Radical Political Action Research Articles

A Victorian Woman's Place: Public Culture in the Nineteenth Century, by Simon Morgan

Reviewed by: A Victorian Woman’s Place: Public Culture in the Nineteenth Century Penny Russell (bio) A Victorian Woman’s Place: Public Culture in the Nineteenth Century, by Simon Morgan; pp. x + 270. London and New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007, £47.50, $74.95. The main title of Simon Morgan’s book seems to imply a conventional study of Victorian middle-class femininity. The subtitle complicates this impression and promises something more—which, on the whole, the book delivers. Morgan contends that any attempt to understand Victorian women’s role as confined to the “private” sphere and excluded from the “public” is doomed by the artificiality of the distinction itself. Activities of public moment were conducted in private homes; the very constitution of ideal femininity itself was vital to the emergence of middle-class culture. His central argument is that, far from being excluded from the political world during the middle years of the nineteenth century, women participated in the development of middle-class identity and its expression in public culture. In so doing, they developed institutions and methods of organisation that in turn laid the foundation for the emergence of a specifically feminist movement later in the century. Morgan develops this argument via a close study of the industrial township of [End Page 526] Leeds, focusing on its emerging urban middle class. In assessing the nature and signifi-cance of women’s role in civic work, his book maps a well-planned trajectory. He begins by presenting the conventional masculine narrative of the development of a new “public sphere” on the Habermasian model and follows this with reflections on the prescriptive literature on feminine virtue and influence. Subsequent chapters complicate these conventionally gendered narratives by tracing the main areas of women’s involvement in the civic world: their interest in high culture, their active and sometimes controversial engagement in philanthropy, and their considerably more contested entry into the activities of the formal political sphere. The last substantial chapter explores the public representation of “ladies” in the civic landscape, with particular reference to their visible presence as spectators on grand civic occasions, or their supposedly calming influence at moments of public agitation. To observe the mere fact of middle-class British women’s engagement in such activities at this period is not in itself remarkable. The strength of Morgan’s achievement depends, rather, on his close analysis of the social circumstances of Leeds. He presents a local, particularised study, drawing upon diaries and private correspondence as well as a rich array of archival sources from churches, societies, and political action groups and a careful reading of local newspapers. At the same time, he pays close attention to broader discursive and political contexts. His extensive research, at once minute and broad-ranging, allows him to present intricate local stories within an argument about broader social change. Rich in the cut and thrust of local politics and in complex individual relationships, the subject matter of this book presents many opportunities for lively narrative treatment. Lively narrative, however, is disappointingly scarce. There are glimmers, certainly. The falling out between the ladies’ committee and the (all-male) General Committee of the Leeds Institute Bazaar in 1859, for example, is recounted with energy and understanding. But it begs for more creative treatment. Morgan seems almost deliberately to eschew the use of exemplary narratives to introduce his main arguments. Each chapter opens rather repetitively with a statement of the argument to come and a map of how the sections will unfold; anecdote and incident find their place in the body of the chapter only as evidence to support a point already made. This commitment to the dry tone of scholarship will no doubt limit the book’s appeal to the general reader or to students, but more than its value as entertainment is at stake here. The frame of argument tends on the whole to reduce, rather than to draw out, the complexity of the incidents recounted. Morgan does not encourage his readers to focus on individuals: only in his conclusion, for example, does he at last offer a connected account of Fanny Heaton, whose multifarious activities have been scattered throughout the preceding chapters. His...

