Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991

This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65--where 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with 1,000 mercenaries controlled by the CIA--and, finally, to the dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, which stopped the South African advance on Luanda and doomed Henry Kissinger's major covert operation there. Based on unprecedented archival research and firsthand interviews in virtually all of the countries involved--Gleijeses was even able to gain extensive access to closed Cuban archives--this comprehensive and balanced work sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations. It revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional U.S. beliefs about the influence of the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's actions in Africa, and provides, for the first time ever, a look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War. "Fascinating . . . and often downright entertaining. . . . Gleijeses recounts the Cuban story with considerable flair, taking good advantage of rich material.--Washington Post Book World "Gleijeses's research . . . bluntly contradicts the Congressional testimony of the era and the memoirs of Henry A. Kissinger. . . . After reviewing Dr. Gleijeses's work, several former senior United States diplomats who were involved in making policy toward Angola broadly endorsed its conclusions.--New York Times "With the publication of Conflicting Missions, Piero Gleijeses establishes his reputation as the most impressive historian of the Cold War in the Third World. Drawing on previously unavailable Cuban and African as well as American sources, he tells a story that's full of fresh and surprising information. And best of all, he does this with a remarkable sensitivity to the perspectives of the protagonists. This book will become an instant classic.--John Lewis Gaddis, author of We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History Based on unprecedented research in Cuban, American, and European archives, this is the compelling story of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations, revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, and provides the first look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War. -->

Kelley unearths freedom dreams in this exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora in the twentieth century. Focusing on the visions of activists from C. L. R. James to Aime Cesaire and Malcolm X, Kelley writes of the hope that Communism offered, the mindscapes of Surrealism, the transformative potential of radical feminism, and of the four-hundred-year-old dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. From'the preeminent historian of black popular culture' (Cornel West), an inspiring work on the power of imagination to transform society.

Every ten years, notoriously eclectic thinker Brian Morris takes a year of sabbatical and launches out into another field about which he knows nothing. In the 1980s it was botany; in the 1990s, zoology; in the 2000s, entomology. The quintessential polymath, Morris has written on his incredible breadth of interests in wide-ranging essays, with subjects ranging from boxing to deep ecology to new-age gurus. Collected here for the first time, Visions of Freedom brings together all of Morris's concise yet diverse essays on politics, history, and ecology written since 1989. It includes book reviews, letters, and articles in the engaging and accessible style for which Morris is known. The thinkers he deals with are as diverse as Thomas Paine to C. L. R. James, from Karl Marx to Krishnamurti, from Max Weber to Naomi Klein. He also delves into the canon of classic anarchist thinkers like Kropotkin, Bakunin, Reclus, Proudhon, and Flores Magnon. Taking a stance against the obscurantism of contemporary academic discourse, Morris' writings demonstrate an interdisciplinary approach that moves seamlessly between topics, developing practical connections between scholarly debates and the pressing social, ecological and political issues of our times.

The racist legacy behind the Western idea of freedom The era of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to our modern conceptions of freedom and democracy, was also the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. America, a nation founded on the principle of liberty, is also a nation built on African slavery, Native American genocide, and systematic racial discrimination. White Freedom traces the complex relationship between freedom and race from the eighteenth century to today, revealing how being free has meant being white. Tyler Stovall explores the intertwined histories of racism and freedom in France and the United States, the two leading nations that have claimed liberty as the heart of their national identities. He explores how French and American thinkers defined freedom in racial terms and conceived of liberty as an aspect and privilege of whiteness. He discusses how the Statue of Liberty—a gift from France to the United States and perhaps the most famous symbol of freedom on Earth—promised both freedom and whiteness to European immigrants. Taking readers from the Age of Revolution to today, Stovall challenges the notion that racism is somehow a paradox or contradiction within the democratic tradition, demonstrating how white identity is intrinsic to Western ideas about liberty. Throughout the history of modern Western liberal democracy, freedom has long been white freedom. A major work of scholarship that is certain to draw a wide readership and transform contemporary debates, White Freedom provides vital new perspectives on the inherent racism behind our most cherished beliefs about freedom, liberty, and human rights.

In 1877, among the red rocks of Southern Utah, the signers of the Declaration of Independence twice visited a sleeping Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wilford Woodrugg recounted these vivid visions a number of times during his lif-- because they were more than forgettable dreams. The men gathered around him demanded action. They knew Woodruff had just helped inaugurate proxy temple ordinances for faithful family members who had died, and now they wanted those same ordinances -- they wanted spiritual freedom. But who were these men who came to Woodruff? Some stand like titans -- Franklin, m Jefferson, Hancock, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. Others are lesser known yet had a huge influence on the passage of the Declaration and on the founding of the United States of America. These noble men who came to Woodruff by night brought resounding justification to a church rejected by the nation; the founders of freedom were coming to the Mormons for what only those people could give them -- salvation. The requests in Woodruff's dreams wre quickly fulfilled, and each Signer of the Declaration of Independence had his temple work completed. -- Publisher's description.

This comprehensive analysis of the complex relationship of black political thought identifies which political ideologies are supported by blacks, then traces their historical roots and examines their effects on black public opinion.

This book explores the meaning of peace according to (some of) the people who make it. Based on some 200 interviews, it empirically studies the visions of peace that professional peaceworkers from the Netherlands, Lebanon and Mindanao (Philippines) are working on. As such, it seeks to add a strong empirical element to the debate on liberal peacebuilding. The main argument of the book is that amongst practitioners, there is no liberal peace consensus at all. Rather, peace professionals work on a distinct set of peaces, that differ along four dimensions. In five case study chapters, the operational visions of peace held by Dutch military officers, diplomats and civil society peace workers, as well as civil society peace workers from Lebanon and the Philippines are explored and compared to each other. Differences are observed along both geographical and professional lines, but also within each group.