Robert Jefferson Norrell's Books

Up from History

The Life of Booker T. Washington

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell,Robert J. Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Up from History

The Life of Booker T. Washington

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell,Robert J. Norrell

Since the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr., has personified black leadership with his use of direct action protests against white authority. A century ago, in the era of Jim Crow, Booker T. Washington pursued a different strategy to lift his people. In this compelling biography, Norrell reveals how conditions in the segregated South led Washington to call for a less contentious path to freedom and equality. He urged black people to acquire economic independence and to develop the moral character that would ultimately gain them full citizenship. Although widely accepted as the most realistic way to integrate blacks into American life during his time, WashingtonÕs strategy has been disparaged since the 1960s. The first full-length biography of Booker T. in a generation, Up from History recreates the broad contexts in which Washington worked: He struggled against white bigots who hated his economic ambitions for blacks, African-American intellectuals like W. E. B. Du Bois who resented his huge influence, and such inconstant allies as Theodore Roosevelt. Norrell details the positive power of WashingtonÕs vision, one that invoked hope and optimism to overcome past exploitation and present discrimination. Indeed, his ideas have since inspired peoples across the Third World that there are many ways to struggle for equality and justice. Up from History reinstates this extraordinary historical figure to the pantheon of black leaders, illuminating not only his mission and achievement but also, poignantly, the man himself.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

523

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674060377

ISBN 13

9780674060371

Up from History

The Life of Booker T. Washington

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell,Robert J. Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Up from History

The Life of Booker T. Washington

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell,Robert J. Norrell

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

523

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674060377

ISBN 13

9780674060371

The House I Live In

Race in the American Century

By: Robert J. Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The House I Live In

Race in the American Century

By: Robert J. Norrell

In The House I Live In, award-winning historian Robert J. Norrell offers a truly masterful chronicle of American race relations over the last one hundred and fifty years. This scrupulously fair and insightful narrative--the most ambitious and wide-ranging history of its kind--sheds new light on the ideologies, from white supremacy to black nationalism, that have shaped race relations since the Civil War. Norrell argues that it is these ideologies, more than politics or economics, that have sculpted the landscape of race in America. Beginning with Reconstruction, he shows how the democratic values of liberty and equality were infused with new meaning by Abraham Lincoln, only to become meaningless for generations of African Americans as the white supremacy movement took shape. The heart of the book paints a vivid portrait of the long, often dangerous struggle of the Civil Rights movement to overcome decades of accepted inequality. Norrell offers fresh appraisals of key Civil Rights figures and dissects the ideas of racists. He offers striking new insights into black-white history, observing for instance that the Civil Rights movement really began as early as the 1930s, and that contrary to much recent writing, the Cold War was a setback rather than a boost to the quest for racial justice. He also breaks new ground on the role of popular culture and mass media in first promoting, but later helping defeat, notions of white supremacy. Though the struggle for equality is far from over, Norrell writes that today we are closer than ever to fulfilling the promise of our democratic values. The House I Live In gives readers the first full understanding of how far we have come.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

400

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198023774

ISBN 13

9780198023777

Reaping the Whirlwind

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Reaping the Whirlwind

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell

Bringing us close to the complex history of the civil rights movement in the American South—the currents that involved thousands of communities and millions of individual lives—this book looks deeply into the experiences of a single Alabama town, Tuskegee, and its surrounding Macon County. It is based on interviews with the people—white and black, liberal and traditional—whose lives were caught up in the movement and altered forever. We see Tuskegee in the early 1940s, seat of America’s most venerable institute of high education for blacks, an important symbol of black progress—yet almost entirely controlled by a white power structure—and we see the emergence of a charismatic leader, Charles G. Gomillion, who defied Tuskegee Institutes’ apolitical traditions and inspired blacks to organize for their right to vote. Thus begins decades of struggle, which Robert J. Norrell re-creates for us through the testimony of the people who lived and shaped this history: the dramatic appearance before a U.S. congressional committee of local civil rights leaders and ordinary farmers bearing witness to the seemingly endless obstructions to block voter registration; the months-long boycott of white Tuskegee merchants that was sparked by the city council’s attempt to exclude black voters by gerrymandering; the fiercely controversial move to integrate the public schools that culminated in Governor George Wallace’s order to state troopers to prevent the opening of Tuskegee High; the anguish that accompanied efforts by blacks to penetrate all-white church congregations. Norrell describes how blacks enters—and won—local elections, including those for mayor and sheriff, and how, with the onset of heightened activism in the late 1960s, Gomillion and other established leaders of the civil rights movement heard angry youthful voices raised against their cautious approach. Reaping the Whirlwind carries us through the early 1970s to a community profoundly changed, proud to have shed its false air of harmony, gradually coming to terms with the disorder and dissension of the preceding years. It is a moving and significant chronicle that documents a critical era in the nation’s history.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

