Sunday, January 19, 2020

The Art of Resistance - My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir - REVIEW


The Art of Resistance - My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir 
by Justus Rosenberg 

     An unforgettable memoir written by a 98-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor about his escape from Nazi-controlled Danzig in the 1930's and his adventures with the French Resistance during World War II In 1937, as the Nazi Party tightened its grip on the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Justus Rosenberg's parents made the heart-wrenching decision to send their son to Paris, where he would have the hope of finishing high school and going on to university in safety. He was sixteen years old, and he would not see his family again for sixteen years more. When the Nazis pushed toward Paris in the spring of 1940, Justus was penniless, in danger, cut off from contact with his family in Poland, and forced to flee south. 

     A chance meeting led him to Varian Fry, an American journalist in Marseille who ran a clandestine network that helped thousands of artists and intellectuals escape the Nazis, among them Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, and Max Ernst. 
With Justus' German background and fluency in several languages, including English, he became an invaluable member of Fry's network as a spy and scout. For the subsequent four years, Justus relied on his wits and skills to escape captivity, survive several close calls with death, and continue his fight against the Nazis, working with the French Resistance and later becoming attached with the United States Army. At the war's end, he emigrated to America and built a new life. 

     Featuring never-before-seen photographs from Justus' personal archives, THE ART OF RESISTANCE: My Four Years in the French Underground is a powerful saga of bravery, daring, adventure, and survival with the pacing of a spy thriller. As Justus writes, "I survived the war through a rare combination of good fortune, resourcefulness, optimism, and most importantly, the kindness of many good people." 


     Justus Rosenberg was born in the Free City of Danzig in 1921. When the Nazis rose to power there, he moved to France, where he joined an extralegal French-American network that helped to bring anti­-fascist intellectuals and artists from Vichy, France to the United States. He subsequently served with the United States Army, who awarded him a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. For the last 70 years, he has taught at American universities, and is currently a professor emeritus of languages and literature at Bard College. He is the co-founder of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, which works to combat antisemitism. In 2017 the French ambassador personally made Justus a Commandeur in the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest decoration. Professor Rosenberg lives in Rhinebeck, New York. 

THE ART OF RESISTANCE - My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir 
By Justus Rosenberg
304 pages Hardcover ISBN: 978-0062742193


Saturday, January 18, 2020

Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality - REVIEW


Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality - Clergy, African Americans, and Women United for Abolition examines how these three distinct groups merged their agendas into a single antislavery, religious, political campaign for equality with Lovejoy at the helm. Combining scholarly biography, historiography, and primary source material, Jane Ann and William F. Moore demonstrate Lovejoy's crucial role in nineteenth-century politics, the rise of antislavery sentiment in religious spaces, and the emerging commitment to end slavery in Congress. Their compelling account explores how the immorality of slavery became a touchstone of political and religious action in the United States through the efforts of a synergetic coalition led by an essential abolitionist figure. 

Antislavery white clergy and their congregations. Radicalized abolitionist women. African Americans committed to ending slavery through constitutional political action. These diverse groups attributed their common vision of a nation free from slavery to strong political and religious values. Owen Lovejoy's gregarious personality, formidable oratorical talent, probing political analysis, and profound religious convictions made him the powerful leader the coalition needed. 

"Owen Lovejoy was that rarest of beings-a dedicated abolitionist and a savvy politician. Having already published an indispensable collection of Lovejoy's most important writings, the Moores have now given us the most thorough biography of Lovejoy to date. Grounded in deep research and an unparalleled familiarity with the ins and outs of Illinois politics, the Moores demonstrate Lovejoy's crucial role in the creation of the 'coalition for equality' that eventually brought slavery down." 
-James Oakes, author of "The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War

Authors Jane Ann Moore and William F. Moore are co-directors of the Lovejoy Society. They are the authors of "Collaborators for Emancipation: Abraham Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy" and are the editors of "Owen Lovejoy's His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838-64". They manage the website www.increaserespect.com which applies the concepts of this book. 

