Download or read book The Romance of American Communism written by Vivian Gornick and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class.” So begins Vivian Gornick’s exploration of how the world of socialists, communists, and progressives in the 1940s and 1950s created a rich, diverse world where ordinary men and women felt their lives connected to a larger human project. Now back in print after its initial publication in 1977 and with a new introduction by the author, The Romance of American Communism is a landmark work of new journalism, profiling American Communist Party members and fellow travelers as they joined the Party, lived within its orbit, and left in disillusionment and disappointment as Stalin’s crimes became public. From the immigrant Jewish enclaves of the Bronx and Brooklyn and the docks of Puget Sound to the mining towns of Kentucky and the suburbs of Cleveland, over a million Americans found a sense of belonging and an expanded sense of self through collective struggle. They also found social isolation, blacklisting, imprisonment, and shattered hopes. This is their story--an indisputably American story.
Download or read book A Covert Life written by Ted Morgan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 597 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extraordinary life of Jay Lovestone is one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century. A Lithuanian immigrant who came to the United States in 1897, Lovestone rose to leadership in the Communist Party of America, only to fall out with Moscow and join the anti-Communist establishment after the Second World War. He became one of the leading strategists of the Cold War, and was once described as "one of the five most important men in the hidden power structure of America." Lovestone was obsessively secretive, and it is only with the opening of his papers at the Hoover Institution, the freeing of access to Comintern files in Moscow, and the release of his 5,700-page FBI file that biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ted Morgan has been able to construct a full account of the remarkable events of Jay Lovestone's life. The life Morgan describes is full of drama and intrigue. He recounts Lovestone's career in the faction-riven world of American Communism until he was spirited out of Moscow in 1929 after Stalin publicly attacked him for doctrinal unorthodoxy. As Lovestone veered away from Moscow, he came to work for the American Federation of Labor, managing a separate union foreign policy as well as maintaining his own intelligence operations for the CIA, many under the command of the legendary counterintelligence chief James Angleton. Lovestone also associated with Louise Page Morris, a spy known as "the American Mata Hari," who helped him undermine Communist advances in the developing world and whose own significant espionage career is detailed here. Lovestone's influence, always exercised from behind the scenes, survived to the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union. A Covert Life has all the elements of a classic spy thriller: surveillance operations and stings, love affairs and bungled acts of sabotage, many thoroughly illegal. It is written with the easy hand of a fine biographer (The Washington Post Book World called Ted Morgan "a master storyteller") and provides a history of the Cold War and a glimpse into the machinery of the CIA while also revealing many hitherto hidden details of the superpower confrontation that dominated postwar global politics.
Download or read book In Harness written by Gennady Estraikh and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-21 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a detailed glimpse into the lives and times of Yiddish writers enthralled with Communism at the turn of the century through the mid-1930s. Centering mainly on the Soviet Jewish literati but with an eye to their American counterparts, the book follows their paths from avant-garde beginnings in Kiev after the 1905 revolution to their peak in the mid-1930s. Notables such as David Bergelson—who helmed the short-lived Yiddish periodical called In Harness—and Der Nister and David Hodshtein come to life as do Leyb Kvitko, Peretz Markish, Itsik Fefer, Moshe Litvakov, Yekhezkel Dobrushin, and Nokhum Oislender. Gennady J. Estraikh charts the course of their artistic and political flowering and decline and considers the effects of geographyprovincial vs. urbanand party politics upon literary development and aesthetics. No other book concentrates on this aspect of the Jewish intellectual scene nor has any book unveiled the scale and intensity of Yiddish Communist literary life in the 1920s and 1930s or the contributions its writers made to Jewish culture.
Download or read book American Dreamers written by Michael Kazin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NEWSWEEK/THE DAILY BEAST, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE PROGRESSIVE The definitive history of the reformers, radicals, and idealists who fought for a different America, from the abolitionists to Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky. While the history of the left is a long story of idealism and determination, it has also been a story of movements that failed to gain support from mainstream America. In American Dreamers, Michael Kazin—one of the most respected historians of the American left working today—tells a new history of the movements that, while not fully succeeding on their own terms, nonetheless made lasting contributions to American society. Among these culture shaping events are the fight for equal opportunity for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure; the inclusion of multiculturalism in the media and school curricula; and the creation of books and films with altruistic and anti-authoritarian messages. Deeply informed, judicious and impassioned, and superbly written, this is an essential book for our times and for anyone seeking to understand our political history and the people who made it.
