documentaries history

2013 Reprint of 1962 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Contains two essays by Martin Luther King Jr. concerning the role of violence in the civil rights movement. During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Robert Williams organized armed self-defense against the racist violence of the Ku Klux Klan. This is the story of his movement, first established in Monroe, N.C. As prologue, the issues raised by events in Monroe are weighted by Truman Nelson and Martin Luther King Jr. Illustrated.

A classic and impassioned account of the first revolution in the Third World.This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account of the Haitian Revolution of 1794-1803, a revolution that began in the wake of the Bastille but became the model for the Third World liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, a place where the brutality of master toward slave was commonplace and ingeniously refined. And it is the story of a barely literate slave named Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led the black people of San Domingo in a successful struggle against successive invasions by overwhelming French, Spanish, and English forces and in the process helped form the first independent nation in the Caribbean.

We all know what Noam Chomsky is against. His scathing analysis of everything that’s wrong with our society reaches more and more people every day. His brilliant critiques of—among other things—capitalism, imperialism, domestic repression and government propaganda have become mini-publishing industries unto themselves. But, in this flood of publishing and republishing, very little ever gets said about what exactly Chomsky stands for, his own personal politics, his vision of the future.Not, that is, until Chomsky on Anarchism, a groundbreaking new book that shows a different side of this best-selling author: the anarchist principles that have guided him since he was a teenager. This collection of Chomsky’s essays and inter-views includes numerous pieces that have never been published before, as well as rare material that first saw the light of day in hard-to-find pamphlets and anarchist periodicals. Taken together, they paint a fresh picture of Chomsky, showing his lifelong involvement with the anarchist community, his constant commitment to nonhierarchical models of political organization and his hopes for a future world without rulers.For anyone who’s been touched by Chomsky’s trenchant analysis of our current situation, as well as anyone looking for an intelligent and coherent discussion of anarchism itself, look no further than Chomsky on Anarchism.Noam Chomsky is one of the world’s leading intellectuals, the father of modern linguistics, an outspoken media and foreign policy critic and tireless activist. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Blackshirts & Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, revolution, democracy, and ecology—terms often bandied about but seldom explored in the original and exciting way that has become Michael Parenti’s trademark.Parenti shows how “rational fascism” renders service to capitalism, how corporate power undermines democracy, and how revolutions are a mass empowerment against the forces of exploitative privilege. He also maps out the external and internal forces that destroyed communism, and the disastrous impact of the “free-market” victory on eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He affirms the relevance of taboo ideologies like Marxism, demonstrating the importance of class analysis in understanding political realities and dealing with the ongoing collision between ecology and global corporatism.Written with lucid and compelling style, this book goes beyond truncated modes of thought, inviting us to entertain iconoclastic views, and to ask why things are as they are. It is a bold and entertaining exploration of the epic struggles of yesterday and today."A penetrating and persuasive writer with an astonishing array of documentation to implement his attacks."—The Catholic Journalist"Blackshirts & Reds discusses the great combat between fascism and socialism that is the defining feature of the Twentieth Century, and takes every official version to task for its substitution of moral analysis for critical analysis, for its selectivity, and for its errata. By portraying the struggle between fascism and Communism in this century as a single conflict, and not a series of discrete encounters, between the insatiable need for new capital on the one hand and the survival of a system under siege on the other, Parenti defines fascism as the weapon of capitalism, not simply an extreme form of it. Fascism is not an aberration, he points out, but a "rational" and integral component of the system."—Stan Goff, The PrismMichael Parenti, PhD Yale, is an internationally known author and lecturer. He is one of the nation's leadiing progressive political analysts. He is the author of over 275 published articles and twenty books. His writings are published in popular periodicals, scholarly journals, and his op-ed pieces have been in leading newspapers such as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. His informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad.

A "razor-sharp" introduction to this political and economic ideology makes a galvanizing argument for modern socialism (Naomi Klein) -- and explains how its core tenets could effect positive change in America and worldwide.In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. With the stunning popularity of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Americans are embracing the class politics of socialism. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system in America look like? The editor of Jacobin magazine, Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing, and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age.

