism imposed by violence and chaos.
An Affirming Flame: Meditations on Life and Politics
by Roger Cohen&“For more than forty years Roger Cohen has ventured to every corner of the earth to chronicle the great upheavals of our age, but he&’s never lost sight of what really matters: love, hope, and all the mysteries of the human heart. Here, in this collection of columns that will take you from the streets of Kyiv to an execution chamber in Alabama, you can read him at his best.&”—Dexter Filkins, best-selling author of The Forever WarA collection of the finest New York Times columns written by Roger Cohen over more than a decade, accompanied by an original, twenty-thousand-word essay on the state of the worldThe countless readers who followed Roger Cohen&’s column and mourned its end responded above all to what they saw as the marriage in his writing of head and heart. That tenor permeates An Affirming Flame.During his twelve years as a columnist, Cohen aimed to hold power to account at home and abroad, in the name of freedom, decency, pluralism, and the importance of truth and dissent in open societies. He watched with alarm as the outside threat of 9/11 morphed into the internal threat of January 6. This time, the assailants were not jihadi terrorists; they were American white supremacists and seditionists convinced of American decadence but unable to see that they personified it. The threat to American democracy is clear.Cohen dissects this ominous American fracture. He explores themes of displacement, belonging, and his own imperiled craft of journalism. His examination of the rising tide of authoritarian rule takes him to China, and in Kyiv he sees the devastating impact of Vladimir Putin's Russian nationalism. With its trenchant consideration of the plight of refugees, COVID-19, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the war in Afghanistan, Cohen's writing reflects his belief in the unquenchable human quest for dignity.He captures the fight to defend America&’s openness, democratic institutions, and ideals against the rising tide of retrogression, division, and assault on truth. This struggle, as Cohen writes, is also the world&’s. It is inseparable from the battle to save humanity from the creeping autocracy of the twenty-first century. As he writes, &“On lies is tyranny built.&”
Affirming: Letters 1975-1997
by Isaiah Berlin‘IB was one of the great affirmers of our time.’ John Banville, New York Review of BooksThe title of this final volume of Isaiah Berlin’s letters is echoed by John Banville’s verdict in his review of its predecessor, Building: Letters 1960–75, which saw Berlin publish some of his most important work, and create, in Oxford’s Wolfson College, an institutional and architectural legacy. In the period covered by this new volume (1975–97) he consolidates his intellectual legacy with a series of essay collections. These generate many requests for clarification from his readers, and stimulate him to reaffirm and sometimes refine his ideas, throwing substantive new light on his thought as he grapples with human issues of enduring importance.Berlin’s comments on world affairs, especially the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the collapse of Communism, are characteristically acute. This is also the era of the Northern Ireland Troubles, the Iranian revolution, the rise of Solidarity in Poland, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, and wars in the Falkland Islands, the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. Berlin scrutinises the leading politicians of the day, including Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev, and draws illuminating sketches of public figures, notably contrasting the personas of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrey Sakharov. He declines a peerage, is awarded the Agnelli Prize for ethics, campaigns against philistine architecture in London and Jerusalem, helps run the National Gallery and Covent Garden, and talks at length to his biographer. He reflects on the ideas for which he is famous – especially liberty and pluralism – and there is a generous leavening of the conversational brilliance for which he is also renowned, as he corresponds with friends about politics, the academic world, music and musicians, art and artists, and writers and their work, always displaying a Shakespearean fascination with the variety of humankind.Affirming is the crowning achievement both of Berlin’s epistolary life and of the widely acclaimed edition of his letters whose first volume appeared in 2004.
Affirming: A Memoir of Faith, Sexuality, and Staying in the Church
by Sally GaryWhat is it like to discover that something you&’ve believed all your life might be wrong? Sally Gary knew since her early adulthood that she was attracted to women. But as a devoted Christian, she felt there was no way to fully embrace this aspect of her identity while remaining faithful. Now, as she prepares to marry the love of her life, she&’s ready to speak out about why—and how—her perspective changed. In this deeply personal memoir, Sally traces the experiences, conversations, and scriptural reading that culminated in her seeing her sexuality as something that made sense within the context of her faith—not outside of it or in opposition to it. Along the way, she addresses specific aspects of her journey that will resonate with many other gay Christians: the loneliness and isolation of her previously celibate life, the futile attempts she made to resist or even &“change&” her sexual orientation, and the fear of intimacy that followed a lifetime of believing same-sex relationships were sinful. Sally&’s story—one of heritage, learning, courage, and love—is written especially for the generations of LGBTQ Christians after her who are questioning whether they can stay part of the church they call home. It&’s a resounding reminder that, just like Sally&’s own heart, things can change, and sometimes, when we earnestly search for the truth, we find it in the most unexpected places.
