In Pursuit Of Freedom

Pursuit Of Freedom is a remarkable account of a family's life, beginning with Nazism, followed by Communism in Hungary. A moving personal drama, and an important historical memoir of this turbulent era. Not a chronicle of horrors, but a depiction of hope and triumph and profound gratitude. A celebration of freedom, inspiring readers to turn adversity into strength and success and finding courage for optimism about the future.

This first-time paperback edition, now updated, describes and analyzes Cuba's history from the English capture of Havana in 1762 through Spanish colonialism, American imperialism, the Cuban Revolution, and the Missile Crisis to Fidel Castro's defiant but precarious present state.

In Pursuit of Freedom is quite simply the story of the strength, courage, and love of a family. Beginning in the plague-ridden bowels of London Towne in the 1600s, Thomas Gassaway and his wife must put aside their fears and send their son to a foreign land, one last effort—and still at great risk—to save the life of the one whom they hold most dear. The narrative is drawn through time by the voices of each generation, highlighting their fears and sadness as well as their innate fearlessness and ability to become extraordinary in the face of adversity. In a time when their country is in the brink of war, a silent rage creeping inside it, the Gassaways must draw on the love and encouragement of family to endure and often defy expectations.

Andreas Magdalos grew up in South Africa. He befriended a young black boy named Matthew Matsimani. To Andreas and Matthew, their friendship seemed to be nothing extraordinary ... until Andreas's mother conveyed her outrage. And why not? At the time, apartheid-racial segregation-was the law in South Africa. But Andreas saw this separation as injustice and wondered why the rest of the country seemed so blind. Soon, the opinions of Andreas get him into trouble with the South African police. In an effort to separate their son from the battle he hopes to fight for the black citizens of Africa, his parents send him to Greece. Despite love and adventure, far from the segregation turmoil, Andreas can't shake the feeling that he belongs in South Africa. He returns, and two childhood friends find themselves reunited as they battle side-by-side for the removal of apartheid in their country. In Pursuit of Freedom is a depiction of the South African apartheid from the perspective of a white man and a black man, friends together. Both feel the injustice of the law. Both are willing to risk lives and reputations to fight for civil rights. In the center of a troubled nation, they band together for one cause, despite the rampant devastation reaped on their lives. Their story proves that equality does not come without cost.

As students of the Civil War have long known, emancipation was not merely a product of Lincoln's proclamation or of Confederate defeat in April 1865. It was a process that required more than legal or military action. With enslaved people fully engaged as actors, emancipation necessitated a fundamental reordering of a way of life whose implications stretched well beyond the former slave states. Slavery did not die quietly or quickly, nor did freedom fulfill every dream of the enslaved or their allies. The process unfolded unevenly. In this sweeping reappraisal of slavery's end during the Civil War era, Joseph P. Reidy employs the lenses of time, space, and individuals' sense of personal and social belonging to understand how participants and witnesses coped with drastic change, its erratic pace, and its unforeseeable consequences. Emancipation disrupted everyday habits, causing sensations of disorientation that sometimes intensified the experience of reality and sometimes muddled it. While these illusions of emancipation often mixed disappointment with hope, through periods of even intense frustration they sustained the promise that the struggle for freedom would result in victory.

In Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom, Mary P. Nichols argues for the centrality of the idea of freedom in Thucydides' thought. Through her close reading of his History of the Peloponnesian War, she explores the manifestations of this theme. Cities and individuals in Thucydides' history take freedom as their goal, whether they claim to possess it and want to maintain it or whether they desire to attain it for themselves or others. Freedom is the goal of both antagonists in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta and Athens, although in different ways. One of the fullest expressions of freedom can be seen in the rhetoric of Thucydides’ Pericles, especially in his famous funeral oration. More than simply documenting the struggle for freedom, however, Thucydides himself is taking freedom as his cause. On the one hand, he demonstrates that freedom makes possible human excellence, including courage, self-restraint, deliberation, and judgment, which support freedom in turn. On the other hand, the pursuit of freedom, in one’s own regime and in the world at large, clashes with interests and material necessity, and indeed the very passions required for its support. Thucydides’ work, which he himself considered a possession for all time, therefore speaks very much to our time, encouraging the defense of freedom while warning of the limits and dangers in doing so. The powerful must defend freedom, Thucydides teaches, but beware that the cost not become freedom itself.

During much of his life Voltaire's plays and verse made him the toast of society, but his barbed wit and commitment to reason also got him into trouble. Jailed twice and eventually banished by the King, he was an outspoken critic of religious intolerance and persecution. His personal life was as colourful as his intellectual one. Voltaire never married, but had long-term affairs with two women: Emilie, who died after giving birth to the child of another lover, and his niece, Marie-Louise, with whom he spent his last twenty-five years. With its tales of illegitimacy, prison, stardom, exile, love affairs and tireless battles against critics, Church and King, Roger Pearson's brilliant biography brings Voltaire vividly to life.