AFRICA IN STRUGGLE takes a fresh approach to African history. It chronicles and analyzes African liberation movements and counter-movements -- from initial African resistance against European colonial invasion to the major political upheavals since 1945. Fogel shows how the aborted revolutions in Algeria and Kenya set back African history by reimposing repressive rule under a post-colonial regime. The civil wars in Congo/Zaire and Nigeria, abetted by competing imperialist interests, set back African history even more by aggravating ethnic tensions and resentments. On the other hand, victorious workers' and peasants' revolutions in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau provided tantalizing vistas of freedom and creative social initiative.
Fogel brings a sharp theoretical perspective to the complex and often confusing array of people's revolts, military coups and civil wars that have shaped much of African history since the second world war. He exposes how emergent African ruling elites often disguise their class and ethnic oppression of the people with pseudo-liberating slogans drawn from socialist and communist theories. He examines pan-African nationalism in the light of African liberation movements on the ground. He deals in depth with the theories and practice of Kwame Nkrumah, who took over the colonial state in Ghana from the departing British rulers and tried to reorient it to serve the people -- and of Amilcar Cabral, who patiently prepared a grassroots revolutionary movement in Guinea-Bissau that, after ten years of armed struggle, broke Portuguese colonial rule.

Africa in Struggle: National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution

Politics & Social Sciences

Fogel, Daniel

Politics & Government

Ism Pr

Take Back Your Power: A Working Woman's Response to Sexual Harassment

Coburn, Jennifer

Business & Money

Lesbian feminism has often been scorned as a marginal political dogma. Susan Cavin, a lesbian feminist sociologist, advances a new theory of women's oppression and women's liberation, based on cross-cultural data. She holds that original human societies were woman-centered, with females greatly outnumbering males; men occupied a marginal position. When armed men overthrew women's societies they integrated themselves into society, breaking women's power. 
Examining the sex ratio of societies across the globe, Cavin challenges conventional wisdom about the "natural" numerical balance between the sexes. She finds a frequent occurrence of societies with a high-female sex ratio (54% or more female) among Africans, Pacific islanders and Native Americans (in both North and South America). Moreover, she finds that these cultures tend to subsist by hunting and gathering, with extended-family households centered around mothers' kin-groups, and a lack of sharp social stratification in the culture. She thus hypothesizes that original human society had a high-female sex ratio. Cavin also finds that lesbian relations have existed in pre-industrial societies at every level of economy and subsistence pattern, with woman-to woman marriage practiced in several African and Native American cultures. Her investigation provides a sociological basis for lesbian feminism. 
Cavin disputes the liberal notion that sex separation invariably places women in a subordinate role. "The entrance of the mass of males into everyday residential contact with female society brings dominance hierarchies into society," she asserts. "These male dominance hierarchies economically, socially, and politically segregate the mass of women from positions of power in society." She also challenges standard feminist views of women's liberation, arguing that women will not win their freedom by integrating into male-dominated power structures.

Lesbian Origins

Self-Help

Cavin, Susan

Social Sciences

Critical survey of radical and lesbian feminist ideas from the 1960s through the 1980s. Carol Anne Douglas examines diverse theories on the roots of male domination; love and sexuality; lesbianism and friendship between women; lesbian separatism; sadomasochism; strategy and tactics for women's liberation -- and more. 
Douglas probes the divergent roots of radical feminist theory. She then glides her analytic lens to examine diverse currents in radical feminist practice. While some radical feminists emphasize confronting the enemy (patriarchy and/or capitalism), others emphasize building alternative women's communities to achieve radical feminist goals in the here and now. "In the early and mid 1970s," Douglas observes, "there was a turn by radical and lesbian feminists not only from working for legislated reforms but also from any sort of demonstrations or direct confrontation with the male power structure... Creating independent projects -- whether these were publications, bookstores, restaurants, record companies, credit unions or rape crisis centers -- was seen by many as a more productive way of opposing the system. Creating an alternative system was seen as more radical than directly confronting the power structure. The alternative strategy is derived from the 1960s counterculture, but also ultimately from anarchist and utopian socialist principles. 
"Some radical feminists saw the turn to establishing alternatives as a diversion from radicalism and as triumph for liberals. However, even these feminists saw the need for an alternative press..." Douglas draws on her vast knowledge of radical feminist writings and practical experience in women's movements to bring clarity to the radical feminist currents and cross-currents since the 1970s.

Love and Politics : Radical Feminist and Lesbian Theories

Douglas, Carol Anne

Critical survey of radical and lesbian feminist ideas from the 1960s through the 1980s. Carol Anne Douglas examines diverse theories on the roots of male domination; love and sexuality; lesbianism and friendship between women; lesbian separatism; sadomasochism; strategy and tactics for women's liberation -- and more. Douglas probes the divergent roots of radical feminist theory. She then glides her analytic lens to examine diverse currents in radical feminist practice. While some radical feminists emphasize confronting the enemy (patriarchy and/or capitalism), others emphasize building alternative women's communities to achieve radical feminist goals in the here and now. "In the early and mid 1970s," Douglas observes, "there was a turn by radical and lesbian feminists not only from working for legislated reforms but also from any sort of demonstrations or direct confrontation with the male power structure... Creating independent projects -- whether these were publications, bookstores, restaurants, record companies, credit unions or rape crisis centers -- was seen by many as a more productive way of opposing the system. Creating an alternative system was seen as more radical than directly confronting the power structure. The alternative strategy is derived from the 1960s counterculture, but also ultimately from anarchist and utopian socialist principles. "Some radical feminists saw the turn to establishing alternatives as a diversion from radicalism and as triumph for liberals. However, even these feminists saw the need for an alternative press..." Douglas draws on her vast knowledge of radical feminist writings and practical experience in women's movements to bring clarity to the radical feminist currents and cross-currents since the 1970s.

