This collection of 14 essays, generated by a 1990 conference on the Vietnam antiwar movement, analyzes movement strategies, the role of the military and women in resistance, and the movement in the schools. [Publishers Weekly].
John Lennon was the world's biggest rock star in the late Sixties. With his new wife Yoko Ono, the duo were icons of the peace movement denouncing the Vietnam War. In 1969, at the height of their popularity, they headed to Canada. Canada was already a politically charged place. In 1968, Pierre Elliott Trudeau rode a wave of popularity dubbed Trudeaumania for its similarities to the Beatlemania of the era. The sexual revolution, hippie culture, the New Left and the peace movement were challenging norms, frightening the authorities and provoking backlash. Quebec nationalism was putting the power of the English-speaking minority running the province on the defensive, and threatening the breakup of the country. John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged a "bed-in for peace" at an upscale downtown Montreal hotel. The couple, aided by the CBC, saw a steady stream of journalists, musicians and activists arriving for interviews, political discussions, singing and art-making. The classic "Give Peace A Chance" was recorded there with the help of local Quebecois musicians. Three months later they were back in Canada with Eric Clapton and other friends to play a concert festival in Toronto arranged by local promoters. American acts like Little Richard, The Doors, Bo Diddley and Alice Cooper, along with many Canadian pop musicians of the time, played at the festival. At year's end, the duo met with Prime Minister Trudeau in Ottawa. By this time Trudeau was cracking down on dissent, mainly in Quebec, and falling out of favour with the counterculture crowd, John and Yoko included. Recounting the story of these events, historian Greg Marquis offers a unique portrayal of Canadian society in the late Sixties, recounting how politicians, activists, police, artists, musicians and businesses across Canada reacted to John and Yoko's presence and message. John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year Canada Was Cool is an illuminating and entertaining read for anyone interested in this fascinating moment in Canadian history.
In Give Peace a Chance, the distinguished Dr. Hamburg teams up with his filmmaker son to tell the story of selected significant peace achievements over the past 25 years. Including lessons from personal experience, pithy quotes from interviews with international dignitaries, and the insights of a documentary sensibility, this book reflects upon striking moments in peace history and inflects them with the perspective of preventive medicine. From Jane Goodall's rainforest research station, to a hostage taking in Eastern Africa, to the Reagan-Gorbachev post-summit epiphany in Reykjavik, the Hamburgs take us there. They then distill the wisdom of these and many other encounters into an essential "six pillars of prevention"-education, early action, democracy building, socioeconomic development, human rights, and arms control. These six pillars are essential not only to reflections upon the past, but to future prospects emerging from recent challenges to peace-the Arab Spring, the violent repression in Syria, and the brewing faceoff with Iran. Features of this engaging text: Combines personal experience(including involvement in a hostage rescue mission) with ongoing research in a variety of areas over 50+ years. Includes feature quotes and vignettes from international figures including Kofi Annan, Sam Nunn, and Hillary Clinton, among many others. Builds upon six key pillars of prevention: education, early warning, democracy, development, human rights, and arms control. Concludes with prescriptions for peace action in four key areas: the US and Western democracies, the UN, the EU, and NATO. Offers carefully selected Recommended Readings for every chapter. See Stanford University's website for twenty-nine videotaped interviews with world leaders in the prevention of mass violence at http://lib.stanford.edu/preventing-genocide/list-interviews
This monograph offers a unique analysis of social protest in popular music. It presents theoretical descriptions, methodological tools, and an approach that encompasses various fields of musicology, cultural studies, semiotics, discourse analysis, media studies, and political and social sciences. The author argues that protest songs should be taken as a musical genre on their own. He points out that the general approach, when discussing these songs, has been so far that of either analyzing the lyrics or the social context. For some reason, the music itself has been often overlooked. This book attempts to fill this gap. Its central thesis is that a complete overview of these repertoires demands a thorough interaction among contextual, lyrical, and musical elements together. To accomplish this, the author develops a novel model that systemizes and investigates musical repertoires. The model is then applied to four case studies, those, too, chosen among topics that are little (or not at all) frequented by scholars.
This lyrical biography explores the life and art of Yoko Ono, from her childhood haiku to her avant-garde visual art and experimental music. An outcast throughout most of her life, and misunderstood by every group she was supposed to belong to, Yoko always followed her own unique vision to create art that was ahead of its time and would later be celebrated. Her focus remained on being an artist, even when the rest of world saw her only as the wife of John Lennon. Yoko Ono’s moving story will inspire any young adult who has ever felt like an outsider, or who is developing or questioning ideas about being an artist, to follow their dreams and find beauty in all that surrounds them.