Waiting 'til the midnight hour: a narrative history of black power in America

This work features legendary moments - the birth, life and death of the black power movement. This is an outstanding narrative history of one of the most influential civil rights movements in modern history - including research based on over 60 original oral histories. In 1966, a group of political activists including Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton turned their backs on Martin Luther King's pacifism and, building on the legacy of Malcolm X, pioneered a radical new approach to the fight for equality. Their rallying cry? Power! The Black Power movement became an iconography for the American struggle for racial equality. Peniel E. Joseph traces the history of the men and women who made up that movement - many famous, others nameless, all working together to create and sustain the most powerful organisation for change in recent political history. Waiting 'til the Midnight Hour begins in Harlem in the 1950s, where - despite the Cold War's hostile climate - black writers, artists and activists built a new urban militancy that was the movement's earliest incarnation. In a series of character-driven chapters readers witness the rise of Black Power groups (such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers) - and with them, on both coasts of the country, a fundamental change in the way Americans understood the unfinished business of racial equality and integration. Drawing on original and archive research and more than 60 original oral histories, Waiting 'til the Midnight Hour vividly invokes the way in which Black Power redefined black identity and culture and in the process redrew the landscape of American race relations.

Policy Alternatives for the Future Biofuels Industry

US and state governments have subsidized ethanol since 1978, and the rationale for these subsidies has varied over time from supporting farm prices and income, to environmental quality, and more recently to energy security and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The recent boom in ethanol investment and production can be considered as an unintended consequence of an ethanol subsidy keyed to $20 crude oil and fixed at 51 cents per gallon combined with oil surging to $70/bbl. Thus, in the 2005-07 period, ethanol was extremely profitable inducing substantial new investment. For the future, different political action groups and political figures propose renewable fuels targets or standards ranging from 35 to 100 billion gallons per year. To achieve anything like these levels, it is likely that the current policy set will need to be reconsidered. In addition to the current policy, this paper considers using a subsidy tied to the energy security gains and greenhouse gas emission reductions provided by renewable fuels, subsidies targeted specifically at cellulose ethanol, and different versions of a renewable fuel standard such as the one passed by the US Senate. It is clear that we must develop a better understanding of the consequences of these alternative policy pathways.

Practical and ethical assessment issues in rural, impoverished, and managed care settings.

The rising costs of new psychological tests, increased frequency of test revisions, and difficulty receiving authorization and reimbursement from managed care companies make it increasingly difficult for practitioners to provide the best standard of care to clients when conducting psychological and neuropsychological assessments. Practitioners, especially those in low-income and rural areas, may struggle with handling these practical realities while maintaining ethical standards in conducting psychological assessment. Suggestions for how to manage practical challenges faced by practitioners who provide psychological assessments, such as selecting tests when authorization or reimbursement by a third-party payer is restricted or denied, purchasing psychological tests on a budget, and providing assessments with a limited number of qualified staff are discussed. The authors also provide recommendations for the future prevention of these challenges through work with test developers, test publishing corporations, third-party payers, political action groups, and the psychology profession itself.

Remembering Andre Gunder Frank

major figures of world anti-Establishment thought in the twentieth century, and his writings were a great influence on very many people, certainly on me. He started intellectual life as an economist, and indeed one trained in the heartland of neoclassical economics, the University of Chicago. But he soon turned into one of the severest critics of his mentors and those whose views they propagated. He spent his early research years in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Chile. And there, he became one of the leaders of the dependistas. The three essential features of his position were (1) a rejection of neoclassical economics as both intellectually irrelevant and generative of false policy prescriptions for the countries of the South; (2) a commitment to radical political action as well as radical analyses;

COMENTÁRIOS SOBRE AÇÃO POLÍTICA: AS REVOLUÇÕES E OS PARTIDOS

This article seeks to study the subjects relative to the party action focusing the different readings of the theory of the revolution, from the theoretical “elaboracao” of some revolutionary thinkers in the ambit of the Marxism and that it has been propitiating elements to the political practices and instruments for the radical political action. Therefore, the theoretical-methodological cutting of this research is defined in the ambit of the parties that assumed a world vision radically, of human being, of society and of education, aiming to overcome the logic of the capital.

From hackers to hacktivists: speed bumps on the global superhighway?

