On Freedom and Revolt: A Comparative Investigation

On Freedom and Revolt: A Comparative Investigation

Author: Carl E. Moyler

Publisher:

Published: 2015-05-29

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9781498435208

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This book is dedicated to all those heroes and heroines who have seen and will see life as a daring adventure to be given in the name of service to humanity, to justice and to freedom. We know a few of them, but many others are lost among the nameless crowd. Albert Camus and Martin Luther King Jr are two first class role models who lived out their passions for justice and freedom. Today, they are among the heroes who are well remembered around the world. The following words seem appropriate to reflect what they stood for: "For all who have sought to make a difference in the lives of men by their service and life, and to lighten the dark places of the earth" (Source: inscription on the wall of the Civil Rights Museum, 16th street, Birmingham, Alabama, USA) (Author unknown). Camus and King were born, reared and lived as personal witnesses to the political, economical and social ravages of their time and place. Neither man was willing to stand in the presence of tyranny, oppression, racism, exploitation, murder, war and do nothing. Therefore their response, based on their calling, was a revolt for freedom. Camus was the moral conscience of thousands of people, young and old, in Europe, the United states, and other places. He was able to impart to generations past and present a vision of hope and courage that gave optimism to doubt and uncertainty. Likewise, Dr. King in his nonviolent American civil rights struggle has left a message for present and future times a philosophy of militant nonviolent revolt in the face of overwhelming nullification against himself and his followers that is infused with hope, justice and love. Comparing the writings of these two Nobel Laureates and international hero-scholars is put forth here as a contribution to the never ending quest for a more just, humane and rational world where we coexist in a civilized society in pursuit of being "My brother's keeper."


Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Author: John Foley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 9781844651412

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Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, encompassing philosophy, literature, politics and history, John Foley examines the full breadth of Camus' ideas to provide a comprehensive and rigorous study of his political and philosophical thought and a significant contribution to a range of debates current in Camus research. Foley argues that the coherence of Camus' thought can best be understood through a thorough understanding of the concepts of 'the absurd' and 'revolt' as well as the relation between them. This book includes a detailed discussion of Camus' writings for the newspaper "Combat", a systematic analysis of Camus' discussion of the moral legitimacy of political violence and terrorism, a reassessment of the prevailing postcolonial critique of Camus' humanism, and a sustained analysis of Camus' most important and frequently neglected work, "L'Homme revolte" (The Rebel).


For the Freedom of Zion

For the Freedom of Zion

Author: Guy MacLean Rogers

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2022-01-04

Total Pages: 744

ISBN-13: 0300262566

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A definitive account of the great revolt of Jews against Rome and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple “A lucid yet terrifying account of the 'Jewish War'—the uprising of the Jews in 66 CE, and the Roman empire’s savage response, in a story that stretches from Rome to Jerusalem.”—John Ma, Columbia University This deeply researched and insightful book examines the causes, course, and historical significance of the Jews’ failed revolt against Rome from 66 to 74 CE, including the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Based on a comprehensive study of all the evidence and new statistical data, Guy Rogers argues that the Jewish rebels fought for their religious and political freedom and lost due to military mistakes. Rogers contends that while the Romans won the war, they lost the peace. When the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, they thought that they had defeated the God of Israel and eliminated Jews as a strategic threat to their rule. Instead, they ensured the Jews’ ultimate victory. After their defeat Jews turned to the written words of their God, and following those words led the Jews to recover their freedom in the promised land. The war's tragic outcome still shapes the worldview of billions of people today.


The Rebel

The Rebel

Author: Albert Camus

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2012-09-19

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0307827836

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By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution that resonates as an ardent, eloquent, and supremely rational voice of conscience for our tumultuous times. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history. And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he shows how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny. Translated from the French by Anthony Bower.


