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In recent years the study of the Southern Populist movement at the turn of the century has flourished. Despite the significant new research in the field there is no single annotated bibliography that covers the literature and the formation of the Farmer's Alliance through the present. Of more immediate interest to multicultural studies is the role of African Americans in the movement. This annotated bibliography examines relevant works on the relationships between African Americans and the Southern Populist movement in hope of leading to further scholarship and understanding of this period. This book is the first of its kind in its subject area. ... Read more

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Politics and the Novel clarifies the role ofrevolutionary ideas in fiction, establishing the role of the politicalnovel, and tracing the growth of this novel into the 20thcentury. Examples are drawn from such classics as Stendhal'sThe Red and the Black, Dostoevsky's The Possessed,Conrad's The Secret Agent, and Turgenev's Fathersand Sons. Howe examines how American novels failed to integrate ideology intotheir works, including DeForests' Playing the Mischief,Adams' Democracy, James' The Bostonians, andHawthorne's The Bilthedale Romance. he also discussespolitical fiction after World War II: Kundera's Book ofLaughter and Forgetting, Naipaul's Bend in the River,and Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle, among others. ... Read more

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The dramatic increase in religiously motivated political activity in the United States since the early 1980s has spawned an increased scholarly awareness of the relationship between religion and politics. The rise of such groups as the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and the Family Research Council attests to this growing intersection between politics and religion. Correspondingly, the amount of scholarly writing in this field has increased significantly. This volume compiles overviews of the existing research on religion and political behavior. ... Read more

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This work, together with Mickolus's Literature of Terrorism: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography, published in 1980, provides the most comprehensive bibliography on terrorist violence available in print. Terrorism, 1980-1987 concentrates on material written during the 1980s, a period which has seen an enormous outpouring of commentary and research on terrorism and terrorist attacks. In addition to surveying journalistic, social scientific, and traditional historical studies in some dozen languages, the book also includes the fictional literature of terrorism, offering a broad cross-section of research and opinion on the subject. The material is organized into sections based on region and functional categories, enabling the researcher to compare quickly developments in specific topics. Coverage ranges from general treatments of terrorism and tactics of terrorists to material that deals with the terrorist infrastructure, terrorism in specific geographic areas, and responses to terrorism. The compilers have made special efforts to include items from publications not often cited in terrorism studies, both to give the reader an indication of the breadth of material available and to offer insights into the pervasive effects of terrorism on all aspects of life. ... Read more

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Compiled in this volume is the most significant accumulation of works on the subject of African American leadership to date. As the field of leadership studies continues to grow, this timely work contributes to an understanding of the activities of those people and organizations that have been leaders of people of African descent and have contributed to the cultural and political affairs of the black community, as well as the representation of the black community in mainstream American life. The annotated entries cover a variety of works on subjects such as dedicated black leadership studies, local descriptions and analyses, biographies, leadership organizations, and audio-visual materials. This reference is an important contribution to the field of leadership studies in general, and African American leadership in particular, and will serve as a valuable research tool for educators and practitioners alike. ... Read more

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Economic interpretations of history are irrevocably identifi ed with the nameof Charles A. Beard. This is mainly due to his early book An EconomicInterpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913). Yet, in Beard'slater work, The Economic Basis of Politics (1922), he articulates the mainprinciples of his method and argues for its applicability to the understandingof current events. In this brief survey of Western political philosophy andcontemporary constitutional arrangements, Beard concludes that it is wellestablished doctrine that "there is a vital relation between the forms of a state and the distribution of property, revolutions in the state being usually the results of contests over property." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A small book for big thinkers
This book was originally four lectures delivered by Charles A. Beard at Amherst College in 1916.The fourth lecture was revised when the book originally appeared in 1922, to try to keep up with events.If anything, the relationship between economic interests and the ability of governments to reflect the general will of the governed suffered an agonizing setback after World War One, when constitutions which provided universal suffrage, soon to include women in many countries, were abrogated by fascist forms of totalitarian political control leading up to World War Two.In 1945 a long chapter was added to attempt to relate events to that point to our understanding of the political possibilities which still remain open to those who might support some new constitutions.

Economics used to be much more stable than governments, and the early philosophers who had opinions on the role of the governed in systems of government assumed that the components of the system would represent various economic interests.Aristotle gets credit as ` "the father of political science" because he took it out of the sphere of utopian idealism where Plato left it and placed it on the strong foundation of natural history.'(pp. 4-5).For an ideal society, even then, "A city ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars; and these are generally the middle classes."(p. 20).A father of the United States Constitution, James Madison, wrote in Number Ten of the Federalist, on `the protection of the different and unequal faculties of men for acquiring property."From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results." ' (pp. 16-17).