Download or read book Comic Books and the Cold War 1946 1962 written by Chris York and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture--from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities--manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates that postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism written by S. A. Smith and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-01-09 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century. In contrast to many histories that concentrate on the Soviet Union, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism is genuinely global in its coverage, paying particular attention to the Chinese Revolution. It is 'global', too, in the sense that the essays seek to integrate history 'from above' and 'from below', to trace the complex mediations between state and society, and to explore the social and cultural as well as the political and economic realities that shaped the lives of citizens fated to live under communist rule. The essays reflect on the similarities and differences between communist states in order to situate them in their socio-political and cultural contexts and to capture their changing nature over time. Where appropriate, they also reflect on how the fortunes of international communism were shaped by the wider economic, political, and cultural forces of the capitalist world. The Handbook provides an informative introduction for those new to the field and a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship for those seeking to deepen their understanding.
Download or read book Red Conspirator written by Thomas L. Sakmyster and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author traces Peters's activities from his arrival in the United States to the dawn of the Cold War and his deportation back to Hungary. Known as the "Hungarian man of mystery," Peters emigrated to the United States in 1924 after serving in the Austrian Army during World War I. In America, he oversaw a false passport operation that facilitated the movement of Soviet agents to the United States and American communists to the Soviet Union. Working under a number of aliases, he constructed a complex network of informants and spies that stole numerous State Department documents in the 1930s. After years of hiding underground he was arrested and deported in 1949. The author reveals Peters to be not just the influential leader of conspiratorial Communist activities but also an organizer in the open American Communist party. The author of a handbook on Communism, Peters also set up a program to infiltrate the armed forces in the United States.
Download or read book The Romance of American Communism written by Vivian Gornick and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writer and critic Vivian Gornick’s long-unavailable classic exploring how Left politics gave depth and meaning to American life “Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class.” So begins Vivian Gornick’s exploration of how the world of socialists, communists, and progressives in the 1940s and 1950s created a rich, diverse world where ordinary men and women felt their lives connected to a larger human project. Now back in print after its initial publication in 1977 and with a new introduction by the author, The Romance of American Communism is a landmark work of new journalism, profiling American Communist Party members and fellow travelers as they joined the Party, lived within its orbit, and left in disillusionment and disappointment as Stalin’s crimes became public.
Download or read book Masters Of Deceit The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It written by J. Edgar Hoover and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation explains the startling facts about the major menace of our time, communism: what it is, how it works, what its aims are, the real dangers it poses, and what loyal American citizens must know to protect their freedom. MASTERS OF DECEIT is a powerful and informative book—a firsthand account of American communism from its beginnings to the present, written by a man more intimately familiar with the complete story than any other American. Mr. Hoover shows the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party, USA: who the communists are, what they claim, why people be-come communists and why some break away. He describes life within the Party, communist strategy and tactics, methods of mass agitation and underground infiltration, espionage, sabotage, and its treatment of minorities. The picture of what life in this country would be under communism (toward which thou-sands of misguided Americans actually are working now!) is vivid and shocking. The forceful, driving message of this book is clarified with many incidents and anecdotes, definitions of communist terms, key dates, and a list of international communist organizations and publications which illustrate the communist Trojan horse in action. And it concretely outlines just what you can do now to combat the evils of the “false religion” of communism, so that you can stay free. MASTERS OF DECEIT is one of the most important books of our time—a warning of the clear and present danger to our way of life.
Download or read book Stuck on Communism written by Lewis H. Siegelbaum and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir by one of the foremost scholars of the Soviet period spans three continents and more than half a century—from the 1950s when Lewis Siegelbaum's father was a victim of McCarthyism up through the implosion of the Soviet Union and beyond. Siegelbaum recreates journeys of discovery and self-discovery in the tumult of student rebellion at Columbia University during the Vietnam War, graduate study at Oxford, and Moscow at the height of détente. His story takes the reader into the Soviet archives, the coalfields of eastern Ukraine, and the newly independent Uzbekistan. An intellectual autobiography that is also a biography of the field of Anglophone Soviet history, Stuck on Communism is a guide for how to lead a life on the Left that integrates political and professional commitments. Siegelbaum reveals the attractiveness of Communism as an object of study and its continued relevance decades after its disappearance from the landscape of its origin. Through the journey of a book that is in the end a romance, Siegelbaum discovers the truth in the notion that no matter what historians take as their subject, they are always writing about themselves.