This article traces the emergence of the new social movement of hacktivism from hacking and questions its potential as a source of technologically-mediated radical political action. It assesses hacktivism in the light of critical theories of technology that question the feasibility of re-engineering technical systems to more humane ends. The predecessor of hacktivism, hacking, is shown to contain certain parasitical elements that provide a barrier to more politically-orientated goals. Examples are provided of how such goals are much more in evidence within hacktivism. Its alternative conceptualization of the human-technology relationship is examined in terms of a purported development from conceptualizations of networks to webs that incorporate new ways of producing online solidarity and oppositional practices to global capital.

Remembering Andre Gunder Frank

major figures of world anti-Establishment thought in the twentieth century, and his writings were a great influence on very many people, certainly on me. He started intellectual life as an economist, and indeed one trained in the heartland of neoclassical economics, the University of Chicago. But he soon turned into one of the severest critics of his mentors and those whose views they propagated. He spent his early research years in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Chile. And there, he became one of the leaders of the dependistas. The three essential features of his position were (1) a rejection of neoclassical economics as both intellectually irrelevant and generative of false policy prescriptions for the countries of the South; (2) a commitment to radical political action as well as radical analyses;

Private Voluntary Associations and Islam in Globalizing Egypt

Islamic fundamentalism (Islamist movement) has risen in the Middle East. Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollar in Southern Lebanon have pursued two activities. They conduct radical political activities and social welfare activities such as managing clinics and providing basic social services for poor people. In the case of Egypt, social welfare activities of “centrifugal” Islamist movements have not been investigated, even though religious and secular PVOs and NGOs have increased due to globalization and implementation of aid-funded programs. PVOs respond to medical needs for people under structural adjustment programs. In 1991, approximately 14, 000 PVOs were registered in Egypt.Islamic societies have developed the tradition of charity and formed various charity institutions, such as waqf, Islamic hospitals, schools, and Zuwiya logdes in sufi orders. Charity institutions seem to have positive effects on recent Islamic PVO activities by way of zakat collection and Islamic networks for capital and human recruitment. On the other hand, these charity institutions had negative effects of limiting benefits to persons in institutions instead of giving them to the poor as originally targeted. If the historical experience of widening the gap between ideals and practice of Islamic charity is repeated in Islamic PVO activities, Islamic people in need of welfare and medical services would lose their confidence in Islamic PVOs. This would affect Islamist movements and grass-root efforts. In order to examine these hypotheses, it is necessary to understand PVOs by considering the relationship between the state and society in both Egypt and in the Middle East.

Domestic Abolitionism and Juvenile Literature, 1830-1865 (review)