In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the U.S., the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the U.S. government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism. In the face of intense repression, the Party flourished, becoming the center of a revolutionary movement with offices in 68 U.S. cities and powerful allies around the world.Black against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence. Bold, engrossing, and richly detailed, this book cuts through the mythology and obfuscation, revealing the political dynamics that drove the explosive growth of this revolutionary movement, and its disastrous unraveling. Informed by twelve years of meticulous archival research, as well as familiarity with most of the former Party leadership and many rank-and-file members, this book is the definitive history of one of the greatest challenges ever posed to American state power. Read an excerpt here: Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Mart... by University of California Press Listen to an interview with the authors here:http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=...

Blood In My Eye was completed only days before its author was killed. George Jackson died on August 21, 1971, at the hands of San Quentin prison guards during an alleged escape attempt. At eighteen, George Jackson was convicted of stealing seventy dollars from a gas station and was sentenced from one year to life. He was to spent the rest of his life -- eleven years-- in the California prison system, seven in solitary confinement. In prison he read widely and transformed himself into an activist and political theoretician who defined himself as a revolutionary.

“Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.” - James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin was a fascinating and eloquent man, one who I would have loved to have had a conversation with. His insights into racial issues are truly phenomenal.This is a collection of short essays about Baldwin's experience with race. In the first three essays Baldwin critiques various books and movies on black culture that he believes do the race a disservice. In the 1950s when black representation was relatively low in both literature and film, I would assume that most black people would have been glad just to see themselves in print and on film;however, Baldwin talks about how misrepresentation is just as damaging as non-representation. I admire him a lot for that.The other essays go into the black experience in the States and in Europe. One thing he said about his experiences in a small village in Switzerland was truly profound: “I thought of white men arriving for the first time in an African village, strangers there, as I am a stranger here, and tried to imagine the astounded populace touching their hair and marveling at the color of their skin. But there is a great difference between being the first white man to be seen by Africans and being the first black man to be seen by whites. The white man takes the astonishment as tribute, for he arrives to conquer and to convert the natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even to be questioned; whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than they will ever know” My favourite essay in this book was probably the titular one, Notes of a Native Son. It was heartbreaking and touching. I've read "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and I detested Baldwin's father. However, after reading this essay, my perception has changed a little. I still found the father unlikeable but now I'm appreciating how difficult it must have been for a black man, an authoritative one trying to raise his family in a society in which all his hard work accounts for next to nothing, a society in which he is the king at home and is considered a "boy" in the white world. I could tell that Baldwin was trying to understand and forgive his father, and let go of his anger; it was truly touching: “… I did not want to see him because I hated him. But this was not true. It was only that I had hated him and I wanted to hold on to this hatred… one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.” Very powerful essays.

After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system - a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it will also show that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to the capitalist reality program capitalism in fact is anything but realistic.

A driving force behind the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, Hoffman inspired a generation to challenge the status quo. Meant as a practical guide for the aspiring hippie, Steal This Book captures Hoffman's puckish tone and became a cult classic with over 200,000 copies sold. Outrageously illustrated by R. Crumb, it nevertheless conveys a serious message to all would-be revolutionaries: You don't have to take it anymore. "All Power to the Imagination was his credo. Abbie was the best." —Studs Terkel

A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power. In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and the decline of domestic social services, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the media's role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power offers a sweeping critique of the world around us and is definitive Chomsky. Characterized by Chomsky's accessible and informative style, this is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.

Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Slavoj Žižek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in our world.Using history, philosophy, books, movies, Lacanian psychiatry, and jokes, Slavoj Žižek examines the ways we perceive and misperceive violence. Drawing from his unique cultural vision, Žižek brings new light to the Paris riots of 2005; he questions the permissiveness of violence in philanthropy; in daring terms, he reflects on the powerful image and determination of contemporary terrorists.Violence, Žižek states, takes three forms--subjective (crime, terror), objective (racism, hate-speech, discrimination), and systemic (the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems)--and often one form of violence blunts our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions.Does the advent of capitalism and, indeed, civilization cause more violence than it prevents? Is there violence in the simple idea of "the neighbour"? And could the appropriate form of action against violence today simply be to contemplate, to think?Beginning with these and other equally contemplative questions, Žižek discusses the inherent violence of globalization, capitalism, fundamentalism, and language, in a work that will confirm his standing as one of our most erudite and incendiary modern thinkers.

Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.

This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works.  In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early conciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain—the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his retum to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.