Love and Politics: Radical Feminist and Lesbian Theories

Antología de ensayos, narraciones personales y poemas escritos por mujeres de ascendencia chicana, latina, indígena, asiática y africana --en suma, mujeres de color-- que viven en los Estados Unidos. Esta puente, mi espalda es la traducción y adaptación al español de la antología This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color que redactaron y recopilaron Cherríe Moraga y Gloria Anzaldúa, chicanas geniales e innovadoras de familias humildes. Las múltiples autoras de Esta puente, mi espalda manifiestan una amplia variedad de perspectivas culturales y planteamientos de feminismo que van mucho más allá de las preocupaciones de feministas de las clases profesionales y adineradas. 
 Las redactoras chicanas de Esta puente, mi espalda han reavivado la forma femenina de puente que se vio en la poesía del castellano antiguo. 
********************************************************* 
 Esta puente, mi espalda is the Spanish translation of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga with translations by Ana Castillo and Norma Alarcón. Adapted for a Chicana and Latina readership, Esta puente, mi espalda contains personal narratives, essays, and poems by radical women of color in the U.S. -- including Barbara Smith, Gloria Anzaldúa, Chrystos, Nellie Wong, Aurora Levins Morales, and many more. 
 The Chicana editors of Esta puente, mi espalda have rekindled the feminine form of puente (bridge) that existed poetically in old Spanish.

Esta Puente, Mi Espalda: Voces De Mujeres Tercermundistas En Los Estados Unidos

Literature & Fiction

Moraga, Cherríe

Castillo, Ana

Morago, Cherrie

United States

Antología de ensayos, narraciones personales y poemas escritos por mujeres de ascendencia chicana, latina, indígena, asiática y africana --en suma, mujeres de color-- que viven en los Estados Unidos. Esta puente, mi espalda es la traducción y adaptación al español de la antología This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color que redactaron y recopilaron Cherríe Moraga y Gloria Anzaldúa, chicanas geniales e innovadoras de familias humildes. Las múltiples autoras de Esta puente, mi espalda manifiestan una amplia variedad de perspectivas culturales y planteamientos de feminismo que van mucho más allá de las preocupaciones de feministas de las clases profesionales y adineradas. 
 Las redactoras chicanas de Esta puente, mi espalda han reavivado la forma femenina de puente que se vio en la poesía del castellano antiguo. ************************************************************ 
 Esta puente, mi espalda is the Spanish translation of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga with translations by Ana Castillo and Norma Alarcón. Adapted for a Chicana and Latina readership, Esta puente, mi espalda contains personal narratives, essays, and poems by radical women of color in the U.S. -- including Barbara Smith, Gloria Anzaldúa, Chrystos, Nellie Wong, Aurora Levins Morales, and many more. 
 The Chicana editors of Esta puente, mi espalda have rekindled the feminine form of puente (bridge) that existed poetically in old Spanish.

Esta Puente, Mi Espalda: Voces De Mujeres Tercermundisats En Los Estados Unidos (Spanish and English Edition)

Junipero Serra, a Catholic friar from Spain, founded missions among California Indians from San Diego to San Francisco in the late 1700's. Pope John Paul beatified Serra in 1988, moving him to within one step of sainthood. Franciscan priests promoting Serra toward sainthood praise him for spreading the Catholic gospel into California and saving thousands of Indian souls for God's kingdom in heaven. 
 Fogel presents a critical biography of Junipero Serra, tracing the history of the California missions from 1769 through 1834. He focuses on the Franciscan friars' cultural and psychological impact on the Indians they baptized and brought into the California missions. He also connects the controversy surrounding Serra and the California missions with key issues dividing the Catholic church in both North and Latin America today: liberation theology, birth control and abortion rights, women's role in the church, and gay and lesbian rights.

Junipero Serra, the Vatican, and Enslavement Theology

Joe Murphy, chased out of his Missouri hometown by anti-Catholic bigots, hopped aboard a freight train and headed west for the wheat harvest. Within weeks, the 13-year-old Joe became a labor activist and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies"). Eugene Nelson, a longtime friend of Joe Murphy, describes many labor and free-speech struggles through the eyes of "Kid Murphy." The Wobblies built a dynamic mass movement, and this novel relates Murphy's adventures in the wheat fields, lumber camps, and on the high seas. In contrast to the standard dreary recounting of labor history, Break Their Haughty Power brings you inside labor history as it is being made by passionate human beings with complex personalities.
While portraying Joe Murphy's adventures, Nelson presents a series of dramatic historical events -- including the lynch-mob assault on IWW workers by American Legionnaires in Centralia, Washington in 1919; the nationwide railroad strike of 1922; the Colorado coal miners' strike of 1927, in which IWW activists marched and rallied in the face of company gun thugs; and the 1931 strike by workers building Boulder Dam. Nelson also relates the young Murphy's reflections on meeting Helen Keller, Eugene Debs, and Bill Haywood.

Break Their Haughty Power: Joe Murphy in the Heyday of the Wobblies

Nelson, Eugene

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Ism Pr publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ism Pr

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Ism Pr publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Africa in Struggle: National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution

Take Back Your Power: A Working Woman's Response to Sexual Harassment

Lesbian Origins

Lesbian Origins

Love and Politics : Radical Feminist and Lesbian Theories

Love and Politics: Radical Feminist and Lesbian Theories

Esta Puente, Mi Espalda: Voces De Mujeres Tercermundistas En Los Estados Unidos

Esta Puente, Mi Espalda: Voces De Mujeres Tercermundisats En Los Estados Unidos (Spanish and English Edition)

Junipero Serra, the Vatican, and Enslavement Theology

Break Their Haughty Power: Joe Murphy in the Heyday of the Wobblies