John B. Oates, the renowned author of history and writer of sixteen books and consultant at the “talking head”, a series hosted by Ken Burn related with Civil War and recipient of the Nevins Freeman award for the civil war studies, takes the pain and the plunge to seek and search the reason that culminated into one of the most horrifying civil wars of America in his epoch making book, “Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Rebellion”. This book explores the background of an upsurge which culminated into such a horrifying event along with the explanation and reconstruction of the facts properly that drive not only the scholars and students but ordinary readers as well from the complacency of America’s slave history. The book, “The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion” within its limited and terse documentation captivated within 208 pages, bears the testimony of a very interesting and episodic event in the history of America. It consists of a ‘Prologue’ bearing the
In the book Half Slave and Half Free, Bruce Levine introduces the various issues that arose during the antebellum era in America that fueled the onset of the Civil War. According to Levine, tension due to conflicting interests between the slave based economy of the South and the free labor economy of the North boiled up to a point that led the newly formed nation to war. Levine starts off by giving a brief history of slavery and then shifts to discussing the way in which it revolutionized the economy of America and the role that it played in the conflicts leading to the Civil War. Slavery was crucial to the southern states as they depended on it to run their plantations, whereas, the northern states abolished slavery as they adopted the idea that “each person works for himself” (46). “The distinctive ways in which North and South organized their labor systems left their mark on all aspects of regional life - including family, gender and leisure patterns and both religious and secular ideologies.
The social action approach, argues that individuals experience the social world by interpreting their actions and interactions with others and the meaning they assign to social phenomena. The starting point for understanding society should be the individual as they are authors of their own ideas. Emphasis should be given to how shared meanings develop and how these influence the way individuals define, act and react to their environment. Opposing the social action approach are the structural theories. Structural theories such as functionalism and Marxism are macro (large scale), and deterministic: they see society as a real thing existing over and above us, shaping our ideas and behaviour – individuals are like puppets, manipulated by society.
Similar claims were made around the ways of understanding singular issues in interaction, although Foucault focuses on the power of historical precedent and powerful discourse on shaping the individuals and society while Goffman focuses on individuals shaping society through their interactions, rituals and habits. Their differing theories both attempt to explain the links between the individual and the society. Foucault examined the subject by focusing on historical precedent and discourse for his
We must take into account that we cannot just think because the universe is so complicated it must be designed who is to say natural processes couldn’t have done it or the Evolutionary theory is responsible for everything we know. A big problem with Paleys argument is how he connected purpose and design. By stating that everything is designed within the universe is to say everything was designed for an exact purpose and vice versa. For example, in the case of the watch it may not just serve the purpose for time it could be used for something else, the universe therefore cannot be compared to these components of design and function plausibly. The main point is that objects can serve many purposes for example a coffee pot holding down a piece of paper.
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know. (JFK, 1967) In meaning that even in the beginning stages of the United States, Americans have opposed secret societies. John F. Kennedy wanted to get rid of the secret societies.
Letter From Birmingham and the Occupy Movement A large part of human history has involved power struggles between groups. The bourgeoisie versus the proletariat in Europe, the rich versus the poor, and the slaves versus their masters are examples of vast power struggles. There have been several actors who have successfully promoted their beliefs of Civil Rights and equal liberties for both groups struggling for power. Martin Luther King Jr. is famously heralded as a champion of Civil Rights for black people and equal liberties for all. I would like to draw parallels from the civil right NOTE movement that Martin Luther King Jr. championed to the current Occupy Wall Street movement that is sweeping the nation.
synopsis (Included in word count) “The ability to stand outside your own political system and your own culture, to criticise your own society and to pursue the truth is something we today take so much for granted.” - Keith Windschuttle, 2010 The ways in which history is researched, perceived and recorded has changed dramatically over time to reflect the continuous historiographical problems associated with any attempt to uncover the ‘truth’ of the past. This essay will attempt to analyse and explore both sides central to the ‘History Wars’ and shed light on the problems of objectivity, prior political convictions, the role of the academic historian and the proper practice of scholarship
Slavery and the Making of America is a four-part series documenting the history of American slavery from its beginnings in the British colonies to its end in the Southern states and the years of post-Civil War Reconstruction. Drawing on a wealth of recent scholarship, it looks at slavery as an integral part of a developing nation, challenging the long held notion that slavery was exclusively a Southern enterprise. At the same time, by focusing on the remarkable stories of individual slaves, it offers new perspectives on the slave experience and testifies to the active role that Africans and African Americans took in surviving their bondage and shaping their own lives. Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought
Emotional capability, emotional intelligence and radical change: The article starts discussing the interaction between emotion and strategic action and proposing a model that “link the influence of emotion to three dynamics underpinning radical change: receptivity, mobilization, and learning”. This change can be always considered both at the individual and organizational levels and the three dynamics could also be seen like the “three critical processual challenges related to the realization of radical change”. Talking about the emotion Huy discusses “how various attributes of emotional intelligence can facilitate change and social adaption at the individual level, and how attributes of emotional capability can facilitate radical change at the organizational level”. Starting from Receptivity we’ll analyze the role of all the “processual challenges” in both the 2 levels. At the individual one, receptivity denotes person’s wish to consider change; at the organizational one it “refers to organization members’ willingness to consider proposed changes and to recognize the legitimacy of such proposal”.