Statement of purpose for this two-volume project: “It has a dual focus: on facts and on beliefs” (ix). The basic fact is that the United States has organized under its sponsorship and protection a neo-colonial system of client states ruled mainly by terror and serving the interests of a small local and foreign business and military elite. The fundamental belief, or ideological pretense, is that the United States is dedicated to furthering the cause of democracy and human rights throughout the world. (id.). That is all in fact basic and fundamental. Along with Manufacturing Consent, this set should be considered part of the core Chomsky writings.The main concern is how the US has “globalized the ‘banana republic’” (1), a “plague of neofascism.” This has proceeded through “interventions explicitly designed to preserve non-freedom from the threat of freedom […] and to displace democratic with totalitarian regimes” (3). Even though the US is the worst distributor of products in the global market for unlawful killing (inclusive of “the peasants of Indochina served as experimental animals for an evolving military technology” (3)), the majority of kenomatic development occurred under the US clientage system, a group of “subfascist” regimes, characterized by “most of the vicious characteristics of fascism [but] lacked the mass base that a Hitler or Mussolini could muster” (30). That is, the US client system, as an imposition by an imperialist, lacks “the degree of legitimacy of a genuine fascist regime” (id.), which regime normally is a rightwing populist movement indigenous to the state of its eruption.The principal axis of argumentation here is the analysis of the presentation of this subfascist system by the US imperial-oriented for-profit consciousness production industry, i.e., what Althusser might reference as the journalism ISA, and amply described otherwise by Bagdikian’s Media Monopoly, McChesney’s Rich Media, Poor Democracy, the writings of Michael Parenti, Project Censored, and so on. So, regarding subfascist crimes, the US media ISA has numerous strategies: distraction with emphasis on positive things, insistence that the US is a bystander, sleight of mind to refocus on alleged communist crimes, &c. (11 ff.).Very much a reply to Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago in the chapter “The Pentagon-CIA Archipelago” (41-83), with the principal comment: Even liberal commentators rarely focus on the systematic character of the US support for right wing terror regimes and the simple economic logic of the ‘Washington connection.’ This evasion may even be said to define the limits of permissible liberalism in the mass media—one may denounce torture in Chile and ‘death squads’ in Brazil, but (1) it is unacceptable to explain them as a result of official US policy and preference and as plausibly linked to US economic interests; and (2) it would be highly advisable even when merely denouncing subfascist terror to show ‘balance’ by denouncing Soviet and left terror in equally vigorous terms. […] Needless to say, a similar balance is not required in establishment and extreme right commentators. One rarely finds any criticism of Gulag Archipelago for balance as a picture of Soviet society and its evolution, let alone for its neglect of unpleasant aspects of the Free World. (78-79) Nice listings of CIA technique (assassination, mercenary conspiracy, political bribery, propaganda, ersatz protests, corruption of organizations, and so on (50 ff.). The objective is a “favorable investment climate” (53 et seq.), of course: “Democratic threats to the interests of foreign investors, such as a Philippines Supreme Court ruling prior to the 1972 coup prohibiting foreigners from owning land, or a Brazilian dispute over a mineral concession to Hanna Mining Company, or agrarian reform in Guatemala, or nationalization of oil in Iran, are expeditiously resolved in favor of the foreigner by dictators” (53). It must be made plain: “terror is not a fortuitous spinoff but has a functional relationship to investment climate” (54).The US can’t accomplish all of this on its own, which is why subfascist local clients are required; the process is “denationalization,” a process whereby the US might “virtually disregard the sovereignty of this large and theoretically independent country. The catch, of course, is that Brazil was not an independent country—US penetration was already enormous by the 1960s and US leaders acted as it they had a veto over Brazilian economic and foreign policy” (52); the leaders were denationalized insofar as they had “strong ties and dependency relations” (id.). The gallows humor moment here is that “a curious aspect of this massive subversion operation in a country such as Brazil is that it is not regarded as subversion. If the Cubans are found to provide weapons to insurgents in Venezuela such a discovery is given great publicity as evidence of Cuban perfidy” whereas “the subversion of Brazil by the United States in the years leading up to the coup of 1964 […] is the natural right of power—where domination is so taken for granted that the hegemonic power intervenes by inevitable and unquestioned authority” (52-53). Anyway, lotsa detail on these points.In this subfascist system, “the majority of the population is a means, not an end” (59). We should expect these processes to accelerate now, given the local result in recent US elections, the cruel conversion of labor forces in the so-called third world into mere agambenian instruments, zoe whose bodies are subject to the usage of capital, wherein violation of the categorical imperative is the default condition of possibility