371

Publisher

Knopf

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307828514

ISBN 13

9780307828514

Alex Haley and the Books That Changed a Nation

By: Robert J. Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Alex Haley and the Books That Changed a Nation

By: Robert J. Norrell

It is difficult to think of two twentieth century books by one author that have had as much influence on American culture when they were published as Alex Haley's monumental bestsellers, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), and Roots (1976). They changed the way white and black America viewed each other and the country's history. This first biography of Haley follows him from his childhood in relative privilege in deeply segregated small town Tennessee to fame and fortune in high powered New York City. It was in the Navy, that Haley discovered himself as a writer, which eventually led his rise as a star journalist in the heyday of magazine personality profiles. At Playboy Magazine, Haley profiled everyone from Martin Luther King and Miles Davis to Johnny Carson and Malcolm X, leading to their collaboration on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Roots was for Haley a deeper, more personal reach. The subsequent book and miniseries ignited an ongoing craze for family history, and made Haley one of the most famous writers in the country. Roots sold half a million copies in the first two months of publication, and the original television miniseries was viewed by 130 million people. Haley died in 1992. This deeply researched and compelling book by Robert J. Norrell offers the perfect opportunity to revisit his authorship, his career as one of the first African American star journalists, as well as an especially dramatic time of change in American history.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

274

Publisher

Macmillan + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466879319

ISBN 13

9781466879317

How History Was Used in the Wars of the Twentieth Century

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

By: Robert J. Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

How History Was Used in the Wars of the Twentieth Century

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

By: Robert J. Norrell

How History Was Used in the Wars of the Twentieth Century: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace looks at how historical thinking shaped decisions for war and peace in Germany and the United States during the twentieth century. It examines the writing and public careers of the leading historians in each nation. Robert J. Norrell suggests it is useful to analyze where the discipline of history has succeeded and failed to understand war and the many attempts to institute lasting peace. The narrative of this book testifies to the avid commitment of historians, statesmen, and the public to understanding the past and how these lessons and perspectives can influence the present.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

237

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1666941972

ISBN 13

9781666941975

Like a Family

The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World

By: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall,James L. Leloudis,Robert R. Korstad,Mary Murphy,Lu Ann Jones

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Like a Family

The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World

By: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall,James L. Leloudis,Robert R. Korstad,Mary Murphy,Lu Ann Jones

Since its original publication in 1987, Like a Family has become a classic in the study of American labor history. Basing their research on a series of extraordinary interviews, letters, and articles from the trade press, the authors uncover the voices and experiences of workers in the Southern cotton mill industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Now with a new afterword, this edition stands as an invaluable contribution to American social history. "The genius of Like a Family lies in its effortless integration of the history of the family--particularly women--into the history of the cotton-mill world.--Ira Berlin, New York Times Book Review "Like a Family is history, folklore, and storytelling all rolled into one. It is a living, revelatory chronicle of life rarely observed by the academe. A powerhouse.--Studs Terkel "Here is labor history in intensely human terms. Neither great impersonal forces nor deadening statistics are allowed to get in the way of people. If students of the New South want both the dimensions and the feel of life and labor in the textile industry, this book will be immensely satisfying.--Choice

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

541

Publisher

UNC Press Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807882941

ISBN 13

9780807882948

The African American Experience

An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide

By: Arvarh E. Strickland,Robert E. Weems Jr.

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The African American Experience

An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide

By: Arvarh E. Strickland,Robert E. Weems Jr.

