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And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography
Ralph David Abernathy Manufacturer: HarperCollins ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0060161922 |
Customer Reviews:
A well written, truthful biography of a powerful Movement.........2005-04-23
The Most Powerful Civil Rights Collection of stories.......2004-09-05
truth without varnish.......2002-10-01
Not what you've been led to believe.......2001-07-21
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The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe
Gale Stokes Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0195066456 |
Book Description
Beginning with the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and culminating in the 1989-1991 revolutions, The Walls Came Tumbling Down is a sweeping, vivid narrative of the gradual collapse of Eastern European communism. Focusing on the decades of unrest that precipitated 1989's tumultuous events, and including information obtained firsthand from personal interviews, Gale Stokes provides a comprehensive history of the various communist regimes and the opposition movements that brought them down, including the "March Days" and Solidarity Movement of Poland, the 1975 Helsinki accords, Czechoslovakia's Charter 77 opposition movement, the autocratic policies of Romania's Nicolae Ceaucescu that brought his people to the point of violent outrage, and every other major event that marked the crumbling of communism. Stokes also examines the first tottering steps in 1990-1991 toward pluralist government, from the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev to the bloody partitioning of war-torn Yugoslavia. For courses in communist studies or recent history, The Walls Came Tumbling Down is ideal for making clear the most widespread and significant upheaval of the latter twentieth century.Customer Reviews:
Stokes places Communist Bloc in larger European context.......2000-05-09
More importantly, however, Stokes puts the rise and fall of the Communist regimes into the context of twentieth century European history and attempts to tackle the larger question of what we can conclude about Europe as a whole. Viewing Europe as inherently united and indivisible, Stokes pegs Communism as the second major tiding that kept Europe apart (Fascism being the first). Just as Communism seemed to be the most expedient solution for postwar recovery after 1945, by 1989, the bloc countries had realized that they had not found the solution.
This book is a must-read for anyone looking to learn more about the dividing force that was Communism, how and why the regimes revolted against it, and where the newly liberated countries are headed. Although it is not an easy book to get through (an abundance of details makes the book particularly dense), it is well worth the effort. For the most part, the writing style is effective and holds your interest, and the understanding of the Cold War and the meaning of the 20th century in Europe is invaluable.
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The Walls Came Tumbling Down
Robert Anton Wilson Manufacturer: New Falcon Publications ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 1561840912 |
Customer Reviews:
not another brick in the wall.......2003-06-02
I don't so much mind that it wasn't made into a film as the direct dialogue between Wilson and your own brain frequently evokes the most satisfying images.
A script from the vault.......2002-05-17
A RAW SCRIPT.......1999-11-29
What a wonderful book.......1999-11-09
Fasten your seat belts!!!.......1998-07-28
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And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Kentucky, Texas Western, and the Game That Changed American Sports
Frank Fitzpatrick Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0684835517 |
Amazon.com
Fitzpatrick wastes no time making his point in this fertile and compelling story of perhaps the most important college basketball game ever played: "What a piece of history," Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson exclaims in an opening quote. "If basketball ever took a turn, that was it."Richardson may be underestimating. The 1966 NCAA championship final between the heavily favored, all-white University of Kentucky, and the "No Names from Nowhere" all-black starting five of upstart Texas Western (now the University of Texas-El Paso) was a sporting insurrection in a time of social chaos and upheaval. Played out in black and white, everything about this David-and-Goliath confrontation was washed in complex and layered shades of gray.
Through strong interviews and contemporary accounts, Fitzpatrick builds toward the ineffable climax, recreated in spirited detail, on a Saturday night in Maryland. He lays his foundation with a contextual chronicle of the turbulent times, emphasizing the importance of white basketball to Kentucky's image of itself. He lays up strong profiles of the universities, their hoop traditions, the players, and the two extraordinary coaches who led them--the Miners' rumpled tactician, Don Haskins, and the Kentucky squire, Adolph Rupp, whose legend is sadly choked by his racist roots.
"No one has ever studied the effect Texas Western's victory had on integration, nor would such a thing be entirely measurable," Fitzpatrick observes, but it was nevertheless unmistakable. "The number of black athletes at major colleges surged immediately afterward ... and basketball, which had always been linked with sweet-shooting country boys from places like Indiana and Kentucky, became the 'City Game.'" And for young blacks in America, the accomplishment provided something beyond a national title; it held out a hint of hope. Walls' ultimate achievement--by no means a small one--is not letting us forget that. --Jeff Silverman
Book Description
I remember sitting in Mr. Grillo's high school English class one Friday afternoon in 1966 when the subject of that weekend's NCAA basketball tournament arose.
As basketball fanatics, my friends and I argued the merits of the Final Four participants. No one mentioned Texas Western except to disparage the stunning racial makeup of their starting five.
Five blacks! It was one thing for an inner-city high school to start five blacks, but for a college team at the Final Four, it was unprecedented.