for the system. This system “flows naturally from control by denationalized elites in a system of suspended law and arbitrary privilege” (66)—which is to situate the US subfascist clientage system within the agambenian state of exception, a kenomatic state wherein the absence of law in the client is the arche of the law in the US. The argument thereafter develops three principal mechanisms that constitute the biopolitical management of the subfascist system: “benign terror” (85 ff.), “constructive terror” (205 ff.), and “bloodbaths” (299 ff.). In “atrocities management” (97), the first step is that the imperialist insists on a zone of indistinction between “civil rights workers and bomb-throwers” (93) in order to throw legitimate protest in with unauthorized violence. The manager thereafter institutes “permanent counterrevolution” such that “the indiscriminate violence puts into operation a feedback process of ‘communist creation’ that affords the intervention legitimacy in the eyes of imperial power” (99), the creation, i.e., of a state of exception that runs parallel to and thereby supersedes the rule of constitutional order. Examples of benign terror (about which “attitudes in the United States have been characterized mainly by sheer indifference” (105)) include East Pakistan in 1971 (105 ff.) (which has been estimated variously to have involved anywhere from 300,000 to 3,000,000 civilians massacred); Burundi in 1972 (250,000 massacred) (106 ff.); Native Americans in Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil (millions dead?) (109 ff.); East Timor in 1975 (100,000 killed?) (129 ff.)—much detail on this last.Instances of 'constructive terror,' by contrast, “contribute substantially to a favorable investment climate” (205), and typically involve systematic torture, arbitrary imprisonment, death squads, permanent counterrevolution, and so on. Examples studied herein are: Indonesia 1965 (205 ff.), with its 500,000+ leftists killed; Thailand after WWII (218 ff.), which became a US “landlocked aircraft carrier” (223); the Philippines (230 ff.), wherein the “democratic façade was suspended under Marcos in 1972”; the Dominican Republic (242 ff.) in the 1960s; Argentina (264 ff.); Uruguay (270 ff.); Guatemala (274 ff.); Nicaragua (283 ff.); El Salvador (296 ff.), and so on. The last section, on “bloodbaths,” concerns Vietnam, which, under the Vietnamization doctrine, “became the ultimate satellite—the pure negative, built on anti-communism, violence, and external sustenance” (328). The first sort of bloodbath is “constructive,” by the French colonialist or the Diem regime, supportive of favorable investment climate (300 ff.). The US direct assault is the “primary bloodbath” in this narrative, no doubt (304); “The number of civilian casualties inflicted on South Vietnam is unknown, but is very likely underestimated by the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees at 400,000 dead, 900,000 wounded and 6.4 million turned into refugees” (312). The “mythical bloodbath” concludes the volume, i.e., massacres long predicted by the rightwing to result from a communist victory in Vietnam, or allegations of leftwing crimes during the US invasion. The analysis disputes the rightwing narrative that Hanoi killed millions of persons during land reform in the 1950s (341 ff.); it’s an effective presentation. The Hue massacre is likewise brushed against the grain (345 ff.), with success. Much of the import here is the attempt by the US to use exaggerated or fabricated atrocities to recover its imperial authority after the failure of the unlawful armed attack against three sovereign states. Volume II will resume this thread.Good stuff overall, though now nearly 40 years out of current, which does not vitiate its political critique. As preparatory for analysis of Volume II, we conclude by noting the insistence upon the atrocities in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, which are acknowledged (20 ff.) as the constant pretense that the horrors of Cambodia are being ignored except for the few courageous voices that seek to pierce the silence, or that some great conflict was raging about the question of whether or not there have been atrocities in Cambodia. […] By September 1977, condemnation of Cambodian atrocities, covering the full political spectrum with the exception of some Maoist groups, had reached a level and scale that has rarely been matched. (20) Recommended, no doubt.

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx.Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe.Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably.This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende’s inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

\ The searing, visionary memoir of founding Black Panther Huey P. Newton, in a dazzling graphic package\ Eloquently tracing the birth of a revolutionary, Huey P. Newton's famous and oft-quoted autobiography is as much a manifesto as a portrait of the inner circle of America's Black Panther Party. From Newton's impoverished childhood on the streets of Oakland to his adolescence and struggles with the system, from his role in the Black Panthers to his solitary confinement in the Alameda County Jail, Revolutionary Suicide is smart, unrepentant, and thought-provoking in its portrayal of inspired radicalism.

A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanon's masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said's Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers.The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other.Fanon's analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.