Reviewed by: Domestic Abolitionism and Juvenile Literature, 1830–1865 Eileen Hunt Botting Domestic Abolitionism and Juvenile Literature, 1830–1865. By Deborah C. De Rosa. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003; pp viii + 200. $57.50 cloth; $18.95 paper. Deborah C. De Rosa's excellent book offers the first extended look at the historical context, print culture, and rhetoric of American abolitionist literature written for children by women authors in the mid-nineteenth century. The book challenges the thesis of Anne Scott MacLeod (1975) that only a few abolitionist texts were written for children in the antebellum era. The book also calls necessary attention to the lost voices of women abolitionist writers who, because they were female and composed works for children, have not been taken seriously by contemporary scholars either as antislavery activists or as writers of historically and politically significant literature. De Rosa convincingly argues that many women abolitionists of the time—from Isabel Drysdale to Harriet Beecher Stowe—created a form of public [End Page 442] discourse within juvenile literature that allowed them to bridge their conventional roles as women, wives, and mothers with their radical political views and activities. Some of these women hid behind pseudonyms to protect themselves from public criticism and even persecution for producing these radical children's texts, while some embraced fame, notoriety, and scandal for their work. Yet all understood the power of using juvenile literature as a venue for educating the younger generation to support the abolitionist cause. De Rosa distinguishes between two broad rhetorical strategies employed by these "domestic abolitionists." First, some authors—such as E. T. C., "A Lady," "Grandmother," "Cousin Ann," Eliza Follen, Julia Colman, Matilda Thompson, Susan Paul, and Kate Barclay—used the tropes of sentimental literature to engage the tearful sympathy of their juvenile audience for the antislavery cause. Second, some authors—such as Kate Barclay, Matilda Thompson, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, Eliza Follen, Jane Elizabeth Jones, S. C. C., and Harriet Butts—used the figure of the "mother-historian" to convey critical historical narratives about slavery in the United States that might otherwise be unheard by the juvenile audience (80). Both of these rhetorical strategies produced a robust variety of antislavery literature for children and even helped create and sustain antislavery societies governed by children themselves from the late 1830s onward in several American states. De Rosa's book is at its most compelling when it provides close analysis of the rhetoric of the works by the domestic abolitionists. One of the best examples of De Rosa's ability to perceptively interpret the broader social and political significance of literary texts is found in her discussion of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). De Rosa argues that Stowe's monumental book presents in the character of Eva the first girl or female to articulate and practice clearly defined abolitionist principles (121). Contrary to past scholarship that has emphasized the evangelical character of Eva's arguments, De Rosa persuasively contends that Eva is better understood as the first fictional example of a full-fledged female advocate of abolition. One of the ways that Eva puts her abolitionist principles into practice in the novel is to teach one of the slaves to read. At least two juvenile adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin—"Little Eva, Flower of the South" (1853) and Little Eva's First Book for Good Children (1853)—also feature the character teaching slave children the alphabet. De Rosa argues that by creating striking female abolitionist characters such as Eva, the domestic abolitionists of the time validated their own entry into the sphere of antislavery politics and encouraged the next generation of women to take the same nonconformist path (147). Perhaps the only valid complaint about De Rosa's book is that its concise, economical style does not unearth the richness of the texts she often only briefly describes. The book's brevity is a mixed blessing, as the reader is left wishing De Rosa had devoted more time to analyzing the children's texts she so tantalizingly reveals to be a vital part of political discourse in the antebellum era. [End Page 443] De Rosa's book not only...

CLD Position Statement: Alternative Routes to Certification in Special Education

Special education continues to suffer from chronic and persistent teacher shortages. For example, in 2000-2001, nearly 53,000 special education teachers, 12% of the teaching force, were less than fully certified, affecting more than 800,000 students with disabilities. In addition, many school districts lose special education teachers as the school year progresses, particularly in urban and rural areas. Since traditional sources of teacher supply, college and university preparation programs, have been unable to meet the growing demand for special education teachers, alternative routes to certification (ARC) have proliferated. Recognizing that there is a need for highly qualified special education teachers, it is essential that we develop innovative and creative alternatives to get interested individuals prepared, licensed, and into classrooms serving students with learning disabilities. As noted in the following statement, the Council for Learning Disabilities (CLD) agrees that strategies for recruiting and developing highly qualified professionals are necessary. Still, we must ensure that ARC programs deliver research-based teacher preparation and that graduates of such programs meet agreed-upon professional standards. ********** No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the proposed Individuals with Disabilities with Education Act (IDEA) have encouraged the development of alternative routes to certification (ARC) in special education. Even prior to these legislative efforts, ARC in special education had become a growth industry. In 1995, Buck, Polloway, and Mortorff-Robb found that 24 states offered ARC programs in special education, an increase of 19 states since 1991. Recently, it was found that 34 states offer more than 175 different ARC options, with California and Texas accounting for the largest number (Rosenberg, Boyer, Sindelar, & Misra, 2003). Analyses of the School and Staffing Survey (Connelly, 2003) indicate that over 15% of those who hold certification in special education earned it through an ARC; among those who are uncredentialed and seeking certification, 24% report being in an ARC program. Factors contributing to the proliferation of ARC in special education include (a) the persistent and growing shortage of special education teachers affecting over 800,000 students with disabilities, (b) the acute need for personnel from underrepresented groups, and (c) criticism from political action groups outside the profession and professionals within the profession (e.g., Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 1999) that traditional approaches to teacher preparation are self-serving, bloated, and over-regulatory. Unfortunately, our collective knowledge base of ARC programs in special education does not match either the growth or current levels of interest in and advocacy for such programs. Rosenberg and Sindelar (2001), in a comprehensive review of the literature, found very little on the nature and efficacy of specific programs in the professional literature. They asserted that the avail able literature represented merely the tip of the ARC iceberg and that a large underground economy for teaching credentials is in place in many areas of the nation. CLD recognizes the need for highly qualified general and special education teachers. For those responsible for the recruitment and retention of qualified special education professionals, in particular, there is a most troubling trend: As the number of children with special education needs increase, it is increasingly difficult to find highly qualified personnel who want to pursue a career in special education. …