There is a lot to be said for systems which can combine representatives of different interests and produce results which would be considered satisfactory to a majority.The form of political theory tending to demand this result most strongly is Rousseau's SOCIAL CONTRACT, which proposed giving a majority the power to impose "the general will."(p. 51).The French Revolution is considered an example of the inability of a vast number of people with no economic interests to run a society.

"Then followed the Revolution of violence and terror in which radical readers inflamed the disenfranchised by appeals to the gospel of Rousseau and to the proclamations of the bourgeois.To save themselves the latter had to resort to that other great source of authority, the sword.This instrument was wielded by Napoleon Bonaparte, a man who understood the relation of property to political power, and who, through his constitutions based on checks and balances, gave stability to bourgeois institutions."(p. 55).We still have some terror and proclamations of the bourgeois, but there seems to be little evidence than anyone is about to write a constitution with the checks and balances that can defeat the gospel that inspires those who are no longer fired up with zeal by the doctrines of Rousseau.

The United States was in a *nice country, if you can get it* category at the time of the American Revolution, with fundamental equality through land ownership available to those who were not involved in productive activities or being enslaved.Jefferson's choice of "the free-and-equal doctrine" (p. 58) was easier to proclaim in America because "There was no established clergy here.There was no titled aristocracy."(p. 57).Those who pictured themselves governing themselves in America had no reason to worry that "Jefferson, while justifying the revolt against George III, in fact challenged the rule of property which was guaranteed by the state constitutions drafted by his fellow revolutionists in that very epoch."(pp. 57-58).

This book is small, but there is some question if the simplicity with which it begins can lead to any enlightenment in the face of the complexity which we face.Chapter IV, The Contradiction and the Outcome (pp. 62-70), only leads to "In other words, there is no rest for mankind, no final solution of eternal contradictions."That idea comes from 1922, shortly before "No less drastic than its consequences has been a transformation in the functions of government, particularly in those which call for wholesale intervention in economic operations."(p. 71).Looking back in the spring of 1945 might have been more comforting than facing the end of 2003 with economic sanctions still in force against some political regimes which displease the global superpower more than any form of economic activity or illegal substance ever will.But the gross distortions of political economics in this book hardly extends beyond the restrictions which communism imposed on itself.

The first page of Chapter V, Economics and Politics in Our Revolutionary Age, mentions Lenin and Trotsky, "the early leaders of the Russian revolution."(p. 71).The problem they faced, representing a party which predated the vanguard of the economic system they intended to run, seems similar to the United States trying to establish a constitution for Iraq, a country in which people have interests which are not economic, the lack of security there now extending beyond the concern for property rights.Beard was even fearful."But military men have, necessarily, a set of values which differ in many respects from civilian values; and the military interests, enlarged by universal conscription, will constitute a powerful influence in American affairs, with all that may involve amid the domestic and foreign contingencies of coming ages."(pp. 102-103).It is not likely that Beard was then worried about how long it might be before Iraqis act like civilians.Some might be wondering how long it will be before electricity will even allow economic activity. ... Read more

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The essays that comprise Studies in Law and Politics are by and large academic. But Laski had a purpose in addition to the purely scholarly: he was eagerly pursuing possibilities for social and political change. Laski sought tirelessly for opportunities to act on those possibilities and, as is the case throughout his work, his academic and political purposes have no clear boundary between them.

Studies in Law of Politics was published at a crucial juncture in Laski's ideological metamorphosis. During this period he had become increasingly worried that socialists might not be able to achieve the growth of working-class power. Although the essays contained in the volume cover a wide range of topics, and a wide span of time since the mid-1920s, he brought them into unity by a common approach. Though he does not make his unifying premise immediately evident to his readers, he clearly meant to chart the growth of power of those who had previously been without influence. His goal also was to identify the problems facing growth in a highly modernied society.

Studies in Law and Politics reveals Laski's growing realiation that the road to socialism might be more difficult than what he had believed when he wrote his pluralist works. The book reflects the mind of a thinker who was not content to write exclusively as an academic or a political activist. His view was that, while progressive reforms have been achieved in the past, they are not easily accomplished, and obstacles to further reforms should not be underestimated. This sober work offers much insight into Laski's intellectual development, as well as the times about which he wrote.

Harold J. Laski (1893-1950) was an esteemed British political scientist, economist, author, and lecturer. He taught at McGill University and Harvard. From 1926 until his death he was professor of political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His works include Karl Marx, Democracy in Crisis, The American Presidency, and The Rise of European Liberalism.

Peter Lamb is a research fellow at the School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment at Keele University. He is the author of Harold Laski: Problems of Democracy, the Sovereign State, and International Society.

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Publisher: [Los Angeles] : Dept. of Special Collections, University Research Library, University of California Los AngelesPublication date: 1990Subjects: Trimmer, Mrs. (Sarah), 1741-1810Guardian of educationNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more