Owen Lovejoy and the Coalition for Equality - Clergy, African Americans, and Women United for Abolition 
Jane Ann Moore and William F. Moore 
Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-252-04230-0
Paper, ISBN: 978-0-252-08409-6
www.press.uillinois.edu 

The Broken Road by Peggy Wallace Kennedy - REVIEW


THE BROKEN ROAD: George Wallace and a Daughter's Journey to Reconciliation 
by Peggy Wallace Kennedy with Justice H. Mark Kennedy

Peggy Wallace Kennedy has been widely hailed as a "symbol of racial reconciliation" (Washington Post), winning numerous awards for her efforts and speaking out on the politics of fear and on finding one's voice. In the summer of 1963, though, she was a young girl watching her father stand in a schoolhouse door as he tried to block two African American students from entering the University of Alabama. This man, governor of Alabama and future presidential candidate George Wallace, was notorious for his hateful rhetoric and his political stunts. But he was also a larger­ than-life presence in the life of young Peggy, who was taught to sit straight, smile, and not speak up as her father took to the political stage. At the end of his life, Wallace came to renounce his racist views, although he could never attempt to fully repair the damage he caused. But Peggy, after her own political awakening, has dedicated her life to spreading a new Wallace message-one of peace and compassion. 

"Why did Paw Paw do those things to other people?" asked Wallace Kennedy's nine-year-old son, Burns, while visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and Museum. He'd just seen the photo of his grandfather blocking the entrance of University of Alabama. It was this moment that compelled Wallace Kennedy to come to terms with her family's history. "It awakened in me the deep desire to create my own chapter in the Wallace saga," she writes in THE BROKEN ROAD : George Wallace and a Daughter's Journey to Reconciliation


Collaborating with her husband of 46 years, Justice H. Mark Kennedy, Wallace Kennedy provides an intimate and tender portrait of her family and their circumstances, dreams, and challenges, all within the larger context of a time and place when issues of race and gender were dealt with in ways that many would view as abhorrent today. 
In this powerful new memoir, Wallace Kennedy looks back on the politics of her youth and attempts to reconcile her adored father with the man who coined the phrase, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever." As she writes, "My story is much like that of the broken road, heaved up and cracked for the truth of what power can do. It mingles amid history for the sake of the truth, gives rise to the inspiration that no matter who we belonged to, 'each of us can overcome,' and offers hope that America will take the 'road less traveled by' before it is too late." 
Timely and timeless, THE BROKEN ROAD speaks to change, atonement, activism, and racial reconciliation, reckoning with the past while firmly focusing on creating a better future. 

About the author: Peggy Wallace Kennedy is a nationally recognized speaker, lecturer, and writer. Her father, George Wallace, and her mother, Lurleen Wallace, were both governors of Alabama. Mrs. Kennedy has received, among others, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Rosa Parks Legacy Award; the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation Woman of Courage Award; the Brown Foundation Human Rights Award; and the MLK Commission Award. Her dedication to racial reconciliation offers hope for change in a divided America. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama. Justice H. Mark Kennedy, Peggy's husband of forty-six years, served as a judge for more than two decades including two terms as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama.

"Anybody who knows Peggy Wallace Kennedy, or who reads these pages, will understand immediately the anguished authenticity of her passage. Civil rights leaders such as John Lewis ultimately forgave George Wallace for the sins of his past, just as they have embraced his daughter as a sister in the quest for human rights. The Broken Road is the story of how that happened-a needed reminder in these times that love and simple decency can be more powerful than their opposites." -Frye Gaillard, author of A Hard Rain, America in the 1960s 

"[A] thoughtful, evenhanded debut ... Kennedy's astute memoir also serves as a probing record of politics and racism in the South." -Publishers Weekly 


"(Wallace Kennedy] shows poignantly the toll (George Wallace's] actions took on his family and draws parallels between his tactics and those of Donald Trump .... A fair-minded memoir and portrayal of an exceptionally divisive civil rights-era politician." -Kirkus Reviews 


"Searingly revelatory" -Diane Mcwhorter, Pulitizer Prize-winning author of Carry Me Home 


Hardcover ISBN:978-1635573657
Ebook ISBN:978-1635573664