The New Political Infamy and the Sacrilege of Feminism

Abstract: This essay is about women being crucial to the constitution of the state and the construction of the ideal of the nation. It argues that the role of actual women as reproducers of the nation and as iconic representations of mythological figures at the helm of nation building is bound up with a certain psychical fantasy of woman. It argues further that Women in Black and other political activist groups have developed embodied feminist politics that not only bring the feminine body into public view during wartime but also undermine the place of the good woman as the reproducer of the nation who mourns only for the lost soldiers of her people.

Muslims in U.S. Politics: Recognized and Integrated, or Seduced and Abandoned?

A Muslims have been in the United States for more than a century, they have mostly lived on the margins of its political life. On the one hand, their small numbers, ethnic diversity, and lack of experience in playing the democratic game have impeded their political integration. On the other hand, the inertia of traditional American antipathy toward Arabs and Muslims and the political and religious domestic interests of both the Zionist lobby and the Christian Right have managed to keep them out of the mainstream.1 Their reluctance to participate in the democratic process was finally put aside during the 2000 presidential election, when a coalition of Arab-American and Muslim political action groups launched a voter registration drive, endorsed the Bush-Cheney ticket, and contributed financially to the Republican party.2 While the community is gathering statistics at the instigation of Governor Jeb Bush on how many Muslims voted in Florida, they continue to believe that they were the margin of difference that delivered the presidency. (According to some estimates, over two thirds of Arab and Muslim voters cast their ballot for the Republican ticket, including 90 percent of the Muslim voters of Florida, estimated at over 70,000.) They have also been credited with a higher voter turnout than the general American electorate. Their elation at their success in making a difference is being slowly dissipated as they face a continuation of the policies of the past. These policies were defined and pursued during the last three decades according to “American security” and “national interests” by both Republican and Democratic administrations. These interests

Program‐Length Commercials and Host Selling by the WWF

Whether for automobiles, universities, golf courses, or ski slopes, the basic raison d’etre for ratings systems is identical: to enable consumers to make more informed choices by attaching meaningful labels to competing offerings. For example, to help potential viewers make more informed decisions about which movies to watch, the Motion Picture Association of America adopted a voluntary ratings system that signals violent, sexual, or adult-oriented content. To help voters make informed decisions on election-day, a political action group may rate candidates based on their stated positions and voting records. Unfortunately, negative and unintended consequences may attend the use of any ratings system, such as the one now used in the United States to rate television programs. This age-based ratings system creates a forbidden fruit effect, which according to the theory of psychological reactance occurs when freedoms are restricted (i.e., people are motivated to assert their independence by performing forbidden acts). For example, violent television programming becomes more attractive to children when viewership is restricted, by advisories or ratings. Such behavior did not go unnoticed by the entertainment industry. The recent U.S. Federal Trade Commission report on violence in the media confirmed that Hollywood has targeted underaged youths for violent movies, music, and video games, even when such materials are labeled as adult-only fare.

Mind the Gap: The Philosophy of Gillian Rose

This article explores the implications of Gillian Rose's social and political theory of modernity. For Rose, modernity not only construes `the autonomous moral subject as free within the order of representations and unfree within its preconditions and outcomes' (1996: 57), it is also `the working out of that combination' (ibid.). The implications of this view are explored below, concentrating in particular on the way Rose tackled the aporias and contradictions of modern sociology and social theory. Its conclusion is twofold. First, that Rose retrieves the absolute as fundamental to the meaning of social and political critique, and second that, in the face of demands for radical political action, not least in Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach, it is the religious dimension of our political experience that has been consistently overlooked. It is my argument that, in her concept of `the broken middle', Rose does not overcome the gap between theory and practice, but she does comprehend it as a way of life, one characterized by human struggling and failing. This way of life calls us to `mind the gap'.

