Reexamines the ideology of the two most prominent leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s

Reexamines the ideology of the two most prominent leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s

Aspects of American History examines major themes, personalities and issues across American history, using topic focused essays. Each chapter focuses on key events and time periods within a broad framework looking at liberty and equality, the role of government and national identity. The volume engages with its central themes through a broad ranging examination of aspects of the American past, including discussions of political history, foreign policy, presidential leadership and the construction of national memory. In each essay, Simon Henderson: introduces fresh angles to traditional topics consolidates recent research in themed essays analyzes views of different historians offers an interpretive rather than narrative approach gives concise treatment to complex issues. Including an introduction which places key themes in context, this book enables readers to make comparisons and trace major thematic developments across American history.

In Lee Butler's own words, "This book is an attempt to answer the question, 'Who are we as African Americans?'" Attempting to answer this question is one way we participate in the works of salvation. Liberating Our Dignity, Saving Our Souls is a study of African American identity aimed at pointing a way out of a current crisis into a new liberation and salvation. Butler combines insights and methodologies from developmental psychology, liberation theology, and African American history to plot a new course for contemporary African Americans to gain a sense of identity that will guide them away from the identity the European and American cultures have traditionally forced upon them. This involves determining identity by personal worth; not by occupation, economic class, or social class.

Risks of Faith offers for the first time the best of noted theologian James H. Cone's essays, including several new pieces. Representing the breadth of his life's work, this collection opens with the birth of black theology, explores its relationship to issues of violence, the developing world, and the theological touchstone embodied in African-American spirituals. Also included here is Cone's seminal work on the theology of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the philosophy of Malcolm X, and a compelling examination of their contribution to the roots of black theology. Far-reaching and provocative, Risks of Faith is a must-read for anyone interesting in religion and its political and social impact on our time.

African-Americans' analysis of, and interest in, foreign affairs represents a rich and dynamic legacy, and this work provides a cutting edge insight into this neglected aspect of US foreign affairs. In addition to extending the parameters of US foreign policy literature to include race and ethnicity, the book documents case-specific analyses of the evolutionary development of the African American foreign affairs network (AAFAN). Whilst the examination of race in regard to the construction of US foreign policy is significant, this book also provides a cross disciplinary approach which utilises historical and political science methods to paint a more realistic appraisal of US foreign policy. Including analysis of original archival evidence, this theoretically informed work seeks to transcend the standard mono-disciplinary approach which overestimates the separation between domestic and foreign affairs. The unique approach of this work will add an important dimension to a newly emerging field and will be of interest to scholars in ethnic and racial studies, American politics, US foreign policy and US history.