Compared to the early decades of the 20th century, when scholarly writing on African Americans was limited to a few titles on slavery, Reconstruction, and African American migration, the last thirty years have witnessed an explosion of works on the African American experience. With the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s came an increasing demand for the study and teaching of African American history followed by the publication of increasing numbers of titles on African American life and history. This volume provides a comprehensive bibliographical and analytical guide to this growing body of literature as well as an analysis of how the study of African Americans has changed.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

455

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0313065004

ISBN 13

9780313065002

Self-Rule

A Cultural History of American Democracy

By: Robert H. Wiebe

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Self-Rule

A Cultural History of American Democracy

By: Robert H. Wiebe

AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart One: The American Exception 1820s-1890s1. Democracy2. The Barbarians3. The People4. In or OutPart Two: Metamorphosis 1890s-1920s5. Sinking the Lower Class6. Raising Hierarchies7. Dissolving the PeoplePart Three: Modern Democracy 1920s-1990s8. The Individual9. The State10. Internal WarsConclusionNotesSpecial Debts and Further ReadingsIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

346

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226895637

ISBN 13

9780226895635

The Divided Skies

Establishing Segregated Flight Training at Tuskegee, Alabama, 1934-1942

By: Robert J. Jakeman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Divided Skies

Establishing Segregated Flight Training at Tuskegee, Alabama, 1934-1942

By: Robert J. Jakeman

Process theology likes to compare itself favorably to what it calls classical theism. This book takes that comparison seriously and examines process theology's claim to do better than classical theism. Jakeman tells the story of the people and events behind the establishment of the segregated flight training program at Tuskegee. He begins by recounting Tuskegee Institute's first tentative efforts to enter the field of aviation during the mid 1930s and concludes with the graduation of the first class of black pilots in early 1942. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

433

Publisher

University of Alabama Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0817308598

ISBN 13

9780817308599

For Jobs and Freedom

Race and Labor in America since 1865

By: Robert H. Zieger

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

For Jobs and Freedom

Race and Labor in America since 1865

By: Robert H. Zieger

Whether as slaves or freedmen, the political and social status of African Americans has always been tied to their ability to participate in the nation's economy. Freedom in the post–Civil War years did not guarantee equality, and African Americans from emancipation to the present have faced the seemingly insurmountable task of erasing pervasive public belief in the inferiority of their race. For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 describes the African American struggle to obtain equal rights in the workplace and organized labor's response to their demands. Award-winning historian Robert H. Zieger asserts that the promise of jobs was similar to the forty-acres-and-a-mule restitution pledged to African Americans during the Reconstruction era. The inconsistencies between rhetoric and action encouraged workers, both men and women, to organize themselves into unions to fight against unfair hiring practices and workplace discrimination. Though the path proved difficult, unions gradually obtained rights for African American workers with prominent leaders at their fore. In 1925, A. Philip Randolph formed the first black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, to fight against injustices committed by the Pullman Company, an employer of significant numbers of African Americans. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) emerged in 1935, and its population quickly swelled to include over 500,000 African American workers. The most dramatic success came in the 1960s with the establishment of affirmative action programs, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title VII enforcement measures prohibiting employer discrimination based on race. Though racism and unfair hiring practices still exist today, motivated individuals and leaders of the labor movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries laid the groundwork for better conditions and greater opportunities. Unions, with some sixteen million members currently in their ranks, continue to protect workers against discrimination in the expanding economy. For Jobs and Freedom is the first authoritative treatment in more than two decades of the race and labor movement, and Zieger's comprehensive and authoritative book will be standard reading on the subject for years to come.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

311

Publisher

University Press of Kentucky

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813146631

ISBN 13

9780813146638

Selma’s Bloody Sunday

Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality

By: Robert A. Pratt

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Selma’s Bloody Sunday

Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality

By: Robert A. Pratt

Slow march toward freedom -- Seeds of protest -- Bloody Sunday -- My feets is tired, but my soul is rested -- A season of suffering

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

158

Publisher

JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1421421593

ISBN 13

9781421421599

Who We Are

A History of Popular Nationalism

By: Robert H. Wiebe

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Who We Are

A History of Popular Nationalism

By: Robert H. Wiebe

How did educated Westerners make an enemy of an inspiration that has changed the lives of billions? Why is nationalism synonymous with atavism, fanaticism, xenophobia, and bloodshed? In this book, Robert Wiebe argues that we too often conflate nationalism with what states do in its name. By indiscriminately blaming it for terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and military thuggery, we avoid reckoning with nationalism for what it is: the desire among people who believe they share a common ancestry and destiny to live under their own government on land sacred to their history. For at least a century and a half, nationalism has been an effective answer to basic questions of identity and connection in a fluid world. It quiets fears of cultural disintegration and allows people to pursue closer bonds and seek freedom. By looking at nationalism in this clearer light and by juxtaposing it with its two great companion and competitor movements--democracy and socialism--Wiebe is able to understand nationalism's deep appeal and assess its historical record. Because Europeans and their kin abroad monopolized nationalism before World War I, Wiebe begins with their story, identifying migration as a motive force and examining related developments in state building, race theory, church ambition, and linguistic innovation. After case studies of Irish, German, and Jewish nationalism, Wiebe moves to the United States. He discusses America's distinctive place in transatlantic history, emphasizing its liberal government, cultural diversity, and racism. He then traces nationalism's spread worldwide, evaluating its adaptability and limits on that adaptability. The state-dominated nationalism of Japan, Turkey, and Mexico are considered, followed by Pan-Africanism and Nigeria's anticolonial-postcolonial nationalism. Finally, Wiebe shows how nationalism became integrated into a genuinely global process by the 1970s, only to find itself competing at a disadvantage with god- and gun-driven alternatives. This book's original answers to imperative questions will meet with deep admiration and controversy. They will also change the terms on which nationalism is debated for years to come.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