"Ruinous Mixture": Godwin, Enclosure and the Associated Self

The subject of property is the key-stone that completes the fabric of political justice. --William Godwin, Political Justice (2.420) The purpose ... of early instruction is not absolute. It is of less importance, generally speaking, that a child should acquire this or that species of knowledge, than that, through the medium of instruction, he should acquire habits of intellectual activity. It is not so much for the direct consideration of what he learns, that his mind not be suffered to lie idle. The preceptor in this respect is like the incloser of uncultivated land; his first crops are not valued for their intrinsic excellence; they are sown that the land may be brought into order. The springs of the mind, like the joints of the body, are apt to grow stiff for want of employment. They must be exercised in various directions and with unabating perseverance. In a word, the first lesson of a judicious education is, Learn to think, to discriminate, to remember and to inquire. --William Godwin, The Enquirer(1) ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY CITED JUDGMENTS OF GODWIN'S WORK and of his place in the British radical tradition of the 1790's is William Hazlitt's claim, in The Spirit of the Age, that no one more talked of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice the theme, his name not far off. he continued, was as a Tom Fool to him, Paley an old woman, Burke a flashy sophist.(2) Godwin has rarely fared so well since that time. Marilyn Butler's account, in her Introductory Essay to Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy is a bit more reserved: [n]o other production of the pamphlet war achieved the impact or the notoriety of Paine's Rights of Man, but coupled with it, Political Justice, she argues, remains one of the most significant publications of the era.(3) Much of the critical debate about Godwin's work focuses on just this question: what is his place in the radical tradition? Most studies rightly pay particular attention to his (rather critical) relationship with the leaders of the political association movement as a central context for his work. But readers--in our day as in Godwin's--have been quite divided on the question of Godwin's commitment to revolutionary principles.(4) Mark Philp has made a compelling argument that E. P. Thompson's critique that Godwin not seriously engaged in radical political action (which he takes more seriously than as a merely polemical use of Godwin to make his case against contemporary Marxists) mis-characterises Godwinism (228). And Butler has called attention to Godwin's great courage during the repressive years from 1792-94 in defending radicals accused of treason and criticizing all forms of government.(5) Philp argues that Godwin and his circle, who played a pivotal role in the development and testing of the premises of Political Justice, sought to transform a theoretical discourse based on private into a practical reality. He also asserts that Godwin's readers--in particular his immediate circle of Rational Dissenters--would have recognized that private involved a duty to act (228-30). Indeed, Philp goes so far as to say that this context (of Godwin's close circle) makes his much mocked optimism about the eventual withering away of government as individuals govern themselves by the dictates of reason and mutual correction intellectually defensible and empirically grounded. This group, Philp argues, actually practiced the kind of rationally self-regulating and cohesive mutual self-government Godwin advocated (96-98; 170-74). Since Philp's influential argument articulates the grounding of Godwin's conception of private which I take as my subject, it merits a brief discussion here. Philp argues that Godwin owes his central belief in the sanctity of private judgment to the tradition of Rational Dissent.(6) Godwin not simply aware of this tradition, but was, more crucially, steeped in its intellectual heritage and practically involved in its social circles. …

Loose Talk

ABSTRACT In order to be a radical political activity, lesbian theory has to resist heterosexual dominance and the terms in which that dominance and mastery are inscribed. How can this be done? This paper uses Jacques Lacan's theory of the Four Discourses to examine the discursive and subject positions involved in critical analysis of psychoanalytic theory itself. Feminist cultural analysts have attempted to adopt the position of the hysteric in critiquing the master narrative of Freud. As Jacobus (1986) shows, Freud was himself subject to hysteria in producing narratives of women and femininity. Feminist and lesbian critiques, in their attachment to woman, risk repeating the oversight of the hysteric and the analyst (and reinforcing mastery) by continuing to view sexuality in terms of a bisexuality composed of masculine and feminine components. Perhaps what is needed is an attempt to produce a discourse of perversion - not produced by Lacan - beyond the phallus and beyond the constructions of the man/woman thing.