"All you have to do is get ahead," said one of my friends. "They give up when they're behind."
"Kentucky is too smart," said another. "I'll bet all Texas Western can do is run-and-gun."
The sad part was I believed it too.
So when Kentucky was upset by Texas Western, with their tenacious defense, disciplined play, and marvelously named players like Big Daddy Lattin and Willie Cager, we were all stunned. My beliefs were shaken as severely as they would be in religion class that same junior year. Maybe I was wrong about the capabilities of black basketball players. About Catholicism. About a lot of things.
So begins Frank Fitzpatrick's stunning account of the 1966 NCAA championship game.
Late on the night of March 19, 1966, in the University of Maryland's Cole Field House, five unassuming black men from Texas Western stepped onto the court to face five white men from the University of Kentucky. On the surface, this was just another basketball game. But there were hidden forces at work. Kentucky's legendary coach, Adolph Rupp, had resisted the pleadings of his president to recruit his first black player in thirty-six years. Meanwhile, Texas Western administrators were concerned that coach Don Haskins was playing too many blacks. Almost everyone believed the game's result was a foregone conclusion: There was no way Texas Western's unheralded blacks could beat Rupp's mighty Kentucky Wildcats, featuring All-America Pat Riley. Yet Texas Western did win and American sports embarked on a new era.
That 1966 NCAA title game -- played at a turbulent moment in civil rights history -- marked the first major sporting championship in which an all-black starting team had played, let alone defeated, a white one. Not since Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947 had such a cultural watershed occurred in American sports. Sociologically and historically it was the most significant game ever in college athletics.
In And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, veteran sportswriter Frank Fitzpatrick examines the game, the history that preceded it, and the sweeping changes that followed in its wake. In profiling the coaches, the players, and the administrators, he details the impact of that championship game and paints a nuanced portrait of the events that belied the easy black-and-white characterization. Through his close look at this rare moment when sports led rather than followed the forces for social change, Fitzpatrick takes readers on an unparalleled journey that brings the riveting story of this landmark season to life.
Customer Reviews:
1966 NCAA Title Game: Texas Western 72, Kentucky 65.......2002-04-01
I had spent years booing Don Haskins and the Miners in the Pit in Albuquerque for years before I found out that UTEP had once been Texas Western and how won the NCAA title in 1966. The final score was 72-65, but as they often say, the game was never really that close. Fitzpatrick does assemble all the stories and quotes needed to give you a sense for what happened and how it was seen as important. The collision course between the two teams, the programs, the two coaches, the two ways of thinking, is crystal clear from start to finish. However, despite its importance, primarily in opening up the SEC to black basketball players and other athletes, this game certainly did not impact on the national championships for the rest of the decade. After all, the argument could be made that the only reason Texas Western won in 1966 was because freshman were not eligible to play and two-time defending national champion U.C.L.A. had the best player in the country, Lew Alcindor, playing on their freshman team. U.C.L.A. would win the next seven NCAA titles and all of John Wooden's 10 title teams were won by integrated teams. I have to believe, that even if Texas Western had lost, that the value of black players would have been lost on the rest of the country.
As interesting as the story about this pivotal game happens to be, the story about the story is equally fascinating. While it was obvious to everyone who watched the game that a team of black players beat a team of white players, the sports media managed to cover the game without dealing with the racial aspects of the encounter. The aftermath of this story abounds with more irony. Kentucky did not recruit a black player until 1969, at which point Don Haskins was having trouble recruiting black players because of a Sports Illustrated story claiming he was exploiting black athletes by bringing them to Texas Western just to win the national championship (I know, think about it a bit and pretend it makes sense). When Rupp coached and lost his final game, it was again an instance of his five white players losing to a team of five black players. Ultimately, the picture of Rupp in this book makes him more of a pathetic figure than anything else. I guess when you have a larger than life figure like that it is impossible to put anything else in perspective because they overwhelm any story in which they are involved. But even though they are tearing down Cole Field House at Maryland, where this game took place, it is certainly a moment in sports history that needs to be recalled from time to time.
The Walls crashed.......2001-05-05
Well researched.......1999-12-25
This book is one-sided and misleading........1999-04-28
Excellent book on how sports integration came to the S.E.C........1999-04-21
As an Auburn University archivist and the athletic museum curator, I noted a few things written by Mr. Fitzpatrick about Auburn University which I do not find in our records. First, Auburn University is located in Auburn, Alabama, not Anniston, Alabama (pages 233 & 238). Nor did Auburn have, in Adolph Rupp's last game as coach in 1971-72, four blacks on the basketball team (page 222). Acccording to our basketball media guide from that year, Auburn had two blacks on the basketball team. One of them was Mr. Henry Harris, Jr.