Affection: An Erotic Memoir
by Krissy KneenKrissy Kneen loves sex . . . and she's not afraid to talk about it. In this sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant, and sometimes terrifying memoir, she traces the arc of her sexual life - from her childhood in a sexless household to the myriad sexual encounters of her young and adult life to the present, in which she is a married (and monogamous) 40-year-old woman. Raised by a group of protective and eccentric women who expressly forbade any and every sign of sexuality, Krissy - an unusually sensual young girl - discovered early on that illicit pleasures are the best kind. Affection follows the path of Kneen's life journey, from the compulsive sexual self-exploration of her childhood to her experiences as a young woman for whom the world is a sexual playground. Underlying the jaw-dropping details of her many sexual escapades is Kneen's examination of how her sense of self shapes and is shaped by those experiences, and of her struggle to satisfy her own needs in the face of a limiting, and often judgmental, society. Affection is a frank, often erotic look at one woman's sexuality as she grows and changes in a world that continues to see only the young and the beautiful amongst us as sexual beings - and a chronicle of her refusal to conform to that misconception.
An Affair with My Mother: A Story of Adoption, Secrecy and Love
by Caitríona Palmer'Incredibly moving' --Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker PrizeAn Affair with My Mother by Caitriona Palmer: a moving and gripping story of love, denial and a daughter's quest for the truth.Caitriona Palmer had a happy childhood in Dublin, raised by loving adoptive parents. But when she was in her late twenties, she realized that she had a strong need to know the woman who had given birth to her. She was able to locate her birth mother, Sarah, and they developed a strong attachment. But Sarah set one painful condition to this joyous new relationship: she wished to keep it - to keep Caitriona - secret from her family, from her friends, from everyone. Who was Sarah, and why did she want to preserve a decades-old secret? An Affair with My Mother tells the story of Caitriona's quest to answer these questions, and of the intense, furtive 'affair' she and her mother conducted in carefully chosen locations around Dublin. By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, An Affair with My Mother is a searing portrait of the social and familial forces that left Sarah - and so many other unwed Irish mothers of her generation - frightened, traumatized and bereft. It is also a beautifully written account of a remarkable relationship.'Caitriona Palmer has called out the false shame of her origins, with a kind of anguished courage that is incredibly moving. An Affair With My Mother is a forensic account of how it feels to be - in the interests of Catholic "respectability" - excluded from the facts of your own life. In its commitment to family love, to joy and truth, it is a gift.' Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker Prize
Afeni Shakur: Evolution Of A Revolutionary
by Jasmine GuyBefore becoming one of the most well-known members of the Black Power movement, Alice Faye Williams was not unlike any other poor, African American girl growing up in the impoverished South. But when her family moved to New York during the radical sixties, she became intoxicated by the promise of social change. By the time she turned twenty-one, Alice had a new name -- Afeni Shakur, derived from the Yoruba term for "lover of people" -- and a new vision for the future. The rest is history. In 1969, Afeni was arrested along with other members of the Black Panther party on 189 felony charges that included 30 counts of conspiracy. Though she was eventually acquitted of the charges, Afeni spent eleven months in jail before being released. Once on bail, she became pregnant with a son: Tupac Amaru Shakur, a rap megastar until his tragic death in 1996. In this searing work, renowned actress and Afeni's trusted friend Jasmine Guy reveals the evolution of a woman through a series of intimate conversations on themes such as love, death, race, drugs, politics, music, and of course her son. Filled with startling revelations and heartbreaking truths, Afeni's memoir is a powerful testament to the human spirit and the perseverance of the African American people.
Aetius: Attila's Nemesis
by Ian HughesIn AD 453 Attila, with a huge force composed of Huns, allies and vassals drawn from his already-vast empire, was rampaging westward across Gaul (essentially modern France), then still nominally part of the Western Roman Empire. Laying siege to Orleans, he was only a few days march from extending his empire from the Eurasian steppe to the Atlantic. He was brought to battle on the Cataluanian Plain and defeated by a coalition hastily assembled and led by Aetius. Who was this man that saved Western Europe from the Hunnic yoke? While Attila is a household name, his nemesis remains relatively obscure.