The Ethnography of Transnational Social Activism: Understanding the Global as Local Practice

Through a study of two contemporary U.S. religio‐political movements, I analyze globalization as a process in which social actors appropriate distinctive kinds of global imagery and rhetoric to create new forms of activism. I document and contrast the development of transnational identities among two groups of political activists and examine the unique but shifting historical conditions underlying these differences. Rather than begin with "globalization" as a structural given, I explore the "global" as itself a constructed context of political identity and practice. I include a discussion of my own discovery that my anthropological terms of analysis were often shared by the second group of political activists under study, and I explore how and why this happened, [globalization, social movements, political economy and culture, global civil society]

Afro-Americans and Moral Suasion: The Debate in the 1830's

Moral suasion, and abolitionist movement which inspired and propelled it for about decade between 1830-1840, have traditionally been conceived as offshoots of activities of white abolitionists, particularly William Lloyd Garrison and his New England Anti-Slavery Society. Blacks, according to this view, derived their abolitionist impetus and ethos from whites. Not surprisingly, black abolitionists rejected this paternalistic explanation, and claimed credit for inaugurating anti-slavery crusade. White abolitionists, including Garrison, blacks countered, began their careers as colonizationists (deemed pro-slavery), and only became abolitionists and anti-slavery after they had come under influence of blacks. This contention is perhaps, most forcefully defended by Martin Delany.(1) Unfortunately, there is a dearth of specialized study of moral suasion, despite tremendous interest that abolitionism generated and continues to generate among scholars. Reflecting pervasive character of paternalism, existing studies, with notable exceptions, portray moral suasion as creation of white abolitionists, best exemplified by Garrisonians.(2) Though moral suasion as a well defined abolitionist ideology is identified with Garrison, its historical root as a reform strategy is much deeper, going as far back as to tradition of Quakers, and among African-Americans to self-help and cooperative activities of free blacks in New York and Pennsylvania in eighteenth century. These two abolitionists (i.e., Quakers and free blacks), espoused and advanced values that would later surface in Garrisonian ideology. The official adoption of moral suasion by Garrisonians occurred in 1832 with launching of New England Anti-Slavery Society. This was followed in 1833 with founding of American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia by a group of between fifty to sixty abolitionists from about ten states. Their strategy, as Gerald Sorin shows, entailed pursuit of abolition through non-violence. They pledged to work for the destruction of error by potency of truth . . . overthrow of prejudice by power of love . . . abolition of slavery by spirit of repentance.(3) These events happened after First National Negro Convention in Philadelphia in 1831, at which blacks acknowledged their problems and shortcomings, and expressed faith in redemptive power of moral suasion by pledging to work strenuously to encourage simplicity, neatness, temperance and economy in our habits in order to disprove preconceived notions and prejudices.(4) Subsequent conventions amplified tiffs moral suasionist ethics, climaxing with formation of American Moral Reform Society in 1835. Change was deemed result, not of violence, or some other forms of radical political activities, but of pursuit and realization of ideals of moral suasion. Pro-slavery advocates and racial conservatives justified discriminatory policies on alleged deficiencies inherent in character and conditions of blacks. Blacks, according to popular reasoning, were disadvantaged and degraded in consequence of behavioral and situational imperfections - that they were lazy, ignorant, backward and morally decadent. Though racial conservatives described these traits as inherent, perhaps even divinely conditioned, and, therefore, permanent, blacks were somehow optimistic that a serious attempt to alleviate deficiencies would appeal favorably to moral conscience of all advocates of black subordination, and thus usher in a new social, economic and political order that would not only accommodate and elevate blacks, but also concede their long denied rights and privileges. Moral suasion espoused a moral definition of slavery and racism, a view many members of emerging black middle class accepted. It was an integrative and optimistic ideology, informed by faith in potency of universal values - values that supposedly impacted humanity equally. …

