The opening of the twentieth century saw a fervour of radical political movements in Western Canada. Ross McCormack explores the constituencies, ideologies, and development of early reformist, syndicalist, and socialist organizations from the 1880s up to the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919. He distinguishes three types of radicals - reformers, rebels, and revolutionaries - who competed with each other to fashion a gneral western constituency. The reformers wanted to change society for the betterment of the workers, but both their aims and methods were moderate, essentially transfering the philosophy and tactics of the British labour movement to the Canadian west. The rebels, militant industrial unionists, periodically battled the Trades and Labour Congress in order to establish unions strong enough to defet the employers and, if necessary, the state. The revolutionary Marxists were committed to the destruction of industrial capitalism and the establishment of a society controlled by the workers. The book describes the origins of radicalism, traces the histories of the various organizations that expressed its ideals, and discusses the impact of the First World War on the labour movement. Using previously unexplored sources, McCormack has produced the first comprehensive examination of the early history of the radical movement in western Canada, adding an important dimension to our knowledge and understanding of Canadian labour history.

Throughout history brave Englishmen and women have never been afraid to rise up against their unjust rulers and demand their rights. Barely a century has gone by without England being witness to a major uprising against the government of the day, often resulting in a fundamental change to the constitution. This book is a collection of biographies, written by experts in their field, of the lives and deeds of famous English freedom fighters, rebels, and democrats who have had a major impact on history. Featured chapters include the history of Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, when an army of 50,000 people marched to London in 1381 to demand an end to serfdom and the hated poll tax. Alongside Wat Tyler in this pantheon of English revolutionaries is Jack Cade who in 1450 led an angry mob to London to protest against government corruption. There are three chapters on various aspects of the English Civil War, during which the English executed their king. Other rebel heroes featured include Thomas Paine, the great intellectual of the American and French Revolutions; Mary Wollstonecraft, author of The Rights of Woman; Henry Hunt, who, as well as the Chartists after him, campaigned for universal suffrage; William Morris, the visionary designer and socialist thinker; and finally the Suffragettes and Suffragists who fought for women’s voting rights.

This collection of essays examines the lives and thoughts of three interrelated Southern groups - enslaved rebels, conservative white reformers, and white revolutionaries -presenting a clear and cogent understanding of race, reform, and conservatism in early American history.

In twenty-two original essays, leading historians reveal the radical impulses at the founding of the American Republic. Here is a fresh, new reading of the American Revolution that gives voice and recognition to a generation of radical thinkers and doers whose revolutionary ideals outstripped those of the “Founding Fathers.” While the Founding Fathers advocated a break from Britain and espoused ideals of republican government, none proposed significant changes to the fabric of colonial society. Yet during this “revolutionary” period some people did believe that “liberty” meant “liberty for all” and that “equality” should be applied to political, economic, and religious spheres. Here are the stories of individuals and groups who exemplified the radical ideals of the American Revolution more in keeping with our own values today. This volume helps us to understand the social conflicts unleashed by the struggle for independence, the Revolution’s achievements, and the unfinished agenda it left to future generations to confront.

The historians of the late 1960s have emphasised the work of a small group of white college activists and the Black Panthers, activists who courageously took to the streets to protest the war in Vietnam and continuing racial inequality. Poor and working-class whites have tended to be painted as spectators, reactionaries and even racists. Tracy and Amy Sonnie have been interviewing activists from the 1960s for nearly 10 years and here reject this narrative, showing how working-class whites, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, fought inequality in the 1960s.

This charming picture book biography tells the inspiring story of Anne Bradstreet, a gifted Puritan writer who overcame barriers to become America's first published poet.

Fentress, a former political philosophy professor at Brunel U. in London, England and current resident of Italy, describes the historical emergence and evolution of the Mafia, from the early- to mid-19th century Sicilian alliances between "men of honor" and intellectuals in the struggle for independence from the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples to the longstanding covert relationships that are protecting today's mafiosi. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Two leading experts on China evaluate its rise throughout the past one hundred fifty years, sharing portraits of key intellectual and political leaders to explain how China transformed from a country under foreign assault to a world giant.

Our image of nineteenth-century American women is generally divided into two broad classifications: victims and revolutionaries. This divide has served the purposes of modern feminists well, allowing them to claim feminism as the only viable role model for women of the nineteenth century. In All-American Girl, however, Frances B. Cogan identifies amid these extremes a third ideal of femininity: the “Real Woman.” Cogan's Real Woman exists in advice books and manuals, as well as in magazine short stories whose characters did not dedicate their lives to passivity or demand the vote. Appearing in the popular reading of middle-class America from 1842 to 1880, these women embodied qualities that neither the “True Women”—conventional ladies of leisure—nor the early feminists fully advocated, such as intelligence, physical fitness, self sufficiency, economic self-reliance, judicious marriage, and a balance between self and family. Cogan's All-American Girl reveals a system of feminine values that demanded women be neither idle nor militant.