Listen Yankee

Based on unprecedented access to both Cuban and American officials, a book that offers fresh insight into one of history's most enigmatic relationships between nation-states—from one of America's best-known voices of political and social activism. Listen, Yankee! offers an account of Cuban politics from Tom Hayden's unique position as an observer of Cuba and as a US revolutionary student leader whose efforts to mobilize political change in the US mirrored the radical transformation simultaneously going on in Cuba. Chapters are devoted to the writings of Che Guevara, Régis Debray, and C. Wright Mills; the Cuban missile crisis; the Weather Underground; the assassination of JFK; the strong historical links between Cuba and Africa; the Carter era; the Clinton era; the Cuban Five; Elián González; and the December 17, 2014 declaration of normalization by presidents Obama and Castro. Hayden puts the present moment into historical context, and shows how we're finally finding common ground to the advantage of Cubans and Americans alike.

C. Wright Mills was a radical public intellectual, a tough-talking, motorcycle-riding anarchist from Texas who taught sociology at Columbia University. Mills's three most influential books--The Power Elite, White Collar, and The Sociological Imagination--were originally published by OUP and are considered classics. The first collection of his writings to be published since 1963, The Politics of Truth contains 23 out-of-print and hard-to-find writings which show his growth from academic sociologist to an intellectual maestro in command of a mature style, a dissenter who sought to inspire the public to oppose the drift toward permanent war. Given the political deceptions of recent years, Mills's truth-telling is more relevant than ever. Seminal papers including "Letter to the New Left" appear alongside lesser known meditations such as "Are We Losing Our Sense of Belonging?" John Summers provides fresh insights in his introduction, which gives an overview of Mills's life and career. Summers has also written annotations that establish each piece's context and has drawn up a comprehensive bibliography of Mills's published and unpublished writings.

In 1958, angry Venezuelans attacked Vice President Richard Nixon in Caracas, opening a turbulent decade in Latin American–U.S. relations. In Yankee No! Alan McPherson sheds much-needed light on the controversial and pressing problem of anti-U.S. sentiment in the world. Examining the roots of anti-Americanism in Latin America, McPherson focuses on three major crises: the Cuban Revolution, the 1964 Panama riots, and U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic. Deftly combining cultural and political analysis, he demonstrates the shifting and complex nature of anti-Americanism in each country and the love–hate ambivalence of most Latin Americans toward the United States. When rising panic over “Yankee hating” led Washington to try to contain foreign hostility, the government displayed a surprisingly coherent and consistent response, maintaining an ideological self-confidence that has outlasted a Latin American diplomacy torn between resentment and admiration of the United States. However, McPherson warns, U.S. leaders run a great risk if they continue to ignore the deeper causes of anti-Americanism. Written with dramatic flair, Yankee No! is a timely, compelling, and carefully researched contribution to international history.

In C. Wright Mills and the Cuban Revolution, A. Javier Trevino reconsiders the opinions, perspectives, and insights of the Cubans that Mills interviewed during his visit to the island in 1960. On returning to the United States, the esteemed and controversial sociologist wrote a small paperback on much of what he had heard and seen, which he published as Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba. Those interviews--now transcribed and translated--are interwoven here with extensive annotations to explain and contextualize their content. Readers will be able to "hear" Mills as an expert interviewer and ascertain how he used what he learned from his informants. Trevino also recounts the experiences of four central figures whose lives became inextricably intertwined during that fateful summer of 1960: C. Wright Mills, Fidel Castro, Juan Arcocha, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The singular event that compelled their biographies to intersect at a decisive moment in the history of Cold War geopolitics--with its attendant animosities and intrigues--was the Cuban Revolution.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 was a benchmark of triumph and a harbinger of tragedy to come. Rather than herald a new era of Cuba joining the world community of nations as a paragon of democracy as many fervently hoped and believed it would, it became instead a new stage in authoritarian rule in the Western hemisphere.For more than a half century since then Cuba has been defined by the capacity of a single family to command and determine the fate of a nation?and to do so with a minimum of opposition. Incredibly, even those professing adhesion to democratic norms have been ready to forgive the dictator his excesses. This volume explains the theory and practice of this absence of internal opposition and the persistence of external support for the Castro family and its entourage.The Long Night of Dark Intent is chronological in order, with the author indicating major points in each of the five decades covered. The volume covers five centers of system analysis: economics, politics, society, military, and ideology. Who or what "determines" events and decisions is the stuff of real history. It is precisely due to variability in causal chains in society that we have huge variance in levels of predictability. The course of the Cuban Revolution gives strong support for such an approach to the Castro Era. This is a unique, unflinching account with a strong emphasis on the importance of U.S. policy decisions over time.

Born in 1966‚ a generation removed from the counterculture‚ Kevin Mattson came of political age in the conservative Reagan era. In an effort to understand contemporary political ambivalence and the plight of radicalism today‚ Mattson looks back to the ideas that informed the protest‚ social movements‚ and activism of the 1960s. To accomplish its historical reconstruction‚ the book combines traditional intellectual biography—including thorough archival research—with social history to examine a group of intellectuals whose thinking was crucial in the formulation of New Left political theory. These include C. Wright Mills‚ the popular radical sociologist; Paul Goodman‚ a practicing Gestalt therapist and anarcho-pacifist; William Appleman Williams‚ the historian and famed critic of "American empire"; Arnold Kaufman‚ a "radical liberal" who deeply influenced the thinking of the SDS. The book discusses not only their ideas‚ but also their practices‚ from writing pamphlets and arranging television debates to forming left-leaning think tanks and organizing teach-ins protesting the Vietnam War. Mattson argues that it is this political engagement balanced with a commitment to truth-telling that is lacking in our own age of postmodern acquiescence. Challenging the standard interpretation of the New Left as inherently in conflict with liberalis‚ Mattson depicts their relationship as more complicated‚ pointing to possibilities for a radical liberalism today. Intellectual and social historians‚ as well as general readers either fascinated by the 1960s protest movements or actively seeking an alternative to our contemporary political malais‚ will embrace Mattson’s book and its promise to shed new light on a time period known for both its intriguing conflicts and its enduring consequences.

Not long after co-authoring The Port Huron Statement, the charter document of sixties activism, Tom Hayden completed, at the University of Michigan, an intellectual biography of eminent scholar C. Wright Mills. It is published here for the first time, along with newly written essays by Hayden and by prominent social theorists who are experts on Mills and his ongoing influence today. Hayden cogently traces Mills' scholarship and his progressive activism to the events and thinkers of earlier generations. Ideas in major books by Mills (The Power Elite, New Men of Power, White Collar, Character and Social Structure, The Sociological Imagination) can now be better understood in light of the influences of Mills during and before his time, including the impact of two world wars, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the failures of the Soviet state, and changing relations between workers and industry in America and worldwide. The book thus brings us a new and much more complete understanding Mills's political theories and philosophy. With only one previous biography of Mills in print, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of C. Wright Mills in American intellectual life.