From Philanthropy to Activism: The Political Transformation of American Zionism in the Holocaust Years, 1933-1945 (review)

146 SHOFAR Winter 1996 Vol. 14, No.2 and those from the "annexed territories" discriminated against Jews, nonetheless achieved a new level ofcommitmenttoward displaced persons by the American government. As it turned out, loose administration of the law allowed many more Jews to enter than the bill's authors intended. Genizi has written neither a dramatic nor a broadly conceived account, but one that contributes findings useful to the restructuring of our whole approach to the question of the role of antisemitism in immigration restriction before, during, and after the war. His findings concerning the crucial role voluntary agencies played in all periods suggest that they had far more to do with American refugee policy than previous views have allowed. Robert H. Abzug Department of History University of Texas From Philanthropy to Activism: The Political Transformation of American Zionism in the Holocaust Years, 1933-1945, by David H. Shpiro. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1994. 208 pp. $79.00 (£49.50). Zionism has become a cornerstone of American Jewish life. Every major Jewish organization supports the state of Israel's right to exist. A summer in Israel has become the standard reward for completing one's high school Jewish education, while increasing numbers ofJewish college students choose to spend their junior year studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv University. Pro-Israel political action groups lobby the U.s. Congress in Washington, and thousands ofAmerican Jews board El AI jets every year as participants in a variety of missions to Israel. Even the once non-Zionist Reform movement boasts its own Zionist wing, the American Reform Zionist Association (ARZA). In From Philanthropy to Activism, David H. Shpiro reminds us that this was not always the case. He takes us back to a time when an American Jewish embrace of Zionism wrought profound fears of dual loyalty. While some American Jews, most notably Louis Brandeis, offered an ideological justification for American Zionism in the years before 1933, few of organized Jewry's major power brokers risked anything more than a philanthropic relationship to the Zionist movement in Europe and Palestine. America remained their promised land: any embrace of political Zionism compromised the good civic standing of American Jewry. Book Reviews 147 By 1945, though, all of that had changed. Jewish leaders from across the ideological spectrum called for the creation of an independent Jewish commonwealth in Palestine. A once splintered and hopelessly divided Jewish community forged important new bonds and, after years of infighting, launched a more unified campaign for Jewish national independence. "American Zionism," according to Shpiro, "had been converted from an apolitical, philanthropic entity into a powerful, wellorganized political influence group" (p. xi). Shpiro's book traces this transformation. Shpiro divides his book into seven chapters, arranged chronologically. After an introduction summarizingAmerican Zionism in the early twentieth century, Shpiro documents the internal feuding, strategic differences, and fear of overseas entanglement which paralyzed the movement from 1933 until at least 1942. The Jewish community faced an impossible predicament in these years: ideological disagreements split American Jewry from within, while any outward criticism of the British mandate in Palestine risked offending a powerful nation at war with the Jews' most brutal enemy. On the domestic scene, Jewish leaders feared that their calls for a Zionist state would fuel isolationist claims of American Jewish warmongering . little could be done in these years to bolster the Zionist cause. This bleak outlook improved in 1942 when American Zionists, gathered together at the Biltmore Conference, overcame many of their internal differences to forge a common political goal, "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the neW democratic world" (p. 101). The conference, which Shpiro identifies as a "watershed in the history of the Zionist movement in that it set forth, for the first time, a clear political goal for the movement," signaled two major changes in American Jewish life: sobering news accounts of Nazi atrocities reminded American Jews that they carried the lion's share of responsibility for their overseas brethren, and u.s. entry into the war freed the Zionist leadership to speak out more aggressively against Hitler (p. 71). In the final chapters, Shpiro focuses on...