But the most disturbing thing to me is the author quoting Mr. Perry Wallace, the first member of his race to play basketball in the SEC, to the effect that Henry Harris' experiences at Auburn as its first black basketball player may have directly or indirectly led to Mr. Harris' suicide in 1974 (page 238). Mr. Fitzpatrick offers no other sources to back up this hypothesis. None from Mr. Harris' family, his former teammates, the Auburn Athletic Department, or the Auburn University Archives, which houses records of this era from the Athletic Department, the President's Office, and University Relations. This is not the kind of research or reporting I would expect from Mr. Fitzpatrick. It does make me wonder about the accuracy of other parts of the book.
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And the Walls Came Tumbling Down
Jack Fishman Manufacturer: MacMillan Publishing Company ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 0025384708 |
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And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Greatest Closing Arguments Protecting Civil Libertie
Michael S Lief , and H. Mitchell Caldwell Manufacturer: Scribner ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0743246667 |
Book Description
From the authors of the critically acclaimed Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury comes a collection of closing arguments that spans 250 years and eight landmark trials that have redefined civil rights in America and profoundly affected our society.
Every day millions of Americans enjoy the freedom to decide what they do with their property, their bodies, their speech, and their votes. However, the rights to these freedoms have not always been guaranteed. Our civil rights have been assured by cases that have produced monumental shifts in America's cultural, social, and legal landscape over the past three centuries.
Until now, the closing arguments from these trials have been unavailable to the lay reader -- except in the lasting effects of the decisions that they influenced. But here the authors have collected some of the most pivotal and exciting closing arguments in history -- from the Amistad case, in which John Quincy Adams brought the injustice of slavery to the center stage of American politics, to the Susan B. Anthony decision, which paved the way to success for women's suffrage, to the Larry Flynt trial, in which the porn king became an unlikely champion for freedom of speech.
One instance demonstrates how bad lawyering can make bad law -- the Carrie Buck case, in which the Supreme Court upheld the forced sterilization of women, a decision still on the books today.
Each of the eight chapters presents a case in the context of American society -- then and now -- and includes a brief historical introduction, a biographical sketch of the attorney involved, an analysis of the closing argument, and a summary of the impact of the trial's conclusion on its participants and our country. In clear, jargon-free prose, Michael S Lief and H. Mitchell Caldwell make these pivotal, society-changing cases come to vibrant life for every reader -- fully revealing the trials that have helped resolve America's most complex civil issues and define our lives.
Customer Reviews:
Another Brilliant Work of Legal Art.......2004-11-02
Outstanding Piece of Work.......2004-10-29
Intresting throughout.......2004-09-27
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Walls Came Tumbling Down (Arch Books: Set 4)
Dave Hill Manufacturer: Concordia Pub House ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items: ASIN: 0570060249 |
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And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Greatest Closing Arguments Protecting Civil Liberties
Michael S Lief , and H. Mitchell Caldwell Manufacturer: Scribner ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0743246675 |
Book Description
The second volume in a must-have trilogy of the best closing arguments in American legal history
Every day, Americans enjoy the freedom to decide what we do with our property, our bodies, our speech, and our votes. However, the rights to these freedoms have not always been guaranteed. Our civil rights have been assured by cases that have produced monumental shifts in America's cultural, political, and legal landscapes.
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down showcases eight of the most exciting closing arguments in civil law -- from the Amistad case, in which John Quincy Adams brought the injustice of slavery to the center stage of American politics, to the Susan B. Anthony decision, which paved the way to success for women's suffrage, to the Larry Flynt trial, in which the porn king became an unlikely champion for freedom of speech. By providing historical and biographical details, as well as the closing arguments themselves, Lief and Caldwell give readers the background necessary to fully understand these important cases, bringing them vividly to life.
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The Wall Came Tumbling Down: The Berlin Wall and the Fall of Communism
Jerry Bornstein Manufacturer: Random House Value Publishing ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 0517033062 Release Date: 1990-03-14 |
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And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Basketball Game That Changed American Sports
Frank Fitzpatrick Manufacturer: Bison Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0803269013 |
Customer Reviews:
An Inspirational Read.......2006-07-31
Talk about playing the race card for $$$$$$$$- Exploitation!.......2005-03-18
Interesting topic, but not a quick read.......2003-10-20
Why the dunk was outlawed.......2001-01-13
I have two minor criticisms of the book, which prevent me from awarding it 5 stars. The first is that the racial attitudes of Don Haskins, the Texas Western coach, were not clearly portrayed. We are left with the impression that he cared about the game more than anything, and we know that he was a little bit country, but we never really find out whether he harbored any prejudices.
Second, while the race issue is well dealt with by Fitzpatrick, he does not deal in depth with the problem with gentlemen's agreements. This refers, for example, to the rule of thumb "2 at home, 3 on the road, 4 when behind" that apparently many coaches used to define their quota for black players. A discussion of this, including who knew about these agreements and how widespread was their impact, would definitely have been in order in this book which is trying to place that basketball game in its spot in history.
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