The Amistad Rebellion

The Amistad Rebellion

Author: Marcus Rediker

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-11-08

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1101601051

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On June 28, 1839, the Spanish slave schooner Amistad set sail from Havana on a routine delivery of human cargo. On a moonless night, after four days at sea, the captive Africans rose up, killed the captain, and seized control of the ship. They attempted to sail to a safe port, but were captured by the U.S. Navy and thrown into jail in Connecticut. Their legal battle for freedom eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where their cause was argued by former president John Quincy Adams. In a landmark ruling, they were freed and eventually returned to Africa. The rebellion became one of the best-known events in the history of American slavery, celebrated as a triumph of the legal system in films and books, all reflecting the elite perspective of the judges, politicians, and abolitionists involved in the case. In this powerful and highly original account, Marcus Rediker reclaims the rebellion for its true proponents: the African rebels who risked death to stake a claim for freedom. Using newly discovered evidence, Rediker reframes the story to show how a small group of courageous men fought and won an epic battle against Spanish and American slaveholders and their governments. He reaches back to Africa to find the rebels’ roots, narrates their cataclysmic transatlantic journey, and unfolds a prison story of great drama and emotion. Featuring vividly drawn portraits of the Africans, their captors, and their abolitionist allies, he shows how the rebels captured the popular imagination and helped to inspire and build a movement that was part of a grand global struggle between slavery and freedom. The actions aboard the Amistad that July night and in the days and months that followed were pivotal events in American and Atlantic history, but not for the reasons we have always thought. The successful Amistad rebellion changed the very nature of the struggle against slavery. As a handful of self-emancipated Africans steered their own course to freedom, they opened a way for millions to follow. This stunning book honors their achievement.


Lust for Liberty

Lust for Liberty

Author: Samuel Kline COHN

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0674029674

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Lust for Liberty challenges long-standing views of popular medieval revolts. Comparing rebellions in northern and southern Europe over two centuries, Samuel Cohn analyzes their causes and forms, their leadership, the role of women, and the suppression or success of these revolts. Popular revolts were remarkably common--not the last resort of desperate people. Leaders were largely workers, artisans, and peasants. Over 90 percent of the uprisings pitted ordinary people against the state and were fought over political rights--regarding citizenship, governmental offices, the barriers of ancient hierarchies--rather than rents, food prices, or working conditions. After the Black Death, the connection of the word liberty with revolts increased fivefold, and its meaning became more closely tied with notions of equality instead of privilege. The book offers a new interpretation of the Black Death and the increase of and change in popular revolt from the mid-1350s to the early fifteenth century. Instead of structural explanations based on economic, demographic, and political models, this book turns to the actors themselves--peasants, artisans, and bourgeois--finding that the plagues wrought a new urgency for social and political change and a new self- and class-confidence in the efficacy of collective action.


The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825

The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825

Author: Manuel Barcia Paz

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2012-06-06

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0807143332

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In June 1825 the Cuban countryside witnessed a large African-led slave rebellion -- a revolt that began a cycle of slave uprisings lasting until the mid-1840s. The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825 examines this movement and its participants for the first time, highlighting the significance of African warriors in New World plantation society. Unlike previous slave revolts -- led by alliances between free people of color and slaves, blacks and mulattoes, Africans and Creoles, and rural and urban populations -- only African-born men organized the uprising of 1825. From this year onwards, Barcia argues, slave uprisings in Cuba underwent a phase of Africanization that concluded only in the mid-1840s with the conspiracy of La Escalera, a large movement organized by free colored men with ample participation of the slave population. The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825 offers a detailed examination of the sociopolitical and economic background of the Matanzas rebellion, both locally and colonially. Based on extensive primary sources, particularly court records, the study provides a microhistorical analysis of the days that preceded this event, the uprising itself, and the days and months that followed. Barcia gives the Great African Revolt of 1825 its rightful place in the history of slavery in Cuba, the Caribbean, and the Americas.


The Cargo Rebellion

The Cargo Rebellion

Author: Jason Chang

Publisher: PM Press

Published: 2023-03-07

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13: 1629639796

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The Cargo Rebellion tells a true story of mutiny on the high seas in which four hundred indentured Chinese men overthrew their captor, the Connecticut businessman and slave trader Leslie Bryson, taking a stand against an exploitative global enterprise. The laborers learned that Bryson’s claimed destination of San Francisco was a lie to trick them into deadly servitude in the dreaded guano islands of Peru. Reaching a dramatic tipping point, the mutineers rose up and killed Bryson and several of the ship's officers and then attempted to sail back to China. This book's centerpiece, a deft graphic account of the rebellion in the context of the “coolie trade” and the struggle to end traffic in human “cargo,” is supported by essays that spotlight the rebellion itself, how the subject of indentured Asian workers is being taught in classrooms, and how Chinese workers shaped the evolution of American music, particularly in the making of the first drum set. The Cargo Rebellion is a history from below that does justice to the memory of hundreds of thousands of indentured workers and demonstrates how Asian migration to the Americas was rooted in slavery, colonialism, and the life-and-death struggle against servitude.


The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

Author: Martin Gurri

Publisher: Stripe Press

Published: 2018-12-04

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 1953953344

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How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.