Download or read book Color Communism and Common Sense written by Manning Johnson and published by Rare Treasure Editions. This book was released on 2024-03-11T00:00:00Z with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the story of one Black American Communist who became disillusioned with Communism and penned this cautionary tale of the perils of his experience. According to the author: "Ten years I labored in the cause of Communism. I was a dedicated "comrade." All my talents and efforts were zealously used to bring about the triumph of Communism in America and throughout the world. To me, the end of capitalism would mark the beginning of an interminable period of plenty, peace, prosperity and universal comradeship. All racial and class differences and conflicts would end forever after the liquidation of the capitalists, their government and their supporters. ..Little did I realize until I was deeply enmeshed in the Red Conspiracy, that just and seeming grievances are exploited to transform idealism into a cold and ruthless weapon against the capitalist system-that this is the end toward which all the communist efforts among Negroes are directed. Indeed, I had entered the red conspiracy in the vain belief that it was the way to a "new, better and superior" world system of society. Ten years later, thoroughly disillusioned, I abandoned communism."
Download or read book Sojourning for Freedom written by Erik S. McDuffie and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-27 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates a pathbreaking black radical feminist politics forged by black women leftists active in the U.S. Communist Party between its founding in 1919 and its demise in the 1950s.
Download or read book The Autobiography of an American Communist written by Peggy Dennis and published by Lawrence Hill Books. This book was released on 1977 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Taking A Long Look written by Vivian Gornick and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly fifty years, Vivian Gornick's essays, written with her characteristic clarity of perception and vibrant prose, have explored feminism and writing, literature and culture, politics and personal experience. Drawing writing from the course of her career, Taking a Long Look illuminates one of the driving themes behind Gornick's work: that the painful process of understanding one's self is what binds us to the larger world. In these essays, Gornick explores the lives and literature of Alfred Kazin, Mary McCarthy, Diana Trilling, Philip Roth, Joan Didion, and Herman Melville; the cultural impact of Silent Spring and Uncle Tom's Cabin; and the characters you might only find in a New York barber shop or midtown bus terminal. Even more, All That Is Given brings back into print her incendiary essays, first published in the Village Voice, championing the emergence of the women's liberation movement of the 1970s. Alternately crackling with urgency or lucid with insight, the essays in Taking a Long Look demonstrate one of America's most beloved critics at her best.
Download or read book Red Scared written by Michael Barson and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2001-04 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Red Scared! offers valuable lessons from the vault on how to identify Communists, media reports on the jolly side of Stalin, guidelines for bomb shelter chic, and much more. As they did in their other lively pop-culture histories, Teenage Confidential and Wedding Bell Blues, Michael Barson and Steven Heller once again bring the nearly forgotten details of American culture into full relief with Red Scared!"--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Dupes written by Paul Kengor and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this startling, intensively researched book, bestselling historian Paul Kengor shines light on a deeply troubling aspect of American history: the prominent role of the "dupe." From the Bolshevik Revolution through the Cold War and right up to the present, many progressives have unwittingly aided some of America's most dangerous opponents. Based on never-before-published FBI files, Soviet archives, and other primary sources, Dupes exposes the legions of liberals who have furthered the objectives of America's adversaries. Kengor shows not only how such dupes contributed to history's most destructive ideology—Communism, which claimed at least 100 million lives—but also why they are so relevant to today's politics.
Download or read book Health Communism written by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A searing analysis of health and illness under capitalism from hosts of the hit podcast “Death Panel” In this fiery, theoretical tour-de-force, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant offer an overview of life and death under capitalism and argue for a new global left politics aimed at severing the ties between capital and one of its primary tools: health. Written by co-hosts of the hit “Death Panel” podcast and longtime disability justice and healthcare activists Adler-Bolton and Vierkant, Health Communism first examines how capital has instrumentalized health, disability, madness, and illness to create a class seen as “surplus,” regarded as a fiscal and social burden. Demarcating the healthy from the surplus, the worker from the “unfit” to work, the authors argue, serves not only to undermine solidarity but to mark whole populations for extraction by the industries that have emerged to manage and contain this “surplus” population. Health Communism then looks to the grave threat capital poses to global public health, and at the rare movements around the world that have successfully challenged the extractive economy of health. Ultimately, Adler-Bolton and Vierkant argue, we will not succeed in defeating capitalism until we sever health from capital. To do this will require a radical new politics of solidarity that centers the surplus, built on an understanding that we must not base the value of human life on one’s willingness or ability to be productive within the current political economy. Capital, it turns out, only fears health.