305

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

069118867X

ISBN 13

9780691188676

We Want Jobs!

A Story of the Great Depression

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell,Norrelli

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

We Want Jobs!

A Story of the Great Depression

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell,Norrelli

Uses the experiences of an unemployed steel worker and his family in Pittsburgh to descirbe the events of the economic depression that gripped the country from 1929 through 1933.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

Publisher

Raintree

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811472299

ISBN 13

9780811472296

"Everybody was Black Down There"

Race and Industrial Change in the Alabama Coalfields

By: Robert H. Woodrum

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

"Everybody was Black Down There"

Race and Industrial Change in the Alabama Coalfields

By: Robert H. Woodrum

In 1930 almost 13,000 African Americans worked in the coal mines around Birmingham, Alabama. They made up 53 percent of the mining workforce and some 60 percent of their union's local membership. At the close of the twentieth century, only about 15 percent of Birmingham's miners were black, and the entire mining workforce had been sharply reduced. Robert H. Woodrum offers a challenging interpretation of why this dramatic decline occurred and why it happened during an era of strong union presence in the Alabama coalfields. Drawing on union, company, and government records as well as interviews with coal miners, Woodrum examines the complex connections between racial ideology and technological and economic change. Extending the chronological scope of previous studies of race, work, and unionization in the Birmingham coalfields, Woodrum covers the New Deal, World War II, the postwar era, the 1970s expansion of coalfield employment, and contemporary trends toward globalization. The United Mine Workers of America's efforts to bridge the color line in places like Birmingham should not be underestimated, says Woodrum. Facing pressure from the wider world of segregationist Alabama, however, union leadership ultimately backed off the UMWA's historic commitment to the rights of its black members. Woodrum discusses the role of state UMWA president William Mitch in this process and describes Birmingham's unique economic circumstances as an essentially Rust Belt city within the burgeoning Sun Belt South. This is a nuanced exploration of how, despite their central role in bringing the UMWA back to Alabama in the early 1930s, black miners remained vulnerable to the economic and technological changes that transformed the coal industry after World War II.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

329

Publisher

University of Georgia Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0820327395

ISBN 13

9780820327396

Eden Rise

By: Robert Jeff Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Eden Rise

By: Robert Jeff Norrell

In Eden Rise Tom McKee, a white college freshman, returns to his home in the Alabama Black Belt in the summer of 1965 and becomes embroiled in a civil-rights conflict that divides his family, his town, and his own identity. His wealthy and powerful family is not prepared for the shocks that have followed the racial quake of the Selma March a few months earlier. Tom’s black college friend accompanies him home and gets caught in racial violence. Coming to his friend’s defense, Tom earns the enmity of segregationist neighbors. He feels both the hot anger of his father for his racial nonconformity and the determined defense of his mother and grandmother, as he witnesses the corrosive effects of the turmoil on his parents’ marriage. Attempting to rescue him are a cousin he never knew and a wily old lawyer who meet dangers and legal challenges that force Tom to confront the truth of his legacy.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

290

Publisher

NewSouth Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1603061940

ISBN 13

9781603061940

Reaping the Whirlwind

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Reaping the Whirlwind

By: Robert Jefferson Norrell

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

371

Publisher

Knopf

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307828514

ISBN 13

9780307828514

Dictionary of American History

Supplement

By: Robert H. Ferrell,Joan Hoff

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Dictionary of American History

Supplement

By: Robert H. Ferrell,Joan Hoff

In 757 articles, of which 469 are on new topics, this supplement attempts to cover recent monumental changes in American civilization from the impact of foreign affairs, through domestic political events, Supreme Court decisions, medical and scientific discoveries, social changes, popular cultural evolution, and religious developments.

Average ratings

N/A